Rimmel Scandaleyes Precision Micro Eyeliner is none of the above

My default eyeliner is Rimmel Glam'Eyes liquid liner, which I appreciate in particular for its very thin brush, which allows a fine and precise line even with the dark liquid black I prefer.  My only qualm is that it isn't waterproof, and therefore needs to be touched up throughout the day.

On my last shopping trip, I noticed a new Rimmel product: ScandalEyes Precision Micro Eyeliner.  The packaging touted its fine tip and waterproof formula, so I thought this was just what I need!

Unfortunately, it doesn't do the job at all.

When I attempted to line my eyes using the tip of the pen, only a sporadic, sheer grey line came out. In frustration I scribbed with it on the back of my hand like it was a dead sharpie, and a darker line came out if I pressed down hard and used the side of the pen.  But that line wasn't narrow, and required pressing too hard to duplicate on my eyelids.  And even then, it wasn't consistently as dark as the liquid liner.

So, in short, this alleged precision micro eyeliner is not capable of providing a "precision" or "micro" line when used on the eyes.

The only part of its name that is accurate is the "scandal" part: it's a scandal that Rimmel would make a new product that's so inferior in every way to their old product. 

Dear Rimme: all you have to do is put a waterproof liquid liner in the same packaging with the same brush as the Glam'Eyes liquid.

Toronto Ward 22 Councillor candidates Sarfraz Khan, Bob Murphy and James O'Shaughnessy

Attention Sarfraz Khan, Bob Murphy, and James O'Shaughnessy:

I am a Ward 22 voter, and I don't feel I can vote for the position of councillor unless I know about more than one candidate's platform.

I haven't been able to find any of your platforms. They aren't listed on the City of Toronto Elections website, googleable, or findable on social media.

So please post your platform somewhere online, and inform the City of Toronto Elections people of its location so they can add it to their website.  If you create a twitter profile with a link to your platform, and put #topoli and #Ward 22 in the description, your electorate will find you. (Also, if you post it in the comments here, it will become googleable within a couple of days.)

By doing so, you'll be giving the people of Ward 22 an alternative to simply voting for the loudest person by default.

Open letter to "No Acronym Here" in this week's Savage Love

From this week's Savage Love:

My husband and I have been happy swingers for four years. Our issue? I'm pregnant. My husband had a vasectomy two years ago, and neither of us has wavered in our desire to remain childfree. We know the "father" is the male of a couple we play with regularly. We used protection, of course, but we know these things are never foolproof. We consider ourselves good friends with this couple, but we are not in any sort of "poly" relationship with them. Our question is this: Do we need to tell the couple about what happened and our decision to terminate the pregnancy? We wouldn't ask them to help pay for the procedure, and their feelings on the matter wouldn't change our course of action. We're just unsure about the "swinger etiquette" in this situation.

The part of Dan Savage's answer that discusses how this man might feel or react:

On the off chance that your play buddy is one of those guys who either is against abortion or hasn't given the issue much thought—because he's never needed one—you should let him know that your freedom to choose has directly benefited him and his family. You should also let him know that there's a small chance your husband impregnated you. Either way, you're terminating this pregnancy.

But there's another possibility Dan Savage didn't mention: what if LW's play buddy is one of those guys who is against abortion because he wouldn't want a child he fathered to be aborted?  If this is the case, he might get very angry at you, and, if you tell him before the abortion happens, he might try to stop you. (And, from a political point of view, he'd cite this as a perfect example of why abortion should be criminalized.)

Unless you know him (or his feelings towards reproduction) well enough to be certain he wouldn't react this way, you and your husband should make a plan that includes what you would do if your play buddy reacts this way.  It is a thing that exists in the world, and you could be in for a bad time if you announce the abortion as good news when he'd take it as bad.

A public apology to Eddie Izzard

Dear Eddie Izzard,

During one of your May 2010 shows at Massey Hall in Toronto, you asked the audience who or what Massey Hall was named after.  Various people shouted out various things, and, to our utter delight, you picked up on our answer of "Vincent Massey."  You asked who he was, we replied "Governor General", you asked what that was, we replied "Queen's representative", and then you segued neatly into your thoughts on the monarchy, pausing only to remark that some guy on the other side of the audience kept randomly shouting out "Tractors!"

I've only just learned we gave you completely incorrect information.  Vincent Massey was in fact Governor General of Canada, but in the 1950s.  Massey Hall was built in the 1890s, before Vincent Massey was even born. Its construction was funded by Hart Massey, Vincent Massey's grandfather, with a family fortune made by, among other things, manufacturing tractors.

I apologize unreservedly for giving you incorrect information and causing you to repeat it publicly as though it were fact.  All I can say is that it simply never occurred to us that Massey Hall might not be named after the most famous Massey, after whom so many other things are named.   Obviously I should have been more careful.  When we see you again in November, if you should choose to pose any questions to the audience, I promise to only answer if I'm certain, not if I just think I have a logical extrapolation from common knowledge.

I would also like to apologize profusely to the people who were saying "tractors".  You were completely right and we were completely wrong, and yet we stole your moment from you and made your Eddie Izzard experience less perfect. I truly do hope you'll be able to get your own moment in November.  Maybe Eddie will ask the same question again (it seems like the sort of thing that might be part of a standard show-opening arsenal), and you can give your answer and we'll all get a different choose your own adventure.

Victoria's Secret has changed my underwear for the worse!

It was time for fresh new underwear, so, like I've been doing for the past 5 years or so, I ordered a few pairs of the Victoria's Secret high-leg cotton brief. I first learned about it on a Tomato Nation thread, and I was able to get some good discount codes so I decided to give it a try. It was the perfect underwear! Comfortable, breathable, the elastics stayed where they're supposed to without making me look like a sausage, the cut was modest enough that I felt attractive but not so full as to make me feel frumpy, with the waistband below my belly-button but above the sticky-outiest part of my belly. My preferred plain black looked sexy and classy and together, and got rave reviews from those who are entitled to express an opinion on my underwear.

Unfortunately, they've changed the design somewhat. The fabric is of lower quality (thinner and seems more likely to rip than my old five-year-old pairs with the seams resewn), the elastics don't stay in place and keep trying to give me a wedgie, the seams on the hips are itchy (whereas the previous design didn't even have seams on the hips!), and, rather than being plain black, they have a pink Victoria's Secret logo on the left hip, which isn't even reflected in the photo of the product on their website.

In short, they've taken a product that made me feel comfortable and sexy and confident, and, with a few subtle design changes, made it into a product that makes me feel uncomfortable and tacky and gross.

And, to add insult in injury, now I have to shop for new basic underwear, which is particularly annoying because you can't even return it! This is a completely unnecessary chore and expense and irritant! All they had to do was nothing. Just keep manufacturing and selling as usual, I'll just keep buying as usual, and everyone's happy. Now I'm pissed off and returning my purchases, so both I and Victoria's Secret are out some time and money and effort, plus I'm uncomfortable and pissed off. What does this achieve?

Dear Victoria's Secret: please return your cotton high-leg brief to the previous design, from before the plain black one had a pink logo on the left hip. If you do this, I'll stop complaining and keep mindlessly buying them forever.

Meanwhile, can anyone recommend a plain black cotton panty that isn't too skimpy, has a waistband that falls below the belly-button but above the sticky-outiest part of the belly, and has elastics that stay put without causing wedgies?

Open Letter to Toronto City Councillors

Dear Toronto City Councillors:

Thank you for your very sensible vote to restore LRTs yesterday. I immensely appreciate seeing political cooperation to do what's right for our city, and look very forward to seeing more of the same in the future.

In the interest of achieving that, I have something I'd like you all to think about. Rob Ford unilaterally announced that Transit City is dead on December 1, 2010. Your successful vote to reverse that decision came yesterday, on February 8, 2012. That's over 14 months. Even if everything goes absolutely perfectly from now on, the best possible outcome is we're 14 months behind where we should be.

So here are two questions you need to think about quietly to yourselves and then brainstorm together until you get workable answers:

1. Why did it take you 14 months to reverse such a destructive decision that the mayor had no authority to make?

2. What will you do to make it possible to prevent or reverse future destructive decisions in a more timely manner, so we don't lose a year every time the mayor does something stupid?

I'm not posing these questions to make you defend yourselves. (If anyone posts spinny damage control in the comments I will be very unimpressed.) They are not for answering immediately, or slapping together a talking point for a briefing note and checking off the list. I'm posing these questions so you'll actually think about them, at length and over a period of time. Let them fester in your brains, think of ideas, share them and build on them with other councillors, and ultimately come up with a way to prevent this problem from happening again.

A mission for Toronto Public Library patrons

They've recently announced a new list of possible savings for the library to meet its reduced budget. I have a number of discrete thoughts on these, which I'm going to spread out over probably three blog posts. But we'll start with a simple mission for all library patrons.

One of the proposed savings is to charge people who don't pick up holds. This grabbed my attention because I recently had a hold that didn't turn up on the hold shelf. I looked through all the books on the shelf and it wasn't there even though the computer said it was. I was up to talking to people that day, so I went to the librarian. She looked through the hold shelves with me and couldn't find it either, so she placed another hold on the item for me and it came in a few days later. However, it still shows up on my account as a hold that I didn't pick up.

While we were looking through all the hold shelves, the librarian mentioned they'd had a few similar problems recently - apparently some glitch in the computer system. And it occurs to me that this is the kind of problem that would likely be underreported - it's very easy to just shrug your shoulders and renew the hold once its hold shelf time has expired rather than tearing a busy librarian away from their job.

So, in light of this potential new policy, here's a mission for all Toronto Public Library patrons: if your hold isn't on the hold shelf but the computer says it is, tell a librarian. If the problem I encountered is systemic or recurring, it needs to be reported to its full extent before the new policy comes into effect. And if it turns out it was completely temporary and has been fully resolved, then everything is fine and no one will have to go to any trouble.

"Setting up personalized settings for: Windows Desktop Update"

I just installed the latest Windows 7 service pack, and, after I rebooted, my computer gave me a message saying "Setting up personalized settings for: Windows Desktop Update", and then stayed on that message for quite a long time. I was certain the computer was frozen, but I was in the middle of exercising so I decided to wait until I was done to do anything about it.

It turned out the computer stayed on that message for 15 minutes. Then the screen turned black and, again, stayed there for quite a long time. Again, it seemed frozen, but the mouse moved and the numlock key still worked, so I decided to give it some time. The screen stayed black for about 12 minutes. Then Windows finished booting up as usual.

So the moral of the story is: if your computer appears to freeze on "Setting up personalized settings for: Windows Desktop Update" or on the black screen that comes after, give it a really long time before you decide that it's frozen and interrupt the service pack installation. My computer is only 5 months old, so if your computer is older than that it might take even longer than the 15 minutes. (I guess the other moral of the story is don't install service packs if you're going to need the computer right away - wait until you have some time.)

Dear Windows Update designers: a percentage complete/time remaining progress bar at that point in the installation would be helpful.

Open Letter to Torontonians who are not planning to vote tomorrow

Dear fellow citizens who are planning not to vote:

I assume you're planning not to vote because none of the candidates whom the media has arbitrarily deemed viable strikes you as acceptable.

So here's what I want you to do: vote for someone interesting, regardless of whether you think they have a chance to win.

We are a diverse, complex, nuanced city with dozens and dozens of candidates for the position of mayor alone, and the media has not been reflecting this. That does us all a disservice, and is most likely ultimately the reasons why you aren't hearing of any candidates that sound acceptable.

To combat this, to show the media - and the world - that we're more complex and nuanced and interesting than they're treating us as, everyone needs to pick someone interesting and vote for them. It could be someone with a fantastic platform. It could be someone whose pluck and audacity in running for public office you admire. It could be the candidate who actually answers your questions on Twitter. It could be the candidate whose platform is of most benefit to you personally, without regard for the greater good of the city.

"But they have no chance of winning!" So? It's not like you were going to vote for one of the people who does have a chance of winning. Besides, there's no penalty for voting for someone who doesn't win.

"But there's so many candidates, I don't have time to figure out who's best!" You don't have to figure out who's best, you just have to figure out who's good. You already have a nose for who's bad (or you wouldn't be choosing not to vote), so pick someone who isn't bad, who you think is better than the people whom the media has deemed to have a chance at winning. If you don't vote, the best candidate definitely won't get your vote. If you do vote for someone who you think is good, the best candidate just might end up getting your vote.

"But I don't have a full sense of the issues, I can't make a fully informed choice." Because you're considering not voting, you're obviously savvy enough to determine when a platform is unacceptable. So read the platform of the candidate who interests you and make sure it's acceptable. By voting for someone whose platform you find acceptable, you're making the statement "See, this is the sort of thing I'm looking for."

To get you started, here's a Twitter list of all the non-frontrunner mayoral candidates who are on Twitter. And here's where to find all the candidates for all offices. Pick one who's interesting and has an acceptable platform, and vote for them. Help show the media and the world that there's far more to us than this false binary they've boxed us into.

Wanted: food price controls

Dear Governments:

Please give us food price controls!

This week I was thrilled to buy my very first basket of Ontario peaches of the season! I'm not normally a seasonal fetishist (I tend to roll my eyes when people use "seasonal" as the be-all and end-all of positive adjectives), but peaches are one of the foods where imports really don't taste nearly as good as the local and seasonal variety that came off the tree less than 24 hours before I bought them.

I saw some Ontario peaches in the supermarket earlier this week, but the ones in the farmer's market are usually better and yummier. So I waited until market day, looked at all the farmers' tables and chose the very best-looking basket of peaches, and handed over my money. $7. Rather a lot for fruit, but I'm willing to pay.

Then, later the same day, I went to the supermarket to buy ice cream. It wasn't anything particularly special, just regular commercial ice cream. I don't normally buy large tubs of ice cream (I don't have the space in either my freezer or my jeans) but the flavour I wanted didn't come in anything smaller than 2L (#FirstWorldProblems), so I bought that. It cost me $5.

I also noticed that the crappy California import peaches were like $2 or $3 for a basket, even though they've had to be driven all the way up here on a truck.

And meanwhile, McDonald's has a dollar menu.

This is not right! Of all the foods I've described here, it's best - for me, for the environment, for public health, for the local economy - for me to be eating the Ontario peaches. They should be most affordable! If I had hungry children and limited money, the Ontario peaches would be completely out of reach, and McDonald's would be my best bet for making sure no one goes to bed hungry.

I shouldn't even be thinking "Well, peaches are expensive, but I'm willing to pay." I should be thinking "Well, potato chips are expensive, but I'm willing to pay." And then buying local fruit straight from the farmer to save money.

Dear Governments: Please give us food price controls! Charge a levy on my potato chips and use the money to make the peaches more affordable while still paying the farmer decent compensation. I want to pay $7 for the privilege of eating a bag of chemically potato chips, so that I can pay $2 for a basket of peaches straight off the tree.

I don't mind all the taxes and levies and whatnot on alcohol, because I do agree that it's a "sin" (in the "sin tax" sense, not in the catholic sense) and an indulgence. I have no objection to the principle of eco fees, it's just the way they're being implemented (not on the price tag, added at the register with no warning) that's a problem. I'm more than happy to pay extra for subpar purchases in order to make more optimal purchases more affordable.

The relative prices of food are broken. We as individuals can't fix it ourselves, we need broader policy to make this happen. Help us! Fix it! Give us affordable responsible choices, less-affordable irresponsible choices, and a decent income for our farmers. We can't do it alone!

Dear retailers: please include eco-fees in the sticker price

Dear retailers:

When I'm shopping, what I want to know is how many dollars I have to give you to acquire a specific product. I don't care why I have to pay you which dollars, I don't care where the money is allocated. I just want to know how much money I have to pay. Including the eco-fee in the sticker price does this. However, adding it on as a separate line item at the register is completely useless and makes me feel cheated, like those phone companies that advertise a low price and then add a system access fee and a 911 fee and a touch-tone fee (how are system access and 911 and touch tone not part of phone service?) or when I get my hydro bill and see a charge of $12 for the electricity I used and then an additional nearly $30 in regulatory charges and delivery charges and debt retirement charges and administrative charges.

Itemizing bills like this is useless. It's as meaningless to me as if you tell me that $X went to raw materials and $Y went to labour and $Z went to transportation costs. I don't care! Just tell me how many dollars you want for it! Posting one price and then adding additional fees that either aren't posted or that you have to look hard for is completely uninformative. "This costs $15, plus some extra amounts that we aren't going to tell you."

I blogged before about how I want them to include sales tax in the price, and some people mentioned that it used to be that way and people found it untransparent. So if they want to provide a breakdown on the price tag and/or on the receipt, that's fine. But please, I implore you, make the big price on the label the total, including eco-fees (and, ideally, sales taxes and any other additional fees there might be). Doing this would make me feel full-informed. Not doing it makes me feel cheated.

Open Letter to Disappointed Mother in the May 6 Dear Prudence column

Dear Prudence,
I have two daughters, ages 11 and 14. It has been my desire to instill in them empathy, compassion, and an eye for supporting the underdog. My daughters are liked by their peers and are popular. I resent popularity and have rallied against it both at work and when I was in school. There are students who are picked on at their school, and in the past both girls have stood up for these students. What I find troubling is that this morning I witnessed both of them laughing at students who they thought were dorky. I asked what was so funny and got the explanation that the students were weird and had rejected one daughter's efforts to be nice. I wonder what I should be doing or saying at this point so that I don't lose ground with them, and so that we can build a lesson from this.

—Disappointed Mother

Dear Disappointed Mother,

Congratulations on raising two kids who can fit in with the cool kids even though you weren't one of the cool kids yourself! You and your daughters are in a unique position here, and you can do a lot of good for them and for the whole social structure of their school by explaining to them, clearly, specifically, and non-judgementally, where the "weird" students were coming from. Prudie advises you to tell your daughters that kids who don't fit in often struggle to figure out how to behave. But you need to go better than that and tell them why and how they struggle to figure out how to behave.

Tell them about how sometimes the mean kids make fun of people by acting like they're being nice to them and then mocking them for thinking that they actually were being nice to them. Tell them about how you have no way of telling if one of the cool kids is being sincere or not, and the more times they're cruel to you the more empirical evidence builds up suggesting that people's intentions are cruel. Tell them about how this messes up your ability to read people's intentions for years and years and years. Make sure they understand where this reaction is coming from and how it's a natural response to the environment, not random weirdness. Then, since your kids are popular AND receptive to standing up for picked-on students you can use this to empower your kids to solve the problem, giving the picked-on kids a critical mass of positive interaction and validation and ultimately unweirding them.

I know it sounds crazy, but a lot of people who weren't bullied have no concept whatsoever of how this works. You're in a unique position of being able to make people who can effect change in their social circle understand. Please use it.

Open Letter to Blogger

Dear Blogger:

I would like to suggest a feature. You used to have a form to let me do this, but all I can find now is this publicly-viewable forum.

I don't want to post my feature suggestion in a public forum in case people laugh at it. I'm shy and insecure that way. I just want to be able to send it to you quietly, and if you laugh at it you'll do so where I can't see you.

I don't require support, I don't require a reply, I just want a way of getting my feature suggestion in front of the eyes of someone who might be able to do something about it, without having to show it to the whole world.

Please bring the form back so I can do just that.

Open Letter to the Toronto Star

Dear Toronto Star:

How come an article that gets a graphic content warning on your website appears on the front page, above the fold, with no content warning in your print edition? What is your reasoning here? What scenarios did you have in mind when imagining that online readers might require a content warning but print readers would not?

Sincerely,

A reader who prefers to avoid graphic content at the breakfast table

Dear Amazon.ca: please ship by Canada Post, not UPS

I get into the elevator. I press the number for my floor. A UPS lady is standing in there for some reason, and when she notices the number I press asks me my apartment number. I tell her, and she hands me a signy thing and a package...from Amazon! "Weird that Amazon is shipping through UPS," I say as I sign the signy thing. "It's a new contract," she tells me.

Dear Amazon: Please go back to Canada Post!

Canada Post is easy and convenient. They just leave it in my mailbox. If it's too big or they need a signature, the post office is a block away. Effortless!

However, UPS can't leave stuff in my mailbox and requires a signature for every delivery. Like most people, I work during the day and am never home during UPS delivery times. Today I only just caught the lady as she was leaving, and that's because I didn't do errands after work like I normally do. So I end up having to go an hour out of my way, by bus, to the UPS depot on a remote stretch of Steeles. And on top of this already-disproportionate inconvenience, there's not much around the UPS depot (the street backs onto the back end of a field) and there aren't many eyes on the street, so I don't feel particularly safe waiting for the bus there after dark, which comes at about 4:30 pm this time of year. (This is where I'd have to wait for the bus. In comparison, when I have to wait for a bus in real life, it's usually in a place that looks more like this.)

Frankly, if they're going to ship by UPS it simply isn't worth it for me to buy from Amazon any more, which is tragic because Amazon has always been the easiest and my preferred way to buy anything that they sell. I sent them a note through their customer service thing, hoping it will get directed to the right people. (It's so hard to find an actual contact address on the Amazon.ca site!)

Update: I got an email back from Amazon saying, among other things, that they are passing my concerns on to the shipping department. If you share these concerns, I'd suggest you let Amazon know too. Wouldn't you rather have your purchases in your mailbox than at the UPS depot?

Open Letter to panhandlers

Dear Toronto panhandlers:

A number of your have recently been approaching me as though you're about to ask for directions, only to ask me for money. You're going to have to stop doing this, because it's going to ruin our city.

I totally get that innovation is required in tough economic times, but you're going to have to find something else. If you keep approaching people like you're asking for directions, we're going get desensitized and start ignoring genuine direction-askers on the assumption that they're just panhandling. (I, personally, have gotten about twice as many panhandlers as genuine direction-askers in the past month.)

We don't want to be the kind of city where people don't stop to give visitors directions, but we do have a limited tolerance both for being asked for money and for being tricked. Please, for the good of the city, leave the asking-for-directions body language and related conceits to people who are genuinely asking for directions.

Open Letter to Toronto media

Dear Toronto and Toronto-based media:

I'm sure we can all agree that the Toronto Sun is very good at sensationalism. No one does it better. And everyone knows this - people who want sensationalism go straight to the Sun.

So why don't we leave all the sensationalism to the Sun and their affiliates, and the rest of you can focus on sensible, intelligent, nuanced reporting and commentary? Everyone will be happy that way.

Letter to my 18-year-old self

I just realized that it was 10 years ago that I started university. Here's some things I wish I'd known then:

- Do half an hour of homework or studying per course every day. That's all it takes. You'll be on top of everything.
- Move out of your parents' house. You'll be fine, really. And you'll prove your parents wrong about all kinds of things that they're annoying about.
- Your boss shouldn't be playing mind games with you. Your boss should be protecting you when the customers sexually harass you. Your boss shouldn't be requiring you to cash in and cash out and take out the garbage and clean the bathrooms before and after your paid shift. There are jobs available where they don't do this. You don't have to keep your job just because you have a job.
- Apply for every single on-campus job you think you might possibly be able to do. Apply for every single work placement or translation practicum you can find.
- Apartments don't have to suck. If the apartment you're looking at sucks, say no thank you and look at a different apartment.
- Prioritize living within easy walking distance of a grocery store. You don't need parks, you don't need landscaping or scenery, you don't need in-building amenities other than laundry. You do need to be able to run out and buy milk in the middle of the night if necessary.
- Don't stop reading recreationally just because you're in university. Keep your library card active and add anything that piques your interest to your holds list.
- Read Harry Potter. Read the complete works of Miss Manners. Read the In Death series. Read Introvert Advantage. Read Malcolm Gladwell. Watch Eddie Izzard's comedy and every interview he's ever done. These will all not only entertain you, but help you navigate the world better.
- Contact the second-year-entry program you're after and ask them if they have any suggestions on what you should take first year. They will actually answer your questions, and you'll be better prepared and have met some program requirements ahead of time.
- Be out about your phobias. People will help you. Get insecticide with a paper label, and have someone remove the label for you. That solves the disgusting picture problem and gives you evil death powers over the yucky things.
- Be out about your insecurities in general. Your interlocutors will compensate. In the real world, people want you to feel like you belong.
- Don't try to save money by scrimping on internet service. It will only depress you.
- Make a point of consuming more information about Canadian politics than about US politics.
- People aren't going to think you're weird if you bing off a quick email thanking them for whatever. Seriously.
- Wear skirts. Wear dresses. Wear v-neck shirts. Wear t-shirt bras. Wear teacup eyeglass frames, and buy the best lenses available. Wear necklaces. Worry about heel width, not heel height. Buy every well-fitting pair of black pants you meet. Buy two of every shirt you fall in love with. Buy black cotton knee socks. If a pair of pants fits perfectly except for gapping in the back, any competent alterationist (and often your own mother) can put darts in the back to fix that. If your feet can go all the way into the shoes but they're a bit tight around the toes, any competent shoemaker can stretch them at a very reasonable price.
- When buying a new computer, get more RAM and more disk space than you expect you would ever need.
- You can trust your money instincts. You can trust your writing voice. You can trust your research skills even if you do end up sucking at documentation class.
- If something makes you cry, stop doing/thinking about the thing that makes you cry. Distract yourself. Run up the stairwell until your thighs fill with lactic acid. Sing nasty songs at the top of your lungs. Have a drink. Eat chocolate. Go to sleep. Then revisit the crying trigger later once you've regrouped. You'll save yourself a lot of time that way.

Open Letter to Firefox

Dear Firefox:

Please let me have different Google accounts logged in in different browser windows. Internet Explorer lets me do that!

Open Letter to Ontario Minister of Housing Jim Watson

Dear Mr. Watson:

I am writing to you in your capacity as Minister of Housing to draw your attention to a flaw in the Ontario Residential Tenancies Act.

Subsection 6(2) of the Ontario Residential Tenancies Act states:

Sections 104, 111, 112, 120, 121, 122, 126 to 133, 165 and 167 do not apply with respect to a rental unit if,

(a) it was not occupied for any purpose before June 17, 1998;

(b) it is a rental unit no part of which has been previously rented since July 29, 1975; or

(c) no part of the building, mobile home park or land lease community was occupied for residential purposes before November 1, 1991. 2006, c. 17, s. 6 (2).

This is of concern specifically in reference to section 120, which sets out the guideline rent increase.

In other words, if the building was not occupied before 1998, or was not used in the manners specified before the dates indicated, the landlord can increase rent by however much they want rather than being limited by the guideline rent increase.

The section appears to be intended to encourage the creation of new rental housing, which is a laudable goal. However, this noble purpose is defeated by the fact that the last time this section was updated was 1997 or 1998, when the buildings referred to in paragraph a) were brand new. Eleven or twelve years have passed, but this section has not been updated. If it is not updated with a more recent date or a time limit on the exemption, landlords will be able to increase rent however much they want forever, simply by virtue of the fact that their building was built after an arbitrary date.

Not only is this contrary to the spirit of the legislation, it also has a negative impact on Ontarians' quality of life. The vast majority of Ontarians don't get enough of a raise year after year to keep up with an unregulated rent increase for 12 or more years. This means that people in housing up to ten years old live in fear of being priced out of their homes with each rent increase, of having to uproot their families and relocate to lower quality housing - even if they're fortunate enough to have stable employment - because their rent is increasing at a faster rate than their salary and there's no respite in sight.

I know this is not the intention of the Act and is not consistent with the values your government stands for. Please amend this legislation so that the dates in subsection 6(2) will be updated regularly, or introduce a time limit on the exemption as in subsection 3(7) of 1992 version of this legislation, so that Ontario tenants and their families can enjoy stable and secure housing.