so, let's say you're a relatively well built young man of some renown and you're at a music festival on your leisure time.

and, let's say that there's a reporter there. you think she's working for a community paper.

you're trying to have a good time, but she keeps sticking a microphone in your face and asking you questions. so, you literally pick her up by her waist, throw her over your shoulder and transport her away from you, where she can't bother you.

it turns out she's a national reporter, and writes a scathing column, accusing you of "groping" and "inappropriately handling" her. so, you apologize, without really meaning it. and everybody moves on.

is that a terrible thing? why not just be clear about it?

i'm not saying that's exactly what happened. i'm saying that that's what i'm imagining happened - and that i'm not sure what else "inappropriately handled" could mean, if not "physically redirected away from bothering him".

i guess we'll all have to use our imaginations until some facts are released.

the important part of the equation is not whether a young dauphin made an advance at a music festival. most canadians will allow for this behaviour.

the important part of the equation is whether the dauphin stopped when it was made clear that the advance was unwanted. most canadians agree that no means no.

i don't think most people want to live in a society where we need to draw up a contract before you try and hold somebody's hand, or give somebody a kiss - and that means people are going to get it wrong sometimes. i don't think that most people believe that people should lose their lives over getting it wrong, when they do.

and, it should be liberals making these arguments.

see, this is why i think he needs to come out and give a full account of the events - because it doesn't necessarily have to be binary, and it is in fact possible that he simultaneously "groped" her and doesn't feel it was inappropriate.

like everybody else, i have no information, and am left to fill in the blanks. it's that process of filling in the blanks that is so potentially deadly, as everybody is going to imagine it their own way. and, trust me: most women won't imagine something benign.

he really needs to take control of a narrative...

the way i've imagined it from the scant information i've seen suggests that he grabbed a reporter and pushed her out of the way. and, there are certainly contexts - a day at a festival being one of them - where i would think that kind of behaviour is permissible, while others would think of it as outrageous. the reason is that i'm not a puritan: i don't forbid all not-explicitly-consented-to contact between the sexes a priori, or even ban all sexual advances offhand. there's a tremendous grey area here that we need to re-establish if we want to continue living in a secular, liberal society. i want to hear liberals stand up for that grey area...

which isn't to say that i think this is what happened. as mentioned, it seems to me that what happened was that trudeau didn't want to be interviewed right then and there. but, i'm not going to stand up and denounce all not-explicitly-consented-to-in-advance activities, either, because i don't want to live in that kind of a society.

and, i frankly think that most people don't, either - that trudeau has a lot of potential for forgiveness and sympathy, if he'd just be fucking honest about it, and not make it seem like he's trying to hide something.

https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/andrew-coyne-did-he-or-didnt-he-trudeau-needs-to-start-making-sense

fwiw, she is of course still smoking inside.

my lease is cut. i will determine whether i am going to file a human rights complaint or not depending on the ruling i get. documentation, moving forward, is not particularly worthwhile.

what i'll say is this: the situation is not different than it was previously, and there is no reason to think it will change, moving forwards, unless the property managers react to the settlement by attempting to evict her. so, the assumption should be that i'll be dealing with this pretty much constantly until i leave, unless i state otherwise.

there's this idea of connecting birth to water, but it's probably fairly recent.

if you really want to be a hippie, you should probably give birth in a tree.

is it not the case that most quad-peds are able to stand up almost immediately at birth?

maybe the truth is that our ancestors retreated to the canopy upon pregnancy, and spent much of the gestation process, including birth,up there. perhaps that is the reason that our babies crawl for the first months of their lives...

i'm left to wonder if allowing young children the opportunity to climb, rather than crawl, may have some psychological benefits.

https://www.ctvnews.ca/sci-tech/study-shows-ancient-ancestors-climbed-trees-also-walked-on-two-legs-1.4001441

i didn't really sleep this week, as i had a lot of video editing and journal compiling to do. i tried to get up around midnight, but i really actually mostly just slept for the last 12+ hours - a needed and very much wanted sleep. i'm up now and ready to start a new day...

the temperature fell sharply over night and it's actually quite nice, right now. i like the heat & humidity, but i was developing a mild rash from exposure to it and did need a bit of a break from it. it's actually going to be a bit cold this weekend, and balance out to "seasonal" again for next week.

today, i need to look at listings. tonight, i'm going to clean a little. i'm going to have more flexibility this month, at least until the ruling comes in the mail, but the basic situation hasn't changed - i still need to save money to plan for the move.

the lease is done on sept 30th, so i need to be out by october 1st at the latest. i'm confident that i can do this, and that it should prevent me from needing to compromise too badly - i think this should be enough time to get what i want.

i think my arguments went over well, but it's not clear what kind of damages i'm going to get. i think i probably got moving costs, or some abstraction of it. i'm not going to get cleaning costs, but i might get an abstraction of it in pro-ration. i don't expect costs for furniture or dry-cleaning - and knew that would be almost impossible to get. that was meant almost solely as leverage for mediation; i didn't actually intend to go to trial.

the big wildcard is that pro-ration. if i'm here for ten months, that's $7000 paid in rent. i asked the court to determine a percentage, because i claimed i couldn't quantify that kind of hardship - but what i was really worried about was lowballing myself. i would have asked for something in the 10%-25% range. but, i know this judge is very sympathetic to non-smokers. if i asked for 60% and that was too much, she could have kibboshed it; if i asked for 25%, i could have been missing out on an opportunity for 40%. so, i instead left it at the court's discretion to determine a percentage - under the expectation that such a percentage is going to be higher than any guess i could have made. it's a sneaky algorithm to optimize my return. 30% is over $2000; 10% is a month's worth of rent. but, it relies on the judge not seeing through my ruse - or at least being sympathetic to it. i mean, i volunteer that it's manipulative, sure, but it's not so terrible, is it? is the judge not best qualified to figure this out? am i not putting myself at a threat of lowballing myself by presenting a percentage, or harming myself by appearing too greedy?

we'll know in a few weeks.

for now, i'm glad that there's some certainty about things...and eager to get things back in order.

the time spent preparing was not wasted: i've now sorted through vlog data from most of the last six months, which i needed to do anyways. i should be back to rebuilding from 2014 on within 24 hours.

last update for the smoke journal: she seems to have mostly smoked outside over the last two or three days, but she’s back at it on the 4th of july like the self-centred american that she is.  it nearly knocked me out this morning, but i was able to overpower it with willpower. can’t be sleeping right now...need to get this in order....

so, what have i been doing?

this is the list for the court case on thursday:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3JSjmqp0cbvN7RpHG7gw52ARfWLhWtQd

i'm actually intending on playing this in court on thursday. or, some of it, anyways. it will start publishing, slowly, at midnight. i'll bring speakers with me.

i'm expecting to work this out in mediation - just give me moving costs plus something else -  but if it goes to trial it's going to be a long process. i essentially have to demonstrate how terrible my tenancy here has been, which means dragging the court through hours of painful vlogging.

it's not totally done, yet, but i'm going to have to stop at 2:00. i'll also need to print the journal tomorrow, which means i'll have to have it ready to print for the morning, along with whatever else

i'm going to set up a livestream for the front door in here on thursday, streaming to a site somewhere. and, i'll make sure to send anybody involved in any illegal evictions to jail, if necessary. i have no patience for that kind of idiocy.

the most important thing to me is my data, and i'll bring it with me. i have everything on video; i might be better off with a $50,000 settlement that i can use to rebuild. well, don't illegally evict people, then.

some stuff is starting to come up for august, but i've already run into the expected mindset on the phone: "that's not for more than three weeks.". this place is bonkers. but, i'll start looking much more seriously on friday.

given that i won't get a response until the end of next week, i wouldn't expect the court to issue an eviction date for august 1st. september 1st is most likely. but, the truth is that i won't know if i need to compromise or not until the last minute - which is just typical of how this place operates. you really wouldn't expect anything else.

i have found some acceptable spots, they just didn't work for a number of reasons - i didn't have the deposit available, i wasn't a student & an apparent relisting under a higher price with a company i'm boycotting for using illegal screening practices.

i'm due for some good luck.

i'll be quiet here until thursday, i'm sure.

i do not and never have used twitter; i do not have an active twitter account.

i don't have an instagram account or a snapchat account, either. and i don't use facebook in any substantive way.

i'm 37 years old.

i graduated from university in 2006. i essentially finished a second degree in 2010. and, i dropped out of a third one in 2013.

i have not been in a classroom since, and have no intention of going back to one. nor would there be any purpose in sending me back to school at this age, and with this mindset. i've completely lost interest in formal education.

i'm not a "student". and i don't seek student accommodations.

i'm an adult on disability, and i will be  an adult on disability for the rest of my life. what i seek are accommodations that are appropriate for the circumstances - accommodations for a mentally ill adult that is permanently incapable of labour and requires that their needs be met by the state.

so, it seems like everybody's gone today, and it's giving me a taste of what this place could be like.

i've got the sun beaming in through huge bay windows, a nice breeze coming through and a couple of large trees outside the window, overlooking a yard with kids and dogs.

no smokers.

no potheads.

no bbqs.

no bad music - no music at all.

no drunks.

no idiots.

just something rather peaceful, and something rather clean, and something rather healthy.

the weather is quite beautiful today.

i'm sure the fuckers will be back in their usual places within a few hours, and immediately commence ruining everything. but, this reprieve is demonstrating how disappointing the scenario really is - and how wonderful it could actually be.

friendship and love are both impossible abstractions in a capitalist economy.

what we call "friendship" under capitalism is a process of mutual exploitation.

as such, "friends" are merely people that have yet to stab you in the back.

i also want to find a clean & healthy place to live that is big enough for me to finish my discography in, and don't think my choice of messaging hardware or software is an intelligent screening mechanism for a large corporation to use.

but, it's been a long time since i've been shocked or surprised by the ubiquity of human stupidity.

i've tried very hard to construct a media footprint that is directed at outcasts and loners and introverts and nerds, and i've gone to the point of destroying accounts when i've generated more typical followers, which i've never wanted.

i want to be a hero for nerds and losers. i want to be despised by the mainstream. i want an over 40 audience that thinks young people are insane. i want to be out of touch.

sorry.

but, i mean...

i've been trying to explain to you that i'm a loser for years - that i'm a nerd, a musician, a loner, a bookworm. that i'm fucking proud of being a loser, and that i wouldn't have it any other way.

then, you're surprised and shocked when you realize i was right the whole time?

the confusing and shocking thing is that you didn't just believe me in the fucking first place. and, you have no basis for any negative reaction to what was right in front of you the whole time.

and, i'm sorry but "sexting" is the most pathetically stupid thing that humans have ever lowered themselves to engage in.

it's about as cool as usenet porn.

i'm the kind of person that signed myself into icq and msn as "away", and disabled chatting over facebook.

but, see, this is why i don't pay for phone service: if i had a phone connected to an sms server, i would either disable the feature or turn the phone off. i legitimately do not see the use-value of owning a phone when you can have a laptop; but, i actively do not want to be texted at. so, why pay for something i don't want?

but, like, don't think i'm missing out on something. i don't have the slightest interest. sorry. if i did, i'd figure it out. i'm sure there's some way to text via browser. i mean, you can basically do that over facebook, right? but, i've disabled it. because i don't want to be annoyed by it...

i'm a cusp baby, but i'm very gen x in this sense, where a lot of people older than me aren't: i don't want to be constantly connected to the people around me. i want privacy. i want to disconnect; i remember when you had to dial in, i remember when you could disconnect. i would actually find the premise of being awoken by a text message to be deeply invasive. so, interpret this as a generation gap, because that's what it actually is.

if i had a partner trying to contact me by phone, i'm the type that would tell them i'm busy and turn my phone off. and then probably no longer have that partner - but not be upset, because i don't want somebody bothering me every ten minutes when i'm trying to fucking read.

i've made myself difficult to contact in real time precisely because i don't want to be contacted in real time. i want to make a plan ahead of time. and, when i don't want to be disturbed, i really mean it.

in actuality, and i want you to think about this carefully, the truth is that if you were a member of the orthodox church - greek, russian....syrian..... - you would not just interpret russian hegemony over the middle east as acceptable, but would actually see it as quite proper.

remember: the russians are the last successor state of the roman empire that is still truly left standing.

so, i crashed around 2:00, meaning yesterday was about 20 hours - far too short, for this time of year.

i should be enjoying nice, long 36 hour days in this kind of heat. and i shouldn't be sleeping for ridiculously long lengths like 7 hours - i should be wide awake after three or four.

the stench of pot was weaker than usual but steady last night. even after seven hours of sleep, i'm not 100%, right now.

as mentioned: i'm not partying this weekend. i don't feel like there's much to celebrate, right now. that might let me steal something when everybody else is too stoned to notice.

that gets me through january 2014.

i think i can get through the summer by sunrise. honestly.

right now, it's time to eat, again.

the idea would be that the merovingians were probably late central european romanised celts that ended up at the top of what was a multi-ethnic confederacy, and that any identification with belgian groups would be reconstructive.

http://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2014_01_29_archive.html

marijuana is not a medicine, and it is not used to treat symptoms, whatever those symptoms are.

rather, it's a recreational drug that is used in social situations in order to have a good time with.

i'm just not feeling up to going out this weekend at all. i've actually been over this before, but i guess i get the opportunity to demonstrate it, now.

a lot of people would say something like "you're having a shitty weekend, so, relax and smoke a joint - it will make you feel better.". no. if i go out for beers on saturday, or i find drugs this weekend more generally, it's just going to make me more depressed. it's not going to make me feel better. i know that.

drugs can work alright with stress, sometimes. but, that's different. that's "i'm feeling like i need to take a load off and forget about things for a few hours". fine. it usually works best with music or dancing - it's a process of getting away.

but, when i'm actually angry or frustrated or upset about something, drugs are just going to make the situation worse, and the absolute last thing i want.

what i want right now is cold sobriety and absolute social avoidance. i'll go out and have fun again when i feel more like myself.

i seem to have been right about the hydro, though.

i mean, you might imagine that if only i was in a house with othe people like me i would...

no.

i'd lock myself in my room all the time.

i don't like people. at all. sorry.

there are some people that are well-behaved, and there are some people that are rebellious.

then, there's people like me that can't figure out which is which.

what i really need is an apartment in a controlled space.

i would be a strong candidate for an asylum.

i've failed the government's behavioural test three times, and i have no idea why i failed or what the right answer are.

"well, you worked in the past"

yeah.

and out of the thirty jobs i've held, i've been fired from or quit 25 of them, mostly after less than a month.

why? because i can't get along with anybody.

there are two reasons i can't move into a rooming house.

the first is that i cannot fit my gear into a rooming house. you might tell me to sell  my gear; well, fuck you. but, i'll even give you that - suppose i didn't have any gear...

suppose i could actually fit all my things into a room.

the more important reason that i can't move into a rooming house is that i have social anxiety disorder. that means that simple conflicts that most people can easily deal with are giant problems for me. i am simply incapable of dealing with people on the level of living with them.

i would not want to spend time with the people in a rooming house - i would be in a conflict with the whole house within hours.

that is the same reason i can't work - i can't get along with anyone. i'm never going to get along with anyone. i don't even want to get along with people...i want a safe, private space where i don't have to deal with anybody.

and the fact is that i'm going to keep looking until i can find one - and make everybody else suffer the consequences of slowing me down.

Notice to Appear in Court on July 5^th, After All

On the morning of June 8^th, 2018, I called Ina to explain that the results of the previous election had thrust me into a state of deep financial uncertainty, and I would be unable to continue with plans to move out of this unhealthy space until some certainty was restored around my income. I indicated that I would have a letter ready on the morning of the 11^th.

Due to the debilitating effects of massive second-hand marijuana smoke from the tenant downstairs, which is generally intolerable from ~5:00 am until ~noon, I was unable to get out of bed to print this document on the morning of the 11^th. When Ina knocked on my door around 10:00, I had been knocked out cold from a haze of second-hand smoke all morning. However, I was able to finally sober up enough to get out of bed and print the letter a little after 11:00. I gave the letter to Ina a little later that afternoon.

In that letter, I explained the necessity of waiting for a response from the government before further action could be taken, and that I would not be seeking to follow through with the open hearing.

However, since then, the situation has only become less tolerable; I cannot stay here any longer than I must. The constant drug abuse happening downstairs is making me constantly lethargic. I’m drinking coffee like water, and still suffering through short days - sleeping 15 hours at a time, and dragging myself with difficulty through what limited consciousness I can muster.

My art projects are suffering dramatically, because I can’t stay awake to work on them.

My letter was sincere, but it was not technically a legal document. The hearing has remained open the whole time, and I have decided as of this week that I will be presenting my case in full, as initially intended, after all.

The adjudicator will need to determine an end date for the lease, along with any damages due to negligence that I am entitled to. I do not currently have any firm plans to move on August 1^st, but I will be actively exploring the market over the next few days. Given the circumstance of needing to find a smoke-free place to live, or repeat this process a third time, I plan to ask her to allow for a month-to-month tenancy until I am able to plan a move.

I will be presenting video evidence at the trial.  This evidence will be presented to you on the dayof the hearting, but will also be available at the following url, no earlier than july 4^th at midnight, and no later than july 4^th at noon: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3JSjmqp0cbvN7RpHG7gw52ARfWLhWtQd

The description of that youtube playlist will also contain a link to a detailed written journal, at some point on july 4th.

dated: june 29^th, 2018

printed: june 29^th, 2018.

tenant: jason parent

Statement Explaining the Decision to Take Back My Rent Deposit For July

I will remind you that you asked me to leave the unit by June 27^th and threatened court action over it, so you have no grounds to ask for notice when I do leave. As far as I am concerned, this tenancy is irreparably broken, and it is in the interests of both parties to have me vacate the unit as soon as is possible.

The remaining questions revolve around what the definition of “possible” is.

I will be using my last month’s rent for July of 2018, but this is not a notice of evacuation - I am explicitly not committing to an evacuation date of August 1^st, and am explicitly suggesting that there is a reasonably high possibility I may be here past August 1^st. However, I am committing to the hope that i can find a way out of this mess by August 1^st, and you should consequently interpret me taking this unilateral action as a statement of good faith to end this tenancy as quickly as possible.

While I had indicated previously that the election has created great uncertainty around my income, I do not believe that I can tolerate the smoke long enough to wait for an official government response. I have to take this gamble; I need out, it’s just intolerable. Another victory for casino capitalism, I guess. Please see the second letter for a more detailed explanation of this change of plans.

I do not have a history of missing rent payments, and this is not a reaction to financial hardship on my behalf - as of the morning of June 30^th, there’s over $1800 in my account, which is more than enough to pay $700 of rent on July 1^st. I’m suing you because I don’t like living through the consequences of my neighbours’ drug abuse; I don’t have a drug or alcohol problem. I quit smoking cigarettes habitually 2.5 years ago. I don’t have a gambling problem. Further, I do not want to harm my already somewhat shaky credit rating (due to a large defaulted student loan), and have every intent to continue to pay rent month-month for as long as it takes to end my tenancy.

The problem is not that i’m an irresponsible tenant, but that i’m too responsible of a tenant to live in this building.

The reasons that I’m taking back my last month’s rent are twofold:

1) The market in windsor is currently being driven by immediate vacancy. I can only speculate as to the reasons underlying this. Perhaps people are abandoning units at high rates; perhaps people are being evicted at high rates. Perhaps landlords are just being lazy. Or, perhaps, the market is currently overvalued. There were still units for July 1^st coming up on the morning of June 27^th. What I can state with certainty is that I lost several opportunities to move out on July 1^st because I was not able to secure a commitment from Ina that I would receive my deposit back upon request. I need to have this deposit at my immediate disposal in order to maximize my chances of signing a lease for august 1^st on short notice. It’s just a realistic reaction to market conditions - and, as mentioned, you should actually take it as an act of good faith.

2) Ina has indicated that she will not be co-operating with me further. I have no choice but to act unilaterally in the face of non-cooperation by the landlord (in contravention of the tenancy act, fwiw).

I understand that I am breaking the rules, here. But, it is in reaction to your own decision to break the rules, and in reaction to a general disinterest in this city to follow the rules. By continuing to follow this rule, I would be placing myself at a disadvantage on the market - and extending this nightmare for everybody involved. I will remind you that only the board can evict a tenant, and acknowledge you are in your rights to seek legal action to this end. But, I will likewise promise you  prompt payment of rent on the first of the month for as long as I remain stuck here past august 1^st - and question what the value of action on your behalf would actually be.

Also note that last month’s rent deposit is not intended to be held for possible damages to the unit. That said, note that I will not be seeking my $25 deposit back - and that I don’t believe that damages to the unit (which should be little more than a paint job) should substantively exceed that amount.

This is an absurd situation for everybody, but you need to take a large amount of responsibility for it, yourself. I’m sorry it’s come to it, but I need to do everything in my ability to position myself to move to a healthier space, and I will make these same arguments at the tribunal, if you insist that I must.

dated: june 27th, 2018

printed: june 29th, 2018

tenant: jason parent

well, i got my letters printed.

strangely, the place i went to look at yesterday just got relisted with a terrible management company that is using an illegal rent-to-income percentage process (and basically wouldn't let me rent more than a room), at a higher price that is just out of my ability to pay, anyways.

that's a shame - i thought i had a way out, there.

back to the drawing board.

so, they filed an l2 after all.

i guess that the landlord thought she had to wait until the 27th; she could have filed it the day of.

i expect to beat the l2 if i have to fight it - they lied on the forms. but, i don't want to reschedule my t2/t6 after their l2, regardless of the outcome.

what that means is that i have to carry through with the court process on thursday, because i want my court date first. so, i might as well print the letters this afternoon.

this is going to put me in a tricky situation of potentially having the tenancy cancelled august 1st, without being ready to move on that date. so, this is a gamble. it would be an awful judge, however, that would order an eviction within weeks of the court date...i would expect her to set the date for either september or october.

give that there's an l2, they are not likely to consent to a rescheduling. so, i'd have to cancel and resubmit.

they should have waited until after the 5th. that's an error on their behalf.

so, this page is now filled in from the time i got to windsor until the beginning of 2014.

i finished archiving my link dump in early 2014, which was mostly spent on music, and on youtube debates. again: i don't expect this to be all that lengthy. i hope to get a lot done this weekend.

nothing up this morning. no response from the agent from yesterday. i need to make some calls and eat.

i'm square as fuck.

and, fuck you if you don't like it.

when you hear the line "it's not up to me to educate you", it's a red flag that that person is a troll and just hanging around looking to get into a fight.

education is the entire purpose of activism. if you're not there to educate, what are you doing, exactly?

an accuser does not have the right to remain silent, or the right to remain anonymous - an accuser has the obligation to identify themselves, and the burden of proof to demonstrate their case.

an accused does not have the obligation to explain themselves, or to disprove the allegations against them out of court - an accused has the right to remain silent, and the opportunity to disprove the accusations, as they come forward. an accused is presumed innocent until proven guilty.

and, what is that called?

that's called liberalism.

will the prime minister take a stand and be a fucking liberal for once?

again: trudeau should not be afraid to appear hypocritical, here.

he's going to isolate far more potential voters by holding to some post-modernist claptrap that his in-the-wrong-party advisors learned in a pseudo-scientific sociology course than he is going to by swallowing his own foot and standing up for the principles of his own party - which are also the principles of the country, and even the principles of the culture.

"she has the right to remain silent".

this is a good example of the kind of backwards legal logic that you get out of screwy post-modernist thinking.

the right to remain silent is something that people are afforded when they are accused of a crime, so as to not incriminate themselves. further, it is a fundamental principle of justice in the british legal system that an accused be able to face their accuser - and, yes, this is exactly the situation that produces a clear reason that this rule exists.

you can run off foucault all day if you want, but in our legal system that actually exists, it is the accuser who must identify herself and the accused that has the right to remain silent.

academically. this idea forms the crux of what lawyers refer to as liberalism.

and, it would be nice to hear the leader of the liberal party stand up for what should be his own principles, in calling for his accuser to identify herself publicly, and press charges in a court of law if she feels compelled to do so - while standing up for his own right to remain silent, should he choose to do so.

if you would like to live in a society where people can make anonymous accusations against public figures with impunity, which those public figures are then forced to respond publicly to, i might suggest moving to china.

https://www.thestar.com/opinion/star-columnists/2018/06/28/on-groping-allegation-trudeau-ducks-the-rules-he-set.html

i have to brace myself for the reality that i'm probably going to get overwhelmed repeatedly and spend more time sleeping this weekend than i'd like. it's going to simply be disgusting in here.

but, right now the steam is working relatively well in cleansing the air of whatever the fuck it is that she's smoking.

the down side is that i'm sopping in sweat in my bed, but at least i'm wide awake and not wasting the night away sleeping...

http://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2013/12/we-need-less-anarchist-writing-by.html

what if it's the drug addict below me that is moving out?

i don't know if the situation is salvageable. it would be a step in the right direction.

four rooms is actually a little better, as it lets me have the following:

1) studio
2) bedroom
3) eating space
4) library (+ cd library)

in the last space, i was planning around building book shelves in the bedroom & cd shelves in the eating space. i was planning on putting all of the shelving, here, in the bedroom.

the four rooms are all smallish, but it will work out fine if you keep that in mind...

and, while i don't smoke a lot of pot, it would be nice to have a patio space out back for once in a while :)

don't misunderstand me. the place is kind of dilapidated. creaky. old. i'm sure there are various things living in it. the bath tub is ancient. the water might not be great. it may be drafty. and, everything about it will require some effort.

but, what i need is a relatively big smoke-free space at a price i can afford, and that is this.

yeah.

i'm not leaving the apartment unattended all day, and advertising it to them. i'm not even sure they'll obey a court ruling.

i'll play the angle that i gave them previous notice of cancelling the hearing, and am consequently giving them the opportunity to reschedule this case or force me to open a new one. and, i'll put in a request to reschedule without them, either way.

the worst thing that could happen would be for the judge to end the lease on the first of august, but

1) i can appeal that &
2) i hope to be out by the first, anyways.

it will also allow me to present more concrete moving costs. i did this backwards last time: i moved a bunch of stuff by truck, and the rest by hand. we'll do this the other way this time.

if i have sufficient time to do it in, and the distance is short enough, it will only be a couple of items i won't be able to move by hand: a couch, a dresser, a desk. i could maybe even put up an ad on kijiji for somebody with a truck, looking for a good deed. or, maybe a moving company will accept the sob story and do it on their lunch break: it will probably literally take 20 minutes.

i think the guy over-charged me last time, because he sent the bill to the city. maybe he'll be willing to balance it out...

it's the moving costs i'm trying the hardest to recoup.

my landlord just put a unit in this building up.

there's furniture that is not mine outside, so it might not be my unit. or it might be.

it's got me kind of antsy...

i'm thinking that we're going to have to skip the middle option, at this point, because i don't really want to leave the unit unattended all day on the 5th if i'm not certain i'm moving out. i'm not even happy about it on the case of certainty - i would rather get out first and sue them after.

the place is shady, all around.

so, i'm just going to give them the opportunity to reschedule outright. if they refuse to do that, the court will be within it's bounds to hear the case as i present it - but i'll also be within my rights to cancel and reschedule unilaterally.

that place was actually acceptable, but i think i got brushed off a little bit. the ad says 825 + hydro. she's claiming it's 825 + utilities, generally.

i wouldn't have gone at all if i knew that. but, why would the ad say 825 + hydro if it's 825 + utilities?

so, she says she'll check and call back. there's some chance she might be wrong, fair enough. so, she has until 8:00 before i call her...

i can be a bit annoying when i want something done :).

there's three stores on the bottom floor and an empty dance club for lease next door. it's four equally sized rooms, and a patio on the roof in the back. kinda perfect, all around.

if it's that easy, great. and we'll be in court on the 5th. we'll find out in a few hours.

i don't have issues with depression, but i do have issues with solipsism, and living in constant drug abuse certainly isn't going to help me with that. i'm actually at high risk for marijuana-induced dementia, because i'm already in the spectrum. my mom has severe mental issues, of the type that probably are genetic. and, ive been through a few episodes...

so, at risk of sounding like i'm under the influence of this drug (and i am.) let me state that, on the remote chance that i'm being experimented on, these negative effects are a consequence of dose.

all that's happening is that i'm falling asleep. i'm not even getting high. i'm just become immobile.

i don't want a drug that's going to "chill me out". i enjoy wild mood swings - it's a part of existence. but, if i don't have a choice for as long as i'm here then please reduce the dosage.

knocked me out again this morning...

what if this blog never ends?

i'll go back to studying math solely on the condition of becoming immortal, first.

until then, it's just too much. i'd want to start from the beginning and rewrite everything; it's an impossible field to come to any kind of satisfying result in - you're just guaranteed of dying as a failure.

sure: i could restrict my ambitions. that's not me.

how likely is immortality, though? i'm currently betting against it, but conditions on the ground could change.

i actually don't tend to measure people's worth by their intelligence.

i mean, say what you want about me, but i do very well on aptitude tests - meaning i fit the definition of a very smart person. i consistently score in the highest percentiles.

so, if i was going around attacking everybody for being fucking idiots, which is always relative, i'd have to spend all my time in my room by myself typing on the internet.

i want to evaluate people on their levels of altruism - on their kindness, on their politics, on their broad viewpoints and world view.

i've stated this repeatedly: i'd rather spend time with a virtuous idiot than with a conniving genius. and, i'm consequently more likely to fall in love with a simple peasant boy or girl with a big heart in the right place than i am with a wealthy tyrant that's clawed their way to the top through lies and manipulation.

i don't deny being a nerd, and never have. i actually take pride in it...

and, i've always tried to exist in circles defined by nerds and losers, too; i've always tried to avoid the in-crowd.

so, the part that doesn't make sense is the idea that i ever was or ever wanted to be 'cool'.

i just don't know why anybody would have thought i'd want to define myself as 'edgy' in the first place.

i've always been a quiet, introverted, bookish nerd that likes various spins on abstract rock music. that's about the literal definition of anti-edgy.

i mean, it's not like i was every really buff or anything.

i was skinny and lanky in 1992.

i was skinny and lanky in 2002.

i was skinny and lanky in 2012.

i'll probably be skinny and lanky in 2022, too.

i may have been a little bit skinnier in 2010 than i was in 2002, but my hair and clothing and general fashion decisions were essentially unchanged.

but, that's a pretty shallow perception that is frankly reflective of low intelligence, anyways.

i've been having difficulty staying awake the last 36 hours, which is no doubt a combination of the rain and the pot. i slept through her blaze this evening and woke up to a remnant smell around midnight, and with a splitting headache.

the showing yesterday was another ashtray of a house - a laundry room that smelled horribly of stale tobacco, and a lawn littered with discarded butts. just fucking gross...if the guy didn't catch me immediately, i would have walked right by without even bothering to go in.

there's something tomorrow. it's a bit bigger than i might need, and a bit more than i might like, but there's some upsides: great location, right downtown, and on top of a storefront, so probably minimal smoke issues.

it's for july, though. and, i'm not going to be ready to move until august 1st at the earliest. so, it;s just to see it.

at least it's going to be nice this weekend, but i plan on staying in. i need to save money. i need to catch up on work. the stress has been hard on my skin. and, i'm not in a good mood right now, overall.

he could be legitimately embarrassed by it.

https://nationalpost.com/opinion/andrew-coyne-the-prime-minister-has-to-say-something-about-groping-accusation-and-yet-what-can-he-say

so, as is well known in canada, the author of the handmaid's tale is a longstanding canadian icon, a cultural hero, a person that was studied heavily at every level of canadian academic literature years before they made a tv show out of a book that she won literary awards for in the 80s.

going to school in canada in the 90s and 00s, the quintessential canadian experience was to read atwood and listen to the hip. and, we claimed her and understood her and analyzed her on this level of being inherently canadian, unlike some other authors or entertainers that just happened to be canadian. so, naomi klein is a writer from canada. but, margaret atwood is a canadian author.

and, that means that being canadian implies you know a few things about her, one of them being that she's an open red tory - what you would call a "liberal republican" in the united states. pushing back against themes explored by atwood has become an undergraduate ritual by young canadian socialists in the english department. we'll have to see if that lasts or not.

if you actually read the book (have you read the book? it won awards, you know. i read it in a second year english course at a university in ottawa.), you'll note that she frequently connects the idea of women's liberation to women's economic freedom. to atwood, women are most free when they can participate as equals in the market. of all of the great ills in this dystopia, which is a projection of the consequences of america having an iranian-like christian revolution and features very heavy-handed islamic imagery that would border on "islamophobia" in today's discourse, it is the abolition of currency that has the most deleterious effect. "offred" reacts most negatively to the repression of her homo economicus, and her reduction to a reproductive vessel that lacks the economic freedom to make choices for herself.

so, she tries to escape to canada, where they still have these magical abstractions called free markets.

well, read the book, if you don't believe me.

twitter is simply not a representative sample of the population. and, it's not hard to see the bias built in to a groupthink service with a character restriction. the right thinker here is gramsci.

twitter is irrelevant, except as a parroting of what's being pushed down by the status quo.

but, in the broader scheme of things, the lesson the liberals need to learn before it's too late is that they need to stop trying to be fucking democrats. canada is not california. and the liberal party is not the democratic party. it has a different history, different values, different voters...

i think i'm wasting my bytes, here, though. yet, note - in the end, a good analysis of the situation will be that the liberal party was taken over by bourgeois millennials that spent most of their 20s in the united states and completely lost touch with their own voters.

the key part of voter renewal in the liberal party is going to be remembering that they're not democrats.

is this something like what happened in bc all those years ago?

if so, trudeau should just be forthright about it.

http://fortune.com/2018/04/04/fake-metoo-claims-pew-research/

if you're still dragging around this idea of women as delicate, and men as protectors, you don't belong in this century.

i'm not even going to tell you you're a conservative, at this point. you're just a hopeless anachronism.

yet, if you read it critically, that's the basic premise of #metoo.

if you're a liberal - not a progressive, not a democrat, but a liberal - you have to go both ways on this topic.

you have to accept that women are human beings with autonomous rights.

but, that goes the other way from the puritan doctrine, too: you also have to accept that they're not delicate flowers, and can take it like a man, when they have to.

it's that second point that seems to have been lost somewhere in the #metoo movement - and that canadian liberals are likely to see as, perhaps, even more important than the first one.

canada just doesn't have the puritanical fake left that the united states does because it doesn't have that kind of history. large amounts of canada were actually settled by americans trying to escape that kind of bullshit.

some conservatives are likely to get offended. and, there is a "progressive" strain in the new democratic party, sure.

but, trudeau's liberal party base isn't just likely to shrug it off, but likely to criticize anybody making a big deal out of it as puritanical zealots that are cynically politicizing a non-issue.

it actually sounds to me like he grabbed her and pushed her away because he didn't want to deal with journalists at the concert.

a creston valley handshake, if you will.

https://twitter.com/kinsellawarren/status/1004504658403119105/photo/1

this trudeau groping thing...

i don't know the facts. but, i think the political analysis is off base, and there's even an opportunity for trudeau to stand up and be an actual liberal, here.

to begin with, the canadian equivalents of the militant components of the #metoo movement in the united states would mostly reject voting liberal in canada, a priori. these would be partisan new democrats, mostly - or maybe activists that often lean green. as we don't really have much of an analogue to the republican party in canada, a lot of people that call themselves "progressives" in the united states would actually just be conservatives in canada. so, this idea that he should be fearful of a kneejerk reaction is really reading the spectrum wrong.

the contrast between al franken & that...i don't know the other guy's name...but, that contrast was guffawed at a few months ago in the united states. how did al franken get sacked by his own party over what were really undefined allegations - just suggestions of possible wrong doing - while this republican guy admits being a paedophile and everybody shrugs? an outrageous juxtaposition? sure. and, a naive understanding of the canadian spectrum would suggest the liberals would take out the knives while the conservatives collectively shrugged...

yet, it was patrick brown and erin weir that got taken down from the inside on largely frivolous charges, and kent hehr that remains in caucus over something that sounded a little more concerning.

canadian liberals don't tend to be self-righteous, or into fire & brimstone as punishment the way that "progressive" democrats are. and, i'd actually like to hear trudeau stand up and clarify that difference.

i don't know what happened. but, he's better off with a mea culpa than a denial. and, while it is no doubt true that he'll get nailed by both parties, i think canadians will forgive him for it.

ugh.

i'm not advocating smoking crack, don't get me wrong, here.

but i's actually rather deal with a crackhead neighbour than a pothead neighbour. at least the crackhead neighbour will help me stay up, whereas the pothead neighbour is causing me to be as unproductive as she is.

i think we should just all drink coffee, most of the time. but, it's true: if i have to make the choice as to which pollution i'm inhaling, i'd rather inhale the upper.

of course, if you don't want to pay the fine - and i'd rather call it a fine, a punishment, than a tax - then you should lower your carbon footprint.

and, if you don't care? well, sorry. i don't much care about you, then.

me? i should get a monthly check in the mail from this. and, if costs of certain things go up, i'll substitute them for things that cost less.

.....because i do care.

http://business.financialpost.com/opinion/and-heres-your-very-small-carbon-bill-canada

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?

http://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2013/11/dogs-are-incapable-of-mens-rea-i-dont.html

also, don't tell me smoking pot is "cool".

to begin with, that's wrong. it was never cool. it's not cool now. the beatniks were losers. the hippies were losers. and, the potheads of today are losers, too.

if your kids smoke pot, it's not because it's cool, it's because they're losers and you're either too out of touch or too lost in self-delusion to clue into it. don't fall into that trap.

but, even if it were true, that wouldn't make it ok - just as all the propaganda in the world from edward bernays doesn't make smoking cigarettes ok, either.

science-based policy is not about what's cool, it's about what's true.

i mean, say it how you want.

it's bad etiquette.

it's impolite.

it's a filthy habit....

...but, understand that this was the premise in the first place: that it's ok as long as you're not bothering anybody, and that once you start bothering people, it's not ok any more....

we need to uphold and maintain the idea that smoking pot is something you do away from other people.

the building i'm in right now is actually a good example.

i'm trying to escape a terrible situation with a government-protected drug addict ruining the entire building, who is being coddled by a property manager that seems to be her smoking buddy. but, the actual owner just declared the building non-smoking, and i've been told that the manager has been instructed to take advantage of the new lease requirements in not renting to smokers.

right now, these buildings are full of smokers. but, as tenancies open up, they're going to be pushed out - and it's going to be harder and harder for them to find a place to stay, while it's easier and easier for me to find a place to breathe.

the smokers will complain, of course. but, i think this is the correct rights balance: smokers should get used to a future where they need to start renting rooms in houses, or buying the houses themselves, because apartments are turning over on this.

and, why should a smoker be allowed to ruin everybody else's good time? it's 2018. we know with absolute certainty what smoking does to people's health. this is scientific fact. and, the premise of agitating for legalization has always been that it's harmless, and this does remain true, so long as the social stigma remains attached to it. for years, the argument was always "they're in a field over there, they're not harming anybody, they'll be gone in ten minutes, just leave them alone.". that argument simply does not transfer over, remotely, at all, to somebody that is sitting inside an apartment building smoking an ounce of pot day after day - that person is harming everybody stuck consuming their filth.

and, this is the literal definition of filth. you're just delusional to deny it.

if we want to transfer the argument over, it should only apply to people that own their own property - and smokers that want to rent should continue to go out in the field, where they're not bothering anybody, as that was the premise in the first place.

so, the longer i wait, the better my chances actually become.

i need a relatively big, non-smoking space for dirt cheap.

i simply can't fit my stuff in a small space, and i simply don't want to live with smokers.

and, i'm stuck here until it comes up.

that's reality...but, the lease changes might be opening up the market i want, too. we'll see.

that building i saw today might be very different six months from now, if they're serious about throwing the smokers out.

if i get into a bad situation, i may have to move into an office space, short term, which isn't as crazy as it sounds. i can claim it's a recording studio. could even get a small bar fridge. there are very, very cheap office spaces around with communal showers that i'm sure nobody else uses; the problem is i don't expect to be able to claim rent.

right now, i'm paying $700 for rent. $479 is listed as shelter, and then i have to pay $221 out of my other costs. if i can get an office space for ~$300, that would be the same thing as paying around $800 in rent, which is the absolute maximum i'm budgeting for. i'd no doubt have to leave my couch here. but, i'm not sure i can salvage it, anyways - the smoke coming in is really that filthy.

if it comes to that, i'll just lock myself inside somewhere for a winter and get as much work as i can done until i can get out.

hopefully, something comes up soon and i can get out fairly quickly, with costs.

so, it seems like i'm out of options for arranging an august 1st move in date for july 1st.

it's after 9:00 pm on june 25th and there are still listings coming up for july 1st. i need my deposit back if i'm going to move for august 1st. that's just how shit works - and i'll have to argue the point in court, if it comes to it.

i got a letter in the mail today telling me i can pick up the police reports that i filed in march. i'll need to use that as evidence for the eventual hearing.

and, tomorrow, i'm going to have to file the request to extend the court date until...i'm going to guess the earliest dates are in october. if it's denied, i'll plan to go to court on july 5th. if it's accepted, i'll withhold rent on the 1st, give them a letter indicating that i don't necessarily plan to move at the end of the month (and will resume normal payments until i move out, if i don't) and wing it from there.

i confirmed today that i'm going to lose my oesp credits when i move, so i'm better off ramping up the hydo than cutting it down. it's about $200 in credits, so that should be enough to get through as much of the last year of vlogs as i can. but, i'm going to catch up on the rebuild tonight instead - because if the request for the extension gets denied, i'll have to use that document to build a journal, by the 5th. i'll at least have several weeks to create vlogs, after that.

so, i'm probably not going to hit the july 1st deadline, but i might have the last year's worth of vlogs ready to publish by august 1st.

the smoke was not bad this evening, but it's gotten very bad over the last hour. hopefully, she's leaving, soon, for the night.

i don't want to drag this on - i want out. but, the reality is that my resources are limited, and there's nothing to gain by moving into another unit with the same set of problems - i'll just have to go through this all over again.

to be clear: there is a very high chance that i'm going to vote green in what is probably an ndp lock in 2019.

if the green candidate sucks, as they sometimes do, i'll likely stay home.

but, if you want to make the election about rubber-stamping nafta, that's just another reason to cast a protest vote.

we saw a good example of how fixed election laws undermine democracy in the tpp negotiations in 2015.

the sitting government should have realized that this was a ballot issue, and either scheduled the election before the final signing or after the released text, to allow for a referendum on it. instead, it subverted democracy by signing a secret agreement at the last minute, preventing anybody from reading it in time for the vote.

i know that this sounds crazy to the political establishment & media elites, but the fact is that these people don't believe in democracy at all.

a ruling party and sitting prime minister with a strong commitment to democracy would recognize the canadian people's right to self-determination and both purposefully schedule the election around amendments to nafta as a ballot issue and go out of it's way to educate voters on it's contents, not try to find a way to schedule nafta negotiations around an arbitrarily fixed election date.

i was actually hoping that trudeau would be quite aggressive in undoing the legacy of stephen harper. the fact is that he's largely upheld it.

i, for one, would happily vote against nafta, should that be the next ballot question.

i technically voted for frank schiller in 2015. and, right now, i really wish he was in parliament.

http://nationalpost.com/opinion/andrew-coyne-a-snap-election-unlikely-but-with-the-obstacles-ahead-liberals-may-be-tempted

you think you're a responsible landlord?

yeah, you're responsible, alright - responsible for costs and damages.

that unit is going to sit forever.

smokers are going to see the non-smoking listing and recoil. non-smokers are going to walk in and walk right out.

so, i walk up to the building and the first thing i see is a non-smoking sign - and at least 30 cigarette butts littered around in front of it, indicating two things:

1) there are many smokers in this building.
2) the rules don't appear to be being followed.

so, if the first thing i see is a bunch of butts in front of a non-smoking sign, how confident should i be that i'm going to keep the smoke out of the unit?

and, why bother advertising a unit as non-smoking when so many of your tenants are smokers?

so, i'm not impressed to begin with, to put it lightly.

i call the rental office and indicate that i had an appointment at 9:00.

"something changed over the weekend."

she then hung up on me. i call back...

"is the unit still available?"

she said to come back at 2:00.

i don't think i'm going to bother. again: it's a shame. it's a nice, older building. good location. but, full of filthy people...

so, i've rebuilt from july-october, 2013 this afternoon. october seemed unusually heavy, due to getting back on the internet after a two month layoff.

this is also an error-checking process, and i've updated a couple of little things.

i should probably try and get a few hours of sleep tonight, but she's home and blazing non-stop, as she does - just chain smoking one after another. and, i've been through this before. i went through it two weeks ago: i fall asleep in the smoke and then i can't get up until noon.

but, i have an appointment at 9:00 in the morning.

so, i'm tired, but i'm afraid that if i fall asleep, i'll end up too stoned (due to sleeping in the second hand marijuana smoke) to get up. and, as it is, i may very well walk in there with red eyes, and smelling like drugs. that doesn't help my chances in getting out of here, does it?

what a catastrophe.

what a fucking mess...

listen.

i don't want to pretend i've ruled out future companionship altogether; that would neither be honest, nor particularly human.

but, i simply don't connect well with normal people. the kind of companionship i'd be seeking would be pretty much the nerdiest thing you could imagine - to a point where it's essentially incomprehensible.

capitalism just doesn't allow for people like me. and, i'm not interested in changing myself, either; a companion would need to help me accomplish my existing goals, not present me with an entirely different set of goals.

i understand that i'm hard to get your head around, but that's pretty broad. just think of it like this: when you've spent your whole life in your own head, the idea of carrying out the rest of your days there is relieving, and the idea of being pulled out is far from emancipatory, but actually kind of frightening.

it's an imperfect analogy, but go watch the shawshank redemption and pay attention to morgan freeman's character.

freedom is a strange thing.

it was none other than habermas that would refer to foucault as a "young conservative", as thinker after thinker then struggled to grapple with him in a left-wing context, while being aware that he didn't quite fit.

i've argued repeatedly that he's essentially a vulgar burkean, in the sense that he takes conservative assumptions at face value, and then attempts to co-opt them - in contrast to the vulgar marxists that defined high finance and industrial capital in the middle of the twentieth century, and sought to rule by taking marxist assumptions at face value, and co-opting them. and, so, as was once remarked, that makes him "some kind of leftist", but one that has a fundamentally right-wing worldview. if the fords & rockefellers knew that marx was right, and sought to undermine him for their self-interest, foucault likewise knows burke is right and seeks to find some away around it - which means that either foucault is wrong (and marx is right), or the fords & rockefellers are (and burke is right). of course, that's quite simplistic, but necessarily so.

leftists used to take the much simpler approach of simply arguing that marx was right and burke was wrong. that's not necessary, i suppose - i suppose you can believe burke was right, and yet wish he wasn't. i'm just not sure why you'd identify on the left, if that's the case. but, whatever the case may be, and whatever you may believe, i must insist that it's disingenuous to suggest that rejecting burke is somehow an obscure position on the left, even if we're in a point of backwardsness, as of today.

i'm going to avoid making calls today, on second thought.

i'll take a closer look monday morning.

on twenty-seventh thought...

this catastrophe of an apartment is going to be a space solely of typing and writing.

i will not record here.

and, the alter-reality has advanced into the internet era, now.

so, let me set up the politics blog for the alter-reality, too and move forward as one after i move.

i actually do not expect this to take nearly as long.

there will be a third blog for music reviews, but i'm not touching that at all right now.

traditionally, empires don't seek balanced trade relationships with their colonies; rather, they seek to extract as much wealth from them as possible, by advancing a one way model of trade.

rhetoric of america as an empire is not new.

but, trump's insistence on it actually acting like one certainly is.

if trump doesn't like our contribution to nato, we could always shut down norad in protest.

increases in nato spending are about the last thing i had in mind when i cast my vote. why don't we focus on greater integration with the coast guard? or on responses to climate change?

but, it's not like i don't get the actual point, here. trump is a spokesperson for the military-industrial complex, which sees canada as a customer. so, it wouldn't make sense to import metals from canada; canada is supposed to be an export market.

this is how a traditional, nineteenth century empire works: the homeland makes stuff, and the colonies buy it. trump's job is consequently to sell us his country's stuff. and, the big ticket items are military...

if that is how the americans really see us, then perhaps we should toss some of their tea into the ocean.

yeah.

on second thought, why don't i get that in order after i check the listings after lunch.

i'm also going to need to call the oesp tomorrow, and figure out what happens to these electrical credits.

if i have to use them before i move, i should get the other machine on compressing vlogs for the last year.

i wanted to to fix the other laptop and use it for a dedicated vlog machine, but, right now, that seems pretty distant, with all this chaos going on. i guess i could get these compressed and published for the first after all...even if it's just raw, for now....

i napped on friday evening and woke up friday night after she'd left to go where she goes and finished archiving the facebook page over night. that was planned; it's not acceptable, but it's pragmatic on my behalf to try to schedule work periods for when she's gone. she was smoking all day saturday, but the steam was actually effective in keeping the air clear, and i actually had what was a really long, nice day - not crashing until late on saturday night. i'm at least happy that i had a productive day...

the smell today is mostly of stale tobacco, from who knows where in the building or even outside. but, she is smoking down there...so i don't have the option to close the window....i'm just steaming out as much as i can....

the music vlog is now completely backed up in the master archive. so, the next thing to do should be to distribute the material in the master archive back out to the two vlogs, and also to the music master list. but, i am also going to need to use the master archive to build the journal for the court date, whenever it is. ideally, i'd be able to do that after i've weaved everything together...

i'm going to get something to eat, and then check listings. if i see some more leads for august, i'll wait for the rescheduling request; if not, i'll put that in on monday, after the showing in the morning (which i expect to be a bust, but need to try...). i'm going to get back to what i was doing for the night, and could conceivably get most of the way through the summer done. i'll know in a few days if i need to fast forward or not.

so, the next section to rebuild is from june 19th to dec 8th - and that is the last rebuild. it's all archiving after that.

lastly, i suppose that it would be prudent to run the master list through an error-checking process before i start using it to publish liner notes.

when? before i move. hopefully.

the republicans are what happens to liberalism, once stripped of it's ideals and values.

anything to maximize profit.

anything at all.

https://www.pri.org/stories/2018-06-23/private-prison-shares-rise-us-eyes-more-migrant-family-detention-space

at some point it will click: this drug addict is costing me a lot of money.

in this circumstance, i have to hope the landlord eventually takes it out on the pothead; all i can do is extract damages for negligence.

and, i'm sure he will, eventually.

i mean, if the action was meant to punish this woman for her actions, and it was, then i'm certain she paid dearly, in the end - and there was really nothing i could have done to hold the space, anyways.

i just want to clarify a point, as i'm backing up the music vlog...

the last time i had an argument with a landlord, i put a case for thousands in claims on hold, was admittedly outmanoeuvred (albeit trivially, from my perspective, as i could not have claimed any winnings and there could not have been another outcome) and ended up getting evicted. so, i lost pretty badly, right?

well, it must have cost her at least five thousand dollars to evict me - plus whatever money flowed around under the table (i'm pretty sure some did.). added up, i may have spent $20 on printing costs. maybe. and, any money i would have "won" would have had to be returned to disability. i lost a plum spot, but i didn't lose any money on the move. further, it did become clear over time that she wanted me out, regardless - there wasn't anything i could have done to reverse the situation. even if i had won the case, she would have kept trying to get me out. i was fighting it on the hope that she was planning to sell..

i was clear in all of my communications with her that the purpose of the fines was to act as a disincentive for the continuing harassment, not as a means for me to make money from the situation. i even offered to donate the money to charity, at one point. what i wanted was for the harassment to stop. so, i was actually using the money as leverage - i didn't expect to ever see it. and, the other option was to just sit there and let them harass me, which was unacceptable...

but, the reality is that i didn't incur any losses, so i didn't have any grounds for action.

this is a different scenario. i might not be able to keep rent money, but i should be able to keep damages, and i should be able to apply moving costs. so, this case is worth fighting, and i intend to follow through one way or another.

so, i've got the facebook part of this updated now, and it shouldn't have taken nearly that long, but i was occupied by other things, too.

the next task will be to copy the rest of the music vlog into the master document.

i'm getting there.

really.

it's just the industrial reserve army.

https://monthlyreview.org/2017/02/01/marx-on-immigration/

listen.

there is a long history of writers with engineering degrees, isn't there?

maybe you might think of me as just another writer that gave up on the world, but i think of myself as the musician in the list.

i'm not exaggerating.

it's 75% As, 20% Ds and 5% Bs and Cs.

i'm your typical floater/dreamer artist - over-educated in philosophy, but disinterested in financial aspirations, and really focused solely on my art at the expense of anything and everything else.

facebook wants to know my education history. did somebody ask?

i went to carleton university, off and on, from 2000-2013. i was at various times enrolled in math-physics, mathematics, gender studies, music, english, computer science & law. i consequently have several undeclared minors, as well as an undeclared masters in mathematics, in addition to my b. mathematics (honours) (2006).

in hindsight, i would characterize my time in the math department as a large survey of the field. i did not walk out with any useful specialization, or any particular interest in developing one. i went back to study computer science because i learned that a math degree was really not very useful, and then walked out a half credit short after deciding that i just didn't want to work in the field. it's something that happens - you get to the end of a degree, and just don't want to do it any more. i got done three years of law in the process, and walked away for similar reasons. i had ambitions to fight the bastards, and just realized that the system is hopelessly rigged.

if i was born rich, i might have stayed in law, but you can't fight the good fight on that level when you're born poor.

through it all, my heart was always in music. i eventually made a choice to stop caring about bullshit and just follow my heart.

my gpa is in the B+/A- range, but it's an average of very good marks and very bad marks, rather than a lot of Bs. i tended to either ace courses or flunk them outright, and that's a story that will come out in the alter-reality.

it's an important historical question: why are we so rich, when they're so poor?

and how can we fix that?

i mean, what do we want, here?

do we want to end up more like them by importing their problems?

or do we want to help them become more like us?

it's hardly colonialism, when we're talking about what are, after all, spanish and portugese colonies - and the legacies of them. we should be looking at commonalities and asking what wrong there that went right here. but, i think we should separate our criticism of colonialism from our criticism of the methods colonialism used during less enlightened periods, too.