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