she's like the ice queen.

y'know?

i mean....this is why people don't like kathleen wynne.

she comes off as kind of machiavellian. calculating. inhuman, almost. and that seems to be allowing the propaganda to work.

they need to get out her hugging babies and cuddling cats and stuff.

what wynne is doing is actually more harperesque than trudeau-lite: it's micro-targetting, but in the form of very targetted social programs rather than in the form of boutique tax credits. and, the bulk of it actually seems kind of poorly thought out.

one hopes that wynne's goal is eventually universal drug coverage. and, even if the thing ends up overseen nationally, it is going to be administered provincially - this is a constitutional reality. so, a universal drug coverage bill would certainly mean universal coverage for seniors. but, we already have an income-tested system for seniors - meaning what wynne's bill does is give free coverage to people that have already been determined to be able to afford it. it is literally a bribe...

again: if the end goal is universal coverage, then this happens, one day. but, the way she's doing it is really kind of slimy.

one could say the same thing about socialized babysitting for people between 2.5 and 4. it's designed to appeal to young mothers, many of whom may have never voted before. tactical. cynical. kind of slimy.

but, i wouldn't vote against any of it, either.

i'm actually all about the status quo, this time around. i'd just like to keep things moving as they are.

so, i'd really like to hear an update on the plan to get organic waste out of landfills - which is due any day, now. and, some kind of report on the ubi would be interesting, too.

yeah.

what i'm going to do for this month is just level with her - put the facts down on the table and let them determine what way they want to go.

they have three options:

1) prosecuting the tenant below me for illegal behaviour. that is going to be expensive, and they may even lose the court case. but, she may leave on her own rather than fight. even so, what happens if another smoker moves in?
2) spend what will probably be thousands of dollars smoke-proofing this unit, after i force them to via court order. my attempts to smoke-proof the unit have not been successful.
3) just let me break the lease and leave. although i'm going to ask for financial compensation (in the form of moving costs), and it means re-opening a  vacancy, this is by far the cheapest option.

we can talk further in april.

i'm not doing this right now, but i'm going to have to search the case law for examples where second-hand smoke - and specifically second-hand marijuana smoke - is considered an "uninhabitable" situation.

A landlord is responsible for providing and maintaining a residential complex, including the rental units in it, in a good state of repair and fit for habitation and for complying with health, safety, housing and maintenance standards. 

i don't know if there is precedent around this, but i'm willing to make a novel argument - and push it to divisional court - if i have to.

a unit full of second-hand smoke should be considered unfit for habitation.

that said, i'm not going to get the police report for the 31st.

so, this isn't going to happen until april.

and i want to finish 2015, first.

what i'm going to have to do is give the landlord an ultimatum:

- take my smoke complaint seriously, and take steps to remove the tenant below me, or
- fight me in court, understanding that i'm trying to get out of the lease.

they're going to lose a tenant, either way. do they want to lose a law-abiding non-smoker that cares about respecting the building and the other tenants, or a disgusting, filthy ashtray of a person that doesn't care about anybody but herself?

i actually suspect they'll chose the smoker.

and, that's just confirmation that i need to get out.

this is the snoop-turing thesis.

my lease here is until december.

i'm starting to realize that i'm going to have to move if i want to maintain my mental health.

this place is going to drive me insane.

it's a shame; the problem isn't the building, it's the tenants. i like the location...

i'm going to have problems with smokers regardless of where i move, this is true. but i probably have the most disgusting person in the city below me. it's just constant - this person is chain-smoking 24/7. and, i have no serious legal options available to me to stand up for myself.

i don't want to be the person that dedicates my life to winning tenants rights for non-smokers. i have better things to do.

so, i'm going to file a smoke complaint with the intent of getting the board to cancel the lease and have the property manager pay my moving costs out. the landlord is really correct when she says that she can't do anything. but, that means that she should be liable to help me move, then.

if i file a smoke complaint, the landlord is required to make a good faith effort to address it. but, if she's telling me right off the bat that there is no solution to this, then that good faith effort should be interpreted as a way to help me move.

she should have told me that there were smokers in the building and that the place is uninhabitable for non-smokers.

i would request that people get the help that they need.

i just want people to leave me alone.

but, when does a childish crush become an unhealthy obsession?

no mentally healthy adult would behave like this.

fwiw, i was probably being kind in suggesting they're in their 30s.

they may very well be in their 40s.

these people are continuing to go out of their way to eject smoke into my apartment, and i'm just left with two conclusions:

1) it's hard to believe that they're so pathetic that they enjoy this, but it must be because they have some kind of incredibly immature crush on me. i believe it's well understood that marijuana leads to arrested development. but, this is grade school type behaviour. they're acting like a couple of little girls teasing the boy they like.
2) i need to be extra careful to ignore them, as they seem to be feeding on the lack of consent.

(as readers here know, i'm not actively attracted to women, and consider myself asexual.)

but, i kind of want to tell them to go smoke somebody that wants it; i figure they owe me $1000 in labour for cleaning up their constant stream of filth, but they could easily argue that they've paid it off in marijuana that i don't want....maybe i'll just lean over the window and breath the next time i do want to get baked...

i actually felt that how to destroy angels was...

she's a better front than him, for the style. my thought at the time was that if reznor is bent on being a pop star then this is a way better way to do it.

that said, i was also hoping that this pop outlet would help him focus on a more serious streak, and in a sense i guess it did - although it all came out in soundtrack work.

it's not his best work. but, i'll take the htda stuff over with teeth or the slip - absolutely.

but, you could make either argument (that it killed him & that it saved him) and be right.

so, how bad is the slip?

i don't think i listened to it all the way through, on release. it was that bad: i couldn't make it through it...

in hindsight, i understand that it wasn't meant for me. this is a record that was meant for people ten years younger than me, that had interacted with reznor in a completely different way and wanted something from him that was almost the diametric opposite of what i wanted from him.

it's a sort of a greatest hits record, in the sense that every track on the record recalls one of his hit tracks from previous years. you can call it a summary if you want; a retrospective. i actually think it's more of a rebranding - for that younger audience. these seem like replacements.

and, replacements for what? well, it's also very clearly a record that is designed primarily for a live audience.

i don't know how calculated it was, but it was probably thought through at some point: the purpose of the slip appears to have been to replace old songs in the setlist with new songs that are vaguely equivalent. the purpose of this was probably primarily lyrical. and, i'm not getting anything more or less out of it.

i kind of liked the old songs, though, and have never warmed to the record.

it's maybe not technically as bad as with teeth, but i tend to rank it at the very bottom of the list, anyways.