Man it's cold. When my apartment heaters seem almost innefective, I know the weather's bad.

On Entertainment Tonight yesterday, I learned of two more of the greats of show business passing away on Xmas weekend. I want to share my memories of them:

Victor Borge True, his act has faded in popularity over the years, but like all great Vaudevillian-style comedians, he didn't need to really change with the times; the times needed to change to appreciate him.

Victor Borge turned playing the piano into an elegant form of comedy. He had a few videos made of his work that again some found corny, but I'll always remember his routine of playing a few bars of music, stopping, turning the music sheets around, and discovering it was really the William Tell Overture reversed.

Billy Barty This little man was a big part of film and TV over a lifetime that encompassed seven decades in show business.

I saw him on-screen before then, but I'll always remember his regular roles on John Byner's Bizarre... in many ways, a raunchier, Canadian version of The Benny Hill Show. He also played a significant role in George Lucas' film Willow, as the ruler of the little people there.

I'll miss them both.

Joy. Bliss. It's a sharp cold as far as weather outdoors... one of those winters where my apartment heating doesn't feel warm - and since I pay for my heating, and basement apartments tend to heat that upstairs, I won't be turning it up any.

I have to go out soon anyways, to go feed that kitty cat. I've been going earlier each day; kittens need attention and company, and I'm happy to give it,

I was at a friend's apartment yesterday, to feed his kitten while he's away on a trip.

Poor little kitty's lonely; he cried when I left. As a cat-lover, I felt awful for this. I'll go back early this afternoon just to give the little guy company.

- But I'm digressing a little bit. While I was there, I checked out The Actor's Studio on Bravo. This show was actually a deviation of sorts... instead of an actor or director, they were interviewing a musical performer. Billy Joel, to be specific.

Billy is one of my all-time favorite performers. Every chance I can, I either pick up one of his albums on tape or CD, even if it's just a "Best Of" compilation of songs I already have.

To say that I greatly enjoyed this show is an understatement.

Today was the office holiday party... the day started off on a bad note with the hot water tank for my part of the building crapping out. Because of this I didn't get to shower, shave, or brush my teeth before heading to Anjou. This was a really annoying way to begin my day.

Fortunately, the party itself was a lot of fun. Great food, great cameraderie, and I got a real cool Xmas gift (a large Zodiak disk). Plus, my cab ride home was paid for by the office. Travelling on someone else's bill is always a positive thing.

I can sleep easier tonight! With pressure to get stuff done, I have a new 3 month contract starting on the 25th... it's one that can be renewed after that period too.

It's amazing how knowing you'll still have an income in the new year can help your outlook. :)

I just realized: I haven't posted on this Blog in three days. Sorry about that.

A lot of stuff has been happening in that time... but most of it pretty bad crap. I vented on it in my personal Journals, but I don't want to drag readers down here too.

Suffice to say: it'll likely be much longer than I anticipated before I'm back to work next year.

I learned that the cab-driver strike in Montreal last Thursday was just called off because of bad weather... for all I know, they could start it again next week.

That makes me very nervous... next week is the end of my contract. I might know if it's renewed by end of week, I might not. Regardless, I'll have an unpaid vacation for at least 17 days before I can start again.

Realizing that a strike could screw me out of even being there for my last day... that really concerns me.

I took the subway to right near the office today. I intended to get in to work, but my co-workers couldn't guarantee a car to bring me back at day's end... so I was given my pay, and got the day off.

I had to nap for awhile after I got home though; it was almost an hour's travel each way, and I was wiped out from it.

Figures that the cab driver strike was over barely after it started, though. Made the whole exercise moot.

Speaking of moot: Indecision 2000 is finally over. It ended what was the closest race in ages, with G.W. beating Gore by 9 votes, but it's finally done.

I'm sure that many will try to analyze Bush's win over the next while; it may have been a backlash against Clinton, it may have to do with anti-Semitic feelings against Joe Liebermann (I hope not. In this day and age, that feelings of ethnic hatred may still be part of our makeup would sadden me greatly)... or it may have been due to the censorship-beliefs the Gore/Liebermann ticket espoused. Regardless, the United States now has the leader of a party that stresses military might over all as President. I suspect he'll only be a one-term pres like his father, but that's just guesswork at this point. I just hope we all live to regret him.

Make no doubt about it - things have gone from bad to worse.

Montreal cab drivers go on a 24-hour strike tomorrow. The result is that Adapted Transport not scheduled for medical trips are all cancelled.

That means I can't get in to work tomorrow - and it's payday. I don't earn enough that I could skip funds for the weekend.

... time for one of those non-vocal screams of frustration again.

I just checked my calendar: Dec 22nd - the last day of this contract - is next Friday.

I've sent in the request to get it renewed, but even if a government division says yes, the extension won't kick in until early January... so I'm facing an unpaid vacation of 17 days.

To think: when you have MS, you're supposed to avoid stress. sigh

As always, Netscape 6 seems incredibly buggy when I use it to post to this Blog. I'll still persevere though.

I just visited the site for Evrsoft, makers of my web-tool of choice, First Page 2000. They were supposed to release an updated version in January, but pulled it for a revamp due to legal issues with the name. Then they had a poll for a new name. Their website hasn't had an update on the product since June 2000; their support email adress is silent, their ICQ adress is silent. I think they just closed shop and didn't tell anyone.

I know that's the breaks of business (if true) - but it still stinks.

Winter's hit Montreal big time since Tuesday! We have 30cm of snow on the ground (over a foot, for those of you not using metric) in the space of a day and a half... and it's so cold, I'm staying in my computer room just to retain some heat. Oy.

I just made another small triumph in my Flash studies/ work: I made text scroll on demand!

Overall, today was a truly crappy Saturday... it's many degrees below zero celcius outside, so my 'wonderful' basement apartment is cold. Too cold to even take a shower. Almost too cold to encourage myself to do anything... except I needed food for my cats, so I dragged myself to the store.

I also bought a copy of X-Men at Blockbuster. Originally, I thought to buy it at Wal-Mart... but I had a $15 gift certificate here. With the difference, paying $5 for a video is still less than $17 plus tax.

Today marked another major loss in our cultural existence... but if I hadn't been watching Access Hollywood, I wouldn't have remembered the date:

Today is the 20th Anniversary of John Lennon's murder.

Was it really 20 years ago? Ghod... I was only 13, just newly Bar Mitzvahed a few months earlier. Back then, it didn't really affect me, but as I grew older and discovered the Beatles, it was a loss that hurt me more than I could imagine.

Anyone else who forgot like me: Remember.

It's another cold day here in Montreal... the low was 22 below freezing (I think that's 8 degrees for those of you who use Fahrenheit), went up only a few points to 14 below - and will drop back to -22 this evening.

That I was able to get out today to photocopy my Comicopia zine at all was a miracle. Getting out for our section hand-in tonight'll be another.

I had a small pseudo-coronary today: my job counselor left me a message on my home answering machine to call him back. His voice led me to think he had bad news.

Turns out he just has a cold. He was calling to invite me to the office X-Mas party tonight, which was too short notice.

The aggrivating thing is: he said the OPHQ will make a decision on sponsoring an extension of my contract within two weeks - which comes to the end of this current contract.

That would be a great holiday gift: "You no longer have a job! Merry Christmas!"

Today marked another sad event of recent history... it marked the 11th Anniversary of mysoginist Mark Lepine's execution of a class of women at the University of Montreal

It didn't affect me directly when it happened - but one of my acquaintances was engaged to one of the young woman who were slaughtered.

By the time I first met him, he'd healed - somewhat. That pointless, tragic event will live on in the memories of the people of the world for ages to come though.

It's very sad to me: jo the webmistress has been taking a mental break from Blogging for several weeks now.

Pity. I really enjoyed the stuff she discovered online.

I just finished another Odigo chat - again with a Spanish speaker. Man, is my Spanish rusty from lack of use...

I commented on this to mom Tuesday: I also spoke with a French-speaker in Algiers. Thank Ghod the French and Spanish chats weren't at the same time! I'd have a massive headache from multiple mental translation!

This is cool...

Yesterday, I installed Odigo on my PC. I liked the idea of having on app that could bring an AIM and Yahoo Messenger account into one single program. Since I have accounts on both, I was able to free up some Hard Disk space by installing this instead.

Anyway, I listed in my info that I spoke Spanish (not very well from lack of practice, but I do). So, a young lady from Panama contacted me to chat last night.

I could see I've forgotten a lot, but I was at least able to hold my own in basic conversation. :)

Food fight pupils ordered to lunch with parents

Some folks just like taking the fun out of being a kid...

Space station hit by hitch

As both a fan and writer of Science Fiction, this space station is of interest to me. I hope it finally works out!

Well, it looks like it was actually two days here without posts from me!

I actually spent Saturday (and this morning) at my sister's home, spending some quality time with my nephew and nieces.

We took some photos of me and the kids. I had to chuckle a bit, as I realized that I'm currently wearing the same sweater I wore in our photos from last year too. :)

There won't be any entries in this Weblog tomorrow. The reason: December 1st, World Aids Day, will be a Day Without Weblogs

I have never lost a friend or family member to AIDS (thank Ghod) - but I graduated from the Fine Arts faculty at my University. Far too many of my fellow alumni from then were experimenting, taking risks...

I haven't kept up with many of them in the 10 years since, but I always hope that they're okay.

The next sound you'll imagine hearing is my voice, in a scream of frustration.

At work I've moved forward a step on a Flash effect that I've been struggling with for weeks: making text scroll inside of a scene. Problem is, now it only works once, not a second time. A step forwards, two back.

Then work on the HTML side of things: the files I've worked on appear invisible to my Web editor and FTP apps. I can tell that they're there; just the necessary apps can't.

Must not kill the computer. Must not kill the computer. Must not kill the computer...

I got home from a meeting for freelance Website work about half an hour ago... and I'm exhausted.

I'll be heading off to bed in a few minutes. I go in to the office tomorrow; I didn't get as many hours of work done the past few days as I'd like, but what I did is still better than nothing.

Last night was our Canadian Elections. The Liberals were elected to their third mandate, with over 170 seats. This in itself is a difference from the US political system... we elect a party to power, with the party leader retiring if needed, and another member of the party becoming Prime Minister.

Another difference from the US: our pundits say we had our poorest turnout to vote in about 80 years; the percentage of Canadians who voted was 63. Big difference from the 59% mentioned in the States as a poor turnout...

As to the final choice: I'm not very happy with it. The Liberals failed to keep many of their promises in the past 8 years, and nearly destroyed our country's health and other social systems. The most pathetic thing here though, is that no better political option is present.

Get Started With CSS. I use Style Sheets extensively on this site. You should too on your own. It's now practically old hat as far as Web tricks go, but I wanted to share a "How-to" about it anyways, for those os you still not up to date.

Gore refuses to back down

Okay. Enough is enough!

I'm not a George W. Bush fan - and he proved himself to be just as petty when it seemed he was losing - but I think this has been drawn out far too long as it is.

The people have spoken Al, and we have to accept it, whether we like the result or not. Just let it pass already... bad enough this'll be the Presidency most mired in petty political games as it is.

On the radio this morning, I heard that Robert Downey Jr. was arrested again, for possession of cocaine.

I thought he was finally getting his life back in order. I hoped prison had helped him to exorcise his demons. sigh

I think Google's spidering techniques need fixing...

I've been studying my tracker logs for Jazzlife lately; things that are mentioned briefly in passing are showing through the Yahoo search as part of this site.

That wouldn't be a problem... if it weren't for the fact that several of the searches to this site have been for online sex. Jazzlife is most definitely not in the market for that!

I'm doing something right now that, considering the name for this Blog, shouldn't be so rare: I'm listening to a Jazz music CD! Jazz saxophonist Kirk Whalum's Forever You. Very smooth music, some of it covers of pop standards, like Mariah Carey's song "My All". Great listening.

Strange. My Delphi forum login is going screwy this morning...

From a link on The Breast Chronicles, I visited Danni's Hard Drive yesterday (sorry, you won't get the link here. Unlike Colleen's Blog, it isn't worth it). I've been searching for this site for awhile, the interviews on Entertainment Tonight piquing my curiosity to see the woman who thinks she deserves Cindi Margolis' title as "Most downloaded woman on the Internet".

Danni Ashe is a woman with a 34G sized chest. She uses the site for nothing but naked pictures and video feeds to pornography. Oh yes... and you have to pay to see that.

You won't find nudity on Margolis' site. She doesn't want to exploit herself that way. Seeing Danni's site, I applaud her for it.

I'm anything but a prude, and I very much appreciate the female form... but catering to the lowest common denominator in my book may make you the most sleazy person on the Internet, but doesn't deserve celebrity.

Sometimes, the search terms that people use to arrive here blow my mind... according to my logs, montreal lapdance was a term that someone used to get here.

Granted, I'm in Montreal... but lapdances are most definitely not something I talk about here... nor do I go out of my way to find it!

"Internet Hell" is over; I got a month's worth of my overdue net account paid this afternoon. Apparently, that was enough to get me back in. Good thing I'm the honest sort; I'll have it all paid up to date within a couple of weeks.

Happy Thanksgiving to my American Blog-readers! I'd extend the good wishes to my fellow Canadians, but we already celebrated the holiday last month. :)

I'm currently posting from Internet Hell... my account for my ISP is well past due, so they shut me out. Currently, I'm posting from a free net account that takes up a chunk of my screen with its ad banner, and if I don't click on it once an hour, it shuts...

I'll hopefully have my account snafus cleared up within the week.

It was a long workday for me... in a few minutes, I go out to get my transport home, so that I can cash my paycheque, pay some bills, tomorrow pay some rent... then I'll be broke until next paycheque.

I'm so glad to have things happening this way.

The mysterious extra tag problem is now fixed. If you didn't visit here while it was happening, you'll just have to take my word for it. :)

It seems that the mysterious appearing blogger tags are now showing up all across the site network.

Considering how much it costs us (nothing), I guess we can't really complain.

Damnable update errors and JavaScript errors!

I tried to post this a little while ago, as a test of whether or not Blogger is fixed... and the system lost the message. So, this is test #2.

Freedrive has been having major contact problems all day. I've been trying to download my file from work, and get system errors each time.

Geez, I guess the whole "one city" situation here in Montreal really has me upset... not only did I rail about it yesterday, but I also did so a few days ago... with slightly different time figures too. Eep...

Montreal meanwhile saw its first real snowfall of the year overnight. Some of it is still staying on the ground too. Blah.

Montreal's mayor Pierre Bourque is well beyond being a waste of air. He plans to merge all of the 26 cities that make up the island of Montreal into one.

If the people of the city wanted it, that'd be fine. Here though, you have to wonder how many people have to say "It's a bad idea, and we don't want it!" enough times for him to get the message... and in what language it would get to his head.

I heard him talking about it on the radio today; in his view, people are "Just afraid of change.", but that they'll be happy once it's done. The difference is: Toronto and Ontario are younger cities, ones that don't have nearly 300 years of history in each place, each smaller city. This is just a grab for power, pure and simple.

I didn't vote for him. Unfortunately, what other people were available to vote for didn't inspire most people to vote against him, so he got into office. The man who made idiots sound intelligent during the Ice Storm of 1997 got to ruin the city even more.

At least there's one silver lining to this black cloud: next municipal election, there'll be 25 other candidates who can run, all the mayors put out of work by this. Finally, we'll be rid of the worst mayor in our city's history.

Server problems here made posting an article from Newsblogger online difficult - although I have an extra copy to delete here before publishing. Oh well...

One major gripe I have about the voting snafu: because of it, half of my TV shows get pre-empted in part just because it's so important that we hear party member speeches about it all. Bleh.

Gore to Appeal Ruling On Recounted Votes. I really feel bad for you Americans. One candidate is trying to block proof that may show he isn't the new President... the other is just doing his best to prolong the process... that role is changing back and forth between the two candidates.

Blogger is experiencing technical difficulties... so if you have 3 new messages to read right now, I actually Posted 2 of them a few hours ago.

Almost forgot: I saw the exact vote tally for the US president yesterday: Gore has 264 votes, Bush 246.

Yup, G.W would have been the first president elected by mistake if he'd been allowed.

It seems Netscape 6 still has some bugs to iron out... for one thing, it won't properly login to this Blog when I want to post... the posting window stays black. This is a problem across systems, not just mine, since it did the same thing at work yesterday.

At lunchtime here at work, I was surfing the Web with Netscape 6 (more on that in a bit), and saw that the current vote count in Florida has Al Gore ahead with 240-something electoral votes to G.W. Bush with 220-something. Still not enough yet to win the Presidency, but it does definitely prove something: if Gore hadn't requested the recount, you folks in the States would have a President in office on a mistake.

Not that Montreal politics are much better: as of yesterday, the city merger plans - plans that have led to millions of ways for the people to say, "We don't want it!", all to deaf ears it seems - are going through. Within a short span of time, areas with dozens of years of cultural history will be erased to just be yet another suburb of Montreal. Pathetic.

Getting back to Netscape: the final release of version 6 does do everything none of the pre-release versions did: support standards. Style sheets finally work.

What bugs me about this is the fact that none of the pre-releases did this; we got stuck with a program that wasn't appealing for Web surfing in the least until now. This marketting plan was like Netscape shooting themselves in the foot, bleeding away users for about a year because of it. It made no sense!

Those Were the .Com Days

Oh, for the days when having a .com still meant something... who would have thought it would dry up within a year?

Bush bids to block hand counts

Okay... stalling moves for the vote are indeed a bad move... but does anyone else find it convenient how G.W. suddenly doesn't want the recount to stand, when his win is becoming far less of a possibility? Or is it just me?

Montreal is continuing its current reputation as weird-weather central: two weeks into November, the second to last month of 2000 - and while it is getting colder, it rained today.

At least I got a major chunk of my apartment cleaning done today: I got a broken-down shelf unit out of the house after an intention to get it done for weeks. More impressive, I managed to get it out of the house myself, without the help of others.

Still, that's a bit of stubborn movement I don't forsee doing again anytime soon.

The day before heading to the office...

While most people have Sunday as a day of rest... well, I did keep to that plan for most of the day. :) I finished my week's hours for work in the evening though. I'm testing out some new tricks in my own CV movie as I go though.

December 14th is coming up very quickly... and having just started the steps to trying to get my contract renewed, I have to plan for anything.

It's been a slow day... I worked on updating my personal Website, The Wild World of Jeff, which I've been remiss in updating for about half a year; I continued working on my zine for Comicopia 62; I caught up on new episodes of my favorite Saturday cartoons on the WB, and my Saturday evening shows too. It just hasn't felt like a really inspiring day.

I think it's a feeling of ennui striking many; jo the webmistress of the webmistressweblog even stated on her blog today that she was taking a break to do other non-computer related things.

I think your US election with the big vote snafu in Florida has just left us all tired.

I'm going Midieval on the government... OK, at least trying to be pro-active in smartening them up:

I composed a letter to send them next week, explaining my financial situation in no uncertain terms, and how it's impossible to pay them their blood money.

If they still want to try hassling me, I'm ready to speak with my MP and/or MNA. With this being a Canadian election year, results will be more forthcoming.

No matter how, the provincial gov won't get blood from this stone!

Finally, something good came my way!

I finally solved my headaches with image files always being broken in the Archives section: I loaded a second copy of my images into that folder. Result: now all the links work, and Archive viewers will finally get to see what things look like. :)

I haven't posted here for 3 days... I'm sorry about that. It's been a helluva few days.

My dad had heart surgery on Monday. That took up a lot of my mindspace... he came out of it, but with infection complications - complications that the cardiac institute medical staff wouldn't deal with. Words can't quite cover how little I feel for them right now.

Thursday I got my paycheque from work. By today, one day later, I'm already reduced to about 12 bucks until next payday. Simple way to be broke: just get a job.

Adding insult to injury, the Quebec government has now given me 15 days to pay them back the remaining $2139 in deferred interest from student loans I got over a decade ago. Said money they only decided I had to pay them - without any notification of the amount in advance - two years after I wiped out my savings paying off the loans. Now, I've been off Welfare since May, and even though I have to start getting food from a food bank to survive week to week, they figure I'll find the funds to pay them.

Sometimes, life really blows.

Another day, another lack of dollars. Same old, same old...

Today is Election Day in the U.S. How will I handle it?

Watching Buffy and Angel on WPIX New York... and waiting for my morning radio news to learn what happened.

I had a message from my mom on my answering machine this afternoon: my dad came through his surgery OK.

I needed good news today. My landlord gave me a rent reminder in the mail today. I can't stress this enough: I NEED TO MAKE MORE MONEY!!!

Posting from the office (again)...

I don't know if it's happening right at this moment, but my dad is having heart surgery today... it's hard for me to think of anything else.

I saw a commercial on TV tonight that freaked me out: the US Elections are in 3 days.

Our Canadian elections are in a few weeks, and we've sadly been reduced to voting for the lesser evil (as in "Who would screw the country less?"). You have a similar choice in America, I think.

To offer my 2k worth: yes Al Gore lacks charisma. Yes, his V-P running-mate is a Board member of the PTC... but let's face it: George W. Bush is in many ways Dan Quayle with a different name. He's stupid, mean-spirited, and spearheading a party that plans to drive the country back into financial doldrums while looking to start a war somewhere, hoping to recreate the economic boom WW2 brought.

The Republicans back in office would be a disaster for women, ethnic groups of any flavor, and generally anyone who isn't a rich white male. Mind you, that's just my opinion, and you can take it or leave it.

Just make sure to vote. My motto is "If you don't vote, you have no right to complain."

I was very annoyed yesterday: another member of my Readaptation group called me yesterday - NOT to make sure I was doing OK though. No, she called to make sure I'd be present at a conference we're having next week, because I'm supposed to say a few words.

Geez... if I was doing much worse than I am, I think that conference would be nowhere near my thoughts.

No doubt about it: I'm in a personal level of Hell right now.

I learned from a doctor yesterday that a rash and itch I've felt since the past weekend comes from Shingles. At a much younger age then folks usually get it, and I 'lucked out'.

If you don't know what Shingles is: remember getting chicken pox as a child? Me too; like many, I had 'em then. Shingles is the adult version that comes to some of us who had it already.

You'd think that, having years to learn more self-control, you could handle it; not so. I have to keep chanting the mantra of "Don't scratch that itch. Don't scratch that itch..."

For work tomorrow I'm reminded how ineffectual Adapted Transport can be: I reserved it telling them I had to be there for 8:30, finish at 3pm.

So of course, they only have a transport available at 8:35 to bring me there, and 2:45 to get home. Which may likely cut several hours from my office day.

Sheesh.

Tiring day... I worked on the contuing job of cleaning and packing my apartment; after filling a box with recycling and throwing out a ton of plastic junk I still haven't made a dent in the clearing out of my computer room. sigh

I just posted a decent-sized article on the ABomanation blog on Fight City. I haven't been as frequent a poster here because Blogger has been giving me a lot of grief posting to Jazzlife.

I noticed from my tracker stats that folks are finding this Blog while looking for Alyson Court through search engines...

Sorry if I'm not providing you much on this delightful young lady in your searches... but I have to say: you have good taste.

I forgot about Daylight Savings Time starting today in Montreal. I could have gotten another hour's sleep!

Instead I had an extra hour to face the fact that as of this morning, there's snow on the ground. :[

NewsTrolls - News Under the Radar -. As with a lot of cool stuff on the Net, I found this thanks to jo the webmistress highlighting it.

It offers a great series of newsfeeds on all topics... but more importantly to many - including me - is that their comics section has great material! I wanted to link to a strip or two, but it didn't work... so you'll have to discover their great site for yourself.

It looks like the connection problem between Blogger and Freeservers is now resolved. My posting is a couple of days out of date, but at least you can read 'em!

Today was a day to hopefully get some extra money my way through work on a website. The offices for the Cystic Fibrosis society that I visited were near the McGill University, and the office area (actually the entire home!) were stuff that I dream of having. Well, except for the stairs part...

We'll see what comes of this in the next little while.

Blog-O-Baubles. Another blog by a fellow Canadian!

This one also talks of family life, which I love to read about... plus the story of buying Hallowe'en costumes at WalMart gives me chills; I have to go there to buy a costume for a friend's pre-Hallowe'en birthday party too.

(First time I'll dress up for the holiday since 1994)

Kinky cop handcuffs girlfriend - and has to ask bosses for key

This sounds weird... and not in a GOOD way!

If this works, you'll have 3 new posts to read. Actually, 2 from yesterday, plus this one. Blogger wouldn't allow me to upload by FTP yesterday.

Today was another day for small Flash victories: I succeded in making a music loop stop between scenes! A simple command did the trick, one I hadn't used before.

I ended up redoing my intro movie as a new scene on the main timeline. Because of it, I haven't been able to test out the preloader yet, but I'm hoping I can by the time this goes online.

Dr. Laura Shleisinger. If anyone makes me embarassed to be part of the same culture, it's her. Everytime she opens her mouth, it's her.

Homophobic and vocally nasty about it, insulting to everyone else... at least Howard Stern makes fun of himself as often as he does others, and doesn't expect anyone to accept his spew!

I'd heard her tripe TV show was cancelled. If so, why is it still on the air?

I'm also bothered by The 700 Club on TV. It seems it's always on when I wake up to watch taped shows in the morning.

It's the most extremist and narrow-minded show I've seen on the air for Christianity so far. Stuff like this does way more harm than good to a belief system.

Zero Tolerance for negative-minded people trying to think for us.

The Complete Bushisms - Updated daily. by Jacob Weisberg

People would actually want a man who says things like this as their President? Ack!

I haven't gone to my BBS home, The Savage Land since yesterday evening. Because of my tendency for short tempers, I've been reluctant to.

There's a guy I've known for years (because I don't want to talk of other folks the way I do myself, I'll call him Monahan here) with a learning disability; he has very weak short-term memory.

I tend to give him some slack for that - usually. On the BBS, he never even makes an attempt to post to anyone - unless it's to reply to something they said to him. Even then, if he answers in a full sentence, I'm amazed.

Because of my own disability - which I always try to work around - I can't be more forgiving about this. Every few months, we bring it up; every few months, he just says "OK!" about it - then goes back to his same stunts.

Us folks with disabilities try to work around them, because we want to still go on living, go on growing. He won't even try - and that annoys me.

I'm posting while at the office right now. Because of last night's WWF PPV (which I speak about a bit on the ABomanation blog at Fight City), I didn't get a huge amount of sleep before...

I also had sad news as I got in today: one of my co-workers (actually 2; the Director is with him) won't be in this week, because his mother died.

We'll all have to face that someday... I don't know how I'll handle it. My deepest sympathies go out to them.

While the actual medication was a wash, my 5 months of self-injection of Betaseron proved to have some use today...:

I finally got my flu shot for the year today. In the past, I wouldv'e been extremely agitated about having the shot.

However, this time, because a) I hardly felt it last year when I had it and b) I spent all those months steeling myself for injections meant that I took the shot this year wuthout even flinching! In fact, the lady who gave me the shot couldn't believe I was needlephobic because I didn't even take a breath before she gave me the shot. :)

I just visited JenniCam from a link in another weblog; I visited it a few times in the past, now I was vaguely curious how it changed.

I've always found it a bit smarky, to be honest... while Jenni always spoke of it as a way to follow a person's life online, how it wasn't meant to be voyeuristic - yet the gallery had tons of photos of her masturbating naked.

I currently don't own a webcam, but if that's the kind of photos you look for, I'll save you the effort for when I do get one: you won't see photos like that on Jazzlife!

It seems that Jenni has a boyfriend now... so you get to see photos of the couple having sex instead.

Not voyeuristic. Surrre...

PASSERBY V1.0 :::: ponderings in montreal.

Actually, the weblog itself moved from here in July 2000, but the top-most post includes a link to it.

This is my home city... how could I not link to a blog by it's name?

Hmm... I downloaded/printed up a Flash tutorial today to learn how to do something I've been trying to do for awhile: scrolling text with a draggable slide-bar.

So, I start to read what claims to be an 'easy' tutorial... and EASY is something it doesn't suit. I have experience at programming and it's still as clear as mud to me!

Yahoo! dropped in value a little yesterday again. Not a huge amount; it was something like 9/16 %. The funny thing is that I encouraged my stock club to now think of buying some while the price is lower; would've been ironic if right after my recommendation was when it gave a serious value rally.

I just looked at the price my Yahoo! stock was trading at by the end of the trading day. It had a 12.97% increase... $59 still isn't the high price, but I'll take whatever we get!

I've been thinking of stocks all evening. Tonight was the monthly meeting for my investment club. Overall, we had some serious discussions... but I was more concerned about our host, who wasn't feeling well.

That Russian philosopher streak that hits me from time to time hits here often too. I was usually the youngest member of the group, but in the beginning I was the only member still in his 20s. Now, the only one below 40 is more accurate.

My good friend (the one who helped me to get this PC) is 80 this year. Our host will soon be so as well. Most of the group are people in their early 50s or mid-60s.

This is strange... Blogger can't work the FTP settings for my ABomanation blog on Fight city.

I just posted a long entry to it too, earlier today.

Well, my stock value went up a little bit today, to around $52. Not a huge change, but anything of an increase is good to me.

I spent part of the day filling more hours for work. I'm seeing that Swish graphics for replacement of stuff I'd already created in Flash isn't really a good idea. The animations don't look terribly good. Mind you, I can use it to create the fonts I'd like to use within my main movie.

Crap. Crap, and more of the same!

Yahoo! stock prices are still plumetting. It's now trading around $46.

I've been constantly reading analysts suggesting that now would be the best time to buy more shares at a far lower price, before it soars up again; I don't have the spare cash to do so. Meanwhile, I have 12 shares that have dropped more than 200% from when I first got them. Bleh.

I also found out from my mom today that the twins organization site that I passed on to my brother-in-law was actually already taken over by another couple ages ago. Granted, I fell way behind on getting this done for them... but not bothering to let me know the designers have been switched is downright impolite.

Adapted Transport Sucks

There. It's nothing in a statement surprising to any of my regular readers, but I had to get it off my chest.

I've been trying to reach them since 10am. I have to reserve my transport for work Thursday... but all I've been getting are busy signals.

Now, in an efficiently run company, someone would say "We don't have enough lines free to cater to our client base... time to add more lines." Not so with these folks.

The service has earned the nickname "Mal-Adapted Transport", and this is why.

Financial frustrations mounted for me Monday, as I barely scrambled together the funds to buy a hamburger at lunch. I have to land a way to generate more revenue, and soon. I can't last this way. Time for that Taurus stubborn streak of mine to kick in!

My buddy Mike came by in the evening to give me Comicopia 61, and to take all the back issue stock off my hands. That's another corner of my living room cleared now!

Nothing like heading to bed in a bad mood.

I go to work tomorrow not even knowing if I can afford breakfast, let alone lunch. The paycheck I got on Friday left me $0 left as of paying rent and electricity expenses as of Friday. I guess JOB does mean "just over broke."

I passed a website onto my brother-in-law today. I originally took the site as a volunteer project after my sister recommended me - but that was near the beginning of this year. With commissions to take care of, and starting a job, I didn't have the free time to devote to it.

Now, my brother-in-law is learning HTML to try to get into it himself. My sister - his wife - is part of the club the site is for, so he's even one step closer to a member. This should work out fine.

Something is happening right now that really annoys me: even though I had 3 meals today, my body has decided to hit me with a hunger headache.

I spoke with my buddy Mike about Comicopia earlier today. He was supposed to bring me over my copy of the finished zine today (clocking in as another monster at 407 pages!), but headaches with the postal system today left him rushing around too much. So, I'll get it tomorrow instead.

Strange... I tried to post this earlier, but a new window kept opening up instead...

I printed up the copies for my zine for Comicopia 61 today. The man working at my usual copy place would have ripped me off if I hadn't stood up for myself.

I printed a total of 660 pages, which he figured it would be OK to charge me 6 cents a copy. That would amount to over $55. Outrageous!

I pointed out to him that I'd been a customer there for over 6 years, that the prices on their quantity chart were used for me always; the difference would mean I'd pay 3.5 cents a page.

At first, he wanted to argue that that was the price for a quantity of one page printed. I wouldn't accept that. I pointed out I'd been coming there for years because it was less expensive, that the price he'd just given me was more expensive than a copy centre in my neighborhood... he finally gave in.

The bill was $26.71. MUCH better.

In local Montreal news: the current mayor is really pushing his plan to abolish all the city's districts to make it one 'Supercity'. Nothing like a politician who wants to pass a massive change that the majority of people have said they don't want...

The latest announcement was of 6 city areas that he'd abolish immediately. Interesting how they're all areas that were most vocal about not wanting his plan...

Folks are now talking of holding a Refferrendum for each neighborhood to separate from Montreal. That word is already a constant headache in all Quebec minds...

Lousy day today, on several fronts.:

• My Yahoo! shares are going down the toilet; in the past two days, the value lost has been in the neighborhood of 40%. Current value is around $58.


• I got my paycheck for the week today... and once I pay a part of my rent tomorrow will have absolutely zip until next Thursday.


• One of my cats, Boots, is acting like a nut the past few days. He reacts to any change in his environment by acting surly... and I'm in the midst of major packing. sigh

I did something potentially noble this morning... in the end, I didn't have to, but it was noble nonetheless.

Every year for the past few I've been a recipient of the Gazette Christmas Fund (the Gazette is Montreal's english language newspaper). I wasn't sure if this year I'd really be deserving of it, since I'm employed part-time. If it was the case, I wanted to pass on it to allow someone more needy to get it.

Turns out I'm still elligible, because of my disabilty. The gesture was there, though.

I just changed my preferences on Weblogs. I kept getting error messages from attempts to visit my site. I can't understand why it's having errors, but I'd rather not know that about 10 people a day can't get to this Blog!

I'm trying to email a member of one of the APAs I contribute to. He never comments on the materials we contribute; that's very disheartening... it gives a sense of our contributions not being worthy of acknowledgment. I don't just write to hear my computer keys click, so understandably that bothers me.

As promised awhile ago, here's the logo I designed for Leth-Go:

I spent about 2 hours trying to get through to Adapted Transport today before I decided to wait for later. I have to get transport to work for Thursday, but I have a life around the phone, thank you very much.

MANiC! - what happens when you try to tag-team the world.... As a fellow Canadian alone, I'd recommend this Blog - but the fact that it's interesting (and talks about The Sims, a game I don't yet have but have heard great things about) makes it a more compelling visit.

My PC gives off a burning smell today... I'm hoping the CPU won't soon melt.

That's what happened a few years ago... for Montreal folks, I have to warn you: BusinessWay/CorBit are lousy on service or selling decent systems. It shouldn't melt, but it does.

The frustrating thing: since it's no longer under warranty - and my Yahoo! shares have really dropped in value - it'll be much harder to afford a replacement.

The day has started off chilly again - but I have to get things done! Although it's Thanksgiving Day here in Canada, I have several hours of work to do, as well as zines to write and print... PLUS, I have a ton of recycling/trashing to do to get this place ready for an eventual move...

The weather today really didn't make me productive... we have late fall chill outside, with some of it seeping into my apartment. Results: other than surfing the 'net most of the day, I didn't get any work done, on writing or my Flash project for work.

I recounted the page numbering on my zine before printing it up. I goofed a bit; I actually have 29 pages, not 31. That's still impressive.

Sometimes, I scare myself with my size of prolific writing output...

I just finished writing my zine for Comicopia 61 about half an hour ago. After setting all the page numbers, I've come to a final page-count of 31 - only 6 less pages than last issue.

I'm still dazed by this.

I've said before that every victory - no matter how small - is something to celebrate:

I went to WalMart today, to buy a new ink cartridge for my inkjet printer. There are two I know of near me: one in a nearby suburb of Montreal that only has a bus every half an hour, or another one in another suburb, theoretically closer to my home, but requiring a lot of walking to get to and from.

Faced with my movement limitations, I braved the former.

I ended up spending nearly 3 hours on the road to go there, not knowing much of the area I was going, but I just took the adventure and did it.

The Subsidized/Adapted housing services here in Montreal are incredibly lame at times.

More than 2 weeks ago, I asked if I could send my T4s with my application instead of a completed tax form, as I don't have one yet. I was told yes.

So: today I get my entire application returned to me, with the request to send a copy of my completed tax forms.

Idiots.

I didn't speak about some important news yesterday: Mark David Chapman, the man who murdered John Lennon more than a decade ago, was refused parole.

My reaction: GOOD.

A man does something unforgivable, takes a great soul out of the world before his time... and just because he's found religion and now says he's sorry, he should get realeased? I don't think so!

Rotting in jail is too good for him.

Tonight was the season premiere of Dawson's Creek on the WB.

I know, the show causes high projectile vomitting from quite a few real teenagers, the dialogue is like nothing a real teen would say... I guess the real demographic for the show is guys in their early 30s like me, wishing that they knew someone like Katie Holmes back in the day...

As sad as Pierre Elliot Trudeau's death was, I can't help but laugh at the ignorance shown by a Manhattan news anchor about it: apparently, he reported that "Former Canadian Prime Minister GARY Trudeau died."

GARY?!!

Why do I see that famous cartoonist drawing a cartoon to ridicule?

I was surprised: I just looked at the log stats for this site.

Apparently, Google sent a visitor my way in the past few days.

That in itself wasn't unusual. What was: even though the link was to the keywords Jazz Life, the content that it linked to was my article about the death of my family friend Loretta Rodman. It was a sad, significant event, but in no way jazz-related...

Message in a bottle travels halfway round the world.

This just goes to show: even in our age of high technology, some old stunts still work.

Residents face fines for flaunting knickers. After all the heavy sadness here for the past few days, I needed something lighter...

I saw the Trudeau funeral coverage on the news this evening. Very painful emotional stuff.

His son Justin delivered a eulogy. Even though his sons aren't being groomed for politics (Justin is a teacher in BC) he was extremely eloquent, and brought a sense of his father speaking.

It showed how important Trudeau was as well; Fidel Castro was there, talking with Jimmy Carter, former US President and long-time nemesis. It showed that respect for Pierre was stronger than personal grudges.

What upset me though was that people made a big deal about his daughter and her mother being there, because Trudeau wasn't married to her. Give me a break! The little girl just lost her father, her mother the father of her child. They don't have the right to grieve with the rest of the public there? I don't think so!

I wasn't able to attend the funeral of Pierre Trudeau today, but I heard it was very touching. I'll hear about it on the news in an hour.

An era in Canada is completely ended now. sigh

What I did get done today is to make a large dent in my computer room clean-out. A large chink of flooring is now cleared up... only drawback is that I'm now tired from this, and have to get to sleep.

powazek productions >>> a webcam for my brain. Why do I always seem to be following jo the webmistress on these things?

Oh well. Derek's post about personal websites here (sorry, he doesn't have permanent links to posts activated) just hits home. As a person who usually ends up as the only visitor to his Blog most days, I can relate - and it's very useful words to think about.

Our Quebec power company (Hydro Québec) are one step shy of mobsters, in my opinion.

I'm on their monthly budget payment plan. In my reevaluation for the year, it went up. They also decided I had an additional $150 to pay, and if I didn't pay it ASAP, it would be folded into my first 6 monthly bills. That brings me to a bill of almost $82 a month.

I pointed out to a service clerk today that this kind of payment was impossible for me, short of starving for the week of payment. I could hear his shrug over the phone as he just said, "We aren't a bank."

Screw 'em. It will take me several years to pay off that amount, but I'll only pay what I can - and keep hoping for someone to offer competition for them already. We deserve better service.

This morning, having breakfast in a restaurant before work, a lady a few tables over was smoking - right on the edge of the non-smoking section.

I pointed it out, and she just shrugged, telling me, "Smokers have to go somewhere."

If she'd asked me, I could tell her where to go...

Actually, I can see where the sofa being pitched - and the other stuff as well - may end up helping me to junk a lot of stuff. If anything, it will spur me on in some things.

For instance, there's a shelf in my living room that needs to be junked ASAP. I'm using my wheelchair for seating in the living room for now; testing it out, I realized there isn't even enough room to take it out of there right now.

After 8 years, I still have way too much stuff... but I may be able to see a change in it over the next little while.

My friends came over to help pitch out the old sofa that I mentioned yesterday. We also threw out the sofa chair, a matress I'm not using (haven't been for years, in fact), and an old broken dishwasher that just took up space...

The sad/scary thing though, is the fact that it barely made a dent in my packing.

What a day... writing for Comicopia 61, packing and sorting stuff for my eventual move and for the throwing out of my sofa and worn out sofa-chair Sunday... it's been bloody busy!

I won't miss the sofa... we've had it for more than 10 years, with 9 of them it being in my possession. We got it from my Uncle Peter years ago, and my sister and I got it when we shared an apartment.

A cat we were house-sitting for a friend used it as a litterbox, and I've never been able to clean the smell out (it's safe to say I'm not friends with that person anymore either...). In warmer weather, it stank. I've just kept it because I couldn't afford to replace it...

No more! It goes out for the trash folks to pick up Monday. There'll be no room for it when I have to move to a 3 1/2 Adapted Unit.

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.

It's late, I'm wiped, I can't think of anything witty to say. So: goodnight.

The Breast Chronicles

Another Blog I think you may find interesting.

For what some people are thinking, I have one suggestion for you: Keep it in your pants!

The Breast Chronicles is a blog from a lady in Britain with an (allegedly) 34DD chest size. She isn't - and won't - bare them for you. The whole point of this site is to help people come to terms with the idea of NOT considering breasts as sexual objects.

Getting home from work today was gruelling: 2 hours because the driver couldn't find the street. It didn't help that the other passenger was obnoxious about it; he couldn't relay to us in words the directions, just complain whebever he felt we were going the wrong way.

At least I got some potentially good news at work: they'll try to raise the funds to give me a larger salary. If that happens, my budget'll be very grateful.

- oh, I forgot to mention: our get-together with our out-of-town APA member yesterday went well. In fact, I think it was our largest group in a long time. We actually had to get another table to fit everyone!

I'm at work right now... working on a site I've translated for months, and the files I've uploaded won't show up on the server.

This is very frustrating.

I didn't succeed in job-hunting today. The heat and humidity kept me off of my feet for most of the day. My sole trip out resulted in me needing an hour's nap.

My one trip was to a local used CD store, to sell a few CDs that I don't like. I needed some cash for this evening, when I meet a very much out-of towner Comicopian for dinner.

A Kenny G CD netted me more money than one by Lauren Hill. What's wrong with THAT picture?

Morning hit a few hours ago here in Montreal.

Soon as my Meal Service delivers, I have to get cleaned up to try job-hunting. Wish me luck!

I've continued to earn my reputation of being prolific under deadline stress...

The next issue of Apacalypse (the gaming zine I'm part of) is due this coming Friday. I just completed a major chunk of my section today, some 12 pages of material.

All I have to do now for the zine is to add some more clip art to the piece, write some mailing comments, then put it in a PDF format for the editor, and I'm done.

... at least until next week, when I start pushing away at the next Comicopia...

After a wasted day of doing very little of anything, I have to try to get a few hours of work done.

It's funny; after dreading playing with Flash for so long, now I'm eager to try things in it... I just have to work with my body's energy and motivation.

SURVIVORblog

If you've been reading this Blog for awhile, you know how underwhelming Survivor was to me.

Still, this Survivor-style Blog is amusing to me.

Argh.

I found out yesterday that they can't increase my work hours, or increase my salary... it comes from a government grant (the company's not-for-profit), and there are no other funds to do it.

This means I'll have to do something I haven't succeeded in until now: find a second job to supplement my income.

It isn't due to pride... I'd be happy to work as a cashier at a music/book/video store. The problem is that I have a lot of degrees and skills on my resumé... many potential employers see me as overqualified.

I survived my PPV experience last night. Got about 6 hours of sleep before getting ready for work at the office though.

The sacrifices I make to save some cash.

Let's see: I put my supper in the stove, to eat in a few minutes.

I then head to a friend's home across town to watch the WWF SummerSlam.

When that's done, I race home to sleep, because I have to be up early tomorrow for my transport to work.

- and MS'ers are supposed to avoid stress... how?

I just tried to visit my online writing group, The Writer's Loft. My browser couldn't find the website.

I haven't been there in about a month. Has the group folded? If you know, please email me to let me know.

I have to get back to writing as if on steroids: my latest 'zine for Apacalypse is due next Friday.

With so many sad bits before this, I need some levity:

Two autos, one bullet fail to stop Rottweiler

As I read this, I saw the dog pulling a Terminator, saying "I'll be back!"

Carl Barks, 99, Dies

Like Jack Kirby, Carl Barks contribution to the art of comics will live on in memory for a long time to come.

I got very sad news yesterday: that a friend to my entire family, Lorretta Rodman, passed away this week. Even more upsetting, we wouldn't even know about it if my uncle (who sells caskets) hadn't been making a delivery to the same funeral home they were holding her services.

Lorretta was good friends with my grandparents on my mother's side; I never knew them, because they died in a car accident in the 1950s. Lorretta was our only link to them.

Lorretta introduced my Aunt to her later husband (something I'm sometimes not so sure was a blessing... but I digress.). When I was first diagnosed with MS, Lorretta suggested to one of her nephews, a fellow-sufferer, to call me. Lorretta herself called me often to get both our spirits up.

Her later years weren't pleasant: she had cancer, and due to her ailing health could no longer leave her home to do anything. I don't remember ever seeing her, but she told me her health had changed her dramatically.

I feel both sad and bad at her passing (not that death isn't an inevitable part of life); sad, because she was so alone for a long time, and probably died alone, with no one she loved nearby. Bad, because she always wanted to meet with me, and that never happened.

Good-bye Lorretta. Wherever you are now, if there is some form of an Afterlife, know that you did touch my life and many others... and that I'll never forget you.

I'm using part of my lunchbreak to post more thoughts here...

I've been playing around with ideas for the company website. As I learn new tricks with Flash, I want to use them (obviously...). The more Flashed sites I see on the web, the more I want to improve mine.

I thought about one of the news items I posted yesterday: that of the riots at the hip-hop awards.

It's really a shame, because those riots just reinforce a stereotype of African American culture that we've all been hoping would end: that a black event almost always ends in a riot.

The Chicago Bulls win the NBA playoffs? Time for a riot. The L.A. Lakers win? Another riot. I already mentioned the problems here in Montreal with the Carifiesta.

How can we end prejudice and stereotypes if people do their best to thwart efforts like this?

TIME.com's 'Survivor' FAQ File

If you're anything like me, you don't have any interest in "'Survivor". If so, you'll find this FAQ funny too.

Hip-hop awards show ends in chaos

How sad. It's much like the Carifiesta here in Montreal: all it takes are a small few to mess things up for everyone else.

Bizarre clone of a website discovered

Hokay... some people had too much time on their hands...

I'm taking a few minutes break from creating my job website in Flash. I just downloaded some images to clip in as part of logos.

I don't think I'd mentioned here that I've been getting more of a feel for the utility. I guess it started about a week ago, when the things I was trying to do started working.

Today I surprised myself: I finally got to a hospital where I had to take a blood test for a few weeks now... and it didn't really hurt.

Most of you who read this don't yet know me, but my friends who do know this about me: I hate needles. In fact, I'm mildly needle-phobic.

Either the lab-tech today was gentle, or was using a new, less painful needle. Either way, I hardly felt it this time.

(Not that I want to do it very often from now on...)

DeGeneres and Heche split

Gee... Hollywood's premiere lesbian couple are splitsville? I'm so devasteted... not.

When will Ellen DeGenres accept that her series didn't die because she came out... it died because it just wasn't funny?

Sub crew 'all dead'

By this point, it was almost a foregone conclusion, but we still held out some hope.

Our first majorly public international tragedy of the new century (the crash of a Concorde being the first).