Stealing Movies

My step-son's mother thinks it's perfectly okay to illegally download movies from the internet and tells her son that it's not stealing because she's not selling it. I suggested we should steal her car and tell her we're not going to sell it so it's not stealing.

I just can't wrap my head around this reasoning. It reminds me of the quip my father once told me where "Little Johnny's" dad says "Don't steal pencils from school son, I'll bring you some home from work."

I don't want to say anything further to the kid because it's his mom, but I'm curious, what advice would you give when dealing with someone's justification to a child about how stealing one this is bad and another is okay?

(Besides, telling me that "it's not of my business" and "why am I getting involved?" - I'm just curious to hear your answers, and I won't be saying anything to the kid).

Cats

I think cats are beautiful animals. They move in such a way and have such fluid graceful bodies. However, I would not live with one.

I don't think it's fair for your neighbours to have your cats loose to roam the neighbourhood screeching at all hours (for mating I assume) and defacing your property by peeing, spraying and pooping all over your yard. And the one I had most is when they sit on my car - or when they've slid down my windshield and leave muddy smears full of grit on my glass.

I also don't think it's fair that as a dog owner I'm required to pay the city up to $100 for an annual dog licence, when we rarely have a loose dog walking around but there are as many as 12 loose cats on my street that I have to brake for when I drive down the road, I have to pick up their poop from my driveway and there's often a puddle of something on one of my garbage cans,  etc. Why don't we have cat licences? 

And most cats don't even seem happy to live indoors. When I walk my dog early in the morning, I see house after house with a cat looking out the living room window while the rest of the house sleeps. They just sit like little statues staring out the windows. They look like they want to run free and are not happy being indoors. If you have a large property with acreage or a farm, I think a cat would be wonderful for your property, but they really don't seem happy to be indoors all their lives.

I'm curious, how wrong is my opinion about living with cats?

By-Laws

On the weekend, I was walking my dog and ended up cutting our walk short because I had a full bladder,so I cut through the school yard walking past a sign that has a red line through a picture of a dog and a by-law number under it. As I was approaching the entrance to the school field, I saw a woman hanging out of her house with a camera with a large lens on it. It appeared to be pointing right at me as there wasn't really anything of interest behind me. I'm going to assume she was taking my picture because I was breaking the bylaw by entering the school field.

I accept that this is true. However, I just wanted to take a short cut home because of my poor bladder and my dog wasn't off leash and she didn't poop on the school field, but I guess none of that matters. I broke the law, correct?

But here's what  bothers me. The bylaws in our community are not enforced. I once called the bylaw officer (we seem to have only one) because of a very large race car engine that rattled our whole house, and you couldn't hear anything but this 100+ db engine coming from the house behind me - it was a definite bylaw infraction, and I had their name and address as well. I called the bylaw office in August and he returned my call in OCTOBER! He said  "oh sorry, I was on vacation for a week and I'm just getting caught up" It made no sense. Twice since I've been to city hall and filed a written complaint about a neighbour with NINE cats that she lets roam the street to mate loudly at all times of the day, sit on our cars, spray my garbage cans and poop in my gardens, including inches below my living room window. As well, there are two people on the street that have left unlicenced, uninsured vehicles on the street for over a year. The bylaw officer has done nothing.

So in my opinion, our bylaws mean nothing and are not enforced. But if for some reason I do get 'caught' for walking on the school field, none of the above will matter will it? The law doesn't care how many other people break the rules, only if you did and were caught.

So I'm curious, how are the bylaws in your community, and do you break any of them?

Tweeting an abortion?

Please check out this . I'm curious, what do you think of this idea?

Writing

When I was a little kid, I had trouble falling asleep. I think it was because my mom thought I needed 12 hours sleep like many other kids, but I just needed 8 hours. Always have. So I would play in the dark, or sneak down the hall and watch the Johnny Carson Show through the reflection in the hall mirror so I wouldn't be detected by my parents sitting on the couch. (I was never caught). I would try counting - by 5's seemed to work the best for me, and sometimes I would write stories. When I was older, I'd compose business letters for the next day at work. And now sometimes I compose blog posts. I have some great subjects laying in bed at night but I don't write them down because I'm all snuggled in bed and at that time my reasoning is 'if I had the thought once, I'll have it again'. Except in the morning too much is going on already and I can't seem to recall what I had mentally written last night.

My brother has told me that he's laid in bed writing novels, but I don't  believe he's ever attempted to put pen to paper for any of them.  I think he just does it as a way to calm his mind down so he can sleep as well. In fact, I did see 'make up a story in your head' as a hint for falling asleep on a couple insomnia websites.

So I'm curious, do you do your best writing in your head while trying to fall asleep?

Diabolo

When I was a kid, one of my favourite toys was a diabolo. I didn't do any tricks with it and I wasn't very good with it, but I sure liked it. And it probably wasn't even my toy, it was probably one of my brothers. When I was really little I loved my 'elephant shoes' and my tricycle but unfortunately I had to give those up as I got bigger.

I'm curious, did you ever play with one? What was your favourite childhood toy?

Heritage Horns

I have been living in the Vancouver suburbs almost all my life and spent 4 years working in the downtown core. For many of us, the sound of the 12-noon horns, once on top of the BC Hydro Building either meant 'time for lunch' or time for the "Electric Lunch" to start on CFMI - Rock 101 radio station (back in the day).

I can't believe that it took all the way until the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics to learn that the tune  the horns play are the first 4 notes of our National Anthem - "Oh Canada" and that they have been moved to the top of the Pan Pacific Hotel at Canada Place.

And I'm not the only person who grew up around here, NOT to know that fact. I'm curious, did you know this?

Drivers

We place a lot of trust in other drivers. We trust that they will follow the lines on the road and not cross the centre line and they trust that we'll do the same. Sadly this occasionally does happen, with often tragic results.

There are plenty of other situations where we can put ourselves at risk. The other day while walking the dog, I was walking on the sidewalk across a driveway for an apartment complex and a lady was walking her dog towards me. We were about 10 feet from each other when a car drove between us - luckily it wasn't that close of a call, nor was either dog hurt, but it could have been a bad situation. As the car proceeded into the complex I saw the "L" on the back of his car indicating he was a learning/student driver. Well that explained a lot! I sure hope the driver that was with him taught him the mistake he made, if not maybe the fact that he scraped his car on the driveway incline due to the fast left turn he made will be a good reminder of what not to do.

I'm curious, have you ever had a close call with a car as a pedestrian?