You know what's really funny? Just the other day someone was telling me that it couldn't possibly flood in southern Saskatchewan... Oh really? Crazy stuff going on down in the southwest corner which is where I'm originally from. Here in the 'Jaw we didn't get that 100mm, so there is no flooding here, although many farmers still did not get their crops in. Back at home the dam is overflowing for a second time this year. It always overflows once with the spring runoff, but it has never overflowed a second time with just rain water, never in my lifetime, and probably never before that either. Medicine Hat, Maple Creek, Cypress Hills and Fort Walsh are all in trouble. And the weather forecast is calling for more rain.
Here's some good photos of the disaster.
The Trans-Canada highway is still closed and likely will remain closed for awhile, and there's a good video here that shows why:
And here's some more footage of Maple Creek:
Of course, the large amounts of water laying around in the ditches have some advantages:
Sunday, June 20, 2010
Saturday, June 19, 2010
Monday, June 14, 2010
Friday, June 11, 2010
More Videos!
What can I say. I'm lazy. But you won't stay mad once you see these videos.
First of all, I cannot stop watching this! I must download this and listen to it until I get it out of my system:
And all I can say about this is ROFLMAO. Except that it's almost too true to be funny.
H/t to The Galloping Beaver and Mike.
First of all, I cannot stop watching this! I must download this and listen to it until I get it out of my system:
And all I can say about this is ROFLMAO. Except that it's almost too true to be funny.
H/t to The Galloping Beaver and Mike.
Thursday, June 10, 2010
Sunday, June 06, 2010
Long-gun registry
Whew. This is a long post. So get settled in and here goes.
Jack Layton will not be whipping the vote in the upcoming third and final reading of Bill C-391, meaning that the controversial long-gun registry could finally meet its demise. This has once again caused a division on the political left, with some praising Layton for allowing his MPs to follow their constituents' wishes and vote their conscience on this controversial issue and others swearing that they'll never vote NDP again because of how Layton has betrayed the left. This latter group really pisses me off.
Really? You're going to blackball an entire political party because of one issue? And I really hate how some of these people on the left think everything you say is just dandy, as long as you stick to the typical "left" stance on the issues. But as soon as you offer a dissenting opinion about anything, they jump down your throat and start telling you how you're not a "real progressive" because a real progressive would not have an opinion like that. Says who? I try to take each issue on an individual basis and do my own thinking. Most of the time I do end up agreeing with the typical "left" perspective. But sometimes I don't. And if you are not thinking things through on your own but just automatically agreeing with everything a particular group says, then you are no better than the idiots on the right who continuously vote conservative time after time despite the fact that if they took a couple of minutes to look into things, they'd find that they're voting against their own best interests.
The long-gun registry has always been controversial but instead of dividing neatly down a right/left line politically like many other issues, it tends to be more of an urban/rural divide. Which is why you have rural NDP and Liberal MPs voting with the Conservatives, and why you have many people who are as left as it gets in every other way but who still strongly oppose the registry. JJ and I are not the only ones. And just because we happen to agree with the conservatives on this one issue does not mean that we have betrayed the entire progressive movement.
So what reasons could we possibly have for objecting to the long-gun registry? And when you read that last sentence, you should inject as much horrified disbelief as possible and you'll be pretty close to the tone some people on the left use when they ask us this question. Because here is the thing. Most of the people who support the gun registry are urban dwellers. And they cannot for the life of them even see why anyone actually needs a gun. Because they certainly don't need one. And it's true. Unless you're a weekend hunter, the need for a gun in an urban setting is pretty much non-existent. I currently live in a city and I do not own a gun, nor do I feel a need for it. With a phone call city police are a few minutes away. If we get a wild animal invading city limits, then you can call the city for help with that too. But you've got to step out of the box for a moment and picture things from a rural dweller's perspective. RCMP are spread pretty thin in some areas, and help from them can literally be more than an hour away. Guns are also useful for pest and predator control. And if you're picturing in your head a bunch of country bumpkins in the back of a pickup truck driving around the countryside shooting at anything that moves - then stop. Yes there is the occasional idiot like that. But for my part, I have only ever seen guns used very occasionally, and only when livestock were directly threatened and there wasn't another way to deal with it. Where my parents farm, they get foxes, coyotes, and even the occasional cougar, but unless there is a problem, they leave them alone. And even then, sometimes a warning shot will suffice to scare them away. The gun is a needed tool in a rural setting.
But, I have heard some people whine, those rural people are in the minority. The majority of us live in cities and want the registry to remain, so we should win! Hmmm. I believe that is called tyranny of the majority and it's something that Canada tries to avoid in general. Just because you don't have a need for something, or even understand that need, doesn't mean you get to steamroll over the rest of us just cuz there's more of you. These are the same people who whine about how electoral ridings represent rural areas disproportionately. Yes they do, to prevent just this kind of scenario.
But the gun registry saves lives! Right? People who use this argument are very fond of saying things like "Over the past decade, the rate of firearm-related spousal homicide decreased three-fold, declining from 1.7 per million spouses in 1996 to 0.5 per million spouses in 2007." And then they like to show this chart. But if you look at that chart closely, you realize that it's actually been dropping for the past 30 years, in line with homicide rates in general, well before the long-gun registry came into effect. The chart does not show a more precipitous drop since 1995 when the gun registry became law. The rate was going down anyway, which suggests that other factors can account for the drop. Which factors? Well, I don't know, how about those mentioned in this government report:
You'll notice that the gun registry isn't mentioned.
But the police think it's good, right? Except when they don't. And I have heard anecdotally of other police and RCMP who have expressed similar sentiments - that the top brass are out of touch and that the registry does little to help them in their jobs. Because even when police check and they find that the residence they're being called to does not have any registered guns, they still have to assume that there may be some there. And in rural Canada, where shotguns are ubiquitous, that's a pretty good assumption to make. So operationally, the registry is not causing them to do anything different.
I can think of a couple of scenarios where the registry would be useful. If a criminal actually bothered to register a gun and then was dumb enough to leave it at the scene of a crime, then the police could use the registry to catch them. Not a common occurrence I'm willing to bet. The other way is if someone registers their guns and then begins acting in a homicidal or suicidal manner such that police are alerted and then take away their guns preemptively. Again, I'm thinking this is a rare occurrence. The registry was created in response to the 1989 shootings at Ecole Polytechnique. But the only way the registry would have prevented this tragedy was if Marc Lépine had registered his weapon and police had become aware of his homicidal intentions ahead of time. Personally, I know someone who committed suicide with a shot gun. It was a horrible thing. But the registry wouldn't have prevented it. If his own family weren't aware of the turn his mind had taken, then the police sure weren't and couldn't have taken the gun away ahead of time.
But, the police do use it! All the time! But sometimes statistics can be misleading:
And of all those times it was accessed, only about 2.4% of queries actually had anything to do with guns.
So here's what I think after spending a lot of time reading about this this weekend.
At this point, I don't think the cost is an issue. Yes, the set-up of the system was expensive, it went way over budget and I think the current estimate is about 1 billion dollars. But the maintenance cost is relatively small, about $15 million is I believe what I last read. So I don't think that is a valid argument anymore.
As to it usefulness, I think I've shown that the data is, at best, incomplete. I like to get to the root of the problem and my personal feeling is that putting more money into preventing crime, providing more social services, and reducing poverty will be more helpful than the registry. Even the Auditor General criticized the registry for having no real way to monitor itself. In my line of work you know that if you set up a program or a service, then you had also better set up some way of monitoring it so that you know if it's been a success or not. Otherwise, come budget time, how do you justify spending money on it? At the very least, we need to put something in place so that we can see what effect, if any, the registry is having.
At that point, we might be able to judge if the registry is actually worth alienating half of Canada for. I've seen nothing to suggest that it is. I think Jack Layton was right to allow his rural MPs to vote their conscience, and if the gun registry dies, so be it. I'm not going to panic.
Jack Layton will not be whipping the vote in the upcoming third and final reading of Bill C-391, meaning that the controversial long-gun registry could finally meet its demise. This has once again caused a division on the political left, with some praising Layton for allowing his MPs to follow their constituents' wishes and vote their conscience on this controversial issue and others swearing that they'll never vote NDP again because of how Layton has betrayed the left. This latter group really pisses me off.
Really? You're going to blackball an entire political party because of one issue? And I really hate how some of these people on the left think everything you say is just dandy, as long as you stick to the typical "left" stance on the issues. But as soon as you offer a dissenting opinion about anything, they jump down your throat and start telling you how you're not a "real progressive" because a real progressive would not have an opinion like that. Says who? I try to take each issue on an individual basis and do my own thinking. Most of the time I do end up agreeing with the typical "left" perspective. But sometimes I don't. And if you are not thinking things through on your own but just automatically agreeing with everything a particular group says, then you are no better than the idiots on the right who continuously vote conservative time after time despite the fact that if they took a couple of minutes to look into things, they'd find that they're voting against their own best interests.
The long-gun registry has always been controversial but instead of dividing neatly down a right/left line politically like many other issues, it tends to be more of an urban/rural divide. Which is why you have rural NDP and Liberal MPs voting with the Conservatives, and why you have many people who are as left as it gets in every other way but who still strongly oppose the registry. JJ and I are not the only ones. And just because we happen to agree with the conservatives on this one issue does not mean that we have betrayed the entire progressive movement.
So what reasons could we possibly have for objecting to the long-gun registry? And when you read that last sentence, you should inject as much horrified disbelief as possible and you'll be pretty close to the tone some people on the left use when they ask us this question. Because here is the thing. Most of the people who support the gun registry are urban dwellers. And they cannot for the life of them even see why anyone actually needs a gun. Because they certainly don't need one. And it's true. Unless you're a weekend hunter, the need for a gun in an urban setting is pretty much non-existent. I currently live in a city and I do not own a gun, nor do I feel a need for it. With a phone call city police are a few minutes away. If we get a wild animal invading city limits, then you can call the city for help with that too. But you've got to step out of the box for a moment and picture things from a rural dweller's perspective. RCMP are spread pretty thin in some areas, and help from them can literally be more than an hour away. Guns are also useful for pest and predator control. And if you're picturing in your head a bunch of country bumpkins in the back of a pickup truck driving around the countryside shooting at anything that moves - then stop. Yes there is the occasional idiot like that. But for my part, I have only ever seen guns used very occasionally, and only when livestock were directly threatened and there wasn't another way to deal with it. Where my parents farm, they get foxes, coyotes, and even the occasional cougar, but unless there is a problem, they leave them alone. And even then, sometimes a warning shot will suffice to scare them away. The gun is a needed tool in a rural setting.
But, I have heard some people whine, those rural people are in the minority. The majority of us live in cities and want the registry to remain, so we should win! Hmmm. I believe that is called tyranny of the majority and it's something that Canada tries to avoid in general. Just because you don't have a need for something, or even understand that need, doesn't mean you get to steamroll over the rest of us just cuz there's more of you. These are the same people who whine about how electoral ridings represent rural areas disproportionately. Yes they do, to prevent just this kind of scenario.
But the gun registry saves lives! Right? People who use this argument are very fond of saying things like "Over the past decade, the rate of firearm-related spousal homicide decreased three-fold, declining from 1.7 per million spouses in 1996 to 0.5 per million spouses in 2007." And then they like to show this chart. But if you look at that chart closely, you realize that it's actually been dropping for the past 30 years, in line with homicide rates in general, well before the long-gun registry came into effect. The chart does not show a more precipitous drop since 1995 when the gun registry became law. The rate was going down anyway, which suggests that other factors can account for the drop. Which factors? Well, I don't know, how about those mentioned in this government report:
Although it is difficult to determine the reasons why spousal violence has declined, explanations may include increased societal awareness and lower tolerance of spousal abuse, as well as greater access to social services to protect victims (e.g., shelters) and improved responses by the criminal justice system. Over the past couple of decades, pro-charging and pro-prosecution policies have been introduced in all Canadian jurisdictions mandating that charges be laid where there are reasonable and probable grounds to believe that an offence had been committed (Ad Hoc Federal-Provincial-Territorial Working Group, 2003).
Other measures to improve the justice system’s response to spousal violence include multi-agency coordinating committees, specialized domestic violence courts, civic domestic violence legislation, as well as increased services and supports for victims and treatment for offenders.
You'll notice that the gun registry isn't mentioned.
But the police think it's good, right? Except when they don't. And I have heard anecdotally of other police and RCMP who have expressed similar sentiments - that the top brass are out of touch and that the registry does little to help them in their jobs. Because even when police check and they find that the residence they're being called to does not have any registered guns, they still have to assume that there may be some there. And in rural Canada, where shotguns are ubiquitous, that's a pretty good assumption to make. So operationally, the registry is not causing them to do anything different.
I can think of a couple of scenarios where the registry would be useful. If a criminal actually bothered to register a gun and then was dumb enough to leave it at the scene of a crime, then the police could use the registry to catch them. Not a common occurrence I'm willing to bet. The other way is if someone registers their guns and then begins acting in a homicidal or suicidal manner such that police are alerted and then take away their guns preemptively. Again, I'm thinking this is a rare occurrence. The registry was created in response to the 1989 shootings at Ecole Polytechnique. But the only way the registry would have prevented this tragedy was if Marc Lépine had registered his weapon and police had become aware of his homicidal intentions ahead of time. Personally, I know someone who committed suicide with a shot gun. It was a horrible thing. But the registry wouldn't have prevented it. If his own family weren't aware of the turn his mind had taken, then the police sure weren't and couldn't have taken the gun away ahead of time.
But, the police do use it! All the time! But sometimes statistics can be misleading:
Once again Thursday, the chiefs trotted out their stats: Last year alone, the registry was used 3.8 million times. That averages out to 10,411 times a day — or seven times a minute, 365 days a year.
Here’s what that means, according to rank and file officers who oppose the registry. Each time an officer searches for any kind of information about anyone, the database is tapped. It’s accessed automatically, all the time.
And of all those times it was accessed, only about 2.4% of queries actually had anything to do with guns.
So here's what I think after spending a lot of time reading about this this weekend.
At this point, I don't think the cost is an issue. Yes, the set-up of the system was expensive, it went way over budget and I think the current estimate is about 1 billion dollars. But the maintenance cost is relatively small, about $15 million is I believe what I last read. So I don't think that is a valid argument anymore.
As to it usefulness, I think I've shown that the data is, at best, incomplete. I like to get to the root of the problem and my personal feeling is that putting more money into preventing crime, providing more social services, and reducing poverty will be more helpful than the registry. Even the Auditor General criticized the registry for having no real way to monitor itself. In my line of work you know that if you set up a program or a service, then you had also better set up some way of monitoring it so that you know if it's been a success or not. Otherwise, come budget time, how do you justify spending money on it? At the very least, we need to put something in place so that we can see what effect, if any, the registry is having.
At that point, we might be able to judge if the registry is actually worth alienating half of Canada for. I've seen nothing to suggest that it is. I think Jack Layton was right to allow his rural MPs to vote their conscience, and if the gun registry dies, so be it. I'm not going to panic.
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
These things...
- A good explanation of the Twilight phenomenon. My favourite part, "I'm a 100 year old immortal with a perfect body and a perfect soul. I think I'm gonna go date an annoying high school chick."
- The oil spill in the gulf has been gushing oil into the ocean for over a month now, and BP still hasn't figured out a way to stop it. The whole thing has been one incompetence after another. All anyone can do is point fingers at one another, and meanwhile the spill has reached the Louisiana marshes. Also, check this video out, so you can learn proper fucking booming:
- I was listening to CBC radio on Monday night and they were having an interesting discussion on the ethics of eating meat. I've mentioned this issue a couple of times, and I was pleased to hear that quite a few of the people on the show were of the same opinion. Vegetarianism doesn't make sense from a health or environmental standpoint. And, if you eat organic, pasture-fed, free-range meat, a lot of the animal welfare issues stop making sense. Anyway, they should start posting the podcast soon, and I'm going to go back and listen to the whole thing.
- What is with this weather? The heat in the ancient house that I live in has been shut off for the summer, and so even with my space heater going full tilt, it's barely livable. I have been sleeping very well though, albeit with extra covers on my bed. Avery has taken to curling up right under the heater, and I'm afraid she's going to set herself on fire.
Saturday, May 22, 2010
Review Time
I just watched the Boondock Saints II. I enjoyed the first one quite a bit. It reminds me of a Tarantino movie, or Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. So if you're a fan of either of those, you'd like Boondock Saints. And Boondock Saints II was quite good. Not as good as the first one perhaps, but only because it was a lot like the first one, so the style is not as fresh. And it's got an actual woman in it, Julie Benz, who will be familiar to anyone who watches Dexter (she plays his girlfriend Rita). Although it still fails the Bechdel Test since she's pretty much the only woman in it. But if you liked the first one, defs check out the second one. If you haven't seen the first Boondock Saints, I recommend you do before you watch this one, because it's first of all a very good movie, and secondly there are some things in this movie that will not make sense unless you've seen the first one.
In reading news, I've just finished A College of Magics by Caroline Stevermer. It's a teen fantasy set in an alternate early 1900s Europe. Faris Nallaneen, Duchess of Galazon, is sent to boarding school in France by her uncle, who is ruling the dukedom until she comes of age, though Faris suspects that he is reluctant to relinquish the dukedom to her. She goes to Greenlaw College reluctantly, but quickly becomes more interested in her studies since they involve learning magic. She acquires an English best friend and a handsome bodyguard and must somehow save the world with her newly learned magic while saving her dukedom from her uncle. Good read, wonderful characters and a slightly bittersweet ending. Recommended.
In reading news, I've just finished A College of Magics by Caroline Stevermer. It's a teen fantasy set in an alternate early 1900s Europe. Faris Nallaneen, Duchess of Galazon, is sent to boarding school in France by her uncle, who is ruling the dukedom until she comes of age, though Faris suspects that he is reluctant to relinquish the dukedom to her. She goes to Greenlaw College reluctantly, but quickly becomes more interested in her studies since they involve learning magic. She acquires an English best friend and a handsome bodyguard and must somehow save the world with her newly learned magic while saving her dukedom from her uncle. Good read, wonderful characters and a slightly bittersweet ending. Recommended.
Friday, May 21, 2010
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Thursday, May 13, 2010
We're number 12!
A study was recently published ranking the countries of the world on their environmental impact. The link goes to an article which talks about the 10 worst. We aren't mentioned. But before you breathe a sigh of relief, if you check out the original study you'll find that Canada ranks 12th. We just barely missed being on that list. That's unacceptable. Keep fighting, and let our government know that the environmental issues aren't just going to go away.
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Women's perspective absent from most movies?
This is an interesting video. I've never really thought about it before, but sadly, most of my favourite movies fail the test. It's funny how you never really think about these things until they're pointed out to you. This same girl does a mash-up video about the lack of female characters in video games, and that I can relate to. I was bitching about that way back in the Super Nintendo days. There was sometimes a token female character, but that was it. (I still refuse to play anyone but Chun-Li in Streetfighter.) And sadly, things haven't changed very much since then.
Wednesday, May 05, 2010
Blood Pressure Rising
It seems that these days reading the news can be a dangerous undertaking. Every time I turn around, I'm reading something that causes me to either want to cause serious pain to someone else or give up in complete and utter despair. Really, it would be easier to do so. Ignorance is bliss after all. But that is what they want.
The corporations of the world are winning it seems, whether it's a giant oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico caused by the US government deregulating the safety measures for off-shore rigs at the behest of the oil industry, or it's our own Canadian government completely ignoring the will of the people they claim to serve and going ahead with a Draconian digital copyright bill similar to the US DMCA in order to appease their corporate overlords. (Hopefully more on this last issue later since as a librarian, it affects me rather personally.)
If you haven't read Feed by M.T. Anderson, do it. It's a dystopic science fiction novel about a future world that's run by corporations and rampant consumerism... except these days I don't see much difference between Anderson's futuristic horror and our own world. It's so close to the way things are, it's beyond scary. It has ceased to be satire. It is reality. And maybe we won't be able to stop it, but we've got to try. So get informed, watch the news, and do something about it. Don't let the corporate overlords win and don't let our greedy politicians get away with kowtowing to the corporate lobby simply because of the money and other perks they receive in return for their cooperation. I hope that there are at least a few leaders out there who remember that they are supposed to be serving the people who elected them. NOT the corporations that, sadly, seem to run much of the world. Let's take our world back before it becomes the wasteland depicted in Feed.
The corporations of the world are winning it seems, whether it's a giant oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico caused by the US government deregulating the safety measures for off-shore rigs at the behest of the oil industry, or it's our own Canadian government completely ignoring the will of the people they claim to serve and going ahead with a Draconian digital copyright bill similar to the US DMCA in order to appease their corporate overlords. (Hopefully more on this last issue later since as a librarian, it affects me rather personally.)
If you haven't read Feed by M.T. Anderson, do it. It's a dystopic science fiction novel about a future world that's run by corporations and rampant consumerism... except these days I don't see much difference between Anderson's futuristic horror and our own world. It's so close to the way things are, it's beyond scary. It has ceased to be satire. It is reality. And maybe we won't be able to stop it, but we've got to try. So get informed, watch the news, and do something about it. Don't let the corporate overlords win and don't let our greedy politicians get away with kowtowing to the corporate lobby simply because of the money and other perks they receive in return for their cooperation. I hope that there are at least a few leaders out there who remember that they are supposed to be serving the people who elected them. NOT the corporations that, sadly, seem to run much of the world. Let's take our world back before it becomes the wasteland depicted in Feed.
Sunday, May 02, 2010
Incomplete and happy to be so
Being a single woman who's almost thirty can be tough. Friends and family my own age are getting married and having kids and there's this feeling of urgency, of almost panic, that I'm falling behind and that, if I'm not married and have two kids and own a house by the time I'm thirty-five, something BAD will happen. I'll somehow have failed at life.
But I just have to keep reminding myself that if I really wanted to, I could have that right now. But I didn't want to settle for just that. In order to have that, I would have had to sacrifice some other things in my life that are very, very good. And maybe someday I will have those other things too... but only if I know that it will make me happier in the long run than I am now. And right now I'm quite happy as I am.
I was listening to Alanis today, and her song "Incomplete" has some very good advice:
Life's a journey, not a destination. There's nowhere that I have to be this year, or in five years. And it's good to remember that.
But I just have to keep reminding myself that if I really wanted to, I could have that right now. But I didn't want to settle for just that. In order to have that, I would have had to sacrifice some other things in my life that are very, very good. And maybe someday I will have those other things too... but only if I know that it will make me happier in the long run than I am now. And right now I'm quite happy as I am.
I was listening to Alanis today, and her song "Incomplete" has some very good advice:
I have been running so sweaty my whole life
Urgent for a finish line
And I have been missing the rapture this whole time
Of being forever incomplete
Ever unfolding
Ever expanding
Ever adventurous and torturous
But never done
Life's a journey, not a destination. There's nowhere that I have to be this year, or in five years. And it's good to remember that.
Junk store salt and pepper shakers
As an update to my previous post, here's a pic of my new shakers:
I've been doing some internet research, and these were made in the USA by West Bend in the 60's or 70's, and also came in the colours "harvest gold" and "avocado green". I'm pleased with my $4 find.
I've been doing some internet research, and these were made in the USA by West Bend in the 60's or 70's, and also came in the colours "harvest gold" and "avocado green". I'm pleased with my $4 find.
Saturday, May 01, 2010
Viacom sucks
Wow is Viacom ever acting like an asshole. Essentially they are uploading youtube videos to their own video sharing sight without the original posters permission or knowledge, where they then get ad revenue off of the video. Then after abusing the copyright of others, they turn around and file DMCA notices left, right and center (some of them false) against youtube users. Copyright for me, but not for thee. It's awful that a huge corporation like Viacom will abuse copyright law and free speech simply because they think they're big enough to get away with it. You know what would be nice? If Google sued their asses off on behalf of the youtube community. C'mon Google. Isn't your motto "Don't be Evil?" Part of not being evil is not letting evil-doers get away with their crimes. With great power comes great responsibility... But I won't hold my breath.
Friday, April 30, 2010
Gunless - it's good!
I saw Gunless tonight with my friend L, and we both agreed it's good. I actually laughed so hard at the end watching the outtakes that my tummy hurt. It's a great little movie of light-hearted comedy - made in Canada. So go see it!
Pet Peeves of the Day
- Rainy days that are too windy to use an umbrella. Such as today for example. I couldn't walk anywhere without getting wet. And due to my excursion outdoors this afternoon, the rain and wind have caused my hair to become a cloud of frizzy curls. Now, if I don't have to go out in it, then windy, rainy days are great. It's wonderful to sit in your warm bed or cozy chair, drinking warm drinks and eating warm cookies, and hear the wind howling around the eaves and rattling the windows and hear the fat splats of rain hitting the glass. But if you have to go out in it, then rain + wind = NO FUN.
- Sarcan. It's noisy, smelly, and the floor's sticky. I always feel like I need a shower when I come out.
- DJs that continue to yap during the intro to a song. Just because there is no one singing does not mean that we don't need to hear that part of the song. Sometimes the intro to a song is the best part. And you're RUINING it! So please, when you play a song, then let us listen to the whole thing, beginning to end.
- Snobby high-end antique stores. Oh sure, they look really pretty. But you know you can't afford anything in them (and so does the snobby shop-owner and his pedigreed poodles), and there will be no hidden treasures to find. Which brings me to one of my loves: junk antique shops. You know the kind. The ones where every single square centimetre is covered with stuff and even the floor has stacks of stuff, and everything is piled so high and so haphazardly that it's constantly in danger of falling over... Maybe it's not so pretty to look at, and can be somewhat hazardous to navigate. But if you've got some time to kill, you can uncover some real treasures in these places. And half the time the shop owner is as surprised as you when you find something. I've been looking for some green glass salt and pepper shakers like the ones my grandma used to have. See, I'm very anti-stuff. And so I'd like to find some salt and pepper shakers that are both nice enough to look at that you can put them on the dinner table, but practical enough that you can take the tops off and fit a teaspoon in them for cooking. That's harder to find than you might think. And although I did not find the elusive green glass ones today, I found some aluminum ones that will do just fine until I do find them.
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Dude, where's my car?
So I went downstairs to go to work this morning and discovered my car was gone.
But, I knew immediately what had happened. You see, it was street cleaning day. And I knew it was, but you see, when they have signs posted saying "Street Cleaning Wednesday" I just assumed they meant sometime during the day Wednesday. But actually they meant 5:30 in the morning Wednesday.
Ah. My mistake. So I walked to work, and once I got there I looked up on the city's website and discovered that they don't tow your car to the impound, they just tow it around the corner and give you a ticket. So I walked home for lunch to check, and sure enough, there was my car, parked neatly around the corner with a ticket on it. And the ticket was for $25.00.
Seriously, what other city does that? Tows your car around the corner for you and only charges you $25.00 for their trouble. I figure I got off pretty lightly.
I was, however, still in a bad mood due to the incident, and I consequently sent out several nasty e-mails and had my frowny face on all day.
I'm hoping to go to bed tonight and wake up in a much better mood. To help me along the way, I got an extra long guitar lesson tonight, and for the last half we played the ukulele. And it's like my guitar teacher says, you can't help but smile when you hear someone play the ukulele. So here's some awesome ukulele videos. I'm trying to decide if I want to buy one or not.
But, I knew immediately what had happened. You see, it was street cleaning day. And I knew it was, but you see, when they have signs posted saying "Street Cleaning Wednesday" I just assumed they meant sometime during the day Wednesday. But actually they meant 5:30 in the morning Wednesday.
Ah. My mistake. So I walked to work, and once I got there I looked up on the city's website and discovered that they don't tow your car to the impound, they just tow it around the corner and give you a ticket. So I walked home for lunch to check, and sure enough, there was my car, parked neatly around the corner with a ticket on it. And the ticket was for $25.00.
Seriously, what other city does that? Tows your car around the corner for you and only charges you $25.00 for their trouble. I figure I got off pretty lightly.
I was, however, still in a bad mood due to the incident, and I consequently sent out several nasty e-mails and had my frowny face on all day.
I'm hoping to go to bed tonight and wake up in a much better mood. To help me along the way, I got an extra long guitar lesson tonight, and for the last half we played the ukulele. And it's like my guitar teacher says, you can't help but smile when you hear someone play the ukulele. So here's some awesome ukulele videos. I'm trying to decide if I want to buy one or not.
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