And one last post on the May 2nd federal election. The Conservative majority has been trimmed slightly from 167 to 166 after a recount gave another Quebec seat to the NDP by a margin of a mere nine votes. This is why voting is important, people! (Ignore the fact that it changes nothing in terms of actual power distribution in the upcoming parliament.) The NDP now have 103 seats, tying it with the biggest Opposition Party ever (with Joe Clark’s 1980 Conservatives).
Don Davies, the MP for my riding of Vancouver-Kingway, handily won re-election with over 50% of the vote, more than the Conservative and Liberal candidates combined. In a vivid display of the Liberals’ fortunes in an election they directly contributed to happening, this is the campaign office of the Vancouver-Kingsway candidate the day after the election. That’s a lot of huge, unused signs. Ouch.
Back in January I upgraded some components in my PC as it had been nearly four years and the itch to upgrade was no longer possible to resist. It turns out I picked a new Intel motherboard that had a nasty flaw in it and even though I never experienced the flaw and with the way my machine was configured, never would, I nonetheless took the opportunity to get it exchanged free for a newer revision sans flaw.
In the interim I also got a snazzy new case that was bigger because I hate working in cramped cases.
Yesterday at 2 p.m. I was back from NCIX with the new motherboard in hand.
When I went to bed at midnight I had:
a) missed my run
b) cut my thumb
c) missed dinner
d) was cramped and sore throughout my lower body due to all the stooping, bending, crouching and straining
and
e) did not have a functioning computer
I resigned myself to taking the motherboard back to NCIX today, explaining to them how it would not power up at all. Then I noticed I had inserted the power switch lead one pin too far to the left. I corrected this and the system powered up. Doh. Next I got a report that the CPU was too hot — 97ºC! And this after a few moment of being on. I eventually popped the motherboard back out and found that two of the four pins holding the HSF down had not gone all the way through the sockets in the motherboard, so it was slightly off-kilter and ‘hot’. I corrected this and the warning went away.
Finally, after hooking up the DVD drive and three hard drives, I discovered that I had forgotten to connect an SATA power cable to the DVD drive. The only way to fix this would be to disconnect and rearrange all of the drives. Or buy a $5 4-pin molex to SAT adapter cable and use that instead. Which I did.
So finally after numerous problems of my own making the PC is back together in its new case and working fine (for now). The fans are gigantic and a bit loud but I may tweak those later. For now, I am merely relieved to be done. No wonder people like iMacs. 😛
My personal favorite is from the West Hawaii Today, as seen in this this Poynter article:
West Hawaii Daily: riverdancing, commando raids
The secondary headline makes it look like Bin Laden was taken out by a plucky group of riverdancers who just kept trying till they got ‘im. Maybe in the musical adaptation that’s how it will be.
Which is to say that we will now only have an election once every four years, if Harper sticks to the election law (that he already ignored once).
With a frankly pathetic 61.4% of registered voters turning out and the Conservatives slightly budging their percentage of the vote up to 40%, the Conservatives won a majority, picking up the seats they needed when the Liberal vote collapsed in Ontario, with every Liberal defeat turning into a Conservative victory. With only about a 2% boost in the popular vote, the Conservatives picked up 19 seats. Such is the way of our first-past-the-post system.
The whole campaign was odd in how it started out with people predicting nothing much would change, though there was some thought given that the Conservatives might get a majority. As it turned out, a lot changed:
the Conservatives got a majority, passing the 155 seat threshold to get (with current projections) 167 seats
the NDP, thanks to a huge surge in Quebec, got a record number of seats (102) and for the first time ever will form the Official Opposition
the Bloc Quebecois collapsed, going from 49 seats to 4
Elizabeth May’s strategy to focus on getting elected vs. having a national campaign was successful, getting the Greens their first MP, even if their share of the popular vote dropped by half
the Liberals, going in with 77 seats, got reduced to a mere 33 and less than 20% of the popular vote — their worst showing ever
Ignatieff and Duceppe both lost their seats, with the latter immediately announcing he would step down. Ignatieff will probably quit or be given the boot shortly.
Mostly, though, I’m glad the ads are over.
UPDATE: As of the morning after, Ignatieff has announced his resignation as leader.
2008 and 2011 results side by side (charts courtesy of CBC):
Today’s run ramped up to 90 second running segments and conditions were pretty lousy for late April. It was raining, which in itself is not too unusual, but it was also unseasonably cool — only 6ºC. We donned our jogging jackets and set off for the muddy mire of China Creek Park.
I actually found myself not exactly struggling but definitely feeling the short distances more than I should have. I chalk it up to my energy level still being lower than normal after recovering from the flu bug yesterday. Jeff managed to keep up a decent pace and for some parts was able to keep ahead of me. My competitive side rose up just enough for me to not let him get ahead for long. He still beats me on the walking segments, though. He cheats by having longer legs.
And at long last I finally took a picture of the COYOTE ALERT sign (click image to enlarge). I cheated because the photo was taken with my phone when I was not actually running. Since mentioning the sign about two years ago the Parks Board has since added a no-smoking sign below it. On our run we did encounter one smoker — an older man with a large belly who stood out of the rain under the shelter of a pine tree just on the park’s edge. He knows how many cigarettes that $250 fine would buy (six or seven, I think)!
Bad dog
As you can see, years of weather or possibly coyote sabotage have left the alert sign largely unreadable. Since the photo has been sized down a bit, I can confirm that the instructions regarding coyote interaction include:
Shout in a deep and loud voice
Throw objects at the coyote
Do not maintain eye contact
Something else unintelligible but hopefully not critical to know, like ‘spraying a coyote with water will enlarge it to 5x normal size’
There’s also a short bit on how they moved into Vancouver in the late 1980s, no doubt as part of the big post-Expo boom. They’re probably living in condos on False Creek now.
I did actually see a coyote once, in an alley somewhere around West 10th Avenue, not too far from City Hall, now that I think about it. Maybe they came to lobby as official mascots for the city, trying to displace whatever it is we have now (an orca? black squirrel? Inukshuk?)
Anyhoo, back to running. Week 2 wraps up on Friday. Here’s hoping for the return of spring!
It may be a coincidence that services like Netflix and the other video on demand providers are becoming more popular when a night out at the movies no longer considered a cheap evening out. Or maybe it’s because the theater chains aren’t even trying anymore.
Witness this shot taken at Oakridge Centre a few days back. You can see which movies are playing. Good. You also get the ratings. Er, handy if you have young kids and are wondering if Saw 8 is appropriate for a five year old, I suppose. But where are the times?
Look at all that white space on the sign, it is mesmerizing in its starkness, like gazing upon the fields of permafrost at the Arctic circle. At one time this white space was filled with the times they were showing the movies. Now they don’t bother because I guess they figure you’ll just look up the times on your ‘Aren’t you fancy?’ smartphone. Or maybe they figure you’ll actually schlep to the theater box office and check the times there and if they don’t line up for you, you’ll just shrug and walk away, happily thinking about how you were glad to get that little bit of extra exercise walking over to the box office for what turned out to be no reason!
Anyway, lazy theater owners. Bad Empire, bad. Not evil, which would actually sound much cooler, but still…bad.
The two most striking things about the federal election so far are:
1) The strange surge in popular support for the NDP, especially in Quebec (see this poll as one example; note: for your own personal safety/sanity do not read the user comments)
2) The uniformly awful ads, which seem to be almost exclusively negative and regardless of affiliation, insulting to the intelligence
And speaking of ads (segue ahoy!) here’s an example of what I can only consider to be someone unclear on the concept. In general, I dislike businesses putting political ads in their windows. I don’t want nor need to know your politics if I’m just buying a loaf of bread or a pack of gum or whatever — even if we agree politically. But along Kingsway I have noticed a number of stores and restaurants with political ads slapped up for all to see. My favorite is featured in the window of Wing Shing, which is a fun name to say out loud, if nothing else:
On the left is a poster for the local Conservative candidate. To the right is a photo of the local Liberal candidate. The two parties aren’t exactly clones of each other in terms of platform so this seems a bit odd. Maybe both candidates shop there. Money is money, after all. I’d say the shopkeeper was trying to be inclusive but there are seven candidates running and I’m not seeing any posters for the NDP, Green, Libertarian, Communist or Marxist-Leninist party candidates (talk about splitting your [in some cases ultra] left wing vote). Maybe the Conservative and Liberal candidates have nice hair and the shopkeeper votes based on the niceness of hair. That may explain Don Davies’ absence. While he has done a fine job as the MP for Vancouver-Kingsway, his hair does weird me out a little.
While digging through my man purse for no apparent reason a few days ago, I found myself pulling out the digital camera I thought had been stolen. While it is possible that I managed to avoid seeing it in there even though I turned the pack inside out several times over multiple days, I’m slightly more inclined that bringing the pack to work as usual without the camera convinced someone with a guilty conscience to return it.
In either case, I am glad to have it back. Ironically, I had planned on having a replacement in time for my next hike so I could take some snazzy photos and then with my camera back in my possession I ended up taking no photos at all. But I could have!
I keep my digital camera in my pack/man purse so it’s always handy if I want to grab a picture of something while I’m out and aboot. While at work, the man purse sits under my desk, tucked beside the plastic box that holds my phone headset and a few notebooks. Last night as per usual I went for my half hour break, doing so one floor up in the 9th floor lunchroom. It is the only time during the shift that the man purse is left unsupervised, apart from a few quick jaunts to the washroom.
Today before work I pull out assorted clutter from the pack so it will be nice and tidy. I notice that the zippered pocket containing the camera seems to be camera-less. I check again and it is indeed gone. I know it was in there as I distinctly recall putting it back in after uploading the hiking photos a few days ago. The camera, it seems, was gently removed from my possession by someone at my workplace — either a co-worker or one of the cleaning staff, likely while I was on my lunch break. They would have had no idea the camera was in there, they just saw the pack and rooted through it, unquestioned by anyone else nearby, apparently. I have no illusions of ever seeing that camera again. I am equally disappointed and angry with my fellow humans.
Since I discovered this theft about a half hour before work, I was not in the best of moods for my shift. As it turned out, I would witness someone later in the evening in a much worse mood.
Tale #2:
The bus ride home from work was interesting — though nothing was stolen this time. Instead of the usual route out of downtown there was a detour down Hastings Street, with police cars a-plenty and several large swaths of street/sidewalk behind police tape but no sign of why the tape was there. I am guessing a stabbing with the perp still on the loose (update: turns out I was correct, though the suspect was caught). Once we passed this puzzling possible crime scene we picked up additional passengers: a set of about a half dozen or so early 20-somethings with some kind of light (lite?) faux punk thing happening, and a pair of heavyset men (more fat than muscle from what I could see).
These groups sat or stood in the front half of the bus. I was in one of the seats in the back, sitting next to a co-worker who lives in the same neighborhood as I do. We are quietly conversing when a rather loud conversation begins in the front part of the bus. It seemed the two groups that got on were exchanging varying levels of vitriol. One of the heavyset guys kept taunting the ‘white boy’ with ‘Last stop! Last stop! Last stop!’ with the then carefully explained threat that that is where he would beat the crap out of him. White boy (who probably weighed about 200 pounds less) murmured things back that I could not hear. The girls in tow looked somewhat alarmed at the events unfolding.
After several minutes of increasingly loud taunts and threats, the bus pulled into the stop at 12th and Clark — a tantalizingly seven blocks from my stop. And there it sat. The driver got up, walked over to Large Threatening Guy and told him, ‘This is the last stop.’ He made it clear that some people would be walking if the tone of the conversation didn’t take a turn for the kinder and gentler.
This did not happen.
The bus rider returned to his seat. Large Threatening Guy went to DEFCON 1 and promised to murder Skinny White Boy at the last stop. At this point I really was content to walk those last seven blocks but the developing altercation was square in front of the rear exit. I am thin but not thin enough to squeeze out of a bus window. So I sat and watched where developments would go.
The friend of LTG got off the bus and gingerly tugged on his ill-tempered buddy, managing to coax him partly through the door. Large Threatening Guy suddenly snapped and shot back in and quickly delivered a punch to Skinny White Boy. The crowd on the bus ravished, like the audience at a gladiatorial fight. Those standing shifted position, some striking defensive poses, others girding for the coming battle.
Instead, the friend of LTG successfully pulled his friend off the bus and the rear doors closed, leaving them to taunt from the sidewalk as the rain pelted down on them. The faux punk group all tittered in the same way people who jaywalk and barely miss getting flattened by a semi do. The remaining seven blocks of the ride proved uneventful.
So to summarize my day:
I hate my job.
I hate camera thieves.
I hate public transit.
I hate people.
I think I hate the planet.
I still like a nice slice of toast with almond butter and a hot cup of chai tea which has almost made me forget the other things.
I have a co-worker who bears a strangely strong resemblance to the character I played in Tabula Rasa. I guess that means Tabula Rasa was fairly good at creating realistic-looking humans. That’s what probably doomed it.
Reference pic is below. The resemblance creeps me out a little. Note: my co-worker does not wear power armor.
On the last day of winter — Saturday, March 19th — Jeff (seasons ticket holder) and I went to watch the inaugural game of the Vancouver Whitecaps in Major League Soccer (MLS). They were playing Toronto and while the sky was sunny it was somewhat icebox-like within the confines of Empire Field stadium. That didn’t stop a boisterous sellout crowd of 23,000 from cheering on the team to a convincing 4-2 victory. I wore gloves and wrapped the official seasons-ticket holders scarf around my neck and kept the blood flowing sufficiently to cheer each time the Vancouver Bells, er, Whitecaps, scored.
Speaking of Bell, I am wondering how much they paid for their sponsorship. I have included a simulation below of the Bell logos present in the stadium:
Here is the uniform:
The man looks so serious because he is concerned about traffic-shaping, usage-based billing and download caps.
The game itself was quite entertaining, though I am not a soccer/football fan per se. I couldn’t help but appreciate some of the footwork on display, and both teams pulled off a few amazing defensive plays to prevent passes or breakways. I also like that the clock keeps running no matter what happens.
And things did happen.
Specifically, I’m thinking the promoters will re-evaluate the wisdom of putting a rain poncho wrapped in a convenient hand-sized pouch onto every seat before the game. The idea was to create a ‘sea of white’. Instead, each time Vancouver scored, there was a rain of white as people hurled the pouches onto the field. The announcer asked that people not do this and was met with some lusty boos. The officials ended up extending each half by five and four minutes respectively due to the time needed to clean up the pouch-littered pitch.
A few rows behind me was a group of young and ‘enthusiastic’ fans who led several colorful chants involving Toronto sticking the CN Tower into a physically improbable location. Another involved liberal use of the f-bomb. One proclaimed sadness, however, as ‘they took away our weed’. The poor things. A guy dressed in a Toronto jersey taunted them from one of the exits and was pelted with pouches for his efforts. He took it in good cheer before disappearing as the security idly watched from nearby.
I considered buying a $4 hot dog simply to hold it between my legs for warmth.
The only real bummer of the afternoon were the seats. As Empire Field is a temporary facility, it has a few less-than-optimal design elements, mainly uncomfy, cushion-free seats and what turned out to be a large beam just slightly to my left in the row ahead of us:
There is actually a seat directly behind this beam. I feel sorry for the customer service rep who has to handle the inevitable phone call from the person who gets that one (and Jeff confirmed he was not told about the beam when he purchased his tickets. That seems a little skeevy to me).
Despite this, a good time was had by all and the bus/SkyTrain express connection to the stadium made getting there and back out pretty painless. Thumbs up to Translink for that. And also for not having their logo stamped all over everything in creation.
