OKCupid

I've found a new dating website called OKCupid.  For this one you can answer a whole lot of questions and decide if the other person's answer to each question is important to you. (Questions like "If you could only choose one, would you save a beloved pet from a house fire or a human?") Answering these questions is fun--I've answered over a thousand, and largely deemed them unimportant. About the only important question for me is whether she smokes.  It's as fun as actually meeting the women!

I decided I had to quit the Toronto City Opera production of Tales of Hoffmann.  I just don't have the energy for it this year!  Better to disappoint them now than later.

Sunday my Classic Book Club discussed Don Quixote.  I feared another minimal turnout, but there were actually five people including me.

Yesterday at the memoir group they had a subject I couldn't think of anything to say about: "Emotions." Funny how I can get pretty emotional on some subjects, but when it comes to talking about emotions in general I draw a blank.  Bev wondered if it has something to do with me being an Aspie...

I've had some trouble lately with Ontario Disability Support Payments. (I got a letter from them back in July about being audited, which I carelessly misplaced!) But everything's settled now, and I'm getting the payments again.  Father and Moira were more worried about it than I was--money just isn't that real to me.

The last few days the others have been eating dinner in front of the TV, watching Stephen Colbert's show.  I prefer to eat in the dining room, not because I dislike the show but because I'd rather focus on my food. (I can hear the show anyway.) I'm glad they don't see me as antisocial!

On Youtube lately I've been watching clips from Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert's PBS movie-review show Sneak Previews from between 1978 and 1982.  Some of their Dogs of the Week were "Hollywood North" productions from Canada.

Canada's 2019 election under my system

As promised, I shall explain how the election would have turned out under the specific proportional- representation system that I favour. (I'll assume that the popular vote is the same.)

First, I'll explain my system again.  Most seats will be in the A category, elected in the same "first past the post" system as before.  At least 1/4 of each province's seats will be in the B category, and distributed so that the total of A and B seats in each province will be as close to the popular vote as possible.  And at least 1/25 of each province's seats will be in the C category. Normally, the C seats will go the party that leads the popular vote in the province, but if a party wins more A seats alone than its proportional share of A and B seats together (think landslide) they'll go to the other parties to bring them closer to their proportional share. (Ontario will have 5 C seats, Quebec 3, BC and Alberta 2, all other provinces 1.) The territorial seats will be unchanged. 

This system is close to what they have in Germany, which has proved very stable.

Here's the actual results (courtesy of Wikipedia):

*** Lib PC NDP BQ Gr PP Ind

NL    6            1

PEI   4

NS   10    1

NB    6     3                   1

PQ   35   10    1     32

ON  79   36     6

MN   4     7     3

SK          14

AB          33   1

BC   11   17  11              2         1

Terrs  2           1

________

*** 157  121  24    32    3         1

Here's what would have happened under my system.  I'll use a "/" to divide each party's result into A seats, and B and C seats together.

***  Lib PC NDP Gr PP BQ Ind

NL   3/1     0/2  1/0

PEI  2/0     0/1          0/1

NS   6/0     1/1  0/2   0/1

NB   3/1     2/1   0/1  1/1

PQ  25/1    7/5   1/7   0/3 0/1 22/3

ON 57/0  26/12 4/15 0/6 0/1

MN  3/0    4/3   2/1   0/1

SK   0/2    9/1    0/3

AB   0/5  23/1   1/3   0/1 0/1

BC   8/2  12/4   7/3   2/3      1/0

Terrs  2               1

_______

A seats:  119  84   17    3  0  22  1

B+C:      12    31   36  17  3    3

Total:     131 115   53  20  3  25  1

True, the Liberals still have more seats despite the Conservative plurality in the popular vote, but the margin is significantly closer. The Liberals take the biggest lost, and the Conservatives and Bloc Quebecois are slightly worse off. Predictably, it's the NDP and the Greens who gain.  The People's Party manages three seats, as if that makes much difference. (Their presence in Parliament is a price I'm willing to pay!)

Election day

"All these difficulties, and many others I will not mention, would cease if there were at court an intelligent and judicious person who would examine each play before it was performed, not only those produced in the capital, but also those put on anywhere in Spain, and without his approval, stamp, and signature, no magistrate anywhere would permit a play to be performed; in this fashion, the players would be careful to send their plays to court, and then they could perform them in safety, and those who write them would consider what they were doing with more thought and care, knowing that their works would have to undergo a rigorous examination by one who understands the art; in this way good plays would be written and their purposes achieved; the entertainment of the common people, the good opinion of creative minds in Spain, the legitimate interests and safety of the actors, and the avoidance of the need to punish them"--Don Quixote

I voted Monday morning.  I mostly skipped the campaign's post-election bash (at a pub confusingly named The Gym!) because the noise gets to me.  I went home and streamed Peter Yates' movie The Deep, just for Robert Shaw.  It was kinda fun in an obvious way--the white characters were good guys and the black characters were bad guys, sort of like white and black cowboy hats in a western. Anything but deep.

Sure, I'm disappointed about the election.  In my next post I'll talk about what the results would have been under the proportional representation system I favour. (Stay tuned!)

Tuesday night I went to a dessert event for the Meetup for people over 50, at Demetres Danforth. Only a few people showed up, but I had a nice crepe dish with strawberry ice cream inside!

Wednesday John was digging more dirt from around the water pipe in the basement, and Moira and I were toting it out to the back yard.  There was a lot of dirt left over and I was hoping I'd get to move some of it, but by the time I was ready Moira had moved all of it! (Don't know how she does it without tiring...)

Tonight I saw the DVD of Richard Harris in Cromwell (for the second time) with the History Meetup.  Parts of it sounded like a stage play!

I've finished the first half of Don Quixote, and now I can focus on the book about Balkan history.

Shreddies

"He recounted the examination he had made of them [Don Quixote's books], those he had condemned to the flames and those he had saved, and at this the canon laughed more than a little and said that despite all the bad things he had said about those books, he found one good thing in them, which was the opportunity for display that they offered a good mind, providing a broad and spacious field where one's pen could write unhindered, describing shipwrecks, storms, skirmishes, and battles; depicting a valiant captain with all the traits needed to be one, showing him to be a wise predictor of his enemy's clever moves, an eloquent orator in persuading or dissuading his soldiers, mature in counsel, unhesitating in resolve, as valiant in waiting as in the attack; portraying a tragic lamentable incident or a joyful, unexpected event, a most beautiful lady who is virtuous, discreet, and modest or a Christian knight who is courageous, valiant, and astute; and representing the goodness and loyalty of vassals and the greatness and generosity of lords"--Don Quixote

It's been over a week since my last post in this blog! (Not much was happening on Thanksgiving weekend.) 

I have been doing a lot of stuff at the Alok Mukherjee campaign office, especially shredding paper.  Shredding is fun, it's so destructive!  I've shredded enough paper to fill several garbage bags. (Does anyone have an upcoming ticker tape parade?)

Last weekend I went to another Crowdreads Meetup.  We were discussing censorship, and I read the first part of No Kiss For Mother, the Tomi Ungerer children's book that prompted a backlash from 1972 grownups.  I also read part of Frank McCourt's Angela's Ashes, about when he was working for a magazine distributor and the government banned a page about birth control from one magazine, so the distributor went around and tore out the page, but McCourt secreted a lot of copies and sold them on the black market!  And I read the part of Huckleberry Finn where he prayed for a fishing line but didn't get hooks.

Yesterday my opera group was rehearsing Tales of Hoffmann at dinner time, and I thought Father and Moira knew I wouldn't be home for dinner, but they didn't!  At the singing group today we sang "The Belle of Belfast City."

On Youtube I found a channel that's posted a lot of clips from Sneak Previews, the PBS movie review show with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert from the late 1970s and early '80s.

Online dating

"There is no need to continue,' responded Dorotea, "except to say in conclusion that my good fortune has been so great in finding Don Quixote that I already consider and think of myself as queen and mistress of my entire kingdom, for he, in his courtesy and nobility, has promised me the boon of going with me wherever I may lead, and this is nowhere else but to Pandafilando of the Gloomy Glance so that he may kill him and restore to me what the giant has so unjustly usurped; all this will happen exactly as I have said, because this is what Tinacrio the Mage, my good father, prophesied; he also said, and left it written in Chaldean or Greek, neither of which I can read, that if the knight of his prophecy, after cutting off the head of the giant, wished to marry me, I should immediately and without argument, give myself to him to be his legitimate wife and grant him possession of both my kingdom and my person"--Don Quixote

I've been getting into online dating just lately.  I joined a site called Soulgeek, for people who are into comics and anime and such.  There was a questionnaire asking "What comics character would you most like to be?" and I answered Batman.  Then it asked "What comics character are you most like in real life?" and I answered Alfred the Butler!

The other day I was on the Zoosk website and got a chat message from a woman who was impressed by my Ph.D. (It impresses other people more than it does me...) I've forgotten her name but I remember that she was a law clerk.  If you're reading this, message me again!

At the Mukherjee campaign office, I was pressing Mukherjee pins.  They have a machine with two round holes that you fit metal discs into:  the one without the safety pin on the left, the one with it on the right so that the squiggly wire is facing up and the part with the point is facing down.  Then you take these pieces of paper with Mukherjee's name and cut out circular shapes from them. (That's the biggest challenge, but I've got pretty good at it.) Then you put it over the left disc and put a plastic circle over it.  Then you rotate clockwise so the left disc is away from you and the right disc is closer, and you press.  Then you rotate counter-clockwise so that the right disc is away from you and press again, and you have a pin ready to go!  I've produced dozens.

I've been colouring two more zone maps of the riding, one showing the results of the last federal election in 2015, the other last year's provincial election where we elected Jill Andrew.  I was surprised just how well we did last year:  there were about twenty zones where Jill got over 50% of the vote!

At Sunday's singing group, we did the calypso song "Yellow Bird" and the country song "Last Thing on My Mind," as well as "Side by Side."

The other day I watched a Youtube video that played Stravinsky's Rite of Spring while showing each page of the score as it was being played.  Anyone who can conduct that score has my respect!

Headache!

"It would not be surprising if that were the case, because it is evident to me that in my imagination the power of my afflictions is so intense and contributes so much to my ruination that I am powerless to prevent it and I become like a stone, bereft of all sense and awareness; I become conscious of this truth only when people tell me and show me the evidence of the things I have done while that terrible  attack has control over me, and all I can do is lament my fate in vain, and curse it to no avail, and offer as an excuse for my mad acts the recounting of their cause to all who wish to hear it, for if rational men see the cause, they will not be surprised by the effects, and if they cannot help me, at least they will not blame me, and anger at my outbursts will be transformed into pity for my misfortunes"--Don Quixote

It's got cool the last couple of days, and I got another big headache.  At tonight's opera rehearsal, where we were doing the part with Olympia the dancing robot, I had to leave halfway through.

Sunday was the first fall rehearsal for my singing group.  We sang "Come By the Hills" and the Irving Berlin song "Blue Skies." It was our accompanist's birthday, and someone brought a cake!

I've been doing a lot of different stuff at Alok Mukherjee's campaign office.  Tuesday  I took a wall map of the riding and colored the 200-odd poll zones according to our party strength:  weakest blue, weaker yellow, medium green, orange stronger, red strongest. (If it were up to me, I'd make yellow medium and green weaker, but that's just me...) We have four red zones but none blue.  As I expected, the NDP is strongest in the southwest and weakest in the middle with the Forest Hill millionaires: millionaire socialists are a cliche!  But we've been gaining strength in the area east of Yonge Street.

Wednesday the History Meetup discussed Korea. (I finished reading the background book on the way there!) Now I've started reading Mark Mazower's The Balkans:  A Short History for next month.  It turns out that the Balkan Peninsula only got its name in the 19th century!

Our house used to have a fireplace that's long been walled up.  John's been removing the now-exposed chimney one brick at a time, to make more room, and Moira and I have been toting them to a pile outdoors.