Blessed by the Potato

Well, it took a few days to unpack the router and everything, but we’re back up here.

The move was absolutely crazy, and we still have more to do! After that last entry, I ended up staying up until about 6 am doing “last minute” packing, and even then we’ve had to make a half dozen trips back to the apartment (to clean, paint, and take things like food, toiletries, clothes, etc.).

The election here was somewhat close, but my preferred candidate ended up coming in second (stupid Liberal stronghold!). Nonetheless, it’s seen as a victory as it’s the first time the Green party has beat out both the Conservatives and NDP. It was interesting to see the voting pattern displayed when strategic (or as some say, tactical) voting isn’t a factor (for most, that is — I’m sure many people still voted Liberal to keep the Conservatives out rather than because that was the candidate they liked the most).

Anyhow, I’ll probably post in more detail later, but for now I’ve got to put some stuff away in the kitchen and hit the sack!

So we’re moving first thing in the morning to our new [rental] house! Almost everything has been packed, and it’s been an intense process, but it’s amazing how much is left. 3 computers and a network to dismantle, the TV and its jumble of wires, plus all the dishes and cutlery. Doesn’t sound like much, but since the movers come at 9 am and it’s pushing 11 pm now this could get interesting. And that’s not even counting all the cleaning to be done (plus removing curtains and picture holders) which we plan to come back on Monday for.

Oddly enough, my Green Party lawn sign was stolen/removed less than 24 hours after I put it up on my new lawn. My landlord did visit that day, so it’s possible she took it, but if she did she didn’t mention anything about it. A bunch of others have gone missing in the neighbourhood, so something fishy may be afoot.

Anyhow, the site will go down for a bit during the move, but I hope to be back up late Monday night, or possibly as late as Tuesday evening.

I’ve been so pissed off at the LED christmas lights they’ve had out recently. LEDs have the potential to make great christmas lights since they’re efficient and can be all small and twinkly, so it was such a shame that most of the lights were those giant gaudy faceted ones. Today, however, I found some at Canadian Tire that have really small white lights with no crazy facets or anything. They’re perfect! They only came in the long strings of 100, but that works for me… and if they’re efficient enough, I might even use them to light my room after Christmas :)

I’m shocked and awed at the government’s latest motion to recognize Quebec as a “nation”. It’s a pretty dumb thing to do in the first place, and can really only lead to division down the road. I’m also really shocked that it’s the Conservatives doing this, since they’re usually the first party to stand up and oppose the “special needs” of the French community. It makes me wonder just what the heck is in the drinking water up in Ottawa: usually we can count on the Cons to make stupid, wrong-headed promises, and follow up on a few of them. Instead, with a shakey minority government, they’ve broken a big campaign promise* and broken out something crazy like this.

Yes, Quebecois have their own “cultural identity”, but so does almost every other group you can think of (muslims, scots, gansta rappers, liberals, protestants, gold prospectors, hockey players). Maybe it’s because I’m permanently locked into an English Canadian mindset, but I just don’t see the Quebecois as being all that special. Yes, they did play a big part in our country’s history, but we already recognize that with a huge amount of protection for the language and culture. [Plus, part of that history was losing a war to the English. Props to my man Wolfe, who included a promise of religious freedom for the conquered.]

I hate to make it an us-vs-them sort of thing, since we’re all Canadians together, but that’s what “nation” status will inevitably do. And from there, it won’t be too many decades before nation-within-a-nation status is transmuted into a full-blown seperate nation, and that will get really ugly.

* - Full disclosure: breaking of said promise has wiped out ~10% of my net worth.

I caught the all candidate’s debate on the Rogers community station on tape last night, and it was some good watching. Not so much for the political stuff (though my favourite candidate did do fairly well), nor for the fantastic local media camera work (pan over to the next candidate… ah! too far!… back… ok… crap, now the other guy’s talking!), but for the sheer craziness factor. One of the minor party candidates (Canadian Action) seemed to only have enough anti-crazy medicine to make it through 59 minutes of the hour long debate, because he finished off with a pledge to make London a world-class airship terminus. Air ships, as in zeppelins. Dirigibles. The moderator was stunned after he finished, giving him this “what the hell are you talking about?” look, which was a nice change from the soulless robot impartial moderation most other networks/debates aim for. I had to watch that part at least 4 times to make sure I heard it right (and to see that look on the moderator’s face).

The rest of the debate wasn’t particularly special. Dianne Hasket got booed when she said she was the only candidate who lived in the riding (past tense, perhaps, as all reports place her as living in the States for the last 6 years). Most of the candidates had real trouble speaking to the camera or the audience, having to read a lot (which was surprising as with 7 of them up on stage the responses were kept really short, and also gave lots of time for them to check their notes before speaking). Glen Pearson and Elizabeth May were the notable exceptions.

For years now, my normally previously good memory has been absolutely terrible. Today was extra bad: I had something important I didn’t want to forget, so I grabbed a pen & a post-it note… and had no idea what it was I was going to write down. Rather disturbing.

I’m up stupidly late at the moment watching TV at my parents’ house, and despite having something like eight times as many channels as I do, there really isn’t anything on their TV I want to watch… until I hopped over to the usually lame Rogers community channel. They were showing a curling game, and it’s great! I have no idea what it’s for: some sort of national, but the teams are young & mixed, and they haven’t mentioned it at all yet. Curling is, as you all probably know, my sport of choice. I don’t usually watch it on TV because I don’t usually watch any sports on TV: I’d rather play than watch. But I’ve got to say that I’m surprised curling isn’t a more popular spectator sport, since the pacing and action seem better suited to TV. Football and baseball involve long stretches of standing and scratching, and hockey has a tonne of faceoff flurries where you can’t really see what’s going on at all (or maybe I’m just defective that way, as a real Canadian is supposed to be able to follow the puck on the radio). But curling has a fairly decent pace of stones moving, and you get to listen to the strategy discussions in-between rather than the announcers trying to guess at what the coach is calling for the next play.

It’s also nice because since it’s on Rogers’ “no one watches and no one buys advertising” channel, there’s hardly any commercials. This game is also neat because one of the skips is a 27-year-old research assistant at McGill, so I’m thinking the whole time “that could be me!” (except for the part where I think I’m a much better curler than I actually am). This Quebec team is really interesting: they’re completely bilingual, so one’ll ask a question in French, and the answer will come in English. It was a fun game to watch with a lot of good shots, but also a few mistakes to keep things interesting. New Brunswick was dominating through the beginning, then Quebec started coming back to make it interesting (but never quite took the lead back).

While we’re on the subject of curling, I got a new broom last week: an Olson Reactor2 Carbon Fibre with swivelly head. It’s pretty keen and very light, and actually very similar to what the people on TV are using now. I can’t really say for sure yet if it helps the rock move any further, but being able to sweep with the head perpendicular to the rock does help us get our sweepers in tighter. The really light broom seems to use a completely different set of muscles than my old one. It used to be that I’d go home at the end of the night with aching pecs, but now it seems to be more in the tricep area. I have no idea why that would be, though. I got it at the London Curling Club, which has a very small proshop run out of the closet, essentially. Nobody works it full-time, so you have to find the bartender or one of the volunteers to buy things; however, the costs were very reasonable. I got that broom for $125 including tax, while most other places were charging $160 plus tax plus shipping. However, they don’t have very good selection: if you didn’t want a top-of-the-line broom like that, then there was only one or two basic ones to pick from [originally, I was going to get a keen swivelly head broom that had a traditional fibreglass handle which would have run closer to $80, but was lured by the convenience of getting it at the LCC and the prospect of more broom for not quite as much money as I thought]. While the broom is in good mechanical shape, it does have a lot of large scratches on the handle, taking off the paint in various places. I wouldn’t be too surprised if it was a factory second (those prices are very low!), but I think it was probably worth it. Oh, and something to ponder if, like me, you get yourself a fancy new broom: consider getting a replacement head or two, as there’s no guarantee the manufacturers will have compatible heads in even a year or two.

Finally, as my glasses are getting more and more fine scratches on them with use, I’m finding that the usual winter/curling issue of fogging is getting to ridiculous extremes. I’m going to try to find some anti-fog cleaner tomorrow (I know I used to see the stuff everywhere, but since I’ve been looking the last few weeks, I haven’t seen any). I’d appreciate any advice as to which, if any, are actually effective.

I managed to sit (well, technically stand since the place was packed) in the first all-candidate’s debate here in London tonight. It was quite a show. I think Elizabeth May did quite well for herself, but the other candidates did fairly well too (and it appears I’ve underestimated Pearson, though he is rather full of himself… but I suppose freeing slaves in the Sudan or somesuch will do that to a guy).

Everyone took the green party very seriously, taking turns to try to shoot them down or steal pages from their playbook in at least equal measure to the other parties.

I don’t think the Tory candidate did a very good job: her party’s platform drew a lot of boos and hisses (especially the “I support the traditional definition of marriage.” comment). She kept spewing the catchphrases about accountability and promises, and that she’d personally stand up for issues relevant to London in the Tory caucus — unfortunately, a big broken Tory promise is barely two weeks behind us, and Garth Turner was mentioned just before she promised to cause a rucus in caucus, and we all know how well the Tories stand for that sort of behaviour now. There was a mock-election held after the debate, and surprisingly the Tory candidate came in second (a distant second to Elizabeth’s landslide — but it was a largely student crowd).

Speaking of students, it was interesting to see the various responses to the question of how to help ease the cost and most importantly debt of post-secondary education. The Tory candidate’s plan was to have more low-interest student loans, and to not charge income tax on loans or scholarships. That went over like a lead balloon, since we all know that even low interest can rack up, and it often switches to high interest the instant you graduate. Plus if you’re squeaking by as a student on loans and scholarships, you’re probably not paying tax anyway (when I had my TAship I had to pay all of $80 in tax; this is the first year it might go into triple digits). The Liberal candidate didn’t really respond specifically, just to say that before they lost power, great things were coming with x-million dollars to go into the budget for education, and if we gave them another chance they’d go back to that plan. The NDP plan was interesting, involving paying half the first and last year’s tuition [or was that part of the Liberal one?], and freezing or rolling back tuition costs. The Green response was “When I graduated from Law school in [70’s/80’s?] I had all of $5000 in debt. That’s because back then the government had bursaries, grants and interest-free loans, which they scrapped after a report said it was a great way to save money. Going back to that system would help a lot of people — higher education should be effectively free for those that want it.”

Anyhow, my general feeling coming away from this is still that E. May is the candidate of choice. Pearson came off as arrogant, and moreover, “a man of action” which is great for a lot of leadership positions, but maybe not as a backbencher in the opposition party of the Canadian Parliament. Men of action lose it in those sorts of situations. Walker liked to tout how the NDP were the only party to do, well, pretty much anything (defend the environment, work for students, support the arts, work towards equality for women, you name it, and the NDP are the only ones working for that). It seemed like a really lame attempt to try to distinguish herself from E. May, and just made her seem kind of sad. I liked it when she finished her women’s issue thing with “the NDP is the only party determined to have women make up 50% of their members”, and then Elizabeth says “well, if you elect me the caucus will be 100% women.”

Wayfare’s done an incredible amount of packing over the last few weeks, and I’m glad we got the early start. I’ve been really dragging my feet on my room: I threw out a bunch of junk on my desk that I don’t need anymore, but have only packed one box worth of stuff so far. There are bits of my thesis everywhere (even under my dresser!), and over half the closet is filled with Wayfare’s stuff (most of which is, conveniently, already boxed).

Last night the girls upstairs were making an ungodly amount of noise: stomping, music, scraping furniture across the floor. Usually that really gets under my skin, but I was just like “screw you bitches, I’m outta here in a week!” Same with the garbage people leave in the elevators, or the broken exhaust fans in the parking garage. Actually, that last one kinda scared me a little.

I’ve been watching a lot of TV lately, largely because shows are new again in the fall. It took a while for it to hit me, but I suddenly realized that reality shows are finally in a severe decline. There was a point, not too long ago, where if a show had writers and actors, pretty much no matter the quality, I’d watch it. But this season has a couple of good shows (Lost is looking like it’s flagging… really time to start dishing some answers there). Heroes is really coming around, and I’m getting past the terrible narration (mostly because now I focus on the cool integration of the titles into the scenes while he talks). House is still good, but I’m disappointed that they let him get healthy and clean for the beginning of the show only to take it away so very quickly (and I loved the “now I can do this” moment). Much like the Star Wars prequel trilogy, I think I’m genetically programmed to love Battlestar Galactica even if it is getting a little strange now (or rather, has been for a long time). I was really hoping they’d get control of that abandoned Base Star though. It would have made a nice replacement for the Pegasus :( Much like Lost, I think they need to start dishing some answers to long-standing questions. Beyond those shows that I’m actually watching, most of the commercials I’m seeing are actually for real shows, too. I can’t wait for Futurama to come back, and then it’ll be like the last half decade or so never happened.

Garth Turner, former Conservative MP had a press release today to talk about some issues that arose after becoming an independent, and the conflicts between his local riding association and Conservative central. I agree with a lot of what he says, and I think it highlights the need to include the ability to elect independents in any electoral reform process we undertake. I truly do think we can do better than the current first-past-the-post system, but I really do fear that proportional representation with party lists will only give the parties more power to nominate drones rather than representatives. It might give us a parliament divided by parties closer to how we support them, but less of what we really want in the end: effective representation that is accountable to the electorate.

My landlord did the move-out pre-inspection today. She was astonished at the great shape our place is in. I know we’ve been very careful to keep the place clean and in good shape, but it wasn’t in great shape when I moved in (peeling paint and a pre-stained carpet), so to be so astonished is kind of weird. Must be very telling as to how the undergraduate hordes have been treating their places (and we know how poorly some of them are from the smell).

An interesting point: she commented on how hot my apartment is. I said “yes, and I don’t even have the heat on!” and she gave me this look of horror. “Oh no no no no no.” she said “You’ve got to turn the heat on! If it gets too hot, just open a window, but the radiators will break if you don’t turn them on, and it’s a flow-through system, so if your heat isn’t on then your neighbour’s can’t get any.”

That sounds very wasteful and dumb, and I also have to wonder a bit if it’s even true. Yes, leaving it off could let air pockets build up in the radiators, which would cause some cavitation banging and whatnot if and when we do eventually turn them on, but I have to wonder if the building designers (even the building designers of the 50’s) would really use straight-through radiator plumbing. Surely they had wagered on somebody turning their heat off, or at least the heat gradient that would inevitably arise as the water progressively cooled from the person closest to the boiler to the person at the end of the loop.

Anyway, the heat’s only been turned on for about 3 weeks total out of the 4 years I’ve lived here, so leaving it off until I move out isn’t going to kill it.