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.