GARY Online [dot] ca

MERRY CHRISTMAS from Gary!

Me! W elcome to gary online.ca broadcasting from Canada's Capital... Ottawa and of course, my name is Gary ! I'm a 50-something-year-old guy who's currently unemployed, living the life of a bum and loving it! Not sure when I will start looking for work again. Surfing the web and watching TV is pretty well all I do with my time these days.

Why live life when I can watch it online & on TV!

Anyway, wander around my website. If you're one of those that can sit and watch paint dry then come watch me ! Take a peek inside my man cave!

Please take a moment and sign my guestbook before you leave. (be nice!). Be sure to tell me where you're from. Thanks!!

Click here to watch me on the Messy Desk Cam!

WEBNOTES for Wednesday, November 30th @ 12:30pm ET
A MUST HAVE FOR A CANADIAN WINTER!!!
Since I have been out of work my car doesn't get much driving. It often sits for days without starting and on those cold days of winter my battery dies. My car does have road side assistance but on cold winter days the wait times for a boost can be a couple of hours or longer. Most people don't want to help you out especially when it's really cold and windy out. The car dealership told me I should buy a Battery Tender thing that you plug in overnight to keep a charge trickling to the battery. Unfortunately, the covered parking at my apartment building no longer powers up the electical outlets on the walls anymore so this charger is out of the question now.

I started looking into Lithium Car Jump Starters . I ended up ordering this one back in September. I hadn't used it until this past weekend when my car would not start after sitting for almost 5 days. It hasn't been terribly cold, around the freezing mark but my car just would not start. Pulled out my Car Jumper and hooked it up and BAMMM it started right up!! My dad was with me just in case he was going to have to boost me but we both had stunned looks on our faces when the car started right up with such a small battery source. The Car Jumper is still indicating a full charge so I think this will be perfect for the cold winter ahead.

Should have bought this last winter!!
GARY

WEBNOTES for Tuesday, November 22nd @ 10:23am ET
Did Trump secretly run as a Democrat?!?
President-Elect Donald Trump released his "first-100-day-plan" and not a single mention of some of his major policies he ran on. He is not going to go after Hillary about her emails. There was no mention of repealing Obamacare. No plan on tearing up the trade agreement between Canada, US and Mexico known as the NAFTA agreement and no mention of the WALL on the US/Mexican border. Those hardcore Republicans that voted for him on the promise to "Lock her up!" and "Build that wall!" must be really pissed off that he has basically tricked them.
GARY

WEBNOTES for Wednesday, November 9th @ 7:55pm ET
Americans have voted for change.
Congrats to Donald Trump on becoming the 45th President-Elect of the United States of America. Donald surprised the World by pulling off the most amazing win in recent American politics. It's very clear that American citizens really didn't want any of the same-o same-o that Hillary Clinton would offer. The polls were dead wrong, the pundits were dead wrong, just about most of us never saw this coming. I don't think Trump will be all that bad. The markets were supposed to go way down today but nothing. Stock markets were actually up slightly today. The CDN $ didn't tank. They had predicted it would drop like 5¢ today but it only dropped like a penny. Actually the only thing that crashed after the Trump win was the Canadian Immigration website. Life goes on as usual in the new Trump world.
GARY

WEBNOTES for Monday, October 24th @ 2:00pm ET
I'M ROGERS FREE!
Last week I finally cancelled my Rogers Cable TV service after 3 years. It is very expensive and their HD-PVR is the worst piece of equipment I've ever used to watch and record TV shows. I had a Nextbox 2.0 which was super slow and sluggish. They have a newer unit called The Nextbox 3.0 but they wanted a lot of money to upgrade. No thanks. Cancelled and went back to Shaw Direct Satellite TV . I used to subscribe to Shaw Direct for like 10 years prior to switching to Rogers a few years ago. I owned my satellite equipment and never got rid of it. I hooked it back up and it still works perfectly. The HD-PVR I had before cancelling Shaw is still the same one they use today. The HD-PVR software updated and they greatly improved it. So far I haven't had any problems with it. The Shaw Direct HD-PVR works sooo much better than the Rogers HD-PVR. It's more user friendly and responds quickly to button commands. And Shaw Direct is soo much cheaper than that bloated Rogers Cable. I have zero interest in Bell.

I even had Rogers Cable Internet service briefly. They offered a good price but the package came with extremely low bandwidth. I cancelled that shortly thereafter and went with a third party ISP called Start.ca . They offer cable internet service at really good prices and more bandwidth.

One last thing I did this past weekend was finally fix an issue I was having with my video card in my computer. I had updated to the newest firmware/drivers but I was having some issues. Especially trying to play videos. I ended up rolling back the firmware and it was fixed. However, one thing that my video card maker suggested was that you uninstall the old firmware BEFORE installing the new firmware. This is something that I've never done before. I just would install over top of the old firmware. I guess it finally caught up with me. I decided to remove all my old video firmware/drivers and go back to the basic Microsoft drivers and then downloaded the new firmware/drivers again. BINGO! The firmware/driver upgrade went perfectly and so far I've had no issues with playing videos.
GARY

WEBNOTES for Monday, October 3rd @ 9:21am ET
Gun violence in Ottawa has hit a record high!
We set a record this weekend with the number of people who have been injured or killed with a gun in the City of Ottawa. So far there has been 51 shootings in which 26 people have been shot, 10 have died and we still have 3 months to go. Probably for Americans this number seems pretty low for a city of about 900,000 but hey, this is Canada.

A local radio station was asking the question this morning... "Are you concerned about the increase in gun violence in this city?"

My answer would be I am a bit concerned but not overly concerned as most of these shootings appear to be muslim-on-muslim crimes involving drugs or gang related shit. It's ethnic cleansing, thinning of the herd you might say. These people really don't respect the law, respect us or themselves. They even like to blow themselves up along with others. I suppose if innocent people start getting hurt in the crossfire then police will have to step up protection but until then let them continue killing each other. We really don't need these people in Canada.
GARY

WEBNOTES for Sunday, October 2nd @ 10:49am ET
WEBSITE UPDATE
I've added a brighter 'yellow' to my logo to give it a bit more pop. I have also updated my ROKU 3 page with some important news about the Roku 3 and I have also fixed all the dead links on the Roku page. I've also gone through my entire website and checked ALL the links and I'm happy to report that ALL are now updated and active as of today, Sunday, Oct. 2nd, 2016 @ 10:49am.
GARY

WEBNOTES for Thursday, September 22nd @ 3:20pm ET
The Summer of 2016 is over! YESSS!!
This summer was one of the hottest ones that I can remember in recent history but I'm glad it's done. The long range forecast for the next 10 days looks promising for highs not to go over 20°C. I took my window a/c out of my apartment's window this morning and then Windexed them. I can see outside again. Surprises me how dirty my windows get even five floors up. Mind you I think it was last fall I cleaned my windows.
GARY

WEBNOTES for Friday, July 29th @ 8:40am ET
WTF is a "DEMAGOGUE"?!?
I've heard this word used a few times during the Hillary Clinton convention this week to describe Donald Trump. "Donald Trump is a demagogue" or "The demagoguery of Donald Trump..." But what does it mean??

According to Websters Dictionary it is "a political leader who triYESSS!!es to get support by making false claims and promises and using arguments based on emotion rather than reason."

Wow, that word describes Donald Trump perfectly! He's got Americans soo scared of the world now that he wants to build his own North Korea basically. Shut America off from the rest of the world. Keep out Muslims. Build walls to keep out Mexicans and probably someday Canadians. Keep out Africans. Keep out anyone who is not white and rich. It seems that many Americans are really starting to blindly follow Donald. Sad.

One of the speeches last night that was probably the most emotional was not from a politician but a Father of Muslim Son who served in the US military and was killed in action. Here is that video...


GARY

WEBNOTES for Monday, July 11th @ 12:03am ET
Let's salute Henry Galson!!
Who is he?? Well, he is the engineer who set up a production factory back in 1947 to mass produce cheap window air conditioners . I've had my current window a/c for almost 10 years and it's still going strong! It's really been the quietest window a/c I've ever owned. I installed my a/c at the end of May this year and it has pretty well been running every day since then. This past weekend I didn't run it and probably a few days going back to May. However, things will change this week as a heat wave hits Ottawa with temperatures in the low 30s for most of the week. As soon as the outside temperature goes above 22°C my a/c gets turned on. Fat people and heat don't mix. Most nights have been cool enough that I haven't had my a/c on overnight. Only one night last week I kept it on all night so far this year.

Stay cool,
GARY

WEBNOTES for Sunday, July 3rd @ 8:33pm ET
PROUD TO BE CANADIAN!!
As Canada celebrated its 149th Birthday on July 1st, we also got some excellent news from another survey that rank countries. Once again Canada is right near the top of the list for the second time this year. Earlier this year we ranked the 2nd Best Country Overall to live in. Germany was #1 but has since fallen in a new ranking that came out last week. The ranking that came out last week ranked Canada as the 2nd Most Socially Progressive Country in the world. Finland just beat us out on this ranking. The USA didn't do well in either ranking. They ranked 1st in "Power" but do you really enjoy being lumped in with Russia and China??

I may not agree with the policies of the current party that is running this country but at least it's going to be a stable government for the next 7 or 8 years. I see some of the turmoil going on around the world in a couple of the more peaceful countries like the UK and Australia with very weak governments. Canada has been very lucky not to experience the levels of terrorism that other countries have experienced. We've had a couple of small attacks but so far no major amounts of people have been killed. Maybe 2 dead so far.

So, I really can't think of another country I would want to live in other than Canada and still have the freedoms and wide open spaces compared to many other countries these days.
GARY

WEBNOTES for Thursday, June 16th @ 3:52pm ET
#LoveIsLove

#LoveIsLove

GARY

WEBNOTES for Saturday, June 11th @ 1:05pm ET
Welcome to Sinkhole City.
As most of the world seems to know now, downtown Ottawa had a major infrastructure failure at a major intersection on Wednesday. A sinkhole developed on a major street that is very close to where the Canadian Government runs its business. I guess the thing I find odd about this "hole" situation is, is how it's become so viral. Sinkholes happen daily around the world that we don't hear about but this one in Ottawa has become a headline around the world. I even had a friend in Saudi Arabia ask me about it. He had heard it on the news. In Saudi Arabia of all places.

City officials are very hopeful that everything will be repaired by the 1st of July which is the Big Canada Celebration Day that happens here in town. All the streets in the area of the sinkhole are closed down on Canada Day and turned into a pedestrian mall for the day. Thousands and thousands of people normally walk in that area on Canada Day. It's also a very touristy area most times of the year.

Anyway, it looks like it's going to take some time to find the exact cause but I have a feeling this is going to be a costly repair. Even the Light Rail Transit System they are building way down under the sinkhole received a lot of water damage.

#Pray4Ottawa
GARY

WEBNOTES for Saturday, May 21st @ 12:40pm ET
Happy Two-Four Weekend, Canada!!
It's the first long weekend of the Summer here in Canada when many celebrate beer. This is the weekend that many Canadians head to the cottage and open them up for the season. Start a camp fire and drink beer.

I'm not a beer drinker or own a cottage. I'm not really an outdoor person but I did install my window air conditioner this morning so I'm ready for the hot weather that is suppose to hit us in the Ottawa area next week.

Enjoy your long weekend, eh.
GARY


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