Mark Bell, RIP: A Remembrance

 I lost my good friend Mark Bell to Covid three weeks ago. On the day Georgia called to tell me that, shortly before noon on the Tuesday, I sat in front of my computer staring at the same page of the book I was reading for three hours. I cannot tell you the page number, not even the book title. It was a white page with black text. I think. A grief counsellor would tell me I was in the first stage: Shock and denial. But that counsellor would be wrong. I believed Georgia, having let loose with a sorrowful "Noooooooooooo!!" even before she told me. She told me nicely. And I believed her and shortly thereafter hung up the phone. 

Mark Bell wouldn't be checking up on how things were going with me ever again. I rarely asked for anything, telling him "I didn't want to abuse the privilege." Didn't stop him from asking next time we talked. And sometimes we talked once every couple of weeks. Sometimes months passed by. But to me, Mark was one of my best friends (from a fairly small pool). On the other hand, he would have described me to other people as one of his friends. Best friend? No. Not at all. You see, Mark Bell was friends with just about everybody he came into contact. He was a good man.

He wasn't perfect, nobody is. But he wanted to be the best he could be within that understanding. He formed a partnership with Andrew Stanley to sell comic books and that company eventually morphed into The Comic Warehouse, where you could by comics, graphic novels, action figures, cards, games and just about anything else a kid of any age could possibly want. Georgia McDonald entered the picture later, splitting time in Brampton at Mark's and her other home in Kingston, Jamaica. Hurricane Georgia I called her because she is a force of nature, who liked cruises and sitting on the couch with Mark on Friday nights binge-watching something or other with a never-empty bowl of popcorn at hand. 

The last time I talked to Mark was about three weeks before his passing. Georgia and he were on a break from the night's marathon of something or other, one headed to make more popcorn, the other for a bathroom break. Mark got back first and picked up the phone and dialed my number. It wasn't our first conversation this year, but being only the second wasn't good news. He and I had been under the weather this year. And at our age, under the weather is a euphemism for being pretty sick. I normally would have played a game of 'Can You Top This' with him, but something in his voice troubled me. A lot.

First, he described what had happened to me back in May to a 'T' as he described his symptoms and weight loss. For me, being weak isn't anything new. Mark, the brawn of the store in may ways, was describing his legs turning to jelly in the aftermath and seemed astonished such a thing could happen. I knew just how he felt. But instead, I let him give me the laundry list of 2021 malaise. I didn't want to add my complaints to his long list of things rotten from this year. Despite still not feeling his best, he then did as he always did. He asked me whether there was anything he could do for me. I demurred. Usual reason, and I REALLY meant it this time. 

"Hey, we've been buddies for what, 30 years now? If you need something, just say the word. Talk to ya later, buddy." And with that little giggle-cum-laugh, he hung up the phone. I didn't even correct him. It was closer to 35 years. It just felt wrong. 

I have been customer, provider, customer, employee, customer, reluctant provider, and friend through tout. I think I have the sequence correct. Being a comic buyer, with a 200 buck a month habit when comics were largely less than a buck apiece, made me a fairly big customer of the store. I bought graphic novels, both for myself and for gifts. Each Christmas I give the O'Neill family a game, usually after advice from Mark and Andrew. In many ways, the stores Andrew and Mark operated were my idea of the ultimate playground. I wish there had been a golden ticket to let me sit in a back corner and just read. And read. And read. There was even a little café at the front of The Warehouse for any needed sustenance. But no Willie Wonka stepped forward to give me the ability to completely shut the real world out. 

Having jumped ship from the Brampton Guardian, I started writing for the Brampton Daily Times. They took my Bridge column and my Comic Book column and were due to start with my Trivia column when the paper folded without warning. Mark and Andrew paid for the comic book column. 

Later, when I was between jobs (again), having quit the CKMW-790AM radio gig, and not yet headed to Memphis to take over the Media Liaison job with the American Contract Bridge League, I needed somewhere to go and get out of the house. A new comic shop was opened on the other side of Brampton, not far from the old Dixie Cup factory. Mark handed me the keys to be the counter guy there. IF memory serves, that was something like six months of me calling him Boss. 

When the ACBL gig went south, I was okay with it because I now had a social life. At least I did until an unexpected death knocked me for a loop, the first time that had happened to me. I didn't get over Laura's death for three months. By that time, I was doing computer consulting by being one page ahead of the others in the manual. And I was programming, systems software. And that led me to being a service provider for Mark once again. He wanted me to do a Point of Sale program for his operation. He disliked the software he was using and couldn't get any modifications made. For a solid six months, I found reasons not to do the software.

But I eventually ran out of excuses and said yes. The result was software that was used at multiple stores connected to the Warehouse and was modified as needed. For most of the first part of this millennium. Around 2017, the business that Andrew and Mark had built up and weathered through rotten weather, crooks and worse financial times, was changing. I have the logo I created for Mark17, the replacement I started for cwRegister. And still haven't finished. 

And now, I am not sure it will be. That discussion is still to be had with Andrew. I'm not even sure the Warehouse survives Mark's passing. I don't want to talk about it with anybody because not talking about it means Schrödinger's cat is still alive in the box. I guess that covers pain and guilt. I've put off until tomorrow, until there are no tomorrows left on the calendar. Not something to be proud of. 

At some point, I told Mark my worst problem, something I've never told anybody else. Not Patrick, not Marilyn, not James nor any member of my family. To the best of my knowledge, Mark never broke the confidence I had sworn him to. But he did come back three days later with a solution, albeit not one I wanted to act upon. Still, the knowledge that there was an approach made sleeping that night and most nights since then a lot easier. That was Mark. Don't judge, figure out a fix. 

When I made out my will earlier this year, Mark, Andrew and Georgia were part of it. I expected my brother Rick to get them to curate my collections of books, magazines and comics, as well as electronic media, and disseminate parts of the library to assorted other people in my will, and then the rest of the SF-oriented material would head for Kingston to Georgia's local library down there. I was thankful they all agreed to help in the event of my passing.

Never thinking for one second that any one of them would pre-decease me. 

If I'd been raised to curse in public forums, I would be swearing up a blue streak right now. I know a LOT of the words and I've used them in private. But I just can't turn a memorial to Mark into a place where I get my anger out. He doesn't deserve that. I do. But not Mark. 

So, I remain right where I was when I head the news. The only differences are that I have moved away from the computer, even got dressed. I have seem Mark's memorial service on the web (Thanks to Georgia's son). But I am still depressed and I'm not going to try and play 'Can You Top This.' 

Mark Bell was a good guy. He was my buddy. And I miss him and will continue to miss him, even if it's only at the other end of a phone call. Covid-19. A killer of good buddy phone calls, a murderer of the good guys. 

RIP Buddy. 

All Hail Canada, My Country

My fellow Canadians did our country proud yesterday/last night, electing a Minority government.

Canada is a multi-party parliamentary system. We have 338 Members of Parliament who then have the right to elect their leaders without further interference from the electoral masses. The leader of the party with the most votes in a Majority (i.e. 170 seats) government becomes our Prime Minister. For the last five or so years, Justin Trudeau has ruled Canada as a Majority leader.

Trudeau, the charismatic son of a former multi-time Prime Minister, Pierre Elliott Trudeau, didn't exactly make the last few years smooth ones. He had a variety of issues, starting with possible malfeasance in trying to protect the crooks from SNC-Lavalin. He then had cultural issues that offended many people of colour or of Indian heritage. And Indian heritage here in Canada is amongst the most widespread of any ethnic group. (NOTE: By Indian, I mean from the Indian sub-continent, not First Nations)

On the other hand, in a world where the Oleaginous Orange Oaf of the Oval Office represents Western leadership, the good-looking PM from the north looked SOOOOOOOO much better in comparison, that he was able to give Canada some serious world cred. Canada's leadership on Climate Change responses is to our nation's credit. I think MOST Canadians are happy with Trudeau as our figurehead ... and occasionally with his policies beyond Climate Change.

Ergo, the Minority government. Canada is a small-C Liberal country. We think of taking care of each other before ourselves, as a nation. We hold out our helping hands. Suburbanites are liberal, farmers and oilmen are conservative. No different than our American neighbours. But we have a different form of government. The American citizen that ran for the Conservatives nationally actually won the plurality of votes nation-wide. The Conservatives wiped the Liberal presence on our prairies out of existence. So, the electoral map of Canada shows the Liberals with a healthy prominence in Ontario, a dominance in Atlantic Canada and a carving up of Quebec with the separatist Bloc Quebecois. With a smattering of seats out on the west coast, it gave Trudeau the chance to continue to govern.

BUT the key difference is one that bedevils Majority governments, whether it is here or down south in the good 'ol USA. The arrogance of insulation from consequences.

Trudeau was not a rousing success in his first go-round as the PM. Growing pains?? Some of his problems could be given to that. Murphy's Law?? Well, every government runs into that. The response to Murphy running the nation off the tracks in a way nobody could have anticipated is more important than that Murphy screwed things up. No, the real problem Trudeau had was being secure in the knowledge that he was going to be in his seat for five years come hell or high water. Ergo, he stuck his hand into the SNC-Lavalin hornet's nest and got stung. And paid for it years later.

In reality, the case against Trudeau was almost ALL SNC-Lavalin. There was the hassles of the complicated energy issues out West. There's oil on the east side of the Rockies and tankers on the west side. Ever the twain needs to meet. The hows are ... complicated. And Trudeau and cabinet didn't get it right in a way that left MOST people happy. Cultural misappropriation?? From decades ago in the worst case, cluelessness in the latter examples. Still, not worth toppling a majority government over. It was SNC-Lavalin that made Conservative Andrew Scheer think he had Trudeau by the short hairs. He was wrong. But not FAR wrong.

So we have a Minority. Trudeau's had his hands slapped. But the country hasn't given way to the conservative Populism that has been a blight on the world this century. The worm has been s-l-o-w-l-y turning with rebuke after rebuke of the poster boy for Populism petulance, Comrade Donald. The Israelis seem to have gotten over their Netanyahu fixation and installed somebody who doesn't fall into line with Putin, President Small Hands and a host of other calamities for world peace. And we in Canada, who elected a village idiot to run our largest province, seem to be learning from the mistakes of others.

Why do I like Minorities?? Well, they have short-lived existences, six months to three years seems predictable. But a Minority government has no arrogance. It cannot. It must govern with a consensus of sometimes opposing points of view. That's not always true. Stephen Harper governed Canada as if he HAD a Majority, even when he didn't. To Canada's detriment. But that required particularly weak Liberal opposition and the acquiescence of the other parties. Mostly however, Minorities pass the laws the country needs, without the agendas that Majority governments employ when the arrogance of a Majority lets them. Those laws tend to be ideologues. And bad laws.

Generally speaking, the laissez-faire attitudes of Majority governments are diminished when there are true consequences to things like patronage appointments. We don't have utterly unprepared national diplomats representing Minority governments as adverse the kind of dipsticks that have represented the US on the international stage the last three years. We don't make TV hosts and hoteliers with big checkbooks posts as our representative to the UN or Europe, for example. Trudeau COULD have done that with a Majority. He didn't. And won't with a Minority.

There's one last advantage of this particular Minority. No upheaval of the government. It'll operate largely as it has last week. No learning curve for new incoming (in one big Tidal Wave) as there is when the colour of the team changes. The country's still Red. (and Orange with a little bit of Green thrown in. Heck, the teal of the Bloc might also come into play). But not Blue.

Canada remains stable. Trudeau has been chastened. The next few months/years will show whether he and the Liberals have learned from the experience. And that should lead to a better-governed country. Won't be MANY laws passed (Gridlock tends to be the greatest negative about a Minority government), but the laws passed will be good for all.

And if that last paragraph is wrong, the country will be awash in Blue soon enough. Maybe I'll be dead by then.

LIFE: Shame on You, Politicians of Canada

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This will be a Stage 13 Rant. You've been warned.

Like a lot of people, especially older people, I need an emergency phone. I don't need a portable computer when I'm out and about or when the phone goes out at home. I just need some means to reach emergency assistance and to call a taxi to return me home on one of my rare forays from the Castle of Confusion. I know this to be the way a sizable portion of the phone-using population of both Canada and the US approach having a cell phone.

In the United States, you can buy a prepaid phone, use the minutes/money you bought with it and at the end of your prepaid use of telephone service, you can either buy another phone, decide not to have an emergency phone or buy some more service use. If it takes you a long while to use up your service that you have paid for it, so be it. You bought it, you own it. 

But here in Canada, where the law of the land for gift certificates and gift cards is NO EXPIRATION, our telecommunications companies STEAL the money of prepaid phone users if they don't use them by some decided upon expiration date. If you give the companies a hundred bucks, that expiration date will be a year away. Lesser amounts can mean as little as weeks and or a month. In fact, I can buy a Virgin gift card that will never, ever expire. But the money I gave Virgin Mobile (an indistinguishable branch) last year during my emergency when my phone service died due to my VOIP box failing, will soon be STOLEN from my account, via a legal contract I signed, by the oh-so-helpful, hip folks at Branson's legacy to Canadian consumerism (and the politicians who have continued to turn a blind eye to this practice).

In the last year, until last week, I had used a total of $4.80 worth of time. I went crazy and burned off another five bucks worth last week, out of spite, not out of need. I was in my living room, sitting beside me phone. In all, I will have paid $115 for those eight one-minute calls to the taxi company over the last year. That's more than $14 a minute. This isn't the dawn of the cellular age any more. It's been three decades since phone calls cost $14 a minute ... even with the money-grubbing roaming charges telecoms are thrilled to get away charging.

Last year, in the midst of my emergency that included a major malfunction by my then car-rental company (and yes, I am VERY, VERY, VERY HAPPY I switched to Discount Rent-A-Car, who picks me up and drops me off after giving me use of a good car, all for less money and WAAAAAAY less hassle than that other company that likes to advertise about the pick-up service), I was told by the salesman at Virgin Mobile that I could roll over my account with a minimal payment ($15), implying that that would then extend my expiration date to 2014. WITHOUT SAYING IT SPECIFALLY. What he said was true. That payment today or tomorrow would, in fact, extend my account ... for one month. A similar payment September 13th would give me another month. And so on and so on. Of course, the actual cheaper extension would be to pay another year-extending 100 bucks, not get bled to death for $180 a month a time. I asked several times, he danced around the specifics, but left me with the absolute belief I had found the deal I wanted ,,, to replace the crappy 7-Eleven phone that had cacked during the emergency,

Grating even further, he actually gave me the huckster's pitch to seal the deal. "Why don't you take the 10 buck a month plan and you'll get your minutes at 10 cents a minute? Then, when the emergency is over, switch your account over to the yearly plan. You'll pay 35 cents a minutes, but you tell me you will not be using the phone much. You'll get cheap minutes now when you have to use them, and then later, who cares?"

It was EASY to complete the plan all by myself. It was almost as if the setup at Virgin Mobile even allowed for this kind of scamming of the company in three easy steps. Do you think he saw an old dude coming and got ready to bank the commission? I hope he loses the means to procreate. In a painful way.

Completely oblivious to my compete and utter misunderstanding of the contract I had signed and then only cursorily read over ... hey, I'm not a lawyer in any case, I even 'TOPPED' up my account with a $15 donation to the Virgin Mobile bottom line last month. Actually a little more than a month ago. THAT donation has expires today. I should have waited until noon Friday, and THAT would have extended my account until the 15th next month. Doing it early? Well let's just say that the less-than-fine folks at Virgin Mobile laughed and laughed and laughed and then deposited the money directly to their account. Tomorrow, my account will plunge to 86 dollars because I have been using my FIRST purchase of time until it expires. The $15 bucks expired without me ever using a single minute. I double-donated to Virgin Mobile. I'm so proud of my stupidity.

So, given my antipathy towards the lying scum that hooked me for Virgin Mobile, you KNOW I was switching providers. Problem is, the cartel of telecommunications companies here in Canada have taken an oath to Muerta. Nobody will break the agreed on practice NOT to honour prepaid plans without having expiration dates. Steal it while you can. Maybe tomorrow, the sheep that have elected our current set of politicians, an incapable bunch if there ever was one, will be smote down by an angry electorate that will resent grandmom and granddad being soaked for money they need a heck of a lot more than the telecommunications companies do (some of the most profitable in the land).

I talked to one gentleman at Wal-Mart about maybe going with KooDoo (who have a new setup coming next week that MIGHT be a cost-effective). Currently, the same deal was in place for any of the service providers Wal-Mart, champion of low costs and big profits, sold. But he did tell me of one lady who pays the 100 dollar a year charge and keeps doing it, for fear of losing the money she has, in effect, on account with whichever one of the evil companies she is with. She now has a little bit less than 500 dollars on account. And she uses the phone LESS THAN I DID this past year. When will this stop? When that company can claim a THOUSAND bucks that have been given them in good faith, without providing the service that was paid for? Is there an upper limit to their collective greed?

The Telecom companies are campaigning hard to keep American competition out of Canada. How much market share would Verizon or some such company grab in our nation if they merely offered non-expiring prepaid phones? Five percent? More? Much more? Sure, all the ads are about foreign invaders coming to Canada and using the infrastructure they didn't bleed one cent in building ... as if the Telecom companies that rule the roost here in Canada spent much more than one (per) cent. And the other ads about cherry-picked examples being cheaper here than our American cousins pay is more embarrassing butt-covering and hope you don't smell the fertilizer.

Obviously, American companies CAN, in fact, BUY market share with competition-crushing introductory pricing. Losses? Thinking long term means they can treat Canada as a little experiment that will eventually pay off. So, yes, the $*_)%&## at the CRTC and in parliament, need to set up some protections,

But one of those protections should NOT be the cartel's right to steal prepaid money. Somebody with deep pockets and a victimized grandmother, has to take on the telecoms in court. Contractually agreed-to, or not, we victims of the telecom thievery, cannot lose this case in an unbought court. It's LUDICROUS that giving money to a company doesn't require service or goods in exchange, merely the promise that service will be available for a short period of time. Well, unless we are talking about prostitution.

The solution is simple. Give us what we paid for, the access to your network. If the price rises while we wait, that's on us. If the price for ALL users prepaid or on-going contract, rises from 35 cents a minute to 40, then that's the cost to we consumers for fiddling as Ottawa counted. We get less minutes, maybe waaaaaaaaaaay less minutes, if we wait a year, two years, three years to use our never-dwindling account. Or slowly dwindling. It shouldn't just go POOF! one Friday lunch hour. As long as price raises are fair (and I wouldn't trust the TELECOMS to figure out what fair is, it would have to be court-mandated), I think common business practices would apply. At the comic book chain I do point of sale software for, a $10 gift certificate bought you three comics two years ago. That same certificate, held to today, will only buy two comics, because of the rise in prices of comics over those 24 months. BUT YOU STILL GET TWO COMICS. Maybe just one if you wait another few years. BUT YOU STILL GET ONE.

What am I going to do in the short term? Well, I have oodles (well a few) friends who are always talking about giving me rides to and fro. Say to the hospital at the end of this month for my first eye operation. Thanks Marilyn, That'll save me the taxi phone call. I will run the risk of my VOIP not going south and go without the emergency phone, At some point I might end up with Rogers. If I can get some money off the other parts of my life I pay Rogers for, I might defray the cost of an emergency phone to double digits. I say MIGHT, because Rogers wants a ten-spot to 'switch' me over to Rogers system, graciously allowing me to use the phone I bought for the Virgin Mobile scam. Lucky for me, I only ever gave my cell phone number out to three people. I can't be held ransom for 'keeping' my number in the switch-over process, And maybe Koodoo's deal with Wal-Mart will offer a five dollar a month plan, which I would grudgingly pay. But for right now, I really, really like the idea of not giving the thieves one red cent. 

By the way, when I dictated this originally, the word blanked out before the CRTC reference was either about lack of mental acuity or a personal evaluation of the total lack of ethical backbone. I can't remember which. But it was one of them.

LIFE: The Odds

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Reading Mark Evanier's blog today got me to a posting at the New York Times (http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/01/its-my-birthday-too-yeah/) that dealt with the age-old conundrum of, "How many people have to be in a group for the odds of two (or more) of them sharing the same birthday be at least 50-50?" The answer is almost always a surprise.

The genesis of the article is the finding of an old clip from the Johnny Carson show that dealt with the issue in a mildly amusing manner. The all-time great talk show host bungled the issue a fair bit, trying to match exact birthdays by asking one person their birthday and then surveying the crowd of 500 for a match. That failed as did a second attempt. The third attempt, Carson's own birthday, resulted in two other co-celebrators on that day.

Still, the column and then watching the video at the Cornell Collective (the link is in the column), brought back my own introduction to the issue. And an astonishing result that even had my Grade 4 teacher, Mrs. Benham, absolutely speechless.

Mrs. Benham, one of my best teachers during my academic life, started math class by asking the familiar question. It wasn't me, but one smart aleck in the room answered immediately, "365." Which, of course, GUARANTEES there will be a match (barring a Feb. 29th outlier). In reality, as the column points out, the odds are ALMOST guaranteed with as few as 253 people. And that's because, birthdays are NOT scattered randomly over all 365 days. Birthdays occur in clusters approximately nine months after certain annual events ... Valentine's Day, the first cold weather day of the year, Christmas and New Year's, last harvest day of the season, etc.

However, Mrs. Benham got a bit of a shock on that day almost 47 years ago. I started laughing, even before the wise-ass went for the 365 answer. I KNEW she was going to say some ridiculously low number and she was going to be right, NO MATTER HOW LOW SHE WENT. She finally gave 23 (the exact size of the class with full attendance, as there was that day) as the 50-50 answer, drawing oohs from the kids who weren't wrapped up in my giggling.

Mrs. Benham gave me as close to a dirty look as she was capable of. And said, "Let's start the test of my theory with Gary here." I sat in the first seat in the first row immediately in front of the teacher's desk. "July 18th," I answered, collapsing in laughter. Mrs. Benham somehow failed to comment on, or ask, why I was laughing and asked the girl sitting behind me, my next door neighbour Susan. The reason behind my laughter became obvious immediately.

"July 18th," she answered.

Then I got a big shock myself. The third-to-be-asked was a girl named Nancy that I didn't know that well but had a bit of a crush on. She sort of gasped when Susan revealed her birthday. When Mrs. Benham, smiling like she had been totally vindicated, continued to Nancy, saying, "Well, let's see if we have more than one pair in the room."

Nancy's birthday? Obviously July 18th. Otherwise, there's no story.

I've tried this survey at various times over the years and have actually found a better than 50-50 record during that time. But that's outside of the real odds. I've even bet people and won, taking advantage of the fact that I knew the crowd included a set of non-identical twins (the East girls). But even when I haven't salted the results beforehand, it's still an interesting test to run at parties or bars. Get the group up to about 30 and bet the winning side and you might enjoy a night of drinks for free.

But don't try three out of three. The odds of that are more than a 100,000 to one.

LIFE: Free From The Twin Scourges

A LOT of money has been spent in the last couple of months on the political campaigns that culminate in the Ontario provincial elections today. How do I know? 'Cuz those $%(*$%)*($%& politicians employed every $%*(&_%*& political polling company around to call and harass me repeatedly over the last month. And the election this week ends that. I return myself to blissful, peaceful silence, free from the constant ringing created by automated dialing systems.

Honestly. I hate politicians in general. I have never met one that made my heart sing, even legendary Hazel McCallion, the long-time major of Mississauga, just down the road. Met Hazel at the hockey rink at a Brampton Canadettes Hockey Tournament (Largest woman's hockey tournament in the world and has been for decades). She impressed me a bit. Just to the point of not wanting to dump my drink over her. But aside from Hazel, nada. There's politicians I never met that I respect. I could list both here, but why bother? I'd rather spend time with a used car salesman.

Now, if there is something lower on the evolutionary scale that a politician, it's probably a political polling worker. Yes, I know people got to eat. And telephone sales jobs (the everyday version of the poll caller) are the job of last resort. But there's a certain stupidity to political pollers that merit special contempt.

IF I hang up on you as soon as the word 'political' comes up in conversation and I do exactly the same thing the second time, what are the odds you're going to succeed the third time? Zero. Less than zero? On Sunday, I hung up on the same cretin FIVE times. And don't even get me started on the totally automated phone interruptions of my life.

And reserve a special place in hell for the current holder of my riding's seat in provincial parliament, he of the access to the 000-0000 telephone number from my area code. It's a number I cannot block with my phone's call-blocking feature. If I try to block the specific ten-digit number, my otherwise great phones block ALL phone calls. And he knows that. And he called THREE %*$&$_*%&_)$% times to THANK me for my support. Cretin. And, oh by the way, I didn't vote for you last time and I won't be voting for you today. 

I should also point out that I DID participate in an Angus Reid poll the same day. I've done them semi-regularly for years. I was told eight minutes and the poll took eight minutes. It discussed a wide range of topics (as wide as eight minutes allows) and when the inevitable three questions about politics were answered, "I decline to answer questions about my voting preferences," the pollster accepted the answer with equanimity and moved on. See, I do understand the differences between legitimate polling companies and scum-sucking ideological hacks bothering me for no good reason.

There's long been a saw about  "Kill all the lawyers," dating back to William Shakespeare and one of the Henry VI plays. Actually, the quote is "The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers." Well, good old Will had it wrong. Well before the lawyers, I have a whole different group of life-interfering %&$)&$^&(# to do away with first.

Any guesses?

Well, it all ends in the next few hours. One group of incoming cretins will replace the outgoing group of idiots. The Marching Moron Society continues to wind it's way inexorably towards the future. But, at least for the next little while, it will be a little more peaceful.

LIFE: A NEW Way To Screw Up Renewing License Plates

Regular readers, or make that, the regular reader in Europe, will be familiar with the travails of my annual renewal of the license stickers for my car. I've had my car break down in the Ministry of Transport parking lot (numerous times) resulting in car-tows (numerous times). I've been sick enough that I placed the newly-purchased sticker on the wrong car. I've arrived with the form from the year before. I've left the car emissions test certificate at home. I have honestly come to the belief that that little strip mall office is, in fact, the entrance to Purgatory and that I'm sure Dante and his old pal Nick Scratch lurk in a back room laughing themselves silly as I perform my latest tragedy.

Which brings me to this year and yet another example of why I shouldn't drive. Just having a car is a danger to your life. The fact that my blood pressure hits stratospheric heights whenever the thought of pouring money into the car, when combined with giving the government money. I really should be considering taxiing everywhere. At least I know the cost of that these days. It's ten bucks to get to, and then another ten bucks to get back from, that office on the outskirts of Hell.

Why do I now that? Unhappy you asked. Turns out, I didn't do the wrong/old form trick this year. I couldn't find where I left the form for safekeeping. After one cleaning of the house and one spelunking expedition through the piles of paper that congregate around the house. And after a second cleaning and a MORE careful pawing through the paper piles. Gone. Disappeared. Most likely with the trash.

So, on Saturday, I steeled myself for the inevitable hectoring and drove over to get my stickers. It was the second-last day of the month and the start of a long weekend. The place was closed. Apparently it's never open on Saturdays. So I drove on to the main testing centre a few miles away. It closes for sticker biz at 1 pm on Saturdays. It was now 1:10 pm. As of Monday morning, my car would be obviously being driven around with an expired sticker. 

I've not been feeling all that great, so it took me until yesterday to phone the Ministry and enquire about the routine (and eventual cost) of replacing the form. Turns out, you don't NEED the form at all. Nice to have, but unnecessary. In Tyler's words, "It's more of a reminder." I responded by going back to bed and sleep off all of that unnecessary work cleaning up the place, TWICE, to find the unneeded paperwork. Today, I paid for the taxi rides to and fro and now have a year's worth of time ticking away until, once again, I have to face the Gates of Hell.

It won't be pretty. Not sure how I'll screw it up next year. But something will happen.

It always does.

LIFE: The Birthday That Was...

... a mixture of the best and the worst.

First, the BEST! An early start with nice words from an editor for my novel. Later, a relatively peaceful and quiet mid-day. Birthday treats in the form of TWO serving containers of lemon tarts (no meringue, naturally). And then I scored pretty good in the gift department, with the O'Neills doing the presentation. Another of the APC Pro 1000 Back-UPS was a welcome sight. And now I have a Slingbox. My TV wherever I want it ... with the Tablet coming in August. Or simply watching Dog Whisperer upstairs instead of traipsing down the stairs to see it on the big TV. And, it's a bit weird to hold a real life book, you know, the kind made out of dead trees, for the first time in a year. And I'm about a third of the way through it at this point. No surprise, it's the (17th) annual mid-year Stephanie Plum book by Janet Evanovich, a birthday tradition at this house. And I even got a Happy Birthday song from Georgia at Comic Warehouse.

But in to each day getting older, like officially older, there must come some doom and gloom. A couple of phantom unreproducible errors at two clients caused some consternation, although I found almost a reason for one of them. Then, I found out one of my clients screwed over a friend. I had to be talked down from firing the client right there and then. I'm still mad about it, but all that's going to happen in the short term is that the client has lost favoured nation status and the client's needs will be met when all else is done for everybody else. My upset eventually let to a fairly bad asthma attack right after the O'Neill's left. I could give you the details, but I'll simply say that it was unpleasant, as most stress-induced asthma attacks are. Lastly, one of the two terabyte drives in one of my network array of storage boxes is giving signs of giving up the ghost. I naturally missed the earliest signs last night and this morning. Soooo, after recovering (and cleaning up) from the asthma attack, it was a little disconcerting to see the big list of files on the backup drive disappear. From any computer connected to it. Patrick talked me through rebooting the NAS box and then rebooting Popeye and shutting down file managers on the other connected computers. After all of that, everything LOOKED normal. But, it's still clicking and clicking is NEVER good for hard drives. So, the backup is being backed up. Hope it lives that long.

Today is Angela's BFF Megan's birthday. I guarantee her's won't be like mine. Or at least I hope not. We are talking about an 'ornery' old guy (as I was described about 28 hours ago) and a 15-year old girl. Enjoy yours Megan.

LIFE: A Bigot Is ...

A little late, but what the heck, it's not like anybody expects Blogger and Blogspot to be up ALL the time. Or do you? At any rate, this blog was written during the Blog-out. I've changed the references, but I can't guarantee Sun Media still has Steve Buffery's post still available.

Steve Buffery's post Thursday should be read by everybody. And by some people twice. Although, I suspect a year of repeated readings wouldn't beat the truth into their heads.

What Buffery wrote about today was bigotry and the race to be morally superior to those, that people perceive to be bigots. In this case, he went off on the mob mentality that took over when Damian Goddard of Sportsnet got fired for his support of the anti-gay marriage tweets sent out by sports agent Todd Reynolds. Buffery opens his posting by saying he is in favour of gay marriage, in order NOT to end it with a obsequious "Not that there's anything wrong with that." Too bad. We can't just comment on other's polarizing views without pre-emptorily defending ourselves first.

So, here's my view. You can check back through the blog. I've said it all before. Marriage needs to get out of the courts, replaced with some non-religious term like Union, and let the churches and the synagogues and such have their ceremonial get-togethers. Marriage hasn't been around forever. In fact, it's a fairly new institution. And it's all designed to tie the participants to their religious community. And, if in their ignorance, that community wants to exclude certain people from their not all-encompassing embrace, so be it. I didn't want to join their club anyway.

All people deserve equal rights. Let the legal part of Marriage (errr Unions), be as agnostic as possible. If two people of adult age want to partner up, let no man pass a law to rent that union asunder. If they want to divorce, off to the lawyers they go. No religious involvement whatsoever, unless they want to throw a marriage after they legally get unioned (or even at the same time).

Okay, I guess I should get around to my point of view on the Goddard-Reynolds pronouncements. Are their comments bigoted? Slightly Yes and probably No. What, you expected life to be completely black and white? Yes, because they are choosing other's opinions to inform/replace their opinions. And by others, I mean ethereal beings and the humans who have appointed themselves in charge of interpreting the words and will of those ethereal beings. But no, because I feel bigotry requires two components. There's the belief, then there's the action. Which is why I separate bigotry and prejudice.

Bigotry: stubborn and complete intolerance of any creed, belief, or opinion that differs from one's own.

Prejudice: [1] an unfavorable opinion or feeling formed beforehand or without knowledge, thought, or reason. [2] any preconceived opinion or feeling, either favorable or unfavorable. [3] unreasonable feelings, opinions, or attitudes, especially of a hostile nature, regarding a racial, religious, or national group.

Goddard and Reynolds are guilty of prejudice. By whatever rationale, they have decided against a concept that they have no interactions with, other than as sideline commentators. Do I think their rationale stinks? Of course. I am a reasonable man. But I don't think they are bigots because I don't believe they have, or ever will, act on those beliefs (the complete intolerance bit). Barring possibly a vote, if their vote is ever solicited, I think both of these otherwise bright guys can be deemed harmless in this area.

Now, there ARE contemptible twits who don't believe in just having an opinion. These are the zealots who insist on acting out on their prejudices and finding ways to interfere in the lawful pursuits of other people. Yes, most of these mentally inferior excrement-disturbers come from some religious wacko group. Others just see it as one more way of bashing people who "are not like us." Those are bigots and are open game for all the derision in the world. Too much is not enough when it comes to the battle against bigotry.

But firing Goddard and harassing Reynolds into submission doesn't qualify as fine examples of allowing free speech (and thought) in this country. Sure, they should have adhered to the hominem, better to be thought a fool than to open one's mouth (or load up Twitter) and prove it.

Good men and women can agree to disagree. As long as they allow for dissenting opinion, the world can be a really civilized place. It's when zealots of any stripe insist on only one voice, one thought, that the world gets to be scary.

Read Buffery's piece. Even if you disagree with it.

LIFE: Still Depressed

It's been a couple of days and I still find myself thinking ahead to a bleak future. I share some ancestry with CBC pundit Rex Murphy, but I don't share his calm, as he dismissed anti-Stephen Harper zealots on Strombo the other night. He thinks people who think the worst of Harper and what he calls the Secret Agenda are working as fervently on their fiction as is Margaret Atwood. While I respect the heck out of Murphy, I still think he's wrong.

Abortion rights, net neutrality, a two-level medical system and the further attempt to turn Canada into a single-party political state are just some of the things I expect to be yapping about over the next four years. And like everybody else outside the Inner Circle, my yapping will mean diddly squat.

On the latter point, now in majority, expect the Conservatives to make gerrymandering an art. The next election will feature more seats, and not a single extra seat will be created that won't be set up to be a generational seat for the conservatives. The political map will see side-by-side leftist seats joined together to form a single seat and that extra seat will then be replaced (and then some) by the splitting into two of a single conservative seat. Some fancy border-making will be required. But the Conservatives will now have a few years and ALL taxpayers dollars to do exactly that. With no opposition. Despite NOT getting the majority of votes in the election Monday night. Again.

Fact: The majority of Canadians voted for the small L liberal side of the voting slate. That's because Canada is a liberal nation. Not a Liberal nation, but a liberal one. But we have a problem, two alternatives on the liberal side, versus the one united, coalesced conservative alternative. And, here in Ontario especially, the surging NDP candidates took votes away from incumbent Liberals (the reverse happened at least once, too) and Conservatives won a seat, despite getting, in some cases, less votes this time around than in losing two years ago.

Early in the election, news was made when one, maybe two, NDP candidates announced they wanted all their supporters to vote Liberal. The election was too important to allow Conservatives to enjoy their split-vote opportunity and win a seat without anything close to a majority of the votes. Had that act become province-wide, let alone nation-wide, today we would have a minority government led, in all likelyhood by either Jack Layton or Michael Ignatieff. The Harper Menace would be behind us.

There's little doubt that the NDP's success was also its own failure. A little less NDP surging in Ontario would almost assuredly have led to Jack Layton as Prime Minister before the summer was out. Instead, the NDP will be an opposition to a party that brooks no opposition. The impact that the NDP will have as the main opposition for the next four years is ZERO. The Conservatives will yawn through question period, obfuscate most of the time and say "none of your business" more than they should. They demonstrated that when all they held was power. Absolute power? Well, Rex, you are about to find the depths that can be plumbed. Sorry. You are wrong.

When last the conservative side of the aisle was similarly split, one of Canada's grand old political insitutions, the Progressive Conservatives, died to allow the Conservative party to emerge phoenix-like and represent the view of a sizable minority of Canadians. The lessons will now have to be applied to the liberal side. There is NO WAY, the Liberal Party, the so-called natural governing party of this country, will survive. Hat in hat, they MUST now go to the NDP and start the process of uniting the left. Free of the baggage of the old guard, the remaining Liberals must not allow the next election to be one of the right versus a fractured left. If they do, the conservatives might establish a control of the country that could last a generation. Or more.

Justin Trudeau will have to make the long walk with his colleagues to the offices of Layton. Behind the scenes, the melding of the two parties into, let's call them the Liberal Democrats, which sounds better on the tongue than Democratic Liberals, has to be in place this year. And for gawd sakes, no one should suggest Really New Democrat Party. I mean, when does New actually become OLD? Provincial allegiances will have to be re-examined to see if the national parties amalgamation seeps down to the provincial level or whether the current bifurcation continues. I have no idea how that goes. But it's gotta get done.

Otherwise, I REALLY will have to step up my lottery purchases to escape what I fear will be the very epitomy of the ancient Chinese curse, "May you live in interesting times."

I'd rather be bored.