Ken Gerrard

Overheard on the 18

2009-12-30T03:23:16Z

“Wanna hear it?”

“Uh, if it’s really short…”

Cycles of homo bitterness

2009-12-29T07:23:38Z

When I encounter someone, I tend to make a snap judgment regarding their hotness. If hot, I am obligated to look at them to an absurd degree, as if they can burn into my retinas for perpetual enjoyment. If not, I can relax and not obsess. HOWEVER it has sometimes been the case that a snap judgment toward the less hot becomes overridden with time, slowly creeping up on me.

I have few dude’mo friends, as the radical community is generally bereft and I’m usually reluctant to go far outside it, uncomfortable choosing between keeping quiet or sputtering. It’s been several times now that I’ve entered a friendship with a dude in the calm manner, safely knowing there is no danger of “feelings” only to be surprised when they manifest. Enough times that I should be wary, I guess.

So, yeah, inappropriate crushes: crushing.

HAPPY TIMES, HAVE A TRAIN PICTURE

It’s neato when it goes around a bend and you can see the future. Oh, summer can’t come quickly enough! Walking on the river is awesome, at least.

Favourite USB drive

2009-12-07T20:02:41Z

I’ve only joined the ranks of USB drive users recently; I relied heretofore on the Internet for my data transport needs. The drive pictured is 16GB and has the most delightful form factor, I was shocked and bewildered when I first saw it. It’s neato, but I’m not sure I don’t still prefer the Internet for everything but the hugest transfers.

ebook wot?

2009-11-13T07:00:29Z

I’d planned to wait for the library to have The Gathering Storm (not into buying hardcovers after a drastic paring-down during the last move) but on a whim I checked whether it was ebookable. Condemn me for stealing if you like.

Never read a book on a phone before. Pretty much a convert. So many advantages. The final stretch home at night regularly annoyed me with its lack of sufficient lighting for the read’n’walk. No problem with a glowing display! Winter reading’s page-flipping challenge could have remained but is solved by touching the phone to lips! Good thing I have no shame.

The convenience was significant. I quickly became engrossed in the story and could indulge easily when before pulling out a book was too awkward. I was a bit disturbed at how much I went for it, even when possibly inappropriate; I would never read a book in the third row at a cringe-worthy performance!

The application I used, Stanza, was adequate. Unsure how the sketchy ebook affected the experience. A hilarious aspect of weak OCR and no editing: Hyena!

Wow, glad to have read it, ill will from recent books forgiven. I’m not much for noticing style; it felt different, but I am more into the characters and story. Looking forward to reading commentary.

The bleakness

2009-10-25T00:44:13Z

I’ve accumulated a store of hopelessness lately after negative interactions with randoms and hearing terrible stories.

Last night we had a Copwatch patrol with two civilian encounters that were less than heartening. The first was a reformed criminal who suggested anyone who experiences police violence is getting what’s coming to them, that it’s karma. Even more joyous was the racist dude whose argument culminated in a statement like “they should’t use Tasers, they should just shoot people in the head, that way there’s less trouble.”

Today I attended a counter-demonstration in response to this 40 Days to End Abortion installation outside the Women’s Hospital; they say they want prayer to end abortion, but it’s obviously more than that.

These things are nothing new, but I’m feeling a nearly overwheming futility about engaging with anyone outside the bubble of like-minded-enough-to-not-provoke-misery within which I tend to circulate.

What I found particularly galling was that I was tempted into paths of argumentation that conceded too much. I can question the incidence of police violence against innocents, but then I condone it when it’s “deserved”. I can address the “it’s a woman’s fault if she gets pregnant” line of reasoning by raising rape, but then I’ve let them delegitimise choice.

The future seems dreadful. The aforementioned bubble also produces enough moments of joy and empowerment to sustain me, at least.

At the end of today's demonstration I retreated to the boulevard to finish The Handmaid’s Tale, certainly another contributor to my pessimism. “The crimes of others are a secret language among us. Through them we shoe ourselves what we might be capable of, after all.”

I’ll buck up.

Back, again

2009-10-09T03:18:49Z

I am in Winnipeg after an epic drive across Ontario. Outside Kenora we encountered snow. omgtoosoon?

Our departure was scheduled for after a Mirah show, which I sadly missed due to fainting from a standing position and hitting my head on a door on the way down?! I had never had such an experience: unawesome. Though the bar’s dreadfully jerky on-site paramedic called it H1N1, it appeared simply to be a combination of illness, dehydration, and mild intoxication.

I was coerced into going to the hospital, where the friend who accompanied me was subsequently ejected when he intervened on behalf of a mentally ill woman being ill-treated by security. Though I was sad to be alone, I do love my associates for these moments, and I was rescued by others before too long.

Mild episodes of vertigo persist, but it seems I’ll be fine. At least I know now “I think I need to sit down” is urgent enough to call for simply sitting on the ground rather than worrying about where to find an appropriate locale.

A story, bike lanes, books

2009-09-10T07:35:26Z

Tonight I was hanging out with friends on a downtown balcony in a soon-to-be-left 16th floor apartment, uncommonly dizzy for one not prone to height-fright. Someone observed that a usually-locked pizza dumpster below was ajar, but we merely wondered.

Later, we spotted a friend on a bike at a stop light and strained our voices yelling to be heard. She was mystified but came toward us. Rather than continue waking up the neighbours, we used the telephone. I gave unclear directions on how to join us but said “Could you check that dumpster you’re close to first?”

She did, to no avail. As she was digging about, a car drove slowly past down the back lane. We learned the details later: they paused and stared throughout her short, fruitless quest. She alit, looked toward the sky, and cried “Where do I go?”

The driver said “Are you talking to Jesus?”

When bike lanes were painted on the north-south streets of downtown, I reacted with typical scepticism. “They’re just lines painted on the road, as if that’ll stop a car from driving into you.” While it’s true, I rode in a car and remembered that the lines painted on the road actually matter to drivers, I could feel them in my mind as if they were physical barriers. I flow about the road on a bike, paying far more attention to the vehicles, pedestrians, and fellow cyclists than to the paint, signs, and lights because my own senses keep me more safe. The lines matter, though; I eat my words.

I’m reading Hos, Hookers, Call Girls and Rent Boys, based on this recommendation. Great, so far. The comments there raise a possible flaw, but if you want to borrow it, let me know; it’s not at the library. I’ll donate it to Junto, anyway.

Last week I devoured Jo Walton’s Half a Crown, the gripping finale to the alternate history trilogy. Read them? Have all three, too, if you want.

Why Are All The Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?, which I found via a locked post: also worth reading. The library has it.

Border-thwarted spontaneity

2009-08-29T21:59:25Z

In a bid to escape traditional post-event despondency, I decided to make a spontaneous trip to visit a Montréal friend staying in Indiana. I got to the bus terminal (now foolishly at the airport) ten minutes before the bus left and got a ticket.

The border guard denied me entry at the border, though they didn’t tell me until I’d been through a thorough fingerprinting. My story was too outlandish, it seems. The guard was stretching for reasons to deny me, I felt. Probably my honest answer regarding whether I’d ever been arrested didn’t win me any points.

There was a bus coming back north but I didn’t want to wait six hours so I thumbed along the highway and caught a ride to the edge of Winnipeg after two-and-a-half hours of walking. Thanks, Leroy!

Greyhound sold me a non-refundable ticket, don’t know what I’m going to do now. Bah. So much for that.

Recently spotted amusements

2009-08-17T00:45:02Z

On FaceSpace, on which I am known to spy:

On winnipeg, from which I am now banned:

A close friend of mine is moving to Toronto. I’m selfish.

I’ve started not using quotation marks around HTML attribute values. Scandal.

Pay phone adventure

2009-08-16T19:33:05Z

Like, yeah.

Moved, PS Home

2009-07-10T06:14:40Z

Though I procrastinated terribly throughout June, I managed to sublet the apartment and move into a long-running house nearby. I have a new address, anyone sending me mail should get it from me. The beloved home in Montréal spoiled me, didn’t want to live alone anymore, and paying $450 less a month helps!

Today I witnessed a precious/tragic moment with a friend after experimenting with exploiting glitches in Home, Sony’s bizarre Second Life-y PlayStation sandbox. Someone with the username “mormylove” spoke to her avatar. After we discovered his 19-year-old Utah-ianity, it quickly turned hetero, as seems common for her. Presented with commentary removed:

him question?
her g’head (paraphrased)
him is sex really as good as they say it is?

aboot

2009-06-24T20:49:39Z

I’ve extracted what I believe to be an example of “aboot” from Degrassi Junior High.

I’m pretty sure I don’t say it the way Caitlin does the first time. Isn’t it weird how it changes every time it’s said? I don’t understand enough about linguistics/IPA to decipher this article. Sound samples would go a long way.

Some photos

2009-06-07T22:44:41Z

I uploaded some photos, not all that exciting. This one is of me soldering a radio antenna. The last adventure I planned in Montréal involved a radio transmitter. I’d never soldered before, but I figured it out and felt good about it.

There were requests for the photos I took of Michigan Central Station, they are here. I didn’t mind climbing that incredibly-tall ladder, but after taking photos from the roof, I found a staircase down, heh.

Here is my tragic Flickr story. I made a donation toward the development of the Game Neverending and got to play the closed beta. I loved the game and community. Flickr quickly outgrew the game and development was shut down. Everyone who had donated was offered a Flickr Pro account. Bitter about the game ending, I said it was useless to me, since I didn’t have a camera. They said that if I ever got one, they’d give me a pro account.

I should have taken it then, obviously. Flickr was bought by Yahoo and I doubt very much they’ll give me one now. I’ve sent an inquiring email, but I’m not optimistic. I’m more likely than I used to be to use existing tools instead of making my own, but I don’t like having to pay for something I know I could set up reasonably well. U$25 isn’t that much, but my current income is nil.

Forthcoming

2009-05-27T19:56:18Z

No time to write, but all is well.

Extra bike, Winnipeggers?

2009-05-25T16:00:32Z

I will be back in Winnipeg soon, but without a bike. Does anyone have one they could lend me until I construct one from what I salvage from the touring one? It would be a great help to plan my next event.

Delightful moments outside court: officers charged, my charge dropped

2009-04-06T06:45:29Z

I feel weird about the nuances of this, but I don’t think I can let it go unnoted in this space.

On Friday, I got an email from a reporter that “one of the officers [I] quote on [my] blog” was charged regarding a shooting that happened in 2007. I immediately assumed it was my nemesis Kevin Smith, but it turns out to be Kris Overwater, whose hilarious pronouncement marked the beginning of my court writings.

The reporter must have Googled the names of the officers and found the commentary. Giving disgraceful police a web presence was one of the side benefit of the effort, so it’s neat to see it play out thus. Perhaps they would have found out anyway, but this made it easier. The media connexion between attempted murderer Selley and evidence falsifier Overwater’s actions at the May 2006 Critical Mass and the 2007 shooting and coverup hasn’t made much sense, but it’s still somewhat pleasing to have the extreme fallibility of the police given a high profile.

Speculation is rampant regarding what implications this might have for the Critical Mass trial. It’s been nearly five months since I was back in Winnipeg for court and there’s no trace of a verdict, whoa. Did the police and/or crown know during season two that Selley and Overwater had fabricated evidence? Surely it’s an isolated incident and not routine behaviour on the part of officers! Certainly they would never, say, conference after a mass arrest and decide what story to enter in their notes.

What do people like John Barr and Krista Piché think when they hear about things like this? I don’t expect we’ll ever find out.

In other news, my charge of presence at an unlawful gathering in St. Paul was dropped. Yay! Now when I cross the border, can I pretend I was never arrested? HMM. I have significant notes about events preceding the arrest that I could share, but it all seems so remote to me now. Really, we were having a fairly routine anti-war demonstration, I have no idea why I was arrested. At least now I know what compression grenades look/sound/feel like and will be more aware of being corralled.

And thus I return to a life of crime.

Coincidences in mapping

2009-03-31T21:25:15Z

Today I did a lot of thought labour to figure out how to organise my next event, tentatively May 9. It will be bike-y and map-y. In Winnipeg, I have access to map data and applications I’ve written to use it, here I will have to use different sources. Open Street Map might suffice, but I was searching for other possibilities and found this McGill page. The coincidence is the map they give as example:

That’s almost exactly where I default centred the map application I worked on for years!

Surréal 3000 archive, thanks

2009-03-29T19:07:11Z

One of my primary failings when it comes to the events I plan is documentation and promotion. I’ve put up a page describing Surréal 3000 so people can look back and have an idea of what these events are like.

This photo was taken the day of as I tagged along with one of the teams traversing the Métro. You can see the neato UV flashlight I got at the Museum of Science and Technology sticking out of my pocket, part of my super toolkit.

People seemed quite into the event. Using UV flashlights to reveal secret messages is exciting. One thing I love about the time after events is seeing the traces of them last into the future. I probably won’t get a Métro pass next month, though, sadly.

I hope to plan one more event before my trip back west, maybe the week before the Anarchist Bookfair. I have a core thing to organise it around but no mechanism for it to work, and that deadline is soon!

Thanks for the advice on the last post. Reinstalling Windows turned out to be a huge pain, I couldn’t get the computer to boot off a CD and after that had none of the drivers necessary, blah blah. Really not my area of expertise, but I muddled through.

Reinstalling Windows help: spyware prevention/whatever

2009-03-26T16:13:27Z

Many people I know here are suffering through spyware/virus/trojan horse infestation. Though I am not fond of Windows support, I’m less fond of sending them to places that charge the big bucks.

I have a copy of Windows XP so I can format a friend’s drive and reinstall, but what do all y’all use to prevent these things? I realise the wisest course is to avoid sketchy activities that tend to bring such things about, but people don’t understand about that. Also, I’ll have to scan the files we’re preserving, anyway.

International Day Against Police Brutality, 2009

2009-03-18T15:00:35Z

photo from The Link by Ion Etxebarria

On Sunday I attended a demonstration for the International Day Against Police Brutality. It’s odd to have a scheduled riot, a yearly smashing of things. 221 people were arrested, but my group left before most of that, when they started firing rubber bullets. I’ve talked to many people to hear their experiences and have a better understanding of it now. Someone I know was searched twice, roughly pushed against walls, while walking toward the meeting point; illegal, but since when has that stopped them?

There were some intense moments for me when I had flashbacks to St. Paul (compression grenades, riot gear), but it was mostly excellent, even romantic! Something I found fascinating was the intra-demonstration debate over tactics: occasional booing, choruses to speed up or slow down, the undoing of the work of others, an overheard “save your rocks for the pigs” (en français). Not much time for reasoned dialogue.

More on that ish, a comic, continuing challenges

2009-02-19T06:28:48Z

Another thing I’ve been up to is letter writing. I enjoy it! The first thing I drew in this new era was a copy of this comic that I saw and loved in a friend’s bathroom to include in a letter. The attempt was hilarious at times, but ultimately fulfilling.

Maybe the comic is a bit too smug? I still like it. The “what do you do” question has been an interesting one during my time here. I notice people at least often add a “Answer that however you like” disclaimer.

Things I have attempted and am still struggling with:
Dogs. I’ve long been a dog-hater, but it seemed right to try to let it go in close proximity to one. It was okay for a while, but the dog has taken to lunging at the booties I wear to keep my feet warm in our cold building. It is terrifying and knowing fear worsens the reaction doesn’t help at all!

Prescriptivism. Yes, though I’ve realised my tenacious hold on spelling, grammar, syntax, and so on is problematic, I’m still deep into it.

Debrief

2009-02-01T18:53:08Z

I feel like I always write similar things after an event. It went off nearly flawlessly and people told me they had a great time. Security at the outset wasn’t too thrilled to have us there but were placated when told that we would leave soon. Some participants told me excellent stories of their exploits, hearing such things is one of my favourite parts of event planning. It’s traditional for me to feel a bit deflated after it’s all done, and I do.

The rendezvousssss featured an exchange of beverages as a small ice-breaker. I made glögg, it was well-reviewed.

The climax of the event was a dance party in an under-construction office on the second-to-top floor of a downtown building. It was a delight. The self-identified project manager (presumably of the construction) made an appearance with a hard-to-read facial expression that might have been “bemused”.

I have two photos of the dance party but it feels improper to post them, sorry. Ask me and I’ll show you in person some time.

Reconciliation

2009-01-24T19:32:52Z

I’m wearing jeans for the first time in probably over ten years. They disrupt my pocketing system!

Clandestine Rendezvous 2009

2009-01-17T08:43:02Z

It feels good to be back into planning an event. I haven’t worked on anything in so long, a combination of being busy and perhaps trepidation considering the technical failure that ruined the first attempt at Clandestine Rendezvous.

Today I hid out in the warm basement of a university building and worked on the back end into the night, briefly interrupted by a massive congregation of debaters? I slipped in alongside them for some pizza, SCANDAL. I got a lot done and have ensured the bug won’t be repeated, though who knows about the other dangers. Certainly it’s a lot easier to execute without working full time.

As is common, I’m unable to sleep, mind wandering all about what I still have to do. Also unsurprising is that I’m thinking a lot about the event after this; I need to focus on what’s immediately ahead but I’m always mentally jumping around.

A quick teaser for an event likely to happen in March, with the tentative title Surréal 3000, after a book I enjoyed in junior high that I will hopefully not hate when I can finally read it after this event is over. (Note: I do stereograms in the “cross-eyed” rather than “wall-eyed” way, but I will learn to make them work either way.)

I’m excited to get back to Winnipeg with new ideas.

Tiny interface pleasures: space management

2009-01-15T21:41:51Z

I’m working on an event but I’ll pause to note one of those minute details that makes things just a bit easier. MacOS X 10.5, not sure when this was introduced. I decided I was going to use French word order for Métro stations, so I went back to edit what I’d entered as “McGill Métro”. I double-clicked “Métro”, cut, noticed that it had also grabbed the space, moved to the end of the field, and pasted and it added the space at the end. Maybe there’s a situation where this wouldn’t make sense? But I love it.