Abandoned Stuff by Saskboy

It’s meme time again, unfortunately. So let’s get it over with.
We have Raphael to thank for this cliche post :-)

1. I watched “Mall Rats” [6/10] tonight for the first time, and actually thought it wasn’t bad. I wasn’t a fan of Jay and Silent Bob movies about a decade ago when they started to be popular among my peers.

2. Like Raphael, I too have been known to talk in my sleep. Probably Shakespeare, or something eloquent no doubt…

3. I have a bump on one of my index fingers from a childhood accident. I don’t remember which one. Actually I do, but I’m not telling.

4. I like Pizza Pops better if they are baked in a toaster oven instead of the microwave.

5. I want Rex Murphy’s job because talking to Canadians and reading their emails all week is what I do anyway when blogging, so I may as well get paid for it.

6. I enjoy reading memes more than I do filling them out, mostly due to privacy concerns.

I’m supposed to tag 6 people, so I’m going to pick 6 of who I don’t think will actually fill it out, and thus I won’t burden them with the task:
Pale and Prole at ACR
Warren Kinsella
Ezra Levant
Any blogger at the very fine Crooks and Liars
Michael Geist

–
Neener, already done it :-)

There’s a survey for a newly proposed bike lane on a street through the Cathedral area west of downtown. Please help the cyclists of the city out, and fill it out asking for a dedicated bike path that reduces parking in the Cathedral area.

Find it under Important Notice, until March 7, 2008.

Each March, Saskatchewan has a telethon on the local CTV stations. Telemiracle has been running for decades, and each year raises more than a million dollars to help residents of the province.

The local Regina paper brings an interesting story of a little girl who has turned her birthday party into a way to raise money for the telethon. It’s very similar to my idea of giving charitable donation tax gifts to adults in lieu of trinkets or other gifts at Christmas. I like her version of charity giving even better, since it takes the pressure off parents who would have to shop for a birthday gift, and it certainly could make cleaning one’s bedroom floor of toys, less of a chore.

Ralph Nader has thrown his hat into the ring again. The United States would be remarkably more well off if he could win too, but it’s a long shot given the tendency of the media and voting public to focus on a self affirming prophecy that only the most popular candidates will be considered seriously.

I got a chance to meet Nader when he was in Regina last year. He certainly is showing his age, but his ideas are important to implement, if humankind wants to live a healthy long time.

Huckabee is a good chunk of what is wrong with American politics, and the electoral system too. They are blaming the players for stupid things (vote splitting), instead of the broken rules of the game (First Past The Post).

–
More blogs talking about Nader. RT sums up why many thinking-adults get so disenfranchised with all of politics, and instead devote their brains to rot in front of TV, or mainstream political parties with a chance to be heard.

On Sunday I attended the live broadcast of Cross Country Checkup at the CBC Galleria in Regina where Rex Murphy was interviewing Murray Mandryk of the Leader-Post and a sociology professor [haven’t confirmed the link has the professor from the broadcast] from the UofR. It was a very interesting 2+ hours, and isn’t the first time I’ve seen live radio firsthand, but is the first national radio show I can remember attending.

I was asked if I wanted to speak on the program, so I said I might have a comment about poverty and how the budget should (but probably won’t) address the income gap between Canadians. I talked with some politically active students in the crowd, who were there like I was because of an email sent by the University of Regina Student’s Union president Mike Burton.

Sunday, February 24, 2008
On Cross Country Checkup …live from Regina

The Harper government presents its budget Tuesday and several provinces have been angling to make sure it meets their needs. Ontario wants money for manufacturers. Saskatchewan wants more infrastructure …and BC’s lumber industry needs help.

What about you? What are you looking for in the upcoming budget?

Join host Rex Murphy live from Regina, Sunday on Cross Country Checkup

A couple who were in town coincidentally to take someone to the airport, ended up sitting beside me and we talked for a few minutes about the downsides of owning a Vista computer. One of the students I was speaking with had actually encouraged their non-profit organization they worked for to use Linux, but I digress!

You can listen to the entire program (including me near the end of the show) here in podcast MP3 or streaming format. The CBC is great for having podcasts for most of their radio programs, which is great! Here’s what people, including me and the callers, talked about:
(more…)

I came across this interesting tower in Düsseldorf, Germany, while surfing through flickr night images. It is the world’s largest “decimal clock“. Maybe Rick Mercer’s “metric time” scam in his Talking to American sketch wasn’t so far fetched?

While I was in Toronto last month, I took several photos from the CN Tower. I’ve been twice before, and usually try to time it so I have both day and night photos in the same trip, but this time it was solidly dark by the time I arrived.

I shared my binoculars (which I cleverly remembered to bring this trip) with some other tourists. We could see ice skaters on the rink in Nathan Phillips Square in front of the new City Hall which are the curvy buildings behind the towering red glowing hotel in this photo. The extreme distance made the people look like microbes through a microscope eyepiece.

- CBC Toronto, adored by all Canadians ;-) It’s truly the centre, of the center of the universe. And no wonder they’d rather cover Argo games over Roughrider games, the SkyDome (Rogers Center) is right across the street!

- A windmill in the distance, next to an indoor arena (Ricoh - James confirmed).

Saskatchewan isn’t known for its towers, but a common site in small towns and cities are a water tower. Mark has an excellent collection of Canadian towers, and I’ve even contributed a few photos of my own.

Here’s a nice photo of Parliament Hill, from the Peace Tower.

The latest attempt:

Hoar frost at the UofR outside the Classroom Building (great name, eh?)

==

Yesterday I took Ashley to the hospital for what she thought was an emergency. We got there early Saturday morning, and waited over 4 hours before being seen by a doctor. A few ambulances came through, but we suspect they didn’t even have a doctor taking patients for the first two hours we sat there. I read an entire Time magazine and did a double take when there was an ad for CBC’s Q program. I realized the Canadian edition had Canadian ads. Woo CanCon, in the worst possible way :-S

I had to get work to cover my shift because Ashley didn’t know if she’d be able to get home on her own. We got out of the hospital, after I’d gone in search of food and drivers license renewal twice. The first time the issuer was closed, and the 7-11’s food selection was not very tempting. The footlongs didn’t have prices, only expiry dates, and the muffins would have been better had they had dates on them (I’d have not bothered taking one). It should have been a clue when the tongs couldn’t grip it and it slipped back onto the muffin shelf as I tried to put it into a bag. So I picked it up with my fingers instead. Ashley and I were going to be the ones eating that one anyway, right?

I took it in a bag to the counter. The clerk didn’t even look at me for about the first 10 seconds, and then acknowledged my presence only by taking the $20 I was holding out silently. She attempted to then open a roll of quarters, unsuccessfully. She walked over to the next till, and fumbled around looking for $18.44 in change, again failing. I offered that I probably didn’t have exact change or any bill smaller, but looked in my coins anyway, which I knew were few. I had a loonie, a 50¢ coin to spend on someone nice like a tip for good service (which didn’t seem like an option in this transaction), a penny, a nickel, and a quarter.

Cringing on the inside, I handed over my loonie, fifty cent, nickel, and penny, and she carefully inspected the fifty cent and tossed it back onto the counter mumbling something about not wanting it. I pushed it back in her direction saying, “it’s fifty cents, it’s good) and walked out the door with my muffin, and $20 bill. Ugh, I should have used my debit card I just realized.

I later went and picked up a Subway footlong sub, and got my new photo ID (to be sent in the mail). I asked the Cooks SGI people when the new country station started up and they thought Thursday. There’s a new FM country station in Regina by the way, woo hoo! It’s Big Dog 92.7 run by Astral Media they say, and are playing 5000 songs before they start advertising on it, so it’s pretty good for now at least.

Ashley was feeling better by the time we finally got out of the hospital, and we headed to our planned destination, the Capital Ford grand opening party in north Regina. We were crashing the party for free food, and I figured I’d take a test drive in a hybrid if it was possible. We got the free food, and looked around, but one of the sales dudes said (approximately) that the Ford hybrids sucked, had no power, were essentially a marketing scam that doesn’t result in vehicle cost savings, and they only had one hybrid Escape around at the moment. I didn’t pursue a test drive with a pep talk like that ;-), but did enjoy the finger food. I thought I saw Nate Davis selling cars for Ford, but didn’t ask to be sure.

We wandered around the lot for a while, and took a look at the neighbouring (and confusingly similarly named) Capital GM dealership. We almost took a test drive in a Sunfire, but had to get going for another appointment. In the evening we watched Weird Al for some entertainment. Trapped in the Drive-Thru sums up modern couple life better than most sitcoms. Much better. And they forgot the onions!

I’m considering attending Cross Country Checkup with Rex Murphy on Sunday, but we’ll see how the day turns out after a little winter jacket shopping.

–
UPDATE: Bought a new jacket, it’s great. Saw Rex, and asked a question/gave a comment. And Astral Media is one of those big-butt companies that owns all media :-(

John Gushue asks a great question. What is getting you through the Canadian Winter? It sounds like a fun meme in the making, so link over to John’s blog, let us know on your blog (and my my comments ;-) what you like to do in Winter, and pass this question on.

Is it plenty of vitamin D? Vacations south? Fireplace snuggling?

- I didn’t make this fella, but it was in my front yard. And some bozo tipped it over the following day. Seems even snowmen are bullied, and February is a very stressful month for them already.

Here’s what gets me through:
-Ski pants. I’m practically invincible with them on, and a ski mask or scarf with a toque. Bring..it..on..Winter! (I’d spit on you, Old Man Winter, if the spit wouldn’t freeze to my lips before it hit you.)
-Snow sculpting. If it is frozen water, I want to build it into something fun.
-Snow shoveling. It’s the greatest free exercise with water, after swimming. And with fewer risks of injury than skiing carries.