President Obama

Well I know it's a little late to be noting this, cause seriously you'd have to be living in a cave to not know this. Anyways Obama will become US president January 20th and it looks like Hillary Clinton will be his Secretary of State. It's a good choice for him as having Clinton as Secretary of State will keep disappointed Democrats happyish, and should help to deflect some criticism of Obamas lack of experience with foreign affairs. It will be interesting to see how Obama handles the current economic situation, it's certainly going to be tough to implement some of his plans but if he's sucessful at steering the country out of the recession then he may earn a place along with F.D.R. and other great leaders. However if the economic crisis deepens Obama may be blamed for not fixing something that he didn't break.

US Election.... FINALLY

Well the US election is finally upon us it won't be long before Obama is crowned as the new President of the US. It seems inevetable that he will win, Palin was a gamble for the Republicans that didn't pay off. Though looking at polls from last week anything could happen it will depend alot on who can get the voters out and wether there's any hanging chad or electronic voting booth problems. Fingers crossed that it's all over soon.

Anti Idling Bylaw for the City of Edmonton: After the forum

Well I guess I shouldn't be surprised at the turn out for the public forum. Most of the people there did seem to be ardent environmentalists who will never, and have never, left their car idle, let alone drove it when they could walk instead. While I understand their points on how the city should go, to a very green future with no idling at all. On the other hand if you try to get an anti idling law passed you need to know that it's important to start somewhere even if it's with a pretty basic bylaw.

The meeting did have an agenda of going through different ideas that a bylaw could contain such as whether it should apply to all vehicles, whether it should apply differently to occupied and unoccupied vehicles, and whether it should apply in all weather conditions. The conversations tended to all flow on the side of having a bylaw and how strict it should be. The majority of people there seemed to be on the much stricter side of the fence, while I was trying to find a more moderate approach. I come down on the idling at a 3 minute restriction (it's long enough without being too long) , no restriction in traffic (it's dangerous to turn your car off in the middle of a road), no idling when the vehicle is unoccupied (you're not in it why is it running) , and no weather restrictions (It's too confusing to run around with a temperature gauge). Though some at the meeting wanted it to be 30 seconds under all conditions even stopped at a traffic light.

The proposed bylaw will be available to the public by the end of the month and a public meeting will follow for people to have their input. I'll post more when it's available.

Anti Idling Bylaw for the City of Edmonton

So the city is considering an anti idling bylaw, agian. Of course with gas prices the way there were a month ago this bylaw wouldn't have really been needed. Now that they're back below a dollar people will be back using their car starters and running the engine while they wait outside. It seems like it would be good to have a bylaw for this issue as I often see cars sitting for 10 or 15 minutes just burning away the fuel. On the other hand how are you really going to enforce a 5 minute or 15 minute limit, so the law starts to sound like a jaywalking prohibition and will only be enforced in extreme situations. Wether the city decides to have the bylaw or not you can have your say in a survey and review some of the documentation that they've complied. You can also attend a public meeting on this issue tomorrow. The location is at the U of A next to the Jubilee Auditorium.

The final public meeting will be held:

Date: Monday, October 27, 2008
Time: 7 – 9 p.m.
Location:
Maple Leaf Room
University of Alberta Conference Centre
Lister Hall (87 Avenue and 116 Street)

West LRT for Edmonton

As the finish line is now in sight for the South LRT the city of Edmonton can turn it's attention to expanding the LRT in a different direction. In this case West. To the West the city could connect the West Edmonton Mall, and many of the communities that have expanded beyond the Henday. Of course this will all depend on wether the city gets around to it. Edmonton has a history of dragging it's feet when it comes to public transit. It spent years planning bus rapid transit before realizing that in the end it's still just a bus. So now that it's set it's sights on a West LRT we can expect the same level speed and agressiveness that took over 30 years to get an LRT to the south of the city. One clear indication of this is the length of time it has taken between open houses and public hearings. Being delayed a number of times the public hearing is now scheduled for June 2nd 2009, more than a year after open houses laid out the planned route. I for one like the idea of an LRT and the route along 87th ave it makes economic sense and it actually goes to places people want to go. Mandel's plan of running it far North and away from his house totally ignores the idea that transit should go somewhere, LIKE THE MALL, and not end up in the middle of nowhere. One way or the other it will likely be 15 years before there's even a chance an LRT train will roll into West Edmonton Mall Transit centre.

Dion to quit, but stay on as leader

It's been said a good number of times that you should give your two weeks and leave. While it may seem like you just want to clean up a few times and have a chance to train the new guy it never seems to work out that way. Sometimes the best thing to do is just leave gracefully and walk away. Dion isn't doing this and it may be just so he doesn't have to deal with the infighting of whoever takes over from him before the next convention. For what ever reason he likely will leave the Liberals mired in their own navel gazing about what went wrong with the election at least until next spring.

1 Election Down, 1 To Go

Well Canada spent 270 million dollars and changed almost nothing last week. Though it will change who's leading the Liberal party. Stephan Dion was just never able to rise above the level of guy you would vote for to stop Steven Harper. It's unfortunate for the Liberals as they have been unable to really inspire any interest in their own ideas. So in the next 6 months or so they'll have another convention and try it all again hopefully with someone who will actually make people want to vote Liberal rather than just vote Liberal because they're afraid of Harper having too much power. It's expected that Dion will resign on Monday and let someone else try their hand at it.

Wanted: Charismatic Person to lead the Liberal party; must be willing to quit gracefully if they fail to become Primeminister.

On the other side of the border the Election is still in full swing with both party's driving hard into the home stretch. It looks from recent polls that Obama will win the election as he's been pulling away from McCain in the last few weeks. McCain's Choice of Sarah Palin was a risky gamble and it was looking like it would pay off for a few weeks. In the end though no one could quite get over the idea that if McCain has a heart attack a week after the inauguration Palin would have her finger on the big red button.

Wanted: Charasmatic Perons to be McCains running mate; must be non controversial.

A short digression from the Canadian election

Well while the Americans were having their election and a Canadian election just happened to break out. So I'll digress from the Canadian election which is kinda boring at the moment and look South ... look way South to the US.

Sarah Palin has been the target of much criticism from democrats, republicans, whites, blacks, well pretty much everybody over things not related to politics such as her family life. While the way you live your life can be a reflection of how you'll be as a leader it's not really that important. Though some have suggested that since McCain is pretty old she might have a pretty good shot at being leader if he doesn't make it through the term. The interesting thing though is how much attention she has managed to take away from Obama. I don't even know the name of his running mate and I can't remember hearing any major news stories about him. So whether she's good for McCain or not she's at least kept the republican campaign in the news. In the end I think that secretly alot of Americans actually recognize themselves in Sarah Palin, many of them have had teenage daughters who get pregnant and family troubles that have been embarrassing. So she might just help McCain make it to the white house, because Americans have quite a bit of the "hey they're just like me" feelings and that might just be enough.

The Green Party doesn't get to go to the party ... Oh wait now they do

Well I was going to write about how Elisabeth May, leader of the Green party is pretty upset about being cut out of the debate. But now I guess i'll write about the fact that shes now in the debate
It's kinda like their that kid in class that crys when everyone else gets invited to the birthday party but then the kid having the party feels sorry for them and invites them anyways.

The whole issue seemed to revolve around May's assertion that it was undemocratic to keep her from the debate. Of course it might be unfair but as elections Canada and the courts have ruled before the debate is not a part of the political process, at least not legally. There is no requirement to have a debate or for any of the leaders to attend. The Debate is put on at the desire of the media to have something to write about for a few days, and also over the hope that someone will make a profound speech or a fool of themselves.

Still it's probably better than the Conservatives and the NDP both decided to relent on their desires the keep the Greens from the debate. They can always hope that May blinded by the studio lights will suddenly state her secret desire to drive a humvee through a rain forest and hunt down something endangered.

The Secret is out: Oh wait what secret

Yup it's out all right the election is called and everyone is getting ready to beg for people to support them. The election call had the side effect of canceling 2 by-elections one of which was scheduled for the 8th of September. Based on the polling numbers the Conservatives have a good shot at a majority government but that may change in the next few weeks.

The ancipation in the media couldn't be cut with a Chainsaw.

Well if there's one group that's excited about another election it's the Media. The joy of covering everything from debates to whistle stop tours is a joy that resounds across all the channels. Though I'll have to admit that it will be kinda nice to hear something political other than the coronation of Obama.

Of course on the bad side we'll have to sit through endless ads about what they'll claim they never really promised if actually elected. While I'm not a big fan of the US style attack ads it is kinda funny to see an ad that just says "My opponent is a terrible person who kills puppies" and never mentions anything about what the guy paying for the ad is doing or plans to do.

Of course the Greens and NDP can promise anything they like in their commercials because the chance of them forming a majority government is about the same as of John McCain being a cover model for a swimsuit issue. An energy efficient society by 2012 sure it's not like we'll ever have to weasel our way out of doing it.

As for the Liberals well it's pretty much a toss up. If they had a more dynamic leader (read anyone other than Stephan Dion) They'd probably have a good shot. But since they don't Harper would have to do something reallllllly crazy to not get back in with at least a minority government.

Let the speculation continue.....

The Media frenzy about yet another federal election is still going strong even though it has yet to be called. Apparently the Prime Minister will take the short walk to Rideau Hall on Sunday and ask the Governor General to dissolve parliament and call an election. It does seem all but a certainty, The Conservatives are running election ads including one with a girl claiming she'll be voting for Stephen Harper... unless she lives in Calgary Southwest that seems pretty unlikely she may be voting Conservative but not for the Leader himself. All the speculation and the commercials do make it pretty clear that the call is near. The other parties are also going out and announcing their plans for Canada including the Liberals announcing plans for taxes on fuel and tax cuts for energy efficiency. The Green party is planning on going to court to be included in the debate and The Conservatives have said they won't come if the Greens are there. All this over an election that so far isn't official.

Election fever: Just like dance fever but much less fun to watch or participate in

Well the campaigning has started for the non existent election. All sources point to it being held on October 14th when the Conservatives figure we'll be to drunk on Turkey, Turducken or some other equally fattening substance to vote straight. Not that i'm saying the Conservatives have done a bad job . Actually far from it, they've run the most sucessful minority governement, probably ever. Though they did say they'd wait for 4 years it seems they've grown impatient and decided that giving up the right to call elections when they want was a bad idea after all and well they'll just call them when it works for them.

We'll see if any major issues emerge or anything happens to distinguish the different parties.. but so far ... nothing.

Who will I be voting for? who knows.. We're not even having an election yet.

Olympic medal count

Well just a note on that Olympic medal count. All the wailing and crying in the first week was for nothing and Canada came out with a medal showing tying our record for the second most medals in a non boycotted Olympics. I guess what the COC really needs to do is have more athletes in events that are in the first week just so that people don't whine so much. I'm also glad to hear that our athletes are getting a few extra bucks for getting a medal 20000$ for gold is nothing to sneeze at though I'd like to see it expanded to be 5000$ for a 4th and 1000$ for a top 8 finish just to recognize those athletes that really did very well despite not coming home with hardware.

The coverage of the games was good but a little odd. I thought it strange to see regular shows being shown during the day when they could have been rerunning events but I'm glad that they did do alot of live coverage even if it was at 3 in the morning. I hope CTV will not follow NBC's lead and decide that they'll only show the games in prime time.

Overall 5 out of 5 stars for the athletes and 4 out of 5 for the Olympic coverage hey at least here you can watch events live.

Olympic Medal Count

Well so far there has been a lot of hand ringing and wailing about Canada's medal count. all i can say is if you don't like it why don't you devote your life to a sport and win one for us. Seriously, numerous Canadian records have been broken by teams in swimming. People ranked 15th or 16th in the world have made it to the finals and they've all put on a great show. We've had a number of 4th place finishes and overall we're a pretty small country. Also a number of the sports we're really good at like rowing don't finish till next week so I think we can wait just a little longer and besides it's the SUMMER olympics so lets save our complaining for when we fail for the third time to win a gold medal at an olympics that we've hosted.

Good Luck to all the athletes you're all doing a great job.

Wireless spectrum auction results

Well the advanced wireless spectrum auction is over, finally. As for what we'll see once the dust settles and the new companies start operating a year or so from now it's hard to say. Globealive has a full country license and between Shaw, Videon and Eastlink the cable co's could make a go of it as a national carrier. Shaw has so far been the only company that has been very vocal about it's plans with Jim Shaw stating that they planned to be testing by the end of the year and launch in Calgary Mid 2009, with further rollouts planned in Vancouver, Edmonton and then smaller centres. There has been no mention from any of the new carriers as to what they may offer for plans but most TV speculation seems to focus on unlimited data, SMS and Voice for a fixed all in price possibly around $50 a month. That price for that plan would be amazing given the services it would come with, but certainly wouldn't make it a low cost option for people who just want a basic cellphone. We'll have to wait and see what they come up with. With all the furor over the new incoming message charges i'd expect to see some people clammering just to get to a new carrier. At the moment though it's all up in the air I'd expect to see the new carriers to start by naming their services and giving definate plans for a roll out date first then announcing pricing and plans very close to their launch date to prevent the incumbants from being able to make a competing plan right away.

Bell and Telus to charge for incoming text messages.

AHHHHH greed thy name is Cellphone Company. Seriously with all the complaints people have had about high prices of cellphones you'd think Telus and Bell would be working hard to show the value in their product. Apparently this is not the case and they have decided to just see what we'll put up with. I guess there is no point in having a virtual monopoly if you don't abuse it. I like the part in the article where they say they need the charges to cover increasing text messaging costs. What kind of costs would those be exactly? at the rate they're charging for a 160 character message that's about 11 characters per penny it seems unlikly that it is costing that much. Imagine if you got charged by your interent service provider 15 cents per e-mail or even worse an amount of a penny for every 11 characters you'd be having to sell the house to afford e-mail in no time. And yes i know you can avoid the charge by paying for a plan but that might set you back 5$ a month when you don't text enough to make that worth your while. There is of course another way to avoid the charge, you can switch to a competitor such as Virgin, Rogers or Fido. Granted if your stuck in a 3 year contract you're basically toast as the costs outside of the basic plan charges are not covered by it so you might be paying 3-5 $ extra a month just to get spam or messages from friends that you didn't really need. Personally I can't wait till the end of the spectrum auction and we get a look at some of the new players out there.

Telus and Bell get 0 stars out of 5 for changing their plans in a way that will drive consumers to seek other options when they look for cellphones.

Iron Man

Robert Downey Jr. Is out of rehab and back making movies. This movie does a great job of showcasing him at his best. He is funny, arrogant, a playboy, and a snappy dresser but you can't help but like him. Which is weird because at least at the beginning of the movie he is the head of Stark industries, one of the worlds largest defense contractors. He's pretty much the awful person that you'd hate to be associated with, however he's leading the life that we'd all love to have. The movie is really well done with great special effects and sound defiantly worth the watch in the theater. The movie isn't as cartoony as so many of the comic book based movies like Spiderman or the hulk. It also manages to avoid the type of love story type movie that Spiderman has become. While there's alot of sexual tension between Stark and Miss Potts his sexy and efficient assistant, nothing happens and I hope it stays that way in what i'm sure will be many sequals. One other thing, Stay till after the credits as they squeezed in a short scene at the end.

Final review Great movie, lots of action, and I only looked at my watch once.
4.5 stars out of 5.

Fog Lights

So with Gas Prices heading towards 2$ a litre every radio station, tv station and website is spending hours, or pages, telling people how to save gas. Everything from removing weight from your car 1-5%, using a lighter foot on the gas pedal 10-35%, or keeping your tires inflated 1-10%. All of these strategies tend to increase milage just slightly which is always good. The issue I have is that I see soooooo many people driving around with their fog lights on, and I can't understand why, having those lights on will reduce your gas mileage just the same are removing some small amount of weight from the car and they can be turned off with the flick of a switch and not require you to remove your safety kit from the car. The other thing is that it's just annoying to have some one in their big truck come up behind you and bathe the whole of your car in the light of all the lamps in front of the truck. It may also be Illegal in some areas. I would love to see car manufacturers take the lead on this they can make cars in which all maner of things have to be turned on each time you start the car, cruise control, defoggers etc. but for some reason they have left the fog lights (something you almost never really need) as a fixed switch that is on forever if you never turn it off. well here's hoping that someone will make that kind of change in a car/truck and stop the blinding/resorce wasting.

Your luck versus other peoples luck

Has it ever occurred to you that when you speak of luck happening to someone else it's more of an expression of "gee well they couldn't have done it on skill". But when you talk of luck occurring to yourself it's more that you feel that somehow your skill helped make the luck possible.

The example would be something like you were lucky to survive a car crash because if you hadn't swerved at the last moment you would have died, showing your driving skill. But someone else was lucky to win the lottery cause they needed the money, showing their poor state of money management.

How to profit from the world rice shortage but look like you're trying to do something good in 5 easy steps

1. Be Wal-Mart
2. Notice a worldwide food shortage
3. Announce that you'll now be limiting consumers to four times the amount of the product that they would ever normally buy
4. Let Panic buying and hoarding set in.
5. Sit back and let the money roll in.
This week in response to a global rice shortage driven by increasing prices, and low production, Wal-mart announced that it would be limiting people to four 10kg bags of rice per visit. Now I don't know what everyone else normally does but I have never in my life thought that I would need 40kg of rice in one shopping trip. Now if Wal-Mart was recording everybodies addresses and limiting people to 1 bag per month that would be some sort of limit. Still I bought 20 kg of rice in January and have yet to make a significant dent in the bag.
Despite the extremely high nature of the limit that they set, it has led commentators to spend hours talking about food rationing and panic buying despite the fact that there is none of this yet. This "limit" will lead to hoarding and panic buying in North America, driving the price up world wide and increasing the shortages in areas of the world that are already suffering. While shortages do exist in the developing world due to trade restrictions and higher prices it's hard to say that the pallets of rice I saw in Costco today really represent a shortage in North America. Though I have to admit stopping and thinking, "should I buy a few bags now just in case".


So Wal-Mart gets 0 Stars out of 5 for making a decision to create a potential for profit out of a crisis. And the Media gets 0 stars out of 5 for trying to raise their ratings by fanning the flames of crisis for their own selfish ends.

For The Long Emergency Somewhere out there an alarm bell is ringing

I've been looking over a book recently called "The Long Emergency" by James Howard Kunstler. The book has variously been called fearmongering and pessimistic and that probably is true. However being pessimistic doesn't mean that you're wrong. Though I guess it's worse if he happened to be not pessimistic enough. "The Long Emergency" details what will happen to the world when we run out of cheap oil, and everyone who can see the gas price can clearly see that his prediction is coming true. The book focuses on what will need to change in the developed world for us to survive the slow fade as we run out of oil and need to adjust our lifestyles to the new economy. But before the long emergency takes hold another emergency will take place. It will happen when the developing world of 2nd and 3rd world countries start to have food shortages as the cost of oil and transporting food rises and as food production land is converted BioFuels. This Emergency is happening now. The price of basic foods is increasing around the world and in some cases the price of staples like rice and wheat has more than doubled. While this will be annoying for people in the west where food takes up about 10% of income, it will be devastating to the developing world where food is around 80% of a families budget. While we in the west can survive a rise from 10% to 20% of our income for food through cutting back on what we eat and choosing to cut out a few extra purchases here and there. In the developing world this is not the case. If food costs you 8000 pesos out of the 10,000 you earn every month you may be able to survive, but if it costs 16,000 pesos out of 10,000 even with cutting back you will not be able to survive. It's hard to know how this emergency will play out, hopefully we'll be lucky and it will be over with quickly but it's hard to believe that at least some more people won't die as a result before we truely see the end of oil.

NHL Playoffs

Well It's that time of year again when hockey fans all over North America (ok who's kidding who, All over Canada) grab a two-four and a bag of something greasy and settle down in front of the TV to cheer for their favorite team, or it's substitue if their favorite didn't make it. This year as my Favorite team the Canucks and my back up team the Oilers didn't make it, I'm going hedge my bets and support 1 team from the East and 1 Team from the West. So Go Flames and Go Senators May you meet in the Final and really tick off Gary Bettman.

Dell to sell out to foreign interests

Now this may seem like a bit of a stretch to suggest that Dell would be no more. Only a few years ago Dell was the worlds largest PC maker. This is no longer the case as it's slipped to second behind HP and may soon slip behind other manufacturers. Dell was once a company with second to none service who's agents would give their best effort to try and fix your problem even if it wasn't with one of Dells products. Now with the Introduction of contracts where even the basic troubleshooting expires at the end of your warranty and the use of Dell On Call to force people to pay for things that were formerly free Dell is no better than anyone else for service and worse than some. So why would I say that Dell will sell out to foreign interests? Well recently Dell abandoned their direct to the customer model and just yesterday I learned that Dell would abandon the customization model meaning that you'd be limited in what you can get from Dell just as with other manufacturers. Now I could have understood a limited departure from the direct to customer model, perhaps Dell could have had their products carried at Costco or other members only warehouse stores. The decision to sell at Walmart marked the decision that Dell's products were no longer special and no longer anything more than just an average computer.
I think the loss of the customization model is the final nail in the coffin for Dell within the next year I see them announcing that HP (who yes isn't technically foreign) or Lenovo has agreed to either take over the company or to a "Merger" where the Dell name ceases to be.

Hilton Cebu Resort and Spa

The Hilton Cebu Resort and Spa is probably one of the pinkest places you'll ever go. Even the cars are pink and the drivers wear pink uniforms. This resort hotel was the location for my honeymoon. Located on a peninsula on Mactan Island near Cebu in the Philippines, It is only a short drive (470pesos 12$ each way by hotel shuttle) from the airport. We selected this hotel because of the Hilton Reputation, The Price and it's relatively close location to our wedding. We got the package that includes Breakfast and Dinner around 170$ a night. The whole package was well worth it for a honeymoon where we didn't plan on going out drinking and partying every night.
The Breakfast includes everything including a large selection of juice however the dinner does not include drinks besides water. The Breakfast is standard every day with a good selection of food including bacon, pancakes, a large selection of pastries, eggs, omelets, rice, fresh fruit, and far more of everything else than I have ever seen at a hotel breakfast buffet.
The Dinner each night is themed including a Chineese/asian night, a Philippino night, an Indian night and an International night. My favorite was the International night which included the best from all of the other nights. Each night included carved meat and a good seleciton of different cultural foods including roast pig, pizza, and leg of lamb. Every night had more food than I ever expected and there was certainly enough selection for any tastes. Also 2 nights they provided free local entertainment including dancers and cultural shows.
The hotel has a private beach and small lagoon which you can take a paddle boat out on for 1000 pesos (around 25$) for an hour. It is fun to get out in the lagoon for a bit in the boat but try to avoid doing this in the heat of the day as you could roast pretty quickly.
The room was lovely on the 15th floor of the building (while there are 3 only one is the hotel, the other two are owned and time shares) we had a full view of the ocean from the room and a nice balcony. the room had a dvd/cd player and a nice tv. As well it had a large bathroom with a shower and a separate tub. The shower unfortunatly tended to not drain quickly, however maintenance did look at it and I am assured that they will solve the minor issue.
I filled out the survey that was e-mailed to me from the hotel and recieved a nice response including proof that they had read the comments with ideas of how they would solve small issues I had raised.
Other things.... Well the hotel provides cold towels which are handed out to guests when they arrive and when laying out on the beach. The room was provided with bottled water every day and we had no trouble requesting more when needed. Also the hotel provides a FREE shuttle that runs to the 2 malls in Cebu 3 times a day. So you could go to both malls in the same day by taking the first shuttle and transferring malls on the mid day trip.

Overall 4.9 Stars out of 5 Because I had to pay for drinks with the inculded dinner.
Highly recommended as a honeymoon destination as you can have a quiet evening out on the beach area with almost no one around.

Jumper

Well I went and saw Jumper with my wife, it was a pretty good, if somewhat predictable movie. Though we talked most of the way through it so that suggests there were a few problems with it but, there was lots of action and a really cool concept so on balance i felt our 160Pesos was well spent. The action sequences in the movie are very well done and include many spectacular special effects, such as a car driving sequence with the car winking out of and into existence. There is a fair degree of violence in the movie, and the fight scenes include a lot of acrobatics. Hayden Christensen fits well into the loner role of the main character but he does seem a little wooden and stupid at some times to the point where you want to scream at the screen. Overall a good concept, worth seeing in the movie theatre for the special effects but some bits of the story are formulaic.

4 Stars out of 5 for a good action movie lacking a little in depth.

Giants win Superbowl.... Though I was really just watching for the commercials.

Best commercial: FedEx I really couldn't stop laughing at the Giant pigeons doing delivery. It had all the elements that make a commercial good. It's at least kinda about the product. It was inventive and it showed what would happen if you tried a competitor even if that one doesn't quite exist. Also seeing the disastrous consequences was really really funny.

Five Stars out of Five

Nobody Rewards you like Fido???

Now I've been a Fido customer for about 4 years now and have managed to amass around 100$ in Fido Dollars the only problem is how do i spend them? One would think that when i renewed my contract I'd be able to get that money off of a new phone. But that is not to be I have to purchase a phone at full price to use those dollars. Now I don't really need a second phone so that is kinda pointless. Well perhaps i could get some accessories? well kinda but only if I order them through customer service and have them shipped to me as I can't use them at the Fido store to purchase accesories. Also if I don't use the dollars soon, by the time my 4th anniversary comes up they're gone. So I guess I'll have to order some stuff from the website even though i kinda wonder why I'm going to have to make a trek out to UPS to pick up the package only to be told they can't find it.

Rating 2.5 Stars out of 5 as it's possible to get things using the Fido dollars it's just really really annoying.

Store Closing Everything MUST GO!!!

I hate to repeat myself but... sometimes there are titles that just seem to be too good to let go of. Dell will close it's Edmonton Call centre in the next 6 months with the loss of 900+ jobs. Dell, it appears, has run up against 2 problems, neither of which it had any real control over. One is the tight labour market in Alberta which has made it difficult to hire and retain employees. The other is the launch of Windows Vista or XP Millennium Edition which has made it difficult to sell PC's. Though to be fair to Vista the fact that computers bought 5 years ago still do 90% of the things a computer bought today do has made a new computer a tough sell. I know my next PC will be a Mac for ease of use and cuteness, besides if I want to play lots of games I'll just fork over 300$ and buy an XBox. But I guess that's life you get hired, you work, then the company/industry goes bust and you move on. Basically if I was one of the other Edmonton Call centres I'd back a truck up across the street from Dell and start taking in resumes. Good Luck to All from Dell It's sad to see the place close.

Store Closing Everything MUST GO!!!

I guess it's a bit of an interesting statement on consumerism when you feel a bit sad that a store, you never shopped in, and seldom visited , is closing. The store I mention is the Mounted Police Outpost which has occupied a small store front behind an elevator column at the far end of the West Edmonton Mall. It's not a swanky store or anything like that it just sells RCMP items like t-shirts and trinkets and has an interesting plush moose outside in uniform. The store, acording to the man behind the till has been there for 6 years and now it's lease is up. The mall has asked for a 40% increase in rent to continue the lease which ends up at 8000$ a month +10% of gross sales which is a sum that the store which gives it's profits to RCMP community policing efforts, could not afford. The store will close on the last day of January. It will likey be replaced by some vacuous chain store with no sense of pride and no sense of Canada. Whether i shopped there or not, I will miss the Mounted Police Outpost as it was a unique store in a mall that is becoming more mundane and same as every where else every day. I did do something different today though ... I decided to shop at the store and well being the thrifty consumer I am took advantage of the 50-90% off sales to buy some souvineer keychains and a t-shirt. Either way the store is closing but at least I can say I shopped there and I got a great deal. Oh and in case you're interested, the moose out front is for sale, for $500.

Telemarketers....

Now I know we all hate tele-marketers and their annoying interuptions, but overall I'm not too bad when it comes to getting a call. I'll listen politely then decline their offer and let them go. I don't have too much problem with them overall. But one particular company that uses a Demon dialer and a computer voice to send out calls is not one that I can stand. It's not cause they call me when i'm home I wish they would. It's cause they call me when i'm not home and leave part of a message on my answering machine. It's really annoying to come home and find a message only to realize it was left by a company that didn't leave their name or number. If they call when I'm home I'm so demanding a supervisor.

For being annoying and not leaving their name and number i give this company
0 Stars out of 5

House Hippo

Well all I can say is they really had my hopes up until they dashed them against the rocks of reality :-). Seriously .. who wouldn't want a house hippo it looks so cute. I especially liked the part with the little peanut butter footprints.
Of course the truth is that genetic engineering will likely one day bring us this type of thing. I do remember seeing a scientist on Larry King once saying he wanted to make HO (model train) scale cows so that you could have ones roaming around on your trainset.

The Great Flood vs Mega Flood

I just finished watching Perfect Disaster: Mega Flood on the Discovery Channel which lays out the problems and results of a flood due to storm surge hitting London. In the Docudrama the people in charge are portrayed as overconfident and almost bumbling as the water heads for London and the city floods before people are evacuated. In it's self this would just be pretty common for a docudrama except that before that i watched Paris 2010 the great flood. In both cases the cities do flood but the thing is that the leaders in Paris are portrayed as being prepared and ready for the disaster. Sure, things happen in Paris that they didn't predict but overall they're choice to react early and be honest with the public do result in people escaping and the city escaping serious damage. In London the story shows the over confident leaders being afraid to order an evacuation in case there is no need to evacuate. The 2 stories illustrate the problem in all disasters where there is a long lead time. Do you order the evacuation early and be hailed as a hero when there's 2 meters of water in the city, or do you order the evacuation and be called a scardy cat when the "flood" is nothing more than a trickle. Paris's choice to evacuate shows the correct decision but what if the flood hadn't happened and people spent a week in shelters for nothing??? In the end it's always the right choice to overreact and give the public an honest assessment that a flood/disaster is possible and that they should be prepared. While it's disruptive to send people out of harms way when in the end nothing happens it will eventually blow over. Nothing gets news coverage like bodies floating in the water.

Everybody's working for the weekend...

I guess the point of the song was to be working FOR the weekend. Not working ON the weekend. Though there are pluses and minuses to working the weekend shift. For the most part the crowd on the weekend are more relaxed and it's just a smoother day. But on the other hand it's just hard to get your head around working Saturday night. Though i guess someone has to be there, I know I get pretty whiny when I find out a store is closed on the weekend. While working on the weekend can be annoying It's really nice to get those days off in the middle of the week that you wouldn't normally get with a regular 9-5 job. As with every job it's a give and take some things are good and some things are annoying.

Overall i give weekend shifts 3.5 Stars out of 5. For the loss of social life but with bonus points for the chance to get out and visit goverment offices when they are actually open.

Night Shift in the winter

Ahhh the night shift.. i guess it's not really that bad in the winter.. realistically when you're working during the winter in the North you tend to go to work when it's dark and go home when it's dark. At least working the night shift you get to have some of the day for fun when it's light out. I'm not sure about the picture maybe that's just the way it feels during the winter like it's a long endless snowy path heading into the darkness. But it's nights for one more week after this. Then 2 weeks of Days.. so .. at least it's a consistent rotation.

To Start: How about a game

Well in the spirit of reviewing Wii video games. I'll start with a review of Battalion Wars 2. Now i never played Battalion Wars 1 but i hear it was pretty good. BW2 Makes good if sometimes confusing use of the Wiimote sometimes your ship or tank seems to be turning when you didn't want it to but over all it certainly makes a really good try at making the best uses of the motion controls and the aiming with the Wiimote. I can't really imagine trying to aim with an analog stick. The game itself is quite engaging and it's really fun to just spend allot of time blowing stuff up. Things do explode with quite satisfying bangs and showers of flame. The commentary provided by your commanders and the enemy in the game is quite humorous.. but can become a little annoying if you have to repeat a level a number of times. The biggest fault I could see in the game is it's lacking a 2 player co-op and battle mode on the same system necessitating the purchase of 2 copies of the game and 2 Wiis if you want to have your girlfriend join you in the game (provided of course you could convince her to play a game where all you do is make things explode). The wi-fi connection is pretty good the ability to play people not on your friends list also allows the possibility of fighting a real person even if none of your friends have the game yet.

Overall rating: 4 Stars out of 5