Standards

Ok, so I'm designing a site for a department here at the University. I've got a nice CSS ordered list menu thing on the side for navigation. It's lovely. It works great in FireFox under windows and mac, it works great in Safari... then I load it in IE. BLAMMO!!!

I know that Microsoft is updating IE, I've heard that they are trying very hard to have better adherence to standards etc etc.. but this is getting dumb. I get that they want market share. I get that they want dominance, I get all these things.

But. Their. Products. Don't. Work.

I sent the code to two friends, one in the US, one in the UK, and both basically replied the same way "huh... the code is fine".

FUCK YOU IE FUCK YOU!

(did I mention that I was up till 3:30 trying to solve this?)

Prediction results

I'm going to write about the actual results of the actual election later. But first I know all three of you are dying to know how Christine and I did with our various predictions. First, an explanation, Christine has what people like to call "a life". She leaves the house to work, she has co-workers who talk to her, our boss is 10 feet away from her, she is not nearly as lame and geeky as I am. Which is to say that her email inbox wasn't recieving polling data directly and she wasn't reading politics stuff every lunch hour.

So:

Christine's Predictions:
CPC: 153
Lib: 72
BQ: 58
NDP: 23
IND: 2

Cameron's Predictions:
CPC: 12O
LIB: 105
BQ: 58
NDP: 25

Actual Election Results:
CPC: 124
LIB: 103
BQ: 51
NDP: 29
IND: 1

So I was closer, but off on some. Then again, at about 10:30 Christine predicted that Martin would resign. I told her she was nuts.

Order of Service

This is our evening then:

We just ate Chinese food.

We have the cookies. And chips and cheese and such....

Then we will have the ceremonial vote prediction from the two of us (writen down and then put in an envelope.

Then at 10 we are having the ceremonial "OH GOD PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE LET LAPIERRE LOSE!" chant....

Then we shut up and watch our country torn asunder.

It will rock.

So it's come to this has it?

First, let's be clear here. The Liberals, in their current incarnation, need to go bye bye now. They have besmirched all that is good and decent about Canadian democracy. And it disgusts me.

I want a different group of people in charge.

That said, I don't' want the Conservative Part of Canada running the show totally. Which is what we might get tonight. A CPC majority.

I know it's become mockery bait to suggest that you are even slightly worried about a CPC government. I know that to suggest that you are worried invites suggestions that you are a closet Martinite, that you believe the "Main Stream Media" (attention, if your blog gets anything more than 1000 distinct hits a day, you are the MSM) smear, that you are some how evil and stupid and ignorant. But I don't care.

I'm scared of the CPC. Not all of it. But fairly largish chunks. I'm scared of the fact that they have yet to have found a problem that they don't think can't be fixed with a tax cut. I'm scared of some of their members views on abortion. I'm scared of their whole parties view on same sex marriage (and homosexuality as a whole). I'm scared that they are going to draw us further and further into lockstep with US foreign policy (they are our trading partners, they are important to us, no doubt at all, but their foreign policy is good for THEM, not us, THEM). I'm scared of the idea of free votes on important social issues (WTF do you need a party platform for if you're going to free vote every damn important issue)? I'm scared because Steven Harper does absolutely nothing to defuse these fears (when he was cornered his "don't worry the Senate (that we're going to reform) and the Supreme Court (that we hate) is all Liberal" so we can't do anything crazy" wasn't anywhere near as comforting as "we are going to do anything crazy" would have been). I'm quite nervous and unhappy on a number of fronts.

All the way through this election, and since the last one when it became apparent that we'd be doing this dance again soon, remnant PC people, people from the leftish side of the CPC, my cousin Andrew, people on commentsplease, Warren Kinsella, Peter MacKay, Charles, and many many more people have told me that it would be ok. That they would watch over the nuts (and oh my god the CPC has some ripe old nuts don't they?), that they would make sure the CBC wouldn't completely cut up, that the trumphilism wouldn't overwhelm reason (Don at commentsplease describes this as the "bayonet the stragglers" worldview), that Canada would, in point of fact, remain Canada.

So now, it's come to this.

You had better have been serious. You had better have been telling the truth.

Because if the whole shooting match goes to hell, if the Reagan like simultaneous tax cuts and spending promises get us in the shitter again, if the Medicare system basically goes away, if suddenly we're begging for forgiveness to the US for us raising their violations of trade agreements, if the CBC gets turned into some even more hollow version of it's former glory, it's on you, the conservative moderates. On your heads.

That's all I'm going to say about that.

Freezing Rain

Today's weather? Shit. Followed by more shit.

Seriously, the sidewalks and roads are skating rinks.

Wet ones.

With big puddles.

It's way after 2 and the first sidewalk tank just went through our neighborhood. Which means that just now, roughly 10 hours after the freezing rain started, the sidewalks are sort of passable.

Wheee!

I love local government and their attentiveness to their citizens well being.

Sudden Clarity

Up late working, listening to Lucas over the baby monitor.

Suddenly I get how people can believe in demonic/heavenly possession.

The boy is talking some weird ass shit in his sleep.

What?! Ok I'm awake now!

Any parent will tell you that a lot of what you do with the basic care for your kid you do on auto pilot.

I can change a diaper, know I did it, and not really remember doing it. The trip down stairs to warm the morning bottle of milk? Piff, backwards on my head.

So the other night, at about 1:30 am, Lucas started crying. So I roll out of bed, eyes half closed, and I stumble across the hall.

A brief glance and nothing looks out of the ordinary (keep in mind I'm not really looking and I'm probably still asleep). He's on his tummy, with his legs tucked under him and his butt up in the air. So I reach out to touch his butt, to check and see if the diaper is full.

And touch bare butt.

Suddenly I'm fully awake, eyes popped wide open. He'd taken off his pj bottoms, his diaper and was lying there, cold, and (we guess) with an upset tummy. Long story short, I got Chris up, she came and wrangled him while we got the diaper on, located the pj bottoms (under the bed–what, did they bounce?) and made sure the bed and the covers weren't wet.

Hi Ho! Hi Ho! (or is it "Ugh Fuck!" ?)

Today is the end of the Christmas/Holiday/New Years vacation for everyone here.

The cold stark reality of day to day life is back.

Chris is already off to work. Shortly Lucas will have to be bundled up and walked to daycare and then I will be back at my desk working away as well.

The weather has kindly conspired to make it extra difficult: if you include the windchill it is currently -17C out (-9 without wind).

Oh well, at least it's a dry cold.

New Years or So Far, So Good.

So, 12 hours, 30 minutes and 15-16-17 seconds in... so far, so good.

I've always hated New Years Eve, the enforced FUN FUN FUN! of it all.. the sense of desperation, that utter bunk of it all. People claim Christmas is too commercial, but then swallow the bullshit that is, for all intents and purposes, a celebration created out of whole cloth without blinking.

Something I noticed on TV this week was interesting, pre-the 25th of December all the diamond industry adverts (People's, Zales etc) were for relatively modest diamond necklaces and earrings, all sub-$500 (remember, modest is a relative term for diamond merchants). Turn on the TV on the 26th and BAM! suddenly it's adverts for engagement rings and stud earrings, all $1000 +.

Anyway, New Years and the false, enforced FUN FUN FUN! always makes me think of New Years past... mostly the number of them that were really amazing. I think there were 5 for me. One or two involved great parties, but most of them were about the people I was with, the family of my choosing: friends. Don't get me wrong, I love my bio-family, but the family you make is often more important than the family you are given. Equally disfunctional, often just as, by turns, infuriating, funny, lovable, idiotic, and dear, as the bio-family, but perhaps because you chose them there is a deeper connection. This connection is all the more important to me because my chosen family is so scattered all over the place. (A thought on this, I'm lucky, 90% of the time I would actually choose to hang with my family)

This year Christine and hung out with my Dad in the afternoon, ate dinner at her Mom's, and then came home. Our big celebration? We finished installing some IKEA shelves, watched Enemy At The Gates and were in bed by 12:15.

In any case, a Happy New Year to all and sundry.