Mayor Watson: Where are my Timbits?

City Council's swearing-in ceremony was on the evening of December 1, 2010, held at Shenkman Arts Centre in Orléans. Much ado was made about Jim Watson's decision not to have it catered, but instead to get Tim Horton's to provide free snacks.

Since it wasn't open to the public, I made sure to take lots of photos. Here are some highlights of the night:

My one time going to the suburbs and our car got into a fender bender. Remarkably, the car that hit us from behind in stop-and-go traffic had two occupants. A rare suburban non-SOV.

Shenkman isn't that bad a place, once you get there and inside.

As I took a seat, I thought I passed our not-to-be-named former mayor. Thankfully it was just a decoy.

Sally Robinson on the piano accompanying the warm-up choir.

Look, two guys with turbans! The crowd is really representative of Ottawa's vibrant multicultural fabric! Just kidding, it was mostly white guys.

Ever wondered what it would be like for a perky, hyper children's entertainer like Marie Soleil to MC an inauguration ceremony? Neither did I, but we all found out anyway.

Singing cop was hella loud. Kudos for holding that last note and all, but it hurt my ears.

Great speech by Algonquin chief. "Welcome to our territory. We'll talk."

The official mayor's robe.

Philistines in the audience laughed at the soldier's ceremonial stomping as he delivered the Mayor's chain of office. (Seen here stomping after the about-face to exit.)

Councillors sworn in all at once. Four oaths total instead of 48 (two in each language).

Egli is pronounced Keith Egg-lye (as the MC pronounced it), not Egg-lee as I'd have guessed. Didn't get a chance to ask Hubley if MC's "Hubely" was correct. [Edit: it was, as time and the commenter below confirm.]

Couldn't photograph Doug Thompson. Reflection of his white hair oversaturated every attempt.

Musical Interlude with French folk singers/dancers dragging out their set with three (albeit catchy) songs. Rick Chiarelli shows his only sign of interest the whole night; otherwise was pouty.

Jim Watson is crazy mad about Katie Holmes. No, wait. He's angry. No, I think it's just the long exposure.

New trick: Point & Shoot camera + Tripod + Binoculars = half-decent telephoto shots.

See what I mean? Pouty. And this was when everybody was supposed to be singing along to "this little light of mine." Diane and Keith have the spirit.

Jan Harder's shoes were the talk of the evening.

David Chernushenko, Maria McRae, Katherine Hobbs applauding. Peter Clark slouched the whole night, blocking any decent photos of Diane Holmes.

Congratulations, class of 2010. Katherine Hobbs salutes you. Or she's saluting the lighting techs. Ironically, of course.

The refreshment table, provided by Tim Horton's. Those flat discs, by the way, are NOT timbits. I am disappointed that Jim Watson didn't live up to this promise. Aside from coffee, everything else was sugar-based. Sorry, diabetics!

Shenkman centre has a nifty art exhibit of metal fish made of tuna can lids (and similar materials). Tempting to add the treasure label to this post.

To be honest, this actually worked better as a venue than City Hall would have. City Hall isn't big enough for this many people, and these folks will be spending enough time there. As for the catering cut, I'm not a wine-and-cheese guy, but this was pretty chintzy. Note to visiting heads-of-state: Canada's Capital is B.Y.O.B.

I'm poor again. That was easy.

I have a friend who declared earlier this month that she wanted nothing to do with Christmas. Not only did the constant reminders of rampant consumerism and religious messages bother her, but she was also averse to the ideal alternative of spending the time with family for a great meal, because her partner's turkey-eating family can't come to terms with the couple's vegetarianism.

We brainstormed ways of avoiding Christmas, especially on a nearly absent budget. This would be difficult: stores are closed, and those that are open are blaring Merry Christmas messages all over. I think we settled on "dig a hole" and "walk to Kanata" as the best options, though a few days before Christmas she gave in to celebrating the damn holiday, in some form or another.

But still, it's an interesting question for future reference: how could my friend avoid Christmas (for little to no money?)

* * *

I suffer a similar Christmas dilemma myself, because as much as I bemoan it and downplay it (for example, I keep my standard greeting instead of using a "seasonal" one when saying goodbye, except for the occasional "Happy Humbug"), I do, technically, celebrate it. That is, I go to the annual family gathering and stay a few days, and it's become a tradition for me to stay at my aunt's place where I watch Cable TV marathons of sci fi films and TV shows.

I also exchange gifts, though in a very limited fashion. My dad was kind enough this year to throw politeness to the wind and flat out asked me what I wanted, and gave me a list of gift ideas for himself (very useful, as we're both hard to shop for). This generally involved links to various products on the MEC website. I can't tell if it's superficial or transparent, but whatever it is, it seems to work.

* * *

I am also lucky enough to receive money for Christmas, plus a meagre bonus at work. Last year, I had enough to buy a new bed, and this year I was hoping to be able to replace my laptop.

Unfortunately, my savings are still low, due to borrowing from them to buy a projector in June and a camera last month (and I haven't sold the old one yet). To buy a new laptop, I'd have to borrow even more from my savings. Since my job is not secure past March 31st, replenishing my savings is the most prudent course of action.

After doing so, and deducting the price of my gifts to others, I calculated I had a hundred or two to spend on my whims. This is remarkably difficult for someone who delights in useless free shit found in the trash. So I went to Staples yesterday to gratify my consumerist desires, and noticed a bin of those big red buttons that speak out "that was easy!" when you press them. I wondered, who the hell would actually buy one of those?!? (No, I didn't)

As I left the store, I considered the total price of the new toy plus a spare camera battery from Henry's. As I returned to my bike, I muttered to myself:

"I'm poor again. That was easy!"

- RG>

Solders in tight places

My laptop has had a couple of problems since I bought it in September 2007. Right off the bat, I didn't like that you could only adjust the volume through the software, requiring Windows to be running. This was an unwelcome change from my 2003 Toshiba laptop, which had a little wheel on the side so you could manually adjust the volume.

In April '08, the hard disk died. While this was stressful and took me a month to eventually deal with, Dell's warranty support was very helpful and got my drive replaced quickly. I was able to recover the information off of it, and since then I've always* backed up my hard disk (*read: I backed up once right after the incident, and have never crossed "back up" off my to-do list since then).

Earlier this year, my laptop battery reached the end of its life, and would no longer hold a charge. I had to weigh getting a new laptop versus simply replacing the battery.

If I bought a new battery, it would be about $200 instead of $600 (neither amount I was pleased with spending), and I wouldn't have to reinstall all my programs or worry about Windows Vista or Yogourt. But it also meant that I'd have to live with the other problems my laptop has.

A while ago, sometime after the one-year warranty expired, the audio jack started thinking that there was always something plugged into it, even if there wasn't. If I had earphones plugged in, audio went to the earphones. If I didn't have them plugged in, it still thought I did, so it didn't play sound on the onboard speakers. I eventually learned that if I stuck a mini jack cable in partway and used strong rubber bands to pull it sideways, it would work. I also couldn't rip records to mp3 because the line-in wasn't reliably carrying both channels.

This audio problem had a number of influences on my battery-or-new-laptop decision:

- I wouldn't be able to sell the Dell as easily

- A new laptop (i.e. one with working speakers) is that much more attractive

- While it's faster than my 2003 Toshiba laptop with the broken screen (which I use as my 'desktop'), it doesn't have audio to complete the audio/visual experience, and it doesn't have a parallel port for my laser printer.


I decided that if the price was under $200 and if I could get it by the end of the following week, I'd order the new battery. I phoned them up and spoke to some guy in southeast Asia who assured me that I'd get it by the prescribed time. Of course, he's from one of those cultures where customer service only goes so far as telling the customer what he wants so he'll buy the thing from you, and not a culture where it matters if this information is true.

On Friday of the following week, Gabby at Dell customer support got a call from an irate customer. I had been assured that I would receive the battery by the end of this week, and it has not arrived yet. Gabby told me it was shipped out that day, meaning it wouldn't arrive until the next business day--Monday--which is precisely the kind of waiting I deliberately tried to avoid. If I had known it would take that long, I would have bought a new laptop, and not from Dell!


So fast forward to tonight, and I plug in my earphones, and I hear a quiet electronic "click" and get no audio. I try jiggling the jack and putting pressure on it, with no luck. My audio is dead.

On top of this, I notice that the audio jack is very hot, which is quite unusual. I figure there's probably a short circuit, meaning the laptop's not safe to use.

Time to open 'er up.


I had previously opened up the laptop and gotten to the sound jack, only to discover it was hardwired into the motherboard. If it were connected by a plug, I'd have ordered a new one long ago to swap it out. But it isn't, so I couldn't.

And it's a long process to get that far into the machine. Dell has excellent documentation for disassembling its machines, including step-by-step instructions on how to get in to the motherboard (and how to get it back together). However, it still took me about an hour to get inside. While I had it open, I cleaned some of the parts of dust and other dirt.

Diagnosing the problem was hard. There are contacts that push against each other when you put the plug in, and I saw that the ones for the audio jack weren't making good contact. I did some fiddling around and got the contact working, but there was a second one in an angle I couldn't see, and I was hoping that it wasn't a source of the problem, because I didn't want to open this thing up again.

But the loose contact wasn't the only problem. I tried to inspect the connection to the board, and it was tough. The contacts are very small, 0.6mm wide. The solders are even smaller. I had a magnifying glass, but I couldn't get it close enough without blocking the light.

So I used my camera's macro mode to take a close-up photo, which I could then zoom in on the camera's screen to investigate.

This, too, was hard, as the lighting was poor, and it was hard to get the camera to autofocus at the right distance. I held up a bright bike light to the board, and took the photo top-down to make focusing easier. Unfortunately, a top-down angle also makes it hard to inspect the solders.

Nevertheless, I could tell that the all three solders in the leftmost cluster were broken.

So I knew I had to solder them back together. I plugged in my soldering iron and put some electrical tape over the neighbouring parts so that I didn't accidentally melt them off, as I was working with very small bits at a very tight angle. The furthest contact was easier, because there was about 0.3mm of space next to it, whereas the other two contacts were less than 0.2mm apart. That big black tarp on the right in the photo is the electrical tape.

I appeared to be successful with the first one, but the other two were too close together, and I would have difficulty trying to get a glob of solder on them without accidentally soldering the two of them together, which would be very tough to fix.

I tried anyway--without the glob of solder on the end of the iron--and took a photo to see if this made any progress.

Success! There was enough original solder on the contacts that I just had to melt it and it reestablished contact on its own (much more elegantly than my fix on the far one).

Of course, success wouldn't be conclusive until I get the machine back together.

Midway through reassembly, I find a screw that belonged somewhere inside. I taped it under the keyboard for future consideration (I am NOT going to take it back apart now!), and screwed the keyboard back into place. It's late, goddamnit.

When I turned on my laptop, I got onboard sound, for the first time in months!

Yay!


Let's hope it stays that way.

- RG>

Underprivileged? No. Smug? Yes.

So it looks like I haven't posted at all in October. I guess life happens, eh?

I had a great time working at the polls during the recent election. The big pile of forms, envelopes and ballots that had to be sorted just right was thrilling. It was like my coming out as a bureaucrat.

In fact, I even compiled a list of corrections to the elections manual based on the questions and problems I encountered through the day. There were a number of problems with it. For example, when gathering the items on a list of materials we'd require at the end of the night, we spent five whole minutes looking for an envelope that didn't exist. Also, there was no central list of what to do at the end of the night: it was all "go from this set of instructions to that one over there and follow them." Quite confusing, even for a logic puzzle solver like myself.

I e-mailed Elections Canada to let them know I've got this feedback, and I offered to write it up if they would give me an address to forward it to. The response I received, in full (albeit within 24 hours), was "We acknowledge receipt of the electronic message you sent to Elections Canada on October 16, 2008. Your message has been forwarded to the appropriate directorate." How nice of them to accept the input that I haven't even sent them yet!

I've been really busy since then with various commitments, but I've got some breathing room now.

I was very disappointed this morning to find not 25-35 cm of snow on the roads (as forecast), but mostly clear roads with a smattering of wet stuff on the sidewalks. I was looking forward to the adventure of riding in the snow again, but it'll have to wait for another day. (Hopefully a month or two off)

Other things are also going well. A few things have broken, or I've otherwise determined the need to replace things, and it's been quite painless to get them fixed. For example, the belt holster for my phone broke and I was so disinclined to deal with the people at the Bell World store (who conned me into buying the thing) that I'd rather spend the $30 elsewhere to get a new one than to have to deal with those fucks. In the meantime, I'll just stick the holster in my pocket.

A better example of something breaking is my sunglasses. When I got a new prescription earlier this year (hmm... same time as the new phone...), I had to choose between getting new frames and new lenses on my sunglasses, or just replacing the lenses on my five-year-old shades. New frames would allow me to update the style with new glasses, but replacing the lenses would be much cheaper. Since I was also buying non-sunglasses, I chose the cheaper sunglass option.

Then a couple of weeks ago, the frames started to fall apart. I wasn't quite sure what to do. My worst fear was that I would have to buy new frames and lenses, and toss the expensive lenses I had purchased earlier this year. Very expensive. Then I got an idea: I could try getting another pair of the same model as my current shades.

I called up the Lenscrafters at Rideau Centre and asked them if they had any of these five year old model. They were very polite and very helpful. They did a bunch of looking around for me and concluded that, while the model wasn't marked as being discontinued, there were no more of them in any Lenscrafters in the country. They suggested I try on the internet, and they gave me all the details that I would need to make sure I get the right ones.

With this information, I looked on the internet for the shades. According to places that didn't have them in stock (including the manufacturer), they cost about $235 new. Yowch. So I went to the next obvious destination--eBay. There they were, the only ones, available from a place in California for 90 bucks plus shipping (this was while the dollar was still at about 90 cents. Then, the icing: they had them in different colours. Okay, "colours". By replacing my gunmetal model with a black matte, I could get the best of both worlds: cheaper (by replacing the lenses earlier on, and subsequently replacing the frames at much less than retail), and still get a bit of change in style. Still a costly item, but much cheaper than it could have been.

So fast forward to this week. The shades arrived in the mail and I swapped out the lenses. Only they didn't quite fit. Grr! It was clear that when they had installed the lenses the first time five years ago, they removed some of the sweep in the frames to accommodate them. I did not want to bend my frames and risk breaking them.

I would have to go to the Rideau Centre to take them to Lenscrafters.

I hate going to the Rideau Centre. It's so big and commercial and unfriendly. There are so many people, yet so little personality. Give me the charm of Elgin or Bank street any day. On top of that, since it's a place I don't go often, there are likely to be a few things that I want to photograph, but I forgot my camera at home today.

I took them into Lenscrafters, expecting to have to leave them there for a few days while they fixed it. Instead, they took them behind the glass and did the work right there in minutes. Best part? They didn't charge me for it at all!

So what does this have to do with the title? On the way back out, I saw the welcome mats outside Miss Tiggy Winkles. The one in the front annoyed me so much that, with my one free hand, I fumbled my phone out of my pocket, pried it out of the holster and aimed it in the general direction of the mat to take a photo of it (hence the atrocious quality):

It says "WE WORK WITH THE UNDERPRIVILEGED (Our children)"

Anyone who displays that slogan outside of their house--whether they mean it honestly or in jest--ought to be shot. If you're rich enough to afford that mat, then either your children are privileged as fuck or you're gloating at how poorly you treat your children. If you children aren't privileged, then you're a neglectful cad for wasting your money on a stupid novelty mat instead of something that will help in their development (or at least get them a toy that's a bit more fun than a bloody welcome mat). If you want to spend money to show appreciation for your children, buy a damn "my son/daughter is an honour student" bumper sticker (or some, uh, prescription sunglasses :P ), but calling them "underprivileged" is just insulting to everybody.

- RG>

The Andrew Nellis file gets interesting...

As I wrote earlier today, Andrew Nellis has been arrested on what are, as far as I've been able to find out, unspecified charges, and that he won't be out until his hearing on Monday morning.

In that blog entry, I wrote "If it were someone else arrested and Andrew had been at the protest, he would have pointed out that his arrest was intended to preclude his ability to participate and organize in today's planned demonstration." Sure enough, I was right.

At the grand re-opening and one-year celebration of Exile Infoshop (which, interestingly, is located at the same interection as this previously-blogged abuse of police powers), there was a copy of the 24 Hours newspaper, and on the back page was an article by Adrienne Ascah called "May Day set to take city by storm."

The article includes an itinerary for the May Day celebrations, including (quote):

• Noon-1 p.m. Mayor Larry O'Brien's Impeachment Tea Party at City Hall.


• 1 p.m. Take Back The Streets rally, beginning at the Human Rights Monument.


• Noon-8 p.m. Opening of the anarchist Exile Infoshop's new location 256 Bank Street.

Ascah talks about and with Nellis for the second half of the article. He talks about why he works with the Ottawa Panhandlers Union: "The city and the businesses use the police to enforce their will. The police will come out and harass panhandlers even though panhandling is not illegal."

This was certainly the case at Exile tonight. Someone came up the stairs and yelled "someone is getting a ticket for spitting on the sidewalk!" A bunch of people went down to check it out, and two officers were accosting a guy. One of the onlookers tried to take a photo of one of the officers with his cameraphone, and an officer tried to whack it out of his hand (following Larry O'Brien's lead, perhaps?).

The officers left without giving the guy a ticket, but came back a few minutes later and did give a ticket to a guy for allegedly riding a bicycle on the sidewalk. On the other side of the street were four other cops—two City cops and two bylaw enforcement officers—looking on. I crossed the street and stood there with them, trying to see if the view really was as good as they made it out to be from the bleachers. A girl walked by and asked these officers what was going on, and the tallest one said, "we're not quite sure ourselves!"

It's really somewhat ironic, because in the 24 Hours article, Nellis talks about how the Ticket Defense Program. This program has managed to stop nearly all tickets given out under the Safe Streets Act, but the police merely upped the ante.

In the article, as I anticipated him to say in my blog earlier today, Ascah writes: "[P]olice find other charges, even if they don't stick, Nellis said."

Nellis is then quoted:

"The entire point is to get them in front of a judge who will slap them with conditions, which are usually 'stay out of the downtown core' and 'don't panhandle,'"

Interestingly also, the article ends by saying that the Ottawa Panhandlers Union filed suit yesterday against the City of Ottawa for installing the fence beneath the Terry Fox bridge between the Rideau Centre and the old Union station (and amusingly, across from 700 Sussex, the condo building where Ottawa's mayor Larry O'Brien lives).

The timing makes it clear that the police are trying to muzzle Nellis. He was arrested by City of Ottawa police on the same day he filed suit against the City, and on the day before a rally he is organizing (or at least participating in).

They want him to accept the bail conditions so they can get him on breach of bail and toss him in jail for a long time. As I learned at Exile, Nellis was not willing to accept the stringent bail conditions, which is why he will remain in jail until his hearing on Monday morning.

Nellis knows what he's doing (he encounters cops regularly, but I believe this is the first time he's actually been arrested), and I would not be surprised if he uses his arrest as an opportunity to challenge the whole bail-and-bait tactic.

In the meantime, check out Exile's spacious and inviting new location. They're open Wednesday to Sunday, 12pm to 8pm.

- RG>

Whoa. That's a fancy camera!

I got a new camera last week. It's leaps and bounds better than my old one. In addition to being small and not having a lens that goes in and out, it's waterproof and dustproof (my last camera became useless when it got dust inside the lens).

Unfortunately, when buying a camera, you don't get the option of getting a megapixel or two less and saving a lot of money, because those cameras sell out too quickly. So I paid more than I wanted to. But it's worth it.

One of the many features (aside from user-friendliness) is macro mode. This lets you take photos of things really close up. It saved me a lot of trouble when I saw a nice plant someone was tossing out. It looked alright, but there was some white stuff on it. I took a shot of it in macro mode and zoomed in on the 2.5" screen, and discovered the white things were bugs!

I left the plants where they were.

Earlier today, I was bored, so I took a photo of a ballpoint pen. Go on and click it to see the larger version.



In case you didn't notice, that black spot on the tip is a reflection of the camera in the tip. Forget horsepower, this puppy's got 7.1 megapixels, and isn't afraid to use them.

I assume that, like my typewriter, I'll keep finding more funky features as I use it (although I've already read through TFM).

- RG>