lera-92-07 diary

ponedjeljak, 31.08.2009.

WTF

WTF???Girl, 13, set on fireAmish school shooting toll now fiveMother arrested in deaths of her 2 children...I'm continuing to learn morse code for my ham radio activities. I have maybe 3 more letters, plus all 10 numbers left to learn. Then I intend to bring my speed up a bit before going for an exam.I want to see the Trailer Park Boys movie... not necessarily because it's stellar acting or anything, ie I find it a bit hard to sit through an episode, but... I love how ridiculous it is... Julian with his rum and coke on the car dashboard, Ricky with his "Zesty Mordant" chips, Bubbles living in his shed.

subota, 29.08.2009.

I'm an aunt

I'm an aunt!My sister had a son this morning, first grandchild. I'm gonna go visit them tonight in the hospital.

četvrtak, 27.08.2009.

http

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20061002.HOUSE02/TPStory/RealEstateCity pair pay more than money for houseToronto couple given cold shoulder by town over soured real-estate dealPETER CHENEY DEEP RIVER, ONT. -- The road to war can be a strange one, filled with sinister coincidence and tragic complication. And so it was four years ago that the nastiest real-estate battle in the history of Deep River began with a tax increase and a traffic jam.Lynn Hardy, a 61-year-old birdwatcher and piano teacher, looked at her latest assessment -- the taxes on her house were approaching $7,000, even though the appraised value had dropped sharply. Ms. Hardy wondered whether the numbers were right, and whether she could make the payments on her limited income."I was a little worried about it," she says.In the meantime, 45-year-old banking executive Fraser Ball found himself stuck in a massive traffic jam as he headed back to Toronto after a visit with his wife's relatives, who lived in Deep River, a few streets away from Ms. Hardy. Mr. Ball did a quick personal inventory: His daily commute from Mississauga to Bay Street took up to an hour and a half each way. He had a $300,000 mortgage. Now he was stalled on Highway 400 in a smoking sea of vehicles."Why am I doing this?" Mr. Ball asked himself. He and his wife, Lorraine Shanahan, had been thinking about moving to Deep River, located about 200 kilometres northwest of Ottawa. Now, as the winter of 2002 loomed, they decided to act. "We wanted less traffic and less mortgage," Mr. Ball says.In that respect, they got what they wanted -- and they also got Ms. Hardy's house, set on what may be the most beautiful property in Deep River, with a view of the Laurentians and a treed yard that ends at a sandy beach equipped with canoes and a pair of Muskoka chairs.But for Mr. Ball and his wife, the property has come at a price they never imagined. Although the deal for Ms. Hardy's home was done more than 3 years ago, they have yet to take possession. Instead, they've been caught up in an epic legal battle, living in a house across town and forking out about $80,000 to lawyers."It hasn't been an easy time," Mr. Ball says.The purchase of Ms. Hardy's house has become a local cause clbre, driven by a unique mix of small-town social dynamics, senior-citizen psychology and contract law. Ms. Hardy says she never wanted to sell her home, but was hornswoggled into a deal by Mr. Ball and Ms. Shanahan. "I was tricked," she says. "That's the only way I can explain it."Mr. Ball, who runs an investment office in nearby Petawawa after leaving Bay Street in 2003, has found himself cast by Ms. Hardy's supporters as the villain. There have been nasty telephone calls, physical threats and a bid to have him thrown out of the Rotary Club for being morally unfit. (This summer, Mr. Ball had to appear in front of the club and argue his case, which he won: "I felt like I was living in Salem," he says.) Barring divine intervention -- or a change of heart by Mr. Ball and his wife -- Ms. Hardy will soon be vacating the home she has owned for the past 18 years to make way for the couple, who are scheduled to take possession in mid-November.There is no love lost over the impending move -- one of Ms. Hardy's supporters asked her neighbours to replace their hedges with bramble bushes. "The whole thing is disgusting," says Ms. Hardy's daughter Alana. "My mother was overpowered by Mr. Ball."The transaction goes back to January of 2003, when Ms. Hardy received an out-of-the-blue phone call from Ms. Shanahan, who said she'd heard that Ms. Hardy might be interested in selling her home. Ms. Hardy said the house wasn't for sale. Ms. Shanahan said she'd be coming to Deep River that weekend to visit her aunt and uncle, and asked Ms. Hardy to call to see whether she'd changed her mind.Ms. Hardy called that Saturday, as promised. "I didn't want to be rude," she says. Again, she told Ms. Shanahan she wasn't selling. Ms. Shanahan asked whether she and Mr. Ball could see the house anyway, so that if it came on the market, they'd know what it was like.The events of that Saturday and Sunday are described in court records that offer two radically different accounts. Mr. Ball and his wife contend that Ms. Hardy wanted to sell her house, and that they agreed to buy it, fair and square. Ms. Hardy says she was pressed into a deal that she didn't want or understand by people who used her social graces as a form of jiu-jitsu.Mr. Ball and his family visited Ms. Hardy twice that weekend, accompanied by children and relatives. Tea and snacks were served. As to the business that transpired, there is a single point of agreement: On the evening of Sunday, Jan. 19, Mr. Ball drafted two copies of a contract on plain paper, stating that he and his wife would buy Ms. Hardy's house for $350,000 (a fair price at the time, although the house is now worth far more). The couple gave Ms. Hardy a $10,000 deposit cheque (which has never been cashed) and told her they would meet with a lawyer the next morning.After the couple left, Ms. Hardy felt dazed, she says, and called her daughter in Toronto to tell her what had happened. The daughter was horrified. At 8 a.m. Monday, Ms. Hardy called Ms. Shanahan to say that she didn't want to go through with the deal, and wouldn't be going to the lawyer's office. Ms. Shanahan said they were going, whether Ms. Hardy attended or not.Mr. Ball and his wife filed suit against Ms. Hardy, claiming she had reneged on a valid contract. Ms. Hardy's lawyer argued she had been hustled by someone who vastly outmatched her when it came to matters of business. Ms. Hardy, a divorcee, had never bought or sold a home (all transactions had been handled by her ex-husband), and her business experience was limited to billing her piano students and tracking her expenses.Mr. Ball held an MBA, had purchased three homes and had spent decades working for major banks. Before meeting with Ms. Hardy that Sunday evening, he had consulted with a real-estate agent who told him the essential elements of a binding real-estate contract, which he had copied onto a Post-It note that he brought to Ms. Hardy's home.In April of 2005, Ms. Hardy won the case. Mr. Justice Albert Roy of the Ontario Superior Court ruled the deal was invalid because of unequal bargaining power, a legal principle known In his judgment, he painted a picture of a befuddled senior who had been rushed into a deal by a savvy opponent: ". . . It would have been wise for the plaintiffs to allow the defendant, when she called that Monday morning, to allow her some time to get some legal advice and independent advice and to fully appreciate what she was doing. . . . I don't think it was wise for the plaintiffs, when the defendant called saying that she was not going to the lawyers and that she didn't want to go through with the transaction, to play hardball."Mr. Ball and Ms. Shanahan filed an appeal, which was heard this June at Osgoode Hall in Toronto. Ms. Hardy's lawyer told the court her client didn't know that the paper she signed constituted a legal contract, and that Mr. Ball and his wife had masked a ruthless business deal as a small-town social occasion.Brian Bellmore, representing Mr. Ball and Ms. Shanahan, offered a countering view, arguing that Ms. Hardy was fully capable of representing herself in a business transaction: ". . . Lynn Hardy is an educated and literate woman . . . the vendor has taken university courses, teaches English as a second language at the local school . . . and is an occasional columnist for the local newspaper."The appeals court ruled against Ms. Hardy: ". . . It appears that she simply changed her mind after the execution of a valid and enforceable agreement of purchase and sale," the judges wrote. "Although this is most unfortunate for the vendor, the purchasers are entitled to enforce the agreement."After the legal defeat, Ms. Hardy's supporters tried to take her case to the court of public opinion. Some called Edward Jones, the investment company Mr. Ball now works for, and made it clear that they would encourage a boycott of the firm. Ms. Hardy's daughter wrote a letter to the local paper, which refused to publish it."A lot of people were shocked when the decision went against Lynn," says North Renfrew Times editor-in-chief Terry Myers. "But we have limited resources, and we didn't think we could take this on."With their move to the disputed house just weeks away, Mr. Ball and his wife say they've been "battered" by their long fight, and wish Ms. Hardy had simply respected the agreement they signed in 2003."We didn't bully her," Ms. Shanahan says. "Instead of fighting this, she should have taken the money and run." Asked why she had refused to let Ms. Hardy off the hook when she called the next morning to cancel the deal, Ms. Shanahan replied: "We have a valid contract. . . . Why would we back down?"Ms. Hardy seems resigned. Sitting on the beach outside her home, she points out the winterberry bushes that attract a steady stream of cedar waxwings, providing grist for Birds About Town, the column she occasionally writes in the Times. Sailboats tack back and forth on the river, the slopes of the Laurentians painted with the reds and golds of fall."It's a beautiful place," she says. "This is a small town. It's like family. You lose your wariness. I guess I should have had more."

četvrtak, 13.08.2009.

http

http://www.canada.com/topics/news/national/story.html?id=193fcdb7-e60f-4f86-8ce1-0f748bbb5cd4&k=93253For some reason, I thought Giuliano Zaccardelli was resigning. I mean Arar did get the short end of the stick from the RCMP. He's not resigning, it was just a dramatic-sounding press conference.

utorak, 11.08.2009.

Creepy

Creepy!I have a feeling superbrad will enjoy this.Allerca Lifestyle Pets - hypoallergenic cats

ponedjeljak, 10.08.2009.

Haha

Haha. God, The Higher Power, or let's face it, our own selves, have a funny way of levelling things out.What happened: dudes at work pissed me off... I asked my sup if I was covered if I called in sick. Turned out one person was already off, so it could have been precarious had I called in sick. He called a girl to see if she could work, she couldn't, so I toddled back in to work the next day with my snotty sinus cold.My point in asking my sup first, was, was I going to be faced with a "come in anyhow!" when I called in sick, or not; also, I was trying to send a message to my sup that he needs to train a full-time staff member how to cover my shift. My hair will be entirely grey before this happens, I predict.So I was told by this tag team duo of Eeyores at work that I should have called in sick, fuck the company, I should take my sick day. I got angry, and calmly explained how when I was a sup at Wonderland I got screwed around a lot by staff, ie staff who called in sick at the worst possible times, and who gave no notice before quitting. Who would have to cover the short hours? Me! I was the responsible one. So I don't fuck the company around, because it's not really the corporation that suffers, it's the sad person who has to work double hours to cover your sick day.So I got so mad and distracted at being "wrong" over this, that I got off a stop too early on my train. Two hours walking home that I won't get back. It was a very reflectful 2 hours but meh. I guess the lesson was: don't get mad.Well part of my problem was the snuffly young person who was slurping his ice cream across the seat from me on the train. Smack, slurp, sniff, snuffle. I couldn't stand it anymore, and went down to the first level, stood near the doors, and I likely got off at the very next stop.

nedjelja, 09.08.2009.

Nissan X-Trail Bonavista ad

Nissan X-Trail Bonavista ad. Enough alloy to fill a bucket? Uh-huh.Too bad his accent is not real. :/

subota, 08.08.2009.

Heh

Heh! Apparently Rick Mercer's in Bon Cop Bad Cop. I was going to see it anyhow, but now I HAVE to go see it. ;D

petak, 07.08.2009.

http

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20060920.wsunshine0920/BNStory/National/It wasn't just the grey clouds that ruined the sunshine for many Torontonians on Wednesday morning.Due to a "technical error," the Toronto Sun went to press without its Sunshine Girl section, according to the Sun's publisher and CEO Kin-Man Lee. Mr. Lee said that he didn't know the nature of the error, but that those who rely on a picture of a scantily clad girl in the morning to put a little spring in their step need not worry. He promised that the section would return Thursday.On CFRB they insinuated that it WASN'T a mistake.No offense to girls who want to appear scantily clad in a paper, but I would like to see the end of the Sunshine girl

četvrtak, 06.08.2009.

Most summers

Most summers, for one or two days, I have to break out the Nasonex to keep my airways open enough to breathe. This summer I didn't get away without using it, though that 1 or 2 days seems to have happened in September. O.o I have a bad cold, usually this kind of thing is due to smog.

srijeda, 05.08.2009.

So

So... I had a bizarre-o dream last night. But it summed up nicely some of my thoughts on things like missed opportunities, summing up a couple of decades of my life. My subconscious had a nice summary of my life issues.It kind of reinforced a couple of things that seem to be following one another like a train, in my thinking lately.1. 2002, an Ideas show on CBC, discusses how the mind and music are connected, eg. someone took brain waves and somehow made MIDI data with them, and the "music" sounded somewhat like gentle improvisation. It was musical, not random bleeping. Apparently one person's brain wave "music" had the effect of calming the individual down. So I wonder if one musician's brain waves are sympathetically induced in the brains of the listener. Some people will like that, and understand the music; some will not like the music at all, because hey, everyone's different. If your brain has been altered by drugs, maybe only people with similarly altered minds will get what you're saying in the music.2. when you're designing an apartment, or whatever, and choosing colours, if you choose things you like, eventually it will all hang together in some sort of unity, because you will tend to pick the same colours and themes after awhile.3. I worked in a primarily male-populated workplace for awhile. I then, that christmas, went shopping for my dad for clothes. In the store, I could peg which clothes racks would be the type of clothes that each of my male co-workers would have chosen from: whether loud prints, hipster T shirts, etc, but more subtle than that even. They were picking clothes that reflected their personalities, so much so that when I saw the clothes on the rack, I immediately thought of the person who might wear them.4. I tried to read Ulysses. What was the deal with the subconscious writing? Don't know, never studied it in school.5. Geoff said my music was cool, but previously my mom had said it was "headache music". So it's all about finding an audience, not altering your message, necessarily.6. Sincerity, in art, or in life, goes a long way. If something is pre-packaged, overly thought out, or reworked to death, it loses something. I particularly find this when I'm watching TV - I don't find very much in the way of TV that doesn't seem fabricated and focus-grouped to death... oh wait, that's Edge 102. No, for me, TV is just too predictable, when they beat an idea to death over and over (eg. the dumb husband and smart wife, eg. Tim the Tool Man, Everyone Loves Raymond, King of Queens) or everything's set in New York. It's the same core of people making all these TV shows, and for me, it shows.So... if you let your mind go freely and do stuff, it will be expressive, and SOMEONE out there will "get" what you're saying. Now I don't mean simply doing art without censoring yourself, I mean more like Ulysses, I want to try music that doesn't follow convention with using chords and so forth. Because the music that I just spewed out the other day, I wasn't trying to have chords, or melody, yet when I listened back to it, hi, it had chords and melody. Later it just had form, but no melody... but hey, Ulysses had form, but no plot. It's amorphous, but I think that if many people that I know wrote something in the same stream-of-consciousness style, I could likely match the writing to the author with not a lot of trouble... I wonder?

nedjelja, 02.08.2009.

here is some music that I made last night

here is some music that I made last night.It's 12 min of random piano playing... I think a summer of trying to wade through Ulysses, and buying a Brian Eno CD this week have taken its toll.Seriously though, I heard a thing on Ideas about 4 years ago on the connection between brain waves and music, and since then I've been interested in the idea that music reflects the brainwaves of the person who made the music (more or less) and I believe that those brainwaves can then occur sympathetically in the brain of the listener. The researchers on that particular Ideas had somehow transmuted brainwave info into MIDI data controlling a keyboard... and it sounded like relaxed improvisation, with chords - it made sense musically. So after I heard Thursday Afternoon, (well some of it) I thought if Brian Eno can make 60 min of the same chords, lemme see what I can do. However the material on that MP3 is not relaxed LOL

subota, 01.08.2009.

Right Here Right Now Lyrics A woman on the radio talks about revolutionwhen it's already passed her bybut Bob Dylan didn't have this to sing about you know it feels good to be aliveI was alive and I waited waitedI was alive and I waited for thisRight here

Right Here Right Now Lyrics A woman on the radio talks about revolutionwhen it's already passed her bybut Bob Dylan didn't have this to sing about you know it feels good to be aliveI was alive and I waited waitedI was alive and I waited for thisRight here, right now, there is no other place I want to beRight here, right now, watching the world wake up from historyI saw the decade in, when it seemedthe world could change at the blink of an eyeAnd if anythingthen there's your sign... of the timesI was alive and I waited waitedI was alive and I waited for thisRight here, right nowI was alive and I waited waitedI was alive and I waited for thisRight here, right now, there is no other place I want to beRight here, right now, watching the world wake up from historyRight here, right now, there is no other place I want to beRight here, right now, watching the world wake up from historyRight here, right now, there is no other place I want to beRight here, right now, watching the world wake upApart from the Bob Dylan reference, this song still gives me the chills.

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