i've been off my bike this year, but the reason i have a ski mask is actually for winter biking.

even at +5, biking through a winter wind can be brutal without one.

the cold north wind decided to blow over the city of windsor this evening, making the walk to the bank machine, and then to the library, and then home to staple the print-outs, and then back to the mall to mail the result, a frigid and difficult exercise. when the wind blows like that, it really is like walking uphill both ways.

and, if i'm going to walk uphill for an hour, i should bring an article of clothing designed for walking uphill in the cold, namely a ski mask. it's a good thing that i had my trusty ski mask on a night like tonight, otherwise i would have probably frozen my hair and ended up looking like medusa - and i have done that before. i have pictures.

ski masks are a normal part of a canadian's winter wardrobe, and can be purchased for $5-$30 at a wide variety of hardware, multipurpose and novelty shops. i believe that mine was purchased many years ago at a walmart in ottawa, but the cool kids tend to pick them up at skate, ski or bike shops.

but, i got my stuff mailed, and i got something to eat, and i did the dishes, and i'm just about ready to get back to it - i just need to let my stomach sit for a little, before i take a shower.

the ancients had us beat, logically, on that one.

if there's anything in our consciousness, imaginary or not, that it makes sense to call 'god', it's the sun.

again, this is not a debunked theory, but an active research topic.

i've posted several studies at peer-reviewed journals. these are far more convincing than some idiot's opinion on tv, some moron's rant on youtube or some nonsense at somebody's blog.

i would invite you to do the research yourself, rather than rely on the authority of people that deserve absolutely no deference on this topic at all. this is potentially an important lesson in critical thinking, if you look into this properly. 

the reality is that the government is actually spending a lot of money right now in funding research to try to understand this better. that is the state of the current science: we don't understand this well and we're trying to figure it out.

but, there is enough evidence to suggest that there is something to this idea, and that, the more we study it, as we are doing currently, the more we'll understand it.

stated tersely: it is viciously rational to think this is the case. the history of this topic goes through some of the greatest minds in the history of science, most of whom intuited the obvious truth of the matter. if you reject this offhand, you're not thinking clearly.

obviously, you need to quantify the situation properly. there has to actually be enough mass involved to create an actual force. so, no - a butterfly flapping it's wings on pluto doesn't create a lot of energy. but, the sun is the cause of virtually everything around us, enough that it almost makes sense to worship it (almost), and it is certainly capable of creating enough gravitational force to rip us apart.

in fact, that will happen. literally. eventually.

the math is complicated. these are n-body problems. but, i'm in very good company when i suggest that it is in the realm of future science for us to better understand the role that planetary bodies play in earthquakes and volcanoes, enough that there could be predictive science underlying it.

but, we'll have to wait for all those tax dollars to do their work, first.

https://www.usgs.gov/faqs/can-position-moon-or-planets-affect-seismicity-are-there-more-earthquakes-morningin-eveningat-a?qt-news_science_products=0#qt-news_science_products

no response.

this is supposed to be an oversight body. that's their statutory basis. so, this is that much more absurd.

so, here i go - i'll need to get the documents together for two motions and mail them to the court.

the public library isn't open until noon, and i'll have to call the university to see if they're open at all, which i suspect they aren't. my memories of the old macodrum at carleton is that it tended to close after exams and open back up on the first day of classes. but, we'll see.

so, they've got some more time.

and, i'm actually going to take a short nap because i only slept about three hours yesterday afternoon.

alright, so the master document is built. at a mere 172 pages, before formatting, it is a much smaller document, and there is still some chance that it could get finished before the end of the year. we'll see.

no scripts & only 6 html files....

i'm going to stop for some more fruit and get to putting together the documents for the morning. i'm going to need to find somewhere to print them, which may be a bit of a concern. worst case, i'll need to wait. we'll see, soon enough.

don't misunderstand me.

if there was a concert somewhere, i'd go, in spite of the date, rather than because of it.

but, i'm not going to get drunk because it's new years. that's fucking bourgeois.

actually, i hope you all get so fucked up tonight that you fall down the stairs and break your respective necks

happy new years.

just keep it out of my air supply, please. i've got shit to do.

as far as i'm concerned, it's just cold out.

i haven't gone to a new year's party since i lived in ottawa.

it's not something i really care much about.

"but, it's new years."

what is your argument, here?

that you're so pathetic that you want to sit at home by yourself and smoke drugs on new years? that you need the drugs to cope with your deep void of existential loneliness, as pushed down from the top by capitalist media? and that that's some kind of free pass?

it's not even the actual solstice.

it's just a calendar error.

i don't care what day it is. go for a fucking walk...

i stayed in tonight because i wanted to get some work done.

which means i want to be sober.

that's why i signed a non-smoking lease - i need to be able to get away from the party scene, sometimes, and clear my head and focus. it's very important to my mental health.

so, i really wish this guy would keep the drugs away from the house and go for a walk and smoke in the park.

i'm hoping i hear from the subsidized rent people, soon. those buildings are non-smoking, by way of bylaw. so, when i make a smoke complaint, the management will need to investigate it and enforce the rules.

i will need to do a lookahead for january soon, but i don't see any obvious shows until march, and i may decide to stay in until then.

the scary winter that the weather people forecasted, and that i was skeptical about, appears to be happening slightly to my north; i've ducked in under the jetstream, which is indicative of a slightly stronger magnetic field from the sun, which is on schedule. it should be another ten years or so before the brutally cold winters return, and we'll have to see if they're even able to take hold at all, with the warmer oceans.

but, even a warm january is still cold, in detroit. and, the kinds of all-nighters that i like to pull on marginally interesting shows are not going to be very realistic for quite a while. i'd have to really want to get out to something, and, for right now, i don't see it. we'll see, though.

if i get out to anything this winter, it's most likely to be at the dso. 

i actually expect to tone things down for 2020. i don't do resolutions, but i'm aware that the interestingness of the shows that are happening is decreasing with my age. and, with the pivot back to finishing releases, i actually expect to be too immersed in my art to care much.

as far as i can tell, we're living through a down period for music as an art form. the music of the 20th century (which includes techno & hip-hop, in addition to rock & jazz) has already exited it's creative phase and is winding itself down, and what promises to replace it, these amalgams of electronic and psychedelic music, hasn't materialized into an actual art form, yet. maybe i should be contributing; but, maybe i am.

if something changes, i'll react. but, it seems like the most interesting shows this year are probably going to be rock bands full of aging gen xers, and legacy electronic artists that actually aren't that much younger.

if the millennial generation (which, like their boomer inspiration, are primarily consumers and emulators of art rather than innovators or creators of it) runs from 1980-2000, then the youngest of them will be entering their 20s soon, and there will be pressure on them for generational overturn relatively soon. i've been very clear that i think there's more potential with gen z as a kind of "gen x echo", and you can see it starting to develop with the youngest millennials who are maybe blazing a bit of a path. but, this will probably take a few more years to develop.

i'm happy to focus on my own work, while i'm waiting.

but, i do have to keep an ear to the ground, even if it's a critical one. as a musician, i'm required to have some concept of what's happening around me, even if i just dismiss it.

i got my pizza and watched the debates.

i had too much pizza....need to sit down....

i may not have another full meal until january.

the debates were not exactly what i expected. bernie has, in fact, toned it down a little, and that's a good thing. rather, it was mostly warren that got into the tiff with buttigieg, and actually...

i think he handed her a death blow. she's done. and, in fact, i think she knows it. she seemed on the brink of tears for the rest of the debate; i think she knows she missed her chance. i'd expect her to withdraw relatively soon.

klobuchar didn't come off nearly as badly in her scuffle with buttigieg, but i do still think that he got the best of her. if anything, bernie seemed to know better.

most of what i saw and heard just reinforced that i'm substantively further to the left than this party is. i didn't like much of what i heard from any of them.

yang had some good opportunities, but he just reinforced the perception that he isn't actually serious. and, steyer is a billionaire running against billionaires? let's hope that's the last we hear from both of them.

biden's hawkish response on the china question was flat out frightening, but it seems to be in the mainstream of bourgeois left thought to be "tough on china" nowadays. the reality is that china has a sphere of influence in the region, and america is going to need to make a choice: pull back a little (ok, a lot.) or fight a war. the chinese are crystal clear that they don't want american weapons in their backyard, and i think they have every right to take that position. the yankee american imperialists need to go home.

in my mind, the field has narrowed to biden, sanders, buttigieg and klobuchar. don't be surprised if you start seeing klobuchar beating warren in some polls...

so, i got a bowl of fruit and actually passed out until almost noon. i guess the smell in here got to me.

he tends not to smoke when his kids are around, anyways.

as mentioned, i spent the morning (it was actually the afternoon) figuring out how to react to the oiprd's continual demands for more time, and i've decided to make an issue out of it by sending them two notices:

1) if they don't consent to let me add the file between now and friday morning, i'll need to file a motion without notice to add the file to the case.
2) if they don't get the application record in between now and friday morning, i'll have to file a motion without notice to the court to declare them late.

they talked about "early in the new year". based on past behavior, that suggests february or march.

the process of filing the motion will take some time as well, but i'm making a point - i'm sick of the delays and making a stink about it. 

what i sent them will be slightly different than what i'm going to file, and i'll consequently have to re-serve them on friday. i won't actually send out anything until later in the day on friday. and, i'm going to need to call the post office and figure out what their hours are, actually.

for right now, i'm going to need to take a quick run down to get some berries, as that was the thing that i couldn't find when i went on friday. they were just expensive. i had a few day's worth still, though; now i'm done and need more. if i have to, i'll get frozen berries. and, i'm going to get a pizza on the way back. then i'm going to shower. and, i'll actually be in bed tonight.

my machine has not rebooted yet, which is a good sign. let's hope it survives my walk to get fruit.

so, i'm going to grab some fruit and soften the air in here a bit.

i've been at this for the better part of the last 18 hours, and i got two liner notes done from scratch and updated the first one, as well. the first one was lengthier due to typesetting, whereas the second was shorter because there wasn't much to add. there are four more left that should all be more like the second, so i should conceivably be able to get them done by the time i get my christmas eve pizza. but i should get the forms in order for the request first, because i'm not going to wait long before i request an order. if i can file the order tomorrow i will.

they have now sent me two requests for an extension, and i have rejected both. i don't celebrate christmas, and am not going to give them a break for the holidays. if anything, i'll take advantage of it to force them to default. if i could just cease to have to deal with them ever again, that would be incredible.

but, i'm happy i'm making some progress.

i still need to get through december/13 & january/14, both of which are shorter months, before i can start making entries in the alter-reality and start refocusing on period 3.

so, where am i? what happened?

as noted, i went grocery shopping yesterday afternoon. i left around 12:00 and was back at like 21:00. so, my computer was off around 10:00. i did a lot of walking yesterday on an empty stomach (i hadn't eaten since tuesday night) and it took a toll on my legs. so, i got something to eat, took a shower and crawled into bed, hoping to implement some of the ideas i had thought through regarding the scripting...

regarding the scripting.

i stated previously that i haven't done any scripting, but that was a bit of an oversight - i have taken courses in functional programming, and i was actually unusually good at it. we used scheme instead of lisp, but it was very similar. i had a bit of a moment walking out to get some salami when i realized i should be approaching this less like it's oop and more like it's functional, and so i'll give that a shot when it comes up.

as mentioned, this is a tricky issue. i'm fighting against the api; i'm asking it to do something it was designed to prevent. in a sense, i'm breaking it. it looks like an easy task, and it would be in any other context, but javascript isn't supposed to be aware of what's happening locally, and it isn't supposed to run without user input. it's supposed to compile remotely. but, as i stated, i don't want any of that.

and, no, i don't want to tell people to install some other language, like python. everybody has java. it's baked into the browser...

if i approach this more like a script, i think the right listener should launch on a play error. i was trying to get it to react to the canplay(), which is a haphazard error testing, but it wouldn't fucking load. i was emulating what the standard pushed down; if you look at the html5 code, it must essentially be running a try...catch block in just throwing out the different file types. but, i can't even do that without prompting for a click. it's just the api. it needs inpuuuuuuut.

if i can set the thing to the mp3 array by default and then listen for a play error, i should be able to run through a linear script (it will look like an expanded recursion, but i can't recurse because the array is hardcoded, and that's actually the point - it's more like an expanded lisp routine) that checks all of the options and exits when it finds the right one.

i'm not 100% sure that javascript will do this the same way that lisp or scheme would, but so long as it does, i think it should work.

if not, i'm going to have to ask for the click. so be it.

anyways.

i collapse out of the shower at like midnight and i'm just exhausted, and i go to turn the machine back on to find that same bloody rpcrtremote.dll error. ugh.

we have a pattern here, don't we? it seems to break when i go out. why is that?

and, why was my chromebook parallel to my bed? it's always perpendicular. always.

and, why was my universal power adapter, which i use for my laptop, pulled out of it's socket?

and, why was my (admittedly dilapidated) converted desk disheveled, as though somebody tried to move it?

i have now checked the power usage, and there's no obvious spike when i was gone. but, it seems like somebody was down here, probably around the same time that the cops were circling around me at the store. the thought crossed my mind, even then...

so, what can i do besides turn the router off and reimage? i got a start on it before i passed out, and got to finishing it this morning. it took a few tries this time, actually, which is making me wonder what they actually did. i know that what worked was a three-pass format of the drive, indicating that they may have inserted something in there pretty deeply.

when i got back up, i checked my email and found a response from the oiprd, who were supposed to provide an application record by thursday but are instead offering to redo the review around the question of the arrest. i rejected their request outright. they are continuing to insist on this reductionist perspective, and they're still refusing to consider the pattern of harassment by the officer, which is the actual crux of the complaint. i fully expect that if i were to allow them to conduct a second review, they'd miss every deadline, and i'd either be back in divisional court for delay or in divisional court for review. that strikes me as a pointless waste of time, and i don't want to go through with it - i want the issue dealt with by an actual judge, and i think i should have had the right to get the thing in court from the fucking getgo.

but, they pointed out that a case was released yesterday that updates dunsmuir, so i had to take a look at it. as mentioned, i don't think the new rules really affect this particular case, but i hope that the outcome isn't a lessening of judicial oversight. the oiprd is a good example of the kind of tribunal that needs serious judicial oversight. it may have statutory powers, but it has no relevant expertise, whatsoever. i poked around a little, and some for-profit style lawyers are claiming they love it, but i'm not sure the reasons they're providing are very well thought through. if their optimism pans out, the result could be an americanizing of the law, which would be deeply catastrophic, for canada. i don't want to be an american. i'm afraid of americans.

so, for example, the language about not needing to check the expertise of the panel is very worrying on the surface (i would strongly support the use of judicial review in scenarios where the tribunal does not have the expertise to rule correctly, and who could argue otherwise?), but so long as the judiciary continues to pull these cases on the basis that the rulings are unreasonable, it might be less of a problem than i'm imagining that it could be. i think the previous precedent is more thorough, but i do acknowledge that there is sometimes a redundancy in worrying about whether the panel did do it right or whether the panel can do it right; if the panel can't do it right, they almost certainly didn't do it right, so this scenario where they don't have the expertise and somehow get the right answer is going to be exceedingly rare. but, the law should be thorough, and if this is a taste of the direction that the court is moving in, there should be some critical essays written about it to try and pull them back from it. there's no purpose in hardcoding logical shortcuts into the law, like that.

frankly, the truth is that it's lazy, and that's maybe the easy way to state what's wrong with the changes they made. there may not be serious, substantive differences. but, it's far less rigorous, and it just comes off as lazy and haphazard.

but, the thing those lawyers wanted to see was a precedent that didn't bother assessing the abilities of the panel, and you can imagine scary outcomes resulting from the judiciary mindlessly deferring to these unqualified juntas "because legislation". the worst case scenario is a perfect algorithm for third-world backwardsness. it's potentially devastating...

...but only if they actually defer this way (and, my case is actually an example of this, as the judiciary should not be deferring to "members of the community" on issues of law, that would be retarded), and, so long as they continue to defer properly to the reasonableness standard, they really shouldn't.

likewise, abolishing the correctness standard is at first glance a pretty frightening proposition. certiorari is one of the oldest rules that we have. the supreme court should hardly be gutting 2500 year old roman precedent; this is the heart of our legal system, arguably the most important legal precedent that we have, anywhere, ever. certiorari does exist in ontario statute, but this is a part of the "unwritten rules and conventions" in the preamble of the constitution, really. a western legal system would no longer be a western legal system, without it.

but, taking a closer look at it pulls out that they aren't actually doing that. rather, they're just fucking with the language. and, in the end, they might even be giving themselves more power, if they no longer have to rely on anything besides a broad and purposefully undefined concept of "reasonableness".

obviously, the judiciary needs a check on it, too - the principle of judicial independence is paramount, but they can't have absolute power. however, i think the balance of power should lie in the courts, and not in these panels and tribunals. i'm in favour of activist judges; what i'm worried about is giving these "independent bodies" too much power. so, i would appear to be directly ideologically opposed to the new chief justice on this matter. and, again this is frustrating, because the guy was put in power by the liberals, and he's carrying through with a reform party style harperist agenda.

but, it's not as bad as it looks at first.

and, i honestly don't think it will be nearly as substantive as some commenters are suggesting.

and, i've been at that all afternoon.

so, now i need to get back to the scripting...and let's hope the new idea works....

but, what to do about this thing? i've kept the image unmodified from the backup, to see what happens. will it stay stable for a while? a strict reimage doesn't take that long, but how long can i avoid it for?

but, just to finish my thought...

honestly?

those hip-hop fans probably don't want me around, either. i don't bother showing up because i don't really like the artform, but i know they'd actually largely rather i don't show up.

again, i don't want to paint with too broad brushes. but, trans people get killed in detroit relatively frequently, actually. my disinterest in it aside, that's not the best scene for me to hover around - they wouldn't want me around, and i might actually get hurt.

ok, so we have an unlikely solstice party on saturday night that it probably makes no sense to go to. it's an info line. it depends entirely on where it is, and how i'm feeling, and last minute updates to the forecast.

very low likelihood.

same thing for next saturday, and on new years, i'm essentially not scratching them out yet, because i might change my mind. but it's almost certain that i'm in for the rest of the year, at least.

the weather down here, at the southernmost tip of canada, is actually not that bad for the next two weeks. there's a cold snap that clears out tomorrow night, and then we should be mostly above freezing until new year's day.

it's starting to look like a timid winter here, actually. it's still too early. but, an early spring is looking more and more likely...

i'm just south of the jetstream, though. even toronto is experiencing something rather different right now. i think that even london is getting hit, right now.

why don't i go see hip-hop shows, though?

well, i'd challenge the premise just a little. i saw actress not that long ago. it's rare, though.

stated tersely, i think hip-hop is boring. that's the flat out reality - it's slow-moving, musically simplistic and, usually, boring as fuck.

but, you'll also notice that i almost never go to macho rock or metal shows, either, because i have some issues with the misogyny in the music. i don't go to see these like pro-capitalist guitarists like ted nugent, either. and, broadly speaking, i don't like the politics promoted by most hip-hop. even when it's acceptable on a political level, it's still a pretty bro-ish genre of music.

so, let's be clear about the reasons:

1) musically, i find almost all hip-hop to be boring. there are rare counter-examples, but it usually ends up being instrumental music, like burial.
2) politically, i find most hip-hop to be drastically lacking. it's staunchly pro-capitalist, and it's usually pretty broish.

so, if i don't like the way it sounds, and i don't like the ideas it's disseminating, what exactly would my interest in the genre be?

don't misunderstand me - i'd like to keep an open mind. if you think there's a hip-hop artist i'd love, suggest it to me. i've dabbled in some of the anticon stuff, and it's at least politically closer to what i want, even if it doesn't get close to what i need, musically.

but, it's not a young genre, anymore. in fact, it's probably mostly already run it's course - the best hip-hop is probably behind us. and, almost none of it has been good enough to excite me.

you'll see me at jazz concerts, and you'll see me at techno concerts. but, you'll almost never see me at an opera, and you'll almost never see me at a hip-hop show, either.

we can't all like everything, and hip-hop's in the list of things that doesn't do much for me.

when i woke up on sunday night around 22:00-ish, i immediately realized that there was something wrong, but i'd been reacting negatively to the salami at that point for a while and had decided to switch brands when i ran out - i realized i was a little hungover, maybe partly from the pot, but i actually thought it was mostly food poisoning. so, yes, i was sweaty and clammy from the time i woke up on sunday night, but i didn't think much of it at first and assumed i'd be fine by tuesday.

sunday night was spent burning electronic copies of the court material and generally getting everything in order. i was planning on printing on monday morning at the library, with the hopes of taking advantage of the cheaper rates there, and i was in the end able to print my 300 pages for $0.07/each, cutting printing costs down rather dramatically. it was when i was walking into the library in a dirty sweat that i first started to realize i was actually sick.

it was actually relatively warm on monday night, though, so it was a pleasant walk back and forth from the library, which i'd never been in before. i just haven't really had any reason to go to this campus. but, now that i know that the printing costs are so much less...

i forced myself to sleep for a few hours in the evening when i got back, so that i'd be ready to go in the morning. it didn't really "take", but i nonetheless ended up at the bus stop for a little before 8:00 with my mass of papers, a laptop and some more appropriate winter clothing. i napped for a bit from guelph to mississaugua, but was otherwise alert for the whole way, and i'm starting to get a better concept of the distance, and the landmarks that occur in between, along with their ordering. i'm used to coming into toronto from the other direction, remember, having grown up in ottawa. the bus was a little bit late, but it wasn't bad; i was there around 1:30, which gave me plenty of time to get to the courthouse to file.

were there some problems? well, i seem to have missed s. 4 of the rules of civil procedure, altogether. s. 4 has rules for presentation - things like book binding, regulations on font size, etc. i just didn't even see it, or see it mentioned anywhere by anybody. so, they wouldn't initially take it - i had to argue with them to accept it via a deficiency, and if the court decides to reject it on the basis that the font is too small, given that i gave them a digital copy, i'm willing to appeal that to the next court up, on principle. i saved hundreds of pieces of paper by filing it the way that i did. i'll defend that decision to whatever court i need to; bring it on.

besides these trivialities regarding the presentation of the documents, it was otherwise fine, and they did otherwise accept the perfection of the case. i will now need to wait for the oiprd to file their own documents in the same court, and send me the links. they've given me a time frame of before the 20th. i'm expecting them to miss this, but i won't start getting pissy until after christmas...

and, then it was something like 15:30 and i had some time to blow before the bus came to take me home at 1:00 in the morning. i was hungry, and it was bmt day at subway, so i had to stop to eat. i then went directly across the street to get some pot, and came out with two grams of 10% thc for under $20.

the bottom line is that i don't smoke a lot of drugs. so, if i found the brand that i bought last month, which was closer to 20% concentration, to be a little heavy, then the next step is to try something a little lighter. i found that the 10% was more along the lines of what i wanted, even if it was itself a tad light. so, we're getting closer. you don't have these discussions with friends or acquaintances, you just use adjectives like "good" and "potent", so quantifying it is going to take some experimenting, and that's alright. like, i didn't walk into the beer store at 18 and know what i could and couldn't handle, it took me some time to figure it out. likewise, i could be at this for a few tries before i get it right.

but, the 10% was about right for the night, even if it faded on me a little too fast when i got home. so, next time, i might try something closer to 15%. i'll have this down to a regular order, eventually.

i got out of the store and basically walked into the first bar to roll, when i inquired about the price of beer on the way out. $5 for a tall can? well, that's not too bad, and it seemed like there was cheap food there, too. i've never spent much time in toronto, and it will take me some time to get to know it. i had a few hours to blow, as it was, so i sat and had a few tall cans, before moving on to the show.

the initial thought process behind going down on this night was that the tickets were cheapest and i'd get to see the joy formidable. but, the joy formidable turned out to be a pricey show. i know they're coming in from wales and everything, but they just priced themselves out of my range. you were looking at $40 after services fees; i'll rarely pay more than $20, and decided against it on this night.

instead, i hit a local experimental jazz show at a kind of community centre on burnswick nearly all the way to bloor. i actually hope i don't end up spending too much time in toronto, but this is maybe the kind of thing i'd be more likely to sneak into, on a random night. these were local musicians, playing their own work in an old bar, for what seemed like a mostly local if largely bourgeois crowd. it was pay what you can, and the beer was reasonably priced. let's hope i can get to more spots like this...

the main act called itself tyrannick love this week but was mostly improv and played two sets. it was anchored by the juxtaposition of a busier sax player with a more ambient, experimental guitarist that had a lot of floor pedals and wasn't afraid to use them. maybe it's because i was in toronto, but it had a distinct dmst feel at points that was pretty real; overall, though, the major aesthetic was a swirling, effects driven ambience that sidelined both the sax and drum players for long periods, as the bassist went motorik over some feedback and loops. it was an enjoyable cave for the space i was in, absolutely.

i can't find a video of this exact lineup, but the guitarist & sax player appear to have a lot of material online under a lot of different names, one of them being patrick reilly's wire circus, which is not entirely dissimilar to what i saw:

the third set was purposefully experimental to the point of being kind of a spectacle, and i consequently found myself more trying to figure out the physics behind what he was doing than actually listening to it. he seems to have essentially created a number of homemade speakers and more or less broken them in real time, although he surprised me in some of his answers when i questioned him - claiming, for example, that his chattering magnets were being driven by instructions on an sd card, like a chiptune piece, rather than being driven by the radio, which i thought was obvious. i actually initially thought he was setting up a theremin.

it was a sound installation, a demonstration, an experiment, rather than the presentation of any kind of actual composition. i'd consequently rather direct you directly to his page, which is here:
https://www.youtube.com/user/CMigone/videos

but, here is a video of something to separate the section:

there was a fourth set by what i believe to have been a local interpretive dance artist named "alicia grant", but details are scant, and the name appears to be in use by several (diverse) artists in the general area. i was actually rolling a joint through much of her set. so, she spent some time writhing on the ground, and repeating distressed statements into the microphone. listen: i grasp that specific subsets of arts students get off on the expression and rawness of something like this, but i largely found it sort of pointless. my tendency is to interpret something like this from a pretty far intellectual distance, and kind of shudder at the situation, but otherwise kind of emotionally avoid it. i just don't see the point in it, other than to point at the spectacle, and i'm actually too polite to even do that.

so, there's no link.

in all, i was there around 19:00 and gone around 00:00, with the necessity to catch the bus at 1:00, and that worked out just fine, in the end. if i get the opportunity to see something specific in toronto that i can't catch here the next time i go down, i'm sure i'll jump at the opportunity to see it. if not, i think i'd be just as happy or happier to check out the local scene, actually. so, that's the broader takeaway - i should be happy to catch a local jazz or psych show, and actually spend some time being in toronto rather than get obsessed with finding something from out of town; the local talent there is worth checking out, too.

i fell asleep almost as soon as i got on the bus and slept pretty much all the way back to windsor, but also first noticed myself seriously wheezing on the ride back in and thinking i was reacting to the exhaust - and maybe i was, or maybe it was as much about the dry air from the heaters on the bus as it was anything else. i was hacking though, and it's more or less still going.

the walk back home was cold in a really legitimate sense, too, requiring a serious bundle up. it's frustrating when you happen to have no choice but to go out in the one or two cold days of the year, but that's how it's unfortunately worked itself out, so far, hopefully, i should be able to avoid the cold for most of the rest of the year by just staying inside. we'll see....

i got some nachos on the way back, was done eating them by around 7:00, and in the end slept most of the day.

so, i'm sick and am dealing with it.

i went to sleep around midnight, got up around 6:00, ate some fruit (and noticed an immediate soothing effect on my throat), did some dishes and went back to sleep. i've been up for a few minutes.

i still need to take another shower, but at this point i should probably wait until tuesday evening, after i've got my recycle back in. and, i'll need to do one more load of laundry.

but, all of the cleaning and stuff is otherwise done for the week.

there's one more review, and let's hope i can stay awake long enough to get it done and move on.

and, is my testosterone reduction permanent? if i went off the testosterone suppressors, would the testosterone come back?

there's some debate on the point.

what i want to do is to actually remove the testicles from my body, but it's taking a very long time to get done. then, the answer will be no - i'll never get the testosterone production back.

in the mean time, is there a window of reversal? they used to say 'no', but now they're saying 'it depends', i guess because they found some counterexamples.

i'm getting mixed signals from my biology. i think that my testosterone levels were probably low to begin with, which is probably genetic or epigenetic, and that this probably has a lot to do with the issue in the first place. as such, i'd suspect that i'm probably the type that has lost a fair amount of testicular function.

but, the reason i want them out is because i do think that my levels fluctuate, and i want that to stop - i just want perpetual zero testosterone.

so, what would happen if i started lifting weights?

the answer is actually not much.

i mean, it would have some effect, surely. but, due to the almost total absence of testosterone, i would be unable to build chest or arm muscle in any seriously substantive way. rather, i would end up carrying through with more of a "toning" process, where i might firm up existing fat but not actually gain any weight.

i'm not interested in doing that experiment. but, i'm pretty confident that it would have a minimal effect.

no, let's have this talk.

we've had it before.

i get my testosterone tested every year, and do you know what it says and has said every year since about 2010?

testosterone: trace amounts

i have less testosterone than most cis-women, actually. the amount of testosterone suppression that i take is so powerful that it's essentially just down to food. my testicles are still in there (although i've been trying to get rid of them for a while...), but i've essentially turned them off, entirely - they're just a cancer risk at this point, really. they haven't produced any testosterone since obama's first term in office.

a person that has essentially zero testosterone production is essentially unable to build muscle.

further, do you know how much estrogen i take everyday? the answer is 8 mg. now, only a small amount of that actually gets into the bloodstream, but it's also constant for me, that is that i don't have a cycle. so, the amount of estrogen in my blood is also going to be consistently substantively higher than the amount in your average ciswoman.

i'll repeat: i have less testosterone and more estrogen in my chemistry than almost any ciswoman you'll meet on the street.

so, am i more female then? well, that would be a strange definition of female, granted. but, in the sense that gender is genetic, it is only up to hormones.

the difference between an xx and an xy embryo is actually which hormones are coded for. in the xx child, the gonads are converted into ovaries because of the presence of estrogen; in the xy embryo, the testes descend only in the presence of testosterone. so, that is what the chromosomal difference actually is - which hormones are coded for. so, if you take an xx embryo and flush it in testosterone, the gonads actually turn into testicles, because it's the hormone that actually determines the sex. likewise, an xy embryo will develop ovaries in the presence of estrogen.

humans can't currently undo our gonad specification, but some species can. and, the premise of converting testicles back into gonads and then into ovaries (and vice versa) doesn't strike me as outside of the realm of future science, even if doing so may not be so useful, in the absence of a more specialized biology.

the point is that it's the hormones that are fundamental in determining sex, not the chromosomes; all the sex chromosomes do is flip a bit on the hormone that develops the embryo, and then the hormone does all of the work.

so, if a person has zero testosterone and above normal levels of estrogen than that person is chemically female in very profound ways that transcend which organs are present and need to be understood. for example, that person will have fat and muscle deposition patterns that are more likely to straddle female averages than male averages, because they're being directed by female rather than male hormones. and, over time, even the bone structure would be expected to change, in the near absence of testosterone, and the overabundance of estrogen.

and, what that means is that a transwoman is going to have upper body strength that falls into normal female variability, rather than normal male variability.

that's the actual science.

don't listen to people that want to tell you otherwise.

and, i need to repeat the point: if i had not been able to squeeze out of that pit, i would have been crushed in it.

i would not have been able to withstand the pressure of multiple grown men pushing against me in close quarters like that. i would have been hurt.

these guys usually know how to act, they usually know who to hit and who to avoid, and i'm not usually a target. i don't actually know why i got misinterpreted all of a sudden on this night, other than some specific people with some poorly worked through thought processes. like, i'm just concluding that there was a stupid person there, basically, and hoping that the point gets across to that person and they smarten up in the future.

the point is that you can't treat me like a guy in these scenarios - that's a recipe for disaster, an algorithm for harm. if you take a run at me, i'll just fall over. if you squeeze me, you'll just crush me. i have no upper body strength at all. i'm biochemically a skinny female, and need to be treated that way.

if i would have participated in that mosh pit, i would have ended up seriously hurt.

i was wearing a bright red overcoat (in a sea of black) and heavy makeup. i stood out as pretty obviously queer.

i was standing on the edge of the pit, which is where i often stand - about as close as i can get without getting plowed. sometimes, i misjudge and have to get out when people fall on me or otherwise start going. but, i rarely get run at like that, or expected to help start a pit that it should have been obvious that i didn't want to be in at all. the grown men that were creating and instigating this pit should have interpreted me properly as a 130 pound effeminate female and pushed me out, not misinterpreted me as a dominant male and tried to pull me in.

there's no logic in what happened.

maybe i could have stood a few feet further back. it's hard to figure that out before hand; if i knew what the boundaries of the pit were going to be beforehand, i would have stood a bit further back.

but, there was nonetheless a blatantly absurd error in judgement that i have a right to call out and be irked about, and to stress some changes for in the future - don't bodyslam the transwomen!

if i had been able to save my drink, i probably would have stayed, and i would have probably gotten into a shouting match with the person that bodyslammed me. i was not happy about it.

so, it's maybe better that i left.

but, the actual reason that i left was that i had nothing left to drink and thought i could catch the bus.

and, to be clear: the trumbullplex is actually a pretty queer-friendly venue. they actually have a "bros stand back" policy that is usually in force. it's not somewhere where you'd expect to have somebody take a run at you, like that. and, the other people there were beyond friendly and accepting.

but, apparently, the pa got demoed that night, too; there were some hooligans there, on that night, that don't really reflect the venue well.

i was not hurt. i'm ok. and, i don't think anybody wanted to hurt me - i think somebody thought i really wanted to get into a pushing match with them, and was actually disappointed when i fell over and spilled my drink, and essentially ran off, instead. my jordan peterson citation is not ironic, it's probably realistic. and, this is an example of the kinds of problems that that kind of literature creates - i essentially got pushed around by somebody that's been taught that i'm really a man, after all.

and, i just need to stress the point as clearly as i can: the premise that i'd want to get into a fight or slam dance or mosh is moronic. the idea that anything else than what happened would have happened is stupid. and, if somebody thought that i was going to actually mosh, all 130 pounds of me, then they were just being idiotic about it.

they should have expected me to fall over, and they should have expected me to bruise.

and, they need to adjust their behaviour so that they're not bodyslamming transwomen, and expecting them to react like men - what they've been taught via ignorance needs to be undone via evidence.

do i think somebody was trying to hurt me?

no.

i think that a very immature boy decided he'd try to prove i was tough enough to take a hit - and instead proved the exact opposite, as he knocked me and my drink over, and left a bruise on my thigh. so much for your jordan peterson, dipshit.

it should be obvious that you don't bodyslam the transgirls and, if it isn't, let's state it explicitly: don't bodyslam the transgirls.

i spent a little time on friday morning wondering about attending the no rest fest, concluding before i slept that it seemed like a worthwhile spectacle, and was even toying with the idea of hanging out somewhere all morning and dropping by the trumbullplex in the afternoon. i decided in the morning that i'd end up spending $10 on food and whatever else by staying in detroit anyways, so i'd might as well go home and get some rest, then make the choice in the afternoon. and, i initially had decided against it. but, i really felt the urge to experience this, for the hell of it.

i was also hoping that i might stumble into a drummer, as the band is known for high-end guest drummer spots.

this time, i went right to the station to get tickets, and i caught the bus relatively easily. i stayed on the bus to rosa parks, a rare detour, and got off to find a liquor store on the way to the trumbullplex. the other attraction of this night is it's low price tag - $5 cover, in a byob space. so, that's a $10 night. yeah.

i was there around 10:00-10:30-ish and the place was really in mayhem from the getgo. i had to get in immediate line for the washroom, which took me the length of somebody's set to get into, and then spent a little time stumbling around outside, and i'm not entirely sure what i missed. i think it was initially a female singer, but that would probably mean that solemn judgement played earlier than is listed.

regardless, this is the list that was posted. i was simply not paying attention, initially. i think i saw reverend leave in a distressed huff when i came in, so that would be consistent with coming in between 10:00 and 10:30.

i think the band i caught on the way out of the washroom was shock narcotic, which is actually kind of a local supergroup, with members of child bite, dillinger escape plan and black dahlia murders. i didn't get much out of this...

 
i then went out for a smoke and, after having a brief talk about genghis tron (are they still going?)

and ministry (al's lost it.)

in reference to the previous act, was handed a multiple gram pre-roll that may at part be to blame for the sickness i experienced over the next few days. this was a philly, by any other name, but it was rolled more like a cocoon, and you may have been forgiven for thinking that's what it was. but, we're talking something that's a good inch in diameter, and three or four long. call it a stubby, even. but, it was a big joint, and i smoked through about three quarters of it before i handed it off.

the person that gave it to me was impressed, even, by how much of it that i managed to smoke. and, i think i felt it a few days later...

how did i get this joint? i don't know, exactly. well, i know how - it was handed to me. the why isn't totally clear. according to the person that gave it to me, he rolled up a total of seven of these huge joints and gave them to people he recognized and thought were cool. i got the seventh and final seal:

¹ And when he had opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven about the space of half an hour.
² And I saw the seven angels which stood before God; and to them were given seven trumpets.
³ And another angel came and stood at the altar, having a golden censer; and there was given unto him much incense, that he should offer [it] with the prayers of all saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne.
⁴ And the smoke of the incense, [which came] with the prayers of the saints, ascended up before God out of the angel's hand.
⁵ And the angel took the censer, and filled it with fire of the altar, and cast [it] into the earth: and there were voices, and thunderings, and lightnings, and an earthquake.
⁶ And the seven angels which had the seven trumpets prepared themselves to sound.
Revelation 16:1

hey, if jesus wants a toke he's welcome to get in on this....

sarah would tell them not to encourage me in my jesus freak delusions. but, hey. i got the seventh seal. incense, pot, whatever. you don't think that's a coincidence, do you? so, check your potato chips for signs of the return. maybe it's been set in motion.

all absurdities aside, i didn't entirely prod about the reasons for the seven joints, i just accepted my good fortune and sparked it up. we had previously had a discussion about colin marston, which is the root determination of his decision that i was cool - i had just pulled that colin marston reference out of my ass, randomly, in mid-conversation, and it was impressive enough to land me a free philly months later. score.

behold...

anyways, was there some jesus freak symbolism going on? i don't know. i doubt he knew the can of worms he was opening, if there was.

i do know that the gift got me pretty stoned, though, and that i went in to catch something that was playing midset, after having a chat around the fire on the side. the drumming kind of pulled me in. i think this was snafu, which is not the 90s skate punk band of the same name but a more recent act from detroit. they were better from a distance. this is a from a few years ago:

i was then out for another smoke and back in to use the washroom, thinking it was close to midnight.

when i got out of the washroom, one of the first things i remember hearing was "we're strange magic, and if you didn't know it then now you fucking know". so, there's my reference point, and this is where the night starts to take a bit of a turn.

first, watch this video of the strange magic set:

do you see where he says to pass that vcr around? i must have been in the bathroom at that point. when i came out, the vcr was still going around, and eventually ended up passed towards me from behind; as i was oblivious to the circumstances, and didn't see it coming from behind me, it landed directly on my head.

i had no idea what happened at this point, other than that i'd been attacked by or with some kind of electronic equipment. my first reaction was to try to determine if somebody was trying to hurt me, and i was pretty quickly able to determine that it didn't appear to be malicious - people were just being silly (perhaps irresponsible, but just silly.) and i ended up in the middle of it by accident. so, i kind of had little choice but to play along with it.

"wait. what was that?"
"i think it was like a computer or something"
"like, a pc tower?"
"yeah."
"what? so, i just got attacked by somebody's computer?"
"apparently."
"wait. no. i want to determine the identity of the technology that just assaulted me. somebody tell me what that was."
"it was a vcr."
"a vcr?"
"yeah."
"in 2019?"
"yeah."
"a vcr?"
"YEAH!"
"so, i was just randomly assaulted by 80s technology, then"
"it was early 90s, tops."
"fuck."

so, what else do you do? i went for a smoke. and, i asked around - is there a bruise on my head?

(i discovered in the morning that there was actually a bruise on my head)

and, then it appeared, outside - the vcr, on the ramp into the trumbullplex. well, you know it was payback time, after that. it got a good stomping on, and it deserved it. fucker. until...

"hey! that's my vcr!"

i caught most of tart's set. this is a subset of a recent style of female-fronted punk that is written for a male audience, and intends to make that male audience feel uncomfortable. that's the intended experience: to writhe uncomfortably at what's occurring in front of you. and, my general reaction to this is that it doesn't really serve much of a purpose. i'm going to tend to want to look past it and try and see what else they're doing; this particular act was a little on the poppy side. there's a sample here:

the last thing up was the armed, and remember that these are fifteen minute sets, so it wasn't much of a show. unfortunately, i stood in the wrong part of the audience.

i'll state this flat out: i don't understand why people think i want to mosh. i'm an openly transgendered person that introduces myself as jessica and wears women's clothing when i'm out. i modulate between 120-140 pounds, none of it muscle. i'm 5 ' 8". it should be obvious what's going to happen if you take a run at me: i'm going to get knocked over like the petite, effeminate woman that i am.

so, that's what happened - somebody took a run at me, and i almost fell over and had the drink knocked out of my hand in the process, as should have been the obvious outcome to anybody that wasn't stupid. no, i'm not going to be able to withstand a body check by a grown man, and you're a moron if that's what you thought would happen. the person that slammed me may want to know that he also bruised my thigh; he should really be very proud of himself for leaving a mark on a girl. idiot.....

so, that was what i experienced - a sudden mosh pit that i spent the next ten minutes trying to get out of. and, while that isn't the first time that i found myself trying to get out of a pit that materialized out of nowhere, the crowded nature of the space made it a little harder to get out than normal, and the short nature of the set meant that there wasn't much time to readjust. it really wasn't very much fun, and i really didn't get a chance to listen to much of anything, as i was just trying to get out of the pit. and, then it was done, and the only substantive thing that had happened was that i'd lost my drink.

i actually was hoping to hang out there for a while, but it didn't make sense to stay there anymore, once i'd lost my drink. i checked the time - 12:45. if that was right, i could conceivably catch the bus; i'd made that walk in a shorter amount of time. so, i was out...

if i still had my drink, i would have stayed. but, i think i was actually a little miffed at getting slammed and didn't really want to sit around to talk to the person that hit me. i think i wanted to avoid a confrontation; i think i wanted to cut my losses and get out. while i'm going to ask that person to think twice about it the next time they decide it's a good idea to hit a girl, i'm going to put the issue aside and forget about it.

i did legitimately intend to get to the bus station on time, and walked at quite the pace to get there, but when i stopped in at the leland club to check the time, i realized it was too late - 1:15. i'm sure i've done that walk in 10 minutes. i was not planning on ending up there that night; i had $7, meaning if i paid cover, i'd lose the ability to buy a drink. so, if i couldn't talk my way past the door girl, i'd have to go somewhere else.

but, the door girl was not working that night, which may have worked out in my favour. i was indeed able to walk right past the door guy, and buy a few more drinks before last call.

the goth club is dying, and has been dying for a long time. they actually had the ballroom closed off, because there aren't enough people there to justify opening it. that cut the space down into kind of a more normal bar, with people actually sitting in the seated area in between.

but, that's where i ended up for the night. do i regret it? i regret losing my drink. i was planning on staying at the trumbullplex for most of the night, and i guess i don't know how that turned out or how it would have turned out. and, i might have found my way back there by the end of the night if they had stonewalled me at the goth club. but, i guess i was both cool enough to get the seventh seal and cool enough (or uncool enough) to avoid cover at leland, on this night. the bottom line is that i can't be hanging out somewhere without anything to drink...

i ended up hanging out at the actual hotel until around 6:00, then moved over to rosa parks until around 8:00, before i went back to the tunnel. i got some nachos on the way home, took a shower and slept until sunday night, when i woke up feeling something awful.

i spent the morning cleaning, and i ended up taking another nap.

i am hacking and wheezing like i have pneumonia, still. there were other symptoms - i was dealing with cold sweats on sunday and monday and remember smelling the virus on monday - but they've been gone for a while. i went through a box of kleenex midweek, but what's left is this heavy, oppressive cough that won't break. it hurts to breathe, even.

what's the air quality like in here? there's an odour around my bed, but i'm not sure what it is and suspect it's, in some combination, the result of remnant sewer gas, the rusted-over heater and pollution of various sorts from the neighbourhood. my own body odour may be a minor factor, as i have been sick and sweaty and the air in the room is somewhat stagnant. it does not, at this time, smell explicitly like tobacco or marijuana smoke. it smells like something is burning, but that burning smells more like sage or wood or even plastic. i'm going to need to wait for my sense of smell to come back over the next few days before i can really react, but i don't think it's currently a dominant factor in the coughing.

what might be contributing more to the coughing is the excessively dry air down here, and i'm going to need to try to counteract that by showering a bit more. and, i'm starting to wonder more seriously if i might be allergic to something. there's a dog upstairs.

but, the laundry is done, minus one load of towels that i'll do tonight after i shower. that means that i washed my smokey sweaters and jackets, with the expectation that they'll be away from that for the next few months, as well as my sheets and a few random pieces of clothing. i did most of a backlog of dishes that i'll need to finish this evening as well, before i shower.  i cleared out all of the smoking paraphernalia (again: i go for a walk around the corner to actually smoke. i don't smoke inside, ever.) and snotty kleenexes and other loose garbage hanging around. i cleaned the bathroom, a little. and, i ate not once but several times in an attempt to get it done with for the week - meals from now until friday should be exclusively fruit-based.

i'm going to finish these reviews, finally. then i'm going to do the dishes, eat some fruit, take a shower, make some coffee, put the last load of laundry in and plan to sit and type for the next week. i have to get some work done this week....

i had to sleep this afternoon. it's a thing that happens.

the drugs are gone. i've got laundry going. and, i'm probably shut down and locked in until march - but no promises. that means straight edge for the winter, as has become the norm for me.

did i smoke my last cigarette ever this week? it's plausible. the pot stores just need to hurry up and open. once i have a legal, stable source of marijuana, i don't see any reason why i'd need to smoke cigarettes when i'm out, anymore. we'll see what the facts are in the spring.

i thought i was hungover on sunday, but i now think i picked up a virus on the weekend. it's either that or i'm terribly allergic to something in here (or am reacting to second hand smoke that i haven't been able to smell this week - i'll be able to smell it in a day or two, so we'll see how that works out, too). the amount of sneezing and nose blowing, not to mention the headaches, indicates that my body is fighting something off, anyways.

so, i'm a little behind schedule, but i'm cleaning myself up and once i get these reviews in, i'll be back at it.

plaid was a show that i was looking forward to, and had planned around, so the weather was a necessary peril, and i had to just deal with it. i was hoping to get in a little early and maybe find some legal marijuana, as well as set up a bank account with a driver's license that i don't have yet, but that wasn't available, yet. so, instead, i ended up dragging myself through the cold for a still pretty early entry, around 22:30. that meant that i missed most of dave shettler's set.

i actually like ambient music, and i've enjoyed his sets before; i think maybe what i missed was very similar to something i had caught while on edibles during plug, based on the similarities at the end. i intended to catch the set, i was just late through a cold walk.

i would have caught the 8:30 bus if i would have just gone to the bus station to get tickets, but i was apprehensive about my payment method and the only store i was sure took the prepaid mastercard and sold tickets was shoppers. so, i took a mild detour to the shopper's around the corner, only to find out that they don't sell tunnel bus tickets - surprisingly. so, i went down to the shopper's at ouellette, another detour around the greyhound station, only to find out that they closed at 20:00! it was around 20:40. so, i checked the convenience stores and asked around and was left with the only remaining option being the station itself, which was thankfully open. so, i started off by touring around in the cold for an extra half hour, and was already pretty cold by the time i got over the border.

and, then i walked to marble, which was a colder and lengthier walk than i remembered it being. see, i've been on my bicycle through detroit for months, and it's not far on a bike up to trumbull & grand. it's a hefty walk, though. it was just too cold to bike and end up anywhere, presentable. but, i still haven't fixed my tube, yet.

it took roughly an hour, an hour spent consuming a lemonish liquid while juggling cigarettes, and with neither hat nor gloves, through -15 C windchills, although the ambient temperature itself was merely hovering around zero. it was like a blizzard without any actual snow. i knew i was getting in somewhere, but that could have been a dangerous night to get stuck out in.

i was happy to find a heater to warm up beside when i got in, found some pot, and found the set ending right when i was about to start listening. as mentioned, it sounded familiar to me, so it was no doubt part of the set he played there behind plug.

the next thing up was daedalus, who i knew nothing about other than that they were on ninja tune, and that that's a label that i have some healthy respect for - they tend to release interesting music. there was a discussion about how to classify it, but i didn't find it that daunting - it was a kind of dubstep/idm. i found it moderately interesting, and might check out some more of it if the opportunity arises.

this is a few years old, but it's not dissimilar:

plaid was kind of really plaid, it's almost like they were more plaid than plaid. if i could imagine what a plaid show would be like, it would be pretty much that. an interesting quirk to the show was that they had a live violin player playing segments of sound that were then cut up and manipulated into loops, in real time. so, what you were actually experiencing was often this group of like sound engineers messing with live sound. sonically, it was kind of very plaid - a mix of lush atmospheric ambience with jittery and sometimes plodding beats, along with some strategic melodic programming. if you always wanted to experience plaid, that was exactly what the show was.

a plaid fan youtube site seems to have a recent set from istanbul that appears to be very similar to the detroit set:

however, this is the only footage that i could find of the live violin player:

there was a dj afterwards that allowed for some dancing.

this bar is hit and miss in terms of closing times. they're sometimes open until the afternoon, and sometimes closed at 3:00. i was hoping to stretch this night out a little so that i could just go straight to the tunnel, but they were shutting the place down by 3:01. so, i had to find somewhere to eat.

first, i had to get to my jacket, which i left outside the bar and required a small journey outside to retrieve. this time spent outside in a tshirt should not have been particularly damaging to me, given that the temperature was still hovering around freezing, but with the windchill the cold was flat out dangerous, so i actually had to stop there for a few minutes and warm-up before i carried on. i ended up with a small amount of frostbite on my left thumb, but i can't tie it directly to that moment.

it was still only 3:30 at that point, roughly two hours earlier than i wanted it to be, so i had to make a choice to go to the diner, with the hopes that they'd allow me to eat there. it's a funny thing, actually - the diner was an entirely different experience, all of a sudden. rather than handing everything out via takeout, they actually had two servers that were taking orders, like an actual restaurant. i ordered some bacon & eggs, got a refill on the coffee, and paid the bill without experiencing any negativity at all. i hope that this is indicative of future experiences at the diner.

hey, i don't recall ever starting any trouble at this place, and all i ever wanted out of it was some breakfast, and maybe a place to sip coffee and/or doze off at while i'm waiting for a bus or a show. the premise of my reaction was that i was taken aback by the hostility and ultimately didn't understand it; the preferred outcome is to annihilate the hostility as counter-productive to everybody's interests, but first to understand the causes of it, and try to determine if they're rooted in factual perceptions or not. for example, if somebody thought i was a prostitute, that would be false. we haven't got there yet, and maybe we never will, but if the issue just evaporates, that's fine, too.

by the time i'd finished the refill on the coffee, i'd actually missed the early bus. but, i caught the second bus back in, and had to stop for timmy's on the way back - i just needed some warmth for my hands. and, i had no choice but to shower almost immediately, to counteract the onset of hypothermia - a shower that it took me some time to warm up in, despite the scalding temperatures.

after warming up, i actually slept nicely until late in the afternoon.

so, i got up yesterday afternoon to roll a joint, with the intent to get to writing the reviews when i came in. but, the machine was stuck at a blue screen when i got back, one that i don't remember seeing before and didn't know how to fix.

as mentioned: i don't want to run generalized scans on my machine, i want to figure out what happened and undo it. so, the internet wanted to tell me to do things like run a sfc scan, which i'd throw the machine through a window before i actually did. i don't want to load the defaults and forget about it. thanks.

as i really hadn't the slightest idea what had happened when i was out, i decided that the only thing i could really do was to reinstall to the drive, then slowly copy over data from the broken partition until i found the culprit, which it turned out was in the catroot folder. 

and, i was able to figure out that there was indeed some kind of update process that happened when i was out smoking.

that took until early this morning, and i've been in a sort of a rage. see, what i'm stuck with now is the task of finding out how to undo this update that i went to such great lengths to stop from happening. why did it happen when i went for a walk?

i spent all night hoping i could salvage the install, but now that i'm sure that the blue screen was caused by something in the catroot folder, that is something update related, i feel like i have no choice but to start over again from where i was at last week, and try and do a little better with it this time.

so, i'm reformatting the drive and copying over the install from early november, again. i'll keep my tabs and a few other things in separate copy processes. then, i'll need to spend another day or two trying to lock the machine down better than i did before...

it seems to either be an error with windows update, or some kind of backdoor that wants me to think that's what it is. the installation files seem to have come in via firefox, and then evaporated. and, the error i'm getting is something along the lines of that the setup files are corrupted.

listen: windows update does not work on this machine. those kinds of errors are the inevitable outcome of trying to update this machine, and that's by design. it's broken on purpose. it's never going to work; stop pretending that it will.

if i can get the copy over by mid-morning, i could conceivably be back online tomorrow or the next day.

and, yes, i'm angry and frustrated but i have to just keep going.

what i will say is this, though.

i need to get the liner notes for the november sequence done, and i might decide that the answer to this problem is to keep the laptop offline until it's done. i need internet access on my main machine. but, if i'm going to be constantly targeted by the cops, or some idiot kids that act like cops, then i'm going to have to find a way to get out of the way.

again: i'm never leaving the internet. but, if i have to find some other way to post for a bit, so be it.

i was in at about 5:00 am and i'm going to spend a few days putting together loose ends before i pivot. i have a small amount of marijuana to smoke this week (away from the house.), but i'm otherwise expecting to be in for most of the next three-four months.

barring no unforeseen circumstances, i should hope to have a productive solstice period.

i've got a long day coming up and am kind of nursing a hangover, still. sleep is important just right now. but, it's time to get up soon, too.

i got the printing done. $0.07/page, actually. remember - it's $0.25/page at the public library. so, that's a third of the price, which means i got to print three for the price of one, if you want to imagine it like that.

and, i have the card there now if i need it....even if the fact that the public library is across the street often overpowers.

i'm going to try to wake up, but i'm not going to try too hard.

well, i called ahead and they're telling me i can buy the card for a $1 and it's $0.08/pg to print.

let's hope it works out.

so, i've got everything in order, including my three cd-rs, i just need to find a printer.

application record - 74 pages
book of authorities - 9 pages
factum - 6 pages
certificate - 1 page
========================
90 pages

90x3 = 270.

i'm realizing that the website i found that claimed pages were $0.08 is from 2013. it's on the library's main site, but is it current? let's hope so. if it is, i should be able to do this for less than $22. and, i'll need to print the bus tickets, too.

it would be almost $70 to print that at the public library, which is too expensive. if we have to do it like that, i'm going to end up doing one copy and feigning ignorance.

i do think it's silly to have to waste so much paper....

it's raining right now, and i'm going to have to wait it out, so i might do some reviews. i'm not going to be out until the afternoon. but, let's see if i can figure out what the costs are, first...

so, i hit plaid on friday night and the armed on saturday night, and the combination of things (it's been too cold to bicycle, so i walked in the cold) has knocked me on my ass. i left the armed show before 1:00, hoping i could get to the bus stop in time, but had to double back to the city club and wait for the 8:30 bus. i should have stayed at trumbullplex. *shrug*.

so, i need to do some cleaning in here, and get things ready for tuesday. if i have time, i'll do a review.

after tuesday, it is very likely that i'll be in for the rest of the year, and potentially until the spring.

ok, so it took me a little longer to catch up on most of the things, but i think i have.

i simply don't have time to get to the printer today before plaid, and i hope i don't regret it. i'm sure they're open monday, actually. so, i'm going to need to put that stuff off until tomorrow or maybe sunday. i also have a few reviews left to finish in my tabs. and, i'll have to wait until after the 20th to get my g1.

the schedules being as they are, i simply have to take a nap before the show tonight.

but, i think i've put the loose ends in order, at least.

yeah, i'm coming to a conclusion on the armed.

as mentioned, i distinctly recall the pumpkins cover, which was quite a long time ago. but, i didn't get over the genre barrier - i simply don't like metalcore, and there's just so much of it....i don't usually have time for more than a few seconds of it before i move to something i might actually like....

i stopped, this time, for whatever reason and listened a little more carefully, and it's actually the pumpkins influence that i want to pull out as peculiar. i am, myself, a substantive smashing pumpkins fan, and i know that this is a kind of commonality amongst musicians of my generation - we all worship the smashing pumpkins, for their musicianship, in a world that doesn't fully get it. if you play anything at all, you know. i think it was pitchfork that described them as savage virtuosos, or something like that. so, we all grew up playing these songs, and we all grew up acting out the same routine. i had my reznor fetish, others were into whatever else, but the pumpkins were the common ground. and, i bet you even gravitated towards your friends in high school because they were the pumpkins fans, didn't you?

so, these boys and girls are big smashing pumpkins fans, and they give it away, and it kind of roots their writing in a specific place. that's the thing that musicians get about the pumpkins that non-musicians don't, the detail, the complexity. that extra half note at the end of the riff. that goes over their heads! they don't even notice. if there's something special about this, it's that attention to detail.

and, we don't actually know who's playing guitar here, right? hrmmn.

the singer sounds a little like nivek ogre too, but what are the chances, right?

so, i'm willing to concede that this is interesting. i'm less willing to concede that it's actually any good. as the order forms out of the chaos, it's partitioning the sound into unlistenable trash and sappy slop. you want that intersection, especially at the trumbullplex. but, this is just a series of one-dimensional analyses.

i'm leaning towards going, though, out of the spectacle. i'm willing to concede it's interesting enough to experience, even if i'm skeptical as to whether i'll totally enjoy it.

it's how these things work out sometimes - you go for the show, and you ask questions later.

we'll see how i feel after plaid. but, there's often people at the 'plex all day.

the new record is still pretty dumb overall, but it's maybe a little less boneheaded.

i'm just wondering if it's a good place to meet drummers...

if it was nicer out, i might go early and then go dancing after.

as it is, i think it's going to be hard to get me out of the house.

i do understand that, in a certain kind of cultural sense, that armed show is where i want to be this weekend. i'm more likely to meet people that are more accepting of me in a situation such as that.

but, i don't actually like the music. rather, i'm really looking forward to plaid.

i'm waaaaaay more into warp records electronic jazz type stuff than i am into crossover metal. and, if you actually listen to the music i've written and recorded - especially since i've moved to windsor - it's way, way, way more similar to plaid than it is to the armed.

i don't think i've been confusing about that point, either. i've been very critical of modern rock, and demonstrated a strong interest in abstract techno.

actually, i'm sure that i stumbled upon that pumpkins cover at one point previously.

and, i know that when people say they like punk rock in 2019, this is something like what they mean.

but, i never listened to music like this....

when i said i listened to punk rock in 1996, this would have been thought of as some kind of metal. and, i still basically interpret it that way.

to put it another way, my concept of punk is inherently pre-refused, and i didn't follow their reinterpretation of punk at all, i completely rejected it.

this is just way, way too loud and way, way too aggressive for me. and, it always has been; there is really no stage in my life where i would have listened to much of anything like this. like, remotely. i like my punk a lot catchier and a lot fruitier and a lot more cerebral and a lot more political than this.

so, what i'm going to suggest is that you ask somebody that likes metal, even if those words mean something completely different to my gen x mind than they do to your gen y mind. it may be an anachronism, but this used to be a kind of crossover sound, and i never crossed over to it.

https://thearmed.bandcamp.com/album/untitled

i just want to add a weather update.

i have not been to detroit since oct 4/5/6th. i nearly went a few times after that, but i was sick, or something else. i made it to the bus stop on nov 7th for black midi, but turned around, unprepared to weather the overnight. i was in toronto on nov 19th. plaid is tonight.

the first few weeks after i got back weren't so bad, but november was broadly terrible. the funny thing is, though, that, since the beginning of november, the calendar has largely caught up.

it has not been that bad the last few days, and the longterm is not very scary, right now. it's detroit in december, mind you - don't go out in a tshirt, or at least not for too long. it's going to hover around or dip below freezing, sure. but, it's not awful, and it's not even unseasonable; if you crunch the numbers, the averages may even turn out on the + side.

what's going on? well, it has to be all of that hot air in the ocean.

...even as the forecast is warning us that it's -40 in northern canada, right now.

i suggested that we'd have a cold start to the winter, and i was right. but, i pointed out that we're bottoming out, right now. it's going to get better. really. so, i held out hope for an early spring.

it's still too early. that vortex could still roll right through here like bernie sanders looking for a hot meal. but, the solstice is only two weeks away, now, and it's starting to look like it might not be so bad, once the days start getting longer again.

it seems to have picked up.

let's hope it's not much longer.

as mentioned repeatedly, my sites are on the side.

if it's not on the side? it's not my site.

i *am* finding bad clusters, specifically in the recycle bin, and i do think it was creating access issues. i don't think this is pointless.

i spend essentially my whole life in front of the computer, don't i? and, i'm not particularly upset or concerned about it. it's what i do, and when the devices are functioning, i tend to be fairly productive. i've just been dealing with these constant attacks now, for months, and don't actually know what the point of them even is.

as we can see, i don't have difficult getting back on the internet. i'm still blogging. if the purpose of this is to shut me down, it's not working.

if the purpose of it is to spy on me, i'm baffled as to why when i post most of my life to the internet. you don't need to spy on me - i'm volunteering the information. 

is what i'm volunteering not enough? well, according to who? you'd think i get to determine what's enough and what isn't, and that anybody trying to interfere with my choices is trampling all over my privacy rights. but, regardless, this isn't working out so well, is it? the machine just keeps shutting down, and i keep formatting the drive. by trying to gather more information than i'm volunteering, you're actually getting less than you'd get in the first place. and, you're just slowing everything down.

but, i mean, i don't know what they're looking for. i'm a disabled person with no friends or family, by choice. i prefer to spend 95% of my time alone. that's a choice. i don't like being around people, except when i'm experiencing live music. and, as mentioned, everything i do on he internet is centralized at a blog.

there's nothing further to gather....

the bottom line is that it's not up to anybody except me to determine what i'm posting wherever i'm posting it. these are my sites. if you don't like my viewpoints, i don't give a fuck, and you can fuck off. there's absolutely nothing you can do to shut me down, and it's better if you just accept it.

and, the other bottom line is that i'm very transparent and open. i'm not hiding anything. there's no secret life of jessica - what you see is really what you get.

if you want me to hurry up, there are two things you can do:

1) back off and let me work.

2) send me money so i'm stable.

distracting me or fucking with me or trying to gather more information than i'm volunteering is not helping anybody, it's just slowing me down and wasting everybody's time.

i'm actually sort of feeling overwhelmed, like i've got a million things to do and can't do any of them. and i want to push forward, i want to get things done...but i'm stuck with the bottleneck of this broken machine, which is essentially rendering me useless.

so, i'm tempted to start making lists, and plans for when the machine comes back up, but i know better. i'd be getting ahead of myself.

so, i'm going to be spending the night staring at the ceiling waiting for the chkdsk to finish and trying to calm down and refocus and center.

i moved the chkdsk to the pc, and it's looking like it's going to take all night.

and, i essentially have nothing to do. i'm wide awake, and bored as hell...

what i want to be doing is getting back to the journals, but the data is on the drive i'm doing a chkdsk on. i have no option but to wait.

i don't want to read. i'm not interested in the news cycle. and, i don't want to just aimlessly jam - i want my musical energy to be strictly focused on completing old projects. and, i'm sick of fixing computers.

as mentioned, there are not going to be any new projects - my musical career ended in 2013.

so, i'm stuck. 

i'm not even hungry,

i just want the machine to work :(.

seems like the headache is back.

there's no solution, i need to sleep.

so, i got some rest. worst things could happen.

the machine is still up, and i'm doing things like running chkdsks and setting group policy and fixing security descriptors. i want to be sure that it's as good as i can get it before i expose myself to the police harassment again.

i can't imagine it taking all night.

but, that's what i'm doing. still.

as i've now wasted four more days on this, i have little choice but to get out to print and stuff tomorrow.

the machine is up, but i'm deeply hesitant about joining the network.

it's slower and buggier than usual, as well.

i think i'm going to lose the day. that's ok.

to be clear: there was an attempt the last time i did this to try and get the machine to "work normally".

we're back to making sure the machine is broken, now, so that the windows scripts (amongst other things) cannot run....

as far as i can tell, i seem to be back up and everything seems to be back to normal. but i have a lot of stuff to do before i consider reconnecting that machine to the internet.

i've got a fresh pot of coffee.

and, i want to be back up by noon at the latest, so i don't lose the day.

the install is done. now, to copy the install from last month over...

so, i'm starting the reinstall.

i'd like to be back up by the morning, so i can get on with things.

i've otherwise spent the evening catching up on the vlogs.

i don't know why the updates turned on all of a sudden, but i'm suspecting it had to do with turning the task scheduler back on, which i turned on to get the event log working again. i didn't learn anything useful from the event log, really. so, i'm leaning towards just turning that back off.

but, what i'm going to do, after i copy the install from early november back, is just inspect the install directory. are there glaring differences? recent changes? what the fuck?

i'm wondering.

is there some misunderstanding that i'm going to change my gateway? well, you're not providing very strong incentives for me to do so....

i've been as clear as i can be that i will not be putting any computer that is of any value on the internet ever again, because it's not a safe place to put nice things. my recording pc will never be online ever again. 

so, it is true that i have a new machine that i haven't had time to set up yet. but, that machine will never connect to the internet. ever. 

the machines that will have network access will exclusively be older and less expensive ones, like this chromebook, or the 90s laptop, or the laptops with broken lamps.

so, yes, i want to shift gears. but, i will not be updating my gateway, as i do so, and if you're upset about that, you should blame yourself - look at what you're doing.

we're copying to the temp drive. 

i have a lot of space there, and am not worried about it. it's going to take most of the night, though. and, i don't really have a good idea as to what to do while i'm waiting, except maybe to try to plan out what happens when the machine comes back up. i could maybe get to the dmv in the morning, but this is more important in terms of focus. i should probably get to printing tomorrow or the next day, but i need to get back into my email, first.

how about this for weird - i opened the chromebook back up and the battery came back up to 91%. i dunno. so, if i'm testing to see what it is that drained the battery, the answer is that it didn't?

i guess that's something i can spend some time with tonight, too.

but, what i'm going to do is

1) get some fruit

2) sit down and sort through my blog and try to get a narrative of the last few weeks, for a vlog update.

3) work out what happens next, and make sure i'm not missing anything. like, i know i wanted to shift focus after i updated my liner notes for the november releases, and got journals up for december and january. and, i've just had computer problems for weeks. is that what's next? am i skipping anything?

i want to get back to the alter-reality for christmas. if i can get the machine up by the morning, maybe i can work out a plan for the next few weeks.

otherwise, this is life in late capitalism, and what i have to do survive in it, and if it's slowing me down, it sucks, but at least it's better than wage slavery.

if i don't have to appeal the divisional court ruling - and the oiprd doesn't - then i should be able to get that constitutional challenge in by mid-2020, along with my millions of dollars in requested compensation for the illegal arrest, search and detainment.