What Was She Thinking?: Notes on a Scandal by Zoe Heller. This book is a
fictional scandal where a high school teacher has an affair with a student,
as documented through the eyes of another teacher, who identifies herself as
the woman's best friend. What is fascinating about the book is that it has
the most unreliable narrator I've ever read, so it doesn't tell us as much
about the teacher who's having the affair as it does about the narrator.
It's all very psychological and handles the squicky subject matter with
excellent discretion. Worth reading even if just to appreciate the literary
devices.

Things they should invent: an F to M peeing device. It would be like a
strap-on dildo except the "penis" would be flaccid, and it would also
incorporate a non-invasive funnel-like thing that would cover the female
wearer's urethra. The female wearer would be able to stand up, unzip her
fly, take out the "penis", release her urine normally, and the urine would
come out the end of the "penis". It could also be made of just tubing, with
no attempt to make it physically resemble a penis, for women who want it to
be easier to pee outdoors but have no desire to walk around with male
genitals.

My computer starts to get sluggish and need rebooting about every 10 days. It doesn't freeze or crash until day 15, but on day 10 I start to notice that its performance is lagging.

Whenever this happens, I get grumpy. Oh, grumble grumble, stupid lazy 5-year-old computer, I should replace it, grumble grumble always needs rebooting grumble grumble.

After a bit of grumbling, I heave a world-weary sigh and start closing all the programs to reboot. When I get to the point where I'm disconnecting my DSL, I finally remember that it has been running for 10 days. Then I get all proud of my computer. Ten days, frequent multi-tasking, running games while Outlook is still checking email once per minute, resource-draining DSL connection software, constantly running a distributed computing program, and it doesn't show any signs of weariness until it's been running for 10 days straight. Not bad for a five-year-old computer!

Last Thursday, June 10, was the one year anniversary of same-sex marriage in
Ontario. While it is important that we continue to lobby for the
legalization of same-sex marriage in parts of the world where it has not yet
been legalized, and while it is important that, when voting in the upcoming
election, we keep in mind the need to get it legalized federally, under the
name marriage, for once and for all, the time has come to stop calling
same-sex marriages "same-sex marriages" and start calling them "marriages".
This is the final step in full equality, to indicate through our use of
language, that a same-sex marriage is just as much of a marriage as an
opposite-sex marriage. It's the same line of thinking that has eliminated
"lady doctor" and "male nurse" from the language.

We should take our cue from the Toronto Star's treatment, several months
back, of the first same-sex marriage involving a member of the Canadian
military. Several other newspapers ran small blurbish articles indicating
that John Doe [I forget his real name], a cadet at RMC, has made history by
marrying Pierre Untel. The Star instead wrote a small article to accompany
a larger article about some concert. They showed a picture of the happy
couple with a caption something like "Newlyweds John Doe, a cadet at RMC,
and Pierre Untel, a whatever his job is, attended whatever this concert is
while on their honeymoon." It looked exactly like one of those "here's
pictures of random people being moderately interesting" pictures. Brilliant
treatment!

I tried two new wines recently, and, surprisingly, I have teh same thing to say about both of them. The wines are Peter Lehmann Barossa Shiraz and Sumac Ridge Cabernet Merlot. Both of them taste mostly typical for their respective varieties, and they both start with a little "tangy zip" of something that I don't like very much. Unfortunately I don't know the word for the aspect I don't like, but you do become accustomed to that aspect after a few sips and then they are both perfectly serviceable reds. The unpleasant aspect may be cancelled out with appropriate food pairings, but I don't know how to do that.

I would just like to remind everyone involved in public discourse: there is
a world of difference between using referenda and free votes to make
decisions that either could give people further rights and freedoms or would
have no effect on rights and freedoms, and using free votes and referenda to
make decisions that could take away existing rights and freedoms.

If your address book contains my home email address and the email address of
someone named Cindy who works for the Toronto District School Board, you
have a virus on your computer. This has been a public service announcement.

Note to self: next time you think you've lost the foil things for the stove
burners, try looking in the cupboard above the stove.

I suppose you know the world really considers you a grownup when your alma
mater starts sending you fundraising solicitations.

An unfortunately-named right-wing organization recently came out in support of the idea of legalizing, regulating and taxing marijuana, which is surprising considering this organization's usual stance on things.

Now I have no problem with the idea, it seems like the kind of thing that could make everyone happy. However, they're going to have quite a challenge creating a regulation and taxation system that is easy and convenient enough both for suppliers and for users that they decide to come out from underground. We already have a very effective system for underground distribution of marijuana, but if there's too much red tape or regulated prices are too high, people might just continue to use the black market. I'm sure some people would use legal channels just because they are legal, but one might reasonably assume that most current users and suppliers consider the questionable legality of their activities to be an acceptable risk. Any new regulation system would have to be worth their while.

Proof that politics has taken a sharp swing to the right?

I did the 2004 Vote Selector, and it gave me, among other things, 38% for the Liberal party. Then I did the 2000 Vote Selector, using the knowledge and opinions that I have today, and it gave me, among other things, 50% for the TORIES! This would imply that the 2000 Tories are further left than today's Liberals! GAH!

I'd be interested in knowing if it does the same thing for anyone else, if you take both quizzes today using the knowledge and opinions that you have today.

I'm in a petty, bitchy mood, so here's a list of random things piss me off:

1. The weather. It does not need to be above 30 degrees, at all, ever.

2. Sporadic floaters in my eyes. I keep thinking I see something small moving out of the corner of my eye. Not a good thing when you have insect phobia.

3. Blog/LJ entries where the writer namedrops every person they know, usually all written in one big long paragraph. You don't need to name every person who was there last night, it just comes across as "OMG, look at me, I know so many people!" There's really no excuse for using more than five names to tell a story.

4. Unfocused writing in general. Especially when it crosses my desk for translation.

5. Grownups who get pissed off at their kids because they (the kids) demonstrate intelligence. Like their kid is an activist and cares passionately about their cause of choice, and the parents say disapprovingly "Well, when I was your age, the most important thing I worried about was whether I'd have a date for Saturday night."

6. Adults who claim that they would rather be a teenager than an adult. The first sign of aging is that you look back on your highschool self and don't shudder.

7. The fact that subway stations were designed without consideration for people who might be walking up the stairs wearing a skirt.

8. Radio commercials

9. People who incorporate religion into HP fanfic for no good reason. Particularly when they have religion in every single aspect of every single scene! To me, that shows a serious lack of imagination, if you can't write even one scene of a secular fictional universe without viewing it through a xian filter!

10. Did I mention the weather?

Because I had no internet with me in Quebec, I had time to finish three
books:

1. Brick Lane by Monica Ali: a rich, brilliant, detailed story of a
Bangladesh woman in an arranged marriage sent to live in England, and the
resulting culture clash. The author is incredibly observant, giving us a
setting so thick with detail that we can practically smell it! The plot and
characterization are realistic, the ending is satisfying, and I felt myself
still caring about the characters after the book ended, and wondering what
happens to them next. (Aside: I wonder if authors know what happens to
their characters after books end?)

2. Cosmopolis by Don Delillo: a witty satire/allegory of the dot com boom
and bust. All the action takes place during one drive across New York City,
all the characters are insane, and the whole thing feels unintentionally
hilarious, as though the author thinks he's serious. Very quick and easy to
read.

3. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time by Mark Haddon:
brilliant, definitely lives up to the hype. Portrays Asperger's quite
realistically for an author who claims to have done no research. The plot
is compelling, the point of view is enlightening, the characters are all
realistic, and it is often sweet and often hilarious. The only problem is
that the jacket flap blurb gives away a key clue to solving the mystery, and
it would be much more interesting to read the book without that piece of
information and see how quickly you can solve it. Read this book if you
haven't already, but don't read the jacket flap. I just have one question:
how did he know to pick that particular right-angle triangle?

My U of T student number starts with 99. Is that because I finished high
school in 99, or does it mean something else, or is it just a coincidence?
I'm asking because I find it very odd that they'd number me as though I
started at U of T out of high school.

On VIA 1, (which, by the way, is god), there are attendants at the entrance
to each train car to help you lug your baggage up the stairs onto the train.
Generally these attendants are men in suits, but on my train ride home the
attendant at the entrance of my car was a woman wearing a skirt and heels.

I am quite capable of lugging my own suitcase, but generally I let the
attendant do the tricky part of getting it up the stairs because that's what
they're there for and I'm lazy. However, since this attendant was wearing a
skirt and I was wearing pants, I told her I didn't need help. This is just
the way I do things - I relieve other people of heavy lifting and other
awkward physical labour if they are wearing a skirt or other cumbersome
clothing in the hopes that this karma will come back to me when I'm in a
skirt and heels.

So after I've dealt with my suitcase and settled into my seat, this
attendant comes up to me and asks me to follow her to the front of the car
so she can show me how to work the emergency exits. It turns out that on
trains there needs to be a passenger who knows how to open each emergency
door, just like on airplanes the passengers next to the doors need to know
how to open them. So I go along and learn how to open the door. However, I
found it odd that she had asked me. With my high-maintenance appearance,
scrawny little arms and dumpy middle, I hardly come across as the type you'd
want to go charging to the rescue in an emergency situation. "Well," she
explained, "As you see, it takes some physical strength to open this door
manually, and you're the only passenger on the train right now who is able
to carry their own suitcase."

Moral of the story: pretend to be weak and helpless on VIA rail.

I am back, I do have stories, I'm just too lazy to type them all out now.

I'm just posting to let anyone looking for work know that there's employment to be had with Elections Canada.

There's a school of thought that if there is a crisis, and there is nothing
you can do personally to help with the crisis, your course of action should
be to redouble your efforts to do whatever it is you normally do to
contribute to society, with the idea being that at least that one aspect of
the universe will run smoothly.

I think my digestive system subscribes to this policy. It can sense that
I'm nervous, it can't do anything about it, so it responds by increasing
productivity. Unfortunately, that is not helpful at all.

On that note, I'm off. Wish me luck!

I'm not doing so well. I'm nervous because I'm leaving tomorrow. I hate
travelling. I'll be fine once I'm on the train. Then I'll either be fine
or nervous once I'm in the hotel. Then I'll be nervous as hell all the next
morning until I've met my contact person (whose name they haven't yet
deigned to tell me!). Then I'll be fine. Then I'll be briefly nervous until
I make my train home. Then I'll be content. Malheureusement, despite my
awareness of the process, I can't turn it off. Mergle. I should go to bed.

"And I nodded because that didn't count as being a detective" - the curious
incident of the dog in the night-time

I love this book!