yeah, there's some hair in there. let me get that out of there and see what happens...

ugh. i just spent the last several days trying to figure out what the factors were around certain tracks buzzing only on the laptop, to realize they buzzed out of the pc, now, too - because the buzz is coming from the headphones. autechre and htda and even asmz are also buzzing, albeit at different levels. it's definitely the phones.

these are my beloved phones that i've had since i was a kid and that i just replaced the cord on. and was very excited about having in working order again...

on the one hand, i seem to recall them buzzing like this in the past. yet, they weren't doing this recently up until this week. it sounds like i blew a speaker and i'm sort of blaming myself for it. i was really blaring them.

there's an off chance it could be dirty, but i'm not really sure what to do if the speaker is actually blown. that's twice, now, that i've run up against these headphones being out of order. but i don't have $800 to blow on a pair of phones that are comparable. i don't even have $300 to blow on a downgrade.

the only other pair i have to mix on are a pair of "noise-cancelling" phones that designed for ipods, and they're just too synthetic to get a useful signal from. they're just not useful for this purpose. unfortunately, my previous backups (aiwas) seem to have gotten damaged in the move.

i'm going to try and clean them and let them sit for the night and go from there. it seems bad, though...

even blaring them is...i blared them for years...

i'm wondering if the cord had too strong a signal for the speakers, a different impedance. these phones are 20+ years old, the cord is for newer models. i used the cord support told me to use, but that doesn't really say much..

there's a young lady in the neighbourhood that's been bumping into me repeatedly and coming up with excuses to try and start a conversation with me. nervous hands, giggly voice. obvious; annoying, really. unfortunately, anybody that is displaying any interest in any type of interaction that is less than completely random and spontaneous is going to instantly be put in my perpetual ignore filter. see, anybody that is going out of their way to try and get to know me better is making a gigantic mistake, the proportions of which they really have no grasp of. it demonstrates bad judgment. to begin with, my first assumption is cia, and that assumption isn't going to recede quickly. but, i'm ultimately not willing to waste my time when the conclusion is predetermined. it's better if others get the point quickly rather than waste their own time. that's just time i could have spent by myself, doing something i'm more interested in.

it got me thinking, though, as i was turning the corner a block early to avoid crossing paths. it's actually been almost 8 years, now, since i last had any kind of sexual activity. that's probably longer than most people in convents and monasteries (i don't really think most of them take those oaths all that seriously). practically speaking, i think i've revirginized myself.

i don't really think about it, or even really care. my level of cynicism about sex is probably clinical. like, in need of deep psychiatry - or so people would claim. whatever. the reality is probably that i'm absolutely right and the rest of the world is totally naive. i think i'm more likely to convince a shrink than the other way around. it's just a question of coming to terms with the futility of existence. maybe i'm being a little bit buddhist again; again, whatever.

but eight years is really impressive, considering it's just out of absolute disinterest rather than anything ideological or philosophical. i see no reason to think i won't go another eight...

jessica amber murray
this has been going on for a while now.

1) don't believe the conservatives when they question the validity of climate science. clearly, they're accepting it.
2) there's a big problem with the permafrost melting insofar as it will release absurd amounts of carbon. but if you follow their politics, they see that as beneficial - despite the global consequences.
3) it's not just the russians. the americans don't accept canadian claims over the region, either. any canadian-american alliance on the issue to reject russian claims is american pragmatism that is going to serve the interests of american capital in the long run.
4) the area actually legally belongs to the indigenous people of the region. for all chretien's faults, give him credit for explicitly taking that legally correct position.

http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=11170

a related issue that's going to develop is the question of letting ships pass through the region. there was a bit of a hullabaloo a few years ago when it was discovered that china was sending icebreakers to "explore" the region, completely ignoring canadian claims. in reality, canadian claims over the arctic don't seem to be regarded amongst other nations - again, that includes the americans. the conservatives have made a nationalistic show of the whole thing. but the americans and others see the "northwest passage" as international waters.

eventually, what's going to have to happen is something like this, that allows free passage of merchant ships and restricts military vessels. but our current government, at the least, is likely to fight against it pretty hard.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montreux_Convention_Regarding_the_Regime_of_the_Straits

dave
State claims over totally undeveloped areas of the world is ludicrious and usually abusive

The very best people who would have a claim over the region are the people who live there and have developed it, and that would be inuit peoples in some regions, and nobody in other regions

jessica amber murray 
i tend to agree with that. it seems to rarely be even contemplated inside of canada, but outside of canada the water is generally viewed as an international strait. our government is wrong to assert sovereignty, especially considering that almost the entire area is in the boundaries of nunavut.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/nunavut-irked-by-arctic-sovereignty-talk-1.881954

(of course, clinton was really pushing the american perspective of the area being an international waterway)