i've got the nad set up in the kitchen with the 6 ohm speakers.

it sounds better with the low level button pushed, but i'll point out that my source is currently a dvd player that is probably sending the signal out very loud. i would like to turn down the input, actually. that will be less of an issue when the in is the chromebook, as i can and will turn down the input.

do make say think's country hymn is a challenging record to reproduce and it's doing ok, even with the likely driven input (shouldn't a dvd not do that? maybe that's exactly it, that the device is designed that way by flaw). this is likely more than i will need this amp to do. i think this will work fine.

so, the kitchen system is going to be:

- nad 3020e in low level mode

- yamaha ns-e55 (these are 6 ohm, 50 watt)

- expired lenovo chromebook running in guest mode for digital audio (via usb) or streaming media (audio and video) from bandcamp or youtube. i am able to put a hard drive in this device but it does not currently use one by design and preference. this is primarily for watching the news or documentaries when eating, in the kitchen. through the tuner or tape in.

- it's currently a sony dvp ns-325 as optical drive source and will likely stay that way. this plays dvds, cds and mp3 cds (cds with mp3s). through cd/aux.

- there's a boxed widescreen monitor connected to this system.

- there is also phono input on the amp, and will be an extra tuner or tape in that will probably not be immediately used.

i could send a dvd video out to the monitor in theory, but i have had minimal interest in buying video dvds or bds and only have a few scattered burns. that is likely all i will need in the kitchen.

the bedroom system will be:

- yamaha cr-320

- celestion ditton 110s as primary

- to be purchased 30-50 watt secondary speakers

- cd audio from a jvc 5-disc changer from the 90s, cd only. no mp3 cds.

- i am looking at getting a recent blu-ray player with a usb in that plays flac natively and has an rca out. this will be for digital audio over usb and also for any optical media with dvd, bd, mp3, wav or flac. it should be under $100, as bd is being phased out due to netflix.

- i have a record player and two cassette decks for potential use. it might make more sense to put the record player in here.

- i am not currently intending to watch video in the bedroom, but that might change.

- this device only has four ins - cd/aux, tape 1, tape 2, phono. so, i could not use all five ins and the phono is not usable for anything else. it is not likely that i will set up a cassette deck in here.

the typing pc (the main bedroom pc) does not currently have a soundcard out to connect to an audio system, but does have a legacy altec-lansing system connected to the integrated sound out (1/8th inch computer jack). this system is very annoying, because you can't turn the subwoofer off, but the satellites actually sound quite good, for what they are. it was intended for gaming, not audio. it was purchased with my 90s pc and intended to be for music production, but my dad got badly upsold on that one. as mentioned, the system would be good for gaming, but i don't game, and that's not what it was meant for. i have barely been able to use it at all. i will have this connected on the computer table, but it's just intended for the computer, not for audio.

if i connect a video source to the cr-320, it will be from a laptop and not from the typing machine, which is intentionally kept isolated as a glorified typewriter.

isn't a military parade just a big air show? don't americans love their air shows?

here i am! rock me like a hurricane!

they played that one, right?

i'm not very invested in this, one way or another. is it supposed to scare china? is that it?

whatever.

today, i woke up a little earlier and tried again with the four way system, this time with the windows open. that is real life and both introduces noises and reduces reflections. i also pulled the celestions a little bit closer to me and a little away from the wall.

with the initial four-way setup, the ssris record sounded better with the celestions closer, which is because it turned down the yamahas. i decided to move to a different record, so i pulled a similarly self-produced record by another canadian rock band from the same time period; the record is ball by a band called spiral beach, which no longer exists. i saw spiral beach play a handful of times in ottawa at venues like zaphod's and at festivals like the blues and folk fest. i picked this up used in a small independently run record shop in a doomed mall in the west end of ottawa proper, called carlingwood, that i do not believe exists anymore either (the guy might even be dead). this record is a little more compressed than the ssri record and it was immediately obvious.

running the spiral beach record through the four-way sounded ok, but now the yamahas sounded a little tinny and loudspeakery due to the higher compression, which makes sense. this record sounds better through just the celestions, although i will try again with an 8 ohm speaker as a secondary. i'm probably looking at pioneer cs-x5s for cheap, which are full range surround sound speakers and i think should work well in a reverse surround setup like i'm designing here. the reverse surround is really introducing some nearfield studio monitors right in front of me, while i the bulk of the sound continues to come from behind me, which i'm used to in my bedroom. of course, if i lie down in my bed and put my head on my pillow, it's not reversed anymore, it'd normal surround; it's only reversed when i sit up in bed and am typing. i'll have to test. if not, i have some cheap low watt full range decent quality utility speakers.

i then switched back to the ssris record with just the celestions in their new speaker placement and while i am noticing the absence of the boost in midrange volume from the missing yamahas, it is demonstrating the limitation of the source - which is good.

i'm going to test a few more records with this celestion setup this afternoon and then test the nad with the yamahas tonight.

on saturday, i again woke up around noon. i had a guy that wanted to sell me a sewing machine desk for $20 and drop it off for me. great; done. this desk will fit perfectly in the closet, and i will be able to move the chair back and forth between the sewing machine and the writing desk. i took a shower, i ate the rest of the apples (they were getting a little sweet), which was i think 6, and then ate an entire package of apple sauce just to be ridiculous about it, along with a small amount of jam left in the container. i wanted to make some coffee and sit down and test the speakers while doing this write up, but i had difficulty getting going.

i pulled an ssri record out of a box called effeminate godzilla-sized wind chimes and tried it through the nad, expecting it to give it a bit of a work out. this is the first and last record that the nad failed on, as it was a pretty spectacular fail. this is a largely self-produced record by a couple of kids from bc in the late 00s that has the unusual quality of citing cardiacs as an influence. i picked it up after seeing them play at the old zaphod's beeblebrox in downtown ottawa. if you know cardiacs, you know why i picked this as a speaker workout test; the record has prominent synths, guitars, bass and drums that fill out the spectrum, contains detailed arrangements and production and features multi-part harmonies and complex counterpoint melodies through much of it. i know my jvc could make this record sound good through these celestions (the kefs are better). the nad made it sound like it was put through a compressor-limiter that squished the sound right to death, and this is the kind of record to use to demonstrate this kind of difference, because it wasn't engineered for loudness, and isn't designed for radio and wasn't crushed to death in a pro studio. you should be able to hear the edges on the square-waves on the bass sequencer that opens the record, for example. the nad just completely killed it.

here is the trick to this - most people would prefer the sound of the nad and think it sounds "more correct", including most expensive professional engineers and producers, because they've been trained to listen to over compressed music. and they're wrong. the nad actually sounds terrible.

so, i quickly dismantled that and set up the yamaha cr-320 instead, which quickly returned the record to a more open, less compressed sound - which is how it was actually mastered and engineered and what it actually sounds like. you might disagree, you might prefer the nad, but the mathematical reality is that you're wrong.

i then set up the 6 ohm, 50 watt yamaha ns-e55s, which is what i had connected to this yamaha cr-320 in the last apartment, as secondary speakers and tried the ssri record through a few placements and a few combinations. 

- all four speakers on top of the shelf

- just the yamahas

- just the celestions

- with the celestions down a little, and the yamahas in the shelf

- just the celestions, to the side of the shelves.

the yamahas are full range speakers and their lower resistance makes them louder than the celestions when wired through the same amp in parallel, despite being 50 watts and the celestions being 110 watts. i didn't think to stop to do the math, but i shouldn't have done this at all, as this old amp shouldn't be running at lower than 4 ohms ever and 1/8 + 1/6 ~ 3.5. i don't think any damage has been done, and it could probably handle that in real life at low volume for quite a while before exploding, but i don't want to do that again. this amp is very old - it's older than i am. i can run these 6 ohm speakers by themselves, but not in parallel with 8 ohm speakers, pretty much ever.

what i learned is that i wouldn't want to do that anyways as there's not a way for me to turn the yamahas down and i don't want them to overpower the celestions or the kefs or whatever else they're connected in parallel to. these are secondary speakers, not primary speakers.

however, i also decided that the celestions do sound better when paired with a full range speaker that has more defined mids, letting the celestions work more for their mid lows. i just want to turn them down a little and can't.

before the end of the night, then, i had decided the yamahas would not be being used as a part of any audio system, but would be used for the kitchen tv system. i would need to buy some new 8 ohm full range satellite speakers in the 30-50w range and experiment a little. 

i made some ad-hoc nachos early in the morning with a box of crackers i got from the food bank as a sub for the doritos, and without the salsa at all, as i will be having the salsa separate in a large bowl this afternoon. i was in bed slightly earlier. 

friday, saturday and sunday have been a continuation of this. i was up in the afternoon on friday and took a shower in the evening, then had round two of the salad for my saturday meal, this time with some onion bread (just a few pieces left). i've decided to build my bedroom first, and work outwards from there, which means getting furniture and speaker systems in place. how i organize the furniture depends a lot on how i organize the speakers.

i initially tried to drive my 110 watt celestion dittons (one of which has a broken tweeter that i haven't fixed yet but will fix very soon one way or another) with a nad 3020e i've had boxed for years. i got a bit of a shock from this nad years ago, you see, which i realize now is probably because i tried to overdrive it, and it scared me. when my dad gave me this nad around 2008ish, it was supposed to be as a pa for my pod because it was a clean path. i had asked him to keep an eye out at garage sales for very clean stereo amps with unobstructed signal paths that wouldn't fuck up the pod (he had a good knowledge of vintage stereo equipment and could (and often did) pick the gem amplifier out of the pile of rubble left to a widow that was trying to pay for the funeral, which is something that is maybe tinged with some irony today), and this is what he found for me: a mint nad 3020e for cheap (the cleanest amp he knew) and some celestion dittons, also cheap, which i later learned is because a tweeter was blown in one of them. he suggested the celestions because they're "guitar amp speakers", which has some truth to it - celestion is the company that made the speakers used in marshall equipment. thanks, dad.

this didn't quite work, though. the nad is only 20 w, so i'd have to amplify it. the point was that i didn't want to amp an amp sim because then it's not an amp sim, it's an amp. if i put a sim of a roland cube or a vox ac30 through a 250 w fender bass amp (i have one of those), i'm listening to two amps and defeating the point. you need to amp the pod clean. a lot of people didn't understand that, and it's frankly challenging and expensive to build a system that can do this right, which is why line 6 doesn't exist anymore. the pod is great for recording direct in, but it is almost impossible to reproduce live because you have to amp the amp sim.

i have made use of the celestions, but i haven't needed this third amp, which is only 20 watts. only 20 watts? a lot of people swear that's enough. if you're in a sound proof basement and using brand new speakers at 10 watts max because your wife is yelling at you to keep it down, maybe it is. however, the nad can't drive my celestions and can't drive my kefs - not at the volumes i listen to, not in the spaces i'm listening to them in and not with the music i listen to. it can't do dynamics. it can't do spectrums. it's not good for classical music, for electronic music or for jazz. it has no headroom. it would do 70s butt rock at car radio volumes relatively well. it might be good for some 50 watt yamahas i have, which are 6 ohm and seem very loud, in comparison to regular speakers. it might be good as a tv amp; i'm hoping my chromebook sounds good through i. i need to test it.

i nonetheless tried it out. test one was connecting the nad to the celestions.

the cure's head on the door sounded pretty good at low volume. an outtake record by skinny puppy / lpd side project the tear garden was ok but sounded a little flat. a hey rosetta album called plan your escape sounded very compressed and dolbied, but that was probably the master. this is the kind of album that sounds good through a nad; this setup would sound good if you're mostly or solely listening to over compressed and over dolbied masters at low volumes. sure. however, i didn't think this was what i wanted.

i also wanted to set up a pair of satellite speakers in here (maybe the yamahas and maybe something else) and the nad can't do that because it only has one speaker out. well, it's 20 watts. i'd have to get a splitter on a 20 watt amp. eh.

over night, i did some research on kijiji and ebay for used satellite speakers and found a few things, but haven't made any decisions yet. i'm going to want to pull the celestions down off the shelves in this room because it has more space in it. in the previous space, i was going to get 90% reflections, anyways, so it didn't matter. in this space, the speakers can work better so i should take them down to ear level, which is directed right at my pillow. i'm then going to want to take the smaller speakers and place them facing me from the typing computer desk in front of the bed. this is a "backwards surround" setup. i'm looking at some full range 30, 40 and 50 watt speakers by companies like denon, yamaha, sony and pioneer that were initially intended as surround speakers, or for midrange type ghetto blasters.

eventually, i fell asleep, a little after the sun came up.

my thursday meal was after i woke up, which was afternoonish, and was the salad i skipped out on, initially. i did not alter this except to add some dill and drop the soy.

- 50 grams of kale stalks (chopped like celery)

- a handful of fresh dill, chopped

- one large (not that large) diced fresh tomato

- one huge red pepper

- one smallish beet

- one large carrot

- 50 g of broccoli

- one avocado

- 2 large or 4 small cloves of garlic, chopped

- one tbsp of cumin

- one tbsp of nutritional yeast

- one tbsp of paprika

- one tbsp of hemp seeds

- one tbsp of sunflower seeds

- one tbsp of oregano

- one tbsp of thyme

- one tbsp of basil

- one tbsp of cayenne

- ten slices of medium cheese

- frank's

- ceasar 

- pepper

- with a glass of fortified, sugar-free soy milk (i use natura).

i did some cleaning when i woke up but, as mentioned, spent the night exfoliating. around 22:00, i stopped to make some bacon to clear the stench out. there are again drug addicts in the building, but i think this management company is going to be more assertive in stopping them. the bacon was a part of my "catchup meal", which was my friday meal, and which consisted of the parts of the previous meals i skipped over, mostly in two parts.

1) 100 g of broccoli with cheese sauce. the cheese sauce was old cheddar, an unusually large amount of nutritional yeast (skipped from the eggs - good source of b-12), frank's and hemp seeds. these items had all been skipped in may.

2) 2 leftover fried eggs on onion rye with bacon, yeast and medium cheddar cheese. again, these items had been skipped over.

a little later on, i had a big bag of $1.50 dill pickle chips and four guava, then spent the morning researching cheap furniture options on kijiji before falling asleeep early in the morning. my general schedule in the summer is i sleep in the morning because it's a little cooler and wake up when it warms up. there's two salsa bowls (now three) still connected to the catchup, and two (now one) glasses of grapefruit-orange. i also have my coffee maker working again. so, thursday was spent alternating between washing myself, washing the apartment, typing, googling and eating.

i would like to call for further escalation in iran, actually.

it is the mere existence of the mullahs that has led to constant destabilization in the region since 1979. this is a regime with a relatively weak level of control and that could be knocked over with a good shove. the best way to stabilize the region is to get rid of them, and escalation is likely to end that way.

i was able to get the shape of my bedroom in order on thursday morning, before i took a rest with the sun and slept most of the day. i've spent all night exfoliating, as it's really bad right now. i am exceedingly dehydrated and desperately need to rehydrate. i'm a little behind on cleaning, but i have the place basically set up; planning it out was the time consuming and difficult part.

i've got the bed in the middle of the room, with a row of tables in front of it that will eventually have computers and speakers on it. there's going to be a new item - a tall dresser - placed at the end of the row of tables. i have a relatively large closet, and i'd like to put a small table for the sewing machine inside of it. beside the closet is my my old wide dresser, which was ruined in the last house by sewer gas seeping up out of the closet (this was fixed, but not before the dresser got destroyed), but is still a pretty good writing desk, with a few working drawers. the wood got warped by the gas; i'd have to order new custom-made drawers to save it as what it is and it's not worth it. i found a second wheeled chair for the bedroom that i can put in front of the dresser-desk and wheel around, including to the sewing machine. there is room for another book shelf beside the desk.

on the back wall and the far wall, i will have a row of book shelves split in half by a shelving unit built into the wall, which will have my filing cabinet underneath it and a stereo system in the unit. this system will connect to the celestions, which will be on top of the shelves. at least one of the computers in the bedroom will connect to this system, which should be the (boxed in the last house) nad system. there should be at least three computers in this room.

the aforementioned back row of book shelves will continue on out of the bedroom and into the hall going past the bathroom and into the kitchen. there will be three tall bookcases for cds going out into the hall (or, more accurately, going into the bedroom).

it's bigger than the last bedroom, but set up similarly, although some of the items have different uses, here. the difference is the addition of sufficient walking space, at least for now. that could change. for example, i could put the stationary in here, but probably won't, because the pi is in the other room.

i'm trying to understand why israel would spend so much time stepping on it's own feet, only to strike iran now. i'm wondering if they might have received some intelligence from washington - rather than from tehran - that suggested it should act now.

iran is a russian protectorate. they don't say that in the news, but there are russian defense systems protecting iran, and any sort of substantive attack on iran would result in russia coming to their defense. if trump is trying to make a deal with putin, there is some possibility it could involve turning on or cutting out israel. trump himself, who is somewhat of a closet nazi, would not be that concerned about that. his party - and his base - would be.

i don't want to speculate too much.

the uae is a country that actually uses starvation and famine as a political weapon and tool via it's support of vicious, murderous terrorist groups operating in sudan. the uae is arguably a worse actor than iran at this point, and it's engaged in direct conflict with nato ally turkey in multiple theatres, frequently by deploying chinese military technology.

does canada put sanctions on these murderous uae thugs and terrorists?

no. it invites them to the g7, where they clearly have no place and do not belong, in order to be "inclusive" and appeal to narrow voting constituencies with very conservative political views.

this is the consequence of overwhelming levels of migration from conservative societies. we've utterly lost our moral guidance and have ceased acting on principles, but instead hyper politicize everything to appeal to voting bases of ethnic minorities. it's completely ruined the country.

yesterday started the same way as saturday, although all i had to eat to start was an apple, and i was out after that. 

i took the same walk through town to the same bike store and picked up the walmart bike, which had the brakes replaced and adjusted and a general tune-up done to it. this is marketed as a light weight aluminum frame 700c hybrid, but it is by far the lightest hybrid i've ever ridden, and i'd be more likely to label it a road bike; it will ride best on smooth and paved and clean surfaces, which are somewhat sparse here in the detroit-windsor area but do exist if you know where to find them. this bike is super light and picks up high speeds with minimal effort. it climbs up hills like butter, and faces minimal resistance in the windsor wind, which i often complained about when biking with my much heavier miele*, which is also aluminum but is actually a true hybrid (for example, it has a spring front suspension suntour fork. none of the others do, they all have rigid forks, of various thicknesses and sizes.). in fact, it's so light that the wind knocked it over when i set it down for a minute to wait for a train to pass on dougall last night.

i initially avoided taking this bicycle outside because i was concerned about it's flimsy build, but i had to take it in after i busted one of the brakes on it, just to verify it was set up correctly and there weren't any mistakes in the factory, and i rode it around yesterday after the tune-up to see if i felt like it could handle being outside. the bike store guy explained to me that it might have been the stationary that busted the brakes, and i shouldn't engage my brakes at all when on a stationary. ok. the brakes on the bicycle are working well after the tune-up; as mentioned, it is very light and very fast and very smooth. it seems sturdy. it handles and rides well - good turning, good response. i was able to dangerously weave through traffic on tecumseh rd like i like to rather effectively and able to hit turns and cut through narrow passageways at unrecommended velocities in ways that would frighten the elderly and cause them to yell at me, as has happened at least twice this month (i can't be sure i always heard them, as old people sometimes yell in ways that doesn't actually escape their weakened lungs). great. and i'm not even in shape, right now. so, this should be my new outside exercise road bike, right?

yes, with a caveat.

the gears are clicking, meaning i'm going to need to adjust the gears myself, which is disappointing after explicitly paying for a tune-up. i didn't explicitly say "check the gears" and should have, but that should have been a part of the checklist, too. they did what i explicitly asked for, and oiled it up; i was hoping they'd give it a more thorough examination and try to find problems with it. it seems like they didn't do that. that said, with a bike like this, it's potentially the case that everything is a problem, and you just need to wait for things to break before you replace them. if they had actually gone over it part by part, it would have ended up with a $1000 bill. i get that. 

still, the gears shouldn't be clicking when you take the bike out of the shop.

which leads me to the real problem with this bike and the real reason i'd be careful about riding it too hard, which is the flimsy drive train. the bike cost $340 with tax and the tune-up and brake replacement together cost $166. it will likely cost me another $75-100 to upgrade the drive train, which will likely also fix the clicking gears. i think. that's still under $600 for a bike that looks like it should cost well over $1000. i've consequently decided to:

1) see if i can fix the clicking gears myself. if it's a simple trial and error process involving turning a screw, and i can fix it myself, whatever, it's done. if it's something more than that, i'll have to decide what to do when i understand it.

2) after or if the gears stop clicking, i'm going to ride it until the drive train falls apart and then replace it. i'll get something economical but decent - that's my balancing proposal. i think that if that gets done, this bike will be ideal for hard exercise runs for many years, until i need to do it again. but, as i mentioned a few years ago, bikes are not immortal. you ride them. they break. you fix or replace them. so it goes.

if you're keeping track, that means i have a shopped vintage mountain bike for riding through detroit (a comparably bulky 90s gt palomar (it looks like a hybrid by today's standards because it's a 90s female bike)), a shopped inexpensive road bike (technically a hybrid) for exercising outside (a 2020s walmart hyper 700c, also female), a to-be-shopped vintage hybrid (technically a mountain bike) for grocery shopping and day to day riding in windsor (a light rigid bmx mongoose switchback (a male bicycle)) and a currently disassembled early 2000s miele siena hybrid 700c* (a true hybrid, also female) that i need to clean up and try to reassemble but will either leave inside for the stationary if it turns out to be fragile and unsafe for outside use or reclaim for day to day shopping, reducing the mongoose to a backup and putting me in the market for a cheap light bike for the stationary before november. if i can fix the miele*, the mongoose becomes the weakest bike, as it is old and worn out and not worth spending much on, but it is very useful for a heavy bicyclest like myself to have a general purpose backup bike, and the mongoose does that - i can ride it long distances if i have to, i can use it on bumpy terrain or flat terrain, etc. it could be a temporary exercise/road bike or a temporary day-to-day grocery shopping bike. so, this is what i'd like:

1. exercise/road bike:  walmart hyper 700c with increasingly subbed parts, as the stock parts wear out (technically a hybrid)

2. detroit bike: 90s gt palomar (technically a relatively light female mountain bike)

3. shopping/commuting bike: early 2000s miele siena* (technically a hybrid*)

4. backup bike: 90s mongoose switchback that feels like a heavy hybrid (technically a light mountain bike)

5. stationary bike: i'd like to get something very light. to be purchased second hand.

i then took the walmart bike out to walmart to get my two new coffee makers, and rode them both home. stop two was to the dollar store to get the glass mugs, and to freshco to look for some bacon, which they didn't have (they had some brand name lysol wipes). i then checked the close food basics for similar items, which they didn't have. so, i biked out to the metro because i knew they had nutritional yeast (a scarce item since the start of the pandemic, which has never recovered it's stock here in windsor), and also got some bacon while i was there, but they did't have any flax bread. so, i stopped at the freshco on the way back to get the wipes, dropped the bacon off at home, and then headed out to the superstore to get some flax bread, along with some nivea and a loofah.

that was that, and it should be the end of my shopping run for the month, i expect.

costs:

$180 - movers

$300 - bicycles

$70 - coffee related items

$300 - groceries, toiletries, pantry items

i snuck a double tomato sandwich (because i'm doubling everything this run) into my meal cycle and had one last night before i passed out and then this morning when i woke up around 6:00, along with a big cup of coffee in my new 25 ounce beer mug. the tomato sandwich was supposed to come up last, because i was supposed to make a salad out of the giant tomato that the food bank gave me. however, i decided at the last minute that i should buy fresh tomatoes for the salad and make two tomato sandwiches out of the giant tomato, due to the legitimately excessive giantness of the giant tomato. it was too giant for one salad, but about right for two sandwiches.

i did not need to make subs for my tomato sandwich recipe, except to use one tomato instead of two, which is as follows:

- two pieces of quinoa/flax bread

- olive oil margarine on the bread

- one half an avocado, diced, on each piece of bread

- one large clove (or two small cloves) of garlic on each avocado

- one tbsp of nutritional yeast on each side

- one tbsp of paprika on each side

- one tbsp of hemp seeds on each side

- five slices of medium cheddar cheese on each side

- one piece of bacon (cut in two or three) on each side

- a spiral of caesar dressing on each side

- a half a tomato on each side [due to the extreme giantness of this tomato, we did a 1/4 instead of 1/2]

- frank's

- pepper

- and a tall glass of grapefruit-orange juice

i regularly serve my coffee with chocolate soy, and am currently filling it up with vanilla flax, which was a food bank item.

i have now spent all day researching this miele bicycle, which is not what i wanted to do, and will need to spend the evening cleaning, which is what i did want to do today.

* this miele siena doesn't appear to be what it says. while the branding decals point to a procycle-era miele bicycle made in canada (2003-2004), i can't find any bicycle made by miele that looks anything like this, and it doesn't look like any other siena i can find pictures of. it looks a little more like a tuscana than a siena. more tellingly, there is a sticker on the bike indicating it's made of aluminum alcalyte, which is an alloy specially licensed to a high-end bike company called cannondale. i feel i've done as much research as i can and need to run it by some people with better knowledge bases, but it seems to me that the frame is a 2002 or 2003 cannondale scalpel frame and that somebody built a custom branded miele from that frame as a base. if i can verify that that is the case, i'm going to rebuild it as a 2002-3 cannondale scalpel, with equivalent (not identical) parts. notable is that this bicycle is a 700c hybrid, not a 26" mountain bike, but there are minimal explanations as to how a bike from this time frame gets this sticker on it, indicating it is made of this alloy. it could be that miele had some agreement with alcoa to sell this type of frame in canada, but more likely, i think, is that miele himself built this bike out of his special order factory in 2002 from an essentially pirated part that was otherwise licensed to cannondale, which he had a history of doing in the 80s with bianchi bicycles. the scalpel bikes had similar but more expensive suspension systems, meaning this was probably built to mimic one of those bikes at lower cost. that's exactly what i will do, as well - mimic the 2002-3 cannondale scalpel at lower cost, once i understand what model the frame came from, or how the frame was intended to be adjusted. i will probably need to completely rebuild the drive train; if i'm going to do it, let me do it right. i will still want this to be a hybrid for biking around town, but it's worth noting that this model of bicycle was intended to be a cross-country racing bike, much as the switchback was in the 80s. i don't have any interest in racing or in competition in general.

yeah. now that musk is disposed of, here come the big boys in exxon. do you remember who trump's first secretary of state was?

- kill the high speed rail

- slash the ev targets and emission standards

- start a riot

- aggressively go after the governorship

trump wants to launch a corporate take over of something. it looks like he's not going to take over canada. california would appear to be the new target.

in canada, the fact is that the british crown bought the land. there are treaties for almost every inch of land outside of bc and quebec, which the british conquered - which is considered lawful under european legal norms stemming from imperial roman law. those ideas don't make sense in the context of indigenous law, but it is the europeans sitting in the castles, applying their laws and they make the rules relative to their culture and norms.

it is also true that the government has repeatedly failed to adhere to the conditions in the treaties, and that in some circumstances it is unclear if the indigenous groups understood what they were signing. the treaties sell or permanently lease the land. that is easy for us to understand, but pre-contact north american indigenous groups had no coherent concept of land ownership. so, how can you sell something if you don't agree you own it?

in traditional indigenous cultures, the land is owned by the gods and humans are only permitted to use it. so, they have concepts of land use but not of land ownership. they also fundamentally share hunting and fishing grounds, which they hold as a commons (an idea that germanic culture had as well, and does continue to tentatively exist in british law).

there are good arguments that the indigenous groups thought they were exchanging the right to use the land in common and not selling it outright, but the courts have not really upheld that and the treaties say what they say. that's where ideas like the honour of the crown come in to enforce some kind of enlightened solution on a shitty situation.

but the lands were not stolen in any coherent legal sense. that's just incorrect.

https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/canadians-reject-that-they-live-on-stolen-indigenous-land-poll

gavin newsom is again repeating the "republicans are trying to take away democracy" messaging, which has repeatedly fallen flat with voters, who want the trains to run on time - and the looting and vandalism to stop.

if newsom wants to help his successor, he'll take control of the situation and clean up the mess himself. all voters are going to see is that trump is getting the job done and democrats are babbling about democracy.

i'm feeling way better this week.

i was never able to clearly determine if the stalkers were two men and a woman or three gay men, one effeminate or female identifying. if it is the latter, this person's behaviour would disqualify them from identifying as trans. this would have either been a very aggressive and dominant gay man in drag (a transvestite) or some kind of dom female. i've tended to lean towards them being a dominant transvestite looking for a slave, and misinterpreting me as one. i'm an anarchist that roots the core of my being in ideals of self-ownership; i'm not into bdsm, i'm not submissive and i have no interest in playing the role of anybody's slave.

however, they were trying to force me into some kind of gross male performative behaviour and were entirely unwilling to take no for an answer. it is the same people that were trailing me previously, as i have seen them following me around in the same boring, gas-guzzling muscle cars, which they think are "cool" and i'm supposed to give a fuck about.

i'm going to operate on the hypothesis that my entire disinterest in pride last weekend blew them off, which is partially the result of the condition i'm in. i have never had the slightest interest in gay men, and i would not be remotely interested in going to any sort of gay male sausage party. that's not my thing. i may have gone out dancing to a queer friendly venue full of people with mixed gender identities and sexual orientations if the situation were slightly different. i have gone to gay clubs sporadically in the past, but the logic has been that it's a safe place to dance where i won't get hit on by straight men.

i may be able to get out for the end of the summer, but my focus right now is domestic and will be for a while. with the opening of the new bridge, i won't have to find things to do after concerts anymore, either; i can just bike home. that doesn't mean i won't go to dance clubs at all, but it means i can be a little more selective and not need to find something to do from 12:00-6:00 in the morning, as i'm waiting for the tunnel bus to come back up.

bitch went all that way and didn't even get gifted a bagel.

she could've got a bun anywhere.

canada does not need fighter jets at all and should not purchase them at all. bombardier will not actually build anything if you write them yet another blank check. we don't need to funnel money back into europe, like we're reverting back to colonialism, and should strongly resist such a thing.

if our goal is defence and not offence, the money should be spent on norad, on the coast guard and, yes, on missile defense. boats that can accurately launch missiles large distances are more useful than fighter jets, for defense. we should also ensure we have the ability to manufacture drones effectively, but should not choose to actually manufacture them.

my politics in recent years are most closely aligned to the bloic quebecois and not to any of the major federal political parties. i have tended to endorse the green party, but i have rarely voted in recent elections.

i'll take the conservatives seriously on immigration when they acknowledge that jason kenney and stephen harper are the architects of the status quo, not justin trudeau.

the existing system has aided the conservatives at the expense of the liberals, who are losing safe seats due to high levels of immigration from conservative societies, which was kenney's plan from the start. our culture has shifted firmly to the right since 2005 as a consequence of all of this immigration from conservative cultures.

https://globalnews.ca/news/11234497/pierre-poilievre-canada-population-growth/

advocating for two states in 2025 is not a serious policy and is not serious politics and politicians that take unserious positions and advocate for unserious policies should be condemned for politicizing an issue that needs to be approached with great statesmanship.

ms. anand has demonstrated that she is strictly concerned about appealing to a small section of her constituency and not concerned about representing canada on the world stage. she's the wrong person for this important job.

this is horribly embarrassing.

are there sanctions against the terrorists in the palestinian authority and in hmas? the answer is no. canada only sees fits to sanction democratically elected politicians, not murderers and terrorists, and does so by cowardly falling in line behind neo-nazi parties in europe.

anita anand should immediately resign, or be immediately fired.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-sanctions-israeli-ministers-1.7556968

i was able to get some cleaning done this morning in the kitchen and in the bedroom. vacuuming the closet was a small but key thing to do, as i'll have to move everything on the floor into the closet before i can scrub it. getting the compost bags in the kitchen meant i was able to get the items in the fridge separated, which means i can get the kitchen cleaned up and set up. i was able to scrub out the freezer and put a bunch of the bulk items away, then get the green bin items and the garbage back in the freezer, while getting the cans and other recyclables in the blue and red bins, and separating the plastics bags into reusable and recycable, and then get everything off the counter and even do some dishes. i still need to scrub the bottom tray of the stove out so i can get some extra dishes in there, to get some more space in the cabinet. it's a necessarily slow process, especially considering that i need to spend extra time cleaning myself right now because these retards won't go away and fucking kill themselves off.

does canada have the lowest living standards in the world? clearly not, no.

does canada have the lowest living standards in the developed world? parts of it might, sure.

my plan to get my disposable income back on track is working out as intended.

my odsp is going up 2.8% on july 1st, which i won't get until my august 1st check. i think. that's what it was last year. that will amount to about $40.

conversely, as inflation has been hovering around 1% from june 2024 to may 2025, my rent increase on june 1, 2026 should only be about 1%, which will be about $12. the immediate $40/month bump will only be taken down by $10 or so on june 1st next year, and that $40/month will definitely help. a lot. when you're poor, small amounts make a big difference, they're not throwaway pocket change. 

i should be able to convince my doctor to fill out the disability forms for an extra $200/month, although i'm being cautious about this. this amount was supposed to be more widely distributed and for a much higher amount, but the randians in the liberal party got their hands on the legislation and largely ruined it. it's being approached the way it was intended to be by doctors, who are purposefully abusing it in order to react to the financial realities facing disability recipients in this country. we need the cash. that should be within a few months, max. the problem is that the forms are pretty intense, in terms of what you're asking a doctor to fill out. i don't have difficulty dressing myself or eating by myself, but i do have a lot of problems with ptsd-linked trauma, and i may be able to play that angle. am i being stalked or am i hearing things?

i don't think i've been drugged for a few weeks, and i haven't heard the male voices in that time period, although the female seems to still be here. i have blood recs and am waiting until i think they get me again before i go to the blood lab. the key indicator is stomach hair (i have never grown any hair on my stomach at all previously, before or after hormones, and it thankfully immediately clears up when their drugs metabolize. it's just about the most revoltingly disgusting thing imaginable, regardless of gender identity decisions. there is no possible explanation for this disgusting, unwanted change other than that i've been drugged with steroids or testosterone.), which i haven't noticed. as soon as i do notice stomach hair, i'm off to the blood lab to get the key evidence to convict these fucking losers with.

i could tell the last time i talked to him that he's having difficulty processing what i'm telling him, which i understand. i need the physical evidence to convince people. if we were to switch places, i'd be just as skeptical. the cops should be willing to investigate on a complaint and generate evidence, but a doctor needs to get the evidence and needs to be evidence based and should be skeptical about entertaining fantasies without evidence. the blood rec is extremely important, but i have to wait until they drug me again first, if i want to catch them, and they seem to understand what's going on and are waiting. if i can use that to get the doctor to fill out the disability forms, great. in the short run, it's in my self-interest to have him think i'm crazy.

that would also wipe out my remaining student loan, if he filled them out.

inflation should go up soon as well, as a result of the tariffs. i saw orange juice at the store yesterday for $12/jug, which is 100% inflation, due to tariffs. tropicana had better figure something out, because that's not going to sell. if the inflation rate for june 2025-may 2026 is in the 3-4% range overall, the increase on july 1, 2026 should be in the 5% range, which would be about $70. my odsp increases are not capped by legislation.

rent increases are capped by legislation; the rent inflation for 2027 will likely be capped at 2.5% by legislation, which would be about $30 on june 1, 2027. so that $70/month bump on aug 1, 2026 will only be taken down by $30 on june 1, 2027, leaving me with a remaining $40 + whatever the increase is on july 1, 2027, which should be 3%ish minimum and over $40 minimum, meaning i'll get it back almost immediately, and then some, at least another $10 and probably more than that.

however, i'm not going to predict inflation in 2027 at this point. i'll just point out that, year over year, rent goes up by 2.5% max, and odsp will go up by 2.5% min. the minimal inflation this year still resulted in a 2.8% boost. that means my disposable income increases every year i'm here, until i sign a new lease, which i hope ends up being for less (and will be if the tariffs devastate southern ontario).

a lot of disability advocates might not fully understand how powerful this is, but i do. it is true that it doesn't help right now and a lot of people need help right now, but it will balance out over time for people that can stabilize their housing. i've been explaining for years that the major problem is rent, and the solution is to lower rent or stabilize rent costs. the rest will work itself out, if you can actually get disabled people in stable housing and keep them there.

the assholes that bought my house to throw me out and got lucky with horrible and corrupt judges are facing a number of legal actions that they're going to need to pay for, as well. they are refusing to settle, which is just going to hike their costs in the long run. they think they got away with something, but they didn't, they just increased their own bills in the long run. i'll be better off in the new apartment in the long run, as i have more space and it's closer to downtown, which is where i want to be.

that said, the fact that i was paying $800/month in the previous apartment and might be looking at a monthly income of close to $1700/month by the fall is something to ponder. that $900/month for groceries, gear and concerts would have been great, if i wasn't dealing with asshole stalkers that need to go to jail and shithead landlords that need to pay me out. the best scenario is that i stay here and they pay me what it cost to get me here, and that could very well happen in the next few weeks, via one action or another.

there's a t2 in motion that asks for my rent back because they spent two years harassing me to leave; this amounts to about $20,000. the eviction is in appeal, and awaiting case management direction, which essentially has to determine if the possibility of compensation is substantive or not (and it clearly is), given that i'm not moving back into the old apartment. if i win this, they should be ordered to pay me what it cost to move, which would be about $6500, and possibly also pay me a year or two worth of the difference in rent, which would be upwards of another $10,000. there is a t5 coming in the next few days, which would be for the rent difference, and upwards of $10,000. altogether, it could run close to $50,000, but t probably won't. i should aim for $10,000 each, for a max of $30,000. 

yes, they deserve to be ordered to pay this kind of compensation, as the eviction had no legitimate legal basis to it, but was ordered by a retarded religious person operating strictly on jewish moral principles, which have no legal force in this country. i do not intend to allow myself to have some judeo-christian moral principles enforced on me, as i reject them thoroughly, and expect the court system to uphold my right to live in a christian-free society, in the end, even if i have to take it to a few levels up to get there. canada is a secular society and people have the right to live free of religion within it. i demand the courts uphold that right, and they will in the end.

i think i cleaned the physical external button and that it's aligned well, but the internal button itself is kind of rusted and not responding well to being pushed. i was not able to turn it on by pushing it in with a screwdriver.

something i noticed before it stopped working was that the machine would turn on when i plugged it in, without pushing the button, indicating it may have been stuck in the on mode and having difficulty turning off.

i could in theory use anything for the external button. it's just a piece of plastic; i could even rip it out and just turn it on with a screwdriver or a knife. however, if the internal button is broken, it needs to be replaced.

let me let it sit for a few hours, and i'll make the decision a little past sunrise. i will take the walmart bike out for a spin this afternoon to get a coffee machine of some sort, one way or another.

yeah, it's totally dried out and it's just not turning on at all.

i believe the problem is that the contact on the switch is broken. there are no wires or anything on this switch, it just works via pressure. have you ever taken apart a laptop? the switch is more like that - it's a certain distance away from a button on the inside of the coffee maker. if this comes out of alignment or gets bent at all, your machine won't turn back on. ever.

i see no signs of damage - nothing frayed, nothing split, nothing bent. there's some rust and some dirt, which i've tried to clean out, but i just don't think the button is engaging properly.

i'm going to try to get it back in line the best i think i can, put it back together and let it sit plugged into the wall for the night, in the hopes that the electricity "finds it's way through the circuit". we understand electricity pretty well...except the parts that are totally mysterious. there's still an aspect of magic to how these electrons really flow. electronic devices will do weird things. i've had devices "heal" by leaving them plugged in, which i can only explain by the idea that electrons like to find each other and like to solve puzzles, like lab rats.

if i can't turn it on in the morning, i'll have to buy a new one. unfortunately.

google tells me the answer to the question is "it depends".

all i can do is thoroughly dry it and test it. i don't see any circuit boards in the device. it looks pretty simple - just basic wiring. either the water is creating an electrical storm, which might be salvageable, or it corroded something, but i don't see any obvious damage.

i couldn't get the proprietary screw off the single serve coffee maker, but i was able to get the plate out of the way by removing the other screw and spinning it around. i didn't notice an obvious short, but i did learn that there was quite a bit of water in there. so, i'm going to leave the plate off for a bit and let it dry. i do remember washing the coffee machine out before i packed it, and it might have gotten a little too wet, although it was already demonstrating signs of a short (you had to fidget with the cord to get it to turn on).

i don't know the answer to this question: if an electronic circuit is water damaged, is drying it out enough to fix it, or is it permanently destroyed?

if i can't find a clear answer as to the cause, i should replace it, as it might be a fire hazard.

many weeks ago, i wondered out loud what exactly musk had on trump. he must have been blackmailing him with something or other in order to get such overwhelming compliance on issues of no importance, particularly the south african themed policies, which i would expect will now evaporate. everything else aside, the united states should be prioritizing a solid relationship with south africa, as a chinese military base in the horn of africa would be disastrous for long term american shipping interests, especially considering what's going on in yemen. right now, the chinese are winning this fight for global shipping supremacy, and the americans don't seem to even understand what's going on.

it is now clear that the answer is trump's presence in the epstein files, although it's not clear what the lingering concern about it is. he's already been convicted for soliciting a porn star, and he seems to have benefited from it, but he can't run for office again.

musk probably learned this from non-government sources. he probably doesn't have a mole in the fbi, he probably just knows people that know people that know that trump was there. 

but, now that it's out, musk probably has no further leverage over trump and this sad and twisted situation, which we haven't seen in the united states since the 19th century (when rockefellers and carnegies had immense power behind the scenes), is now over.

what trump is focusing on is trying to help the republicans win the 2026 election for california governor, and framing it as a choice between law and colloquial anarchy is the best chance he's got. it worked in the upper midwest after the shooting of george floyd.

if the republicans can swing california, they won't need to rely on dwindling support in other regions. 

the rule against collective punishment, like all rules, has limitations and exceptions.

israel is a collectivized culture. they don't live in kibbutzes right now, but they are a people with an extreme level of collective culture and identity. an attack on one jew is an attack on all jews, and you will get a response from all jews if you attack one jew. they don't operate on this level of rugged individualism inherent in the western european rule against collective punishment.

this is brutal and hard to interact with and vicious and terrible, but it's real life and the message it sends is crystal clear - if you attack any of us individually, we will respond collectively. that is the right message to send and the palestinians need to understand it and adjust to it. they need to be traumatized and frightened and abused to the point that they will not do this again.

there is only one way to end the impasse, and it is for hamas to immediately release the hostages. it must understand that this response is intentionally a collective response, and that it is correct that it is a collective response.

there are still no reports of actual famine; unlike hamas, israel is keeping it's hostages alive, if barely. two wrongs don't make a right, but they make a response in the real world, where right and wrong is not of much importance, in the face of years of bad behaviour by everybody that cannot be undone, but only be mitigated and moved on from.

it's hamas' choice how this ends.

It is misleading to suggest that these limited aid distributions are enough for more than two million Palestinians enduring Israel’s military siege and total blockade for months. Far more must be done to meet even the most basic humanitarian needs.

so, release the hostages, then.

it's a double standard.

i hope that the israeli government gets the aid (as meagre as it may be) from the boat that it correctly redirected to it's intended destination, or matches it with it's own contributions. the likelihood that there are weapons on board is vanishingly low, which is exactly why a thorough search is necessary.

martial law is very messy and difficult. it's not likely what trump wants.

trump is probably angling to swing votes in california, and it might work, but probably not enough. we've seen this a few times now in the united states and the result  is that voters choose order over chaos.

given that canada is going into recession, 2% of gdp on defence might not be much of an increase.

i oppose the idea in principle. we're not going to win a conventional war against the united states, we'll have to resort to guerrilla warfare. i'd rather see the money spent on housing. 

but, we don't really need to choose, and i'll wait for the details before i comment further.

i did my research and the simple reality is that it's cheaper at walmart, as always.

if i can fix the single serve black and decker (which operates like a normal coffee machine but dumps into a 20 ounce thermos. it's not one of those wasteful keurig catastrophes.), i'll just get a 12 cup machine for $20.

if i can't, i'm going to have to get both, and add on the single serve for an extra $20.

it's not that bad, it's just frustrating; the pot should cost $5. i really don't need a new machine.

as for the 10 cup pot, such a machine seem to be available anywhere anymore. i wonder if the machine was originally imported. that was also a dollar store purchase, in 2013ish. there are some higher end models that still use 10 cups, apparently, but nothing in the $15-30 price range. it's a slightly smaller pot and doesn't fit in the 12 cup machine.

i mentioned i got a lot of stuff done on saturday. i spent most of sunday, and have spent most of monday, sleeping. i've been hauling boxes for kms for weeks and need to catch up on the sleep and then i need to wake up and move on. getting a functional coffee machine going will help.

i didn't eat on saturday morning but, before i left, i made myself some peanut butter and jam slices on white bread (with apple slices on top). peanut butter has some health benefits, but is borderline junk food and not a part of my regular diet. i was concerned it would sit in the fridge and go rotten, so i just ate it quickly to ensure it got eaten. the worst thing i could do is throw out free food given to me by helpful people. i don't want to do that. it was not a sandwich, but three slices of white bread with pb, jam and slices of apple. this was enough for the day.

the first trip on saturday was to the old dollar store on wyandotte that i used to go to all of the time, as that's where i bought the coffee machine about 10 years ago. did they have the same model? they had no coffee machine at all, apparently.

i then walked through walkerville and down to the bike store in what used to be ford city. this bike store used to be on wyandotte, and is where i got my now demoed bike setup years ago, but moved several years ago. my old gt palomar had some adjustments done and a new seat put on it. it's a smooth ride, but it's twice as heavy as what i'm used to riding, so it needs a little care on the turns. this heavier bike also needs to build some momentum up before it can build any speed and can be slow trudging at times, but that's the point - it's a clunker with a sturdy frame and big wheels that is intended for pummeling over the harsh roads in detroit. my detroit bike has now been adjusted for safety and is ready to go, when i am.

i then took this bike out grocery shopping because it was ready to ride and my go to bike right now - the mongoose switchback - is behind a pile of stuff i need to move out of the way. i should get the walmart bike on tuesday, and i'm curious as to how it rides. i've never ridden this bike outside.

my first stop was the wholesale club on dougall, where i picked up some specific items. these items were in bulk, so they required some money down to get, but it will save me over the next few months an that's important because i'm dealing with a stark decrease in disposable income after the move (this was optionless. rent inflation happened.). i got those items home and then headed out to the mall at huron church and tecumseh, where i got some items at the bulk barn, got the mugs at the canadian tire, picked up a prescription at the shoppers and then did some grocery shopping at the food basics and the freshco. i got that home and picked up some remaining items at the closer food basics, then went back out to the walmart and the real superstore to get the lingering items. by then it was close to 11:00, so i got everything put away and made my adjusted ceasar salad. i didn't finish it before i passed out; i finished it when i woke up.

this is my normal ceasar salad recipe:

- 110 g of kale

- 2 big cloves of garlic (or 4 normal sized)

- one avocado

- one lime, segmented and cut in half

- one smallish orange, segmented and cut in half

- two slices of bacon, fried and crumbled

- 50 g of broccoli

- one tbsp of cumin powder

- one tbsp of paprika

- one tbsp of nutritional yeast

- one tbsp of raw, hulled sunflower seeds (on the side. i usually chomp it while preparing.)

- one tbsp of hulled hemp seeds

- one tbsp of dried oregano

- one tbsp of dried basil

- one tbsp of dried thyme

- one tbsp of cayenne pepper

- some black pepper

- roughly 150 ml of no name caesar dressing (or more). i am picky about it being no name, as it's a zestier caesar with less salt. most store bought caesar is too salty.

- two pieces of brown bread (100% whole wheat flour including the germ)

- one cup of fortified, sugar-free soy milk. i use natura nowadays.

- 10 chopped slices of medium cheddar cheese (that's how i do it, i don't measure it, and i prefer the black diamond brand, which is expensive but often on sale)

- one tbsp of olive oil margarine (i prefer the olivina)

- lots of frank's hot sauce

i put that down in front of me with a tall cup of 25% grapefruit and 75% orange juice (no added sugar, not from concentrate).

i made some substitutions to use the food bank items and make use of what i had:

- 110 g of kale -----> 250 g of romaine, as i got a big head of romaine. i generally very intentionally pick kale instead of romaine, but i will eat the romaine and say thank you.

- a handful of chopped fresh dill (i may keep this)

- 2 big cloves of garlic (or 4 normal sized)

- one avocado

- one lime, segmented and cut in half

- one smallish orange, segmented and cut in half

- two slices of bacon, fried and crumbled ------> two chopped slim jims, fried in olive oil margarine to be a little crispy. it was actually a pretty good sub.

- 50 g of broccoli

- one tbsp of cumin powder

- one tbsp of paprika

- one tbsp of nutritional yeast

- one tbsp of raw, hulled sunflower seeds (on the side. i usually chomp it while preparing.)

- one tbsp of hulled hemp seeds

- one tbsp of dried oregano

- one tbsp of dried basil

- one tbsp of dried thyme

- one tbsp of cayenne pepper

- some black pepper

- roughly 150 ml of no name caesar dressing (or more). i am picky about it being no name, as it's a zestier caesar with less salt. most store bought caesar is too salty.

- two pieces of brown bread (100% whole wheat flour including the germ) ----> one piece of chopped up onion rye, and the ends of two other pieces (which were toasted for onion bread)

- one cup of fortified, sugar-free soy milk. i use natura nowadays.

- 10 chopped slices of medium cheddar cheese (that's how i do it, i don't measure it, and i prefer the black diamond brand, which is expensive but often on sale)

- one tbsp of olive oil margarine (i prefer the olivina)

- lots of frank's hot sauce

i served this to myself with my glass of grapefruit-orange juice, and two pieces of onion bread, which were the onion rye toasted, with melted olive oil margarine, and melted monterrey jack (in the microwave) and then doused with onion salt and frank's.

the romaine is crunchier (and far less nutritious) than the kale, but it also tasted more "normal" in terms of traditional casear. the onion rye is closer to a crouton than crumbled brown bread, and is actually even a little bit stale. croutons have become their own thing, but it's supposed to be stale bread. the slim jims, when fried in olive oil until they were crispy, really didn't taste much different than bacon. the dill was a good addition. i don't plan an adjusting my caesar salad permanently, but i am going to make the same thing again today, as i didn't get a chance to eat this morning.

i did, however, finish up my peanut butter yesterday afternoon (after sleeping all morning) by having three more open slices of white bread with peanut butter and jam. i skipped the apple; i should have it now. i then slept all afternoon.

i meant to spend yesterday night cleaning my bedroom up and moving items into it, but instead spent all night cleaning myself up by repeatedly washing my face. i had no choice but to deal with a build up of caked on filth as i was moving, and didn't have time to wash. i'm feeling and looking better, but i'm still in need of a long shower.

i bought some compostable bags when i was out, which will help me in cleaning up my fridge and making it normal.

i'll need to take another trip out on tuesday, but the main focus now for the next few weeks is going to be on cleaning the apartment and on sorting through email and catching up on things i put aside until i was done moving.

right now, let me see if i can get that coffee maker open.

my 10 cup coffee pot is 1.25 L, which is much larger than the 5 cup machines being sold, as it should be, even though it looks about that size.

the 5 cup machines are actually about the same size as the single serve, and that is a better choice because it's filterless.

i'm in a frustrating scenario with my coffee situation. i drink a lot of coffee.

i have a 12 cup coffee maker with a broken pot. i have a 10 cup coffee pot without a machine. i have a 20 ounce single serve coffee maker, which is what i've been using for the last several years, that seems to have a short in it, but which i can't get the back off of due to a proprietary screw. i can't even figure out what it is. i'm going to try to jimmy it with a flathead and i'll make sure to replace it with a normal screw.

i have more counter space here and would like to have a single serve and a pot-brewing option, so i can decide if i want a pot or a cup. if i can fix the single serve and get a coffee pot for $5, it should be a simple fix, but a replacement 12 cup pot is going to cost me more than a new coffee machine, which i don't want to pay for. i have a coffee machine that works!

the basement apartment i recently moved out of had extremely hard ceramic tiled floors that would break anything that fell on them and got freezing cold in the winter. i had something like ten mugs when i moved in there; i had two when i moved out, and they're both small. i broke the last one about a year ago and i've been using soup bowls for coffee cups for the last year as a result, as i couldn't find big enough coffee cups online for a reasonable price that were made out of materials that i could be confident didn't have lead (and could take hot coffee without killing me or making me retarded). it's also the reason the pot is broken. the floors here should be more forgiving.

i bought two 21 ounce (621 ml) cups yesterday, which cost me about $13. these are stoneware ceramic made out of black clay, without any sort of paint or inlays and with visible air holes from the baking process. those vintage dishes your grandmother loves are deadly and should be smashed up and sent to the hazardous materials part of the landfill. 21 ounces is as big as you'll find for a reasonable price that is made out of a safe material that hasn't been glazed. it's sort of baffling that you'll find coffee mugs made out of items you can't even microwave. that said, i'm also going to get some 26 ounce glass beer mugs at the dollar store in the next few days with the intent of using them for coffee. the four mugs should be enough and will give me the option of more or less soy in the coffee.

if i have to buy a new machine, the cheapest option is a 12 cup from walmart, rather than another single serve. so i hope i can fix the one i have, too. that would cut it down to one rather than two machines.

what's my take on the hockey player trial in london?

the issue at trial is really not what a lot of people want to frame it as, it's strictly to determine whether she was or was not too drunk to consent. if she was sober enough to consent, there's no crime; if she was too drunk to consent, it's gang rape.  you have to be very careful when having sex with drunk people.

as it is, there's apparently a video where she consents, which i find to be very strange. it indicates that there's no mens rea on behalf of the players, as they asked the woman to film herself consenting. however, it also forms the key and really only relevant piece of evidence. i have not seen this video, but it should be relatively obvious to determine if she was able to consent by analyzing how drunk she is in it. if there's any slurred speech or lack of coordination at all, i would find them guilty, but if she consents by film and appears to a reasonable person to be sober enough to do so, then there's no crime to analyze, there's just somebody that made a decision they regret and are embarrassed about making and are looking to evade responsibility for.

the tommy douglas plan, which many canadians erroneously believe was the forerunner to our single payer system, was a way for farmers in saskatchewan to lower insurance premiums by buying insurance together in bulk. the premier wrote the law to allow for farmers to buy the bulk insurance, collectively. they still had to pay insurance packages and still paid premiums, but those premiums were lowered by the collectivized insurance, which allowed them to socialize risk. this was modeled on the canadian wheat board. 

this is also how obamacare works.

it's not single payer at all.

single payer was brought in by the liberals, and modeled after the nhs in britain. it was supported by all three of the major parties in a minority government. most of the legislation was written by paul martin, sr.

many years later, pierre trudeau packaged a series of scattered laws together into the canada health act and gave it quasi-constitutional status, introducing a series of barriers that would make it extremely difficult to dismantle.

greta thunberg,

you have to let the israelis check your boat for weapons if you want to get to gaza. there is no possibility they will let you dock.

do you understand why?

go back to south africa, elon.

the more that musk dominates the news cycle, the less reporting is done on something worthwhile, and that's exactly what the white house wants. 

i don't care about musk-trump gossip and want it out of my newsfeed. it's of no importance. stop clicking on those links.

we need to work together if we want to build a new society, and that's not something to give up on. we have to keep trying.

but, if we were naive then - if we didn't realize that cell phones and social media were state surveillance tools - we cannot still be now. we have to learn from that mistake and put our phones down.

occupy seemed like something different than your average protest. it's not that i ever thought that going out and marching and screaming would really change anything directly, and more that i was looking for a group of like-minded people to build parallel institutions with. you will get nothing done working in the system of government, because it's designed to prevent things from getting done. it would be great if it was that easy, but the reality is that it's impossible to implement change from the bottom up in a representative, parliamentary democracy; once in a while, we get lucky and have enlightened members of the upper class implement good ideas from the top down (which, contrary to the popular myth, is how the liberals wrote the health care system in canada, which is based on the nhs, not on the system advanced by tommy douglas in saskatchewan, which was not single payer but actually virtually identical to the affordable care act in the united states). it's just not a true form of democracy. you pick which oligarch you'd prefer, and they make decisions from the top down.

if you want to build parallel structures and try to exist outside of the status quo, you can't do it yourself. you need solidarity. that's what i was excited about with occupy.

but it was a setup run by the cops. i was in rooms at points with 20-25 people, and i was the only person in it that wasn't a cop. there wasn't one or two informants. the whole thing was orchestrated by squads of officers trying to get people to break laws.

i didn't do anything stupid, because i'm not a stupid person, but i was asked to on multiple occasions. for example, i have a pretty clear memory of a night where i was coerced into keying up a guy's car because he was accused of sexually harassing an employee, without any due process, which would have been an overwhelmingly retarded thing to do. it was a cop directing this, trying to get activists arrested.

i did end up on some kind of list and have been under overwhelming surveillance ever since.

if you're in california, you should stay away from these immigration protests. they're being designed by the police to act as a mechanism to implement facial recognition software, and once you get on one of these lists you will never get off of it. trust me.

we live in the era of orwell, and the technology has just gotten more advanced in the 15 years since occupy, which was a giant entrapment operation conducted by the police.

i noticed something interesting today: not one but several large apartment buildings up for sale in the downtown core. it would seem to suggest an expectation that the property won't be able to attract desirable tenants in the near future, which is an expectation of an extreme downturn. it's essentially capital flight.

this is actually what i want, as an artist. windsor/detroit should have some level of manufacturing, but it should also be cheap. our artist haven was being taken away from us by capital via inflation. we want it back.

if these units have recently been renovated, that's a net positive for any artistic community that sets up in them at affordable rents.

i got lots of stuff done today.

i'm currently enjoying a modified ceasar salad recipe and i want to eat a little before i post an update on it.

i also switched from teksavvy to oxio yesterday. it seems to be fine.

i don't play video games or stream large videos to big tv sets. my bandwidth and speed requirements are pretty minimal by today's standards; i was paying over $40/month for a grandfathered 6/2 mbps package that belonged in the 00s. it was already slow when i bought it in 2013 (i believe it was $20/month when i signed up) and i've actually been trying to downgrade ever since as i don't even need that, and they keep jacking up the price and offering me nothing in return. instead of offering lighter packages at lower costs, teksavvy has been trying to coerce me into upgrading by hiking the cost, to make the other packages look more attractive. it's been pissing me off for a while, but there just hasn't been a better choice. any switch would have just cost me more. however, it was also clear that some of the other services in the area were coming down in price, including the fiber optic, which was falling into the $50-60 range. i knew it wouldn't be long before falling prices on much faster services converged into this grandfathered teksavvy package that was increasing in price. 

i paid my internet bill on april 1st because i hoped to get into a new apartment asap and then didn't use the internet package at all from april 9th-may 9th, which is a full month on the calendar. i contacted teksavvy to ask for a refund and was baffled by their response, which is that it's not in the contract. did teksavvy get bought by rogers? what the fuck was this? i asked for some basic customer service in not being billed for a service i didn't use, and the response was some contract law bullshit, like i was talking to bell, or woke up in the united states. a reasonable person would not charge somebody for a service they didn't use. so, i decided that was it, i was moving out of the grandfathered package.

the cheapest oxio package is 15/2 mbps, with no bandwidth limits, for $25, which is faster and has more bandwidth and costs less. i'll use something like 5 gb in an average month, and maybe 50 gb on the heaviest months. i had no use for the 400 gb cap teksavvy was selling, but no cap at all just means i don't have to worry about it.

i have tested it at speedtest and i am getting the 15, although my network is currently throttling that on my end. my router is set to 10 mbps mode and i'm using a switched usb 2.0 hub to accept an rj-45 to usb input and that maxes out under 9 mbps. i can set the router to 100 mbps mode and i have a usb 3.0 hub for this chromebook, but it's not installed because i was worried (and am still worried) about stalkers trying to break into my network and the older technology made it harder to access my terminals at a reasonable speed. i don't know if the new modem will make any difference or not.

i'm going to need to spend a fair amount of time fixing hardware, as the idiots broke a lot of my gear in an attempt to hack or overclock legacy hardware that they expected to be faster and more modern and just isn't. a basic disconnect is that these retards seem to think i'm some kind of upper class rich kid with brand new fancy shiny toys to steal, when the reality is that i'm a disabled person that grew up in a ghetto and has very carefully assembled a collection of inexpensive but broadly functional gear through budget purchases over a long time frame, mostly second hand or discounted. and, if the retards would have just gotten a job at walmart some time in 2023, they'd have saved up enough money to get a much nicer studio than i have by now. but that's not as much fun as harassing a disabled trans person, and pretending they're rich, because you're fucking stupid.

i've spent the last few days catching up on sleep and cleaning myself up, as i got pretty gross from weeks worth of walking through downtown in dirty clothes and engaging in minimal showering, as what's the point? i haven't been able to get out to get the extra ingredients for my salads, yet. i should be able to get out tomorrow, after i pick up my detroit bike, which is in for a tune up. i will be having salads every day for the next week or so.

i've decided to clean up the miele and try to reassemble it myself before i take it in. the 90s palomar will be ready tomorrow. the walmart bike (which is a very light (the lightest of the four) 700c hybrid) will be sometime next week. i'm going to wait until august before i bring the vintage mongoose switchback, which is a very light mountain bike or slightly thick hybrid, in. the miele is a more normal sized hybrid and the palomar is a low riding, heavy set mountain bike for cruising at moderate to low speeds through the rough backstreets of detroit.

all of the actual moving is done now, so i should get a good grocery run in tomorrow that will assemble a pantry of basic items, including things like spices and condiments, and also builds up cleaning and hygiene products. that is the basket of items that requires a bit of money upfront to build; the actual food is $5-10/day on top of that, and i can mostly get it at one of the stores in walking distance as i need it. the run tomorrow is going to take me out to get stuff at the wholesale store in bulk (it's cheaper in the long run), at the walmart, at the bulk barn, etc. once that is done, it's done, and it won't need to be done again until next month. it will slowly build on a monthly schedule, on a needs basis, as it comes up. as it is, i've had to improvise a little outside of my schedule. thursday was the cucumber soup and i stopped with that. friday morning, i had my chicken meal, which was the following, and was actually also quite filling:

these items were served together:

- one of those sidekick instant meal packages. it's labelled as a side dish and said to be chicken flavoured, and it had a chicken soup with bigger noodles feel, but was otherwise not particularly chickeny. i would never normally buy or eat something like this at all. i do appreciate the free food. i ate it plain because i was hungry, but if i made it again i would put some cheese and nutritional yeast on it, to give it some value as food.

- i made chicken salad melts with a can of flaked chicken (like a can of tuna) and the last two pieces of brown bread from last month. again, i'd never buy this. i made the chicken salad with caesar dressing instead of mayo, nutritional yeast, paprika, frank's, fresh dill and pepper. the brown bread had some olive oil margarine spread on it, then the chicken salad, and then some monterrey jack. that went in the microwave for 44 seconds.

i had a bowl of chicken soup, separate, with frank's, yeast and old cheddar, melted. they didn't have any medium and the old was on sale, so i got the old thinking it would be fine for this cycle. it was ok melted in the soup like this, but it just reminded me why i buy the medium. the old is way too powerful for me, personally; i much prefer the medium. i can't use this old cheese in salads. i'll have to put it aside for soups and other cooking. that's ok. there's some broccoli soup coming, and it should use most of it.

i also had a margarined dinner roll with the chicken soup, so this was actually a pretty big meal, and i more or less passed out for the night when it was done. all of these items - the sidekick pasta, the canned chicken, the brown bread, the chicken soup, the dinner roll and even the canola margarine were food bank items, and the only thing in that list that i'd ever buy in a store is the brown bread. the other items - the caesar, the yeast, the paprika, the frank's, the dill, the pepper, the cheese, the olive oil margarine - were items i bought myself in the store to supplement, and they added the nutrition and the flavour to the basic food items provided. so you see how i'm doing this. as mentioned, i'm hoping that my adventures in food bank food preparation isn't too prolonged, but i'll make that choice on a month to month basis.

i am actually a fan of dinner rolls, even if i never buy them, but they don't last long and i realized that these ones were already starting to crust up, so i ate the rest of them up quickly this afternoon. four of them were peanut butter and jam dinner rolls (i also don't expect the pb to last too long) and the fifth was another monterrey jack melt in the microwave, the pb, jam and rolls were all donated, whereas i bought the cheese on sale the other day. the monterrey jack was a good idea, jessica, with all this extra donated bread. i've got two more loafs in there - the onion rye and a loaf of white bread. i actually would buy rye from time to time (i tend to get pumpernickel when i get it), but i never buy white bread. i appreciate the free food and will happily consume it. really. i just need to make sense of how. the onion rye will be good for sides of garlic bread with the salads this week, and i'll figure out where to go with the white after that. there's still pb & jam left. and apples. that's probably the answer.

i'm currently not very hungry so that might do me until i get the salads tonight, but if i do get something later then it will be round one of the mashed red potato poutine.

what i'm doing tonight is getting a basic grocery list done and starting to clean a little. once i get the basic pile of pantry item groceries in tomorrow, i will need to shift to a day/night split schedule that requires tending to my email, finishing updating my address everywhere and then getting to work on getting some legal stuff done during the day, and then working on cleaning in here and setting the apartment up. it's currently a giant pile of stuff scattered everywhere. first, i have to thoroughly clean all of the floors, then i can start putting item in place.

i think that public prayer can and should be banned in public spaces that are intended to be inclusive, as it's a breach of secularism. this wouldn't be a total ban. they would be allowed to pray in their church parking lot, for example, but not in public parks or other publicly owned areas, as the expression of religion in these publicly owned spaces excludes those that don't share those beliefs, and prevents them from using those spaces.

https://www.montrealgazette.com/opinion/columnists/article627929.html

it has explicitly been deemed unconstitutional by the supreme court to open a public assembly with a prayer in canada, but that ruling has been widely ignored, especially in rural areas.

https://www.bchumanist.ca/eight_alberta_municipalities_council_meetings_with_unconstitutional_prayers

this is a good idea.

we've had similar rulings in canada, and our parliament has also ignored them. canada's legal concept of secularism draws more from the french revolution than the american revolution (which we were literally on the opposite side of) and developed a lot later, mostly since the 1950s, and is consequently actually a lot more aggressive in it's separation wall, but our parliaments and city halls have tried to resist it.

https://ffrf.org/news/releases/ffrf-why-we-are-so-over-that-unconstitutional-day-of-prayer/

there should not be any prayer being done in the house at all, as it's a clear breach of the separation of church and state.

all prayer in any legislative assembly should be banned outright, and anybody seeking to pray in a public assembly in any way at all should be immediately expelled and permanently banned.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jun/06/us-house-prayer-republican-mary-miller

activist?

he was a wanted terrorist and a convicted murderer. he deserved to die.

the idea that canadian intelligence tied india to the killing is a lie that trudeau told the world, because he was butthurt about being snubbed about a trade deal. carney should actually come out and clarify that canadian intelligence did not tie india to the assassination, and the previous prime minister concocted a horrendous lie for political purposes, to appease a political constituency.

however, given that the canadian government has refused to cooperate in arresting these people, the indian government would be justified in acting within our borders, if it did, which it probably didn't. when a state refuses to abide by it's international obligations, it opens itself up to reprisals.

i would hope that canada is taking steps to correct and undo the damage that trudeau created with his dishonest politicized foreign policy decisions and his naive perception of sikh terrorism.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jun/06/canada-prime-minister-g7-invitation-modi

however, the bill to lift inter-provincial trade barriers is likely a mistake and should be slowed down, amended or blocked by the senate.

this is a change that will have winners and losers and is being rushed through without study and requires some sober second thought.

it is extremely important that canada maintain good relations with india. trudeau's butthurt response to not getting a trade deal with india was childish, immature and stupid. carney is right on this.

i also support the parliament sitting through the summer. these kids blew the semester; they should go to summer school to catch up.

almost all trade in and out of china goes through the malacca strait in indonesia. if india and the us could together blockade that narrow strait, the chinese would be fucked.

for that reason - and this isn't the only issue but it's currently the most important one - the chinese are trying to smash their way through myanmar to the indian ocean to build a port, much as the russians were trying to do in afghanistan during the great game. they face overt and covert opposition to this by british, american and indian forces operating in myanmar. british infiltration of myanmar is particularly profound and particularly deep; this is the most recent iteration of a conflict between the british and chinese that goes back to the 1700s, and predates the revolutionary war in the united states.

it's not well known that there were indian regiments in the british garrison during the american revolutionary war - that indian troops fought on the side of the british. this is in addition to the native american forces.

however, that isn't what the order is about. the order is about overstays. it is reasonable for the americans to send a strong message to countries that don't respect their international agreements. canada also has a serious overstay problem that needs to be addressed, but i wouldn't propose a total ban, as that is neither fair to those that do follow the rules, nor is it really in our self-interest.