yes, as others have pointed out, legalizing marijuana would make it more difficult for kids to get it, not easier. i was fifteen once. want beer? that's hard - you've gotta convince somebody to buy it for you, or you need to steal it from somebody's fridge. want pot? that's easy, you just need to find $10 and not be hopelessly socially ostracized.

but, here's the thing: he's not actually going to do this. the liberal party has been promising this for years. it's like national daycare - it's a populist campaign ploy. the whole campaign on the left and govern on the right thing. if they actually do it, they'll lose that voting demographic. and that says nothing of drug war pressure from the united states.

these ads may be popular amongst the base, and may help raise money. but this is not a smart strategy from the conservatives given that it's essentially a non-issue. seen a poll on this? support for marijuana legalization in canada is nearly as popular as cats are on the internet. and, when you start talking about people under 50 it's almost universally agreed upon. it's just making them look like a bunch of old, out of touch fuddle duddles.

let's be honest...

if pet were alive, he'd be using exactly the same tactics as harper: he'd be pointing out that his son is intellectually unfit to run the country, calling him an empty suit and a bleeding heart and mercilessly making fun of his hair.

as much as i'd like to see a change in government in this country, the reason he'd be doing that is because it's true.

the liberal party has fallen a long way over the last twenty years. i'm not going to write another retrospective or post another eulogy. but there was a long period of time where, even if you didn't agree with them on every issue, you could count on them to run somebody with a head on their shoulders that wouldn't do anything stupid. those days seem to be over.

what i will say is this: there is no longer a default choice. if they get back in, it's not going to be another dynasty. and there's no clear answer as to how we can get back to that sort of passive comfort level of at least being pretty sure there's an option that's at least not going to fuck anything up.

it's a trick question. all eastern coyotes are coyote-wolf hybrids. there are not any pure coyotes in this region. if you see something that looks like a coyote, be aware that it is certainly part wolf.

their primary diet consists of feral cats, which are more along the size of an animal that is at serious risk. that includes small dogs. however, they will eat your labs if you give them the chance. you should keep them on a leash.

they seem to be all over the city at this point. i'm right in the middle of downtown, and just walked outside and saw tracks across my front lawn that seem intermediate in size between a wolf and a lab. my neighbour feeds the stray cats; i suspect there'll be at least one missing in the morning.

you need to be careful with these think tankers, as they're all working for somebody.

the sunni/shia thing is a tool to promote various conflicts, rather than the point of the conflict itself. well, there may be some legit nutbars in saudi arabia. but it's a secondary concern. it's not hard to guess what it's actually about. it starts with an 'o' and rhymes with "coil".

take a step back. the meta conflict remains the cold war. the intelligentsia has wanted to move on for years, but it's a lot of delusional neo-liberalism. history didn't end. it didn't even shift. same shit carried on without a blip. it's just that the americans got a step up on the game. what's been happening since 1990 is that russian influence has been waning, and the chinese haven't been able or willing to step in, which created a power vacuum. the various proxy wars are the result of local interests stepping into this power vacuum and jockeying for control.

so, you've got this saudi arabia v iran thing. but this is not the dominant conflict. the saudis are armed to their teeth with billions of dollars of us arms. the iranians know better than to poke them. it's a conflict that's over before it starts. even the israeli intelligence people have come out and stated that iran is unable to pose any kind of a military threat to anybody in the region.

rather, the dominant proxy war happening right now is between turkey and saudi arabia. unlike the iranians, the turks are serious players and pose a serious threat to saudi ambitions in the region. europe's continual refusal to allow turkey in (and if i were turkey, i wouldn't even want in at this point) has forced them to focus to their south. syria. iraq. egypt. all this instability is the result of turkish aligned groups fighting with saudi-aligned groups to walk into the vacuum created by the assumed inevitable russian pullout (which is in fact not inevitable, and not happening).

meanwhile, america is doing what the british have been doing for centuries, which is keeping everybody at each other's throats and profiting off the conflict from all sides.

i mean, what's been driving this mess in syria is the question of which american ally is going to take over when the russian-backed assad regime falls - the saudis or the turks. but, in fact, it seems as though the russians are going to maintain control of the region, even if it means that all that's left of it is a pile of rubble.

and the saudis and turks are reduced to bickering amongst themselves on the iraq/syria border, while the kurds are all like "hey, wait a minute here..." and the population is increasingly siding with iran as a stabilizing force.

well, i've got all my documents in order. tomorrow morning at 11:00 am. at least it'll be nice out....

i'm going to have to bring up the ms thing. i don't know if there's some kind of test for it. it may be the best way to do this. i mean, i can handle some muscle spasms and stuff but i've recently been getting the classic difficulty swallowing, and i think i'm really better off getting it diagnosed. if i can get them to take me seriously...

it's an mri...

detroit has a serious wild dog problem, but i'm not aware of one here and getting across the river would be rather difficult.

City of Windsor naturalist Paul Pratt said he hears reports of coyote sightings from everywhere in the city, even downtown. Coyotes took down a deer in the woodlot behind his LaSalle house about a month ago.

They’re mostly nocturnal and largely go unnoticed, Pratt said.

“If you have small dogs or cats, you shouldn’t let them out at night unattended, even if you’re in a built-up area.”

He said there are more coyotes in Windsor now because there’s more wildlife in Windsor – skunks, feral cats, groundhogs, possums and deer.

“There’s all this wildlife, something’s got to eat them,” said Pratt. “We have coyotes.”

i'm pretty sure i've heard them rustling around where i can't see them. with all the cats and the skunks around, it seemed like a matter of time. but it took the snow to reveal them: very clear canid tracks coming up across the front lawn, right to the door and across the other way. right where the cat that's been following me around sits, actually. relatively large, at that - if these are coyote tracks, it's a big coyote. may be one of those coywolves...

i suspect that may be the last i'll see of that cat.

it's said they're around, and you'll rarely see them. they know they can't really take you down. but there's kids around here. and it's enough to be a little bit more cautious about going out at night.

i haven't set up my new blog yet, and i have my meeting on monday. this post will eventually self-destruct. but, for now i'm going to post on the results of my meeting in the comments of this post. i suppose if there's no posts here by tuesday, that's bad news.

existence (vst mix) (for thru)

this was a piece i wrote up in the fall of 2001. i can't remember exactly what the root of it was, but it had something to do with a voice-leading assignment for what was the equivalent of a course in music theory 101. the root of the piece may consequently come from what was presented to me. i can't recall exactly - but i believe the assignment was to build the different voices up.

my negative relationship with music theory is stated throughout this page and was well established well before the end of 2001. i had an interest in the music theory course for the purposes of deconstructing the theory - in the context of writing, specifically, and not performing. i actually have one of those classic stories - i failed this course. it is actually the only course i have ever legitimately received an F in. hey, if einstein can fail math, i can fail music theory.

the story actually revolves around sight-reading aspect of the course, and specifically it's vocal content. there were three aspects of the course (theory, vocal sight-reading and african drumming which i'm thinking was meant to be a rhythmic component but was really just a ridiculous waste of time). i really wish they would have let me sight read on a guitar, or even a piano, because i'm just simply not a talented singer; i've never had aspirations to become one, and i had a lot of problems controlling my vocals. even with that being said, the reality is that i had a very low level of _interest_ in this. i probably could have passed the course if i spent less time on abstract algebra and more time singing in the mirror, but i just couldn't be bothered...

i really disapprove of the way the course was designed. i was interested in learning about music theory, and needed the course as a pre-req for more advanced courses, which i never ended up taking. i still don't fully understand why i had to pass a singing exam to take further composition courses. the best answer i got was that the school didn't want graduates who couldn't pass a singing exam, but i was at no point enrolled in a b. music so it's a pretty weak response.

anyways, this was a voice-leading assignment that i perverted into something mildly atonal and then built up into something else. you can hear it if you listen, except that it's all "wrong". i'd have to sit down and analyze it to come to a more detailed exposition on it's "wrongness", and i'm not going to, but it's not hard to hear how "wrong" it is, either.

i was clearly listening to a lot of glass at the time, but this goes beyond his medievalism. i'm using so many "wrong" notes that it's ultimately just chromatic - although there's no tone rows or anything that's formally serialist about it. it's not meant to abolish the structure so much as it's meant to just flaunt the rules. that gives it an almost satanic feel, in the context of a vocal piece using "forbidden" intervals.

but, looking back, i think that what the piece really explores is existential anguish. i was in the second year of a math degree (after switching from physics after switching from software engineering) and really had little idea where i was going with it. i was considering switching into music and probably would have had i not failed the singing exam. the thing is i actually knew i was going to fail the course at that point, and was just feeling lost as a result of it. i ended up in math as this sort of default choice, vaguely thinking i might end up teaching somewhere but not having any real interest in it...

so much choice, so few options. i suppose that this is how i expressed what i was feeling about this reality at the time.

i can't remember the exact way this happened, but i believe the piece was initially written for voice (as a voice-leading assignment) and then expanded into further voices and then converted into a composition for nine instruments. i've picked halloween as the date, but that's symbolic - it was around then, anyway. it would have been around december that it was put aside, because i don't remember working on it after i moved.

this version was created in october, 2014 by mixing three separate vst mixes together: the choir mix, a string orchestra mix and an arranged mix.

written in the fall of 2001. rendered, remastered and remixed in late september and early october, 2014. this render is from october 3, 2014.

http://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/existence-4

the walk (vst mix)

this was written as the introductory walk scene to the first rabit is wolf single; this vst version is exclusive to this collection..

written late 2001; re-rendered through vst on jan 10, 2015.

http://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/the-walk-2