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The National Do Not Call List is going to be working in Canada soon. Finally!! It’s about time. I can’t wait. We get so many telemarketers at my house now. They disturb dinner, relaxation, watching TV, and sleep. And I absolutely hate having my sleep disturbed by some person that can’t speak English asking me if I need my ducts cleaned. I live in an apartment building, I have no fucking ducts!

It starts on Sept. 30, 2008. Click here to visit the site.

It will work by calling a 1-800 number or visiting their site and registering. You can use it for landline numbers, fax machine numbers, and even mobile numbers. The number you register expires after 3 years, which means you’ll need to re-register again, which kind of sucks.

Politicians, charities, and newspaper selling is still allowed, as well as opinion and research  firms. You will also be able to register complaints through this site and phone number. I’m betting I’ll have a few even with my number on this list.

So Thursday night I noticed my torrents were downloading absurdly slow. I’m talking slower than dial-up speeds circa 1995. After some fooling around and checking that it wasn’t something I did or the tracker I was getting the torrents from, I called Bell Sympatico.

The "technician" did a check to make sure it wasn’t my connection. I put technician in quotations, because really they know nothing more than the average internet user in most cases. It turns out it is because I’m using torrents, as I’m able to download regular files just fine from web pages. And web pages are loading just fine as well.

I then expressed my dissatisfaction at this, and that I was not sent a letter in the mail, or an e-mail, or any kind of notification that this would be happening to me. Apparently according to Mirko Bibic in an interview with Roberto Rocha of the Montreal Gazette, it’s 5% of users who are sucking up 50% of Bell’s available bandwidth. Apparently I’m one of those 5%, because the technician I was speaking with on the phone told me that I’m making the speeds for those in my neighbourhood slower because I’m using up all the available bandwidth. BULLSHIT! I don’t max out my connection! I don’t allow it because then my browsing speeds will suffer. I limit my connection to 200 kB/s download which is half of my available download bandwidth, and I limit my upload speed to 40 kB/s which again is half my upload bandwidth speed.

So now I’m getting dial up speeds, but paying for unlimited high speed internet, and the worst part is there is no alternative! Rogers is doing the same crap, but also have monthly caps set, and if you go over those caps, you pay more for your bandwidth. The third party resellers who use Bell’s lines, are also being throttled. I remember Bell would always mention why their Sympatico service was better than cable internet because you wouldn’t experience any slowdowns when traffic was high on the network. That you wouldn’t be affected by those in your neighbourhood when they were sucking up speed. Whatever happened to that?

I got a number to call the corporate office which I will be doing on Monday. I’ve also signed a petition, which I recommend you sign as well. It’s almost at 10,000 signatures right now. The CRTC has received a complaint and hopefully they will step in and do something, but I don’t know if I have a lot of confidence in the CRTC.

I also think this has more to do with other things that we are not being told. I have a feeling that Canadian ISP’s are facing pressure from movie and music companies, and by limiting speeds to the people who are downloading movies and TV shows and music through Bit Torrent technology, they will not bother anymore. So basically that leaves ISP’s controlling what we download and when and how. Since when do the Canadian ISP’s own the internet?

Click here to sign the petition.

It’s always annoying when the fire alarm goes off. It’s so loud! I immediately run to the kitchen and grab some tape, and a CD from my dad’s small collection, and tape it up to cover the speaker that the wailing fire alarm comes from in the hallway of my apartment. It’s unnecessarily loud if you ask me, even when it’s covered is enough to wake up a person from a deep sleep.

Usually when the fire alarm goes off, it’s because they are testing the alarm, or someone pulled it as a prank. Not today!

There has only been two other fires in my building that I know of. One was a minor kitchen fire, and the other was a car fire in the basement. After I heard the Mississauga Fire Department trucks coming, I went out on the balcony at approximately 8:45 this morning. I knew something was up when I saw the chief coming in his van. He only shows up if it’s real it seems. I noticed people were looking up the side of the building, so I leaned over the balcony a bit, and looked up.

It was a moment of fear and panic all at once. Oh my god the building is on fire! It looked like it was pretty high up, but it’s hard to tell when you’re looking up the side of the building from the balcony. All I could see is smoke billowing out of someone’s balcony, and pieces of burnt material floating down the side of the building. I went inside and immediately informed my dad and my aunt who was visiting for a day that this was real. I noticed a woman and a child consoling each other outside, and the kid looked very upset. I’m assuming it was their place. I would also assume most of their stuff is gone now. I feel bad for them, I can’t even begin to imagine losing everything you own. Computers can be replaced, but photos and other sentimental things would be gone forever. That would kill me.

I guess when you see this happen so close to you, it makes you think how fragile everything in life is, and you have to be reminded of that once in a while I think. It’s definitely made me think about things today.

The following picture is looking straight up the side of my building to the fire. You can see the flames shooting out the building.

This lady who teaches in Sudan has been put in jail for naming a stuffed teddy bear: Mohammed. Actually let me correct that. Her students chose the name. She is being punished for it. She could face public lashings or up to 6 months in prison for this simple small thing. Obviously the intent was not to piss people off. I mean she’s in a country where apparently Islamic Law exists, and she’s a teacher. She would know that doing it with ill intentions would be a mistake. Although, I would think she would know that even naming the bear with the name Mohammed is a mistake as well, but she might have just thought it was harmless, who knows?

Anyway, the police raided the school looking for her. Men with big beards asking where she was and saying they wanted to kill her. What. The. Fuck?!? Kill her?

Click here for the story on Time.

Okay, I’m not really naming my cat Mohammed…

A town in Nova Scotia has made it illegal to smoke in your car, if there are children under the age of 18 in the vehicle. I think this is really awesome, and I’d like to see it happen everywhere. It is the first place in Canada to do it.

To me smoking in your car with a child under 18 is abuse. The child can’t say as an adult that they do not want to be subjected to it. They can say no to their parents, but their parents can still technically make them go in the car and be subjected to second hand smoke. This way it just can’t happen at all. At least in that specific town.

I think this is something we’ll see more of eventually. The smokers who disagree with it say that it is an infringement on their rights. What about the fact that if you have a child under 18 in your vehicle while you’re smoking? Is that not an infringement on their rights to not be subjected to your cigarette smoke?

I would like the same thing to happen in the home also. If you have children under 18, no smoking in your home. Way too many children develop lung problems like asthma because they are subjected to cigarette smoke. Congratulations to the town of Windsor, Nova Scotia for doing this.

Read more about it here.

This guy in India married his own daughter and then impregnated her. I don’t know if it was against her will or not, but that does not make this any less disgusting.

What the hell is wrong with people? He says it was god’s will… There you have it. Religion to the rescue again.

I am curious if the girl was forced or if she wanted this. I am also curious how old she is. According to authorities, she has never gone to school before, so I figure she can’t be that old.

What really sucks about this case, is that the police didn’t charge him with the correct crime, so the charges had to be dropped. They are going to be re-filing charges though, once they have made a more solid case.

More information about the story here.