General

A thought on our coming dystopia

Image courtsey of pexels.com. I just like the juxtaposition of sunny and bright with the “giving up” pose.

There, even the title is depressing!

I did not imagine things going so badly for the world as they are right now, as of August 2025. But with perspective, I can see this was decades in the making. Alas.

Things may get worse before they get better. How much worse? I don’t know. But for the first time, I feel glad to be older than younger. I don’t know how long the bad times will last. Maybe they’ll persist through the rest of my life and beyond. Maybe humans just aren’t very smart and we’ve hit our limit.

Maybe aliens will save us.

But given that I am older rather than younger, I will at least have less to live through than if I were some 20-something hipster. This shouldn’t be a comforting thought, but somehow it is.

Mind you, I still want to live to be a robust 95 or something and if they could magically extend life to something crazy like 150, I’d probably be up for that, too, just to see if monorails ever really take off.

Still, this dystopia thing is a bummer. I wish we were better, collectively, as a species.

The Wisdom of Ned, #1

A series I may or may not continue, in my usual style. The first one is based partly on personal experience.

Wisdom of Ned #1

Beards are only low maintenance if you treat them like abandoned bird nests.

Should I go retro?

I’m mulling another redo of this blog’s look and I’m thinking of going all-in on retro. Not in a crazy way, like trying to simulate the <blink> tag or embedding MIDI samples, but something a little warmer, less corporate-looking.

I shall mull things like colour choices, fonts and assorted bits of whimsy. The downside of this is I am not a programmer and can’t just whip up some fancy CSS using my big brain, so the process will be slow, painful, etc. But possibly worth it.

I could do things like change from a basic white background. But should I?

I will ponder.

Canada Day random thoughts, 2025 edition

  • It could be worse.
  • It could also be better.
  • It’s very summer-like today, after the first week of summer was cool and a bit damp. A lot of people prefer the latter, even though we get it for about six months of the year.
  • There will probably be some fireworks going off later this evening.
  • The new sidewalks on our street are very bright in the sun.
  • I feel like more people cheat now than, say, ten years ago, possibly because more people are realizing they won’t get caught. This is not a good thing.
  • I have an itchy bug bite on my left leg. I have nothing in particular to help with this, except the power of my mind insisting it’s not really itchy at all.
  • I still love Bongo Cat. He is currently wearing a pineapple.
  • Apparently, Canadian patriotism is surging. A house a few blocks away is positively festooned with Canadian flags. I’m not sure how I feel about this, because nationalism generally leads to bad things.
  • I’ve seen reports that people are getting dumber. This feels right to me.
  • Am I getting dumber? My phone is often at 90% charge at the end of the day (even though it’s 4.5 years old). I think this is helping to preserve some brain cells.
  • When birding in Pitt Meadows, I went to check the temperature on my phone and it couldn’t pull the data in because of a very weak cell connection. It please me that such places exist, and you don’t even have to go too far to find them. Also, places where you can’t hear any traffic.
  • My leg is still itchy.

Remember summer?

It’s only been six days and I’ve already forgotten it.

Soggy view looking toward the new Pattullo Bridge.

(Also, why is it so fun to complain about something we have no control over? Did I just answer my own question?)

Summer 2025 is here! It’s cool and rain threatens.

The forecast today is for intermittent showers and a high of 17C, which is a few degrees below normal.

It’s also the first day of summer.

How you feel about this forecast will depend on how you view summer in general. A lot of people are in the “Summer is too hot, I hate it” camp, so they will delight in the cooler temperatures. They may be less thrilled with the rain, but something something prevents forest fires. Even though that doesn’t really apply to an urban area like Metro Vancouver.

For me, I just take whatever we get. We’ll have warmer and sunnier days and I will enjoy them, slathered in sunblock and whatnot.

In the meantime, the current conditions are actually pretty decent for running. The rain can hold off, though.

Bill C-2 is bad and Mark Carney should feel bad

NOTE: This is about politics. Canadian politics! If you're not interested in politics, skip to the next post or just scroll to the end for a photo of a kitten.

I think Steve Boots was right, Mark Carney is basically a Conservative prime minister in Liberal clothing. Boots’ video (linked below) details some of the horrible changes proposed by Bill C-2, the “Strong Borders Act” that would give the government far too much power with far too little–or no–oversight. It’s not often that I am motivated to write my MP, but I did today. My riding, which has been an NDP stronghold for decades, saw the vote split between the three major parties in the April 29 federal election, and long-time NDP MP Peter Julian was out. Based on his photo, our new Liberal MP is some high school kid. I wrote this to him today:

Hello Mr. Sawatzky,

Congratulations on winning your seat in the recent federal election.

As a constituent in your riding, I must strongly object to Bill C-2, the so-called “Strong Borders Act” which is draconian piece of legislation that vastly overreaches in giving the federal government expanded powers in law enforcement and immigration with little or no oversight. I believe there are portions of the bill that are unconstitutional.

It is depressing to see a new government come in and make this its first act, which seems mainly aimed at appeasing Donald Trump. This is not leadership, it is capitulation at the expense of Canadians’ privacy and of refugees simply seeking a better, safer life in Canada. We should not be emulating the United States. Prime Minister Carney’s government will not last long if this is the sort of legislation you champion.

I realize you are a Liberal MP and will likely to toe party line, but I urge you to vote against Bill C-2. It must be scrapped. Future governments will only make worse the abuses of power it enables. This is not the Canada anyone should want.

Here’s Boots’ video:

And here’s where you can find your local MP and their email address: https://www.ourcommons.ca/Members/en/search

Finally, here is a kitten:

Why is there a spider in my toilet?

It’s a big spider and it’s sitting inside the bowl, an inch or so above the water. Why? How? WHY?

I can’t decide whether to wait and see if it moves on its own or to gently try getting it out, knowing it will probably somehow die instantly if it accidentally touches the water.

UPDATE: The spider has been safely redirected outdoors.

My dinner attacked me

Specifically, I stabbed some baked chicken with a fork, and it squirted me with hot chicken juice. This was not so bad when it hit my shirt, because the shirt’s going in the laundry tonight, anyway. It was less delightful when it also sprayed onto my bare arm. But hey, juicy chicken!

And here is what the internet tells me is a “chicken person”, which may explain why it’s delightedly holding the apparently cooked remains of a chicken (non-person).