Two days ago, a girl I knew from rez was leaving for Korea.

I accidentally stumbled on the meeting and stayed for the fairwell dinner.

Boy, did I ever have a strange time.

Everybody who were in the same year as I was in University are, now, all grown up.

One girl is doing her masters. One is getting married. One is already married. And one is gonna buy a house soon.

... and all I just sat there and ate my Cornish hen with the feeling when I was 10, and going to dinner with my parent's friends.

Things

I've been super busy the last two weeks.

Started a new job, but mostly, I've spending a lot of time with vistors from out of town.

It really got me to thinking about Toronto when I am spending so much time introducting the city to people, showing them the different sides of the place.

The city is so spread out. Everything is on major roads while everywhere, there are houses, even in the heart of downtown.

There is so much DIFFERENT stuff. If I know somebody well enough, I can take them somewhere that they are sure to love....

... but somehow, I always find myself back in Chinatown & Kensington. I must have a certain affinity to the place.

What the fuck is wrong with Americans?

AP news story, "'Deep Throat' Probably Won't Be Prosecuted"

Who in the right mind would want to prosecute the guy?

I mean, first off, he is 91 years old.

Second, helped took down NIXON.
This is NIXON.... y'know the most crooked US President in history.

I don't even understand why the guy doesn't get a ticker tape parade down New York.

Short-term loans

On a CP article on May 29, entitled, "Crackdown on payday loan companies hits snag", Bob Whitelaw, association chairman of the Canadian Association of Community Financial Service Providers, said, "If I loaned (someone) $100 dollars for five days, and charged them $1 . . that's 107 per cent. And that's the issue we're dealing with when you take a small short-term loan and look at it on an annual rate basis."

Now, note that if I took a non-collateralized loan at a bank, even with my shitty record, I may get somewhere in the 18%-21%, nowhere near the 107% Bob is talking about.

However, I am sort of curious as to why SHORT-TERM loans are so high in interest in the first place. An one year term deposit right now is 1.30%. 2-year, 1.70%. 3-year, 2.05%. In other words, price of money goes up the longer period the loan since the lender must deal with the risk of super-inflation in future years.

However, for payday companies, the fact that these loans are SHORT-TERM make it excusable for them high interest rates. The rationale is that since it is only a dollar on a loan of $100, it isn't really that much... and 107% is some kind of financial hocus-pocus from the convertion to annualized terms...

Unfortunately, Bob is plying a bit of smoke and mirrors. Creditworthiness is not at issue here, short-term loans are less risky than long term loans. A debtor's financial situation is more predictable over a short-term basis than a long-term, as is inflation and interest rates.

Got a new job.

Yeah,
SO I am finally working again.

This time, a skip tracer.

I don't know. Sounds silly, but y'know, work is work.