Category Archives: LiveJournal Imports

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The provincial election is coming up soon, and it’s quite possibly the most important provincial election we’ll see in our lifetimes. There’s a referendum (the first in 80 years) to switch to a proportional representation system, instead of the first-past-the-post garbage we currently have.

If you don’t know what that means or why you need to vote, check out the site and read a primer; all should become clear.

When it comes to the candidates and parties themselves, however, I just can’t bring myself to like anyone at all. It’s just a matter of which particular kind of government is the least bad. The Green Party of Ontario isn’t as market-oriented as the Green Party of Canada, but at the end of the day, it’s just watered down eco-capitalism.

The NDP platform is probably closest to what I’d like to see, as far as policies are concerned. Unfortunately, they haven’t gotten over their irrational fear of nuclear power, and they’d like to ban any further nuclear development in Ontario, saying it’s too ‘risky’.

How many people in Ontario died last year because of nuclear power? Right, no one.

How many people in Ontario died last year because of coal power? 800? 1300? 2000? Depends which stats you look at, but it’s a fuckton more than zero.

I can understand that the average person doesn’t really understand all the issues involved in nuclear power, and that there’s a general fear of all things nuclear, thanks to Chernobyl and the Cold War, but I expect my politicians to think critically.

The Liberal party’s platform isn’t interesting in any way. More promises which they may or may not be able to keep.

Broken Liberal promises are much better than kept Conservative promises, though.

I get the feeling I’m going to end up voting Communist.

WAH WAH WAH

Not that anyone ever really cares when someone complains about work on LJ, but this is how crazy busy my work has been recently:

For the last six weeks, I have had this sitting on my floor:

That is a brand new, fresh out of the box Google Mini. I bought it two months ago.

I have not even plugged it in.

Those who know me will understand how painful that is.

THINGS I HAVE BEEN ENJOYING LATELY, FIRST IN A SERIES

Now that Hell Month is over (and I have been VINDICATED) at work, I can get back to my regularly scheduled LJ slack-breaks.

THINGS I HAVE BEEN ENJOYING LATELY, FIRST IN A SERIES:

Specimen – Electric Ballroom
Specimen is one of the most important bands in goth and deathrock music. They were the band that founded the Batcave in the early 80s, asking the regulars (Robert Smith, Nik Fiend, Marc Almond, Nick Cave, etc.), “Are you man enough to wear makeup?”

They released a handful of singles and an EP, and then broke up sometime in the mid 80s, with the members joining Siouxsie & the Banshees, The KLF, Sinéad O’Connor, and eventually opening the NagNagNag club — but never again working together as Specimen.

DUN DUN DUNNN…

UNTIL NOW

Now, when a band that defined a genre comes back to write a full length album (in this case, their first full length album) after 20 years of inactivity, you might not have high hopes. Instead, you may have low hopes. You may, in fact, criticize their poor decision making skills and/or cocaine habits that drove them to this. You may also vow to never listen to the product, so that your precious memory of the band is not forever sullied. This is because the album will cost you $25 and 42 minutes of your life that you can never get back. It is always a bad idea, and it is always a terrible album.

THAT IS…

UNTIL NOW

This album reminds me a lot of Tones on Tail, and the good parts off Mechanical Animals and Peepshow. There isn’t a bad track on it, and the two bonus songs are solid dancefloor EBM and Psytrance tracks. Who knew they had it in them?

You should buy it. It is awesome.

Restraint

I can’t sleep. My body, stubbornly refusing to accept that it must be at work by 7AM, is staging a rebellion.

That’s fine. It’ll pay for it tomorrow.

I’ve been looking over my old design directory, at all of the sites I’ve built and abandoned over the years, and they all feel like they were built by strangers much more dedicated and talented than I am.

Years ago, I asked my closest friends for advice: Given a choice between music, design, and writing, which should I focus on? In what medium did I do the best work? Universally, my friends replied: Writing first, design second, and music last.

I chose music, as it turns out, and I’ve been very happy with the results. In retrospect, I’m sure part of my motivation for choosing it was that everyone ranked it last. Looking back over these old sites, however, I’m not sure I made the right choice.

Did I really design all these things? One after the other after the other? How the hell did I do that?

And what the hell am I doing now?

Entactogen/Integrity

Saturday was well-spent; in excellent company, listening to music and trading stories.

…or at least, that’s how I should feel about it, rather than this blanket of anxiety that’s settled around me since.

Here’s the thing: If I met you for coffee tomorrow, and you said to me the same things I said to her on Saturday, I don’t know if I’d believe a word of it.

I’m not sure which is more upsetting, the realization my friends might think I’m full of shit, or that my experiences have been so divergent that they sound like fantasy when spoken aloud.

Shelter overcrowding reaches crisis level

From the Ottawa Humane Society:

Following the rescue of 40 animals from our sister shelter and after admitting a near record number of strays, the OHS is facing an extreme housing crunch.

On July 16, two of our EAPS agents travelled to Cornwall to pick up 35 cats and five dogs who were left homeless after a fire damaged the shelter in that city. The animals were transported back to Ottawa, where our staff rallied to make room for the new arrivals. All received health checks and some loving care before making their way to the adoption ward.

In addition to the Cornwall crowd, close to 300 other animals have been admitted to our shelter in the past week, with more than 200 of those being stray or surrendered cats. Summer is typically a busy time of year, with the combination of kitten season and warmer weather adding to the influx, but staff have been working extra hard to deal with this year’s volume.

In an effort to boost cat adoptions, the OHS is allowing people who adopt one adult cat from its Champagne Avenue shelter to adopt a second cat at no extra cost.

Read more about our adoption crisis.

HUMBUG

Well, ladies and sirs; it seems every single tour that I was supposed to join has fizzled out. I passed on the Cyanotic west coast tour (with Acumen) so I could do the east coast (with Chemlab), but Jared decided to take out Paul Barker’s new band instead. The EU thing with Rabbit Junk is apparently a fizzle, as well.

Now I need to figure out what I’m going to do with all the vacation time I’ve saved up.

Maybe I just need to get really high, fuck and play Tetris Attack until dawn.

I haven’t been writing much lately, life has been too chaotic. Home is crazy, work is crazy, all is crazy. Crazy and frustrating. Not all frustrating, but frustrating enough. My computer isn’t working right, I’m not done moving yet, I owe more money today than I ever have, I’m not doing the things I enjoy nearly as much as I want or need to be, blah blah blah.

(Also, there’s cat hair everywhere, and it’s making me lose my fucking mind.)

I’m waiting on tour news from Cyanotic, looks like I might be joining them for November thing supporting one of the coldwave greats. With that said, I’ve planned on at least three tours this year that didn’t happen, so I’m not holding my breath. I was hoping there would be some European dates that would let me work around Maschinenfest, but all the overseas dates seem to be exceptionally flakey.

I’m finishing up the Ad·ver·sary album now, so we’ll see what happens after I send it off to Stefan. If he still wants to publish it on Ant-Zen, that would be fantastic. Otherwise, I’ll send it off to Ad Noiseam (even though I doubt they’d be interested) and Hands, and/or just publish it myself. I should also start calling in the remixes promised to me relatively soon.

There’s so much tension under my skin, and I don’t know where it’s from, or where to channel it.

…

I’ve been realizing this week just how much I miss being involved in the front lines of computer security, in the way only a disaffected teenager with no social life can be. I’m still involved in security, but I’m not discovering exploits, I’m not participating in anything global, or working with anything dangerous. I’m not doing anything that hasn’t been done and documented a thousand times before by a thousand other people.

What I miss, I think, is being involved in something that matters.

…

Housewarming soon.

quelle horreur

Ah, Montreal. You are like the sexy leather-clad mistress whom I take home for a night of unspeakable indulgences, only to wake and find you setting my couch on fire to rid it of evil spirits.

I spent some time there with my family this weekend, which is always an interesting and unnerving experience. Most of the family there are the immigrants: aunts, uncles, and their children, and are your typical Arab stereotypes. Pitbulls, Versace, Ferraris. However, my little brother has also recently moved to Montreal from LA in an attempt to go straight, and is not your typical Arab stereotype:

We couldn’t have been out for more than an hour or two when he got into a fight with three huge french-speaking Mexicans. Bottles broken over heads, knives pulled, teeth lost, and so on. To his credit, he didn’t start it, nor did he stab anyone this time.

Things calmed down a little after that, but really only a little. Aside from an hour spent watching a mindblowing surprise fireworks show downtown (who knew they could make explosions shaped like cubes?), the weekend was mostly dominated by chaos, confusion, and excess. One of my cousins called me this morning to let me know that my brother ended up in jail a few hours after I left. Aside from a kicked-in police car window, details are pretty sketchy, and no one knows exactly what happened, or where he went after he was released.

Family aside, I got to see Yann and Guilliame perform as Memmaker, which was excellent; we’ll be bringing them to town to play soon. I also got to spin an impromptu tag-team set with Yann at Saphir which was a lot of fun, and also resulted in a booking for a rave sometime next month. There are a lot of Montreal DJs who’re interested in playing Ottawa at some point, maybe we’ll see about having a Cultural Exchange night.

…

The house is coming along well, although the pace of the move is much slower than I’d like. I should be borrowing Charles’ father’s truck sometime soon to get the rest of the big pieces from the old house, and it should be all downhill after that.

It is, even in it’s unfinished and cluttered state, beautiful. I would buy it tomorrow if it were for sale. And if it were sold at about a third of it’s actual value so that I could afford it.

…

Instead of banknotes, today’s pictures are of the castle on Kaya street in Turkey where my father’s side of the family grew up. (It has since been taken over by the Turkish government, and turned into a museum and movie set.)



In the summer, the entire family would sleep outside on this roof.


This was my grandmother’s room and bedset. She left it when they moved, and they have maintained it for the last 40 years.


One of the guest rooms.