This is not quite a diary or journal, document.write(“”); but merely some observations about my boring daily life — either posted directly as it happens (in many separate posts) or retro-blogged from the scribblings in my notebooks (compiled into one large post). I don’t think this will have any interest for any people other than myself, establishing a chronology of my life events to help my future failing memory…
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I really have the feeling that, until I’ll be able to relocate my work-place closer to home, I won’t be able to do anything worthwhile at home… The long commuting hours leave me quite tired each day. (4/11)

In mid-April, we experienced the invasion of tiny ants (that I have identify, with the help of the Insectarium’s website [in french], as Pharaoh ant). I didn’t have to do anything as they all died by themselves, which is rather worrysome (whatever killed them could also have adverse effect on us. Although it is probably simply because they were out of their usual environment). There was also a brief surge of my old adversary (we had plenty of them in our old apartment in Hochelaga): the speedy gonzales (that’s the name I gave them since I couldn’t identify them). However I have finally been able to identify this extremely quick, etheral and almost alien creature (when you squish them there only a bunch of legs left): they are known as “Scutigera coleoptrata” (or Scutigère véloce en français, thanks again to the Insectarium’s website). Although they might look a little scarry, they are apparently totally inoffensive. All those tiny creatures probably woke up for spring and I have barely seen them after that. (4/12)

The “Halal chicken” scandal is brought to my attention. I won’t comment further on this subject because I want to dedicate a full post to it later (along with two other quite irritating subjects that dominated the news: more language debate in Montreal and the beginning of the students’ protest about university tuition). I am baffled and outraged by the way people think these days (particularly the younger generation). I don’t seem to understand people (and the world) anymore.

The first big rainfall of spring (4/23) brings back the problem of water infiltration in the back of the house (and the previous owner was saying there was “NO” problems; what a swindler!). We will have to take care of that sooner than later. The day after we even got some hail. And finally we had more snow a few days later (4/27). Quite a weather!

My wife sighted a fox in the nearby park (4/23). I was rather sceptical at first, but after googling “fox sighting in Montreal”, I realized that there was indeed foxes on the metropolitan island. There was even video proof of their presence at the Botanical garden and the Cote-des-Neiges cemetery! Either they came by themselves from the suburbs, walking through the railway or highway bridges, or maybe they were introduced to curb pests like rats and pigeons. I wish I would have been with her and take a few pictures (or video) myself. We tend to forget that the city’s many parks support a lot of wildlife (more than the usual skunk or racoon that we see once in a while). Incidentaly, a week later, my wife spotted a racoon riping through the neighbor’s garbages (that’s why I have always told people they should use a hard garbage can — either plastic or metal — instead of plastic bags).

For some reasons, some drain pipe got blocked, which prevents either of us (me and my sister, who lives upstair) to use our kitchen sinks. We have to wash our dishes in a bucket (which my wife usually do in summer anyway in order to keep the water for watering the garden). It took my a while to figure out and take care of the problem, since I was so busy at work and quite tired. I first tried chemicals to dissolve the clogging, then a plunger, but nothing worked. I had to go to Canadian Tire to get a small drainpipe auger. The metal springwire coil is shoved into the pipe and, as we rotate the auger, it goes down the pipe clearing the clog. Finally, the auger succeeded were Drano had failed. Hurray! (4/28) Unfortunately, there is still a small problem: the aeration pipe (needed to evacuate the air pushed by the water moving down the pipe and insure a good flow) must be clogged also, since when the upstair’s sink is getting emptied, it makes a bubbling sound in ours. I’ll probably have to eventually get on the roof to work the auger there too.

One of the movies I’ve watched in May (5/3) and that impressed me most was Never let me go. Based on the 2005 novel by Kazuo Ishiguro (Japanese-born but now considered as a British novelist, mostly known for its 1989 novel The Remains of the Day), this 2010 movie directed by Mark Romanek is a well-crafted dystopian science fiction drama. In this alternate reality England (where cloning was successfully developped in the fifties), some children are cloned and raised in special boarding schools for the specific purpose of becoming organ donors for normal citizens. The story follows three of the children from the Hailsham school in East Sussex (Ruth, Tommy and Kathy) as they grow up, try to adapt to the outside world as adults, develop romantic relationship (forming a sort of love triangle), try to find a dispense from their final outcome and eventually become repeated donors. It is more than a film about the ethics of cloning. Like any good science-fiction, it is about our human nature, trying to explore it in a specific context. The cast is excellent, but I already knew only two of the actors (Keira Knightley and Charlotte Rampling). I don’t know how different the movie is from the book (I borrowed it at the library, but haven’t had time to read it yet), but from the little I’ve read so far it seems quite similar. It’s really an excellent movie and I hope I’ll have more time later to comment this movie in a separate post.

And now a funny anecdote. My wife regularly receives from a friend in Japan issues of a movie magazine. This month the package was late and when it was finally received it contained an issue of a french magazine. A quick call to Tokyo confirmed that my wife’s friend did not send this magazine and yet it was it her enveloppe. The only conclusion possible is that an official, either of Canada Post or from the Canadian customs, opened the parcel to check it out and the wrong content was put back into the enveloppe. Someone, somewhere, is probably greatly puzzled to have received a Japanese magazine instead of a French one. I know how lazy and careless public workers can be (I am one and I work with many lazy and careless people). The loss of a bunch of Japanese magazine is far from being dramatic, but the loss of the personal correspondance included with it is sad. Fortunately, the cost of a phone call to Tokyo is ridiculously low (at least now with my phone service provider, Primus, but I remember paying ten times that with Bell ten years ago) and our privacy was probably preserved (I doubt that the people who received the letter could read Japanese). But I’ve lost all the trust I had left into our federal institutions.

For the first time this year, we went to visit the botanical garden (5/7). We have seen two wood-peckers, one cardinal, a few geeses and ducks, many squirels and, of course, plenty of flowers. Luckily we took advantage of the excellent weather while it was possible (The next day it was raining hard). We went back again two weeks later (5/21).

Lately I’ve been having lots of problem with Videotron, my cable provider. Whenever I switch to the channel Oasis and use the close-captioning, the cable terminal crashes and reboot. It was apparently a bug in Sisco’s programing. The only solutions: switch provider (I was probably not the only one thinking about that considering the amount of Bell service trucks I am seeing lately in the neihborhood; many people are probably switching to their new Fibe service) or get the Illico second generation not yet available. Switching provider is lots of trouble (even if you save money; and I previously had lots of problem with Bell anyway), so I decided to stick with Videotron and, in order to prepare for the new Illico OS, I had to get a new cable terminal. To be safe, I decided to rent instead of buying. When I received the terminal by special delivery I installed it (when I came back from work) following all the instructions. But it didn’t worked. I called the technical service and the guy told me that my signal was too weak and that they needed to send a technician (which they had done at least a couple of times before). Fortunately, it was working the following day (I guess it just needed more time for the OS to load; the signal is “weak” after all), so I cancelled the appointment with the technician. Now, all I had to do was to program the setting, the remote and my recordings… and wait for Illico 2.0 to be available (I was told that it should be around the end of the month). Of course, it was not the end of the problems, but that’s another story.

For my birthday, I took almost a week off. I anticipated that I would be needing that long to get over this huge life-time milestone (I was getting fifty year-old) and, being springtime, I needed to make lots of work around the house. I installed the air conditioning, took out the garden furnitures, shop for new shoes and clothes, had an hair cut, etc. The deshumidifier broke down and I had to deal with lots of water being spilled on my nice hard-wood floor (I was not happy!). We went to visit the Samurai exposition at the Point-à-Caillère museum (5/24). That was quite a nice collection (from the prestigious Dr Béliveau; it’s amazing that a guy can accumulate so many pretty nice pricey stuff: not only samurai armors but many katana as well)! Then heavy rain caused flooding in my garage again! (5/25) I had to call the city again to complain (default in the sidewalk cause the rainwater to fall into my driveway instead of flowing toward the sewage drain) and set up a deshumidifier in the garage to remove all that humidity before it made its way into the house.

Late January, I was offered a new permanent position in another library. It was not my first choice of library (having worked there before and gone through bad experiences, I certainly didn’t like the place and it was quite far from home) but I couldn’t refuse such an opportunity (and I was hoping that, with the help of new staff members, the place would have improved since the last time I worked there). Unfortunately, it proved to be quite a hell. The working atmosphere was often almost toxic, communication between staff and management was poor, there was lots of disrespect toward the staff, and many of the benefits I was promised remains unseen (unused day-off from my previous position were to be transfered or paid, the extra-hours bonuses for the first three months are still unpaid, and I calculated that, with the extra deduction I have to pay for retirement and union, I am paid less than before!). Fighting to get any answers on my status is getting tiring and depressing. We get disrespect from the patron, from the management, even from the union. At least I have job security. Things are improving a bit, but the worse is the long commuting hours. I really hope to get a mutation to a closer location. Actually, I have already postulated on a new job (located at about fifteen minutes from home, with a different job description [a desk job, with no dealing with the customers], possibility of flexible hours) but without success. I guess I just need to be a little more patient.

[ Traduire ]

Nothing much to report on the home front. I’m still adapting to the new job & schedule. The wife is back to work, document.write(“”); so it gave me more time to catch up on the TV series that were accumulating on the PVR. I’ve binged on Alcatraz and Unforgettable (my two favourites this season), as well as NCIS, Hawaii 5-0 and Vampire Diaries (but I still have to watch Grey’s Anatomy and The Walking Dead). But it’s on my writing that I should be catching up. I have a pile of books to comment on and many ideas of blog entries that I would like to share with the blogosphere. (Read more of my daily adventures beyond the jump).
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I had to deal with two technical problems this week. First, one of my favourite HD channels, Oasis, stopped working about two weeks ago. Whenever I was dialing that channel the cable box was crashing and rebooting. Quite annoying for a channel that cost me two bucks per month. I called Videotron customers’ service and they sent a technician. He couldn’t find anything wrong, so he boosted my signal (he thought it was a bit weak) and suggested that the problem was maybe with the decoder (I have an older Scientific Atlanta’s Explorer 8300 HD+). I was not happy with the idea of shelling another six hundred loonies for a new HD PVR cable decoder (although they are currently offering a two hundred bucks rebate). The tech finally called Videotron to make sure they were not seeing any problems from their end and then we learned that the problem was known: apparently the latest software update created a glitch between the close-captions and Oasis. Simply turning off the close-captions solved the problem until a new software patch was made (they were already working with Cisco to resolve the issue).

Secundo, one of my iMac’s memory bay broke down a while ago when I tried to upgrade its memory from 2 Gb to 4 Gb. I therefore found myself with the same amount of memory than before and the computer was running quite slow after the lastest OS update to Lion. That was quite annoying. So, in preparation for sending it for repair, I bought a new hard drive and cloned the iMac drive for security. But before scheduling an appointment with the always humble Apple specialist of the Genius Bar, I decided to try re-installing the memory again. And, you know what?, this time it worked! My iMac had self-healed and now it runs much faster with its maximum memory of four gigs (although if Apple refresh the iMac line this year I will be seriously considering buying the latest model in order to get a more powerful computer).

Anyway, beside doing a bunch of back-ups and software upgrades (with their new devices annoucement, Apple released many sofware and apps updates) or the usual basement clean-up or reading news online, I dug up some old notebooks and text files to find material to maybe beef up my blog’s content and feed some of my epublishing projects. Strangely, I always amaze myself when I read my old writings. Most of the time I don’t remember writing it, but I also feel I’ve lost so much edge (and vocabulary) in the last ten or twenty years… This time I read some poetry and texts from my twenties and I was surprised how dark they were. I had forgotten how much angst and despair I felt in those years. I might use some of those texts here, but the decision of using such texts is always difficult since they might be too personal to share. Some should be left for postumous publication (if there’s anybody left to oversee their publication of course). Or maybe I should limit myself to simply comment on my readings…

It was another busy but quiet week. I am settling in well into my new job, document.write(“”); but the long commuting is a real drag and I remain quite tired once I come back home which leave me not much time to do anything (like we say in french: it’s “metro-boulot-dodo”).
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There’s little notable events this week. Last monday my wife and I saw a small woodpecker in our front yard’s tree. I was able to identify it as a female “downy woodpecker.” I guess it is a sign of an early spring which is not surprising since day-time temperature remained slightly above zero celcius for most of the week (I’ve heard that the cherry flowers are already blossoming in Washington DC!). So far in Montreal we’ve had only one real snow storm. Where is my winter?

Yesterday I tried some warm spiced wine like they used to drink in the middle ages (or even in ancient Greece and Rome) and I found it horrible. I guess it is an acquired taste. I spent most of my days off re-installing a functional copy of Windows on my Mac (not much use for it beside getting to know XP better for my work, but it’s rather amusing).

I’ve also started reading Haruki Murakami’s Norwegian Wood (after watching the movie I was curious to see how different it was from the novel; I’ll probably eventually write a short comment on both), I’ve watched the Canadian TV series Bomb Girls as well as another Ken Burns documentary titled Horatio’s Drive, America’s first road trip (which was quite interesting and entertaining). And, of course, I’ve read news online.

First full week of work at my new permanent job. The new schedule starts much earlier, so getting up that early is really killing me. I was completely exhausted at the end of the week. I hope I’ll get used to that fast. But so far everything else is going well at the new job. However, my blood pressure and glucose level are much higher than usual (I don’t know if it’s due to the stress of a new job, the fact that I am so tired or because the pharmacist recently changed my blood-pressure medication for a generic brand — or maybe all of the above).

Since my wife is unemployed (fortunately the employer finally paid what was due and provided the belated ROE) I had to help her with some paperwork (EI filing and such), but we spent more time together than usual. We watched movies almost every nights (Norwegian Wood, a couple of Shrek movies, Marmaduke, HereAfter and several Ken Burns’ documentaries — I couldn’t watch the one I was most eager to see, about Mark Twain, but so far we’ve seen the ones about The Statue of Liberty, The Brooklyn Bridge, Lewis & Clark, and The Congress; they’re quite fascinating).

Unfortunately that (as well as working more hours, being so tired and having a longer commuting) left me with little time to do much. My list of to-do (writing, order processing, basement clean up, research on manga, new publishing projects, &c.) keeps pilling up…

However, I have updated my bibliography. While doing some clean up I found a pile of old Le Sablier (the newspaper of the University of Montreal’s history department). I delighted myself with the rediscovery of Mario Tessier‘s articles (historian, astronomer and librarian, he started writing with those “historical parodies” before writing sci-fi short stories, but is now mostly known for his “Carnets du Futurible” articles in Solaris) but also found a bunch of very short sci-fi stories and articles that I had totally forgotten writing! So I have added them to my list.

And I have also read a few interesting news stories and compiled their links for further sharing and usage.

And how was YOUR week?

I had a busy couple of weeks. So much that I had to postpone many of the “to-do” that I had planned (like, document.write(“”); among other things, writing or the magazine orders’ processing–delayed again!).
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I had to deal with a recycling problem (the city doesn’t pick it up when the container it not full enough and it doesn’t pick it up when it is too full. What am I to do?).

I had to deal with problems at my wife’s job (the japanese restaurant where she is working [in appalling conditions I’m sad to say] is moving, but the owner failed so far to provide the end-of-employment papers, the last couple of pays, as well as five-years worth of vacation-pay; the owner also has an history of ignoring labor laws and tolerating a work environment that foster psychological harassment (when she is not screaming and threatening herself), so I went to talk with her but without much success. All I got was promises, again.).

I had to deal with a couple of union-related problems at the job (investigating whether the printer’s thermal paper we are manipulating every day contains BPA or not [still unresolved] and dealing with quarrelling withing our already disfunctional union [not much success there either]).

The greatest news is that I was unexpectedly offered a permanent position, which means a full-time schedule (more money and vacation) and employment security (I’ll stop worrying about how much hours I’ll get for the next season). However, the news left me with mixed feelings: I liked a lot the library and the team I was working with, the change was very sudden (the next day) and made in difficult circumstances (the guy I was taking the job from was told only the previous day), the commuting time is much longer (nearly an hour and half to go there from home) and this new library would not have been my first and best choice of workplace. But I couldn’t turn down such an offer and, after working there for a couple of days, I must say I like it (the library and the new team) and I am sure it will all turn out well. In any cases, I have to work there at least a year, but after that I could always look for another permanent job closer to home if I am not totally satisfied there.

Despite all this, I still had a little time to write and to gather a few news links.

Nothing new this week, document.write(“”); really. Both at work and at home, it’s the usual daily routine: commute, work and go home to sleep. It doesn’t leave me much time to do anything (beside a little reading and TV watching). I am wondering sometime what’s the use to go to work every day in order to pay the bills and eat so I can go work some more. Is there a life after civil service? I shouldn’t complain: another twenty-seven years or so of this and I will be able to retire! Joy 😉 Anyway, I’ve been able to find a little time to catch up with my writing (although it is difficult: there’s always something new to talk about!). And, of course, there was my usual Weekly Press Review.

I can’t beleive it has already been a month since my last “weekly” press review. Obviously, document.write(“”); it has been a busy month. In fact, it was the worse Holidays “vacation” since I can remember. First, on my first day off for Christmas I woke up with a really terrible cold. I was quite congestionned and was losing my voice. It stubbornly lasted for the entire Holidays. Then, after working in-between the holidays at the library (the last day of work I had to move many heavy books and boxes), I woke up on my first New Year’s week-end day off with a locked back. My back pain remained for a few days. On top of it, right after the New Year’s week-end, my mother was hospitalized for respiratory (and possible hearth) problems. I guess such problems are to be expected when you are in your 80s. After a few days (and many tests) in a very crowded emergency she was released from the hospital and everything seems fine now.
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I spent the Holidays watching TV (Ken Burns’ The Civil War) and a few movies with my wife (The King’s Speech, Catch Me If You Can, Les Aventures Extraordinaires d’Adèle Blanc-Sec, The Eagle), but mostly working around the house: I installed a few more bookshelves (mostly to put plants up in the sunlight and out of reach from the cats), made sure the snowblower was ready for snow and finished cleaning up the warehouse / garage. I cleared enough space so I can now actually work in my shipping/workshop area. I categorized boxes in piles “for recycling”, “giving away” or “to sort out later” and I finally sorted out all the back issues of the magazine so I can restart filling orders (I know, I know it took quite a long time). It left not much time for anything else. I didn’t blog much (and a glitch made the few funny anecdotes I wrote appear only later), but I read a few books (comments to follow soon, if I can find the time of course) and spent some time on news websites. The resulting “scraplinking” can be found in my “Weekly” Press Review.