Monday, January 23, 2006

Feels Like You're Waiting For The Sky To Fall

It's election night in the Great White Nord, and I feel nothing but an impending sense of dread: Three reasons:

1) The Conservatives will likely win a minority government.
2) I predicted that the Liberals would win a minority government. (that's okay, so did Air Farce)
3) The Conservatives could possibly win a majority government.

For interest's sake, let's take a moment and read Canada through the lens of our closest neighbour.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/americas/01/23/canada.election/index.html

It's not as if they are factually incorrect. There is just something about the token article from CNN gracing the web that makes me laugh. How much often do they pay attention to anything else that goes on in Canada? Funny.

I am still wondering if we are going to experience an odd numbers phenom and see the first Liberal-NDP coalition in years. With the spectre of the Blockheadbecois clouding that radar, it makes it very unlikely.

Ah well. I could wax philosophic on this subject for hours, but I think I will wait for the victory speach of whomever wins this farce. Then you might see some real predictions of the year to come.

Adios.

Thursday, January 19, 2006

Guns Don't Kill People...

Oh wait. Yes they do. They certainly did in "Lord of War". Krista and I watched that tonight. After I finished playing Halo II with my brother. Let's just say that I entered the movie with a healthy desensitization to violence. Not that the movie was excessively violent. Whatever that means. It was more of a character study of a gun runner played by Nicholas Cage. I am not overwhelmed by most of his performances, but he did succeed in making you neither hate nor love his character. Which is difficult considering that he was playing a man who supplied weapons to the worst murderers and dictators in the world.

Aside from that, it was an average day. I walked home from work, which offered a great opportunity to decompress from the day. The only thing I didn't like was the huge frigging hill at the end. I hate hills. And stairs. I frigging hate stairs.

I'm still avoiding commenting too much on the election. I'm still traumatized by the piss-poor job that Martin's campaign managers did. It makes me sick to even think about it. Soon we will get to drown our concerns in useless tax cuts, fulfilled excessive spending promises, increasingly privatized healthcare, assaults on minority rights, and all of the other bags of goodies that Harper and friends will give us after January 24. Maybe I should write more soon, and make some predictions so that I can say "I told you so" four years from now when the crud hits the fan.

Wednesday, January 18, 2006

Yes, I'm a Negligent Monster

Yep. I'm setting new records for not posting. I just can't seem to get over this writers block. My excuse is that I spend all day at work writing emails and reports and god knows what else, so feel little inclination to further write at the end of the day.

That, and I always see other blogs that wax philosophic and share (mostly) hilarious every day insights and literary analysis, and feel that I have to share something similar. At one point, I was telling myself that if I couldn't write along those lines, I shouldn't be blogging.

Well, to hell with that. I was inspired today by two different things that made me rethink this whole approach. One was my grandfather. He makes daily records of the weather, and any other basic activities that filled the day if they are of interest. I took a browse through his book, and found it neat that he has recorded such basic details. They take on neat sense of history when examined a year later. Especially if you're pushing 81, and have difficulty remembering what happened last week. (hey, he jokes about it more than I do) The other was my friend Ian. He follows the same pattern, and posts online. Basic and to the point. It is a lot easier to review after the fact. I don't know about you, but I just don't have the time in my life to read half of the garbage that I write, let alone the stuff that others pump out.

So here goes.

It was day two today of work in terms of the great email assignment experiment. Basically, people were complaining about other team members not reply ing to their fair share of emails sent to us by the public. So I have put in place a system where I assign them instead of people picking emails out of the common box whenever they like. It was actually pushed by other members initially, and it has so far worked. Not all reacted favourably at first, but these things take time. After work, we had hamburger helper. Which only agreed with one of us. After, I went to my grandparents, and we talked, and played cribbage. I lost both times, getting skunked by 50 points. It was brutal, but we had fun doing it.

I'm now at home with Krista and the cats. Have to go to bed soon because I'm getting up early to walk to work. For my health. And because we have one car. That's another story.

Election is coming soon. I don't think anyone in their right mind is going to want to call this one.