On Thursday, before all the drama started, a Canada Post delivery notice was put in my mailbox. I assumed it was my latest Amazon order and I thought "Whoa, that was fast!" But I just checked at Amazon, and my latest order hasn't shipped yet. I have no idea what this package could be and I have to wait until tomorrow to find out!!!

Lewis Wheelan, RIP

Poor Lewis, he deserves better. This is the problem with the warnings they give not to use air conditioning and not to call 911 except in a real emergency. I'm sure everyone would agree that Lewis' case was a real emergency, but, knowing him, it is very likely that he heard on the radio "Don't call 911 unless it's a real emergency" and decided to wait it out, saving 911 services for seniors and people trapped in elevators.

Similarly, I can see seniors in need deciding not to turn on their air conditioning because Ernie Eves is telling them to keep it off, thinking "Meh, I've been through worse than not having A/C" They should tell people "If you have a medical condition where you are affected by the heat, go ahead and turn on the A/C. If you have such a medical condition and you don't have electricity yet, call 911 so paramedics can evacuate you." Or they should just tell everyone to set their thermostats to 30 degrees, and then everyone will have A/C only when they absolutely need it.

I don't understand why people are so pissed off that it took the politicians so long to give press conferences. I wasn't expecting to hear from politicians, I was expecting to hear from their communications and media representatives. I didn't think there was anything wrong with the absence of politicians, I figured they would be receiving information, making decisions, taking action. Aren't our elected leaders supposed to be providing leadership? If I knew that their job was simply to be talking heads for their jurisdictions, I would have voted for the person with the best diction.

THIS IS SO COOL! Now when I'm trying to cook I never have to mess around looking for a measurement unit converter again!

I'm bored. It's weird - I'm bored because I can't go out. (Well, I can go out, but there's no point in doing so because the subway is down and most places in my immediate neighbourhood are closed, so it's not worth the trouble of walking down 14 flights of stairs). If this were a normal weekend, I wouldn't be bored. If you told me last Thursday that I'd spend Saturday sitting at home, reading, eating, watching TV, playing computer games, I'd think that sounds nice and restful. I have two newspapers and 2 unread novels in addition to 100 TV channels and the entire freaking internet! But just the fact that I can't go out makes me antsy and bored.

My face is freaking out. I'm covered in splotchy red zits and I have no idea why. The grocery stores in my immediate vincinity remain closed while they deal with spoiled merchandise. Grumpiness for me today.

Why does it bother parents so much when kids watch TV and play video games?

People, most of whom weren't affected by the blackout, are going "What's the big deal? People didn't have electricity for centuries!"

It wasn't that big a deal, mostly a minor inconvenience for me personally, but a few thoughts:

- My stove is electric. Before they had stoves people would use fire to cook, but I don't have any safe place to make a fire because my building was built decades after stoves were invented, so the ability to safely make a fire would be a luxury.
- I live on the 14th floor. Before the invention of the elevator, buildings weren't more than 6 storeys tall. I am quite capable of climbing 14 flights of stairs, but the fact that pre-elevator buildings were never this tall is testament to the fact that it isn't reasonable to do so every day.
- My local grocery stores are closed because their register and inventory systems are all electronic. Not all stores can just spontaneously switch back to a manual register like they had before electricity.
- Same thing with banks. Even if the branch were open, they can't process my withdrawl manually.
- Water is pumped by electric pumps. Before the existence of this sort of system there were hand pumps, springs, and wells. However, I'm not likely to find a well in midtown Toronto.

PS: Mayor Mel: how can you tell all the businesses to close, and then tell everyone to go buy a flashlight all in the same breath?

Well that was interesting. I was very lucky. I was in the office when the blackout hit, so I managed to get a ride home with a co-worker. The stairwells in my building were pitch black. It was like one of those movies where they put a prisoner in dark solitary confinement and he goes insane. I was fully prepared to sit in the lobby and wait, but then these two old ladies convinced me to go up with them. So we were slowly walking up, counting our steps, narrating our journey, feeling our way along the walls, and on the sixth floor we met this guy with a candle, so he escorted all of us back to our apartments. That guy is a hero!

Luckily I hyper-cool my apartment when I'm at work, closing all the curtains and cranking up the air conditioner, so it was still cool when I got home. Water wasn't working, but fortunately I had 7 water bottles, 2 big bottles of coke, 24 cans of iced tea, plus some lemonade and wine and orange juice, so I'm not going to die any time soon. I had a peanut butter sandwich for dinner so I wouldn't have to open the fridge and read the newspaper and Harry Potter until it got dark.

I took a sleeping pill at sunset - I don't like to take them but the last thing I needed was to be in pitch dark in a power outage freaking out because I can't sleep. It's surprising how dark things are without electricity! Candles produce so little light! (Don't worry, I had my candle in a very tall jar and kept it well-supervised). Life must have been so bleak before the invention of electricity! I quickly nodded off, and woke up at about 4:45 am when the power came back on. I listened to a bit of radio and watched a bit of TV and puttered around. Took a shower even though I don't know if I'm supposed to. I was surprised to see a Globe and Mail at my door, but that gives me something to keep me amused.

I assume I don't have to go to work today. I'll stay home until someone calls and says "Why aren't you at work?" anyway. It's a state of emergency and I'm certainly not an essential service, so I doubt I'd get in trouble for not going. I'm trying very hard to be a good girl and conserve energy, but it's very hard to sit at home all day and not use energy. I obviously have my computer on, I did have a shower (since I don't know if the power and water will go out again, I may as well be clean), and while I'm not keeping my TV on 24/7 I will turn it on when I find something I want to watch. I also cooked some pasta so that I'll have food if the power goes out again. I could really use some groceries, but I doubt stores are open. The problem with having taken a sleeping pill is that I'm not tired at all, and napping would be a good thing to do today.

Ah well, I had been sort of hoping for a day off.

I read the Toronto Star and the Globe and Mail. The Toronto Star's editorial stance is very much in line with my personal politics, while the Globe and Mail is a tad conservative. However, I've noticed that lately the Star seems to be a bit more optimistic than the Globe and Mail. Take, for example, their stories about the element in the Liberal party that wants legal same-sex unions not to bear the name "marriage". When I read the Star's story, I got the impression "Some people want to prevent same-sex marriages from being called marriages, but it's okay, they'll never get away with it." When I read G&M's story, I got the impression "They will go to any lengths to prevent same-sex marriages from being called marriages, and there are a great many of them!" (It should be noted that this is the impression I got from a quick skimming of the articles, which is how I generally read newspapers. A more in-depth read reveals multifaceted views of course, but I'm talking about my first immediate impression).

Now I don't know which of these views is more correct since I am not a Liberal party insider and I'm not qualified to interpret law for a reason. However, the G&M story compelled me to write to my MP and remind her how important it is that the word marriage be used, while the Star story, had I read it first, would probably have made me think "This isn't so good, but it's okay, they law won't allow half-assed civil unions."

I think it would behoove the Star to be a bit more pessimistic in their editorial stance. The Star is Canada's most widely read newspaper. If they had managed to elicit the slight panic that I felt from the G&M article, more people for whom the use of the word marriage is very important would have been more compelled to write to their MP and give the Liberals more of a mandate for the word marriage, while more people who did not want the word marriage used would have felt more complacent and taken no action. An optimistic editorial stance leads to increased complacency among people who agree with the paper's politics, while a more pessimistic attitude would lead to increased activism.

It's interesting how the Toronto Star and the Globe and Mail can have completely different takes on the same story. It's also interesting which newspaper decided to spin it which way

I'm now going to be one of those annoying people who points out mistakes in Harry Potter. In OotP, 12 Grimmauld place is so heavily disguised and hidden that you can only get in there if Dumbledore personally tells you where it is. And yet Harry managed to send Hedwig there before he knew where it was by telling her to find Sirius.

So why doesn't the ministry just send an owl to Sirius and follow the owl to find out where he is?

I was getting ready to go out with my playlist playing in the background. Smells Like Teen Booty came on, which is a really good song to get ready to, so I started dancing and singing along as I put on my makeup. Then Stairway to Heaven came on next, but since it isn't as danceable I kept singing Smells Like Teen Booty. When Stairway to Heaven hit the instrumental bridge, I realized that my singing actually went with the music. This means that both Bootylicious and Smells Like Teen Spirit could be mashed up with Stairway to Heaven. Someone with the proper software and more musical and artistic skills then me better get right on that!

This psycho lady tried to get on the bus with an invalid transfer. The driver told her she'd have to pay her proper fare because you can't transfer your way through a round trip (at least not so obviously - I've certainly done it before, but you don't try to use a subway transfer on a bus that's going INTO a subway station). So Psycho Lady freaks out and starts threatening to contact various imposing-sounding government departments or organizations. Too bad none of them exist. There is no treasury department in Canada (there's a Treasury Board Secretariat, but they certainly wouldn't concern themselves with this), Toronto doesn't have a county clerk, and while there is a Governor General, I'm sure she wouldn't care.

I found the most gorgeous blouses ever. They are ribbed diagonally, so they are extremely flattering, and they come in at least three colours that look good on me and aren't red! (I own way too much red already) And one of these colours is exactly the same as my eyes! The only problem is they're at Fairweather's, and I had sworn not to shop there because they were mean to me. But they don't have blouses this perfect anywhere else! The label said that they're hand wash only in cold water, but I'm waiting for my mommy to rule on their real washability. Hopefully she'll say they are, in fact, hand wash only, then my decision will be made for me. But if I can put them in the washing machine, then I'll either have to be a hypocrite or go without perfect blouses.

When they make the movie of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Professor Umbridge MUST be played by Patricia Routledge.

I've figured out why the use of the word marriage is so important to me. Not calling same-sex marriage marriage implies the sort of squirming, cringing homophobia that is more often found in middle school. It gives the impression of desperately trying to avoid anything that could even be remotely described as gay so as to avoid being thought of as gay oneself. It seems like the unspoken train of thought is "Oh no! If gay people can get married...I'm married! Will that make me gay? What if people think I'm gay?"

While I will heave a world-weary sigh and begrudgingly acknowledge that this squirming cringing adolescent homophobia still does exist among some elements of our society, it should not be in our legistation. Our legislation should represent the best of us.

At work, I'm supposed to be learning. I'm supposed to be learning so that I can work completely independently within two years. It's a slow process because I'm learning from experience. I tend to get impatient with this process because there's nothing I can actively do to accelerate or facilitate my learning, I just have to do my job and trust that the learning will happen by itself. It's weird, because in my 19 years of school I could always do something active and specific to learn, but here I have to detach myself and just let it happen.

We have to do something about this. The last thing we want, in Canada of all places, is ghettoized, "separate-but-equal" social institutions. So it's time to write to your MP again and let them know, particularly if your MP is a more conservative Liberal. And if you are, or are likely to be, involved in a heterosexual marriage, it would be helpful to subtly point this out. No "I'm straight, but...", but a "my husband and I" might work.

I hate friends-only LJs. I don't have an LJ account so I can't be people's friends. And some of the people whose LJs I want to read would find it weird that I'm asking, but I'm not one of the people they're avoiding.

How come when people die in movies, they always have a trickle of blood trickling out of their mouth?