the bricks are in. i think i tried to avoid stating this too clearly. 

so, when i was cleaning in the garage area, i noticed that there was a gaping hole under the steps big enough to crawl into. like, you could crawl in from outside, if you knew the hole was there. i also found some used needles in the crawl space, indicating somebody had actually crawled inside. that might be why it frequently smelled like an ash tray in there. 

i immediately nailed the hole shut and noticed somebody had kicked it in the next day.

the landlord indicated he was going to fix it, but he didn't, it was just waiting and waiting. i wasn't able to move anything in there and set anything up in there until the space was sealed up. i finally just went around back and got some bricks out of the backyard and sealed it up with quikrete. i wanted to test it to make sure it worked before i did a second round, and it did. so, i bought some more quikrete and some more bricks last night and finished it up.

the issue is that somebody knocked a window out to run a furnace vent and just closed it up with drywall. so there was a piece of drywall facing the rain and snow and it decayed through. somebody knew it and was sneaking in there to do drugs.

it's fixed now and the leak that was there seems to be fixed as well, so i should be able to finally start moving things into the garage. i just want to wait for it to dry outside before i do a final patch run over it.

i redid a lot of the concrete steps while i was at it as there were big gaps where moisture, rodents or bugs could get in. i'm going to redo a lot of the walls in the garage as well, just to make sure there aren't any further leaks. it will look a lot cleaner with a fresh coat of concrete.

i also bought some roof sealant that i'm going to lather all around the outside to keep the water out. this is in addition to the downspout extender i put in, that has made a huge difference.

so, once i'm confident that the garage is clean and dry, i have a carpet i can put down in the corner. i also have a bicycle rack that i can lock my bicycles to, tables, lamps, tools, a heater and even a stereo. it has to be dry and sealed first. i'm almost there.

i also really sealed up the laundry the other day using cardboard boxes and that really cancelled the smell in there, which is great. it was a mix of garbage, mildew and food i'd find unappealing, as a white european. blocking the holes neutralized it entirely.

so i'm making major progress.

about a year and a half ago, the mayor of windsor acted like a dirty fascist in overriding the clear democratic will of city council to maintain tunnel bus service, out of an apparent anti-union political ideology. this ideological decision actually reduced operating revenues, leading to higher deficits, and had a clearly negative effect on windsor's struggling downtown core. the mayor apparently wants more church organized social activities and more family-oriented event funding. he's attacking the city's economy because he's an ideological conservative. he's also continued to destroy the library, and received nothing of any value for it while watching multiple physical library locations get sold off to dubious market investors, then collapse into disuse and disrepair. on top of that, he's wasted millions of tax dollars on repeatedly renovating recently renovated city halls, foolishly built a hockey rink on top of a green space downtown, spent a million dollars on a decommissioned rail car and continues to throw millions of dollars a year down the drain on an environmentally irresponsible christmas lights display intended to appeal to white christian supremacist identity politics.

there's an election this year and i want to see somebody run against these things and get rid of this shithead. cancelling the tunnel bus was stupid - it cost the city money and it hurt the local bars. the city should bring back the tunnel bus. the library has faced years of instability that needs to come to an end. the city should buy back the old library on ouellette. i'm tired of seeing the city waste money on family oriented programming that is stupid and lame. the rail car is a dumb waste of money. and the christmas lights are a waste of electricity and a waste of tax dollars to a celebrate a holiday that is largely culturally irrelevant in this society, which is overwhelmingly secular.

he's also refusing to implement overdue zoning changes and not taking federal money for subsidized housing, which is inflating property values and increasing rents.

the mismanagement at city hall is overwhelming. the city needs to unite to get rid of this guy. he's fucking terrible.

the charges against netanyahu are frivolous and absurd and the americans are right to try to shut this court down, which is behaving irresponsibly in carrying out politicized activities that are blatantly anti-semitic and without any remote evidentiary basis. the icc is looking and acting like a nazi tribunal and should be treated like one. if it walks like a nazi and quacks like a nazi, it's a nazi. europe has a civilizationial existential crisis on it' hand, as it increasingly collapses into fascism, and is increasingly requiring a serious protest movement to struggle against these rising forces of nazism and right-wing extremism that masquerade as a soft left, but are the exact opposite of it in practice.

netanyahu has legitimate corruption charges to face in israel.

the icc warrant against him is not justified by facts and should not be respected by governments anywhere. the credibility of the body is rather now in disrepute for behaving with political motivations aligned with the far right.

if canada were to act on these threats, it should be judged accordingly and held accountable for it. our international standing is currently incredibly low and falling. our institutions have low reputability. our government is extremely corrupt.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/netanyahu-flight-canadian-airspace-9.7288211

i'm going to do the things i need to do outside before i order more food. the stalkers seem to have come in here the last time i was outside working. i don't think they can get in except when i'm sitting outside, and they're driven enough by their delusions of faith and belief to do it. the basic problem with zealotry and self-righteousness is that you think you're right and you're just factually not. the wisdom in mill is cliched and annoying (mill and orwell. who do i think i am, christopher hitchens?), but worth acknowledging all the more for it. the basic point is correct - the issue on the table is that you might be fucking wrong, and you have to get that through your fucking head.

the pathetic losers aren't going to stop but i can keep them out by locking down. and i'm planning around next year at this point, unfortunately.

the upside is that the apartment will be finished sooner than later. i have the materials i need to finish everything up and when i get done the outside in the next few days i should be able to rapidly get to finishing up in the garage, and then it's done.

i need to get a fair amount of groceries. i've been eating small amounts all summer and am pushing down to 135 for the next meal, which is powdered chicken soup with grilled chicken breast. i am done the canned soup, but still have canned tomatoes for spaghetti. i have a pile of powdered soup mixes to sub in for quinoa and other things and will be catching up on the fruit as soon as i get through that. the diet i put myself on in may dragged that process out by a few months but it's almost there.

then, there are a small number of organizational things to do before i sit down and finish the cataloging and get to finishing the coffee table book.

so i'm making progress, this is just a crazy amount of work to do, and it's taking a long time to do it.