I sent an e-mail to Michael moore about his movie. Here is the e-mail.

Hi, I recently purchased the DVD and I found it to be entertaining and informative. Its a really good movie.

Personally, I live in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. And when I saw the segment you had there, it prompted some questions on the validity of the movie. Is what you say in the movie all true facts or just facts chosen to prove a point?

I don't know too many people who do not lock their doors. However, most of my friends are predominantly Asian decent. So we are kind of accustomed to locking our doors. I myself do lock my own doors, but I do feel safe enough that if I do forget to lock my doors and I am a certain distance from the door, I do not worry too much. I'm not too paranoid about these things since I live in a condo which has better security. I think would be paranoid if I lived in a house though.

The slums that you showed sound valid, I don't recall seeing slummy areas too much. However, I would suggest you film the homeless people in the city core underneath the expressway and get their views.

News television wise, if you look at our primetime news (around 6pm to 7pm) we are also innundated with black this, teen that, asian whatever killing each other. Check Pulse24 its is pretty much the same. Listen on our news radio station 680AM around the top of the hour and we get innundated with murders and other bad news too. And I think getting worse and worse at times. Heck, we have racial profiling allegations in our police, though they deny it. Although, I would say otherwise, because it would be easier for the police and government to use statistics the involve race, gender and age to help find where to put the most resources in reducing crime.

Is there anything wrong with using all the tools you have available in order to reduce crime? Yes and no, the US government has gone out and put some seriously stupid laws recently that make regular citizens "Guilty until proven Innocent", in which case this is the wrong approach. Using statistics is not bad as long as it is kept on the management level of the police, not the enforcement level. If it is on the management level, it can help us plan where we would need more police presence to help reduce the crime rate in the area, but not to automatically charge people because they are black, white, young, etc.

I am surprised at the low gun fatality rate in Canada, and really surprised at the relation of it to the US. I know your documentary was about guns, but if you show the fatality rate in relation to homicide rates it will prove to be a stronger argument. I think in Canada we had 542 murders a few years ago (http://www.statcan.ca/Daily/English/011031/d011031b.htm), I wonder what it is on other countries.

I really liked the idea of bullet control as Chris pointed out. I think if I were to run for office I would put on something like that although $5k a bullet is a tad bit pricey. I will still increase the cost of it and remove the sale of non-hunting guns which would include all semi-automatic or fully automatic weapons. I would also ban the sales of hand guns, BB pellet guns though painful and can still cause major injury should still be sold for people who like to do target practice (virtual gun games are still not up to the task, though I play with them more often as I don't like playing with real guns). Armor piercing bullets will also not be sold, there is no real purpose for them except to kill people anyway.

We have our own version of Corporate Cops here in Canada called Silverman Helps, though its Toronto specific, its also on Pulse 24. Though its not as entertaining as yours, it is still good to see that the small guys can win. Its too bad he is just one person, I do wish there were more of him.

Can't wait for Bowling for Columbine 2 :) Though I do wish the next one will be titled "Shooting the puck in Toronto" hopefully you can show some of Canada's faults before they get really bad. Think of it as a pre-emptive attack to promote anti-bush-like behaviour.

Archie (www.trajano.net)

I bought and watched this DVD recently, its interesting and funny and scary at the same time. I live in Canada, so I doubt what he says about Canadians is true, I lock my doors and some news in Canadian side are also fear mongering a bit, especially the primetime news.

I released a new version of my plug-in earlier today. I have significantly expanded it from its earlier version, well it was a fun playing with it trying to learn Eclipse development at nights.

You can get the plug-in at http://sf.net/projects/ttl/

Just going through the news again about the election and there was some talk about same-sex marriages.

My position on this? I would have to say "Marriage is supposed to be a union between a man and a woman, if I were a Roman catholic."

Key words: "if I were a Roman catholic" meaning that it is a religious thing. Marriage itself is a relious thing. How'd it get mixed up in our laws was probably something in lines with tradition.

If I were to have the power, I would just get rid of the legal definition of marriage. Its useless and I think its mostly used for tax purposes. This is something for your religion to uphold and adapt to, not the government.

By doing this, you would also get rid of the notion of divorce. If a couple wants to split up they just separate their bank accounts and liquidate their fixed joint assets if they want.

The only question now would be... "what about the children?"

Well I think there is some sort of law saying that the biological parents should provide for the well-being and support of a child equally, unless a sufficient replacement for the parents is provided.

Ontario Elections are coming up on October 2, 2003.

Here are my views of the candidates so far:

Ernie Eves (PC) - though he may be good as a leader, the government they want to provide goes against a lot of things that I would believe in.

Granted, if I do vote for this party I would stand to gain a lot of benefits (tax cuts and such), since I am a relatively high paid worker.

But it is still pretty lousy that those who are working, but on the lower pay scale are going to suffer because the basic needs (e.g., health care, electricity, water) are more expensive or lost in quality.

Personally, I am all for increasing my taxes, assuming that I see it being used properly.

McGuinty (Liberal) - had good potential of being a leading party, but the guy that represents them acts like a crybaby and just rants about problems without providing any credible solutions.

In terms of the party, I don't think I like the way they worked on the Federal level, so I don't want them to work on my province.

Hampton (NDP) - my concern if this party gets into power is unions in essential services (police, fire, electicity, water, transit, education) will be able to strike anytime they want. Granted that some of them may be underpaid for the work they do, this is a problem that has to be resolved as well.

So who will I vote for? I will probably vote for none of the above. I wish I could run for political office, but I don't think I would have the time to do so.

I was actually thinking of joining the "Freedom Party of Ontario", just so there would be someone to represent my region. Actually, they are still not the best one, but their charter is still better than what I have seen from the other parties. Well who knows maybe someone may come up.

And for the municipal election, I will probably vote for the one who is running the Province of Toronto party, though I would rather have Mel Lastman back again.

Made my first Eclipse plug-in last night. Its quite simple actually, but I found it lacking in the current system. It just adds another menu with two actions:

Restart Eclipse - which is useful if you play around with a lot of plug-ins.

Run Garbage Collector - which immediately reduces the memory footprint of Eclipse in case it has been running for a long time.

The source is on http://sourceforge.net/projects/ttl/ now.

Oh on July 17, I finally got married. Woo hoo. It took me so long to reply because immediately after I got married I was on a 3 week assignment in Belgium. Not much time for a honeymoon anymore. Maybe we'll postpone it to next year.

I think the total cost of my wedding was less than CA$2,000 for almost 30 people. And it was in a good restaurant too, very cozy atmosphere etc.

Pictures should come in shortly, because my PC powersupply blew up recently when I got back home. After replcaing the motherboard and the processor I determined it was the power supply. Well I got a more higher end powersupply this time, hopefully it won't fail me anytime soon.

Agh, I am so pissed off at Home Depot today. Well not exactly Home Depot itself, just that specific branch. I am not the best in negotiating, especially when I feel like I am being force into paying extra for something that is not my fault.

Also the instructions that came with the flooring never said anything more than using glue, a tapping block, the "reverse tapping metal thingy" and a hammer.

So are they saying that the instructions are wrong? And if they are wrong why are they still selling them without some notice to the consumer?

If the product instructions are defective and the instructions are part of the product, then the product must be defective.

Why are they selling defective products to the consumer?

If they are intentionally selling defective products to the customer. why does the customer have to pay for the store's mistake?

Sad to say I may do some "racial profiling" in the future when it comes to shopping, I've been burned way too many times by salesmen fitting a certain "profile".

BTW, "racial profiling" is wrong. Don't even get the idea that it is ever right. Prejudice is a bad thing no matter what the reason.

However, one should still go with your instinct and if you burn yourself one too many times when you do something, you should learn to stop doing it. No sense in being a push over. And learning to extrapolate from it would help avoid it.

Its still bad, I don't want to make excuses, I am not a nice person for thinking about it this way. So use at your own discretion.

I will most likely ask what the name of the head manager is, ideally the last name. And if it sounds like it matches "the profile" its time to move on to another store or branch.

I am planning to get one of these phones to start recording my conversations with any sales/service customer service staff. Of course I would let them know I am recording them, because they have the right to know and act on their best behaviour.

http://www.futureshop.ca/catalog/proddetail.asp?sku_id=0665000FS10011306&catid=10559

Just got a call from Logitech just now. Grr I am quite pissed off. I bought one of their wireless headset for PC and phone and it does not work since I got it for $90.

After about $15 of long distance phone calls. They told me that they will refund the cost of the product because it was discontinued.

Now they tell me they are not even going to give me a refund. They don't even give me a phone number or e-mail, just snail mail

ATTN: Customer Service Department
Logitech Inc
6505 Kaiser Drive
Freemont CA
94555

Well I guess I won't be buying nor recommending any Logitech products from this point on.

My niece sent me this one, its quite funny:

When I was a kid adults used to bore me to tears with their tedious diatribes about how hard things were when they were growing up; what with walking twenty-five miles to school every morning uphill both ways through year 'round blizards carrying their younger siblings on their backs to their one-room schoolhouse where they maintained a straight-A average despite their full-time after-school job at the local textile mill where they worked for 35 cents an hour just to help keep their family from starving to death!

And I remember promising myself that when I grew up there was no way in hell I was going to lay a bunch of crap like that on kids
about how hard I had it and how easy they've got it!

But.... Now that I've reached the ripe old age of twenty-nine, I can't help but look aroud and notice the youth of today. You've got it so fuckin' easy!

I mean, compared to my childhood, you live in a goddamned Utopia! And I hate to say it but you kids today you don't know how good you've got it!

I mean, when I was a kid we didn't have The Internet--we wanted to know something, we had to go to the goddamned library and look it up ourselves!

And there was no email! We had to actually write somebody a letter--with a pen!--and then you had to walk all the way across the street and put it in the fuckin' mailbox and it would take like a week to get there!
And there were no MP3s or Napsters! You wanted to steal music, you had to go to the goddamned record store and shoplift it yourself! Or we had to wait around all day to tape it off the radio and the DJ'd usually talk over the begining and fuck it all up!

You want to hear about hardship? You couldn't just download porn! You had to bribe some homeless dude to buy you a copy of "Hustler" at the 7-11! It was either that or jackoff to the lingere section of the JC Penney catalog! Those were your options!

We didn't have fancy shit like Call Waiting! If you were on the phone and somebody else called they got a busy signal! And we didn't have fancy Caller ID Boxes either! When the the phone rang, you had no idea who it was it could be your boss, your mom, a collections agent, your drug dealer, you didn't know!!! You just had to pick it up and take your chances, mister!

And we didn't have any fancy Sony Playstation videogames with high-resolution 3-D graphics! We had the Atari 2600! With games like "Space Invaders" and "Asteroids" and the graphics sucked ass! Your guy was a little square! You had to use your imagination! And there were no multiple levels or screens, it was just one screen forever! And you could never win. The game just kept getting harder and faster until you died! Just like LIFE!

When you went to the movie theater there no such thing as stadium seating! All the seats were the same height! A tall guy sat in front of you, you were screwed!

And sure, we had cable television, but back then that was only like 20 channels and there was no onscreen menu! You had to use a little book called a TV Guide to find out what was on!
And there was no Cartoon Network! You could only get cartoons on Saturday morning... ...D'ya hear what the fuck I'm saying!?! We had to wait ALL WEEK, you spoiled little bastards!

That's exactly what I'm talking about! You kids today have got it too easy You're spoiled, I swear to God! You guys wouldn't last five minutes back in 1984!

Yesterday in the subway I noticed this article on Metro (the Toronto Subway newspaper) about "Business Casual Is Dead"

One of the things that the article said was some American research company found that there was no productivity increase with people working in business casual clothing, in fact they found that productivity was less because "people wear the same clothes that they lounge in".

The article also says that companies are starting to go formal again.

My 2c on this:
I think that people should wear what they feel comfortable with and stop being so anal and force everyone to conform to their narrow minded views.

Suits are expensive, unless the employer is going to purchase it for me (not reimburse and I have to shop for it) then screw it. Where I work its business casual, but they still have strict rules, no jeans or running shoes. Of course I don't really follow the rules anyway, if you are going to be anal about it that's your problem, I feel comfortable with what I wear, and I get the job done.

If you don't want to see people working happily then that's your problem and/or your budget. Happy workers tend to get the job done faster and better.

Unless of course you get some slackers... and if you have the power to get rid of them use it. If you don't, you're a slacker and hopefully someone will get rid of you.

Well I have finally done it and switched to golden triangle for my high speed ISP. I liked the fact that it has no cap. Though their news groups still leave much to be desired, it seems a bit better than that of SymCRAPico. It is also limited to 2 connects to the news servers.

But since I have unlimited bandwidth again, I guess I can use the P2P software out there.

Its also cheaper in the long run if you buy a modem instead of renting.