I can't believe this... after a stock split last December because the value of the shares of Yahoo! had reached $500... they closed the week at $91.

As a gift for being a Yahoo!Geocities Community Leader, I was given 6 shares of their stock; now 12 because of the split. With the prices plunging, it soon won't be a great benefit to have those shares.

Montreal Gazette - Friday 29 September 2000 - Pierre Trudeau 1919-2000. For those few who didn't know Pierre Trudeau, this article will give you some information on his life.

I was wrong yesterday: I called Richard Mulligan's comedy Open House.

The real name of the show was Empty Nest

Right now, I feel very sad.

After a satisfying day of solving many headaches in my Flash project at work, I turned on the TV... and now like many Candians all over the country, I'm in mourning.

Pierre Elliot Trudeau, our 15th Prime Minister, passed away around 3pm today. He was 80 years old. He's survived by two of his sons.

How to explain P.E.T. to people outside of Canada... he was incredibly charismatic, a driven leader, and a very outspoken human being. It was because of Pierre Trudeau that I found the entire Clinton-Gate scandal amusing. Here we had a man who dated and likely bedded many famous ladies (Barbara Steisand, Margot Kidder, Karen Kane, many others), whose wife Margaret was linked to an affair with Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones... and this just garnered him more celebrity and appreciation. Clinton does something similar, and he almost gets impreached.

We all go someday. Death is the inevitable conclusion of life... but we still miss the people who are gone. The loss of Pierre Trudeau is one we'll likely feel for a long time to come.

It got worse as I was watching Entertainment Tonight later: actor Richard Mulligan passed away on Tuesday.

Many will remember his doctor character from Open House (I hope I have the series name right), but I knew him originally as Bert on Soap. Waves of nostalgia have washed over me all evening.

A Flash victory today!

I grumble like crazy for every time that something I try in the program doesn't work... but I'm a stubborn cuss. With time and determination, I MAKE things work.

What a day!

I achieved 4 hours of work at home... but true to form, what I tried in Flash generally didn't work for me.

I'm hopeful that I get things to work tomorrow at the office. I'm supposed to begin the HTML version of the site next week; I'd like to have everything figured out here to do that.

This is fun:

Job Title Generator. I found this link thanks to the webmistress. Here was what I generated for myself:

Old title: Contributing Content Writer
New title: Self-governing Metaphor Bard

Give it a try!

blog by night.

Yes, I'm once again linking to another Blog... but I guess you could call this adding Canadian content here. :) After all, it is my native land...

I like this author's sense of political outrage... plus, we share similar distatse for the NBC Olympic coverage.

Another day, another attempt to wake up...

I have oodles of Flash project work to do today, as well as truckloads of writing too.

Lapdance club bids to allow touching for blind

...

I can't make a snappy quip about this.

Lizard in crisp packet survived two or three weeks

I always try to put some levity after real sad news.

Disabilities didn't stop Jean Riley from living full life

As always, I celebrate the lives of the disabled. We need role-models.

I'm feeling bummed-out tonight. I'm not quite sure why... maybe packing to leave what has been my home for 8 years is getting to me; maybe it's the fact that even though I'm working now, I'm still broke.

Or maybe it's just MS-produced depression. That happens - way too often.

I just realized the heater in my computer room has been on all summer. That explains why my budget plan for heating goes up starting this coming month... sigh

I just spent an hour working with Flash that proved - not surprising, considering my luck with it so far - both good and bad.

Good, because I added in all the scrolling text boxes I needed, now that I can make things work. Bad, because now another programming trick I need doesn't work.

I'll get it all working someday, but right now it's just maddening.

ABomanation: The Blog. I'll take whatever exposure I can get. :)

My new Blog on Fight City became active yesterday. Enjoy!

Weblog Wannabe. I like this Blogger's tone and approach to writing.

Today made for a rough, gut-check decision: I called my friend Mike to pass by this week to relieve me of the Comicopia back issue archives that I've been holding for the past 10 years.

It's a tough decision to make, but I have to free up as much packing as possible for when I move.

I shudder to think of the day I'll have to do this again, when/if I have to move to a retirement home some day.

I arranged for people to help me junk some old furniture next garbage day, and I began making plans for packing and clearing of more junk.

My nature makes me very stubborn and slow to change things... but once I do, I go whole hog at them.

Today was a busy one, but sad too.

I started at the Constance Lethbridge Readaptation center around 10am, to discuss various things about what I'm doing. It was recommended that I step off a committee or two with Leth-Go - the activity group I'm with there - because my body is telling me that I've taken on too much; I have trouble staying awake during our weekly meetings now.

I have a stubborn Taurus personality, one that may contribute to me taking on so much to do... but I have to learn to accept the fact that I can't do as much as I used to. That's proving very hard.

We also discussed the plans to get me in adapted housing. I should really begin to pack now, because I never know when I'll get the call to move.

I have a large apartment, and I've accumulated a lot of stuff in the 8 years I've lived here. That's going to be a hella pack-up!

At the meeting to organize our next conference, I showed my mock-ups of the ad flyer. With some suggested modifications, it should pass muster. I also got my logo design approved; I'll upload it to this Blog soon to show off.

Today was a stressful day, but one finally over...

After work, I got home, went out to cash my cheque (the cats needed food), then wrote my report for my investment club, printed up some materials for Leth-Go tomorrow (printed up the final logo proposed, plus some mock-ups of an ad flyer for our next conference). Then, I went to my investment club, just got home, downloaded some images for those above-mentioned flyers...

Only a few days a week have so much that needs doing, thank Ghod.

- Oh: one of the websites I designed for a client is now online: Dramatical Productions. I know, it's pretty thin on content... the client didn't want to reveal any more, and 'the client's always right'...

Finally. FIN-AL-LY!!

I just managed to make scrolling text work in Flash. After weeks of trying with no success, I did it.

About frikkin' well time.

It's so lame I have to laugh:

For years now, my phone number has been one digit away from that of a doctor's office. As a result, I'm often correcting the calls of those who don't know. I figure that anyone calling a doctor is a serious enough reason to call them back.

Today, I was on the Internet, and the secretary of another doctor called while I was on the Internet. I have Internet voicemail, so I always get the messages. The lady who left the message gave me hell for tying up my phone line when she was calling for something as important as an appointment change...

Thing is, the message was for a woman named Joy Beagleman. Same initials as mine, but that isn't Jeff Boman. Weirder still, I clealry state my name while the message plays.

I called this secretary back, and got profuse apologies for her error - in which the phone number had the two center digits different from mine...

Sometimes, you just can't win.

I've come to realize that due to there not being a fixed template for Archive files, I'll have to edit each of them manually, or deal with the fact that most of them have broken image links...

There is a plus to them however: you'll get to witness the genesis of this site's design through each of them.

A cleaning lady from my CLSC-funded cleaning service came this afternoon. Actually, two of them; the first one was allergic to pets, and hadn't been warned that I had two cats.

The lady who ultimately came complained that my apartment was the dirtiest she'd ever seen... but the important thing is that it is clean now.

I'm becoming incredibly fed-up with the message boards on Flashkit and Virtual-FX. In almost a week, my questions about scrolling text in Flash show that many people have read the posts - but nobody has bothered to give a reply.

Help forums are a waste if questions don't get answered. At that point, Help is an oxymoron.

It's a day or so before my new Blog for ABomanation goes live on Fight City... I just have to set the template and edit the FTP paths, and it's done.

Scream of frustration

I tried another scrolling how-to tutorial for Flash today... it still won't work.

Trying to find the Flash instructions I need has been incredibly frustrating this evening.

First, none of my attempts to post questions on message boards have resulted in people answering. Then, every tutorial that I've found tells how to make the scrollbars only, not how to work with the text involved in them.

Grr...

I guess I should include links to the sites I've found endless Flash tutorials on... in case others are trying to learn the program too:

Flashkit Community and Virtual FX have a ton of information available.

I'm spending time now just surfing Flash tutorial sites for work now as I still have a few hours of work to do for this week.

I ended up downloading a few movie-clips to study. I've never before had the experience of software having so steep a learning curve... just coming to grips with how to do scrollbars is proving a frustrating challenge!

I just changed the ring code snippet for Webloggers on the main page. I now have to go through every single archive page to change it too.

It looks like most of the webrings my sites are a part of will change now that Yahoo! has bought Webring.

I have no problem with other people buying companies; that's just business.

It's when they then try to change things - and in a way that keeps driving people away (withness Yahoo!'s draconian Terms of Service that drove away most of the Geocities site makers last year) - well, that's just dumb, in my opinion.

I wanted to share with you my computer desktop from work.

This image was drawn by Gabriel Morrissette, an illustrator of many years at several different comic companies, member of Comicopia, and a good friend.

As promised yesterday, here's my history with music. It starts quite far back; over 20 years, in fact.

Jeff turns on his wayback machine

When I was a teenager, I didn't have a terribly good voice. Oh, I carried a tune well enough to earn the praise of Rabbis at my Bar Mitzvah and performing a few blessings at the ark afterwards, but I think a Rabbi is just happy when their students aren't off-key.

As I reached my late-teens though, things started to change. I was more than able to carry a tune... in fact, during grad year I was part of a cover band (Peer Pressure) during the Winter Carnival, and won the lead role in the school musical that year.

When I went to CEGEP (the name in Quebec for a college)I began my stint as a busker - a street musician. With my partner Sam on guitar, me playing the oh-so complex instrument the tambourine, we sang to the masses, with me singing the harmonies. My throat is still sore from singing the Art Garfunkel harmony to Sounds of Silence so often...

Thing is, I still hadn't really hit a mature stride to my voice. I hit the high harmonies well, but my throat was still straining to hit it. It wasn't until after university in 1990 that my voice really grew.

My singing pinacle came in 1995, singing in a Gospel choir for an Adult Education program. I was part of the tenor section; actually, I ended up being the tenor section as no one else really made the effort to sing for it.

At our last rehearsal, I was the only member of the tenors who showed up. After a run-through, the musical director joked that he couldn't hear the tenors... he'd been asking me to sing a bit lower for awhile to not overpower the section; I told him that for this I'd have no more holding back. Result: someone sitting in the balcony of our practice hall could hear me over the entire group!

I was entrusted with one of the solo parts for one of the songs. At first, I was very nervous; one thing I still lacked was soul. I spent ages listening to singers like Steve Windwood and Sam and Dave until I had it, and sure enough, come performance time, I did. I really kicked the jams out for the show.

I don't have that singing voice anymore. MS stole my breath strength over time. Still, the way I look at things, I had my chance to shine in the spotlight, so I don't really complain. Still, it doesn't stop me from critiquing other singers, like the guys in Making the Band!

I had a discussion about this with friends today, and I have to get it off my chest:

Christina Aguilara was featured at the Latin Grammys; she's also been listed among other performers in magazines like People as part of the "new" wave of Latin music that is gaining popularity.

Christina shows that there needs to be a distinction made between Latin music and singers who happen to have Latin origins.

Christina Aguilara does indeed come from Latin roots - but her music is pure bubblegum pop. There are no Latin influences to her music style at all.

I'll be back on Saturday with my full story of my links to music. It's bound to be one of my longest postings on Jazzlife.

I'm doubly surprised... I saw the season finale of Making the Band this evening (you'll notice a strong music bent to a lot of my posts in this Blog; I'll talk more about it in a few entries).

First, the band did get a recording contract - and one that could easily be called major: they're signed with Clive Davis, possibly the biggest record executive of our generation (!).

Second was the surprise that the show is being picked up for a second season. This is a big surprise, not because the show is bad; as a guy formerly involved in music big time, I enjoy watching the process. No, I'm surprised because it had already been announced that the show wasn't being picked up.

I guess that news was premature.

While watching the soap opera that I record when I'm away from home (All My Children), one major problem on the show hit me yet again:

I'm not impressed by Susan Lucci as an actress to begin with, but her character... Erica Kane... how can viewers ever empathize with such a self-centered, witchy character?

Today proved to be another not-terribly fun day for me.

I spent most of it at the Constance Lethbridge Readaptation center, where I'm part of a volunteer group with other folks with neurological problems.

It would have been worthwhile, if I hadn't slept through most of the meeting. Unpredictable fatigue is always a pain in the butt.

For a cool half million bucks you can head for the stars

If you're like me, this couldn't be anywhere near in your budget... but it's still a cool idea!

Website for cheating spouses is a hit

O-kayyy...

I guess it takes all kinds.

Stanley Turrentine; Jazz Saxophonist Had Long Career

I don't get to clip in enough jazz-related stories here... a sad thing for this to be one of the first.

After weeks of frustration trying to make it work, I succeeded in making a basic text-scroll in Flash! Now I just have to learn how to do it so that it doesn't obscure the rest of the screen...

I learned today that I have 14 weeks left to my contract at work. A little more than 3 months before I'm on Unemployment again...

No pressure there.

What an aggrivating day. I got some positive things done, but a lot of frustration too.

First, the good stuff:

• I got things in motion to get Adapted Housing;
• I got the phone number for my cleaning service, which I'd lost;
• I managed to get part of my computer room cleaned up, and now have a lot of recycling to put out at the end of the week.

The frustrating stuff is a smaller list, but annoying nonetheless: the plunger on the toilet in my apartment broke. I let the landlord know, but who can actually guess when it'll be working again?

Ethel the Blog

I had to recommend this Blog. As a politically opinionated person, as well as a fan of great literature, this site speaks to me.

O.J. Simpson loses bid to block broadcast of TV miniseries

In a touch of irony, I saw a rerun of the Larry Sanders last night... in it, they made fun of the O.J. trials.

The general public knows he's guilty, and nothing he's said has convinced us otherwise.

Hillary Clinton wins New York Democratic primary

Could this be a sign of things to come on the US political landscape?

The fact that narrow-minded opinion against civil unions is so strong that it saddens me.

Internet vandal defaces OPEC Web site

Cripes...

We all know oil prices are well over the top now... still, giving us web developers a black eye again wasn't the way to go.

Mr. Prolific strikes again! I just posted the last weekly ABomanation column on Fight City itself... and I'm now off to work on fiction for my next Comicopia zine...

I think this is one of the rare times that caffeine was useful to me.

I started to download an accounting package (I'm hoping my writing and web design businesses take off a lot in this last quarter of 2000, enough to warrant accounting). Halfway through, I noticed the name of the file: it was a demo.

Screw that. I can keep my records fine using Excel.

If you're reading this, it means that file transfers from Blogger are actually working again...

I made several postings to this Blog since this morning, as you'll read here. What hasn't worked is transfering the files to the site.

Toronto in '03

Here's the website I spoke of.

I've wanted to see a WorldCon for years, but it was always too far away. I won't miss this one!

I just visited the website for Torcon 3, the WorldCon that'll be held there in 2003. (I'll clip in a link to the page here in a few minutes).

I've had a pre-supporter membership since 1998, so I'm overjoyed they got it... but the price tag for full membership has me floored:

As a pre-supporter, if I pay a pre-reg by the end of this year, it will only cost me $140 Canadian.

While watching the WWF RAW is WAR program on TSN tonight, I saw an ad that really floored me...

This year is the 20th anniversary of Terry Fox's death, and 20 years of the Terry Fox run.

For those who don't remember or know him: Terry Fox was a young man fighting cancer. He'd lost a leg to it, and had an artificial limb in its place.

He ran across Canada to raise funds for cancer research and to raise awareness of cancer. Many of us will remember the brave image of a man with only one real leg running.

Terry lost his battle, and in his honor, there's an annual Terry Fox running marathon organized all over the country. I took part in at least the first three runs back in high school.

It made me a bit whistful to realize that was 20 years ago - but also sad because 20 years later, we still haven't found a cure. It was 12 years ago that I lost my grandmother to lymphoma too.

If there's a Terry Fox run in your area, please take part in it, and try to raise as much money for research as you can.

Today was definitely not a day of 'fun with Flash at work' ...

I played around with Masking in tests - and it worked right. So, it should work right in my actual project, you'd think?

Unfortunately, that's not what happened... After a few hours of frustration, I just decided to remove that effect from what I was doing and move on.

*Tonight* was very frustrating... I started out bummed out - not because Con*Cept as it stood had the plug pulled, but because it would have been my only science fiction convention this year.

I came to the PC to do some Flash work... but nothing I tried worked. Things that I was able to do elsewhere on the site won't, no matter what I try.

Sigh. At least I downloaded a sound loop that's be perfect for the site pre-loader. Plus, thanks to the WebMistress (her blog is elsewhere linked here), I finally have some appropriate greeking text to use while testing out text scrolling.

Well, it's done; it's over. Con*Cept 2000 is now at an end.

The pre-registration and confirmed dealers just didn't support holding a convention. We could have continued, but our losses would indeed be great if we did.

I had thoughts about Britney Spears stunt on the MTV Video Awards. I know, I'm 3 days late, but still...

For those who didn't hear about it (which would be surprising after it was plastered all over the media), while performing a song, she came out in a gangster-style business suit, and stripped it off to reveal a flesh-colored body stocking - so she looked like she was naked.

What I thought: this is a lady who's made a point of telling the press she intends to preserve her virginity until marriage. Fair enough. But what message does this stunt then give? That no sex is ok, but so is teasing men?

I got my new slippers and mop downtown a few hours ago; with the amount of time that passes between my visits to Zellers and Canadian Tire, I figure I'll have enough Club Z points/Canadian Tire money (their bonus reward point promotions) to actually do something with by the time I'm an old man.

I also went to price the Diablo II game at a computer store. 75 dollars Canadian plus tax. Ouch! NO WAY I'd spent that much money on it!

I just spent a few minutes sprucing up this Blog.

Help me understand this: it's Saturday, right? So what'll I do with it? Go shopping to buy a new mop and slippers.

Go figure.

While coming home from Constance Lethbridge today, the windy air made me think of a friend I haven't seen in at least 5 years now...

Pat "Fluffy" Lapointe. A few years ago, a group of us slept over at another friend's place. His constant mantra was "I am the wind. I am windlike." Granted, you had to be there for it to seem funny, but we definitely thought it was.

One disastrous apartment move some 9 years ago (I haven't forgiven myself for it. I'll be surprised if any of that group has!) he used his credit card to help me reserve a moving truck. I intended to pay him back for the truck later, but he told me it was a gift. You don't get many friends like that in your life...

Yet, I have no idea where he is today. Sad. Very sad.

It occured to me today when I looked in my agenda: Con*Cept 2000 is starting October 13th.

A little over a month away... and no meeting has been announced, we're nowhere near prepared... I can't help but see this year's convention as being a disaster-in-the-making.

Groan

I barely got any sleep last night. A little better than the night before, but not much...

Now I have to get cleaned up to be at Constance Lethbridge (my readaptation center) for 10:30am to get measured for new furniture in my computer room... followed by a subcomittee meeting for a group I volunteer on called Leth-Go at 11, lunch, then our weekly meeting at 1pm.

Sleep? Rest? Whazzat?

That was annoying... what's posted just below this I posted at lunchtime from work - but the FTP setup wouldn't work. Very weird...

Today was a day of "'About time"s for a few things:

First, my morning transport to work was a driver who I'd vehemently complained about last trip with him. I don't know if he knew it was me, but he was extra careful with handling this time: he had new seatbelts in the back of his car (the old ones had been broken for months; that's against the rules), and he got off his butt to let me out of the car this time (he didn't do that the last time, not even asking if I needed help. Again, against the rules.). Finally, he let me off on the proper side of the street this time - not leaving me to chance oncoming traffic (that was a HUGE rule infraction!).

Secondly, Virtual Avenue finally gave me the proper information to access a domain name account there. I've only been trying to get this straightened out with them for a month...

Back to the office today... amazing that I was able to get out of bed, considering that my caffeinated soda yesterday kept me up all night!

I just checked the latest news in the Comicopia Delphi forum; looks like we'll be up to 12 members very soon. A new one is joining very soon!

Free Indie Music to Fade Away

Looks like the MP3 backlash continues...

Make award sting, record maker tells MP3.com's judge

Sigh

It's been a record profit year for the recording industry; this is just ignorant and greedy.

It's been awhile since I posted some newsbits...

US condemns religious intolerance

I'm thoroughly against religious prosecution; ironic, seeing as I'm an agnostic. Still, I've always had problems with intolerance of the faith of others.

It's a large part of what bothers me when I visit my aunt in Vermont. Her husband always rails against the Lubavitch (an Orthodox sect of Judaism). He may just think that in his own twisted way that's funny; myself, I just think that one Jew criticizing another for a difference in the way they practice is unbelievable ignorant and intolerant.

My computer's memory leak problem seems to have been a localized event; after a night shut down, my system RAM seems to be working again.

I just learned that Spider Robinson is intended to be the toastmaster at TorCon 3, the WorldCon to be held in Toronto in 2003. If they're talking about it after the Chicago WorldCon, then it's very likely to be happening - and it'll be the first one I can go to.

I met Spider in person at Con*Cept 95, when he was our Guest of Honor. I saw him again later that year at Primedia 95. I coined the name 'Montreal Spiderheads' for me and my friend Mike from that.

Sadly, we haven't seen him in person since. I'll look forward to seeing him in Toronto.

I've created the Blog for ABomanation now; I just need the FTP information clarified to set it up.

I really have to generate the funds to update this PC now... I'm getting 'lack of memory' warnings when I even try to pull up the accessory to find out how much memory I have left!

I also continued my study of Flash for work on several sites while I waited.

One thing that I've noticed about Flashed websites though: no matter how small the movie file, they still take too much time to load.

Wow, that was an incredible promo! John Rhys-Davies is in the film... that alone makes it cool.

I'm downloading a Quicktime movie as I type; a long promo for the Lord of the Rings movie.

I go way back with the book. I believe I read it when I was 13 or 14. A neighbor gave it to me in one compilation volume for Chanukah then. It had a cover drawn from that awful Ralph Bakshi animated film that was out then... THAT has to date me a bit!

I read the story non-stop for about 11 days. I even took the book with me to a high school swimming event. Foolish, because I didn't separate it enough from the wet stuff to protect it; the book was trashed as a result.

Anyways, for some reason I can't explain, I haven't been able to re-read it since. I only get a few pages in before I lose interest. I guess the magic of that first reading is gone.

I just uploaded my second-to-last "ABomanation" column to the Fight City website.

I don't mean I won't write anything for the site anymore - far from it. What this means is that, in two weeks, I'll transform the column into a Blog.

I'm guessing we don't get a lot of visits at the moment; with my column being the only one that gets updated, once a week columns aren't enough incentive for visitors to return very often... whereas a Blog could be updated more frequently, and maybe bring us more page views.

I've just made design changes in the archive settings for my Blog. Hopefully, they help make the archives look less, well... bad.

Cats. Sometimes they make for great companionship; sometimes, they can just be a pain...

I helped my sister to raise Boots back when we were roommates years ago. He stayed with her when I moved.

A few years ago, he got surly with her newborn son, and I took him in again.

About 5 years now, and he still won't learn that weaving through my feet when I feed him is a bad thing.

My redesign efforts on Jazz Life continue... the changes aren't yet major, but I'm hoping it makes for a better viewing experience.

Many of the links listed in the sidebar won't be active for a few days as I'll have to further work at them... but everything should be operational within a week or two.

The Guy's Guide to Geek Girls

This is almost too funny... except that being a geek guy, it reflects much on me too.

thenetstar.org -webmistress weblog et al

This Blog by a fellow web designer is very well designed and has some very interesting content.

Yesterday at Empire, Ace and I spoke about the real life show Making the Band. It's a show that I've watched because I'm interested in the process of making a band (even the next Pre-Fab Five, like this). We both think these guys don't have a lot of talent yet, but Ace admitted he's been taping it to watch too.

Being musicians (me a former singer; Ace a 20+ year singer/songwriter), we can tell how these guys need major practice and training to be good in their field. Still, most folks would laugh at us just for watching it to begin with. :)

I've just taken advantage of a service called Name Demo to get a personal URL domain name for my other personal site, The Wild World of Jeff. This domain name was free.

Now, I just have to do some major updating on that website to do it justice.

I'm very lucky: my computer room isn't in the dark anymore.

I went to my comic shop, Empire Comics today. I mentioned the lighting that broke, and the store owner offered to come back to my place after work to replace the light. He did, and it works again.

One problem solved, and a new one pops up: suddenly, Word Perfect 2000 is crashing on my system. I even tried refreshing my setup from CD, but it still isn't working... and this is the program I use for my Comicopia zines. Lovely.

Argh!

The lightbulb in my computer room broke!

When you can't risk the physical action of replacing it, a dark room becomes a likely thing...

The heat today was brutal. That I managed to get through the day with only a 20-minute nap is a miracle.

Mr. Prolific continued to earn that accolade at least. I finished a 20 page zine for Apacalypse. Now after I sent it to the Central Mailer, I have to write my next column for Fight City, then start on my next zine for Comicopia.