Djoc | 264 | Vivekanand | 251 | Monkeyboy Killer | 243 | Druidicninja | 238 | Anonymous User X | 235 | Praying Habs Fan | 232 | Sam | 221 | Xan | 219 | Belly Flop | 219 | Maple Leaf Muscle | 218 | Greenman | 214 | KP | 205 | Shrike | 205 | The Flower | 201 | The Skating Scotsman | 174 | NHL-er making the biggest difference for the leader: Anze Kopitar (LAK) and Patrick Marleau (SJS) NHL-er holding the rest back: Patrik Elias (NJD) The 'who saw that one coming?"guy (awarded to the biggest point producing NHL-er noone picked) : Dustin Penner (EDM)
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Long day, definition, up at 7am, done drafting by 1030pm, too exhausted to even kill things on Wii properly, looking forward to painkillers and lying completely horizontal; the clunkclunk as your spine falls back into place.
When my apartment grows up, first purchase? Cutting/drafting table. With all the drugs and massage I'll not need to have, it will have paid for itself in less than a year.
In other news, I have found http://cocktailnerd.com/ and http://sloshed.hyperkinetic.org/ We are all doomed. By we, I mean my liver and anyone who enjoys speaking to me when I'm not a bitch.
Soooo, everyone but Lauren.
I've signed up for that Yulethingie. Yaaaaaay!
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I mostly don't post on LJ anymore, because I don't have very much time. My mind is also often on automatic pilot. See my previous posts for why I also spend less time on LJ.
Another reason is I have never been articulate in a way that satisfies me when I journal. It is an effort. It is like pulling teeth, and it never comes out the way I want it to.
Right now my mind has been a jumble.
I am SO MUCH BETTER than where I was a year ago, but I would lie to say, "I am healed."
I am actually very happy. But the pain surprises me at times.
I lost my brother, but I also lost my best friend.
I also lost someone who owned more stuff than I do, and I am still trying to figure out what to do with a good portion of it!
I also had projects I was in the middle of working on, projects that are now a moot point, projects that I want to start, and a completely different set of goals. Oh wait, that's Life.
I still have problems reading, and my level of distraction is higher. My attention span has become that of a gnat.
I've spent a lot of time thinking about what to do with fps, and I think it might be time to call it quits, but work on it enough first so it is in a state where I feel comfortable walking away while I do other things. I am still not sure.
I remind myself of the things I am doing right, and Mr. Perfect does the same for me constantly. I am so grateful we found each other, and even more amazed of how steadfast he is during this time.
As almost a year has passed, there are things that I am still not good at doing. I have to admit that I am not organized anymore and just move on. I classify myself as a reader more for nostalgic reasons that for any books read this year. Just deal with it. I've had less problems acknowledging that I could care less if I am the first person to see such and such movie or read such and such book or comic, and I have always been like that, it's just more apparent since I am now "behind" (others' words not mine) and people notice.
Mr P has lost a lot of weight, and I've only lost a little, but we're going to do the home stretch together. We're a good team. No pressure.
I've been sick for the past few days, so now that I finally have a weekend to myself, I actually have little energy to do anything, even read a book. But I'll try.
I don't really know why I am writing this. It's almost a year since my bro died, and I was really fearing this week, but as it got closer, I was more and more OK with it, and showed me I was improving, but since November hit, it's been one flashback after another.
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Just to give myself a break from the nonstop gun control stuff (between blogging and spamming politicians and the media over the past couple of weeks, I am starting to get a little burned out) I thought I'd post some recent pics of the critters:
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Rudy and Maggy.
These two are getting along like a house on fire. Note Rudy's expression; his typical concern as to the existence of food in close proximity. Maggy is picking up some of Rudy's bad habits, notably his obsession with food. We may have to rename her Maggy Mooch. |
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Me, under attack by heat-seeking self-propelled face-targeting Tupperware.
Stella has been very affectionate since she got back to the vet. And she's decided that she likes chewing on my beard. |
Speaking of Stella, here's a pic of her butt, stitches and all. ( Read more... )
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Me & Jack and Carter and t!
baronscartop and ai731 dropped by yesterday. We hung out and talked chickens and got covered in dog hair and drank beer and generally had a great time. |
Life continues to consist mostly of lying around complaining of boredom, although yesterday the tedium was alleviated by my dad and the WOSM coming by and fixed us eggs Benedict for breakfast, and ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) ai731 and baronscartop dropping in for a visit in the afternoon. Human contact is good for the morale. I have an MRI appointment for November 21. Hopefully, the slow improvement will have continued, and the drive down to Kingston won't prove too painful.
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In trying to get some frozen hamburger out of my freezer, I dislodged an almost-full bottle of gin onto my toes.
The gin is fine, my foot is not.
There has been non-stop swearing for the last ten minutes.
Irony of ironies, I now need to go get ice out of the freezer. Maybe I'll use the bottle of gin, as penance.
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As I've discussed, the registry is intended to prevent the commission of violent crime (murder, assault, etc.) with firearms. And so the singling out of firearms, to the exclusion of other weapons, for registration and regulation implies that violent crime committed with firearms is an exceptional problem. And therefore, one would think that violent crime committed with firearms is a threat that justifies the existence of the registry and the exceptional funding devoted to it. In other words, the existence of the registry would be justified if registration of long guns were a rational and proportionate response to the problem of violent crime committed with them.
So let's have a look at violent crime rates in Canada for 2006 (the most recent year for which figures are available). In that year:
- Firearms were used in 2.4% of all violent crimes. Most of these firearms were handguns, i.e. restricted firearms. Recall that Bill C-391 will affect only the registration of non-restricted firearms (of course, the assumption that registration has any impact on criminal misuse is unfounded, but I'll get to that later).
- Knives were used in 6.2% of all violent crimes. I'm tempted to point out that this allows the conclusion that home cooking is two and a half times more dangerous to the public safety than sport shooting, but that would be smartassery.
- Blunt instruments were used in 3.0% of all violent crimes. So collectively, knives and other blunt instruments were used 3.83 times more often than guns to violently victimize people.
- Overall, out of a population in the neighbourhood of 33,000,000 Canadians, slightly more than 8,100 people were victimized with firearms in 2006 (mostly by criminals using handguns).
Source.
Of particular note is this table:
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I'll ask you to note that violent crime committed with firearms has been declining steadily since 1975, twenty years prior to the adoption of the Firearms Act in 1995, and twenty-one years since the CAFC first opened in 1996 (which, coincidentally or not, was when this trend started slowing). I'll be going into this in greater depth in a future post, but for the moment, please have a look at that chart and remember that anybody who tries to ascribe the decline in violent crime rates since the registry first came online to the registry is cherrypicking data and trying to mislead you. And please remember that the registry hasn't had any detectable impact on violent crime rates. I suspect that many of you will be startled to learn that firearms are used so rarely in violent crimes. This is probably due to the under-reporting of other violent crimes. Simply put, guns are Hollywood. These days, many people have never handled a firearm, let alone learned how to shoot one. Everything they learn about guns, they've learned from the news media, TV, movies, or books. Which is rather like getting your knowledge of physics from Roadrunner cartoons. Suffice to say that firearms are used in only a tiny percentage of violent crimes in Canada, and that gun violence is a very rare phenomenon (in which non-restricted firearms play a minor part). Knives are used much more frequently to victimize people, and yet we'd all agree that registering our kitchen knives would be nonsensical. Of course, I'm not claiming that violent crime committed with firearms isn't horrible (even having a gun that you know is unloaded pointed in your general direction is alarming), but we need to put it into proper perspective if we want to take an objective look at the long gun registry.
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"Oh, no, Julie," I hear my long-time readers groaning. "You can't even manage a simple dinner for two! What on earth made you take on breakfast for eight?"
Funny story about that. You see, Marc's family generally gets together on Sunday morning for breakfast at Belle Provence. The problem is that they take up an 8-to-10 person table for nearly three hours, making the wait staff kind of annoyed at us. Last time, Marc and I were holding a 10-person table for forty-five minutes while we waited for everyone else to show up, and I decided I'd had enough. I (probably foolishly) offered our place for breakfast.
Actually, things worked out rather well, except for a brief incident with the fire alarm going off before the guests arrived while we were pre-cooking the hash-browns. (That wakes you up, I tells ya!)
Breakfast was bagels, cream cheese, and lox; eggs, bacon, and hash browns; oranges; tea and coffee; and cake. Yes, cake, to celebrate Marc's parents' anniversary on Friday.
It all came out quite well, if I do say so myself. The only thing I'd change for next time is to buy less stuff. We wound up using only one of the two packages of bacon; a dozen and a half eggs instead of the three we bought; and only about half the bagels Marc's parents brought. Oh, and the hash browns were kinda on the crispy side.
All told: I vote this one a success! Yay!
(Good Jewish boys get their parents an anniversary bagel instead of cake... just kidding! There's cake too!)
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...it costs Canadians approximately $250 to register one firearm.
This is assuming a low-ball cost estimate of $1.6 billion; if the true cost is $2 billion, the cost per gun is over $310.
Bear this in mind as we continue.
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Today Kyn started his new Cyberpunk game. We're playing members of Japan's "Section 9," an agency devoted to dealing with domestic crimes, especially those involving cybertech and cybercriminals. Players so far are:
1. Marc, playing "Killswitch," the group's combat expert who (rather uniquely in today's day and age) abhors cybertech and refuses to have any installed.
2. Pat, playing "The Lieutenant," from a military forensics background and the group's spooky-creepy guy.
3. me (Julie), playing "Bones," a cybertech doctor with underworld connections.
As always in my games, I can't let good and quotable lines pass me by, so we've got lines of the night! Here we go!
( The Cyberpunk Diaries, Sunday, Nov. 7 )
That it's for this week! Join us next time for more cybered-up high jinks!
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A quick update with funny, insignificant stuff before I do a little more work and then face the outside world for a dinner out and the BSG board game (yay having geek friends, serious yay)
- Joss Whedon makes bid for Terminator, because even though I don't really care for the Terminator franchise, everything this dude writes is hilarious genius, so.
- LOL Matt Bomer. Go to 1:32 and laugh, that sweater is basically the worse thing ever knitted by man. And his face and his demeanor, just LOL all over.
- Zac and Vanessa are not in the same city anymore but they continue to be adorable separately: him at a Lakers game (he gets so into it) and her at the Giants (I really, really love that they go to see the minor league here, lol) (Lucas's sweater is awesomely dorky, too). (Edit: Aw it's old photos from the last game. I don't care in my head they totally went again.)
- Guess who totally just uploaded 43 songs by Ashley Tisdale to her ipod. Masquerade is REALLY REALLY FUN, OK.
Oh oh oh AND. I HAVE 15 INTERVIEWS SCHEDULED. TADA. *DANCE OF JOY*. Now I can freak out about everything else. :D :D
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For part one, see here.
As I explained in my last post on the subject, the registry is a database consisting of a list of registered firearms, most of them non-restricted firearms (most rifles, shotguns, and carbines), but also restricted firearms (all handguns, and some rifles, carbines, and shotguns that are restricted based on appearance or length) and prohibited firearms (full auto and select fire firearms, handguns with barrel lengths of 105mm or less or chambered in .25* or .32, plus certain other firearms based on their appearance). The registry entry for each firearm also contains its current owner. Bill C-391 will merely do away with the requirement to register non-restricted firearms; restricted and prohibited firearms will still have to be registered. And Bill C-391 will not impact the registration requirements.
The registry was sold to Canadians as a crime prevention measure following the Polytechnique massacre; supposedly, it would reduce violent crime. The reality has not, unfortunately, borne that out, and if one thinks about it for a moment, the notion of a law requiring registration of an object reducing criminal misuse of that object is questionable; after all, vehicle registration doesn't affect drunk driving, and I'm sure that your car's registration documents are not what is stopping you from hitting the road while drunk, or for that matter using your car as a bank robbery getaway vehicle. But I'll get to the fundamental flaw with the registry concept later.
The best-known of the controversies surrounding the registry is that of its cost. While the Firearms Act was being debated in the House of Commons, then Justice Minister Allan Rock claimed that the registry would cost approximately 120 million dollars, most of which would be recouped through user fees, thus making the total cost to Canadian taxpayers approximately two million dollars ($2,000,000).
Nobody knows how much the registry has cost. Barring the holding of a Royal Commission to get to the bottom of the registry cost overruns, nobody will; the story of how the Liberal government of the time managed to run up those overruns, and then conceal them via shifting the costs to other programs and stonewalling Parliament and the Auditor-General is likely one of the worst cases of government mismanagement, if not downright corruption, that Canada has ever seen. The Auditor General's 2002 report on the Canadian Firearms Program is damning in this respect.
( Conclusions of the report behind the cut. )
In 2005, Garry Breitkreuz, a Conservative MP who's probably the best informed parliamentarian in Canada on registry issues, compiled the cost estimates released by the government to that date, and came up with a figure of $1.4 billion dollars ($1,400,000,000). This figure is incomplete, as the government never disclosed the costs incurred by other departments and programs in connection with the registry. The Conservatives and many Canadian firearms rights activists use the figure of two billion dollars ($2,000,000,000) fairly frequently; some of my more enthusiastic fellow nutz like to throw the figure of three billion around. I think that the true figure is probably close to but somehat short of two billion dollars, but that's just a semi-educated guess on my part..
I think that the question of the cost overruns is largely irrelevant to my concerns. While, as a taxpayer, I would like to see this money accounted for, and if any of it was improperly diverted, restitution made, the money is gone. This is a tragedy, as two billion dollars would have bought north of 450 MRI machines (there were only 110 of them in the country in 2002). The opportunity cost of the registry was huge.
As we can't get that back, the focus should be on the cost savings that would be generated by abolishing the long gun registry. Anti-firearms rights activists have recently been claiming that the RCMP has stated that the operating cost of the long gun registry is only three million dollars per year. While I'll submit that their past performance in this respect should be sufficient to throw this figure into grave doubt, it isn't substantiated by the information published by the CFC itself. Actual spending for 2006, the most recent year for which I have been able to locate a Departmental Performance Report for the CFC, was 68.5 million dollars (see section 3.3 of the report). Of this, 11.4 million dollars were spent on registration activities (see table 3 on page 26 of the report).
If you look at Chart 8, on page 19 of the report, it indicates that 6,445,279 non-restricted firearms, 221,456 restricted firearms, and 403,120 prohibited firearms were registered as of March 31, 2006. In other words, non-restricted firearms constitute over 90% of all firearms registered, and presumably incur the same percentage of the registry's costs, which would tend to indicate that we'd save rather more than three million dollars per year, probably close to nine million.
However, the exact figure really isn't the question here. I've provided the information on costs partly for historical background and context. The real question is the benefit generated by the registry. It's a matter of effectiveness, i.e. value provided in terms of saved lives and reduction in violent crime, that drives most calls to abolish the registry. And I'll start getting into that in my next post.
* The funny thing about this is that .25 ACP, sometimes called John Moses Browning's One Mistake, is actually less powerful than the ubiquitous .22 LR, but that's the subject of a whole other post...
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So, I have two giant projects due on Monday/Tuesday, so I'm working like a bunny but need a break before I go out and kill you all. Monday, I have my dress fitting in Construction. This would not be so bad, consisting of making a set of sewing instructions for teacher to look over, see if there is any more streamlined a way to go through with it, and having my muslin to look at, however! Because of the block issue, I fear I have to remake my muslin, which will take more than an entire day, combined with drafting and whatnot.
For Construction, I am putting together a collection project, using my dress from earlier to make a full collection... complete with fashion illustrations and technicals. We'll ignore that none of this is DRAFTING. Because it makes me calm down a bit. Sometimes. This also needs to include market research, which I am doing with 30 second interviews of boutiques in the area. Maybe today. Once I'm showered.
Right now I'm fighting with the Live Trace function in Illustrator.
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George wishes it to be known that he is The Saddest Cat In The Universe™.
Just so you're aware.
Life with me is a pit of suffering, despair, and angst. He's been HOWLING all morning.
Cats.
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...it's the size of the fight in the woman. Kimberly Munley certainly lends credence to the old line about God making men and women, but Sam Colt making them equal. Apparently, she engaged the Fort Hood gunman, shooting him four times and putting him out of the fight. She was shot once, through both legs, but will live.
I don't think that I need to say anything more.
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She was "quite a handful", apparently, and it took the vet and her assistant, with work gloves and a towel to get her out of the cage and properly sedated. Luckily, nobody got mauled. She has suffered indigniteez; the small of her back is shaved, with an ugly-looking set of stitches on each hip (the vet thinks it was "a big male being stupid", not a coyote or fisher) and she's wearing a plastic cone. She is not a happy cat at the moment. Makes me glad she isn't Jack's size.
She's not supposed to go outside until the cone comes off in ten days. Maybe she and I can start a support group.
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Appointment at the gym this afternoon. Am now a temporary resident of the Land of Owie™.
Writing has been a slog. With luck, that will improve.
It's weird to be off again after only two days of work. I think I'm going to enjoy this new schedule. :)
( Depressing stuff that's not all that interesting )
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... here they are.
By way of background, I'd recommend that everybody first read this recent CBC.ca piece on the history of the Firearms Act. It's not entirely accurate, but it does give a pretty good overview of the timeline of events. In order to properly understand what the registry is and what's wrong with it, you need a basic understanding of the Firearms Act. If you're interested, the full text of the Act may be found here, and the regulations here. And, for completeness' sake, here's the text of Bill C-391.
On a high level, the Firearms Act and regulations set out three main sets of rules that individual gun owners must comply with: these are the safe storage and transport requirements, the licensing requirement, and the registration requirement. Bill C-391 does not affect the safe storage and transport regulations, but since registry advocates frequently conflate the licensing requirement with the registry (either out of mendacity or ignorance, neither of which does their side credit), I'll explain the licensing requirement first.
In order to legally possess or acquire firearms in Canada, you need a Possession and Acquisition License, or PAL. There are two kinds of PAL. A PAL allows you to possess or acquire non-restricted firearms, i.e. most rifles, carbines, and shotguns; Restricted PALs allow you to also possess or acquire restricted firearms, i.e. handguns and certain long guns that have been restricted either on grounds of appearance or length.
In order to get an R/PAL, one first has to take both the Canada Firearms Safety Course and the Canada Restricted Firearms Safety Course (the CFSC and CRFSC, respectively). These are followed by both a written exam and a practical safe handling test that involves handling a wide variety of deactivated firearms. If you pass both exams, you can then apply for your R/PAL. This requires completion of a four-page form, providing two photos, two references, disclosure of all your "conjugal partners" for the past two years to the RCMP or provide their signatures on the application (in other words, you're required to disclose your sexual history to the police), a letter from your doctor if you have been treated for a mental illness within the past five years, and of course, proof of completion of your CFSC/CRFSC. This is then sent to the RCMP, who call your references, conjugal partners, and doctor, if any, and run criminal background checks on you. Once that's done, they hand the application off to the provincial Chief Firearms Officer (the CFO) who then completes the application and issues your license. Once you've got your R/PAL, you can then trot off to your friendly local gun store and go shopping; you need a valid R/PAL in order to buy firearms or ammunition. R/PAL holders are tracked in a database that is separate and distinct from the registry, and each R/PAL holder undergoes daily checks for restraining orders, arrest warrants, committal orders, and the like.
At the outset, I thought that this process seemed reasonable and straightforwards, in theory at least. However, in my case it took eleven months from application to receipt of license. Suffice to say that I was sadly disillusioned by my discovery of how the system really works and now, well, I think I've been making my opinions abundantly clear ever since.
The key points to remember are that the licensing process and database are entirely separate and distinct from the registration process and database and that Bill C-391 will only affect the registration requirement for non-restricted firearms, not handguns or other restricted firearms. Anybody who tries to tell you that Bill C-391 is going to affect the safety course and testing, spousal notification, background checks, and licensing requirements, or that after C-391 we won't know who owns guns, is either ignorant or deliberately trying to misinform you. Either way, they are not telling you the truth.
So, you're thinking, if the licensing program contains all the useful and effective features of the Firearms Act, what does the registry do?
The Firearms Act requires that all firearms made in Canada or imported into the country be registered in the firearms registry. We have been registering restricted firearms in this country since 1934 (and a historical study of crime rates since then should make a reasonable reader question the effectiveness of registration as a public safety and crime prevention measure right off the bat). Again, Bill C-391 does not affect the requirement to register restricted firearms; anybody stating or implying that C-391 will remove the registration requirements for anything other than non-restricted firearms either does not know what they are talking about or is attempting to mislead you, and quite possibly both.
The registration process requires that a firearm first be verified; you call the Canada Firearms Center (the CFC) and speak to a verifier (the verifier program fiasco is another example of how poorly thought out the Firearms Act was, but I won't go into that here). When registering a firearm for the first time, you provide certain information (including the make, type and action type of the firearm, serial number, barrel length, and chambering), and the verifier ensures that you are not trying to register a type of gun that's been prohibited. Once that's done, the verifier provides you with their number and the Firearms Reference Table (a huge list of firearm types and variants) number for your firearm, and you then proceed to complete and file a two-page registration application.
Upon receipt of your application, the CFC then enters your firearm into the registry, which is a computer database holding a record for each registered firearm. It's resident on servers at the CFC's offices in Miramichi, New Brunswick. Once your gun is registered, the CFC issues you a registration certificate for it.
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This is the end result of the registration process.
Image courtesy of www.moral-flexibility.net. |
Each gun's record has a field for the R/PAL holder who currently owns the gun. When transferring a gun, the current owner provides the recipient's R/PAL number to the registry, and the new owner is provided with a new certificate in due course. You're supposed to keep the certificate with the gun and provide it to law enforcement officers upon request. Given that the consequences for failure to do so can be unpleasant, most firearms owners keep multiple copies of all their certificates and other paperwork in their vehicle, range bags, gun safes, each gun case, etc. You also have to re-register when you've modified a gun in some respects; when I got the 14" barrel for Marla, I had to phone the CFC and get them to issue an amended registration certificate. That is basically all the registry does; it is just a big list of guns and their current legal owners. When a firearm is found, the police can check its serial number to ascertain its last registered owner, and can check the registry to see what guns are registered to a given person, and gun owners are required to carry a piece of paper around with them when using or transporting firearms. In a perfect world, this might actually not be such a big deal. However, in reality, there are numerous problems with it. I'll go over these in my next post.
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The Mightye Huntresse got into a fight with something and has a couple of nasty-looking but clean open wounds on her hindquarters. So we stuffed her into the carrier (amazingly, no blood was shed, but She. Was. Not. Happy.) and ran her up to the vet's this morning. Janet (the vet in question) is going to try to sedate her, then shave her butt and sew her up. No idea what she tangled with (given that she survived the fight, I'm thinking probably one of the bigger local barn cats), but we're just glad she's OK. But boy is she going to be pissed when she comes home with a cone on and isn't allowed outside until the fur on her butt starts growing in again. She probably won't speak to me for months.
I briefly considered taking up coyote hunting when I saw her injuries, but didn't give in to the temptation. Apparently, they taste awful. And it's not like I can do much at the moment anyhow.
In other cat news, Maggy Moo is growing and appallingly cute, and Rudy remains his usual handsome, air-headed, food-obsessed self. Those two are getting along like a house on fire.
I've been following the media reaction to Bill C-391 (no doubt you're all surprised), and am feeling increasingly optimistic. Although many media outlets are diligently following The Journalist's Guide to Gun Violence Coverage while using the Gun Control Dictionary, overall the coverage is almost startlingly favourable, and on CBC.ca, which is not exactly a firearms owner-friendly space, article comments are running strongly in favour of C-391 (not, of course, that those are a reliable indicator of anything). There's still a lot of well-meaning but spectacularly uninformed commentary by people who know nothing about guns or the Firearms Act, and the usual minority of people who don't know that Bambi wasn't a documentary, anti-gun moonbats and bigots, but so far, it's pretty clear that most people have finally understood that it's time the registry was terminated. The Coalition for Gun Control has yet to issue a statement on Wednesday's vote, interestingly. I'm expecting that there's going to be a predictable attempt on their part to exploit the twentieth anniversary of the Polytechnique shootings next month. It's predictable, but the victims deserve better.
Not feeling much better today.
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It's very odd. I'm not participating in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month, for the uninitiated). Never have. Really, I'm more of a "short story" person than a "novel" person, and my muse just talks to me when she talks to me, writing contests be damned. I think if I tried to force her to write 50,000 words in a set time-period, she'd bugger off just to spite me.
So it amuses me to no end that in the last three days I've written over 10,000 words, which for all intents and purposes are not merely a series of short stories, but actually a series that could be strung together to form part of a novel. And I'm not even halfway done yet, I don't think.
(The fact that the resulting novel would have a target audience of less than 6 people on a good day is completely beside the point.)
Oh, muse. You've certainly got a sense of humour, my darling.
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The blunt instruments*, for all the delightful sound effects (the sound you get when you whack a zombie in the head with an electric guitar is most entertaining), are waaay overpowered. It's possible to dive right into a whole crowd of them flailing away with the machete and still come out relatively unharmed. In fact, I just finished the demo using only a frying pan and machete. Given the increased number of zombies relative to L4D, the absence of fatigue is jarring. My arms wouldn't have lasted five minutes at those rates of whonking (and don't get me started on my back). In fact, I really wish the game industry would discover fatigue as a game mechanic (running out of wind while being chased by the Nameless Horrors would be interesting). I'd love to give some game designers typical game loadouts (rifle, sidearm, several hundred rounds of (dummy) ammo, first aid kit, assorted explosives, etc.), and chase them around a jogging track with a cattle prod to see how long the could maintain a sprint and still aim properly.
It's also interesting to note that in the Left 4 Dead universe, frying pans, electric guitars, machetes, and nightsticks come complete with tactical weaponlights mounted on them. Invisible ones at that.
A little inconsistency in terms of mechanics is that you can carry either a blunt instrument or a pistol, but once disabled, you suddenly magically have a pistol again. That inconsistency irritates me for some reason.
The improvements to the Director (the AI that controls the zombies, the pace of the game and so forth to make each runthrough non-repeatable) include allowing it to change the routes through each map. This is going to keep things from getting boring.
The new boss infected are pretty interesting in terms of dynamics. The Spitter in particular is a) hideous, b) a real pain as it can force a group to suddenly split up in order to avoid acid damage and c) hideous. I find the Jockey's laugh annoyingly cartoony. And it's nice to see female Boomers. Sort of. They're not really a pretty sight, unless they're standing next to a Spitter.
The new weapons include a "Chrome Shotgun". Hee! And the flashlights being ziptied onto some of the guns is a nice touch. Sadly, the game suffers from L4D's poor firearms modelling; 50-round magazines for assault rifles, 15 rounds for 1911s, etc. The game would be a little more challenging and realistic with 30 and 7, respectively. And dammit, you still get unlimited pistol ammo. Lame, lame, lame.
The adrenaline shots are annoyingly unrealistic; they speed you up without adverse effect for a short time. Lame. I haven't had the chance to try the defibrillator yet.
The zombies seem angrier, somewhat more decayed, and more aggressive. And the AI survivors are much more aggressive and better shots, but much slower to come to the aid of their teammates.
The gore factor is turned waaaaay up on the zombies. Holes in their chests big enough to throw cats through, shotgun blasts shredding flesh off bones, gaping abdominal machete wounds, arms and legs and heads coming off like bits of Mr. Potatohead, only with extra ketchup, and in some cases just part of the skull comes off, exposing the brains. And the blood spatter effect in close combat has been turned up. Waaaaay up. However, despite my best efforts, involving throwing jars of Boomer vomit at my feet and then flailing away at the resulting mob of enraged zombies with the machete, I have not been able to completely obscure my vision with blood spatters.
And pipe bombs, instead of the somewhat lame "huge cloud of pink mist" effect in the original L4D, now fling dismembered bodies about with wild abandon.
It's all really quite appalling (I can't wait to hear what Jack Thompson has to say about it) and I think I may have PTSD now.
All in all I like most of the improvements, and really dislike some of them. I note, however, that there's a "Realism" menu item; it's disabled in the demo, but hopefully it'll let you ditch things like the adrenaline and incendiary ammo.
*The game refers to them as "melee weapons" but I prefer using the more widely accepted term "blunt instruments", as established in the excellent British documentary Shaun of the Dead.
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Have seen advisor.
They actually... really took me seriously about not getting what I need from my teacher. I didn't officially "file" my report, since I want to meet with the teacher one more time, give it a shot, but they have all the paperwork whenever I give a green light and have said that they will hunt me down if I do not get in contact with them.
Breathing a little easier, you bet.
I was honestly surprised at how seriously this was taken. Not in a "omg, she is in sooo much trouble" but in a "we honestly want to help you learn" sort of way. That's probably exactly what they're supposed to do/there for, but it was nice none the less.
I'm hoping this all gets settled soon. The first person I met with was the woman who I spoke to while trying (and eventually failing) to get through this program the first time and she remembered me. That's still a huge kick in the face. It shouldn't be, but it doesn't help me feeling like this is my fault, it already happened before.
Keeping at it. May "treat" self to meal consisting of more than coffee. Crazy, I know.
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It's not quite a Class 3 zombie outbreak, but we have two members of the OCC down for the count, one with a confirmed case of H1N1, the other with a suspected case, and definitely some kind of flu.
Bizarrely, I am still unfussed, although we are quite short-staffed at the moment. I still think this is all being blown way out of proportion to its merits.
In the meantime, the office REEKS of Lysol and is giving me a serious chemical-induced headache.
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Via fellow black powder shooter 3fgburner:
This is what setting off a ton of the stuff under Parliament would have looked like:
It occurs to me that "what if Guy Fawkes had succeeded?" would make an excellent premise for an alternate-history novel...
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Me: "RCMP-GRC Montréal, bonjour, good morning!"
Caller: "Is [Officer's Name] there?"
Me: "I'm sorry, that section is closed until 0800. Is there an emergency?"
Caller: "I wanted to speak to [Officer's Name]."
Me: "I'm sorry, they're not in the office until 0800, in one hour from now. Is there an emergency?"
Caller: "No, it's fine. When are they going to be in?"
Me: "At 0800, in an hour."
Caller: "Okay, I'll try back in ten minutes. Bye!" *hangs up*
Me: *head connects violently with desk*
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This whole day has just run me out. I put together study notes for a Drafting quiz tomorrow that I am fucking determined to ace like an acing thing but probably won't. Headdesk.
Am now trying to write up a constructive point form of what I want tomorrow's meeting with my advisor to be like. Am feeling very lost. Do I want to try to have a meeting with my Drafting teacher first, to go over my notebook and correct all the errors, plus go over my draft and debate the mark first? Hell, do I want to do that at all? Pros! It looks like I did more things to try and solve this. Cons! All my in-person encounters with Drafting teacher have ended poorly so far.
With my Drafting notebook itself, it is a series of unfortunate circumstances that make things unfair but not really unfair enough that I feel anyone will take my side. Yes, I haven't had my notebook to take home since the beginning of the semester, but that's partly because I was ill and turned it in late. Yes, her markings are very vague, if there at all, but I should hound her for answers. Yes, when I ask her questions I am met with "check your notes" or "you tell me" but...
Can I really go into a meeting and tell my advisor that my teacher is unhelpful and expect to be met with anything other than "I'm sorry, but tough it out"?
So really, that's what I plan to do. I'll go to the meeting tomorrow to fix some things in my schedule and tell her that I spoke to someone who boosted my self confidence and gave me the push I needed to fight back but also warn her that if I come out of meeting with this teacher over my notebook and she didn't help me that I will be back.
...I need a drink.
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164 votes in support of Bill C-391, 137 nay.
That's a surprisingly strong showing in favour of repealing the long gun registry. I was expecting the margin to be within 10 votes; three times that margin is wonderful news.
Now the bill goes to review by committee, which can take up to a few months, and then it goes to the Senate.
Assuming that we don't have an election in the next few months, I expect that the registry will be history just in time for the nice weather. It looks like our registration certificate shoot and barbeque may be a go.
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Which is good, because otherwise the suspense would be killing me.
I have a few friends working in the gaming industry, and toughlovemuse and meallanmouse in particular have blogged repeatedly about female character design issues. And I think that it was baronscartop toughlovemuse's boss who once wrote that "focus groups are just another way to be told that your female characters need bigger boobs".
There are a exceptions to the 48-DD Chainmail Bikini Syndrome, though, and Valve has done a lot of them. Alyx Vance from Half-Life 2, Chell from Portal, and Zoey from the first Left 4 Dead all spring to mind. And it seems like Rochelle in Left 4 Dead 2 is going to be another example.
It's basically the same premise as L4D, but with a different set of four survivors and set in Louisiana, not the Pittsburgh area. There are a number of changes and improvements (although I don't think the incendiary ammunition counts as an improvement). Notably, they've added blunt instruments to the game anti-zombie tactical training sim, and dear lord the sound effects when you brain a zombie with a frying pan just plain kill me. I hope that they put a cricket bat in the final version.
Overall, the demo looks pretty promising so far. Back to the whonking.
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Saw the neurologist earlier. He thinks I might need surgery and is sending me in for an MRI scan. Apparently, the nearest one with the freeest schedule is in Kingston, which is not going to be a fun drive. Oh well. Hopefully I'll have improved enough by then that I'll be able to manage it.
My colleagues had a basket of flowers delivered today. That was really touching.
Bill C-391 is up for second reading today. It's going to be a squeaker, but several of the swing MPs whose offices I've called have indicated that they're voting in favour, and I'm letting my hopes up a little. Basically, as the vote is not whipped, but rather a free vote, pretty much every rural MP out there knows that his or her constituents are going to be irate if they don't vote for the bill. Pretty much the only areas where a substantial portion of the electorate still supports the long gun registry are Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver, and in most of the rest of the country voting in support of it on a free vote would be politically unwise.
There are a lot of anti-C-391 pieces appearing in the media this morning, some of it making flagrantly untruthful claims such as that C-391 is going to dismantle the licensing system or that if it passes the police will have no way to tell whether somebody owns a gun. Hopefully, it's too little, too late. If any of you have questions or concerns about Bill C-391, please feel to ask me, and there's a good summary of some of the problems with the registry here.
I'm tempted to ask the rhetorical question of how many MRIs could have been bought with what we flamed on the registry (the answer is one for every hospital in the country). That's a particularly sore point with me right now, heh heh heh, but really, I'm kind of tired. I've done my bit over the past few weeks (written rather a lot of emails, spammed the living hell out of that Facebook group, and called the offices of every single swing Opposition MP to express my hope that they'd vote for C-391), and so I think I'm just going to take it easy for the rest of the day. Even if C-391 fails, it's only a matter of time before the program is ended. We're making progress; who would have thought, six years ago, that a private member's bill under a minority government would have a chance at repealing the registry?
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So Maine pulled a Prop 8 and rejected the marriage equality law that the legislature had passed a few months ago.
What the fuck. I don't even know what to say anymore, because this (or a version thereof) has happened so many fucking times now that it's plain ridiculous. I don't even understand it anymore. Also YOU DON'T FUCKING VOTE ON MINORITY RIGHTS. The more we see these on the ballot, the more that's becoming the most aggravating aspect of it.
Between this and ridiculous grad applications that demand proof that I have $40,000 available in funds to move to the country, I am not feeling partial to the U.S. AT ALL this morning. Ugh.
EDIT: WTF I didn't realize it was the anniversary of Obama's election. Way to fuck it up.
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Me: "[RCMP radio identifer], go ahead!"
Officer: "Hi, I'm logging into a vehicle?"
Me: "Copy that, go ahead with your vehicle number."
Officer: "My reg number is 12345."
Me: "10-4. But what's your VEHICLE number?"
Officer: "Oh. It's XXXX."
Me: "10-4. Your reg number is 12345?"
Officer: "We're in the downtown area."
Me: "Okay, but I need you to confirm your reg number. 12345?"
Officer: "Oh, yeah."
Me: "Copy that. I'm setting a timer for sixty minutes."
Officer: "So how often are you going to be checking in? Every hour?"
Me: "10-4. Every sixty minutes."
Officer: "Can't you make it longer?"
Me: "Negative on that. National policy puts it at a maximum of sixty minutes."
Officer: "Fine."
Me: "[RCMP radio identifier] over at 09:02."
*head connects violently with desk*
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I just managed to put my left sock on by myself, unaided, for the first time in weeks.
Off to see the neurologist.
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Really, there's nothing to see here. Just a little post to let everyone know I'm still alive, still writing, still cooking (or trying to).
We now return you to your regularly scheduled LJ.
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You know they say no news is good news, right? That's pretty much where I'm at. Nothing happening besides the mundane, and overall things are good.
Unfortunately, it makes for horrifically boring LJ entries.
Sorry. :)
Only, y'know, I'm kind of not sorry.
Also, my cats are snuggling with me.
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Just got email back from my former drafting professor who I had asked to help me out on my project that was torn to shreds for no indicated reason so that I can continue in my OTHER CLASSES (for those of you not in the know, George Brown classes are all interlinked; you draw the garments in Illustrator, you draft them in Drafting and then make and market them in Construction and Marketing respectively). How am I supposed to go to my Construction fitting to talk about sewing techniques and whatnot if my dress is four sizes too big for a reason you were unable to figure out?!
Anyways, just got email back from Good Former Professor and apparently SOMEONE has been causing drama since now teachers are "not allowed to intervene/interfere in projects from other classes" because apparently it causes "confusion". If by confusion you mean learning something. You know how to get me to not go to other teachers? Teach your fucking class correctly! Give helpful criticism as opposed to circles, Xs and question marks in red pen, followed by telling me to "read my notes" when I have to seek you out to ask what the correct answer is. If it's like that in my draft, it's entirely possible it's because it's like that in my notes, not just because I was too lazy to READ. By the way, you're supposed to put the correct answer/suggestions on the original, you moron.
Just... FUCK. GOING TO GO BITE THINGS IN THROAT.
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As the debate over Bill C-391 approaches, the antis are pulling out all the stops:
God help me, I can't stop laughing at the thought that somebody might find that video (a slow ten-round magdump out of a Ruger 10/22 that's very similar to mine was back when I had it scoped) alarming. Clearly, its makers know nothing of firearms or hunting (I hunt with my 10/22 all the time). If this is the best that they can do...
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It is WEIRD not to be at work today. New schedule has started, so I only work on Wednesday this week. A two-day week, imagine. The mind boggles.
Novelling has been a hell of a slog today. So far I'm clocking in just shy of 3,000 words. Maybe I'll be able to make it to 5K by the end of the day, but maybe not. Oh well. I refuse to angst about it. I have to get over this little hangup I have about producing the same wordcount per day as I did in 2006. I think that was a one-time fluke. NaNo is a marathon, not a sprint.
Otherwise today has been spent sitting quietly with the cats. They are all sleeping, doubtless plotting nefarious evilness telepathically. No good can come of this.
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Things continue to slowly progress. I have more range of back motion than I did, and the CAT scan results are in; I have a prolapsed disk. I see the neurologist again on Wednesday, and we find out whether surgery is going to be needed, hopefully. And I'm looking into renting a TENS machine.
One upside of this is that I've lost a fair bit of weight. I'm practically a wraithlike shadow of my former self at 226.5 lbs, down about eight and a half pounds since I went on a diet on my doctor's orders. Carolyn is starving me; please send beer and meat-based snack food. Regardless of the quantities of salad and yoghurt that I am being forced to ingest, I haven't been this light since I got down to 220 in 2001, when I was pumping iron like a mad iron-pumping thing. I'm thinking that I can turn this into an opportunity to whip myself back iinto shape again.
One amusing discovery stemming from the diet is that Maggy Moo is sinfully fond of Carr's Table Water crackers; she glommed one today, and when Carolyn picked her up, she simply grabbed the cracker in both front paws and continued nomming. Stella is getting over her snit, too. She actually let me pat her a bit last night, and has allowed the Loathesome Abomination to approach within reach without Smiting her. Rudy remains both handsome and kind of slow.
langolier2408 sent me a care package of DVDs. I have the best friends in Known Space.
mousme is posting her zombie-themed NaNoWriMo novel, Crisse, encore des zombies! (tr: "Jesus, zombies again!"), a sequel to last year's Crisse, des zombies!, over at her writing LJ, secret_history. CDZ!'s portrayal of a Class Three zombie outbreak in Montreal was loads of fun, and CEDZ! picks up shortly after its end. It looks promising. Of course, how can a novel that starts out in a zombie-infested subway tunnel be anything but?
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Today was my 8am class. We had an assignment to do and that means paired work. I thought I would beat my partner, but then she turned out to be pretty clever, if a little too leap before looking but hey. She was the one doing most of the sewing, she had to take out all her mistakes, what am I complaining about? I did nearly tackle her friend with the whiny voice who kept interrupting us and talking to her as if I wasn't there, though.
Came home and had my letter to the faculty advisor - I'm not even sure if it's really her, everyone has several job titles here that mean the same thing except when they don't - replied to. She can't/won't see me until Thursday. Super. Not like I'm going to be stressed out of my mind until then, no.
Was generally miserable all day and dreading going to Drafting tomorrow. Beat the water temple.
It gets dark at like, five now. It was sunny by 7am. I'm going to have to become a morning person; my apartment doesn't have enough lighting to be productive at night.
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It's the weekend! And you know what that means: it's time for another adventure in cooking!
This week's adventure is brought to us by butternut squash, which are on sale everywhere and which I've always wanted to try cooking. I've had a 4-lb (or thereabouts) butternut squash sitting on my kitchen table since Tuesday, just begging to be turned into something tasty and edible, and today I decided to take up the challenge.
The plan of attack: peel the butternut squash, cut it open, scoop out the seeds, cut it into 1" (or thereabouts) cubes, put those cubes on a baking sheet, drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with salt, pepper, and cinnamon (lots and LOTS of cinnamon), and bake at 425 (actually 450... I keep forgetting how hot my oven is) for about 35 minutes.
Final verdict: very tasty. This one's a winner, folks! (And I've even got half the squash cut up and ready for tomorrow!)
On the other hand, here are some lessons I learned from today:
1. Butternut squash is slippery. Don't ask me how many pieces I had to pick up off the floor and rinse off.
2. When cutting butternut squash, it's best to have the proper knife for the job. I don't. There was a lot of knife-levering action going on.
3. Handling butternut squash dries out my hands. A lot. I probably peeled off the first three layers of skin on the fingertips of my left hand. Next time: wear gloves.
4. My plates are not big enough to hold one 4-lb butternut squash worth of cubes. Thank goodness for mixing bowls.
So... tasty, but with fingertip casualties. Next time: definitely gloves. On the other hand, I highly recommend this one. Marc suggested that it might be good as a pseudo mashed potato, also. Anyone got a recipe for me that I can try?
Edited to add: Thanks, everyone, for your suggestions! I'll let you know how the next butternut squash adventure turns out!
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ow! son of a bitch!
busy
amused
EEEEEEEE!
wistful
rushed
bitchy
irate
complacent