"Coincidence or Conspiracy?"

Here is the introducing paragraph of the last alumni newsletter (for Summer 2002) I received from the Department of Statistics and Actuarial Science, Simon Fraser University.

"It is just 15 months since our Department was established; we had 15 students graduate [sic] with a Major in Statistics or Actuarial Science in June 2002; we have 15 graduate students registered in the 2002-2 term (full time, not co-op). Coincidence or Conspiracy?"

Very interesting coincidence indeed, I thought to myself.

Then I noticed the newsletter was mailed out exactly two years -- which coincidentally is the normal statute of limitations period -- after I lost my last job because of an online robbery on October 20-24, 2000.

Curious, I called the friendly secretary Ms. Sylvia Holmes and thus knew which important person did the mailing.

Scary stuff. Definitely no kid stuff.

Martin vs. Nixon

I am constantly amazed by the insights coming from journalist circles, such as this one on June 1. - Imagine all the good works we can do with them!

But please, check the hatred at the door.

Deliveryman vs. me

I was a little irked by the deliveryman for Global Chinese Press lately.

For example, two weeks ago, it took me three trips to pick up the newspaper because the delivery at our location was made so late that it looked like the deliveryman was playing hide-and-find game with me.

Was there anything on your newspaper you wanted everybody else to read, except me?

But haven't your newspaper been sending me messages for a couple of years already?

Letterman vs. Leno

I used to watch David Letterman. Now I watch Jay Leno. - That's another reason I am eager to see the Olympic over, exciting as it is.

The last time I flipped through Letterman's show, four people were having an orgy. Puke! (They used to show a famous threesome a few months before, though.)

"If I were two-faced, would I be wearing this one?"

From Bloomberg website, March 5, 1998

"It's better to have a permanent income than to be fascinating."

From Bloomberg website, March 2, 1998

Moron vs. Mormon

Four years ago, in the clumsiness of summer, I got a call from a classmate of mine, whom I had not heard from for more than ten years. Just like most of my other classmates, he had a kid already although he's not that much older.

Two things he said came to my mind recently:

1. After telling me that a friend of his had just bought a house worth 500,000, he asked me: "Isn't that shocking?!"
2. He told me of one of his friends who was "also very smart, very nice and very handsome", and who was a Mormon.

For a moment, I thought he said moron. He clarified that he meant Mormon the religion.

After the conversation, I realized that there were huge differences between the two and he was thus quite possibly not a moron.

Be safe, Mom

Personally, the biggest news is about my mother, who is 73 years old and lives in a bug-infested shack in my hometown in China.

She was diagnosed with another illness this week.

I heard the diagnosis in the early morning hours of Wednesday.

And if you have not heard our daily boring dialect before, here is a typical one, roughly translated into English.

Mom: So, is everything all right with you?

Me: Yes, mom. Everything is fine.

Mom: Is it really fine?

Me: Of course, mom.

Mom: You never tell me the bad news.

Me: Really, mom, everything is fine. Don't worry.

Mom: When can you come back?

Me: Soon, mom. Soon.

Mom: Come back sooner, Okay?

Me: Sure, mom. Sooner.

At the end of March, my sister told her that I had trouble here in Canada, despite my repeated warning and pledge not to. Naturally, this caused her sleepless nights and deteriorating health. Only many calling cards later, was I able to fill her in what was minimally necessary to alleviate her worries. Still, ever since then, our conversation would sometimes touch on my situation.

Mom: When can you solve the problem?

Me: I don't know, mom. Should be soon.

Mom: You should have a plan and act quickly.

Me: Yes, mom. But you know I can't talk about it on the phone.

Mom: Ah, I can't even have a heart-to-heart talk with my own son. I don't understand those people ...

Me (interrupting): Mom, how is your blood pressure these days?

.......

I hope I won't have to fast. And if I do, let's all hope she will never know.

Chocolat (2000)

The leading news of the week, aside from the Olympic, suggests PMO is gearing up for a major battle.

If I could, I wish to send every hard-working PMO staffer, incoming or departing, a copy of the above movie.

You cannot rid of chocolate with a knife. Nobody can.

This is to despair

While on Star, we can also read another excellent report on the plight of recent immigrants.

The way I see it, our current immigration system is so full of Liberal hypocrisy, it is almost conspiratorial.

Right on the money

I always enjoy a good read by Jim Travers. And the latest one, too.

Update 20061208:

See part of his "latest" column (August 19, 2004) here.

I hope it's not a real thing

I can't believe my last post made its way onto the web, despite a short delay.

Competing headlines

Granted, it's not easy to be a news producer, especially when there are competing headlines on the same day.

 

Of course, moving the date to compete is another matter.

 

I'm not trying to be self-important, but I will do my part to promote the Olympic Spirit.

Bourque headline

Here is yesterday's headline, accompanied by a Prime Ministerial close-up, from Bourque Newswatch before the opening of Athens 2004.

I though the fearful election had been over a long time before and we had since fortunately rolled over to the exciting Olympic. Maybe not?

A Re-post

With some of the clumsiness removed, here is a finer version of an earlier post Week in Review: Political Media (or, Media Politics?).

*****

Most people would choose Cabinet making as the top story of the week. Taking a back-door approach following the Prime Minister, I ended up with quite different picks.

Sunday, 07/18/2004
Some ignoramus blunders "stolen election"

Monday, 07/19/2004
Something irks Kinsella

Tuesday, 07/20/2004
Liberals attempt making-up

Wednesday, 07/21/2004
Bourque features Alcock re-appointment

Thursday, 07/22/2004
Motive unknown: suspect arrested in Cecilia Zhang murder

Friday, 07/23/2004
Motive still unknown in Cecilia Zhang murder

Saturday, 07/24/2004
With lots of waiting, some journalists take a vacation

*****

PM out of reach

Our Prime Minister is visiting far North, out of reach of the press.

 

Although I am not a journalist, I also wish I could reach the Prime Minister so that I could ask him if there is nothing on my file.

 

Obviously, this blog was getting a little hot since last Tuesday.

 

Mr. Prime Minister, are you still working around my file?

Recent Strange Calls

I have been on the Internet for about three weeks, and generally feeling much better, except for a few strange phone calls.

Sunday, July 25, 2004 - A woman left a wrong-number message in our answering machine, about paying up some personal debt.

In the late afternoon or early evening, I went to Wal-Mart.

Tuesday, August 3, 2004 - Somebody called my cell phone about half an hour after I came home. -- I do not carry my cell phone these days because almost all the calls I get are intrusive or harassing ones. -- Although no message was left, I do not regard it as a hang-up call.

Wednesday, August 4, 2004 - At around 8:15AM, somebody called my home to look for Jim. After I came to the phone and said Hello, she hung up. (Yeah, that qualifies as a hang-up call.) When I called back, she claimed to have called the wrong number.

Copies of Vancouver Sun were put in our lobby in the afternoon.

A Strange Phone Call

The following is another excerpt from Chapter 6, with some editing. This call was detailed in my report primarily because it was the first of a string of strange or harassing phone calls I received in fall 2003.

*****

Between the start of the Iraq War and the end of summer, I received virtually no intrusive or harassing phone calls. The only exception was the one on April 12, 2003, which I believe was related to my becoming acquainted with their agent TP (full name withheld at this time).

At the end of summer of 2003, however, strange calls started coming in. The first such one was on Saturday August 23, 2003, at 4:15PM and it was clearly of a harassing nature.

When I took the call, the male caller spoke in a foreign language – if I had to guess, I would say Vietnamese, which happens to be agent TP's first language – for about ten seconds and then hang up. I used *69 and got the number 604-xxx-xxxx (number withheld). I subsequently chose option No. 1 to automatically return the call, but was told that the line was busy and that I would be notified when the line became free. When the phone rang, indicating the line was free, I immediately picked up the phone. Again, I heard a busy tone and a system message saying that the line had just become busy again.

This repeated for about half a dozen times until I finally got through at 4:24PM. Another male, who was clearly a minor, answered my call. I asked him if anybody had just called me. He replied: “I don’t know. I just came home. My name is Robert Robinson. I don’t know if somebody called you because I just came home.” I tried to ask him additional questions, but he hung up on me. His reply did not sound like what people would normally say on the phone. In fact, he sounded like reading from a script.

I called again at 4:27PM but the line was busy. I called two more time, at 4:38PM and 5:31PM. In both instances I was able to get through but nobody took my call at the other end.

*****

Update 05/29/2005:

This part of the report is here.

My Impression of Mr. Svend Robinson

Actually, I do not have much of an impression of my former MP because I did not have enough material to form one.

1. I met Mr. Robinson at a public event on December 6, 2002. I told him that I had a problem and I needed his help. He asked me to see his assistant.
2. On April 24, 2003, I went to his office and talked to his assistant Jane Pepper.
3. On January 9, 2004, I went to his office again and showed him the first two chapters of my report.

I never called him or his office. So, as you can see, I don't know if I had contributed to his fall from grace.

But who knows? Even the judge had reportedly said that Mr. Robinson would go to his grave as the only person who would ever know if his crime was calculated, or a freak impulse and lapse in judgement by an unstable man.

"You've got a lot of battle at hand."

Svend Robinson, January 9, 2004

I'm sorry if my seeking your help caused you any pressure.

plu·toc·ra·cy

Whenever I have a word problem, I use www.dictionary.com.

1. Government by the wealthy.
2. A wealthy class that controls a government.
3. A government or state in which the wealthy rule.

Nasty!

Here is an excerpt from Chapter 6 of my report of the same title. It showed somebody's Internet was quite sensitive to the word "nasty".

*************************************
On or around March 12, 2001, I received an acknowledgement letter from CIC dated 03/01/2001 and postmarked 03/05/2001 to my Privacy Request. The letter was signed by Ms. Nora Saikaley, A/Manager of Operations, Public Rights Administration.

I had suspected that my Internet and trading activities were monitored somehow and told my suspicion to some of my friends in an email on March 12, 2001. In that evening, I found out that the word "nasty" in my email was substituted by 5 blank spaces. See Appendix (to be posted).

I had written the email beforehand and saved it as a draft in my email account. There was no problem there. However, when I tested the email by sending a copy to myself, the same substitution occurred. It was as if somebody was able to "filter out" the word somewhere on the Internet.

Puzzled, I went to www.dictionary.com and put in the word "nasty". However, it returned the word "nothing" and its definition. I tried several other words. They all returned the same page, i.e., the definition of the word "nothing". It looked like somebody was able to switch any input words to the word "nothing" just before I submitted it.

I tried another website www.webster.com. No matter what word I put in, this one always returned the web page where there was nothing in the input cell, together with the following error message: "Invalid input. No entries found". It looked like somebody was able to delete my words before I submitted it.

Later, I realized that the keyword here was nothing. And the message was that there is nothing on my immigration file, as I came to know from Ms. Saikaley three days later. It's just one of the many incidents where CIC and these individuals had collaborated to bully me.

These Internet incidents occurred while I was using public computers.

On March 15, 2001, a month had passed since CIC received my initial letter. So I called Ms. Nora Saikaley to seek the status of my Privacy Request. She put me on hold, presumably checked her computer, came back telling me, in a puzzled tone, that "there is nothing on your file". She then asked me a couple of factual questions, exclaimed "Oh, boy", and told me that she would get back to me either later that day or the next day.

(More in report.)


*****

Links added April 19, 2005:

My dealings with CIC re my Privacy Request: http://www.sfu.ca/~jyu1/Report/6.htm#_Toc88974360

Complete report: http://www.sfu.ca/~jyu1/Report/TOC.htm

My other website: http://www.sfu.ca/~jyu1

Sometimes I do wish I had a girlfriend

Believe me, I tried. Here was a potential one.

Back in 2000, I used email and cell phone to communicate affectionately with a lady in France whom I had met earlier in Vancouver. Among the things we talked about in our private communications was her plan to immigrate to Quebec. Oddly, friends and acquaintances alike all started asking me when I planned to move to Montreal.

Of course, I never ended up moving there because it never worked out between me and her. Although the real reason was a mystery to me, I do know this fact: During the period of time when we exchanged frequent emails, she also received a lot of anonymous emails with porno links.

Nasty, right?

Well, I do not even want to let you listen to some of the messages I got in my answering machine.

"Not even computers will replace committees, because committees buy computers."

From Bloomberg website, July 10, 1997

Buying computers takes money. Buying Internet? That takes real dough.

A Cute Lyrical Message

Here is a cute lyrical message my friends sent me via Internet circa 2001, after I was robbed online and lost my last job as a trader. -- I had wanted to share it with you over the long weekend, but did not want to be accused of being insensitive.

“A bus station is where a bus stops.
A train station is where a train stops.
On my desk, I have a workstation.
What more can I say…”

In any case, there is no need to get sentimental now as workstations are so common that people can and do work even away from their desks.

Thanks to Internet, of course.

"The most important failure was one of imagination."

Never underestimate the imagination of successful criminals.