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Below are the 25 most recent journal entries.

	2005.12.05  13.20 Canada Votes 2006 How well do you know your party? ( My Results? )

	2005.11.29  11.28 Job ads go boom While browsing job classifieds online, I encountered this. A very creative attempt to save money. Note the "compensation."

	2005.11.07  22.26 Vatican rejects intelligent design, accepts evolution as compatible with the bible Well it's about frickin' time. It's not an all-out embracement of evolution, nor is it an explicit rejection of intelligent design theory, but at least one could say it's an official non-rejection of evolution.

	2005.08.20  01.43 LOL... So *very* true! I am Kung Fu Master. I like to be in control of myself. I dislike crowds, especially crowds containing people trying to kill me. Even though I always win, I prefer to avoid fights if possible. What Video Game Character Are You?

	2005.08.16  20.25 My Next Halloween Costume Now this guy knows how to make a costume! I'm stealing this one!!!

	2005.08.02  16.31 OMG Intercontinental flight crashes in Toronto. Made even scarier by the fact that many people I know are coming back from Europe right around now.

	2005.07.12  13.14 Goodbye, real_philosophy, otherwise known as apperception's personal journal. If ever there was such a thing as philosophical spamming, that would be it. There are only so many phenomenological "proofs" of transcendental idealism that a reasonable mind can handle in 24 hours. It's a long overdue removal of a community from my friends list.  Although there are a handful of respectable posters and trustworthy moderators, it's simply the melting pot of unemployed continentals who, if asked, would happily identify themselves as "philosophers," and the "my-question-is-too-refined-for-philosophy-hey-real_philosophy-have-you-ever-wondered-if-we-have-souls?" that I can't stomach. Out of the depths of the history of philosophy, contemporary society has created this tiny pocket of academic debate that real_philosophy exemplifies. All I know for sure is, whatever it is that is being debated there, history will not remember it as philosophy. Einstein, Newton - these people will be remembered as philosophers. When you look at the great philosophers in history, for the most part they all have common roles in their era - scientists, mathematicians, politicians. In our day, we refer to their work as philosophy, but in their day, their work was interesting, relevant, or even revolutionary, to the real world. Their ideas had real-world consequences. real_philosophy more or less symbolizes the reasons I am loathe to pursue academic philosophy: I don't want to waste my time on discourse that doesn't matter to anybody outside of its tiny world. I've begun to understand why Bernard Williams always sought to somehow try to relate his writings to the real world, because that is the connection that contemporary academic philosophy has come to lack: relevance to the real world. In lindy hop, we talk about "lindy rock stars," - dancers who are known as good dancers and flout it, going from dance to dance acting like minor celebrities.  However, it's all meaningless once they step outside of the tiny world of lindy hop. Well, apperception is a real_philosophy rock star. I hope he enjoys his microcosmic infamy and wish him the best in it.

	2005.07.10  01.41 Anyone else here tried kava before? If so, do tell...

	2005.06.29  23.34 ...and so ends another VLE ...and I have a cold to show for it.  Fleh.  Well, getting a post-exchange or post-camp cold is not at all unusual.  After all, when you trade sweat with a hundred or two people trading sweat with a hundred or two people, some sort of contagion is bound to spread.  It's best to be happy that you're sick after the exchange, and not during it. The weekend is mostly a blur.  I have to admit I've never seen so much alcohol consumed at an exchange (but I suppose that just shows that I haven't been to enough exchanges, nor to the party centrals of those I have).  Having a pub crawl helps with that.  Once again, a smashing success, culminating with 50 dancers partying at Steamworks (although we didn't get the same room as last year - too bad). The "being-an-organizer" stress never arose, as there were more than enough volunteers and organizers out there making things happen, and I somehow got omitted from any of the hands-on work.  So I just got to dance, dance, dance (and be more or less exhausted and somewhat passed out for the last hour or two of Saturday late night). Highlights include: My many and super-fun dances with Robin, Jocelyn, Jane, and hepkittyn The late night venue: Finally, a venue with air conditioning that actually works!  Although I suppose you'd expect that from an air conditioning system used to cool off an ice arena.  We used the Burnaby Winter Club banquet hall & pub (although the pub was *not* open, contrary to what we'd been told), meaning we had a sizeable room for dancing, and a completely seperate room with tables and chairs for chilling out.  Many people commented that it was one of the best late night dancing facilities they'd seen at any exchange. The pub crawl, as discussed above. Hanging out and watching MXC with Matt, Brien, Robin, and Rachel. The bands: Browne's Night Owls, 51st Eight, and the New Orleans Ale Stars.  The Ale Stars in particular get props for putting on probably the best show of the bunch. Beer downstairs in the Legion Pub during Damsels Undistressed sets.  I finally figured out how to best enjoy their music. Frisbee with Brien, Jenna, and Carla. So yeah.  Mostly a blur, most definitely a blast.  Here's looking forward to the Seattle exchange in August! </b>

	2005.06.24  13.23 Vee Ell EEEEEEEE!!! The Vancouver Lindy Exchange begins today. 22 hours of dancing across three days. Somewhere in there, I need to fit in the pub crawl, the jazz fest, eating, and perhaps sleeping. As exchange goers know, the last item on that list generally gets the lowest priority. I can sleep on Monday. This marks the first time I've been involved with an exchange as an organizer. How will it affect my capacity to enjoy it? I have no idea. When I used to organize the dances up at SFU, I tended to take a step back from the dancing and focus my attention on managing the dance to make sure it ran smoothly and that everyone was having a good time. However, I was really the sole organizer; by comparison, there's an entire committee running the exchange, so it's not like the responsibility is all lumped on my shoulders. Still, I know that I have a tendancy to act as though it is. Which is to say that most likely I'll be taking a lot of time out from dancing to just observe and tackle problems as they arise. But I'll still dance. Oh yes, there will be plenty of dancing to be had. I'm sure I'll have stories to tell on Monday. Evening. After I wake up.

	2005.06.05  16.23 Ph. Dilemma So, in other news, I've convocated. Graduated, walked across the stage, all that jazz. Upon receiving my diploma, I was quite surprised to find that I had failed to receive second-class honors. Instead, my degree reads "Bachelor of Arts (First Class Honors)". Hm. I also did some math, and discovered that I actually have the grades needed to apply for a Ph.D in Philosophy at SFU. So now I'm in this bizzare scenario where I'm not just restricted to looking at M.A. programs, but in fact could jump straight into a Ph.D. Huh. Go figure.

	2005.05.13  10.45 Single Transferable Virus Over the next few days, I need to make up my mind where I stand on STV. I've done a good chunk of reading on the matter now, and remain somewhat torn. If you aren't sure how STV, specifically the British Columbia version of STV, is supposed to work, check out the Cole's Notes description (aka flash animation). On the Pro side -On paper, it seems to allow a greater chance of proportional representation -On paper, it seems to increase the likelihood of smaller parties and independants getting elected -At the very least, one might argue that it's better than First Past The Post On the Con side -The Citizen's Assembly has compared use of STV to its use in Ireland and Australia and the favourable results it obtains in those countries. However, there are key differences, not the least of which is that in Australia, voting is legally compulsory. -Besides Austalia, the only countries it has been used in at a national level are Ireland, Malta, and formerly in Estonia and on the Isle of Man, noting that each of those countries are relatively small geographically with fairly dense populations. BC is, of course, large and sprawling, the point being that it's easier to obtain "local" representation across a smaller geographic area. In one proposed northern BC constituency, an MLA would be "local" from Prince George all the way east to the Alberta border. -In practice, STV has not benefited small parties and independents in any appreciable way. Ireland remains mostly dominated by two parties, and Malta is totally dominated by two parties. -In practice, STV still experiences serious proportionality issues. In BC in 2001 with FPTP, for example, the Liberals won 42% of the popular vote (or something like that) yet won 78 of 79 seats in parliament. STV is said to be capable of changing that. However, in Malta 15 years ago, the party that formed government actually received less of the popular vote than the party that did not, which ultimately forced Malta to enact a reform to STV which is not present in BC-STV. It's said that any proportionality experienced under STV is coincidence. -Under STV, political marketing strategies will simply change. For example, in a 4 seat riding, a party will field 4 candidates, and will aim to sell Candidate #1 to 20-25% of the constituency, Candidate #2 to a completely different 20-25%, and so forth. There will be no vote transfers in such a situation, even if 100% of the constituency made small and independent parties their 2nd, 3rd, etc, choices. -Empirical evidence suggests people tend to vote for a party and will continue to do so. Ultimately, I believe that STV would result in some changes for 2 or 3 elections, but those changes would come about from confusion about the system by voters and politicians alike. In the end, though, economics takes over and BC would remain the 2-and-a-bit party system it currently is. I believe that the one lasting change is that we would ultimately lose local representation, and I think that if that's the only significant difference, it's worth voting No.

	2005.04.29  00.41 I knew studying philosophy would pay off in the real world So, I've got a new job. It's temporary, but it pays well. I'm canvassing for one of the provincial parties. Every day, 7 days a week, I have a 2 hour meeting followed by a trip to some constituency in town, and there I go door-to-door for 5 hours gathering info and opinions (except Sundays, where we skip the meeting but canvass for 10 hours). Anyways, when it's all houses, it's fine - you walk up to the door, knock, and either walk away when no one answers, talk to whoever does, or get the door slammed in your face. Apartments, however, are a bit different. They're locked, of course, so we can't just waltz in. Oh, we're allowed in, even in buildings that say "no soliciting" or "no canvassing" - it's in the residential tenancy act; a landlord that denies us entry commits an offence fineable of up to $5000. We even have a little blurb to that effect; we carry signed forms that have a little copy of that section of the RTA. It's getting in at all that's the problem, because, allowed or not, if nobody lets you in, you don't get in. So today, I walk up to an apartment, getting ready to buzz people (ideally, the manager). And as I'm approaching the door, a voice stops me. "Can I help you?" comes a woman's voice, and I turn to see the speaker walk around the corner. She'd been talking to somebody by the street, and noticed my clipboard. "Are you the manager?" I ask, and she nods. "I'm canvassing on behalf of one of the candidates for your area," I say, "Would you please let me in to your building to canvass, as per the residential tenancy act?" "Nope," she says, "You can buzz tenants if you want, and maybe they'll let you in." "Are you familiar with the residential tenancy act?" I ask, and she nods. "Then you understand that it's an offence to restrict access to a representative of a candidate, and is fineable..." "But," she cuts me off, "I'm not restricting your access. I'm simply not letting you in." I was dumbfounded. I had not heard that one before, was never warned of it, and certainly wasn't expecting it. I was speechless, and for the life of me could not come up with an objection. She smirks, walks on by me, and waggles her finger in that I-got-the-better-of-you way, adding, "See the difference?" I was only steps from the door, so I stay close behind her as she unlocks and opens the door, enters the building, and starts to close the door behind her. I block the door with my foot. She turns and looks at me, at first a bit surprised, but then visibly angry. "Excuse me, move your foot!" she demands. I look her dead in the eye. "I'm sorry, are you restricting my access?" She glares, scowls, and after a moment, shakes her head slightly, never once disengaging eye contact. "You're sneaky," she says in disgust. "I know," I reply. Calm, though visibly livid, she lets me in.

	2005.03.14  19.30 If anybody here knows Edward Zalta, please thank him for the excellent talk he gave on "An ontology of abstract objects that even a naturalist could love" on Friday.

	2005.03.03  16.17 Decisions, decisions (though none for a while) March is upon us. This means that, all going well, in a month's, time April will be upon us. Which means that I'll graduate. Whoa. Which further means that I'll have to do things like find a job, etc. Now, before you chuckle unsympathetically and say, "Well, welcome to the real world," I should point out that I've held down jobs pretty much nonstop for 11 of the last 14 years. The job thing is not a real worry for me; I'll land on my feet there. The real choice that lies ahead of me is grad school. So what are my choices? The two obvious ones, you'd think, would be: 1. Do an MA in philosophy at SFU, or 2. Do an MA in philosophy somewhere else. ( Though they seem obvious, you may be surprised... )

	2005.03.01  00.26 Room for Rent I have a room in a 2br apartment on the Drive available for April 1st. Awesome location, hardwood floors, and dirt cheap - $400 incl. heat & hw, plus electricity and phone/internet. If you're interested, or know somebody who's looking - let me know. :)

	2005.02.23  02.26 My apartment was broken into today. They took my laptop, and my roommate's discman and digital video cam. I'm not too upset about the laptop, I just feel bad for my roommate, since that camera cost her a pretty penny. However, nobody was hurt, nothing irreplaceable was taken - they were just things. So I had to try the following meme, but it simply would not give me responses I wanted. So I just altered the HTML to make it into something I wanted. The right people will understand, so this is mostly for them. :) Starship Captian! by Uberdude Username What is the name of your starship? Uptight First Officer hepkittyn Closeted Helm/ Navigation amidofo Token Alien Scientist quintic Tarty Nymphomaniac Yeoman kirianth Substance Abusing Ship's Doctor kbuxton Ensign Smith (aka "the victim") rowenn Ship's Engineer /Drunk bennybot Arch Nemesis Alien Commander rascally Your ship's secret weapon Barnyard Animals How dose your mission end? See Below Quiz created with MemeGen! (In connection with the above "See Below", I was going to put the infamous "Hailing Starfleet Veterinary Corps" quote... But I can't seem to find it. :( So I'll have to settle for this one, which just won't make much sense to anyone.) SF-[USS Jack Ryan] Martinez: *A sound is suddenly heard from the comm system...."Moooooooooo!"* Starfleet-OOC [h4><0r] Eratl says, "YES" SF-[USS Jack Ryan] Martinez: SFYO Comm test. Starfleet-OOC Martinez says, "THE STARCOW(tm) LIVES." SF-[USS Valencia] Eratl: (the sound of a very surprised former Wing Commander falling over in shock) SF-[USS Magellan] Talis Grant: If that is what it was sir. Then it was successful.

	2005.02.21  12.00 Did you know... ...that, before I took up swing dancing, I took a stab at playing guitar for a few years? I was always just a hack, no lessons, learned from books and so forth (and believe me, I wish I could go back and take lessons from the start). I dabbled in a bit of songwriting as well. One day, I decided to rent a digital 8-track recorder for a month. Here is the one song that came out of that. It's just an instrumental, and not a very good one at that, but it represents the peak of my guitar playing days, and I thought it would be fun to share. :) All drums sequenced and instruments played by me.

	2005.02.18  01.41 Which File Extension are You? What the hell kinda file uses a .rpm extension!? I need to know this. Soon. Because until then, I'm going to have no idea what kind of context I should be putting the phrase "you have a nice package" into. (And also until then, I'll probably be pretty smug about it.)

	2005.02.16  00.05 Yes, I'm still alive. Just thought I'd point that out, in case anyone was wondering. No great calamity has befallen me, no computer explosions or accidents or anything. I just haven't felt a burning desire to post to LJ for some time now. Here's the quick-and-dirty update: 1. I still dance. A lot. 2. I'm still on a dance team, and we're performing more and more frequently all the time. 3. I'm still at SFU studying philosophy. Unlike past semesters, though, the current one is unique, in that it's my last. 4. I still want to go to Herrang, but am still broke. :( 5. I've been addicted to City of Heroes for the last 3/4 of a year. Horrible, I know. :) 6. My newest toy is a Sony Clie NX70V. It's great fun, although at 3 years of age, it's an outdated toy. 7. I don't play a lot of frisbee these days, largely owing to my time commitments in dancing taking priority. Um... That's all for now. :)

	2004.11.11  14.12 Adam For those who know him, and know about the surgery he was undergoing, this is a heads up to let you know that Adam has gotten through it alright and is now in recovery. He won't have access to his email for some time, so feel free to leave him your best wishes in a comment here, as he's bound to see it once he's back online again. Best wishes for a quick recovery, Adam!

	2004.11.03  10.53 Useful information for my American LJ friends.

	2004.10.12  01.37 The Vancouver Lindy Exchange 2004 has come and gone. Highlights include: *Friday, doing an around-the-world with Adam in the jam circle in Langley. *Saturday, The Brew Pub Crawl. The final pub - Steamworks - was by far the best. 50 lindy hoppers, an entire lounge to ourselves, our own bar to order from, comfortable seating, and a view of the harbour, and plenty of beer. Okay, so it was no Basie Centennial, but it was easily one of, if not the, best afternoon events I've ever attended at an exchange. *While in said lounge, being sandwiched by Eileen, Burrow, and Serena. *Seeing some surprise visitors, including Tammy, and in particular Shaun from London. Lowlights include: *Having to watch poor Darren suffer through a migraine that he'd had for 4 days already. He missed the entire exchange, except for what little wanton entertainment he received sitting on a couch backstage while the band played. *Kicking a drunk out of latenight - twice. The first time, he slipped in without anyone noticing, and started to harrass some of the girls (when I say "harrass", I actually mean something much worse and unacceptable than run-of-the-mill harrassment). I coaxed him off the dance floor, and asked him to leave. He did after a while. Then, while watching some of the dancing 30-45 minutes later, I looked to my right, and there he was again, sitting off on the side, chatting on his mobile. He had gone home, changed his shirt, and had come back. This time, there was no coaxing involved - just stern words, and a few "get out"s as he stumbled downstairs. So that's that. For this week: Midterms, assignments, team practice, and a performance or two. Oh, and in other news, I've finally been accepted into the honours program in the philosophy department at SFU. Which means that I'll do one more semester in which I'll be doing mostly the sort of work that graduate students do - in other words, I'll be able to work on and write whatever I please. Which will give me a chance to revisit and revise some old causation work I did in England, and see if I can't get it published.

	2004.10.05  12.25 I haven't written recently, so first, and update on my grandfather. Last I wrote was on Tuesday last week, when I visited him in the hospital. On Wednesday, I had just gone over to Eileen's for a Pinko meeting, and was just telling Lisa and Susan about his condition, when the phone rang. Eileen answered it, and handed it to me. It was my mother. "I wanted to let you know about Grandad," she said. "Okay," I said. "Just so you know, he's sitting up and talking again. They're moving him out of intensive care and into the recovery unit, and he's probably going to be going home." Apparently, no one has bothered to tell my grandfather that when you suffer blood poisoning, kidney cancer, congestive heart failure, strokes and heart attacks, that you're not supposed to be going home a few days later. Well, I don't think anyone's complaining about his ignorance on this one. :) I have to admit, one takes a fair amount of confidence from seeing that he comes from a very solid gene pool. Intelligence and longevity seem to run in my family; here's hoping that I didn't get overlooked. :)

	2004.09.28  22.07 I visited my grandfather today. It was a very numbing, surreal sort of experience. Yesterday, he was in good spirits, alert and making jokes. However, on a few occaisions overnight and this morning, he experienced some "events" - most likely small heart attacks or strokes. Consequently, the grandfather I saw today was not the man I knew. My dad, who had been at the hospital most of the day, dropped my mom and I off to go on ahead while he parked the car. When we got into the room, he was semi-conscious - he was kind of drifting, not very aware of what was going on. We tried to say hi, but he didn't really respond. And then my dad walked in, and said "Hi, Pop!", and that got his attention he looked up, said "Hi, Gord!" to my dad, and then rested his head back up on his pillow. I did manage to get him to look up to me and recognize me. That was about as much as we were going to get from him, as he went straight to sleep afterwards. My parents and I went for dinner, talked, and I came home. The family on the whole is taking it quite well - except for my uncle. He lives in Michigan, and is pretty helpless to do anything right now. He's expressed a fair amount of frustration that his father was put on a Do Not Resuscitate order by the hospital doctors, but I think that's mostly an outlet for expressing his grief over the whole situation and his physical seperation. But like I said, this is pretty surreal. Time will tell.