Farewell and Good Riddance

In what seems to be turning into something of a hobby, I moved again about a week ago today [1]. An essential part of this hobby is that I underestimate both the time and number of boxes it will take to pack. (It would be quite brilliant, really, if I did this on purpose, since what happens is that the helpers end up doing most of the heavy lifting while I scurry around frantically trying to cram as much random stuff into a shortage of boxes. I'm not so cunning, however.) One of my friends who helped me move had borrowed a pick-up truck from a relative which was returned before I was completely packed. This didn't matter much since I couldn't move the last three boxes worth of stuff without the last three boxes to put the stuff in. Not only that, but I didn't have time to clean up the place either.

So I planned on going back the next day. I managed to injure my foot the next morning on something that was hard, sharp, and not properly unpacked [2]. It wasn't a life threatening injury, but it was severe enough that I thought it in my best interests to head down to the emergency room. (The last time I went to the emergency room was when I was 8. I fell down a waterfall and needed stitches on my knee.) Plus it was on my toe. Which is on my foot. Feet are gross, in my opinion, no matter how much you clean them, and experts agree that gross is a leading cause of infection. For all the waiting, the only thing the doctor told me that I might not have done otherwise was change my socks twice a day instead of the usual once.

It was quite the chore getting home that night, and, needless to say, I wasn't about to go to my old place and finish up packing and cleaning. It took five before I was feeling pain free enough to do the work, and so I spent this past Sunday afternoon completing my move.

For the most part, I was eager to move out of the place. That's not to say it was horrible. The landlord was really nice, and responded very quickly to any problems I brought to him, which is definitely a plus. The place was renovated during the summer before I moved in, so the apartment was in better condition than lots of other student housing (I know I'm not a student anymore, but some habits are hard to break), and the appliances were new, including (free) washer and dryer. It's really not a bad place, and I would recommend it to a friend with little hesitation. There were disadvantages, though, and for me, they were starting to outweigh the benefits. Among the worst things was that the neighbourhood lived up to its reputation. The main East-West street in downtown Kingston is Princess St. I lived north of it. Most students understand this part of Kingston to be rather sketchy, and with some exceptions, it's a place you avoid if you can. This wasn't my first time living in the dreaded territory, but this year seemed to be particularly bad. One morning not long after I had moved there, I walked past my car to see that most of the contents of my glove compartment had been emptied onto the seat. I didn't remember doing that myself, but I wasn't certain that I hadn't until I saw that the ashtray had also been taken out and left on the floor. Someone had entered my car while I was sleeping. A week or so later, the same thing happened. I don't think whoever it was made off with anything other than spare change. They even looked in the trunk where there was some stereo equipment that they could have stolen very easily if they wanted to, but didn't, so they probably didn't want anything more than spare change [3]. Within a week of moving out, I was awoken at about 2:00 in the morning to the sound of a door shutting and footsteps walking past my window (it was a basement apartment). Being in bed, I wasn't quite ready enough to run out and shout obscenities at the perpetrator, so I convinced myself that the noises I heard were that of one of my neighbours, and that I had nothing to worry about. The next morning, however, I checked my car, and sure enough, the ashtray was lying on the floor again. I can't find my cell phone charger, so they probably stole that too. Jokes on them, though, since it's broken. Some might say that it's my fault this happened so many times, since each time it happened, it was because I left my door unlocked. Though I'm pretty sure that leaving your door unlocked doesn't count as an invitation to hop on in and take spare change.

I thought that I had seen the last of that when I moved out. On the Sunday that I returned, the crime spree continued. This time, though, the criminals were bolder, committing their crime in broad daylight. After I had packed everything up and finished cleaning, I went out to move my car into the driveway. As I approached the car, I noticed that the stylized H that adorns the hood of most Hondas was no longer adorning the hood on mine. I had to pause for a moment to consider whether it had really gone missing while I was cleaning, or whether it had actually been gone for a long time and my mind was playing tricks on me. I wasn't sure. Later on, though, I went grocery shopping. When I came back to my car after buying groceries, the outline of the H was glaring at me, as if I was noticing it for the first time again. If the missing H seemed that out of place the second time I saw it that afternoon, then I'm pretty sure I would have noticed its absence if it had gone missing any sooner. In particular, I probably would have noticed it when I walked toward my car not long after arriving early that afternoon. It hadn't been a week since I was left that place, and already I'm glad to be gone.

I'm planning on buying a new car this weekend. Desired features include power door locks and hood ornaments that are not easy to remove. If you know of any, let me know.

[1] Which explains in part why it's been more than a fortnight since you've heard from me.

[2] I was hoping that I'd be able to blame my friends for leaving that hard metal thing where they did, but unfortunately, I was the one who put it there after they all left, so the only one I can blame is myself.

[3] Whoever it was wasn't very thorough. I never did bother to replenish my supply of spare change, but there is still enough for a coffee in one of the little compartments in the dash.

Security by Ubiquity?

This past November, a couple of old roommates dropped by for a weekend. While they were here, we took a walk around campus, for old time's sake, I guess. One roommate commented on how much things had changed since he was here. For one thing, there was much less blasting going on when he was still here. I bought my first laptop then, about 5 years ago. Hardly anyone had laptops at the time. Queen's ITS was still pushing desktops at the time, though if I recall correctly, they had more laptop offerings that year than desktop, unlike the previous year. Now, my friend observed, almost everyone has a laptop. Back then, nobody would think of leaving their laptop anywhere unattended without locking it. Today, I was walking through Mac-Corry [1], where I saw a laptop, attended by no one, locked to nothing, with only the coat of the owner draped over the seat to accompany it. I guess if everyone has one, there isn't much of a market for a stolen one. As for me, unless I can find a door to lock it behind, my laptop still will not be more than a few feet away from me. But then, I've always been old-fashioned.


[1] One of the main places to buy and eat food on campus, for those of you who don't go to Queen's.

The Cult I Joined

Sometime ago I joined a cult, popular amongst university students, known as facebook.

"Wait!" you protest, "That's not a cult, it's an online social networking tool!"

Such are the claims made by facebook, but I fear that claims do not make reality, and the reality is that facebook is a cult. What is the basis for such an assertion? What evidence do I have to support this accusation?

Exhibit A: Weird behaviour. I have a friend with whom my communication is almost exclusively through facebook. He knows my email, he knows my phone number, he's on my msn, but he only writes messages to me on my facebook "Wall". Why is this strange? Any of these other forms of communication are vastly more efficient, but communication through our respective facebook walls adds an extra layer of inneficiency to the communication process. Not only do I have to open a browser to read the email that tells me that someone has posted on my wall, I then have to log in to facebook to read the message.

Exhibit B: More weird behaviour. In the last two weeks, I have been looking for a place to sublet for the summer. I looked at one place that, in the end, I decided not to sublet. I sent an email to the current tenant to inform her that that I would not be subletting from her. It turns out that she is also a member of this cult. No more than a day later, I received an email telling me that she has added me as a friend on facebook. Within minutes of approving her as a facebook friend, she sent me a message telling me "alrite, but it's really hard to get summer sublet stuff done...but thanks for let me know!" Normal behaviour would be replying to my email directly. This is not normal. It is weird.

Only a cult could be responsible for such unusual forms of communication.

Exhibit C: Characteristic of many cults is unusual sexual behaviour. In facebook, this takes the form of "poking". The creator of facebook claims not to have a purpose for poking, but all facebook users know what he had in mind when he cooked up that feature. Why else would there be a facebook group called "Enough with the poking. Let's just have sex."? Zuckerberg, you dirty bird!

Exhibit D: You can leave any time you want, but would you mind telling us why? Have you ever tried leaving facebook? Your friends won't let you. A few have managed to break free, most only temporarily.

Exhibit E: Friends. Every day, I am informed by facebook that buddy and wasisname are now friends with the other fellers. I distrust any organzation that makes such liberal use of the word "friend".

Exhibit F: Aggressive recruitment tactics. Facebook will scour the contacts lists in all of your email accounts and encourage you to send facebook requests to all of your contacts who aren't already on facebook.

Exhibit G: Loss of individuality. See exhibit A. Your thoughts are no longer your own, but belong collectively to your "friends" (see exhibit E).

Exhibit H: Demands total devotion. See exhibit A and B. You must abandon all old forms of communication, and transmit messages only through facebook. You must only use your email account to receive notifications from facebook. All other responsibilities fall by the wayside as people become evermore consumed by facebook. You can see people's frustration with this when they create groups with titles encouraging facebook to do non-family-friendly things to itself because they're trying to do homework (such groups are only allowed to exist to create the illusion that dissent is allowed).

So there you have it folks. Rock solid evidence that facebook is a cult. Stay away while you still can!

EDST May be Handy

He asked the guy,
"Have you got the knife?"
He caught my eye.
I fear for my life.

----

It kills the mood to have to explains one's art. Nevertheless, I feel that I must offer some explaination about the preceding masterpiece, lest I cause undue worry amongst my readers.

The first three lines are based on a true story involving me.

The last line is pure nonsense.