I’m a pretty patriotic person, I’ll admit it.  And I’ll admit that having a sense of pride in and loyalty to a hunk of randon geography is pretty nonsensical, but that doesn’t stop me from feeling it.

So attempts like this one feels like an attempt to obliterate parts of Canadian culture.  And it makes me angry.

Lower Flag on Nov. 11th only, Panel Urges

The report [argues] for an even stricter policy that would shrink the number of scheduled days the flag is lowered to one — Remembrance Day on Nov. 11.

The proposal would eliminate half-mast treatment for four other days: Vimy Ridge Day on April 9, the Police and Peace Officers National Memorial Day on the last Sunday in September, Workers Mourning Day on April 28 and the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women on Dec. 6.

I suspect the motion won’t pass, but it still annoys me beyond all words.

This is mostly a thing with “writers”, people who blog, etc.

Being obscure and incoherent does not make you more artistic.  No, no it doesn’t.  Swearing and poetry that sounds like you were on acid when you wrote it (perhaps you were) DOES NOT make you high art.

Stop it.

I hate building webpages. So you’d think I’d stop changing my domain name, but yet that doesn’t seem to stop me.

But before I get into the whinging and complaining about code, the background/story behind the site and the domain. Because, of course, there is one.

In all the fic I write, most of the fic I read and a fair chunk of the tv and movies I love, there is a theme. I confess that I have a thing for the “little boy lost” story. See: Harry Potter, The OC, Stand by Me, Seaquest. The more orphaned the better, apparently. It’s wildly embarrassing for a 30 year old woman to get all emotional over themes like this, and I’m sure there’s some sort of psychological explanation for it, but I’d rather not think too hard about it. You love what you love. Embarrassing or not.

So. While I was reading Deathly Hallows I came across a line that just about killed me. It went like this:

Hogwarts was the first and best home he had known. He and Voldemort and Snape, the abandoned boys, had all found home here.

It kills me every time. Every. Time.

I was thinking about it after that, and it occured to me that that particular line “the abandoned boys” could so easily apply to all the characters I really love.

I thought about registering the domain for a while, but figured it would be taken. But yesterday I found a really good deal on hosting and registration AND the domain was available, so I grabbed it up.

But man the “site builder” that comes with the hosting package is pants. It’s completely useless. And I haven’t been able to find any free HTML editor yet. Well I did find one, used it, was happy and then discovered when it came time to publish that it could only be used to post to their company’s hosted sites. NOT something it says on the software download page at all.

Hours down the drain. Plus all the time it took to make the banner. I don’t know why I do this to myself. I’m distinctly not a techie. Ah well. Some skills you learn the hard way.

Good on them! I haven’t checked the news, but I hope they (we?) were able to make a point.

There was a survey from Quebec about aboriginals that was pretty depressing, and I hope the rest of Canada doesn’t feel the same way. Like the natives are “exaggerating”. It’s “not so bad”.

Really?

My father is metis. I have a native heritage I know nothing about. There has been a systematic ruin of the native culture in this country and it is pathetic.

I have seen it. I have seen my relatives brought to their knees. Or deny their culture altogether. Or struggle like I do.

This was mine, but it was taken from me.

- By the people who told me I didn’t “look” indian.

- By my father who didn’t care enough to pass on what he knew.

- By the schools and the systems that made him ashamed to be native and gave him a stutter.

- By his family who called him an Apple (red on the outside, white on the inside) when he married my mom.

- By the government who made me feel I needed their “status” to really be anishnabe

- By the same government who denied me that status because they took it from my grandmother when she married a white man (like they wanted her to).

- By my grandmother who didn’t hold on to her traditions and teach the next generation.

- By all of those who think my heart does not lie with the native people as much as it does in the rest of my heritage.

There is a collective unconsciousness. You may not believe me, but it’s there. And it lives in me. It lives in me for my grandmother who was assimilated, and my father who had a bigger war within him than I do. This native man went to church at the Martyr’s Shrine and did anyone think what that might do to a metis child? That it might make him hate himself in one way or another?

So block the highway. I hope it works.

Today I am thankful I did not kill anyone.

What a fucking waste of a day. PMS is got me in a headlock, that’s for sure.

So after spilling shit on my laptop and frying my motherboard, I ended having to purchase a new one unexpectedly. That was one fucking expensive drink, I gotta say. But in the end it would have been far more expensive to get the old one fixed that buy a new one. And hey, the new one is better. 120 GB hard drive (vs) 80, 1GB memory (vs probably 512, if that), for 899, so that’s not bad. That should do me quite well for some time, actually, as the one that was in the shop was only one year old and still performing well. Usually at that point the old desktop would be sloooooow and annoying and half full already.

Hopefully this means I won’t have to worry about any tech purchases for a few years.

Had a fairly boring Saturday, which seems like it’s going to be followed by a fairly boring Sunday of cleaning my apartment. Oh the excitement of life, I can barely stand it.