• a – Amazon.com (I often look up books)


• b – Bloglines.com (I spend a lot of time on this site)


• c – CBC News (Canadian content)


• d – Voxeo Documentation (a work project)


• e – ESPN (sports fix)


• f – Gallery 2 Nightly Builds (I update daily)


• g – GMail (my primary Webmail)


• h – Hotmail (I still check this)


• i – InStyle (don’t ask)


• j – Jakarta Project (we use Java at work)


• k – kottke.org (I like Jason’s posts)


• l – Livejournal (My other blog)


• m – Mozilla.org (home of my favourite browser)


• n – Google News (my browser’s start page)


• o – Oseao (Home of a radio show)


• p – PlaNIT (Andrew’s company’s blog portal)


• q – Quad City Times (I guess I read a recent story here)


• r – My sweet exile ((r)amanda’s fabulous story depot)


• s – Salon (a favourite site)


• t – Everything Is In/Flux (my site of course!)


• u – United House Front (a cool DJ collective)


• v – Vanity Fair (again, don’t ask)


• w – Environment Canada’s weather page (need my weather!)


• x – nothing!


• y – Yahoo! (for occasional searches)


• z – Zip.ca (the Canadian NetFlix equivalent)

So there we go. I would imagine that the list of sites at home is similar but not entirely the same. Perhaps I will repeat this post with the changes.

That said, I’m sure that I’ll be one of the first to buy the new book come July.

One of the things that surprised me is the parking lot ramp. We have underground parking and there’s a very steep ramp down into it. When we first saw the building I was worried what that ramp would be like in the winter time. This couldn’t be tested until we first had snow. The day I stayed home a couple of weeks ago I discovered that the ramps were heated and therefore didn’t accumulate any snow or ice. This is a very good thing. Really, it makes sense that it’s designed this way because I can’t imagine how much of a pain it would be to try and go up and down an icy ramp.

The laundry facilities in this building are far better than the old building. They have a lot of washing machines and even more dryers (the other building had 8 of each). One key difference is that the dryers actually dry our clothes (what a concept!). Plus you can add 10 minutes of drying time at a time which is good when your towels are still a little damp but you don’t want to have a whole other hour of dryer time.

It’s not all milk and honey around the building though. There’s the security problem I mentioned on Friday. There isn’t much visitor parking out front. The stairwways are a little creepy.

Now we have to worry if our heat in the apartment will work or not. Yesterday morning the power to the whole building went out which on a day when you have -35C windchill is not a positive development. Marcy called Toronto Hydro and they didn’t even know about the problem. They fixed the problem but the apartment was still very cold. Fortunately during my last school term I had purchased a space heater. It wasn’t of much use to us then because the wiring in our house was so poor that we couldn’t have the heater running without blowing the breakers in the entire house. The heater was quite useful yesterday and last night though. It seems that the radiators in the apartment are on low or not on at all because I couldn’t feel much heat coming from them. The space heater is useful but only in one place at a time – it’s not like that one heater can heat our big apartment. We moved it into the bedroom last night and kept the door closed to trap the heat. It worked quite well but the rest of the apartment was pretty cold this morning. If the heat doesn’t come back on we’re going to have to press our superintendent and/or building manager to act quickly. I’m sure there are other people in the building with the same problem; I know that a family on our floor had to have their heaters repaired yesterday (they have horrendous luck with their apartment) and they can’t be the only ones. Having no heat in the winter time is a scary proposition.

• Safe & Secure: Beware of Airbag Thefts


• Smart Motorist – Auto Theft – How To Reduce Your Risk


• LockItt (unlikely to be of any use)


• Auto Theft Journal Volume 10


• Police: Insurance fraud is behind airbag thefts


• Salvaged and stolen airbags


• Airbags hot item among U.S. car thieves


• What You Need to Know About Car Theft Today & How to Protect Your Vehicle

1. I feel behind all the time.


2. Because there is so much to consume, I don’t enjoy each individual photo as much as I did when they were physical prints. I click through fast.


3. Because of 1 and 2, sometimes I don’t even bother.

I’m sure there’s a lot of good (even great) music that I’ve missed out on over the last year and a half but I honestly can’t find the energy to go and obtain it. I often go back to either listening to radio shows (Gilles Peterson Worldwide, Off The Deep End or The Higher Ground) or old favourite albums. I’m listening to Akufen in honour of the linked post right now.

I suppose the Digital Photo Effect has also taken hold with my photos as well. Since we’ve moved I haven’t had much time for photography. Most of that is probably due to being busy but maybe a part of it is that I don’t have as much interest in taking pictures right now. Perhaps that will change once the holiday vacation starts next week. I’ll have to revisit this topic.

This wasn’t a full-blown migraine. I’ve had only 2 of those in my life. I was nauseous and completely immobilised for several hours because of them. At least I could still eat and move around with this mini-migraine on Monday night. I’m not sure what caused this one but if I had to guess I’d say it was the weather change between Monday and Tuesday – warmish to quite cold. That kind of pressure differential can play a big part on my brain.

I think that I should buy some migraine-specific headache medicine though just in case another one of these episodes were to occur (and they probably will). Just so that I can keep functioning through the day I think it would be worth the price.

A slippery slope that isn’t

If we were to pass a law stating that anyone with blue eyes is forbidden to marry his or her sibling, but everyone else can, we’d have a minority rights issue on our hands. We’d be discriminating against a particular group based on a physical characteristic. But if we pass a law stating that no one can marry his or her sibling, whatever else it might be it’s not discrimination because the law applies equally to everyone. Preventing gays from marrying discriminates against a group because of sexual orientation. It’s a minority rights issue. But the argument that allowing gays to marry is some kind of slippery slope that leads to polygamous marriages, incestuous marriages and the possibility that the weird guy on the next block will claim the right to marry his pet parrot Polly is bogus. It’s not the same thing. So just cut it out.

And from one of the comments:

I think the point that’s evading everyone is this:

Marriage is not rooted in any one religious set of beliefs. As soon as it was opened up for heathens like myself to get married (not belonging, not wanting to belong to, any organized religion), THAT was the only this ’slippery slope’ argument would be even considered valid. The fact that straight people outside of (because it’s obvious, and easy) the Christian religion can get legally married without protest from the Pope (or anyone else, really), means that the Christian faith has given up all rights to the concept of marriage (at least in Canada). So we’ve been on this ’slippery slope’ for GENERATIONS now, and we’re not all evil yet.

The commenter makes a good point – you can’t claim something as religiously sacrosanct when you allow people who have no religious persuasion to engage in this practice. The Slippery Slope is not only an argument technique, it’s also a fallacy.

It’s funny because with traffic for example you want things to change, hopefully for the better. You’re stuck in traffic everyday and the one day when everything is clear you quietly rejoice. The same isn’t true with cars. You want everything to keep working exactly as it has been for the past X days. You don’t want change because change usually means for the worse particularly when you have an older car. Too often we don’t pay enough attention to our cars and when they inevitably fail you then realize how important it is to look after these pieces of machinery.

I know I’ve been lax about keeping my car in tip top running order. I’ve put almost 100,000 km on it since February 2003, a good chunk of which was this year leading up to the wedding. If I want to have this car last as long as possible I need to start taking better care of it.

• He who is unable to live in society, or who has no need because he is sufficient for himself, must be either a beast or a god.


• Modern science disclaims any intention of understanding the hidden nature of things; its philosophy condemns any such endeavour as vague, misleading and altogether unscientific….But I refuse to heed this warning. I agree that the process of understanding leads beyond – indeed far beyond – what a strict empiricism regards as the domain of legitimate knowledge; but I reject such an empiricism. If consistently applied, it would discredit any knowledge whatever and it can be upheld only by allowing it to remain inconsistent. It is permitted this inconsistency because its ruthless mutilation of human experience lends it such a high reputation for scientific severity, that its prestige overrides the defensiveness of its own foundations. Our acknowledgement of understanding as a valid form of knowing will go a long way towards liberating our minds from this violent and inefficient despotism.


• One of the most constant characteristics of beliefs is their intolerance. The stronger the belief, the greater its intolerance. Men dominated by a certitude cannot tolerate those who do not accept it.


• False is the idea of utility that sacrifices a thousand real advantages for one imaginary or trifling inconvenience; that would take fire from men because it burns, and water because one may drown in it; that has no remedy for evils, except destruction. The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws of such a nature. They disarm those only who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes.


• From infancy, almost, the average girl is told that marriage is her ultimate goal; therefore her training and education must be directed towards that end. Like the mute beast fattened for slaughter, she is prepared for that.

I guess that the comment spam scripts have access to Bartlett’s Famous Quotations.

I had the greatest sleep in a long time last night. Maybe it’s because we changed the sheets (the others were new and we haven’t washed them yet) or maybe it’s the new duvet cover we bought on Friday or maybe it’s the fact I didn’t have any cats sleeping on my legs but I slept right through until the alarm rang this morning. It was glorious.

I’m not sure if it’s the impending weather change (very cold forecast for tomorrow) or what but I have a very bad headache right now. I’m finding it difficult to concentrate. Perhaps a walk is in order.

The next couple of weeks (until I take my Christmas-related break on the 23rd) will be very busy here. We’re trying to wrap up projects before the end of the year so that we can start new things in January. I have an important project to finish. Fortunately all signs are pointing to it being rather straightforward. It’s been two months here and I’m still loving it.