theMediaman.com

What Race Are You in Middle Earth?

(Mostly because I eat so much)

Okay, so I may watch too many movies. After all, I saw conspiracy where Al Paladini’s ‘retirement’ and subsequent death was concerned. However, there’s something just not right about this whole missing girl thing.

At first I considered the possibility that the parents did it. After all, children don’t just ‘disappear’ from bedrooms. There’s been no ransom note, nor any public disclosure of contact with the kidnappers even one week after the event. I believe that the parents did something to upset a gang. Whether it was not paying ‘Protection’, or some other activity/inactivity that angered them, I don’t know. This could have happened at the level of Hell’s Angels (or even a Toronto chapter of the Triad?!?) or down as low as a neighbourhood gang.

Yeeah, it’s a stretch. But a casual thought changed into a real hypothesis from the open-letter released by the mother. In it, she pleads (translated) “Why do you burden Cecilia with this? Cecilia is innocent. Maybe you are acting on impulse, maybe it’s a misunderstanding.”

Please don’t misinterpret this entry. This IS a tragedy, and no one deserves this kind of horror… least of all Cecilia. However, I feel I need to get my thoughts out there. It’s unlikely that if I’m right, that news will be released proving my theory. However, I doubt that I will be proven wrong.

Of course, there are other theories…

While watching Stand By Me, I wandered over to Wil Wheaton’s web site. My biggest laugh of the week came from this quote by Wil regarding how Gator is threatening to sue individuals (who frankly, live in a free country with Free Speech) who publish on their web pages that Gator’s software is Spyware.

Gator produces software that tells time, weather, or other “generous features” on your local computer. However, in the fine print of that Terms of Agreement we all skim through, is information on how they collect information like what sites you browse, what links you click on, your computer stats, and any other data that may be available on your hard drive. They “Spy” on what you are doing on your computer - even if you clicked on Accept doesn’t mean you know what they’re doing, it simply means they’ve fulfilled their legal liability.

Elsewhere in the world of excessive online-advert’s (and spying), the company that makes the X10 camera filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Protection. We’ve all seen the popups and pop-under ads, but it’s the pop-unders that started the problem. They lost a patent lawsuit over the technology for pop-unders (since when can you copyright JavaScript code?).

This is sort of the techie version of a Gangster war. SPAMmers regularly sue each other out of existance, and eventually we’ll wear down to the few who follow the rules.

Spent part of the weekend in Kitchener celebrating the last weekend of Oktoberfest. I had an excellent time, but I feel I reserved myself a little too much vs. years when I called people I just met “My BEST FRIENDS!” and blurting out IN A DUMPSTER! when queried by Andrew as to where I live.

The music was definitely better than previous years - solid Polka the whole night by a band named “Saxon”. Cute.

Yesterday, Paul and I were looking at apartments. The best candidate was a place just South of Steeles on Bathurst… in a Russian Jewish neighbourhood, where all men sound like Jumba.

The biggest problem is that all 2-bedroom apartments tend to have one Master bedroom, and one very small secondary bedroom. Even if they were close, that would be okay… however, most rooms were even too small for Paul’s bed. Sort of useless to bother when that’s the case.

Other than Underworld and Lost in Translation, I have hardly gone to any movies since the Summer. Mostly, I’ve been renting 7-day movies from Rogers. Already, I want to see Kill Bill and Intolerable Cruelty and am interested in seeing Cold Creek Manor and The Rundown. Coming up there’s the Alien Re-release (which I was obviously not old enough to see on the big screen the first time around), Scary Movie 3 and Matrix: Revolutions - then by the end of the year there will be Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Jim Carrey movie), The Last Samurai and LotR:Return of the King.

Sometimes it’s a difficult life, having to be addicted to movies.

Two quick things that I can’t get answers to:

First is why the city of Toronto - and all other GTA cities - can’t stop whining about where to put the garbage. I’ve seen no emphasis on reducing the amount of crap people put in green bags at the end of the week.

I grew up in Barrie, which was one of the first adopters of the Blue Box recycling program. We put the box out by the garbage bags once every week… EVERY WEEK!!!. Since moving to the GTA, I haven’t yet come across a community that collects more than bi-weekly (during the Christmas season, my Blue Box didn’t get picked up for five weeks).

And to add to the problem, the cities tend to increase garbage pickup to twice a week during the Summer. Residents are encouraged in this way to produce four times more garbage than recycled material.

I have three Blue Boxes, and they are all full when I put them out, twice a month. I maybe put out one, full green bag of garbage on a week when I’m cleaning my apartment, but otherwise will only produce a white kitchen bag or two.

Even though I’m encouraged to throw stuff out, I wait the extra week in order to have it recycled. This is simply a product of growing up in an environment where recycling is just as easy as throwing it out. I will go out of my way (to some extent) in order to recycle. It only took an investment of ten years before Barrie started to produce citizens like myself, who can benefit whatever municipality he or she lives in.

There is NO sympathy from me for the residents of Toronto, who have no where to throw their trash.

…

Secondly (but still related to the environment), why can I not find any information on Government subsidies for solar power and alternative, Green energies? I’ve done a fair bit of research on the Internet about any Federal, Provincial or Municipal-level money that might help my parents set up solar panels at the cottage.

Can someone please send me anything they know about this? Somehow I find it disturbing that California is the only place that really pushes people to use alternative sources of power. We’ve had the spontaneous blackout, so have we learned from our mistakes yet? Or do we have to wait for the next nth-degree, worst-case scenario before things start to get fixed?