ok. back at it. and, i want to push myself to the end of the year, so i can stop to do some cleaning afterwards.

today just kind of disappeared. i decided at the last minute to do an unplanned grocery run, due to the long term forecast not providing the reprieve i wanted in the first week of february. it's actually been a relatively mild winter overall, but my grocery runs are three or four hour walks, often with a cart, so i was hoping to get a day above zero and without snow, to facilitate the cart. alas...

i get the january check before christmas, so it's always a weird month, grocery wise. it's predictable that i'll end up doubling my january bill, then buying almost nothing in february. which is what seems to be happening, again.

the upside is that i have nothing planned until the cloud nothings show on the 7th. my body is tired and my feet are sore, so i don't expect to finish anything else tonight. but hopefully tomorrow is the big day....stated yet again....

update: the imaginary tour demo is posted to nov 19, 2014.

update: time is posted to nov 19, 2014.

update: 9:46 is posted to nov 15, 2014.

update: rabit is wolf is posted to nov 8, 2014.

so, about an hour ago i hear all kinds of smashing and drilling and sawing upstairs. a few minutes ago, i finally went up to see what the commotion is..

"what are you guys doing?"
"tearing the ceiling down."
"can i ask why you're tearing the ceiling down?"
"there's a leak upstairs."
"can i..."
"there's a leak upstairs. it needs to be fixed. would you like to help?"
"i'm not going to be of much help to you...."

it's not my fault. i was born with this.

i just want to clarify that i'm waiting this guy out.

he's dangerously obese, and in his 60s. he should die any day, now. heart attack. diabetes. he could fall and be unable to get up.

i'd kind of like to sit the new property owner down and explain this to him. i'm not sure what the exact relationship is, now. the previous owner was the guy's brother; i think that the new one is an in-law. he may be a little unclear about the reality of the situation, which is that i'm his long term tenant. the fat moron upstairs has five years, max. the heavy smokers two flights up are no doubt going to leave when their son moves out, which should be in a year or two; otherwise, they've had health issues, themselves. there's another tenant upstairs that is also old and in visibly poor health.

i am thirty years younger, and in excellent health. i won't just be here longer than any of the other tenants, i'll probably be here longer than the existing property owner owns the building for.

so, i'd kind of like to sit him down and level with him. he should be concerned about what i want, first and foremost - because i'm the one he's going to have to be dealing with, years down the road.

so, that's two saturday mornings in a row that this smell has wafted downstairs and started to affect my head.

here's another thought: i don't have the slightest clue what crack-cocaine smells like. could somebody in the building be smoking crack? i wouldn't be able to identify it - i'd just notice something smells bad and complain about a headache.

windows are open until it passes....

i got up until the end of october done yesterday, which is much less than i'd like. but, hopefully, i can get that extra push today.

update: clarity is posted to oct 21, 2014.

update: the wave is posted to oct 6, 2014.

i'm actually glad that i'm doing this, as much of a pain in the ass as it is, as i really am going to have to give the second part quite a bit of a facelift to finish the remaining sections.

there's a lot of stuff coming. a chamber music compilation. a vocal disc, with vocals that are currently unreleased. and, expansions of almost all of the singles...

these are mostly ideas that i chickened out on the first run through. as i said before: the focus is different, now. no, i want to be comprehensive. so, all of these ideas need to come back...

i'm excited. really.

but i have to finish this, first. i didn't expect it would take this long. but i guess i underestimated the breadth of writing.

really, i should have done this over the summer, before the alter-reality came up. now, i'm stuck - and i have to push through.

at least i'm getting some listening in, too. that's always a benefit.

this is great news:
https://daily.bandcamp.com/2017/01/24/everything-is-terrific-the-bandcamp-2016-year-in-review/

i had a false start yesterday due to finding an error in the vlogs from the 19th and 20th (of january) at the last minute, requiring a re-render. and, then i had a publishing error this morning that stole about 10 gb of bandwidth...

but, i'm posting today. starting now. and, in fact, i want to get a lot done.

fwiw, the window was only open for about an hour this morning and i don't currently plan to re-open it. we'll have to see, but right now it seems like it's ok....

this editing process was slowed down by a number of weird factors, but i should be back to posting within an hour or so. i just need to call my gp to book an appointment, presumably with an urologist.

i'm a big advocate of tort law. and, i think that the solution to smokers rights v. non-smokers rights lies in shifting the burden to the smokers, themselves.

so, while i'm not really an advocate of laws that ban smoking, i am an advocate of adopting a "polluter-pays" approach to dealing with the externalities related to cigarette smoking. remember: i live in canada. so, i can support high taxes for cigarettes, but only under the argument that the money goes towards health care. what i'm talking about right now, though, is the question of what is to be done about tenant smoking, and finding ways to balance tenant rights for smokers and non-smokers.

i would both argue that smokers have the right to smoke and argue that non-smokers have the right to not smoke. the novel part of my argument is that i would argue that non-smokers should have the ability to hold smokers liable for costs incurred in smoke-proofing their buildings. for the practical example in front of me, i would argue that the smokers in the building should be held liable for the heating and electrical costs incurred as a consequence of me opening the window to neutralize their habits. if a cost is placed on their pollution, perhaps they'd think twice about causing these externalities.

so, i woke up to a different smell today: cyanide & carbon monoxide. that is, the smell of cigarette smoke.

that's a smell i know well. it's dankness - the way it falls over everything like a blanket. you simply can't address this without opening the windows and letting the room air out.

i'm actually not sure if the tenant directly above me smokes or not. i think he might be a secret smoker from time to time, which is why this comes and goes. i think that the other tenant on the main floor does. the tenants two floors up are very heavy smokers and you can smell it when you walk in the front door but it doesn't usually bug me down in the basement.

this isn't the first time i've noticed this, but i don't think it's been this bad before; or, perhaps, my smell is better now than it has been since i've moved here. but, i didn't quit smoking just to deal with the second-hand smoke from upstairs. so, i'm not backing down on this point: the windows will remain open (with the heat up...) until the smell clears out.

and, the answer is to stop smoking inside.

update: jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj is posted to oct 3, 2014.

update: existence is posted to oct 3, 2014.

i crashed hard this afternoon after yet another absurd day down here...

as mentioned here repeatedly, the situation has been clearing up over the weekend, although not decisively. and, while the smell seems to be gone now, it may take a while for the apartment to clear out completely and me to get my head back. i remain oozy, but am a little better than yesterday (which was a little better than the day before). i am convinced that something was fixed, at least, and believe it was a consequence of my tactics to draw attention to the issue. if the issue reappears, i will not hesitate to repeat.

but, what happened? i glossed over this in the vlog, but i'll be more detailed, here.

there was rattling upstairs on friday afternoon. the smell became noticeable on saturday morning; the headache hit before noon, and i fell asleep. i opened the windows on saturday night and actually mostly left the heat off (except when i was up to eat). the initial goal was to try and get him to turn the heat back on upstairs; given that i believed that the cause of the leak was turning the heat off the other day, getting him to turn it back on would at least put him face to face with the device, and have him see if he damaged anything. i sent the email out on sunday, which explicitly pointed to the likelihood that something was knocked loose on friday. it was not until monday morning that i gave up hope on him turning his heat back on, and turned mine up to 30.

late on monday morning, i heard another rattling upstairs followed by the liberal use of a spray bottle. about an hour later, a "gas inspector" that looked a lot like the new property owner showed up in construction gear. he walked around a little and concluded there was no sign of a gas leak, but agreed, when pressed, that the fact that i've had the windows open for several days would make it hard to get a good reading.

i gave the guy upstairs a chance to be honest, but i didn't expect that he'd take it. in the few years that i've been here, i've experienced nothing but dishonesty from him. he wouldn't admit to why he wanted to let dogs down here, for example. and, his own brother has asked me to not give him checks because he, himself, doesn't trust him. if your own brother does not trust you at 60-some years, there must be a serious problem, right?

but, i've been clear - repeatedly - that i do not think that he can be held legally liable and ultimately elevate responsibility elsewhere. the way you want to think of it is like this: suppose you told a six year-old that you think he accidentally broke the furnace. six is maybe a tad young, but you get the point. if that six year-old is home alone, and you told them this over email or phone, what would the six year-old do? well, first, it would check to see if it could fix the situation, and then it would destroy any evidence (such as spraying the area - and i don't actually know if febreeze would mask natural gas). then, it would deny culpability in any way possible by blaming others or making things up. if you asked the six year old directly, the six year old would lie. if eventually caught, the six year old would admit that the reason it lied was that it didn't want to get in trouble.

now, this might seem a little outlandish, but the evidence i've gathered around me has led me to conclude that this is the psychology in front of me. i've been operating this way for quite a while, now. i mean, you might ask the reasonable question: if you think there's a gas leak upstairs, why not just knock on the door? and, the answer is that the person that opens the door is incapable of dealing with the situation in an honest or adult manner, and needs to be directed from outside.

the reason that i glossed over this is that - given the situation, more broadly - it doesn't matter. i need to do what i did to get a reaction. and, i got the reaction i wanted. hopefully, the experience is enough to act as incentive for everybody to be more careful with the furnace.

as mentioned, the gas guy looked a whole lot like the property owner. again: i didn't ask questions (except when i did, and he shuffled nervously). i mean, if he were to go to the absurd point of putting on construction gear to try and convince me of something...

he admitted his device couldn't pick much up in context, and instead tried to blame the smell on the baseboards. i guess the solution is another furnace, right? lol. i set this up to demonstrate that this idea does not make sense. but, i wanted an analysis, and not an argument, so i just let him walk out.

as mentioned: the smell (which, as has been the case previously, was localized in the bathroom) has lifted. they did something. they might not be telling me what they did. but, i got them to do it. and, hopefully the threat of expenses will have them behave more carefully in the future.

i'm going to get something to eat. the vlogs should be done rendering by then. and i should be back at it when the sun comes back up.

i'm a lot better right now, but i'm also apparently unable to close the windows without getting woozy. the stench continues. with the heat set to 30, it's a decent balance, for now.

again: i've pointed this out to the old property owner several times and i'm not getting a real answer. he's going to have to wait until his gas bill shows up to learn, i guess - along with his electrical bill, which is heating a basement with the windows wide open because the gas is leaking.

who am i kidding. he'll blame it on the windmills in northern ontario and demand a tax cut. i'm going to have to call the new property owners over the next few days; the landlord is useless, and i'm not going to even bother, i'll just leapfrog him right off.

anyways. i spent the morning finishing the editing up until jan 20th (inclusive), which means vlogs are done until the tenth of february. they're rendering, right now. i'll start uploading when i close the virtual machine when they're done rendering...

so, the last 48 hours were not a total waste. but i really hope i can get a head start on the rest of the week this morning.