so we have a winner: the founder of Universal Canadian Health Care, Tommy Douglas. In the end I ended up in the Trudeau camp based mostly on an article condemning him in the national post (thanks chrystal), but i couldn't be happier with the winner.

If you missed your chance to see the series, i've just bought a copy from cbcshop.ca. for fifty bucks it's not a bad price -- i promise you'll learn all sorts of things about your country.

• 

so i just got out of my first listening to toronto meeting and i'm typing this up in the nearby eastside mario's. i thought that now would be the best time to blog about my experiences there rather than wait 'till i got home and formatted the few pictures i took.

overall, the experience was positive. don't get me wrong, i'm still a cynic when it comes to public involvement in any level of government, but after today, i have a feeling that at least the gist of what i'd like to see happen in toronto just might come true.

the setup worked like this: about 1000 people pre-registered and were assigned to tables, where we were asked to talk about 3 big subjects. how to...

• make toronto a clean and beautiful city
• get better community involvement
• strengthen our neighbourhoods

yeah, i know, sounds cheesy. but i found some interesting stuff. for one, everyone at my table was an environmentalist. what's more, so was nearly everyone in that room.

our table covered a variety of things, ranging from growing more food in the city, to repealing the bylaw banning street hockey (who the hell thought that was good idea? this is Canada!)

the city was well represented at my table. we had an elderly woman living in subsidised housing, a wealthier couple from the rosedale area, an older woman who had concerns, but didn't voice them well, and a rather vocal guy who was bent on pushing a single issue: the front street expansion.

conversation was civil and everyone seemed to know a good deal about the things they cared most about. this was the big test for me. i decided that if i was serious about any of my four ideas for toronto, that i should be able to pitch them to this small group and see what they think. i centred in on the most controversial: a deposit system for the lunch rush to eliminate garbage in downtown for those hours. we all agreed it was a good and viable idea, so it got added to the list of our table's recommendations. this list was then collected and sent around to some organisers, where they concentrated ideas into central themes and presented them back to the group later.

and 15minutes later, there it was, among the list of other excellent ideas for greening the city:

• work with business to reduce volume of disposable items/packaging
• more incentives for recyclable containers (eg. deposits etc.)

it was kinda eerie. and a little scary too.

we covered a lot of topics there, but the environmental part was the one i'm most devoted to, so i won't bore you with the rest. i will however mention that the end of the meeting had everyone filling out little slips of paper which would be delivered to their council member. i sent a very general overview on my 4 ideas to kyle rae with an invitation to email me for details. who knows -- he might just respond.

i think i did learn something else important here though. the guy who was sitting next to me, the one i identified as "vocal concerning the front street expansion". he was well informed and seemed to know more about a lot of things in this city, but i don't see his approach working (if you're reading this, please don't take offence) he comes across as very aggressive and single-minded, managing to put off even me at times. in my own adventures in city politics, i hope i never give this impression to people with clout.

there is continuing discussion surrounding the budget in the coming weeks. i'm not sure yet how i can proceed from here, but i think i know who to talk to find out. i will keep you posted.

i'm marking this one "private" for now because i want any newcomers to my blog filtering in from my listening to toronto meeting today not to be distracted by my social life. i'll make it public later, but while it's in the top few entries, i'd rather keep it private.

so yes. i finally went out to guelph for the weekend. sheena kept pushing for me to come out there, but i've either been to busy or just plain un-interested. guelph is after all even smaller than ottawa and last time i was there, there was a whole lot of absolutely nothing going on. but with some coaxing, she finally got me out there and i'm glad i made the trip.

guelph is a nice little town, and it's got some great things going for it. to start, tree-hugging pagan dot-commies like myself tend to make up a good chunk of the population, as opposed to the white, christian majority i experienced in langley & ottawa. quite refreshing really. everyone recycles.

sheena's got herself a good set of friends too. some artists, some geeks and a whole lot of "young, poor and finding myself" types. everyone i met seemed to have a good heart and an honest approach to life. people were friendly, and accepting -- even of me, the quiet guy from toronto.

i got to meet julie too. for those of you who don't know, i met both sheena & julie online @okcupid. sheena and i actually met in person months ago, but julie and i knew each other only online. somewhere in between though, julie and sheena hooked up and started a friendship as well. since then, jule's always been someone made reference to, but rarely involved. it was really great to meet her finally.

the girls were host to a fantasia party, which is basically like a tupperware party for sex toys & other fun things. i'd direct you to the website but it's absolute crap and i hate to promote crappy sites. the presenter was really cool and the presentation... enlightening to say the least. i stuck around 'till around 10:00, when i had to catch the last bus home, but i'll be back.

not that anyone reading this is really in a position to get me any of this, but sometimes a guy needs to dream ;-) when i was a kid i used to make up this list in two parts, and since there's no reason to break with tradition....

• some measurable progress in 2005 wrt to why i'm here
• a cellphone that doesn't suck
• the last 3 episodes of sex & the city. in any format. i can't find them to download and i really just wanna see the end
• some new shoes that weren't made in a sweatshop
• my 2003 tax return (got it!)
• a webcam. (i think i might just buy this for myself early though)
• some sleep

• a ticket home and the time off to take the trip
• a new dual-cpu amd athlon with 2gb ram and a shiny new pciexpress video card
• a laptop that's as sexy as a powerbook but isn't a mac. i hate mac and mac hates me.
• an ipod
• that patch i keep talking about. you know, the one that works like the nicotine patch but just feeds me a slow progression of nutrients throughout the day? why can't someone invent that?

i've decided to adjust my sleeping pattern to do more mornings and fewer evenings. (if only i'd done this years ago, i could have spent more time with the girl i was living with). with the new contract work i've taken on, i've found myself exhausted during the day since i've been up all night. (ok, it's not just the contract work, two girls i tend to talk to a lot on the phone also consume a lot of my time -- not that i mind). so, taking noreen's advice i'm trying to go to bed earlier and wake up early as well. i get more stuff done in the morning and do my work day with a clearer head.... i'll let you know how this works.

and on the "why i'm here" front, things seem to be falling into place a little more -- though i wouldn't remark on it as a phenomenon of any kind... yet. the director of tev and i sat down and talked a bit today at the meeting i've been trying to go to on a weekly basis. i told her that i had some ideas for how i could help make the city better and she explained a little more about how council works and who gets the shit done up there. she then offered to have me send her a semi-detailed email for what i'm looking for and she'll then direct me to the right people -- whether they be councillors or staff.

this is considerably different from kyle rae's seceratary blowing me off with a "you should send him an email" ambiguity, so i'm actually quite excited. i'll try to put something comprehensive together by this time next week.

the longer you're living away from the place you call home, the more you come to idealise that place. the air was cleaner, the people nicer and yes, the grass greener. so on days like today i find myself wondering if i've deluded myself, if vancouver really was so much better than toronto.

it's fucking cold outside. damp, windy, rainy and fucking cold. walking half a block down the street had wind blowing near-frozen droplets down my neck and i thought: "vancouver was never this bad"... so i ask my vancouver readers: is it? i just don't remember.

one thing's for sure though.
people here seem to be a lot more afriad of the rain...

angela is leaving ottawa and moving back home for an "indeterminite amount of time". her health has not been good lately. downright poor in fact, and she's been unable to get out from underneath these crushing health problems. the last time this happened she went home and things got better. we were both hoping that wouldn't be needed this time around, but it looks like this is what's best for her.

i came to know angela as a sort of "pillar of the pagan community" in ottawa. she ran the biggest mailing list in town and went out of her way to be at as many pub moots as possible to intoduce new members to the group. we dated for a short (but fabulous) time and even after we split, we've remained close talking over msn, email and the phone. visiting her in ottawa a few weeks ago was really great and she's become one of my more trusted friends... especially out here.

listen to me, i'm writing this like it's a eulogy or something. angela's not dead. and while her health isn't great i really don't think she's going that way anytime soon ;-) i'm gonna miss her though. there won't likely be any more 2hour phone conversations about men, women, sex and feminism for some time, and i don't see any geekery msn conversations in our near future either. angela helped me understand what friendship means in a way that only i could understand, and i hope she gets better soon.

...even if it is to return to ottawa.

i got this email today from the environmental group i'm in:

Listening to Toronto
We want to hear what Torontonians have to say

Join Mayor David Miller and members of Toronto City Council with your neighbours from across the City

Sunday, November 28, 2004
Event starts at 1 p.m.
Doors open at noon.

Metro Toronto Convention Centre
Constitution Hall, North Building, Level 100
255 Front Street West, Toronto

City Council has set priorities for the next two years. Come discuss the City's priorities and, in small groups, give your advice to Council on questions such as:

• What can we do to make Toronto clean and beautiful?
• How can we build strong neighbourhoods?
• What more can we do to give Torontonians a say about issues and services that affect them?

How to Register:
Registration is on first-come, first-served basis until all seats are taken.
Participants must pre-register.

Call Access Toronto at 416-338-0338. TTY line: 416-338-0889.
Registration phone-lines open weekdays from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.

i've since registered to show up and i'll have someone to ask about the whole thing tomorrow night when i go to my tev meeting. this seems like the right way to be going, or at the very least, a good place to start looking for people who want the same thing as i do.

i borrowed my work machine over the weekend and got to rebuild it so i'd have newer, shinier software to play with during the week. this may sound insane to those ofyou who keep work and your real life as separate as possible, but for me, it's just fun. i'm now running kernel 2.6, gcc3.4 and xorg6.8. (that's good)

i'm also rebuilding this very blogger to remove fusebox completely. i found that integrating smarty along with a body of my own code will make things better and finally remove that ugly security flaw that's preventing me from releasing the code.

the last geek thing is pretty cool too. pavel introduced me to half life 2. at $60cdn, he says "it's worth every penny". and he's right. it's awesome. not really my kinda game, but if you fancy the though of being the star in your own action movie, then you should definitely buy this game.

and on the "i like money, give me money" front. i got a message from an old coworker of mine the today. he wants me to do some contract work for him, so i'll likely be busy the next couple days with that. and i need to get that (and the following post) out of the way before this weekend 'cause sheena's invited me out to her place in guelph this weekend for a housewarming party. ...one more post and then i'm done.

this is the first in a series of posts today that i'm trying to push out before i get down to work tonight. apologies if the spelling or grammar is nasty, but if you find something let me know and i'll fix it.

so you might have noticed that i haven't posted much in the past few days. i think this might be some sort of record for me in terms of a blogging dry spell, but i've an excuse: i've been busy.

for starters, i met a cool new girl online. sneer at the concept of meeting people on the internet if you like, this girl is pretty cool and most definitely nothing like anyone i've really met before. we've spent a lot of time talking on the phone lately -- in fact, she's part of the reason i'm so busy (sorry ash) i've spent a disproportionate amount of time on the phone with her... and i really don't mind. though i'm afraid i won't have much more time for much of the week.

i also saw two cool movies this weekend with pavel & friends. the first was national treasure with nicolas cage. it's actually quite good and not the nancy crap you'd expect from a pg rating. go see it if you like suspense thrillers and like to get excited watching a move. the writers made special mention of this particular passage of the declaration of independence:

But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

translation: when you see something wrong with the world, it's your duty to fix it. ...too bad these guys are all dead. we could use some of that kinda thinking right now.