we can't even think of a word that rhymes.

well, how many times do i have to tell you?

the only legit Stupid Rock Music i remember enjoying snickering to was the alice cooper classic, school's out but wasn't that in the 70s?

and, i liked queen, generally, but that's different.

my uncle (also dead.) was cool enough to dub the duke suite onto one side of a 60 minute tape for me.

i'd have much, much rather listened to this than 'hot for teacher' or 'more than words' or something.

there's a reason i got so big into nine inch nails, and it's because it was a natural extension of what i grew up with.

my favourite records when i was very young were like songs from the big chair & strange animal & so & parts of invisible touch.

i guess i had a soft spot for bon jovi. briefly. but that's as deeply as i ever delved into hair metal.

it's not like he held to it as he aged, but it's his era, it's not my mine.

my dad had a hard time with grunge, which i guess is when he stopped caring much about popular rock music, but he liked the more commercial side of alternative rock. he was actually a big collective soul fan. blues traveller. yeah - fucking blues traveller. there was a repressed hippie in there somewhere...

my dad was born in the late 50s, so he spent most of the 80s in his 20s. and, while he may have preferred to listen to prog, it largely ceased to exist after about 1977 - which was about when he turned 20, and also about when hair metal started.

he liked technical music. for a while, hair metal was the closest thing to it that he could find.

he was constantly on the brink of bad taste. of the two of us, he would have been far more likely to enjoy a guns 'n' roses or even a metallica record, but he would have argued that metallica was too heavy for him (he didn't like the vocals, basically.) and he at least had the good sense to realize that axl rose was an idiot, even if he couldn't figure out that david lee roth was.

regarding 80s music in his collection, i ignored all that stuff and went straight for the gabriel & the waters & the tears for fears & the srv. when i was very young, it was mostly the synth pop i found to be compelling...and you can hear that in my early work. dramatically.

my dad liked extreme.

that's something we didn't agree on.

at all.

other example of absolute disagreement would include: rush, yes, dream theatre & van halen.

you'll notice a trend, if you look carefully.

i actually think that nuno bettencourt is an incredibly overrated guitarist, and that the band he's associated with is categorically terrible.

listen.

isn't it up to women to decide if they want to go to a crisis centre or an abortion clinic? why would you go to a christian help group if you want an abortion? and, if the implication is that these women can't figure it out, isn't that demeaning and paternalistic?

i just don't know how this even became a debate.

activists are better off using more hands-on methods to intervene in abusive situations than they are in getting the state to order religious groups to hand out pamphlets; the bigger issue is getting people away from abusive institutions in the first place.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/26/opinion/the-court-ruled-correctly-on-the-travel-ban.html

no, marijuana is not "a part of a balanced breakfast".

what does it mean for me to break even?

i signed a lease in 2013 for $650 all inclusive, and the place was perfectly sized. my income at the time was $1075, not including tax rebates. that's about 60% of income - relatively high, but i was happy.

today, my income is $1151. the equivalent percentage of my income works out to $695.95. i'm currently paying $700.

i understand that housing inflates slightly, but it should not be growing faster than inflation.

that said, i know i got a good deal - and i know i'll need to shop for a bit to find another deal that good.

i found one today, but she wants a student. sadly.

so, i got a very quick response on my request to reschedule: i used the wrong form.

well, i had previously made a request to move the hearing forward, called a "request to extend or shorten time" form. if the request to move a hearing up is a request to shorten time, a request to push the hearing back should be a request to extend time, right? that's rational, isn't it? so, i used the same form to request an extension that i did to request an expedited case. what makes more sense than that?

it turns out that there's a "request to reschedule hearings" form, but you only use the request to reschedule when you want to reschedule later on (that is, extend time); when you want to reschedule sooner, you request to shorten time. meaning, there's a different process to extend than there is to shorten - despite the form being to request to extend or to shorten.

it's less legalese and more bureaucracy.

worse, there's a caveat: i need to ask for consent to reschedule later.

now, i grasp the value of doing this, don't get me wrong, but the situation is really not consistent with itself. i can unilaterally schedule a hearing. i can unilaterally ask a hearing be held sooner - which is a reschedule request, isn't it? and, i can even unilaterally cancel a hearing by not showing up. but, if i want to reschedule a hearing, i need to ask for consent.

sort of.

i could always cancel the hearing by not showing up, and then reschedule it later by reapplying, right? and, that's what i think i'm going to do...sort of....

i need to write this down because the second-hand smoke is affecting my ability to think clearly, right now, against my will. it's the perfect example of why i need out: i'm trying to carefully work through the logic of planning a move out properly, and i can't focus because i'm forcibly second-hand stoned. i can't be trying to work out recursion relations right now, but how about that? it's surreal, it really is. i'm too stoned to be able to focus on planning to escape from the drugs. fuck.

so, the reason i wanted to file the extension is so i could withhold rent on the 1st. it's just about optics, right? if i withhold rent on the 1st and show up to a hearing on the 5th, they can throw that at me, and i look like a bum. yeah, i'm going to explain the situation and keep paying rent if i have to, but it's better if i just put it off. and, even if i'm still stuck here at a hearing date in october, i can point out that i've paid rent since then, and will until i can plan an escape. at the least, i'm escaping the situation of suing somebody for damages days after i've withheld rent.

but, if i have to ask for consent, the logic of tiptoeing around the situation evaporates.

i have a showing across the street from their rental office tomorrow, so i'm wondering if it makes sense to leave them a letter when i'm there. the letter would say something like "in pursuant to the previous letter..", and lay out a request for consent to reschedule. it's just that i'm wondering if i may catch something over the next few days when everybody else is distracted. the apartment tomorrow looks a little small, but it's cheap - so, if it's big enough, it's good enough, if there aren't smokers (let's be realistic: there probably are). she didn't know, on the phone. then, i caught a standalone house for $600, which would be completely fucking perfect, but the idiot landlord only wants to rent to students, which makes no financial sense on her behalf. odsp is the most stable income in the city. why would you rent to some kids that could move out in october after flunking their midterms when you can get a longterm tenant on odsp? that's just dumb. really, really dumb.

but, it demonstrates the point: i could get lucky. i mean, you can't predict stupidity, but an ideal option just appeared and disappeared in front of me, right? if i can sign something for august 1st in the next ten days, i want to appear at that hearing on the 5th...


the reason i filed today was because i wanted to make sure the board had a week to process it, but it seems like it's only going to need 24-48 hours, if that. in fact, the form specifies 48 hours. so, i could have waited anyways - and probably should have. i may have been saved from a mistake, there.

hey, i'm largely winging this. i've never done this before. that's why clear thinking is so important.

i think i want to lay the situation out clearly.

if consent to reschedule is not granted, i'm going to unilaterally cancel the hearing and refile the same case the day of the previous hearing. i'll have it ready to go and stop at the office on the way home. so, the choices are that we can reschedule the existing hearing or we can start the process a second time. why bother denying consent, then?

well, the answer to that is that they could file an eviction notice the next day - but, if they do that, i'll carry through with the hearing. and, it wouldn't necessitate the need for costs, anyways.

and, if i'm going to give them this letter, i'd might as well wait until the very last minute, which would be when i don't pay my rent, rather than tomorrow afternoon. it may be a nice idea to think i can trick them into giving consent and then not pay rent, but i don't think i have the timelines - and i don't think that wrath is worth generating. i'm still a little apprehensive about an illegal eviction attempt.

but, what if i withhold rent on july 1st, and move august 1st? if i do that, i'll have at least $1200 for moving costs. i'll be broke, but at least i'll have a receipt to take to the court.

the flip side is that if i win money for a new couch & bed then i won't bother to move the ones i have, which would save me a lot on moving costs. i may even be able to try and sell them.

so, i don't want to give them anything until saturday.

and i'm not sure yet exactly what that should be.

it's either going to be a statement that i'm moving on august 1st, or it's going to be an attempt to strong-arm a rescheduling or it's going to be a statement that i've changed my mind and am ready to go for the fifth, in which case the judge will almost certainly reschedule.

yeah.

i'm glad that didn't work...that was a little premature...

i don't actually have to technically file until the 3rd.

now, here's an interesting grey area - what if i get consent to reschedule and change my mind before i file?

i want to specify that i'm not really acting in a shady manner, here. i'm trying to get out as soon as possible, and i'm going to eventually sue them for costs. these things are certain. and, so, to an extent, i'm acting in their interests, as well. what's less clear is timelines. and what i'm trying to avoid is a situation where i move before i'm ready, and just have to do it again.

i guess what i wanted to figure out is if i should make the request for consent tomorrow afternoon, and the answer is that i shouldn't. and, i shouldn't have tried to file today, either - that was premature on my behalf.

legal historians will look back on this and criticize the opposition for politicizing the argument.

it was never a muslim ban, and the idea that it was was playing politics with something that should have been opposed more strenuously. and, i'll flip this around: the reason i couldn't support it was because it wasn't a muslim ban. i'd be perfectly ok with telling radical muslims from specific unstable reasons that they're not allowed in the country. the problem with the legislation is that it also extends to atheists, jews, christians and others that may be trying to flee muslim extremism, in countries were apostasy can be a death sentence.

the opposition should have accepted the administration's argument at face value, and challenged whether it's likely to be effective. but, while that may have been a better legal argument, it would have been a much weaker political one. so, it would have led to less coverage and less fundraising and less rallying - or at least it would within a certain segment of the population that notably does not include independents or swing voters.

this outcome of playing politics with a serious legal question is pretty much a catastrophe. they lost the case - which means all these non-muslims are going to be stuck in these muslim countries, now, and face persecution for their (non)-beliefs, there. moderate & atheistic university students, many of them women, are going to be sent to rot in the fucking madrassas. on top of that, the administration is going to effectively skew the opposition as a bunch of backwards muslim-huggers, and that's a bad narrative for the voters that democrats need to win to hold seats. so, they're going to lose the political battle, along with the legal one.

to an extent, they walked right into his trap by allowing him to control the narrative. they should have challenged the premise. and - like stephen harper - this victory is not a function of the despot's brilliance, but of the opposition's weakness.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/us-supreme-court-ruling-trump-travel-1.4722234

in fact, there were periodic celtic uprisings in western europe right up until the collapse, when celtic identity largely disappeared in the german onslaught.

for all the romanticization that occurs in humanities departments, western europe always saw the romans as invaders, and never really adopted a roman identity.

so, i'm watching democracy now and they have an irish correspondent on and i'm thinking to myself geez, does he ever look french.

which is not surprising, if you know the history. but, let's walk that back just a tad.

the french are named after the franks, of course. of course? well, where did the franks come from?

what year did the franks invade the roman empire? what river did they cross to do it?

so, this would suggest that the area now known as france was in the roman empire before it was called france. what was it called, then?

who made it a province in the empire? what year?

and, so who were the people that lived in france before the romans conquered it? what language did they speak?