the daily snivel

It's pretty amazing how much bandwidth this site uses up (an average of 10 megabytes of traffic downloading pages and images every day), and even more amazing how stingy the good folks at directnic.com (my domain name registrar) are in furnishing bandwidth to their hosted websites. You get 2 gigabytes of transfer bandwidth, or a year, whichever comes first. I tend to need to buy more bandwith 2-3 times a year, and having just received a notice yesterday that I'm once more running out of bandwidth for my popular little website, I'm getting a little tired of it.

So, two things will be happening.

First, and most disturbingly, I'm going to run out of bandwidth soon. The site will still be here, but it reverts to "banner mode," which means you'll be seeing banner ads at the top (and bottom) of the page. I assure you this is temporary.

Secondly, I'm going to be moving the site to a new host, like godaddy.com, which provides a lot more banbdwidth and a LOT more storage space for my buck. The address won't change, but there might be a few technical difficulties until the hosting transfer is complete, so bear with me. This will happen in the next couple of weeks once I have some money on my overtaxed credit card.

Meanwhile, please be patient. I'm getting ready for a move and must buy a car and much of my time and money is currently tied up. 

So the first thing I did yesterday at my driving test, when the examiner told me to get started whenever I was ready, was hit the turn signal, check my left outside mirror, check my rearview mirror, check my right outside mirror, and finally my blind spot, before gently pressing the accelerator to begin the examination.

And then the motor roared and the car did nothing, and I realized that the car was still in park and the parking brake was still on.

Duhhhhh...

After apologizing profusely to the examiner, who mercifully didn't deduct any points, and remarked that it was just the usual nervousness of being tested, we set out on our way. The test is done partially on an enclosed course, and mostly on the roads around the centre on Walkley Road here in Ottawa, but they start you off on the enclosed portion where you drive around on some intersecting little roads and observe the traffic signs therein before doing a three point turn and then a parallel park behind a concrete block that represents another parked car. I'm pleased to be able to say that both of these manoeuvers were performed without any errors on the test (as I was able to discern from the corner of my eye whenever I had a free moment to casually glance at the examination form). After that, it was time to hit the road.

The rest of the test was fairly straightforward -- turn right, drive along, turn right again, proceed straight, turn left, proceed straight, take a right, approach a yield sign, yield, turn right, turn left at the traffic lights, and so on, and in the end I pulled into a space at the Ministry and shut down the car, whereupon I was asked what direction I would turn the wheels if I were parked on a hill facing downhill (I would turn them to the right, for reference, based on my dumb but helpful mnemonic, "down right, up left" -- downright and uplift, get it?), and with a satisfactory noise the examiner informed me that I passed.

For the record, I passed with a score of 86, according to my helpful Young Drivers driving instructor, who informs me that the cutoff for a pass is 70 (as the more mistakes you make, the lower your score out of 100 is). The major comment he had for me is that I'm a bit too cautious, such that I tend to want to stop and look around before making a turn or enter a parking space from time to time, when what I must learn to do is look well ahead and make judgment calls well in advace. Advice well taken, but I'm still immensely pleased right now.

I took care of the virginity thing at 18 and now at 29, I've got my driver's licence. I am truly a man today.

The next step is buying a car. I've still got my heart set on the Toyota Echo Hatchback (a red one, I should think), and even ordered a brochure so that I can pretend I know a thing or two when I go to look at the darn things ("So, of course it comes with standard anti-lock brakes, and naturally I'll be wanting the LE package with power steering and extra speakers... harumph!"). I'm just waiting for a confirmation of my salary and employment from the firm I'll be articling at so that I can sweet talk my way into getting a lease even after the good folks at the Toyota Dealership get a gander at my student debt. 

This morning, at 8:30 am, I had my driver's test, and I'm pleased to say that I got my licence. Then I had a Public Law exam, which I also think I passed. Not too shabby.

Sorry for the brief update -- busy, busy, busy. 

They're gone.

They moved out on Sunday, while I was out helping a friend (and one of the former Review Counsel at the University of Ottawa Community Legal Clinic) and her family move out of their house as they prepared to head back to Toronto. I came back, tired and sweaty but full of good moving karma, and the house was empty. Numbnuts and Dumbelina, as I had begun to childishly refer to them, had finally (and at long last) gone. My messy, dope-smoking, garbage-piling, kitchen-filtherizing roommates of the past two years were finally moving on to their own apartment, which for all I care can now stink to high heaven -- of weed, microwave popcorn, and the fetid reek of the the brown slime that they let grow in the bottom of the sink as they neglected the strata of dishes they'd allowed to accumulate therein -- because it's no longer being shared with me.

Of course, they took a few things with them, including all my good knives, and my Pyrex measuring cup, and they didn't pay their $70 share of the hyrdo bill of the past two months (sticking me with the tab), and I'm paying two rents this month just to be rid of them, but all in all a small price to pay for the amazing peace and tranquility of coming home and having the space all to myself. It's fantastic. At the end of the day, the house is empty and there are no surprises. The kitchen is as clean as I left it (and you have better believe that it is clean. The sink is clean, empty, brown-slime-free, and smells exactly the way a sink should -- that is, not at all), the toilet paper roll doesn't need to be changed, there aren't useless fucktards sitting in my living room watching crap on TV through cable they haven't paid for in over a year, and all the doors are still locked.

I love being home now -- the counters have been washed, the stove is clean, there are no soiled baking sheets, pots or pans, or cutlery on my nice clean glass-topped dining table (or anywhere else), and the bread bag tags have been banished. Just for the heck of it, I'm walking around naked whenever I like, because it's my house for the next month and dangit if I'm not going to let the boys feel at home. I don't tense up when I'm home anymore. I've started using the living room again. The other night I sat in my living room, put a tape in the VCR, and watched Star Wars (the good Star Wars, not the revised Special Edition nonsense) -- just because I could -- while writing an e-mail to a good friend in Toronto.

I threw out all the food they'd left in the fridge because it was morally tainted, and everything else that they left behind is shortly to follow. You hear me, old computer and monitor in the living room that may or may not work but I don't care to determine?! You following that, Pilates workout mat that got used all of twice and forgotten in the living room? Do ya dig what I'm saying, grease tray for their inferior, non-George Foreman grill? Your days are all sadly numbered.

I really am attempting to accentuate the positive though. I sincerely do hope they have a clean and happy home now that they're gone, but I'm comforted by the fact that, either way, it's no longer my problem and no one else will be around to take the blame or cut them slack when things don't get done. Now that I've got space and freedom, I'm also getting ready for the big move with a newfound energy and determination. I purged about half of my knickknacks -- things I've been hanging onto and religiously displaying on the same cluttered shelves since I was 18 -- over the weekend, and packed more boxes. It's starting to come together.

Oooh -- except that I keep forgetting to book a truck! Cripes! Better get on that... 

My friend Natalie passed along a brilliant link to The Guardian's Book page where readers were invited to submit entries in a contest to find the best rewrite of the [ultimate new Harry Potter spoiler scene] in the words of another author. As my friend states in her message, however, "I don't even want you to dare to visit this website I'm going to provide you unless you've finished reading the Harry Potter because it contains the spoiler of all spoilers splashed in big bold letters every single place you look... Just by visiting the site, the book will be spoiled." So don't read the site unless you've finished the book. But when and only when you finish the book, you simply must, must read the entire climax as written by Irvine Welsh (as cleanly exerpted below):

The sweat wis lashing oafay Ron; he wis tremblin. Ah wis jist sitting in the Gryffindor Common Room, focusing on ma new Choaclit Frog jizz mag, tryin no tae notice the cunt. He wis bringing me doon. Ah tried to keep ma attention oan Wendolin the Weird, who wis takin oaf her bikini toap.

- Potts. Ah've goat tae see the Professor, the boy Weasley gasped, shaking his heid.

Ah wanted the radge tae jist fuck oaf ootay ma specs, tae go oan his ain and jist leave us wi wee Wendolin. Oan the ither hand, ah'd be needin a Cheerin Charm n aw before long, n if that cunt went n scored he'd haud oot oan us, the sick basturt.

Ultimately, you can run the whole gamut here. 

Neither ladies nor gents will ever be racing to bed you for knowing it and mentioning it conversationally at a party, but after many tedious hours today working on the new website for the Legal Clinic, I was able to work out something of fundamental importance. At least, of fundamental importance to people who work on websites that:

1. Use javascript
   
2. Use javascript variables that must be given text strings in the code in order to display things like titles on the website; and
   
3. Don't come with instructions.
   

And here it is: when you need to enter international symbols in blocks of text, say in French (because you're putting up a website for "Canada's University," which is mighty bilingual), and it is absolutely essential to put those dreaded "illegal characters" (like semicolons; apostrophes; ampersands; slashes; and the rest!) in because French is crammed with apostrophes, you don't need to shoot yourself in the head, painting the wall of your office a delicate shade of you despite the fact that normal HTML code-friendly commands like ' won't work either, because they also use illegal characters (and of course, this step was the first thing I tried when I realized after an hour and a half of trying everything that the reason my index page wasn't working was because illegal characters were in there somewhere).

What you do is, make it an "escape character" by adding a slash in front of the offending illegal character so that Java realizes you're referring to a block of text and not interfering with a line of coding. Thus, evil, illegal, no good:

'Clinique juridique communautaire de l'université d'Ottawa'

Becomes okey dokey:

'Clinique juridique communautaire de l\'université d\'Ottawa'

Useless information, I know, but it took me hours to figure it out, and I needed to say so. Goddamn University-mandated templates!