the daily snivel
This is one of those rare links I have to share. So, yes, I've become one of those obnoxious Macintosh people. And, yes, I'm excited about the iTunes Music Store, which is one of the first genuinely workable downloadable music retail concepts ever implemented. I'm a law student, and I have a cheap 56k dialup connection, so I don't download illegal music, unless, perhaps, it's merely "never recorded bootleg" illegal, and has never been digitally encoded on the underside of a CD by the starving artist in question. The iTunes store is presently available only in the US, and only for Macintosh users, but apparently it's going global and Windows friendly in the next month or two, as soon as iTunes 4 is ported to Windows.
Anyways, the point is that it's about time we had proper, legal, downloadable music for sale. The music industry has alienated scores of customers by first dragging its heels on on-line music purchasing, and then having the gall to sue students, grandparents, anybody, for sharing so much as one song on-line. On the other hand, sticky music retailing models are little better. Recently, Buymusic.com went on-line, and quickly made a shill of itself by offering music ONLY in WMA format, ONLY for Windows Internet Explorer users, and at widely varying prices with widely varying use restrictions. They have no plans to expand the service or the concept, and even redirect the users of other browsers and platforms to a cheerful "you're using the wrong browser/platform" page. Which, as you've read before in my various rants, is something that annoys me to no end. Standards, people. Standards. Accordingly, someone with too much time and too much vitriol has whipped up http://www.dontbuymusic.com/, which I stumbled across today. I try not to take sides in these sorts of things, but it actually made me laugh out loud. At work. Where I certainly shouldn't have been doing anything of the sort.
Also, I absolutely insist that you give a listen to some of the music by Brad Sucks. Especially his amazing song "Making me nervous," officially my favourite song of the week. It's free, legal, and nifty. Brad is also known as the Mad Hatter, genius behind The Fantastic Life and Suicide of Mr. Mary Holiday, whose exploits you can read of in my links section.
Tuesday, July 15, 2003 Anyways, the point is that it's about time we had proper, legal, downloadable music for sale. The music industry has alienated scores of customers by first dragging its heels on on-line music purchasing, and then having the gall to sue students, grandparents, anybody, for sharing so much as one song on-line. On the other hand, sticky music retailing models are little better. Recently, Buymusic.com went on-line, and quickly made a shill of itself by offering music ONLY in WMA format, ONLY for Windows Internet Explorer users, and at widely varying prices with widely varying use restrictions. They have no plans to expand the service or the concept, and even redirect the users of other browsers and platforms to a cheerful "you're using the wrong browser/platform" page. Which, as you've read before in my various rants, is something that annoys me to no end. Standards, people. Standards. Accordingly, someone with too much time and too much vitriol has whipped up http://www.dontbuymusic.com/, which I stumbled across today. I try not to take sides in these sorts of things, but it actually made me laugh out loud. At work. Where I certainly shouldn't have been doing anything of the sort.
Also, I absolutely insist that you give a listen to some of the music by Brad Sucks. Especially his amazing song "Making me nervous," officially my favourite song of the week. It's free, legal, and nifty. Brad is also known as the Mad Hatter, genius behind The Fantastic Life and Suicide of Mr. Mary Holiday, whose exploits you can read of in my links section.
As you recall, a long-lost dear friend (and ex-girlfriend) of mine pseudonymed "Lucretia" was due to come and visit. She was in town from Thunder Bay (a 20-hour bus ride from here) to surprise her mother on the occasion of her 50th birthday, and give her the gift of a nose piercing. That was also going to be a surprise, along the lines of "I've got an appointment for you in an hour. You've been talking about getting this done for long enough." I still have to hear if her mother went for it. We actually get along so much better now that we are just friends. We spent a few years growing apart after the last (explosive) breakup, but since then have just grown, and become much closer people, even though many miles typically separate us. Whenever she's in town, she is a welcome guest on one of my big comfy couches, and we always have a grand time. We went out for dinner, I gave her a mixed CD that I'd put together, and we played some music that she, in turn, had brought for me. In particular, I was introduced to more of the luscious goodness that is The White Stripes, and some swinging country punk tunes from Alejandro Escovedo, and a dazzling rarity by Weezer (with the singer of "That Dog") called "I Just Threw Out the Love of My Dreams." If you can find this song, listen to it. Man. It's great to hear such good music (and have it mixed up for me), especially since I'm presently too poor to buy any of my own, and that darn download-crazy iTunes Music Store isn't available in Canada yet (says Rob, the whorish Apple shill).
On Friday I had to miss work and attend a funeral for the father of a friend of a friend. I went as a show of moral support to someone who is very important to me, and found the experience sobering and surreal, particularly because the entire service was conducted in French, and my command of that language is poor. Fittingly, it rained in heaps the entire day, much of which I spent considering the nature of life and death (without coming to any particular conclusions except that one should live the sort of life that brings as many genuine mourners to his or her funeral as is possible).
On Saturday, meanwhile, I was off to Arnprior (an hour from here, packed into a rental minivan with my brother, sister, nieces, and my sister-in-law) for an all-day family reunion of sorts. My mother was already up there with my grandfather, 3rd grandmother, and my uncles. Short story: My mother's father divorced my grandmother some years ago and re-married a younger woman, with whom he had three more children. So my aunt and uncles on that side are only a couple of years older than I am, and younger than my cool, law-school-attending older sister in any case. This makes for fairly enjoyable get-togethers, as they are young and hip and (particularly in the case of my uncle Thomas, who has a special place in his heart for a certain herb shortly to be decriminalized in Canada) very open-minded and independent thinkers. I drank rather too much beer (after an entire school year's worth of law-school-sized alcohol consumption, I meant very well to give my liver a break this summer...), ate rather too much dessert, and all in all had a great time.
In other news, I received sort of a strange mass e-mail from one of the review counsel at our community legal clinic, with the brief message that we ought to read the attached file. Being insanely curious about the contents (since I had applied to take part in the clinic course this fall and was eagerly awaiting the word on that), I opened up the attached document without hesitation (deciding recklessly that it probably wasn't a virus and, in any case, that my Mac would brush it aside... and I'm sure someday one or both of those attitudes will seriously bite me in the bum). Lo and behold, I was accepted into the clinic course. What this means in practical terms is that I'm going to be extremely busy come the fall. I'll be combining a seminar course with community legal casework, involving things like client intake, court appearances, legal research and writing, and perhaps acting as duty counsel for a housing tribunal. All this must be juggled against an already bursting schedule. That said, it is a privilege that not everyone gets into, and will entirely fulfill the oral advocacy requirements of my law degree as well as giving me oodles of hands-on experience. I suppose it will also help me decide if I really do like helping people despite long hours and little (in fact, no) pay, or if I'm just a money and power-hungry weasel who can't stand poor people and all their problems, and wouldn't lift a finger unless it counts towards my billable hours at Corporate Law Firm LLP. Meanwhile, I have to figure out the rest of my courses for the year, because registration is coming up on Monday and I still have only a faint clue about what I want to take.
Tuesday, July 08, 2003 On Friday I had to miss work and attend a funeral for the father of a friend of a friend. I went as a show of moral support to someone who is very important to me, and found the experience sobering and surreal, particularly because the entire service was conducted in French, and my command of that language is poor. Fittingly, it rained in heaps the entire day, much of which I spent considering the nature of life and death (without coming to any particular conclusions except that one should live the sort of life that brings as many genuine mourners to his or her funeral as is possible).
On Saturday, meanwhile, I was off to Arnprior (an hour from here, packed into a rental minivan with my brother, sister, nieces, and my sister-in-law) for an all-day family reunion of sorts. My mother was already up there with my grandfather, 3rd grandmother, and my uncles. Short story: My mother's father divorced my grandmother some years ago and re-married a younger woman, with whom he had three more children. So my aunt and uncles on that side are only a couple of years older than I am, and younger than my cool, law-school-attending older sister in any case. This makes for fairly enjoyable get-togethers, as they are young and hip and (particularly in the case of my uncle Thomas, who has a special place in his heart for a certain herb shortly to be decriminalized in Canada) very open-minded and independent thinkers. I drank rather too much beer (after an entire school year's worth of law-school-sized alcohol consumption, I meant very well to give my liver a break this summer...), ate rather too much dessert, and all in all had a great time.
In other news, I received sort of a strange mass e-mail from one of the review counsel at our community legal clinic, with the brief message that we ought to read the attached file. Being insanely curious about the contents (since I had applied to take part in the clinic course this fall and was eagerly awaiting the word on that), I opened up the attached document without hesitation (deciding recklessly that it probably wasn't a virus and, in any case, that my Mac would brush it aside... and I'm sure someday one or both of those attitudes will seriously bite me in the bum). Lo and behold, I was accepted into the clinic course. What this means in practical terms is that I'm going to be extremely busy come the fall. I'll be combining a seminar course with community legal casework, involving things like client intake, court appearances, legal research and writing, and perhaps acting as duty counsel for a housing tribunal. All this must be juggled against an already bursting schedule. That said, it is a privilege that not everyone gets into, and will entirely fulfill the oral advocacy requirements of my law degree as well as giving me oodles of hands-on experience. I suppose it will also help me decide if I really do like helping people despite long hours and little (in fact, no) pay, or if I'm just a money and power-hungry weasel who can't stand poor people and all their problems, and wouldn't lift a finger unless it counts towards my billable hours at Corporate Law Firm LLP. Meanwhile, I have to figure out the rest of my courses for the year, because registration is coming up on Monday and I still have only a faint clue about what I want to take.
Whew. It's been a bit too long since my last update, so I'm sneaking in one today and hoping that a few people will notice and be gladdened. I guess the first thing I ought to mention is that I have, indeed, finally found myself a job. When last you heard from me, I was in the depths of summer job-hunting despair, but had an interview coming up that I was optimistic about. Well, the interview actually went very well, and a week later I began working at the Canadian Breast Cancer Network, a national information resource database run by cancer survivors. I'm their student research assistant and web content manager over the summer, and I dearly love my job. It is meaningful, challenging, fascinating, and rewarding work. I have to manage a tremendous amount of information (and conduct an audit of the website's hundreds of resources in between), and though I'm only earning minimum wage for the summer, I feel a lot better about my work than if I was slaving for big bucks with some corporate law firm. Heck, a job offer of that sort actually did come up once I'd taken this job, but I wasn't about to go back on this meaningful and wonderful position for anything, even the 3-4 times more money that the corporate job promised. Yep, me and my ideals. I'm going to be one of those incredibly poor lawyers someday, but at least I'll sleep well... in my cheap IKEA twin bed, cold and alone, but morally superior.
In all seriousness, I love my job. I actually look forward to coming in. It's in the busy heart of downtown Ottawa, meaning that I don't have to race like a maniac to get here in the morning, and during lunch I can go for a walk downtown and run errands without having to stray too far. I can bike here in fifteen minutes, which is really pleasant on a bright summer's morning. Cycling, though hectic in downtown traffic, continues to elate me and fill me with puzzlement that more people don't get out and enjoy the fresh air and actually some exercise (forgive me for sounding like somebody's mother), rather than being stuck in rush hour traffic with nothing but beeping horns and the inane blather of radio morning crews to spur you onwards to a fun-filled day.
I will say this for driving, however. It isn't having a car that makes you an incredible bastard, it's just that a lot of incredible bastards have cars. I'm sure many of them have bicyles and Macintosh computers, too, but it's the ones who drive that stand out when they choose to be irritating. Last night, I was cycling home from a friend's house. It was late, it was dark, and I was extremely tired after a long day. All I wanted to do was go home to some friendly faces and my demanding cat, and relax. I was only a few minutes from home after half an hour of cycling, and I had stopped at an intersection as I waited for a light to change. There was also a car at the intersection, behind me, but when the light turned green, it stayed where it was. Assuming that the driver was waiting for someone, I proceeded out and ever closer to home. All of a sudden, I heard the chugging engine crawling up behind me. I checked to make sure that it wasn't going to hit me, and kept going on my merry way. All of a sudden -- THUD. Something hit me in the back. The car sped up and drove past me, with a load of grinning idiots guffawing in the back seat. I tell you, if looks could kill, their car would have caught fire and the doors would have fused shut. I was humiliated and furious, all the moreso when I discovered that I'd been hit with an egg. A fricking egg! Did they have nothing better to do on a Monday night than drive around with a carton of eggs, looking for tired, grumpy people to pelt? I mean, get a girlfriend or a ficus plant or something just a little less pathetic and dumb.
Meanwhile, I'm looking forward to yet another delightful visit by my friend Lucretia, who will be in town this week for the occasion of her mother's 50th birthday. I always enjoy playing the host when she is around, and even if our past together was once volatile, we've both since matured and moved forwards into a very close and loving friendship (for two people who live several hundred kilometres apart, that is).
In all seriousness, I love my job. I actually look forward to coming in. It's in the busy heart of downtown Ottawa, meaning that I don't have to race like a maniac to get here in the morning, and during lunch I can go for a walk downtown and run errands without having to stray too far. I can bike here in fifteen minutes, which is really pleasant on a bright summer's morning. Cycling, though hectic in downtown traffic, continues to elate me and fill me with puzzlement that more people don't get out and enjoy the fresh air and actually some exercise (forgive me for sounding like somebody's mother), rather than being stuck in rush hour traffic with nothing but beeping horns and the inane blather of radio morning crews to spur you onwards to a fun-filled day.
I will say this for driving, however. It isn't having a car that makes you an incredible bastard, it's just that a lot of incredible bastards have cars. I'm sure many of them have bicyles and Macintosh computers, too, but it's the ones who drive that stand out when they choose to be irritating. Last night, I was cycling home from a friend's house. It was late, it was dark, and I was extremely tired after a long day. All I wanted to do was go home to some friendly faces and my demanding cat, and relax. I was only a few minutes from home after half an hour of cycling, and I had stopped at an intersection as I waited for a light to change. There was also a car at the intersection, behind me, but when the light turned green, it stayed where it was. Assuming that the driver was waiting for someone, I proceeded out and ever closer to home. All of a sudden, I heard the chugging engine crawling up behind me. I checked to make sure that it wasn't going to hit me, and kept going on my merry way. All of a sudden -- THUD. Something hit me in the back. The car sped up and drove past me, with a load of grinning idiots guffawing in the back seat. I tell you, if looks could kill, their car would have caught fire and the doors would have fused shut. I was humiliated and furious, all the moreso when I discovered that I'd been hit with an egg. A fricking egg! Did they have nothing better to do on a Monday night than drive around with a carton of eggs, looking for tired, grumpy people to pelt? I mean, get a girlfriend or a ficus plant or something just a little less pathetic and dumb.
Meanwhile, I'm looking forward to yet another delightful visit by my friend Lucretia, who will be in town this week for the occasion of her mother's 50th birthday. I always enjoy playing the host when she is around, and even if our past together was once volatile, we've both since matured and moved forwards into a very close and loving friendship (for two people who live several hundred kilometres apart, that is).
