In this post: Daniella McNab, Martin Owen, Dee Leroy Watson and Sandra Cassells.

Eventually another driver came along and clarified the issue very well. It’s a non-public FB group, but you should be able to request access

I’m thinking of an evening pass for the VISA Screening room on the weekend of the 11th, based on my schedule, and price… but can’t for the life of me find a decent schedule of what’s playing there using their web site. Do I have to go there in person and buy the paper guide for $30 in order to know what I’m getting, or do I just risk it?

TIFF has a pretty horrible online presence; they could learn a lot by visiting VIFF’s site and maybe hiring some web programmers.

I think that next year I’ll bump up to the Obsessive Compulsive Festival Package for nearly $600 the Somewhat OCD Package for $400, or maybe I’ll be able to swing a media pass by then. The media pass in Vancouver was great for completely overwhelming your system. Might have to use the last of my year’s vacation in 2010 for TIFF; that or fly out for VIFF where you can sort films by program, by theatre, by time, etc.

Edit: Okay, they could have made it a little clearer that the schedule doesn’t go live until August 25th, I found this fact eventually somewhere on the site after enough random clicking. You’d think there’d be a mention on the SCHEDULE PAGE though…

I’m listing things on ebay and kijiji and I’m trying to list fair, accurate postal information. So, I head over to canadapost.ca and fill in information on the expected size and weight of a package.

Length: 20cm

Width: 25cm

Height: 35cm

Weight: 2.6kg

It’s a tall thing that I’m shipping, so naturally I order the numbers the way they come show on the ruler as I measure the object. Seems perfectly reasonable, and I hit submit. I receive an error that says;

Improperly specified dimensions. Length, width, and height values must represent the longest, second longest and shortest values respectively.

which means, in effect

I know I’m a computer, and sorting numbers is one of those things I do… but it’s not my passion. My passion is making you ape creatures DANCE FOR MY AMUSEMENT

This is an error that shouldn’t occur; the system should take whatever order I enter arbitrary numbers in and DEAL WITH THEM. If there’s an artificial limitation placed on how things should be entered, then these definitions should be listed on the page ahead of time.

Protect the harbour views at all costs. Protect harbour views whenever possible – this is what makes Halifax stand out from the other cities – you can’t see the harbour in Edmonton or Calgary. The harbour is a part of the heart and soul of this city – it is therefore a cellular part of its residents. Encourage well designed new buildings around it. — Public comments (PDF) on the city’s study

The Calgary harbour’s over-rated, anyhow; very little shipping trade between Calgary and Red Deer these days, ever since the late Jurassic when the last oceans running through Alberta dried up. Sure, there have been motions to force the government to invest in bringing the oceans back to the east side of the Rocky Mountains, but those bastards only pay attention to “Have provinces”…

Seriously, with this many universities and colleges in town, you’d think that there’d be less stupid overall.

There’s some sort of Christian youth group posing for pictures on the front of the cathedral across the street.

While they’re waiting, they’re singing whatever is new and amusing in the group sing along and act it out genre of songs. It’s not precisely a campfire song; more of an elicit death threats from the bus driver kind of song.

There’s a marching action, a windmilling of the arms, and some co-ordinated jumping. Making it more annoying, is that the lyrics don’t quite carry so all I hear is somthing like

clap-clap-clap-clap… mmm meee laaa mam mnnna

clap-clap … gnnn jull mmm neee ala (high-step marching motion)

clap-clap … renji aa mmm nal (thrust pelvis forward and windmill arms)

WHOO WHOOO (jump jump)

Over and over again.

So, yeah, if anyone asks you; I was totally with you all afternoon. We went to lunch at the mall and then to see the first evening show of Iron Man. No, no reason… but just in case anyone asks.

Where’s that laser scope gone?

Well, CreNu posted a note that vaguely looked like a book review, or it called itself a book review at least. Well, it confused many of us who read it or followed the link to the site.

[...] After making his case Clayton then has chapters that discuss the nature of God, the nature of man, the problem and origin of evil, and other fascinating subjects. A tour de force! Recommended reading for anyone interested in studying some of the evidence for the existence of God. This book can be borrowed for free from www.doesgodexist.org

Now, I went to the linked page and I wasn’t impressed by the juvenile layout, or the bad web design; so I commented on that after about a dozen other people had already written replies far more abrasive. I revisited it later when I received an email that told me that someone had commented, but I had problems; I couldn’t find the followup reply nor could I find mine.

“Fair enough” I thought; I had been off topic and was just picking on the web (lack of) design and the questionable quality of self-published magazines. Then I saw the other posts; a whole bunch of people pissed that their long and well thought out replies had been turfed without so much as a reply or anything.

CreNu didn’t like hard questions, it seems. I posted again, after revisiting the horrible web site to find this book he mentioned in the title of his note; “Book Review: The Source–Eternal Design or Infinite Accident?” I couldn’t find it anywhere. There’s no mention of even the words “source” or “eternal” on the page when I do a search. The only real downloadables that I could find were PDFs of the tract / magazine that they make available. I’ve asked for more information from CreNu, but I’m not holding out hope.

I couldn’t resist replying to one guy who didn’t care for his post being deleted;

Dan _____ wrote at 8:22am
Hey! Where’s my post? Has there been an Ephesian book burning here, or what? Nothing changes…

Richard Murray wrote at 11:15am
Dan: your posting was deemed to be a heretical gnostic tract in an emergency council in Nicaea regarding facebook postings. Our apologies, but burn in Hell, blasphemer! Again, we really do apologize.

When you’re young and pissed off, no one bats an eyelash. Young and angry; right on! You’re supposed to be angry when you’re young. Everything in the world makes you mad. The guy leaves you, the girl leaves you. Fuck you!  I hate you! Aaaaaa! and you write ninety pages of shitty journal entries; “That fucking bitch; she will not break me! No one can break me!”

Then you get a little older, and if you’re still angry, everyone goes “Oh wow, you’re bitter.” You’re a bitter, old curmudgeon. Which is kind of the word for a grouch. You’re curmudegeonly if you’re older and mad.

If you’re young and intense… Well, yeah, you’re supposed to be young and intense; those two things go together. If you’re older and intense, everyone just goes “My God, are you weird.”

And if you’re young and have a lot of energy, no one notices because you’re supposed to be able to survive on one candy bar, a Coca-Cola and a bag of noodles a week, plus 11 minutes of sleep and be FINE.

I AM YOUNG PERSON!

When you’re older and you have a lot of energy, everyone goes “Wow! you have a lot of energy…”

Wait for it…

“…for someone your age!”

Fuck! They always have to qualify it!

Time to reclaim “bitter, jaded, old fuck” needs to be reclaimed; so much more positive sounding than curmudgeon. Bitter and jaded sound active, like there was some sort of journey that brought you to this point. A curmudgeon sounds like someone who sat back and watched all the bad things come at him and did nothing but complain about it after the fact.

I blame my extended family for my dislike of birthdays; both mine and others’; the cheap bastards. It wasn’t about the crappy sweaters or the cards with a $20 bill in them; it really was the thought that counts. When your birthday is an afterthought to your aunts and uncles and they’re all actually AT your house for the holidays already, and they can’t be bothered? Hell, Dad’s birthday is the 24th and mine is the 23rd, and the only person that would make sure we had cake and a card was Mom.

Let’s not even talk about the times my sister received separate gifts and cards for her birthday just a couple months later. Even my grandparents would forget that extra card with that extra $20 bill for me, but they never forgot Tracy’s. As a kid, that extra $20 that your younger sister receives every year feels like a kick in the head.

All I ask in my advanced decrepitude is that there be cake.

Angry Klaus (MP3)

It’s better to fail for something you did than to succeed for something someone else did. How do you prepare your child for self-sufficiency when you’re doing all the work? If you really wanted to do this on your own, you would.

Are both of these cards from the same person? What’s wrong with her that she had to wait for someone else to ask her? It sounds as if she regrets having that the first person didn’t ask her, but blames him (or her… whatever…) for the inaction.

These are a pair of people who believe that they are completely at the mercy of other people. It’s my mom’s fault, or it’s the fault of that guy who didn’t ask me out! It’s not MY fault. It’s THEIR fault!

Pulled the images from Postsecret again.