Tag Archive: coronavirus


Plague diaries, Day 205

Filed under: plague diaries — Leave a comment
October 4, 2020

Sunday evening. What a century this month has been.

Another uneventful day… But that’s another day where I learned a bit of French, another day of getting slightly closer to becoming a permanent resident here in Canada, another day of getting closer to all my goals, another day without having caught covid. So yay, here is to crossing yet another day off ye olde mental calendar.

Today was supposed to be open for hanging out with xgf and playing her favourite video game. (Borderlands-2 – she loves that turret special ability.) Alas, her parents stopped their Sunday trips to the local monastery, so hanging out with just her is no longer an option. Both of her parents practice hardly any covid precautions (and go shopping an awful lot), so merely being in the same house with them would increase my virus exposure risk by a huge percentage. Oh well, it was good while it lasted. She seems to be dating again, and good for her. I may try to find a likeminded penpal/romantic prospect here during the long winter, but then again, maybe not.

The weather was cold and shitty today. Winters here are long, and without so much as a chance to go to a random meetup and chat up some perfect strangers… Hobby inventory: I have dozens of books I’ve never actually read, three musical instruments I haven’t tried playing yet (ocarina, guitar, and harmonica), a zoom lens for my camera that I’ve yet to unpack, a “Cooking for dummies” book which has gotten mighty dusty over the past few years, a small (but incomplete) pile of art supplies in near-mint condition, and literal buckets of minerals I’ve yet to sort through and admire – leftovers from my July roadtrip vacation. Oh, and the exercise equipment, of course. And lots of video games I’ve bought on Steam over the years but haven’t played. And a DuoLingo subscription that will let me learn any language 24/7. Heh. So, yeah, I really shouldn’t be posting “boo hoo, poor me” updates if only because I’m fortunate enough to be safe from covid, economically stable, and in perfect health – and hell, all those hobbies will take years to master. It’s just the social isolation… Well, 205 days down (and 133 of those being all by myself), so what’s another couple hundred, am I right?

Random folks on social media are cheering each other up whenever someone asks “Please tell me I’m not the only one still staying in lockdown?” The frustration and fatigue I’m feeling is far from unique, but it helps to know that I am not alone.

In covid news, the shitshow is intensifying. Yesterday, the White House released two pictures of Trump supposedly working hard at Walter Reed Medical Center. He wore mildly different clothes in two different rooms, etc. One problem, though: the pictures were too high-tech. Online sleuths zoomed in and saw that he was literally signing blank pieces of paper in both pictures. The metadata on the pictures showed that they were taken just 10 minutes apart. That was literally a poorly staged photo opp. (And even a random Internet guy like me knows how to reset the metadata… Come on, people, you can do better than that.)

It got worse. This morning’s medical briefing mentioned that Trump is getting even more anti-covid drugs, and that his oxygen saturation levels dipped into the low 90s at least twice, which necessitated putting him on oxygen for several hours. The good doctor also waffled when journos asked why he lied the day before. When asked for specific results (such as Trump’s lung damage), he ran away. The only thing we know is that the official medical conferences cannot be trusted. There’s so much we don’t know – even the basic facts. It’s fairly obvious now that his first positive test was before Thursday, but when? No one even knows how long he’s been sick with covid, and that information is vital. Assuming his doctor told the truth about Trump’s treatment, he might be in fairly bad shape indeed. I won’t pretend to be any kind of medical expert – the details are way outside my competence level. This Politico article, however, has some great analysis of the press conference.

Later today, Trump went for a ride in his bulletproof, gas-proof SUV, waving at his supporters. He wore a mask for once, but an airproof SUV means all the Secret Service agents were likely exposed to his virus, even despite the protective gear they all wore. Like I wrote earlier, in the end this will be a binary choice: he’ll either die of covid or he won’t. But all this lying and obfuscation… This is what it must have felt like when JFK got shot, or when Reagan was in surgery after a failed assassination attempt. The one exception is that those events took days, not weeks. It’s hard to believe it’s been less than 72 hours since the news of Hope Hicks’s covid diagnosis. Folks online are making jokes about joining bears in their hibernation. (“I have some IPA and a can of cookie dough. Please vaccinate me while I’m asleep.” Heh.)

In non-self-inflicted-covid-news, Canada isn’t doing so well. In particular, Quebec has recorded over a thousand new cases. (1,107 to be precise.) A very basic google search suggested that maybe it’s because they have far more folks in retirement homes than any other place in the world. I have my own and selfish curiosity about Quebec, since I wouldn’t mind retiring there. (Ergo the French lessons.) I’d love to find out more about their situation. In other In non-self-inflicted-covid-news, there’s a spike in cases in Israel. Looks like the second lockdown (which, admittedly, had multiple loopholes) didn’t work after all…

Stay safe out there, folks. And hey, to make things a bit less gloomy, how about a 2020 meme, eh?

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
Comment

Plague diaries, Day 204

Filed under: plague diaries — 2 Comments
October 3, 2020

Saturday night. Do other planets ever get jealous that they don’t have a day named after them?

I finally ran out of bananas (the ones in the fridge started to look incredibly weird), so I risked another grocery-shopping expedition. Averaging about one every 10 days, and that ain’t bad. I took a fairly long drive on the permanently congested 401 highway to pick up extra weight plates for my dumbbell at a sporting goods store.

It’s so strange, experiencing the outside world in general and driving in particular after staying inside for so long. Watching fellow drivers stuck in traffic with you. Getting that old tingly sensation of controlling an entire automobile, a large construct of metal and rubber and glass that obeys your every move. (Do you remember your first time driving? It’s very much like that.) Even being trapped in traffic was a novel sensation because – for once – I was experiencing a tiny piece of the past, of life before the pandemic. Ye gods, I need to get out more often… But with the virus on the rise, nowhere is safe. Some places are objectively safer than others, and maybe I should try to go on a couple of hikes before the weather turns cold, but even so, there will be a long and boring winter shortly after. It doesn’t really get warm here till maybe April or May. Gotta keep popping that vitamin D, eh?

It says something about my life that the most exciting thing to happen this week was buying a new mask. Weeks ago, I bought 50 of those flimsy thin blue masks, but they’re really just the bare minimum. At the grocery store, I got something a bit more permanent, with an actual removable filter – and, dare I say, cooler-looking. (Scroll all the way down to see my pandemic business formal look.)

In covid news, things are getting decidedly Soviet in the US of A. Today’s updates: three Republican senators tested positive (Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, Mike Lee of Utah, and Thom Tillis of North Carolina); former New Jersey governor Chris Christie (an obese asthmatic) is in a hospital, allegedly just for observation; Trump is awfully quiet on Twitter; mixed messages coming from the White House. This morning, a team of Trump’s doctors arrived 43 minutes late to their own press conference. (That’s an awfully long time to agree on the best way to say “he’s a-okay!”) Dr. Sean Conley waffled for 13 minutes while dodging questions and accidentally mentioning that Trump had started treatment 48 hours prior and had been diagnosed 72 hours prior, i.e. on Wednesday morning, not on Thursday night.

Throughout the day, there were multiple conflicting reports and reports opposing prior reports. Either Trump is doing just fine or he was in critical condition. Either Dr. Conley meant to say “two days ago” instead of “72 hours” or he has no concept of time. Trump posted a four-minute video sitting in some office and thanking his medical team. It’s rather sad that it’s reasonable to ask whether this video had been pre-recorded earlier… There seems to be utter panic and self-inflicted information vacuum at the White House: even if they know what’s going on, after all their lies over the past four years, there’s no trustworthy person who can speak to the American people and be taken seriously.

There’s been no sign of life from Melania – is she finally getting some alone time, or is she out but not critical? The single saddest sign that something is up is the simple fact that the president of the United States has not spent the entire day bullying people on Twitter or live-tweeting Fox News. If there’s one thing he adores, it’s high ratings, and he’s been on everyone’s mind this whole weekend.

In the end, it’s a binary choice: he’ll either live or die. We’ll know for sure in a few weeks, likely sooner. The worst part is the uncertainty – the blatant misinformation and keeping people in the dark. In the Soviet Union, whenever the General Secretary had a health emergency and/or died, they’d put the Swan Lake ballet on every TV channel – it’d play on infinite loop. This is pretty much what’s going on right now, or at least what it feels like. Those of you reading this in the future, those of you who didn’t live through this, likely can’t imagine the sheer surreal sensation of having a Schrodinger’s president.

In other, non-US covid news: Ontario is stopping its contact-tracing program due to a two-day test backlog and a growing number of cases. (653 new ones yesterday.) That is not a good sign… That’s the equivalent of a shruggie emoji from the public health system: going from the precise and efficient targeting to, well, sending your thoughts and prayers to everyone around you, and reminding them to follow the same guidelines they’d started ignoring weeks ago. The new wave is here: the only question is how long it’ll last.

…and India has just crossed 100,000 deaths. That news story got buried by all the Trump news, yet it’s far more grave. As with every official death count, this one is understated. Given India’s 1.4 billion population, 100,000 deaths is proportionally about eight times lower than the US death toll, but it’s still just as tragic. I won’t pretend to know anything about India’s situation: I just hope they manage to minimize further deaths by taking rapid action.

Earlier today, I had to look up today’s date. It’s amazing how much has happened in just the first three days of October. There’s one month left until the US election. How different will the world be by then?..

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
Comment

Plague diaries, Day 203

Filed under: plague diaries — 2 Comments
October 2, 2020

Friday night. There ought to be a way to take all the unused Friday nights where you stayed home, put them in a savings account, and use them up when you get bored. Now that’s a tech start-up I’d invest in.

Things have gotten relatively normal at work – a simple, quiet day. Coworkers are still amazed by my hair, just like they are by the fact that I’m perfectly okay with working from home and staying in one room. Goddamn extroverts. Heh. Well, more WFH for me if they don’t want it.

I resumed my workouts two days ago: this is the third week, and the routine has already begun to suffer. Nonetheless, some exercise is better than none. I might have to brave the increasingly infection-infested city to get a few more weight plates for ye olde dumbbells.

In covid news… Holy shit, there’s a lot of covid news. Normally, I have to go on Reddit to find an interesting piece of news. (I never would’ve found out about, say, Turkey without Reddit.) Today is not one of those days.

It began late last night. Some intrepid reporter found out that Hope Hicks, Trump’s closest adviser, tested positive for covid. In a few hours, Trump tweeted that he and Melania also tested positive. I was up until 3am, refreshing the news feeds and speculating about the potential outcomes with everyone else. It must’ve been so weird for most east coast folks (at least those who go to bed at a reasonable hour) to learn about the news this morning…

Throughout the day today, the White House kept providing increasingly panicky announcements. At first, they said Trump had mild symptoms. Then they said the symptoms were moderate. They produced a doctor’s note that said he was “good-natured” (yeah, right) and received an experimental antibody cocktail. When you get to the point of giving the president untested drugs, that’s probably not good. Later in the day, a helicopter picked him up and took him to Walter Reed Medical Center, where he’ll allegedly work for the next few days. (Once again – yeah, right.) Most disturbingly, Trump didn’t tweet all day (an unprecedented occurrence in and of itself) except for an 18-second video where he appeared alone (without Melania) and said he was okay. It says something about the United States when people have reasonable doubts whether the video was real or pre-recorded just in case months ago. (And where was Melania?) Trump walked to the helicopter right outside on his own, so at least they didn’t wheel him out on a gurney. His administration leaks like a sieve: some aides said he was running a fever.

Pence and his wife allegedly tested negative. Ditto for Nancy Pelosi, Joe Biden, and Kamala Harris. On the other hand, quite a few Republicans who attended the Saturday ceremony in the Rose Garden said they tested positive. The ceremony was to celebrate Trump’s nomination of ACB, aka Amy Coney Barrett, to the Supreme Court. (Never mind the fact that Justice Ginsburg hadn’t even been buried yet.) Videos of the event show dozens of people walking around without masks, hugging, kissing, wiping their noses and then shaking hands, etc. That’s starting to look like a super-spreader event: two Republicans senators have already tested positive, as well as a few other VIPs. Some wealthy Republican donors were present as well: they went back to their home states, and likely started their own little clusters there.

I hope Trump doesn’t die. After all his petty thievery and not-so-petty corruption, that’d be too easy: a relatively fast exit without consequences. At the same time, I don’t feel sorry for him or his anti-science, pro-suffering entourage. No sympathy for Nazi sympathizers. They knew about the pandemic, they deliberately disregarded every rule, and there they are. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes – the pandemic edition, eh?

I still find it incredibly hard to believe that I, a compete nobody, had a more secure anti-covid system than the goddamn president of the United States. All I have is a healthy sense of paranoia, a bit of disposable income, and working knowledge of epidemiology. (I was into it before it was cool.) I stayed the hell inside, didn’t attend any social events aside from a fully-masked socially distanced backyard birthday party in August (there were a total of five people), and didn’t leave the house without a mask, wraparound glasses, and a face shield. Oh, and my summer vacation consisted of a 2,500-mile roadtrip with extremely little social interaction.

Anyone could do what I did, or at least try to. (I know that’s hard if you have kids.) But the president of the United States, the guy with the best scientists at his disposal, didn’t even try. Just about the only thing he hadn’t done to deliberately catch covid was hanging out with covid patients the way Boris Johnson had done before he got sick. Short of that, and maybe licking random doorknobs, Trump did every single risky thing in the book: shaking hands with dozens of people at events and rallies, not socially distancing, not wearing a mask, etc… If anything, I’m surprised it had taken him seven months to catch covid.

This weekend will likely have even more explosive revelations, even more insane headlines. The four hours of sleep last night are making themselves known: I’ll likely pass out very soon. I can’t even imagine what headlines I’ll see when I wake up some 10-12 hours later. There’s a possibility that Pence will assume presidential duties (if only temporarily) by Monday. There’s a possibility that Nancy Pelosi, the third in the succession line, will take over later this month. There are so many possibilities… Anything is fair game now. Stay safe out there, folks – and if you haven’t caught covid by now, then congratulations on being more responsible than the US president. Heh.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,
Comment

Plague diaries, Day 202

Filed under: plague diaries — Leave a comment
October 1, 2020

Thursday evening. Apparently, Google can find only 68 instances of “Happy Thor’s Day” ever uttered in the entire human history. I’m a trailblazer!

Funny signs of life: yet another online conference at work, but this time with webcams. (We all stopped using them ages ago due to the creepiness factor.) I turned mine on. Moments later, a coworker messaged me with “GRIGORY! Your hair looks AWESOME!” Heh. At least there’s that, eh?

Today is the first day of the last quarter of this godforsaken year. A lot of big projects are wrapping up at long last. Some new ones are beginning. This calendar division is entirely arbitrary, of course, but nonetheless – I can’t help feeling that I’m one small yet significant step closer to my goals.

By the way, this is the last chance to download my “50 shades of yay” book for free – it’ll get back to its $2.99 price after midnight. I haven’t promoted the giveaway with any sort of energy or gusto, but hey, a few hundred people found and downloaded it nevertheless. If even one of them reads it and feels a little better as a result, this will have been worth it.

In covid news, there’s a scandal in Turkey. Their health minister has been fudging the numbers, counting only those who tested positive and had symptoms. The official count excludes the asymptomatic Turks who tested positive. The truth came out after an opposition leader claimed the real number is 20 times higher than the official count. These shenanigans should surprise absolutely no one, but they still make me wonder: how many other countries are deliberately downplaying covid’s impact, and to what extent? Future statisticians are going to have so much fun digging through all this dirt…

Tags: , , , , , , , ,
Comment

Plague diaries, Day 201

Filed under: plague diaries — Leave a comment
September 30, 2020

Wednesday night. It has occurred to me that saying “happy hump day” miiiight be able-ist. A lot of bad karma to make up for if that’s the case.

Things turned out suspiciously auspicious today, and I did not in face pull a work-related all-nighter. Well, at least this week is mildly more memorable and eventful than usual.

I’m starting to live vicariously through my landlords: they’ve made up with their son and got him a guitar tutor. (This is the part where I side-eye my own guitar, which I bought a couple of years ago and never even tuned.) Sometimes, the landlords’ daughter and her boyfriend come over and bring their cute little corgi, Royce. He hates my smoothie blender with passion. (The corgi, not the boyfriend – as far as I know, he’s indifferent to blenders.) That always makes for a fun 30-second pantomime.

Sounds like I didn’t miss much by skipping the big debate last night. The president of the United States of America refused to denounce white supremacist groups, and instead told a particularly goofy (but violent) group called the Proud Boys to “stand by and stand back.” That made them very excited because, hey, the president himself gave you a shoutout in front of the entire country. Trump apparently tried to walk that back today, but that’s too little, too late. One of my old college friends asked me earlier today, unprompted and out of the blue, if I can provide any advice on moving to Canada…

In covid news, there’s something interesting going on with cruise ships. The original CDC guidance called for all cruise ships to cease from April through this today, 9/30. The guidance was expected to get extended through February, but the White House has just blocked it. Now, under the administration’s plan, cruises can resume right after Halloween. (This NYT article has more details.) This is a completely political maneuver because a) cruise companies have some good lobbyists, b) if you let cruise ships sail again just three days before the election, you can use that for self-promotion, and c) a lot of money in Florida is made off cruises, and that’s a big part of the puzzle.

Like I said before, I have a fair bit of money invested in cruise companies: at the time, I’d naively assumed that the US would get everything under control. That turned out to be a bad and naive assumption. I guess a cynical part of me might have suspected that cruise companies would get preferential treatment. This will almost certainly be a disaster, since in addition to passengers, there are also hundreds (thousands?) of crew members, and if a single person is contagious… Well, I’m just glad I’m not in that line of work. Interestingly, this goes entirely against the recommendations of Robert Redfield, the CDC’s director. He’s a complicated figure since sometimes he acts like Trump’s sockpupper, but other times he actually stands up for himself. He got overruled on the cruise issue. I wonder if he’ll get fired and replaced with someone more compliant and less ethical.

I’m genuinely curious how the cruise resumption will play out. Kudos to all those who aren’t that stir-crazy yet. Keep it up, eh.

Tags: , , , , , , , ,
Comment

Plague diaries, Day 200

Filed under: plague diaries — Leave a comment
September 29, 2020

Tuesday evening. Talk about lame anniversaries, eh?

Two-hundred days… What an unimaginably long stretch of time. Long enough to make a premature but viable baby. If you live to be 80, that’s 29,220 days (mind the leap years), which means 200 days is almost 1% of your total lifespan, including the early childhood years that nobody remembers. What’s worse is that we’re all pretty much guaranteed to go through another 150-200 days until vaccines start getting distributed. (I’m sure the wealthy and the celebrities will get them first.) So there goes another percent of your life.

What a shitty, truly shitty and irredeemable year this is.

More long days at work. It’s seasonal, sort of, since things heat up when you plan for a new quarter. I’ll most likely end up having to pull a work-related all-nighter tomorrow. Oy vey.

Long hours lead to poor diet and more stress, which leads to more therapeutic wine, all of which leads to zero time or inclination left to exercise. Excuses, I know…

Purely biologically, I know my body will survive just fine for another 200 days, and another 200, and 200 after that, etc. I’m not as down as all the extroverts who (perhaps for the first time in their lives) are devoid of company and people to socialize with. I know there are others who have legitimate problems and issues, and need far more help than I ever will. Nonetheless, I know I’m well below my baseline. I’m not so naive as to believe things will magically get better on January 1 (and I suspect many people do, in fact, believe that) – I’m in it for the long haul. Still, I’m not at all sure what kind of person I will be by the time I get my magic vaccine shot. I know for a fact that I’ll be much hairier, and hopefully in better physical shape, and rocking an awesome hermit beard, but beyond mere physical characteristics… It’s anyone’s bet.

Tonight is the first presidential debate in the US. It starts in a few minutes. Part of me wants to watch it, if only out of habit and because my degree is, after all, in political science. The rest – and most – of me is going to deliberately not watch it. No social media, no blogs, just some book or a TV show. It hurts to disentangle myself from yet another country (first Russia, and now the US) but that’s necessary. If I recall correctly, the first two years are the hardest, before you truly begin to adjust to your new country and comprehend that the past is behind you…

In covid news, a 42-year-old man in Maryland kept throwing parties, and now he’ll spend a year in jail. This is an unusual case, but the circumstances were just as unusual. Evidently, he didn’t even cancel off the second party the police got called for. (It had over 50 people.) Blatant disregard for rules means actual jail time and national headlines, since this is the first time a state actually threw the book at someone. There’s a fair chance that he’ll appeal and end up serving far less time, but still – this is an important change in tone. I expect there to be more arrests for those who deliberately ignore public safety guidelines. Other things will change too. I’m not sure whether here in Canada we’ll ever get to the point of awarding bounties for those who report a car with US license plates, but I’ve seen multiple people call for that online.

I have a hunch that just three months from now, at the very end of the year, the world will have changed more than we can possibly imagine.

Tags: , , , , , , , ,
Comment

Plague diaries, Day 199

Filed under: plague diaries — Leave a comment
September 28, 2020

Monday night. No, seriously, to hell with the people who say “Happy Monday.”

Long day at work today: I didn’t log off till 9pm. That left a whopping three hours to a) devour something to keep my stomach from digesting itself, b) read something – anything – not related to work, c) exercise?, and d) update this blog. I’m sorry to say that c) got the short end of the stick. I’m telling myself that I’ll just readjust the legs/arms days, and continue my workout regimen tomorrow, but… I have zero agency when it comes to circumstances beyond my control.

Just 4-10 more months till I get my PR.

Tomorrow is the first US presidential debate. I hate myself for not being able to just walk away, to turn the other way, to cut the cord connecting me to the country that I shall never again call my home. Maybe I really ought to skip it after all. Sure, all the social media will be filled with reactions, counter-reactions, etc for days to come, but there’s zero evidence that these things actually sway anyone’s vote. We are nothing but strangely persistent shadows in this prismatic world. Sure would be great if I could just mute all the US news for the next two months and get a simple notification about who won. Life is never that simple, unfortunately.

In covid news… I didn’t want to believe the early reports (on account of being too downright depressing), but the new papers by Yale researchers provide proof that covid can infect brain cells. That would account for all the neurological symptoms of the long covid, such as the loss of smell and taste, the endless fatigue, etc. This is one insidious virus, yes, but there’ll be plenty more where that came from… This century is gonna suck, to put it mildly.

Tags: , , , , , , , ,
Comment

Plague diaries, Day 198

Filed under: plague diaries — Leave a comment
September 27, 2020

Sunday night. A sunny day is always a treat, but when it falls on a Sunday, it feels like all is right with the world.

First things first: I’m giving away an e-book on happiness! I wrote “50 shades of yay: great thinkers on happiness” six years ago, but it seems particularly relevant in 2020. The book combines 50 writings on the nature of happiness by pre-modern authors. (Incidentally, everything written prior to 1932 is copyright-free.) Some of the pieces in the book are long, some are short, some are collections of thoughts and aphorisms. I’m sure there’s something there that will help you feel a little better in this weird, unprecedented year. The book is free to download from now until the end of Thursday, October 1. If you like the book, I’d appreciate it if you left a nice review and told your friends.

In other news… The great MRI odyssey last night ended with me getting back home at 4am. Ye olde sleep cycle is going to be a bit off-balance for a little while, but hey – worth it. I spent a couple of hours outside the downtown hospital, enjoying the warm weather and the quiet night. I don’t believe I spent a single evening out and about in Toronto this year… The city gets so different at night: quiet, peaceful, somehow more futuristic. That’s also the only time there are no traffic jams, which makes driving on the local highways an actually enjoyable experience, for once.

I spent a solid couple of hours today just walking around the neighbourhood, trying to find the nearest walking-distance Tim Hortons that sold sandwiches. (I had no idea they had some that sold only doughnuts!) The 30-minute walk ended up taking two hours, but it was a) delicious, b) sunny, c) warm, and d) a nice change of pace. (No pun intended – honest!) It was also a nice opportunity to start reading the new novel by Claire North, one of my favourite authors. (I can’t recommend her “The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August” highly enough!)

As I was waiting outside the hospital last night, I joined the subreddit on Canada immigration, and the things I read were not very encouraging… Some wrote that they had to wait 11 months to receive their PR (permanent residency) after applying last year. Of course, they’re just anonymous Internet strangers, and they might have had different PR applications than mine, but still… This whole time, I’ve been bracing myself for six months of waiting, from August till maybe as late as February. If I have to keep hanging on all the way through next summer… Let’s just hope it doesn’t get that bad, eh? I like to think that somewhere, somehow, some dedicated Service Canada folks are working hard to eliminate the PR application backlog to keep it from turning into a timebomb.

An online buddy of mine (we stayed at the same Costa Rican hostel years ago) has a girlfriend who just got her PR. Not sure how long they had to wait but hey, this shows that the system works. Even the waiting isn’t worthless: to apply for Canadian citizenship later on, you need to have spent three of the last five years in Canada, and the pre-PR days (work permit, for instance) count as half-years. That means if I get my PR on my two-year arrival anniversary in April 2021, I’d need to spend just two more years in the great white north to fully cement my position. Goals and aspirations!

In covid news, more of the same old, same old around the world. Locally, there’s a bit of a funny story… My previous landlady, here in Toronto, who fancies herself an event organizer, got tired of all the restrictions. She tried to set up a party for 40 people (two separate groups of 20) on the second floor of a downtown bar, skirting the 10-person limit on technicality, and making masks optional… (She’s the sort of person who believes that essential oils will cure everything – and if they don’t, you obviously need more essential oils! It’s basically essential oils all the way down.) When she posted online ads for her party on local social media, some of the saner folks were less than impressed… I’m not sure what exactly happened, but the event page got taken down. (Did someone call the bar and tell them about the legal ramifications? Alas, we’ll never know.) So yeah, it’s not just college students and Millennials who keep starting parties – it’s also older folks who really ought to know better, but just can’t stop chasing the almighty dollar. (The almighty loonie?) But hey, if you look on the bright side, that’s one super-spreader event that got successfully nixed. If that’s not a success story, I don’t know what is! Heh.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Comment

Plague diaries, Day 197

Filed under: plague diaries — Leave a comment
September 26, 2020

Saturday evening. It’s still kosher to say “good morning” after you wake up at 2pm, right?

Tonight will be dedicated to a nocturnal roadtrip, a high-tech infiltration (and exfiltration) mission, a matter of life and death! To put that in more plebeian terms, though, one of xgf’s friends and I will give her a ride from her tiny little town to an MRI appointment (conveniently scheduled for midnight on Saturday night) and back again. The friend will drive her there; I’ll drive her back. I don’t usually run chores under the cover of darkness, but hey – this is for a good cause, MRI’s are awesome, and this will add some much-needed variety to the dull routine that is the lockdown life. (I’m fairly certain “yeah, but it was interesting, though” will end up becoming my famous last words at some point in the future.)

To prepare, and since I won’t get back home till maybe 3am, I stayed up till 5am doing the usual procrastination routine. Some assorted caffeinated beverages will serve as emergency measures should my attention span begin to waver. Plenty of experience with that back when I worked night shifts as a warehouse grunt… Highly inadvisable, of course – and yet another reason women generally live longer than men.

In covid news, I’ve stumbled on this most excellent page describing the pandemic up until the present moment. Fair warning, TV Tropes is an amazing but also very addictive site: it’s easy to lose track of time as you explore all of its interconnected pages. (Personally, I’m a giant fan of their “Real Life” section.) It’s written in a simple and accessible wiki-page format. It’s very strange to read a condensed summary of everything we’ve all experienced throughout the year – cataloged so precisely and neatly. This is an actual multifaceted global historical event, and we’re all characters in it. Reading that page was like getting a glimpse of a history book from the future… Some of the things it mentioned were news to me, since no one can keep track of everything. On the other hand, I’ve almost forgotten about some of them, like the firing of Brett Crozier, the captain of the Theodore Roosevelt aircraft carrier. That was less than six months ago, but it already feels like it’s been ages.

I’m morbidly curious what updates will be added to that site: it’d be fascinating to access a, say, 2025 version of the page just to see how this all ended. (Assuming it does end.) Alas, that’s not an option. As Kurt Vonnegut wrote, “Here we are, trapped in the amber of the moment. There is no why.”

Enjoy your weekend if you can, y’all.

Tags: , , , , , , , ,
Comment

Plague diaries, Day 196

Filed under: plague diaries — Leave a comment
September 25, 2020

Friday night. I used to know a guy so addicted to work that he’d hate weekends. I figure if I never become like him, I will have accomplished at least something in life.

I’m not a huge fan of depersonalization to get through the boring parts of life, if only because life is a finite resource. And yet… With everything becoming so similar, so routine, with every week flying past me, with every “wait, what?” as I close my work laptop at the end of Friday, I get another tiny bit closer to my goals. Unlike bears, we don’t have the luxury of hibernating through the most boring part of the year – but this fast-forwarding in absence of any new external stimuli is not the worst alternative. Far from the best, though.

Let’s see… My one big accomplishment this week was binge-watching “Black Summer” on Netflix: as low-budget zombie shows go, it was surprisingly good. There’s a new episode of “The Boys” out today, so that’s a small treat for getting through another week, eh?

One interesting thing about the pandemic is that there are essentially no theater movie releases. This will be the first year in a very long while without a new Marvel movie. (Finally, eh?) There haven’t been as many online-only releases as you’d think: my guess is they’re saving everything for 2021 instead. The Academy Awards ceremony will still take place next year, though it got rescheduled from February to April. (I wonder if they’ll actually go through with that.) I don’t believe I actually know anyone who even watches the Oscars anymore, but it’ll be a very strange ceremony regardless, since the only normal movie-release months were January and February. I guess “Birds of Prey” will just scoop up all the awards. Heh.

In covid news, Florida governor Ron DeSantis issued an order to reopen the entire state. Business will resume as if the pandemic never happened, which is some hardcore denialism considering Florida had 2,847 new cases today. What’s worse is that the order specifically prohibits cities and counties from imposing their own capacity restrictions “unless they can justify a closure for economic or health reasons.” Greed rules supreme… Florida is one of the few states that has no state income tax, which means it relies quite heavily on tourism and corporate taxes. “A Disney trip to die for,” eh? That’ll get so unbelievably ugly, especially once the resulting cases start popping up in a week or two… And on that note, I’m off to binge shows and play the most escapist video games I can find, because there’s only so much of this 2020 world one can take without seriously damaging one’s sanity.

Stay safe out there, folks.

Tags: , , , , , , , ,
Comment