Kitty Castle - a well received Christmas Present

After a semester of reading and writing, I really wanted to build something. Since I've got way too much stuff here in the ScrimChateau it was important to come up with something I could give away and I'm happy to report that the recipient really seems to like this piece.

I got the idea to make a Kitty Castle back in the fall after seeing a web site demonstrating how to make kitty condos from paper bags. [Original Post] My friend "Agatha" suggested I make some as Christmas presents. I'd already thought of doing that and her suggestion almost made my oppositional defiance disorder kick in, but I'm getting better at fighting the ODD.

Paper bag kitty condos are fine, I thought, but not sturdy. I could use cardboard boxes, like the kind photocopy paper comes in. But then I saw a roll of carpet in someone's garbage pile. It was soaked and disgusting, but it occured to me that people are always getting rid of perfectly good carpet. So I put the word out and got some huge pieces of unused beige carpet from a work colleague and some nice maroon carpet from the folks.

The Palazzo dei Benito was made from a salvaged book shelf, and a couple of other salvaged scraps of wood. I used #8 Robertson head wood screws to hold everything together. When fastening the carpet to the wood, I put 1/2 inch washers between the screw head and the carpet so they won't pull through. The window holes look small, but Benny has no trouble going through.

I put maroon carpet on each of the three levels that Benny might want to lie on. They are removable to make it easier for Benny's mom to clean or replace them. What does she think of the tower? "Your presents are getting much better now that you have no money," she said.

Human Bingo - The Ultimate Party Mixer

If you're planning a party, you might want to check out the party advice I put in Scribbles #16 [Link to Party Advice]. My main advice for sparking conversation and getting people past "so, what do you do?" is to play a mixer game and the best mixer game I've come across is Human Bingo.
Many years ago, I created an Excel spreadsheet that allows anyone to create customized unique Human Bingo cards for each player. 

You don't need elaborate prizes. I let people take a chocolate or choose something from my box of dollar store items. 

[2019 update: This Google Doc spreadsheet might work better. I'm still testing it. Feedback is appreciated.]

Instructions:

1. Hand out the cards with pens or pencils when you have a critical mass (~20).
2. Players interview each other to find names they can place in squares that match them. (Warning: some people are not honest and will either claim accomplishments that are not true of them, or will deny their pasts. It's up to you as host how strict to be. I am very strict about false accomplishments, but if someone prefers to not admit to having kissed a cousin, I let it go.)
3. Anyone who gets a horizontal, vertical or diagnonal line of five completed squares with no duplicate names wins a bingo. Keep playing until prizes run out or the players get bored.

Tips:

• If you're single and looking include "came with platonic friend" on some cards.
• If you're looking for a tuba player for your brass ensemble, you might find one by putting "plays the tuba" on some of the cards, but it never worked for me.
• You don't need to make it easy, and you don't need to put in things that you know a guest or two will fit in. The more players you have, the more bizarre you can make the squares.

Making the Human Bingo Spreadsheet Work

If the "Create New Cards" button is not working for you, probably your Excel security setting is on High.

(1) Close the Human Bingo spreadsheet.

(2) From an empty Excel go to the Menu and click on

• Tools
• Macro
• Security...

(2) Select Medium or Low

(3) Open the Human Bingo Spreadsheet. If you chose Medium security you will get this warning screen. Select:

• Enable Macros Now it should work fine.

[Human Bingo]

Boxing Day Ritual: The Highway Rest Stop

Driving back from Toronto yesterday, I wondered what percentage of the North American population spent some time in a highway rest stop yesterday. This one was around Trenton, I think. Neither John nor I were desperate to stop, but we knew if we didn't stop at the Wendy's rest stop, the next one would be a McDonald's. Kids on road trips today don't know how good they have it. Minivans and SUVs with DVD players! Parents who let them walk in damp parking lots with blankets hanging off them? And I'm guessing that in a van or SUV, a dad's right arm can't reach any of the kids in the back. The rest stops were busier on Boxing Day than they'd been on Christmas Eve. John's theory was that this was the first one after Toronto, and that's why it had such big lines. Somehow, this fellow got himself into an area he shouldn't have been in.

The picnic table area might be closed, but you can still play a video game with mild violence.

One Semester Left

At 1pm when I was printing my summary for my 2pm exam and the computer said "printer is out of black ink" I really thought I was going to have a problem. But after pressing all the buttons on the printer and making it start again, I managed to print the odd pages as well as the even pages. Then at 2pm when I went to my section on Oppression and saw that the footnotes with case names and quotes weren't there, I had another bad moment. But the only quote I really missed was from the Wise Brothers.

"The fact that creditors’ interests increase in relevancy as a corporation’s finances deteriorate is apt to be relevant to, inter alia, the exercise of discretion by a court in granting standing to a party as a “complainant” under s. 238(d) of the CBCA as a “proper person” to bring a derivative action in the name of the corporation"

I got something close, like "vicinity of insolvency". But it's all over. I probably passed. "Inter alia" by the way, is Latin for "among others". Many judges and law professors prefer to say "inter alia" instead of the English equivalents. They save two letters. On the other hand, we all have to fuss around putting the Latin into italics and I think they're actually required to write in either French or English. But I'll leave it to someone else to bring that to the attention of Justices Major and Deschamps.

Legal Illustrations 5

Peoples Department Stores Inc. (Trustee of) v. Wise, [2004] 3 S.C.R. 461

• The corporations' interests are not to be confused with the interests of the creditors or those of any other stakeholder.
• s. 122(1)(a) of the CBCA requires directors and officers to act in good faith and honestly vis-à-vis the corporation.
• An honest and good faith attempt to redress a corporation’s financial problems does not, if unsuccessful, qualify as such a breach
• The fiduciary duty does not change when a corporation is in the nebulous “vicinity of insolvency”
• There is no need to read the interests of creditors into the fiduciary duty set out in s. 122(1)(a) in light of the availability under the CBCA both of the Oppression remedy and a Duty of Care action

You know, I couldn't find a real picture of the Wise Brothers, or a decent picture of a People's Department Store. So what was I supposed to do? I know the exam is tomorrow and I'm not even at 60% on my summary, but this is an important case. It deserves its own illustration.

Fixed Chair

One week ago tonight, I did my little "garbage night" walk around the neighbourhood hoping to find free firewood. I found a couple of sticks, but I also found this ripped up folding chair. "I can fix that," I thought and brought it home. (Being careful to hide it from Dave T because he gives me that look when I bring junk home.)

But look at it now. I replaced the torn up vinyl with fabric from a windsurfing sail that Donna B gave me years ago and added new padding to the seat from foam left over from when I made Dave T the cosmo kit. And it was all done during re-boot cycles when windows or word crashed on me.

"Sham"

Sometimes people ask me if I think they should go to law school. I like it well enough. It's not rocket science. But if you're thinking about it, you might want to know that I've just spent half an hour going through Stubart Investments Ltd. v. Canada, [1984] 1 S.C.R. 536, to find out what the Supreme Court of Canada means when they talk about a corporate "sham". It's a fairly short SCC case, only 45 pages. And it's online, so you can Ctrl-F to find each use of "sham". The first definition is in the concurring minority decision written by Justice Wilson:

a sham transaction is one that does not have the legal consequences that it purports on its face to have

Not, bad, I think, although I'm never comfortable with "purport". But she gives some examples. Then Estey takes over with the majority decision and he's got this version:

...a transaction conducted with an element of deceit so as to create an illusion calculated to lead the tax collector away from the taxpayer or the true nature of the transaction; or, simple deception whereby the taxpayer creates a facade of reality quite different from the disguised reality.

Then he quotes Lord Diplock in Snook v. London and West Riding Investments, Ltd., [1967] 1 All E.R. 518. , where Lord Diplock found that no sham was there present because no acts had been taken:

... which are intended by them to give to third parties or to the court the appearance of creating between the parties legal rights and obligations different from the actual legal rights and obligations (if any) which the parties intend to create

I think I've got the idea of sham now. But it would have been nice if in the 45 pages the five judges involved could have just said "Here, kids, when you're doing your business organization exams, use this basic definition..." If it comes up on Wednesday, I'm going with: Sham = Deceitful actions intended to give the appearance of creating between the parties legal rights and obligations different from the actual legal rights and obligations (if any) which the parties intend to create Signs:

• missing documents;
• backdating or buttressing the documentation after the event; and
• the transaction and the form in which it was cast constructed to create a false impression in the eyes of a third party.

Link: Stubart

Kerans J.A. - a judge who writes like a human!

I'm having procrastination issues with my Business Organization summary. So far this morning, I've fiddled a bit with the formatting. Last night, I took one of my textbooks to band practice and read during the break and during long rests. [One of those rests was the third movement to Yukon Summer {excerpts here}. We're practising it for our "Collaborations" performance at the Festival of Brass in Toronto on March 11. It's going to be excellent. You should plan to be in Toronto that weekend and get tickets.] I was reading about shareholder disputes and came to an Alberta Court of Appeal decision in Westfair Foods Ltd. v Watt. Seems the corporation had Class A shares that carried a $2 dividend in priority to the common shares, and all dividends beyond those going to the class A shares went to the common shares. The corporation had been retaining most of its earnings, but then the directors decided to start distibuting the net earnings as dividends. I think this meant the common shares were getting more money and that if the company shut down, there'd be less money for the shareholders to split up so the Class A shareholders didn't like this. Probably in the next few days, I should really get a handle on this. Anyway, I came across this:

...in Peterson, Shareholder Remedies in Canada, the author contends that "unfairly disregards" implies that some "disregarding" is fair! I reject that kind of parsing.

Holy cow! I thought. An appellate judge using an exclamation mark! And making sense! Who is this guy? Kerans J.A.

Then he gave an explanation about fairness that I really could have used two years ago (I've removed citations):

Having concluded that the words charge the courts to impose the obligation of fairness on the parties, I must admit that the admonition offers little guidance to the public, and Parliament has left elucidation to us. I have elsewhere said that I take this sort of indirection as legislative delegation. We fail in that duty of elucidation, I think, if we merely say "this is fair" or "that is not fair" without ever explaining why we think this or that is fair. Thus I, and I dare say others, am not much helped by cases and comments that simply announce that I am to enforce "fair play" or "fair dealing". On the other hand, I do not understand that the delegation of this duty permits a judge to impose personal standards of fairness. Let me illustrate what is probably obvious by two extreme examples. A judge who firmly believes in the virtues of unrestricted private enterprise might say that fairness requires that people protect themselves to their best capacity, and that the courts not protect those who fail to protect themselves. On the other hand, a judge who firmly believes that private property is a trust held for the benefit of society as a whole might say that what is fair is what best benefits society. The role of a judge in our society limits the impulses of both my mythical judges. We must not make rules unless we can tie them to values that seem to have gained wide acceptance. We do that largely by testing any proposed rule against other legal rules, which by long tradition seem accepted. In short we seek precedent, or we seek to argue from what we consider to be principles adopted in precedent.

Westfair Foods Ltd. v. Watt (1991) 79 D.L.R. (4th) 48 (Alta CA) at 53, 54

Apparently, Justice Roger Kerans has retired from the bench and now practices mediation. According to his website he's settled half a billion dollars worth of disputes.

48% of the Family Law Summary

If you're tuning in right about now and you see that I'm at 48% of my family law summary, (almost half-way) you might be wondering what that means. It means that with my summary, in Ontario, I might be able to guess

• if you're legally married;
• if you could get a divorce (but only if you have no kids), or an annulment;
• your odds on getting custody; and
• the odds of the Children's Aid Society taking your kids away.

But, if you have kids, I can't guess what sort of support you'd get for them; nor for yourself (even if you have no kids). Nor can I guess what would happen with all the stuff.

A Clear Suitcase

Were any of you wondering what I did with my 31 fabulous maple leaf hats? Two weeks ago, one of the neighbours threw out a clear suitcase-style bag with a zipper and handles that had contained a new duvet. "I'll have a use for that bag," I said to myself. It turns out that 31 maple leaf hats and five medium to small Canadian flags fit inside the bag with room to spare. But you know what I keep thinking? Maybe I should put the hats and flags in one of my real suitcases and use this transparent suitcase the next time I go on an airplane. Don't you think it would reassure the security staff and the other passengers if they could see exactly what I'm carrying without the x-ray machine?

Fun with the Bike Cam

I'm trying to get an animated image effect today with bike cam photos from last week. Doesn't seem to be working. Say, there's something I'm wondering about. Last night I was flicking channels on a CSI commmercial break and flicked past Jennifer Aniston on Letterman. I flicked back because it felt like I should take the opportunity to see what Aniston's like when she's not playing Rachel. Why? Because I've been asked so often whether I'd pick her or Angelina Jolie that it felt like I should have an informed opinion. I'd have to say that Aniston came off really well last night. Witty, charming, good values. Here's what I'm wondering about: is there anyone else out there who's been asked to choose between Jennifer and Angelina so often that in some part of their brain they have the idea that they might actually have to make that choice some day?

Why I shouldn't listen to naysayers

I'm starting to think I should ignore the comments from Kathy and Dave about being kooky. For one thing, so far only two people thought the post about my globe was kooky. It's an anonymous poll, so it might not have been them, but I'm entitled to my suspicions. Another reason is illustrated by my unexpected shopping experience today. I went to the market for lunch today. Before I went, I thought I might go to the Giant Tiger to pick up a hooded sweatshirt and perhaps a couple of t-shirts. I decided that I wouldn't need a backback, because my one side basket should hold everything I'd want to buy. How was I to know that they'd have wide-brimmed maple leaf hats for $0.99 each. Next summer, it is guaranteed that the Maple Leaf Brass Band will be playing outside in the sun. Probably at the Teddy Bear's picnic. I could have got just one of these hats for myself. But others would be jealous. Go big or go home, Kathy would say. So I bought 31 hats. Enough for everyone in the band. But that meant I had to look like a bag lady on a bike on my ride home. I could easily have smushed them all into the bucket pannier, but no, I don't clip it to the bike normally, because it would look kooky. [Link: The original bucket pannier posting]

Apparently the Chief does have a sense of humour

Remember two weeks ago, I posted a link to the Cornwall Police Department's webpage about 9-1-1? And if you had speakers you heard Chief Wiggum? [Link] An inside anonymous source at Cornwall's City Hall tells us that the Cornwall police not only know about it and like it, they have another Chief Wiggum clip on their recruiting page. Phil G thinks this is terrific and has offered the following suggestions:

• For the Ride Program page this clip;
• For the Crime Stoppers page this clip; and
• For the Feedback page this clip. It occurs to me that the Cornwall police might be thinking this is a fun way to get people to read their web pages and tell others about them. Other cities might want to try the same thing. Of course, a serious town like Ottawa couldn't use Simpsons quotes. But maybe there are some clips out there that the Ottawa Police or Ottawa City Hall could add to some of their web pages? Any ideas? (Prizes might be involved.)

It's not procrastinating when...

The computer's been acting up. Blue screens of death, IE and Word crashing, do I want to send a message to microsoft? yes, but not the message they have in mind. But at least when the computer is rebooting, I have an excuse to do other things. For example, I finally hung my globe up. I've been wanting to have a globe hanging in my room for the longest time. Then on another reboot cycle I took some photos with the dark curtain behind the globe and the ceiling lights aimed in just the right way. There's an easy blog posting, I thought. But, I realized, next time I see Kathy A she's going to tell me that this was either kooky or goofy.

You can tell Kathy that we think this posting is:
	kooky
	goofy
	neither, but putting this poll in is both
	shouldn't you be studying?
	it is procrastinating when your computer is working.

Maxing the Word Count

Not that anyone's asking, but here's how I got my word count more than 10% above the target maximum:

1. The word counter made me want to add words just so people would see a change. I'd start writing just to add a hundred words and wind up writing 500 or more.
2. Quotes: I'd look through the file where I'd dropped quotes and excerpts from my research reading, pull out something punchy, drop it in the paper, summarize it and write about how it applied to my topic.
3. Informal writing: I'd write like I was talking to myself out loud. Then later go back and turn the unprofessional stuff into professional stuff. Example: "I'm no federal court judge, just a third year law student, but it looks to me like they're ignoring the first three prongs of this test and only looking at the 'nature of the question'" became: "It appears from this reasoning that it is only the nature of the question that determines the standard of review for the Federal Court." [Note: I made sure I used highlighting when I did this so the text would jump off the screen at me. You might not lose marks for calling a judge an f-ing idiot, but it would be embarrassing.]

Fun at Band Practice

Last night at band practice, I kept wondering how all the other people writing major papers and studying for exams get through this time without being able to go and play for a couple of hours with the best brass band in Eastern Ontario? We had some great musical moments last night. And Stewart who plays first horn next to me was on fire. First he had this psychic thing going with the music. He pulled Seasons Greetings out of his folder and put it on his stand. Behind it he put the Morley Calvert arrangement of two Canadian Christmas Carols (first one is the Huron Carol featuring the tenor horns in unison playing the melody – very beautiful, second one, Il est né ). Then Stewart puts Carnival de Venice on the stand. Dave the conductor taps his stand and tells us the first piece will be Seasons Greetings, then the Morley Calvert and then Carnival de Venice. This is phenomenal. When Stewart and I play guess the next piece game, I win way more often than he does and here he’d just picked the first three. He was very pleased. Too pleased, really. He got cocky. Went for number four. “Don’t do it, Stewart,” I said, “time to rest on your laurels.” He pulled out Comin’ to Town. But you know what happened. Ten minutes later, Dave told us to take out Christmas Festival. “Ahh, Stewart,” I said, “you had the trifecta and then you had to blow the whole thing on Comin’ to Town.” But Stewart still managed to impress me with three excellent lines.

1. Lloyd told us he’d done some re-arranging on the opening to the Fanfare, Toccatta and March arrangement. Keith, the second baritone, was confused because he hadn’t been given a new part. “What’s the change?” he asked. Before Lloyd could explain that the changes were on the euphonium and tuba parts, Stewart said, “he’s translated it into French.”
2. After we played Seasons Greetings, Stewart said, “given that it’s got no Happy Chanukah tune or anything, don’t you think they could call it Christmas Greetings?”
3. A loud buzzing noise started up during one of our songs and continued through the rehearsal. It was from some machine in a locked room off the hall we practice in. “I figured out how to ignore that buzzing,” said Stewart, “I’m pretending it’s trombones.”

Maybe you had to be there.