if harry...what is his last name, even?....harry windsor? harry wettin? 

if harry whatshisface and megan markle want to come to canada as private citizens and get jobs and pay taxes, then that is a question for immigration to ponder. i wouldn't imagine myself qualified to make a decision such as that.

but, as a canadian, i feel no particular attachment to the monarchy, and do not want to see the country placed in a situation where it needs to accommodate a bunch of aristocrats that appear to be being expelled from their aristocracy due to base racism. 

i mean, it's always sad when a family refuses to accept people because they're different, sure. and, like i say - it's up to immigration to rule on immigration claims. but, canada is not a colony of the british empire, and not an escape mechanism for feuds within the royal family.

so, that took a lot longer to rebuild than i want to see happen again. i was multitasking by sorting through shows...

i ran a full chkdsk this morning in addition to the reformat. i reinstalled. and, i copied the known good back over, with the updated files.

i'm going to take yet another nap, because i never really fully recovered from that event yesterday. then, i'm going to get something to eat and take a shower when i get up. and, if everything is fine, i should boot into a stable install that i intend to be on for the next several days. 

see, i'd like to give those protesters in iran some air support.

i know....it's overly simplistic.

but, i would.

https://www.tvo.org/article/were-not-tragically-hip-fans-and-yes-were-canadian

no.

i'll double down.

maybe you can't see yourself in the mirror. maybe you don't realize what you actually look like.

but, if you honestly think that gord fucking downie belongs on the $5 bill, you look a lot like bob and/or doug, or julian and/or ricky, to me.

that is what your average tragically hip fan was like - pickup truck driving, beer swilling, low iq, white bread retards.

or, maybe we can put julian & ricky on the $20.

the queen's almost dead, anyways.

fuck, why don't we just put julian's shot glass on the front, and a giant blunt on the back.

somebody needs to write a defence of laurier. he belongs there. these other clowns don't.

hey, after we put gord downey on the $5, maybe we can put bob on the loonie and doug on the toonie.

you fucking hosers.

laurier is probably the best leader that this country will ever have.

it will be a sad, backwards day in this country's history if you replace him on the five with an overrated rock star that wrote trite garbage and trafficked in the worst cliches imaginable.

i've still actually never heard of viola desmond, or know why she's on the bill, other than that she was black, and they wanted a black person on the bill.

wouldn't that be embarrassing..

i hate what this country has become. truly.

https://www.narcity.com/news/ca/canadas-five-dollar-bill-redesign-consultation-has-people-voting-for-gord-downie

i think laurier should stay on the bill.

but, i think mackenzie-king should have stayed on the $50, too.

they should take that piece of shit borden off the $100...

https://business.financialpost.com/news/economy/bank-of-canada-to-seek-nominations-for-who-should-be-on-the-new-5-bill

i was very, very tired.

i don't know if it had anything to do with the seizure/attack this afternoon. i'm still not feeling very good. 

pollution kills people. smoke = death. it's not required to make this argument again in this space. but, if i can't escape the smoke, i'm going to die from it....

the machine is reformatting one more time, i know this isn't final, but i'm hoping to at least avoid rebooting the machine for a long while.

the stop error suggests a kernel conflict.

i don't want to fix this. i'm going to reformat it.

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/may/13/rush-nme-interview-1978-rocks-backpages

my dad didn't have the attention span to read a rand novel. thankfully.

i'd read more rand by the time i was 15 than he did in his entire 55 odd years, and i couldn't get through any of it, i thought it was boring. 

i don't suspect he would have liked objectivism much, if he had bothered to learn much about it. he was a profoundly unselfish person.

but, peart really did warp his mind in pretty shitty ways.

"She's just a very brilliant woman, an excellent writer, but a brilliant thinker as well. She has a great clarity of thought." - neal peart on ayn rand

i will not be mourning the passing of neil peart at all

my father loved rush, but i could never stand them. we used to argue about this, actually. 

neil peart was known as the drummer for rush, and i would argue he was overrated as a drummer, but he was also the band's lyricist and thematic director, and i would argue he was even more overrated in that category. i also believe that his lyrics had a profoundly backwards influence on my father's broader outlook on life. they really corrupted his critical thinking abilities in a dramatic way.

and, so the question i would ask neil's memory in his passing due to a brain cancer that nobody survives, in fact the same cancer that got my dad, is - where's your free will now? huh?

does he not realize that by not making a choice to avoid all causes of brain tumours, he's still made a choice to die of cancer, and it's consequently his own stupid fault?

there are some bands that are overrated, and it ultimately doesn't matter. nobody cares what gord downey thought, in the end - his views were harmless enough. but, rush were worse than overrated, they were dangerous because they were ignorant, and yet seen as enlightened by a fanbase that bought into the pretension.

and, on some level, i would actually state "good riddance".

yeah.

so, that was merely the record of proceedings, which really didn't have anything i haven't already seen. i was maybe hoping for some deeper disclosure around the actual investigation, which i'll need to eventually approach via access requests. i still need to wait for the factum, which is what i really want.

the deadline is the 31st.

i'm going to send them a response, but i'm going to get my laptop working, first.

they seem to want to argue that the scope of the investigation is limited to the initial complaint. but, they're actually wrong. i sent all kinds of emails out before the investigation started, and they should have been worked into the investigation, by statutory provision.

this is s. 154 of the new "comprehensive" police services act.

Public complaints

154 (1) Any person may make a complaint to the Complaints Director about the conduct of a person referred to in section 152, subject to subsection (2).

Restriction

(2) A complaint may not be made under subsection (1) by,

(a) the Minister;

(b) the Inspector General, a deputy Inspector General or an inspector appointed under section 111;

(c) a deputy Complaints Director, an employee in the Law Enforcement Complaints Agency or an investigator;

(d) the SIU Director or an employee or investigator in the Special Investigations Unit;

(e) a member of a police service, in respect of another member of that police service;

(f) a special constable employed by the Niagara Parks Commission, in respect of another special constable employed by the Niagara Parks Commission;

(g) the Niagara Parks Commission, in respect of a special constable employed by the Niagara Parks Commission;

(h) a member or employee of a police service board, in respect of a member of a police service maintained by the board;

(i) a person selected by the council of a municipality to advise another municipality's police service board under subsection 26 (2), in respect of a police officer who is a member of a police service maintained by that board; or

(j) any other person who may be prescribed.

Complainant on behalf of minor, incapable person

(3) A complaint may be made under subsection (1) on behalf of,

(a) a person who is a minor, by the person's parent or guardian; and

(b) a person who is incapable as defined in the Substitute Decisions Act, 1992 and who is not a minor, by his or her substitute decision-maker under that Act.

Complaint through agent

(4) A complainant may act through an agent in respect of a complaint made under this Part.

Same

(5) If a complainant acts through an agent, a requirement under this Part to give notice to the complainant may be met by giving notice to the complainant's agent.

Same, restricted persons

(6) For greater certainty, a person referred to in subsection (2) may not make a complaint by acting through an agent under subsection (4).

Forwarding complaints to the Complaints Director

155 (1) If a person who may make a complaint under subsection 154 (1) to the Complaints Director instead makes the complaint to any of the following persons, that person shall forward the complaint to the Complaints Director, inform the person who made the complaint that the complaint has been forwarded, and provide the person with information about the role of the Complaints Director:

1. The Minister.

2. The Inspector General, a deputy Inspector General or an inspector appointed under section 111.

3. The SIU Director or an employee or investigator in the Special Investigations Unit.

4. A chief of police.

5. A police service board or a member of a police service board.

6. An O.P.P. detachment board or a member of an O.P.P. detachment board.

7. A First Nation O.P.P. board or a member of a First Nation O.P.P. Board.

8. The Advisory Council or a member of the Advisory Council.

9. A special constable employer.

10. A prescribed entity.

11. A prescribed policing provider.

12. Any other person or entity prescribed by the Minister.

Same

(2) If a person who may make a complaint to the Complaints Director under subsection 154 (1) instead makes the complaint to a member of a police service other than a chief of police or to a special constable who is not a member of a police service, the member of a police service or special constable shall notify his or her chief of police or special constable employer of the complaint, and subsection (1) of this section applies, with necessary modifications, as if the complaint had been made to the chief of police or special constable employer.

Same

(3) The complaint of a person that is forwarded to the Complaints Director under this section is deemed for the purposes of this Part to have been made by the person directly to the Complaints Director

what that means is that they had to act on the emails i sent. and they didn't....

i'm going to draw their attention to that, as they might not realize it.

so, i thought i had 500 pages of reports to sort through.

rather, it seems like 400+ of these pages are documents i wrote myself.

it's a little levity. 

i really do write a lot, don't i?

i actually had some kind of attack this afternoon, the first one in quite a while, and forced myself to sleep. i woke up in the desert and am going to drink a gallon of water....

every other time i've had an attack like this, it's preceded a migraine, so i was expecting one, but none came, which is kind of worrying. i've had periodic symptoms of early onset multiple sclerosis for a long time. it's a part of the reason i quit smoking, and want to stay away from second hand smoke. yes: ms is one of the long list of diseases that appears to be at least triggered, if not outright caused, by exposure to smoke and pollution.

so, my best guess is it's the pollution, whatever that means - second hand smoke, building exhaust, just bad urban air quality. yes, it still seems like he's smoking. now, it's giving me seizures....again...

the seizures are a predictable consequence of exposure to secondhand smoke, actually.

it started as a tingle in my left arm, and went up my arm before manifesting in my face, as a kind of palsy. it eventually passed, as it always does. but, i wasn't left with a crippling migraine like i always am, i was just left feeling tired.

i dunno.

i know i'm extremely dehydrated and need to drink a huge amount of water.

guess i slept all day.

it's the weekend. 

but, i want to prioritize getting through this reading first, so i'm going to stay on the chromebook for a bit. if i can stay awake, i should hopefully get back to fixing the laptop by sunrise.

as mentioned previously, it is very unlikely that i'll do any partying until the spring. i just don't like going out in the cold.

yeah, i'm not convinced that i've thrown them off, yet.

the audio was very thin sounding. this is actually the return of an older problem, which i thought i had gotten rid of, and that is some kind of loopback on the audio. as a recording artist, this is particularly egregious to me. it's almost torture, really.

so, i reinstalled the audio drivers, and while it did help, it also required a reboot, which came up as a blue screen. i can actually probably fix that without reimaging, but we'll have to see whether i think it's actually worth it or not.

i don't have the interest in it, right now.

the files were sent to me in pdf, so i can read them on the chromebook. and, i'll get back to that later tonight.

so, let's get to doing some reading, then.

aaacctually.

....i'm still on the laptop, and i think i may have hit a bit of a breakthrough with those update files. i think i actually managed to completely get rid of them. finally....

i decided that if i was going to reimage a little later anyways then i'd might as well finish updating the group policy settings. so, i spent some time finalizing a lockdown that i had put on hold the other day when i got the lock screen on the reboot halfway through.

i decided to try a reboot, and it actually came up. surprisingly...

to recall - what was happening was that something was being pushed down from somewhere, leaving a trail in the firefox temp directories, and then leading to a windows update process trying to install a list of packages that i strangely had sitting in several directories and couldn't figure out how to get rid of, which updated the cryptographic files in the catroot directory and left some errors in the dberr.txt file. there were random reboots. it seemed to be trying to install an unsigned driver, which brought up a lock screen on a known issue - because i have that disabled. if i were to disable it, it would install a bunch of sketchy looking servers...

something else is happening, now. instead of a failed install and a lock screen on an unsigned driver, the status of the catroot files is suggesting to me that these packages are actually uninstalled. the log files have updated, but they've updated to tell me that the files are gone.

to be clear: it still looks like this process was triggered remotely. but, deleting the files out of the winsxs directory seems to have been what i needed to do to get the subsystem to fuck off. they might keep trying to deploy, but i might have succeeded in getting rid of the packages they're trying to deploy, and the files might just error out.

the group policy is that much stricter now, too.

as stated previously, i'm resigned to needing to reimage regularly. but, i'm going to hold off for now and see where this goes....

...but i want to make a point clear. it should already be clear...

...but if i don't go to your shows, or review your records, or otherwise acknowledge your existence, chances are pretty high that the reason is that i think you suck. and, there's a lot of bad music in detroit, controlled by a lot of filters with very bad taste.

so, i mean, if i'm not "supporting your scene", it's not some kind of accident. it's because i don't like it. and, i don't care how cool you think you are, either.

broadly speaking, art should not and cannot be thought of as a transactional process. this idea of "supporting the scene" is exactly why there's so much garbage out there - people get shows because they did somebody a favour, and are consequently expected to buy into a system before they can get something out of it. it's pay to play. and, it's bullshit, and i won't have anything to do with it.

i understand that i need to meet people and network, that i can't just create the greatest thing ever and expect it to magically sell, that i have to find some way to market it. i understand that i live in a capitalist reality, whether i like it or not.

but, i'm not remotely interested in any sort of "scene" that rewards loyalty over talent. that scene is going to suck, and it won't take long before it's full of dumbass macho bros sitting around by themselves wondering why nobody shows up.

i need you to evaluate my art on it's merit and i want to be a part of a scene that values my talent, not one  that rewards me for seniority and for showing up.

there's reasons i'm at the age i'm at and have kept an arms-length distance from every scene i've ever been near. after a while, i basically hate virtually everybody, and the feeling is often fairly mutual.

but, i need it to be about the value of the art, or i don't want to show up at all.

500 pages...

you know, i can do this on the chromebook, instead.

yeah.

it's 400 pages to sort through, that should take the day.

this is shutting down, and i'll reimage tonight.

i had to go out for a few hours this afternoon. would i come back to another infiltrated machine?

well, it came out of hibernation ok. but, i started poking around and found a bunch more weird deployment files that i don't recognize, which got deleted. but, there were no obvious problems, yet.

i lost the week, which means it's time to do another lookahead for shows for next week...

i made some tweaks, first in the gpedit and then in the firewall.

then, i decided to check my email before i got started and found the notice from the oiprd at a dropbox link.

activists beware: dropbox is a spook site. you can look this up. never click a dropbox link or install software from dropbox, it will install police surveillance software on your machine.

and, i then got my dberr updates, as expected. so, i suspect i'm running on borrowed time, and i'll need to reinstall by the next reboot. 

i'm not certain if the trigger was the email from the cops or updating one of the mmc plugins.

so, i'm torn between forcing the reinstall and waiting, but i think that so long as i don't open any documents, what they can do is limited. it's all backed up. repeatedly...

i actually kind of want to see what happens by letting it sit.

but, i expect to need to reimage after the next reboot, and that's ok.

for the day, i need to look ahead another week and then read through these documents. and, i'll reimage tonight.

the plane thing is...it's not as tricky as you want it to be.

the missile attack was clearly an act of war, and the act of war was directed at nato, which canada is a part of, so i do think we should be at war with iran right now. but, the plane itself was a passenger jet transiting from iran to ukraine that just happened, coincidentally, to get in the way and just happened, coincidentally, to get shot down.

it also happened, coincidentally, to be full of canadians.

if we were at war with iran, it might be an emotional subplot. maybe you could put a few bombs aside for the families, if that's what they'd want - which is entirely dubious. i'm imagining wwII propaganda, which came out of centuries of ethnic tensions; in reality, most of the victims have family in iran. revenge probably isn't the most relevant feeling. the most relevant feeling is grief, and exasperation, and a longing to hold on to what's left. these people don't want their remaining families bombed.....

as it is, we're clearly not at war with iran, and the alliance clearly doesn't want to be.

i think the canadian government should be pushing iran for financial compensation for the victims, on both continents. it's not sufficient, but it's all there is.

and, it is an opportunity for iran to prove they can be grown-ups.

hey, i'll bet you a beer that that ugly ass beard trudeau is dragging around is as fake as his jive-ass makeup.

he actually got busted a while back with fake eyebrows.

whether it's real or not, he's an actor. and, this is wardrobe. but it's a wardrobe malfunction...

he looks like a goof and it will cost him if he doesn't address it almost immediately.

ok.

so, i went to call the court and got the completed motions sent to me via email, which is actually fairly useful. so, that's actually already done.

- they accepted the addendum.

- the oiprd has until january 31st to file the application review.

what i asked for was a hard deadline. that is a hard deadline. it's also a month grace, plus holidays, so it should be more than enough.

getting the judge to push the deadline down is actually a major step forward, even if it seems minor. now, if they miss it, they're missing a court order.

the machine seems better, but who knows. i'm taking a nap...

and, that plane.

well.

it sure seems like it got shot down...

how do you classify such a thing? while clearly accidental in specific scope, those missiles were intended to kill people, and in the end they did.

canada is a nato country with good relations with most of the p5+1, but i wouldn't expect anybody to bat an eyelash.

it wasn't a terrorist attack, either. it was a military accident.

it's a good reminder of what happens when you play with matches.

i live in the heart of the empire, and i'm willing to be a critical voice, but i understand how that benefits me.

and, i don't think the iranians are offering a very attractive alternative model.

guess trump's not much of a bully after all, is he?

america doesn't maintain it's place in the world by appeals to puppydogs and sunshine, or even by appeals to freedom and democracy.

america is a bully. it maintains control through the threat - and realization - of extreme violence.

it is obvious what will happen if you take that away.

i can criticize these past presidents for picking on these little countries, but what happened in iraq the other night is not a comparable scenario. this is not an accusation, not a fabrication, not an imagined threat.

the iranian government sent several ballistic missiles directly at american military bases.

if the bully doesn't throw a punch, their reign of terror is over.

and, no, i'm not a "hawk". i would prefer to avoid war whenever possible.

but, i don't think what happened the other day is a scenario where the hegemon should have stepped down - it was a scenario where the empire had to strike back, or risk losing it's status as the empire.

trump's a wimp.

and a sheep.

baaaaaaaaa.

what trump just proved is that he's not cut out for this job - the part of the job that is substantive, that only he can do, that actually matters.

and, the rest of the world should take advantage of it while they can.

it's not like i don't understand trump's reluctance.

but, the presidency is not an economic position. it's not a domestic role. the president doesn't cut taxes, or design health care systems.

the presidency is explicitly a military role; it's an elected dictatorship. he's commander in chief.

and, what i would tell him is that if he doesn't want to be the emperor, if he doesn't have this machiavellian streak, if he doesn't have the balls for it, then he should accept he's not cut out for it and step down.

i'm not fan of empire. i get it. but, this is a failure of american hegemony, and the actors involved will not stop at the precipice - they will interpret it as weakness (which it is) and pounce.

my attitude here, in context, is an asset. you have to approach this from a psychopathic kind of neo-pagan, almost stoic, kind of perspective.

trump's presidency has been far from spectacular, but it's only in the last week that it's failed.

i mean, have you noticed that, as critical as i am of the republicans, i don't actually agree with the democrats on much of anything, either?

what i said before was that i agreed with clinton and trump roughly equally often, it was just on different things. so, i might disagree with trump, like, 90% of the time - meaning i agree with him about 10% of the time. that's a very high level of disagreement, it's true, and i'd be unlikely to vote for him, certainly.

but, i disagreed with clinton about 90% of the time, too; the 10% was just in a different group of topics.

i don't like either of the parties, and i've been yelling it for years. we can disagree; we will, surely. but, don't act surprised.

and, no, drugs aren't freedom.

drugs are slavery.

smart people know that.

religion or freedom?

pick your side.

you're going to have to, soon.

are you on the side of religion and order and liberal-conservative values?

...or are you on the side of freedom and chaos and the abolition of normative thought?

...or i can walk through the front door of the mosque in a tank and bright lipstick.

these are your choices.

i won't respect your beliefs, and it's not up for debate.

listen.

i'd be a rather stupid atheist queer standing around waiting for the muslims to come to my rally for secular liberalism.

we're not on the same side of the struggle.

what side are you on?

i might have found the secret cache of update files in the winsxs folder.

the machinery is probably still in the registry, but the scripts should just error out, now.

my pc does not have a network card in it.

yet, the files in the "safe image" appear to have been appended to at some point. i've compared it to an earlier backup, and the most recent has all kinds of sysprep files and scripts and shit. somebody has altered this image....

that would suggest three possibilities:

1) somebody has physically entered the premises. and, if that's reality, i have no solutions. i can't know what they did. i can't undo a set of infinite possibilities. i can't protect against that.

i actually remember this topic coming up in the mscse training. the topic was networking security, and somebody kept asking "but what if they're there?". like, after every slide, as though it was a systematic analysis. over and over.

eventually, the trainer got fed up and actually called his boss in seattle (he was actually from redmond, and sent to ottawa to train us) to ask her what to do with this guy, and i'll never forget the response.

"i actually called my boss in seattle, and i'm going to give you an official response from microsoft - if the bad guys can actually touch your computer, you're officially fucked. that's officially not supported."

and, he stopped asking.

i have to go get groceries sometimes. i have to shower. and, i'm going to party, from time to time, too. i can't protect against people coming in here and installing things...

that should be against the law, but it seems like it's the police that are doing it. if this is reality, i'll just have to cope.

1b) somebody installed a wireless communication device somewhere, and i don't know where it is. they're then altering the image that way. again: i can't protect against a device i'm not aware of, even if i'm almost certain it's there. and, what would stop them from reinstalling it if i found it?

2) i'm schizophrenic and imagining this.

when i catch things, i'll delete them, but the premise that something is broken and i can fix it and it will be better after seems to be flawed. this appears to be perpetual. somebody is going to be bothering me forever.

the sewer stench just came back, too.

no other president in the history of the country would have let the iranians get away with that.

i am back up on the laptop. for now.

sorting through the files, i've decided that what i was doing was a fool's errand. i thought that if i could just get the thing in a specific state of being, i'd eventually be stable, and that would be that. i was trying to "fix" it.

but, i seem to have little control over these scripts, and little ability to maintain the sanctity of anything at all. i need to embrace the reality that i'm going to need to reimage every couple of days, every few reboots, and just be on with it. i should stop pretending that i can fix this.

every time i reboot in an attempt to secure the image, i just end up advancing the update scripts.

and, the flat reality is that i simply don't care. i just want to work on my art.

so, i'm going to stop trying to fix it, and just try to avoid rebooting as much as possible.

i've got days worth of loose ends to sort through before i can get back to what i was doing.

his choice may have been more popular than the alternative, perhaps.

but, i'm sure the christians were popular, too - as they rotted out the empire from the inside.

i want to be clear.

i think that - as per usual - trump made the wrong choice in standing down in iran. this is a tremendous loss of american prestige. it is the wrong choice, historically. it is the wrong choice, logically. it is the wrong choice, morally. it is the wrong choice all around.

but, what's new?

there is absolutely no previous historical precedent for a country to be able to bomb american forces with impunity. they've launched major wars over far less, and that's part of what makes america america, and what makes america feared across the world.

the zero tolerance dominance that has been in place since the spanish-american war is no longer in place.

the world can have it's way with america.

that is not wise. that is not tolerant. and, that is not smart. it will have longterm consequences that will accelerate the dismantling of american empire, and the onset of american decline.

my analysis was historical; trump has broken with history, and he's done so in a way that puts the country on a path towards collapse.

i'm not enjoying this.

this isn't fun.

again: if somebody wants me to have a deeper background in this topic, i'm sorry, but i don't.

and, i don't want to be spending my time doing this right now, either.

so, i'm literally just going to reboot a few times and see what happens.

i should be able to compare what the drive looks like afterwards to what it looks like stored and go from there.

again - i'd rather be doing anything, but there's nothing else to do until i get the machine back up, or can potentially buy a new laptop.

if i can't figure out what it's doing on the most recent image, i can try one of the backup images.

that's what they're there for.

it's just going to be very annoying to rebuild it.

the only thing i can figure out is that windows update is running in the background, and it's installing a driver that is crashing the system.

i don't seem to be able to disable the update.

and, i don't want to install this driver at all.

so, this lock screen seems to come up almost immediately, no matter what i do at this point, and i haven't the slightest understanding as to why. that makes no sense to me. i didn't change anything.

i'm going to have to see if i can figure out which files are altering by opening up the broken install and sorting through it.

this is different than before. before, it was obvious that i was being hacked in real time. now, the machine isn't even connected to the internet. there's not even a network card in it.

i'm really completely at a loss. i don't have the slightest idea...

...but, i'm going to have to figure it out, because it's the only computer i can access my email on, and the only computer with microsoft word on it.

well, that was anti-climatic.

it's also reflective of the onset of american decline. 

never did i think i'd see a puny, insignificant, backwards little country like iran attack an american military base and manage to get away with it. 

it's kind of shameful. kind of shocking...

i know it's annoying, but you'd imagine the importance of securing the place right now.

i think that, with the amount of drama put into this, they've kind of given it away.

iran is fucked.

if you're there, get out.

again: i don't really know what the point is.

clearly, i'm still online.

i'm watching the news conference.

the only other thing i can thing of is that it's an activation thing, but how does it know? 

all i can do is reinstall over and over and over and over again until i figure it out.

how many times am i going to reinstall?

as many times as i have to, obviously.

what can i do besides try again?

if i did something on sunday, and it had one result, and i did exactly the same thing again on wednesday, it should have the same result.

that's not what's happening. somehow, the machine is finding a way to install these updates now, when it couldn't before.

i don't understand how that's possible.

see, i'm not surprised that the level of the attacks is increasing.

what i don't understand is what they're using to access the system. that pc has no internet connection.

i understand what it's doing - it's installing a windows update, which is preventing me from booting.

i don't understand how to stop it. i've turned the process off at every stage.

but, i have nothing else to do except keep trying.

two questions.

1) would you support bombing franco? how can you oppose bombing the ayatollah, then?

2) can you think of any other historical example where somebody openly attacked american bases like this and got away with it?

so, am i "supporting" the invasion of iran?

i don't know what that would mean, in context. what i'm pointing out is that the united states cannot allow iran to challenge it's hegemony like this. 

america is the empire. and, the empire cannot allow for this kind of insolence and disrespect from minor players like iran. it has to assert it's authority. that's how empire works.

but, i'm also pointing out that i don't care much for the iranian regime.

in the context of an actual war, my interests are not on either side, but rather with the opposition. there have been scenarios - the spanish civil war, world war two - where the left has supported the bombing of a particularly egregious regime, because it is particularly egregious.

i'm not saying this is like world war two. but, it's not like the invasion of iraq, which was foolish all around, either. i would suggest that it's maybe somewhere midway between the 2003 invasion of iraq and the spanish civil war. 

as previously noted, however, i'm not naive on the point. i don't expect american bombs to be working in the interests of iranian civil rights, but rather in the interests of saudi theocrats. once the mullahs are knocked out of power, the forces that the americans end up backing will likely be the most backwards-thinking on the ground, because that is what america has always supported. it would be a cruel turn of events if i "supported" an invasion in the name of democracy, and ended up with the shah's grandson back in power. it is likely that i would change sides as soon as the government fell.

so, what i'm saying is twofold:

1) iran's reaction was stupid, and america will need to react with extreme force. the media is out to lunch on this. the iranians need to be put in line and taught what their place is.
2) i do actually support some kind of regime change in iran, where there is a viable opposition on the ground, and would in no way want to oppose something that may help them in the end.
3) fuck the ayatollah, solidarity with iranian secularism.

there's a background file system called 'clfs' that i've never heard of before. it seems to have been invented and deployed after my years doing vista support (which was 2006-2007) and active directory support (2007-2008). i haven't done any tech support since 2008.

but, it seems to be a deployment tool that runs in the background and does more or less what i'm observing. i suspect that this is what they're doing.

i don't know if it's possible to dismantle it or not. but, i'm just as happy to break it, if it gets me back up and running. 

so, we're going to do another format/reimage, then avoid giving the system ownership of the files and then go from there.

if it's stable for a while, i'll figure out what's going on later. i don't care, really..

ok, so this isn't quite what i thought, but...

i think i was right about fixing the user permissions, but not in the way that i thought.

the funny semaphores do actually appear to be attached to the image backup, not the bios in the laptop. i don't know what's launching them.

but, what seems to be happening is that as soon as i fix the user permissions, the windows update succeeds, some of the shit gets installed and i get the lock screen, when it can't find the driver.

so, i was worried about the funny user names being remote users using backdoors to get in. rather, i think that the broken permissions were preventing the script from running.

again: i actually don't want to do this. i want to work on the liner notes. 

so....

.....if the machine is stable so long as i keep the permissions broken, i should keep the permissions broken. 

that means that i'm going to explicitly not reset the permissions, which i guess is why i was getting the errors, and we'll see how long i'm good for with that.

but, i'm also getting kind of fed up with the arrangement, and am willing, at this point, to look at options in just getting a new laptop at the pawn shop...

as a precaution, i have:

- unplugged the laptop

- removed the laptop's battery

- disconnected the laptop's cmos battery

- disconnected the laptop's ram

if there's still something in there after that, i'm going to have to flash or reprogram the board, and i wonder - can i do it with a bus pirate?

what am i doing?

i slept most of the day, was up around 11:00. my plan to carefully rebuild the image by copying one thing over at a time failed as i faced a mismatch between the user files in the fresh install and the archived one. so, i'm going to have to plow through, instead. 

i'm convinced that the thing that broke the install was a permissions issue, so i've added an extra step to the rebuild, around resetting the permissions from the install disc before i boot back up. i'm hoping that this is the "correct " way to get rid of these extra user permissions, which i suspect may be granting the authority to run the background scripts.

at this point, i am relatively convinced that there is not a worm in the classic sense on the loose, as it would have infected the various drives and bioses, and there's no sign of it. when i reboot, i'll need to check to see if i see any sign of the funny semaphores before i go to the other machine. 

if i convincingly test this and come up with a clean pc, and then get infected almost immediately upon installing it back into the laptop, it's clear enough what the answer is, and what the next step is.

that's where i'm leaning right now...i just kind of have to show myself the truth of it....

there's this idea that the fact that the united states didn't immediately respond indicates some kind of restraint.

under american law, it is the congress that has the power to declare war. there is one exception, and that's when america is attacked. see, and that's part of why what the iranians did here was so overwhelmingly stupid.

the united states is not currently at war against iran. so, if they had done just about anything else, trump would have been forced to introduce the measure into congress. as it is, he may claim the authority to declare a war, because they were attacked.

but, i think the correct reading of the delay is to deal with the legalities. i don't know what they think the best idea is, here, but it's going to be some combination of existing legislation, new legislation and executive order. it was probably pre-written.

it looks to me like iran essentially fell into a trap - trump wanted a war, but knew he couldn't get the congress to vote for one, so he goaded them into attacking him.

if he introduces it into congress, it could be as more of a political stunt then an actual governing decision. i know that a component of the democratic base thinks this is a no-brainer, but trust me when i say that this is going to be a bit of a problem for a klobuchar or a warren or even a sanders to have to deal with.

biden, buttigieg and bloomberg will at least be able to avoid a technical vote, but they're still in a difficult position of arguing against declaring a war against a country that attacked us troops. that's supposed to be an automatic war, basically. there's really no way out of this.

so, we'll see what he does. but, i'd expect him to do some combination of the following:

1) introduce legislation to declare war against iran
2) point to the ndaa in iraq as an authorization for some force
3) point to the part in the constitution where it says you can react to an attack

this is probably going to be a choreographed, big deal type of thing.

and, the iranians could have avoided it by being smart instead of being stupid. that's what putin should be looking at, here.

will the russians step in, though?

i don't think it's rational, at this point. 

the russians should support regime change, and try to build ties with the new government.

i hope that, at the end of this process, the iranian people are able to erect a secular democracy where they can govern themselves based on modern concepts.

but, their government has to be dismantled.

it's long overdue.

it just made it's last dumb mistake.

and, trump just killed his own legacy at this point, too.

he has now started a war; that was the one thing he previously had going for him - "at least he hasn't started a war".

he can't blame it on pelosi; i can blame it on pelosi, but he'll need to eat it.

that knocks him down the list a good ways.

let this be a lesson to future generations - this is what happens when you put stupid people in charge.

there's no way out of this, at this point.

buckle up. we're at war....

we're at war with iran.

they directly attacked us troops with uniformed personnel.

that's an act of war.

it may be true that the correct analysis is that this is why trump shouldn't have started this. this is why this was stupid.

but, that doesn't change the reality that the iranians just made a very, very, very bad choice and will need to be severely punished for it.

...but the truth is that they're probably selling them weapons behind the scenes, and it's just an excuse to increase defense spending.

if it were up to me, i'd tell the ayatalloh to kiss his ass goodbye...

an attack on american troops like that is an invitation for invasion, and i'd support one to get the point across.

up until this point, we could broadly rely on the iranians to act like adults in the face of american childishness.

i guess that's out the window. 

and, if it is, they will need to be annihilated.

we can't let them bomb nato troops...it doesn't matter what the circumstances are, that can't be tolerated.

they probably fired some rockets into the ocean.

regardless, this is still stupid and they still deserve what they get.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-51028954

ok, so i snuck in and out. hopefully, my decoy worked.

well, these guys are motherfuckers.

i got a two line email from the oiprd suggesting they consent to allowing the addendum and informing me that they'll serve me by the end of the week. but, they said that last month.

i guess i'll call the court tomorrow morning, then.

and, hopefully the forwarding works from here on in. that also gives me a backup email archive...

and, really?

if you're going to spend a month on a beach, you might want to think twice about looking like a bum when you get back.

'cause people might think you kind of are one.

the conservatives should get those pictures out into ads, pronto.

all of a sudden, sexy justin is absolutely revolting and gross.

canadians will not vote for a man in a beard. it's unprofessional and dirty looking.

beards are disgusting under all contexts, and trudeau looks like an idiot and should shave it pronto.

facial hair has an exceedingly poor track record on politicians in canada. 

and, i'll tell you this flat out - he'll lose the next election if he walks into it with a beard. full stop.

what i should do is set up forwarding to the fake address when i get back in.

and, listen.

as shitty as this is, at least i don't have a boss telling me what to do. as wasteful as this is, at least i'm not wasting my time making a profit. 

i'm sitting buck naked in my bed typing. i can sleep if i want to. i can read if i want to.

it could be a lot better. but it could be a lot worse.

nope.

the machine seems free of anything problematic, though.

i should perhaps point out that if i can't get into the hard drive because i can't load the sata drivers because i can't see the install screen....

yeah. i think i'm being too optimistic in ruling out the bios. what can i do, though, besides edit the registry offline?

well, i guess i could do that.

as a troubleshooting step, it seems over the top...

this was why i didn't install clean in the first place, i'm remembering.

the truth is that it was a logical shortcut; if i could prove it was the bios, i'd have to turf the board and buy a new one. but, if i could rule out the bios, and i had a virus in the install, i'd have to clean it anyways.

so, i should just work my way through the issues with the machine, first, and see what happens, see when things get messy.

one of the things i've noticed through these installs is that the registry doesn't wipe itself out entirely. certain persistent issues reappear on reinstall that i thought were dealt with. i suppose it will be useful to figure out when, exactly, these things jump back up.

so, this is going to be a bit of a process, then. and, i'm considering how to check my email, in the mean time.

i'm using a fake address here so i don't expose my password, but how much sense am i making, given that my machine is so compromised? that pc hasn't been on the internet in years, and i'm skeptical about letting it back on. but, this driver issue appears lengthy.

based on previous experience, even a few seconds exposure could be catastrophic. i'm under attack by pros, here.

as it is, the issue kind of ruled itself out as the operating system will no longer read my input devices. they work fine. i'm going to assume that my drivers got screwed up. but, i had to reset the bios and i'm going to reformat and start again.

what is going on with the court stuff right now? i'm waiting for responses. it's not like anything that the oiprd sends me is worth any kind of immediate acknowledgement, and i'm not interested in mediation or settlement. the singular point of this process is to get the issue in front of a judge. i want the data, but i don't need it immediately. and, if there's concerns about the safety of my network, they are more important.

but, i don't trust this chromebook connection.

i'll wait...

grargh.

so, you install to your pc. it understands the drivers for the hardware in your pc. things seem fine.

you take your hard drive out of your pc and put it in your laptop for testing. normally, you'd expect to maybe get a prompt for a few drivers.

but, your screen is burnt out, so you're relying on vga drivers, which are one of the last things to load, so you can't see a damned thing until you're done booting.

as such, your machine is stuck at the nag screens. what do you do?

i have the exes from intel, but i have to get into the os before i can run them. i tried to run them on the desktop anyways - at least windows will know the files are there, now. let's see if that works.

but, this was merely a troubleshooting step, one i may be willing to forego. it does not appear as though the bios is inserting these kill events. thankfully.

i guess it is useful to figure out if they may come back from one of the internal drives, if something is hiding in there. so, i guess that's the next step.

and, the next batch of troubleshooting is going to occur on the pc, anyways, because i have to determine where the break is. i don't think it's in the registry. we'll find out, though.

what i'm doing right now - logical, step-by-step troubleshooting - is what they taught me when i trained to be a tech support agent.

this is what a tech support job is actually like: you have to use logical thinking and the power of elimination to isolate and identify the problem....

you don't just look at it and know the answer, like some kind of savant. it's slow, boring work. but, it's how you have to do it.

so, i've rebooted this clean install repeatedly, i've screwed around with the cat files and i've taken a lot of actually useful log files from various third party software, and i've come to the conclusion that the bios in the pc is clean, at least.

a few notes..

- the squiggly file does reappear. but, it doesn't actually load. this is consistent with previous behaviour.

- my restart/shutdown mutants are not appearing in process explorer. as mentioned, i think these are the reasons my computer is shutting down (after the updates install)

- sorting through autoruns, particularly in regards to the networking, was kind of an eye-opener. stuff that i thought was default clearly isn't. so, i'm going to need to clean that out.

- i have a clean driver list to compare with.

the next thing to do is see what happens when i plug the clean install into the laptop, without connecting to the internet. if i get some nasty behaviour, that strongly suggests the bios. and, that's a problem.

i did take that shower after all, i might even need to be showering twice daily down here with the dry air, which is just oppressive, it's like a fucking desert, and i am back up.

i'm the type that would be happy to live in a rainforest. i've been known to quip that i'd like to live near the equator, if it weren't for the muslims and the wild animals. 

i've got pails of water out to try and fight the dry heat, and i'm still chapped.

with the fan on the higher setting, the smell is at least mostly gone. still...

so, i'm going to mess around on the factory install for a while and see what happens. what happens after a few reboots? are those weird files coming back? are there servers installing in the background?

i've been clear enough that i really think this is government, but what if it's some script kiddie, like i thought before?

i need to let you in on something, kid. my internet? it's a 6 mbps connection. max.

and, i made that choice partly because of kids just like you.

yes, i'll sit and read all winter.

i did it before..

what else am i going to do?

i will not be moving on to the next stage until i'm done what i'm doing. it's not a question of multitasking, it's a question of linearity. it simply makes no sense to move to the next thing until i'm done what i'm doing.

and, then, what else is there to do?

that's fine. i need to get done those asimov texts for the alter-reality, anyways.

so, what's my hypothesis, so far?

that weird clsid seems to be connected to the dberr.txt file, but it seems to be indirectly - the clsid seems to be quarterbacking some kind of install process, but the various policy settings that i've put in place have mostly stopped it from working. so, i just get errors.

whomever is doing this seems to be a professional. these aren't hacked together scripts. they're, like, corporate deployment files. this person would appear to be a trained network admin. again: i can't imagine anybody but the cops.

i'm going to guess that the restarts are related to the windows update that's running in the background, and i can't figure out.

eventually, after a few restarts, it tries to install something with an unsigned driver, and i get the lock screen. if i turn off signing - something i'll never do ever again - then the install process goes to the next step, and starts installing the list of packages that somehow ended up in the catroot directory. at that point, i'm no doubt sending off updates to the cop shop - or, at least, i would be, if i didn't have all of the networking dismantled. 

what i learned is that the "worm" is probably in the bios, now, and i might need to buy a new windows 7 laptop at the pawn shop before i can get back to what i was doing. i'm very sorry, but i don't otherwise know how i can flash it. that could take me a few months of saving up, in which case i guess i'm going to spend most of the winter reading. it would also mean i'd have to stay in for the spring, because i wouldn't have any money to party with.

i suppose the other option is that it's in the registry, but that doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

the format is at 50%. we'll find out in a few hours.

in the mean time, i'll keep posting here to the laptop. i'm wide awake, and will need to wait until tonight to take a shower, now, because it's too late. so, i guess i'll take a look at the news while i'm waiting.

also, the ayatollah sucks and i hope the iranian people lynch him in the public square.

i don't want to compete.

i'm not going to retaliate.

and, i won't be silenced, either.

i just want to try to get my life back on track as quickly as possible.

so, you might think you're tough, or you're smart.

but, i'm disabled, and have no background in this topic.

so, knocking me off the network - for a day or two at most - is equivalent to sneaking up behind a little girl in the playground that is eating ice cream and punching her in the face.

if that makes you feel manly, seek help.

i mean, if you're trying to prove you're a more elite hacker than me, that's fine.

i'll concede the point.

i never made any claims to being one, in the first place. i can probably beat you in an argument, but i'm not going to beat a competent hacker, and have no desire to be somebody that could.

i'm a musician that's being cut off from my art by somebody with a childish ego and/or sense of humour. i'm wasting huge amounts of time and want it to stop. so, put the situation in context...

i walked away from a programming degree because i didn't want to do it, so this is particularly frustrating to me.

again: my degree is in math. the additional 19.5/20 comp. sci. credits i have are programming credits. so, i can program in c and java and scheme and some other languages. i can't do much else.

i enrolled in the program solely to get a job, and dropped out of it because the only thing i really learned was that i didn't have any interest in it.

i don't game. i don't script. i don't hang out with these kids, and they could knock me over without much effort, as i'm checking the reference manual.

and, i mean, that's fine, with me - because i don't care if i win or lose this, i just want to get back to my art.

i need to be clear.

i'm *not* a hacker.

if this fight gets out of control, i'm going to eventually lose it. of my ~60 university courses, that is ~120 1/2 year university courses, not one of them was in networking.

i repeat: i have never taken a course in networking. you don't have to swim very deep, here, to get out over my head. in context, a smart person should recognize their ignorance. 

but, what am i supposed to do? i'm under cyberattack. palestinians may look stupid throwing rocks at tanks, but they can hardly just lie down and get steamrolled....

my ability to defend myself is minimal. i grasp this. but, i need to check my email by the end of the day, too.

so, what actually happened?

well, they managed to install this driver, somehow. i'm not sure which one it is yet, but it seems like it's a windows update related thing.

after i allowed the boot without driver verification, those error messages stopped and whatever zombie process is running was able to actually install this list of cat files in the catroot folder, which initially included a lot of scary things like iis servers (but had been deleted by the time the script got to running).

so, if i were to actually boot without the driver signing verification, it would install this pile of garbage on my system.

i have little choice but to reformat, and take a much closer look at what's going on. it may be using some kind of background logging script, which i may have to completely dismantle.

but, that seems to be the crux of it - they want me to turn the verification off so i can install some kind of surveillance server.

so, guess what happened?

i hadn't connected to the internet yet. all i'd done was delete some cache files, turn up the group policy and mess with some file ownership. it's only the last option that should make any difference, here.

the solution on the internet is to disable driver signing, but that's a shitty answer all around. first, i don't actually want to do that - i like driver signing, it's a good idea. it stops the cops from installing drivers on your system, for example. second, i don't get the screen to pick the option, because my lamp is burned out. i couldn't do it if i wanted to (which i don't).

previously, i just took it as a sign that i was hacked and needed to format. this time, i need to take a closer look at it. so, i disabled driver signature verification...

....and it did work.

so, i turned on the bootlogger, and it hung at afd. that's winsock. firewalls. great. but, disabling it (offline. temporarily.) didn't actually work.

i *can* boot the system, but there's obviously something loading that i don't want there.

so, i ran sigverif and, in conjunction with autoruns, i now have a list of unsigned drivers to check, and we'll have to work it via trial and error.

so, i made some group policy changes and it let me delete some of those files. that's progress.

oddly, the dll that the shutdown & restart mutants are referencing doesn't actually exist on my machine. so, that might be a false positive.

i'll be back up soon...

yeah. 

so, that database error file in the catroot seems to be timestamped at the same time as that weird file in my cache, almost (almost.) suggesting that one is triggering the other.

i blocked the path they were using to drop updates in firefox, but then noticed different phantom directories showing up, instead.

again: the persistence is hard to explain in terms of random attacks. i'm disabled. do you know how much is in my account right now? less than $200. i have no access to credit. so, there's going to be some disappointed hacker in india if he gets in, let me tell you.

it doesn't make any sense. he'd have given up by now, i'm sure.

this has to be law enforcement...

...or a very sad, very pathetic little boy.

....and that is the reality for a lot of people right now, and has been since the police were invented.

which was fairly recently, actually.

we've spent most of our existence, as a species, without the need for a police force. the anarchist argument is that the current use of policing is an anomaly, that we don't need them and that we'll get rid of them once we have the courage and unity to rise up and throw them off of us.

when?

i don't know. now? 

i don't need the police to protect me from the bad guys.

i need somebody to protect me from the police.

the police are not good people. they're screened for low intelligence, and the job requires a bully mentality.

you'd have to be severely mentally deranged to want to walk around with a gun and tell people what to do. like, these people weren't abducted and trained against their will. they volunteered...to walk around with guns....try to process that, it's insane.

they don't exist to "serve and protect", either. they're not out there for you and me and your friends.

the police exist for the sole and singular purpose of protecting the rights of property owners, that's what they do. that's what they've always done. and, because they're hired muscle, goons, thugs, they get into all kinds of trouble, all of the time.

the reason i'm under surveillance is that i'm an anarchist. but, the surveillance is just demonstrating my point.

so, i took the clean drive out of the pc and put it into the laptop because the electrical usage is lower, but forgot to plug the video card in before it posted. so, i had to put it back into the pc to get past the nag screen (i can't see it on the laptop. the lamp is burnt out.) and i noticed the squiggly file, which passes every scan but seems to act like a trojan, was back again. further, the kill & restart mutants were back. i think that figuring out what these are is key to understanding the reboots.

so, i booted back into xp and deleted it from the xp install, and came back up in 7 to find it was gone, but the kill & restart mutants were back. hrmmn. did the clsid create the mutants? is that a coincidence?

i rebooted again to find the clsid there again.

worms tend to be able to do stuff like this, recreate themselves from their own fragments. but, what happened?

i guess there's two possibilities:

1) this is normal. but, i can't figure out what the files are. if it's normal, it's pretty weird.

2) i picked the file back up from the bios in the laptop.

if the latter, i might have infected the pc with it.

if i have a virus (government or private sector, but this looks like it's government - and this all started when i put the rcmp disc in my computer, remember) in this laptop bios, i suspect i'll need to fix the lamp before i can flash it. i know how to flash a bios; i don't know how to flash a bios if i can't see the bios screen. and, it's making me wonder. as always, the lamp burned out when i was gone.

but, for right now, i just don't know, and i'll need to do another fresh reinstall before i do. so, i'm not going to worry too much about this for right now, i'm going to just work out some loose ends and get myself back online within a few hours.

again: my cyberstalker is persistent, it is true, but this is just a stupid waste of everybody's time. i should be back into my email well before the morning.

i haven't slept yet, really.

i got out of the shower a few hours ago, took the machine out of hibernation, rebooted and hoped that i'd get most of this done before the sun came up.

instead, i got that annoying rpcremote error which keeps coming back after a few hard restarts. i did point out a few, but wasn't convinced it was another attack because the only other thing i saw running was that weird clsid that keeps coming back free of viruses.

i also noticed that my usb hub was knocked sideways and my cords were all tangled up, making me wonder if somebody wasn't down here when i was actually in the shower, which would be absolutely desperate and pathetic.

as it is, i never made it back on to the internet before i formatted - 10 passes this time - so if somebody actually came down here to patch something remotely, it didn't get them very far. it's no doubt gone, now.

after i reinstalled clean, i took a closer look at a few things and realized that the clsid i saw poking around actually wasn't there in the clean install, it was these other ones that were. and, i noticed that explorer didn't have some of the mutants loaded that i'd seen previously in the other install, including the shutdown and startup ones that i flagged while poking through last time.

i was able to completely delete this file once by changing the permissions on the cache folder, but then i got the lock screen again.

what i want to know is how to insert and remove mutants and semaphores from a running explorer. i have taken os classes. i do know what these things are. but, i haven't the slightest idea how to actually get in there and mess with them, and it looks like i'm going to have to figure it out.

as mentioned - i've run scans, and they come up blank, indicating that this is a sophisticated attacker. and, the broad scope of the scenario indicates as much, as well. this person, who i do suspect is my landlord, who i also suspect is a cop, and i'm sure is smoking a lot of drugs, is being very persistent.

well, do you think we should do what's in iran's self interest?

that would be useful of you, to them.

you idiot.

you're going to hear a lot of comparisons between iran and iraq and that's fine.

i'd rather see the contrasts.

for example, unlike iraq, iran has a popular opposition movement that could conceivably seize power.

iran is very young, and there is a very big generation gap regarding religion. if that was true in iraq, one suspects it was in the opposite direction.

these interventionist wars are a shitty way to do this, and i'm not advocating anything, but i could find myself biting my tongue.

listen: i don't want to start another war. but, i won't stand with the ayatollah, either - more so than i refused to stand with saddam.

at least saddam was a secularist.

i would like to support a secular insurgency in iran, which, unlike in other places, actually exists. i'm not naive, though...i know that american bombs are not likely to bring peace, so much as they are to bring chaos.

i've pointed out before that i do find this a little bit trickier than iraq. iraq was stupid. clearly. even if it's by accident, iran might actually work.

but, what is in canada's actual self-interest here?

you know, if bombing iran keeps the price of oil high...

canada has it's self-interests, you know.

.....and they have a profit motive.

what they don't seem to realize is that i can't inherit more than a few thousand dollars without going off disability anyways, and that i'd need to inherit millions to make going off of it worthwhile, which is not realistic.

so, i would turn down a check for $500,000.

i'm better off on odsp.

that's why i haven't been fighting this.

they are completely shameless, malicious, in-your-face, habitual, pathological liars.

i repeat: there is absolutely no scenario at all whatsoever where you should ever trust my mother or my sister for any reason at all.

i hope that the police are at least competent enough to figure that out, eventually, without the outside help that is no doubt coming.

broadly speaking, let it be clear - these people are both pathological liars.

they should not be trusted.

ever.

at all.

i've been clear enough that i don't have a lot of patience for conservative family values.

we'll see what the report says, first.

but, nobody should expect me to be lenient about this - if i'm right, they've been feeding lies to the police to get me locked up, and i will need to retaliate, legally, in self-defense.

would i send a woman with kids to jail?

well, i'm not a judge.

but, if i were, i'd be likely to make the argument that it's better to get the kids away from her before she harms them. and, in context, i think that's the right argument.

and, here comes the stench, right on schedule.

i don't understand this.

i took a short nap, but i'm still up. i'm at dec 21st and think it should move forward relatively quickly as these are mostly larger posts, left. that said, i still have about 50 file stamps to post to the music site.

i've learned that i need to reboot coming out of hibernation, which i think is a processor thing, but the computer has otherwise been stable. i think i've got this figured out.

i'm going to give them until tuesday morning before i start making calls, but this week should be important for the review as i should either get the documents i've been waiting for or be able to at least make my case that the delays are unreasonable.

and, the more i think about it, the more i'm convinced that the cops are actually hiding some deeper information, and the more i'm convinced that it's going to land my mother and/or sister in a lot of trouble. with some reflection, based on a number of overlapping events, i'm more and more convinced that this is what they're operating on. i think this is the reason they're pushing me to get a lawyer - they don't want to disclose.

but, they're going to have to disclose.

my mother actually has a long history of lying to the police for financial reasons, and i'd guess that her motive has to do with her own mother's inheritance, but this is a different circumstance altogether. the people she's fucked around with have been quick to forgive her.

i'd send her to jail as quickly as i could, and for as long as i could. i think she's long overdue for a lengthy sentence, for a lifetime of bad behaviour. and, if it's her oldest child that sends her away, there's really just something proper in it. people that are rotten to the core like her should really be put down by their own children.

i would have no more concern for my sister, who is just as terrible and dishonest of a person.

it is against the law to lie to the cops, but they'll need to take the situation into consideration. if i can charge one or both of them with filing a false report, i will do so, and push for the strictest possible sentence. the malice here suggests a danger to the public. but, we'll have to see how bad it is.

i'm getting the impression that it's pretty ridiculous.

for right now, i can only wait.

i should maybe drop these, too.

i found myself with a lot of free time over 2011/2012 and did a lot of research, as a result of it.

the common genres are the same as always: techno, jazz, psychedelia, punk. this is a little more developed than usual, though.

https://deathtokoalas.blogspot.com/2013/12/best-of-most-of-2011.html

https://deathtokoalas.blogspot.com/2013/12/sporadic-2012-list.html

the stench did pick up around 3:00-10:00, but i seem to have survived the morning awake enough that i hope to finish a long day, today, and get this mostly done, in the process.

i'm listening to 2013 stuff, today.

https://deathtokoalas.blogspot.com/2013/12/2013-year-end.html

i don't actually think that i'm a tralfamadorian.

but, it's not dissimilar to my concept of time - i see my life as a blob that exists in a large scale continuum for future generations to take advantage of, not as this linear thing that i'm stuck moving through or taking advantage of.

so, i reject this false dichotomy between "the present" and "the past". it's a holistic whole. and, it's only meaningful from the perspective of the future.

i've moved twice.

the first time, i was told it was a non-smoking building, and it turns out there was a government-approved drug addict living below me.

the second time, i signed a non-smoking lease with somebody that all evidence suggests is a drug addict, but that won't admit it when i challenge him on it.

given the evidence in front of me, what would i expect to accomplish by moving a third time?

there doesn't appear to be a solution, here. i don't seem to have a choice to be sober. and, that's very saddening and angering and depressing.

so, when did i cancel my cable?

no, actually.

see, i never had cable at all.

my parents had basic cable. when i moved out, i didn't bother at all.

i first moved out in 2004. so, in a sense, that's the answer.

i've been up since 22:00, and they didn't notice.

that indicates i've cut out the listeners from the machine. that's a good step, at least.

i.

don't.

like.

it.

ok?

i was actually feeling pretty good, too.

alert. lots of coffee...kind of buzzy....

it was a nice change.

now, he's going to ruin my night by making me tired and lethargic. again. fuck.

i'm going to be grouchy all night because of it, end up with another short day because i'm so fucking tired i can't stay awake, and then sleep another 15 hours to try and shake it off.

ok, and as soon as i started posting, that fucking idiot started smoking.

this is indicating that he's waiting for me to wake up before he starts.

what a fucking piece of shit...

i don't watch tv, and you do.

that's why i'm so much more rational than you are, and you're so delusional and fucked up. it's a powerful, powerful brain-eating machine...

again: i know that liberal capitalists tend to be delusional about this kind of thing.

but, i don't believe in perseverance; what i believe in is empiricism. humans almost never beat the odds - that's why the odds are there. fighting against the universe is not a sign of integrity, it's a sign of stupidity. the math says you'll lose, and i'm more interested in being rational about it than trying to overcome it.

again: i'm sorry if you find that distressing, but it indicates a fundamentally different worldview.

i swear there's been a thyssenkrupp van (they still have an elevator company in north america, and that's what the van says - thyssenkrupp elevators) following me around for years. it shows up in the strangest places. consistently.

it followed me from ottawa to windsor.

this stuff will come up in the alter-reality, if i can find it, and they don't imprison me, first.

but how many of you knew the nazis owned a large island in the detroit river, on the canadian side? were there uboats? scary shit...

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2013/12/today-fighting-island-is-privately.html

was ollie a cop?

probably.

he had a sweet apartment downtown, and no apparent job.

and, if he was, what do you think his organizing program was really about?

there was another likely cop - that i dubbed 'coach' - that claimed he was working on an "activist network". the purpose was for organizing, of course. right...

these cops knew i was smart, and seemed to see me as a "leader", but they didn't get the concept of non-hierarchical organizing, or my particularly strong insistence on it. ollie the cop is trying to co-opt me...

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2013/12/ollie-i-like-going-through-my-media.html

coffee.

i like coffee...

i've almost never drank by myself, ever, in my whole life, either. i can count the number of times on one hand.

it's something i just don't like to do....

i think the last time i had a drink by myself was december, 2013.

so, i'm not drinking down here by myself, either.

as of right now, i really don't have any plans to smoke anything at all until march, at the earliest. i think i can hold off on the tobacco until then.

and, we'll see what the realities are around buying legal marijuana on either side of the border at that time and whether or not i can cut the tobacco out without being a pain in the ass to the people around me.

i tend to buy a pack or two if i'm at the bar for a long period, so i'm not bumming them.

but, with that singular exception put aside, as frequent as it might be in the summer months when i'm out, i haven't bought a pack of cigarettes to smoke casually since the end of 2017, when i got stressed out during the first move.

i'm not joking - i was literally straight-edge for ten months, and i've almost been straight-edge-except-at-concerts since may. the exceptions are that i've been to toronto three times, and brought back a gram or two of pot each time and that i may bum a smoke or two here and there when i'm grocery shopping, because the city fucking stinks, anyways. but, the second caveat is related to the first - if i stop smoking at concerts, i'll stop bumming them when i'm shopping.

and, i have never smoked anything in the basement i'm in. at all.

it's now been four years since i quit smoking, habitually.

i repeat: i have not been a regular smoker, now, for four years.

fwiw, i've currently had zero cigarettes this year. i don't do resolutions, but the conditions are, indeed, in place to cut consumption down to something very close to nil.

i went completely straight edge for ten months last year, remember - no alcohol, no pot, no tobacco. i've really been almost completely straight edge between shows, since. i do like to get stoned at concerts and that won't change, but i don't see any particular reason why i couldn't cut the tobacco out completely at this point, and i'm kind of leaning in that direction.

i'm likely to get more pissy about this over the next few months, not less.

i don't know why exactly, but the last few days were relatively short. the burning smell this week is burning matches, which i guess is a little bit sulphur-y. i don't know...

maybe satan's hanging out, wants me to come up and say hi? somebody tell him to fuck off, or at least go take a shower. he reeks.

maybe it's the goat shit.

maybe i'm being silly.

as mentioned, i've been showering more frequently to get a handle on my hair and it might be part of what's making me sleepy - all of the hot water, all of the standing still. like falling asleep in a hot tub...

i'm guessing that my cyber-attacker/stalker (that's really what this is. stalking. actual stalking.) is reading this, and i don't want to hand out too much information. but, s/he's probably realized that i turned the firewall up another notch, and that it seems to be working. i've deleted some more cat files, to further frustrate the update process. the reboots seem to have stopped. for now.

but, i noticed this morning that word was listening over udp. what? was it connecting to a dns server? word listening when i have the updates dismantled is weird enough, but why udp?

it was listening on a local port, but still. see, they seem to be particularly focused on trying to get the writing by the undercover officers cleared out of the master document....

this kind of freaked me out, so i spent the night checking for data corruption on the files that were opened and have convinced myself of their integrity. i'm now ready to go to the next thing.

i'll have a tcpview window open as i go, and will check it periodically for odd connections.

so, let's hope i can get this done by the next sleep.