Random commentaries from a random mind - June 2011

Another month (approximately), another round of happenings and goings on to comment on.  Let's start with a little celebutard, shall we?

Lindsay Lohan, perpetual jail (avoidance) bird

How does this girl do it?  She routinely breaks the rules, flaunts the law, and just generally makes a tabloid-lover's wet dream of herself, and yet she still isn't in fucking jail!  Are you kidding me?!  Honestly, there are few words to describe my complete lack of understanding of this situation and lack of balls in the justice system when it comes to celebrities in general.

Heaven help all those little girls that she is a 'role model' for, can't wait (well, yes, I can) to see what she has up her sleeve next.

'Nuff said.

Vancouver riots

My favourite image from the many taken during the riots.
Make love, not war people!!  Photographer: Rich Lam

Ignoring the obvious question of why was there was a riot in the first place, the recent media frenzy has shown that it wasn't just "criminals and miscreants" that were looting, vandalizing, and just generally making asses of themselves, which comes as no surprise to me.  Have you ever seen a pack of dogs?  You can take any one of those dogs by themselves, and they are the sweetest, happiest-go-lucky pup on the planet, but put them in a pack in a situation that is exciting to them, and it's a mob mentality baby (unless maybe you're a part of Caesar Milan's pack, but I digress).  People are no different.  The miscreants may have started it, but they aren't the only blame to lay here, even some well-heeled, (apparently) upstanding citizens have been pegged in pictures.  

I'd also like to point out that the frenzy surrounding the identification of the troublemakers via photos and video on social networking sites is really no different than the mentality that prevailed during the riots.  Only difference is no cop cars are being burned or overturned.  Vigilantiism, while seemingly honorable according to Hollywood and whether through implied threats or actual actions, is still illegal.


Seriously people.  There are better things to riot about in this world than your team losing the Stanley Cup.  Those that started the riot and participated may want to move to a location where they would have good reason to riot.  Might make them appreciate what they have here more.

THE Royal Wedding

Honestly, while not participating in the frenzy surrounding the wedding of Will and Kate, even I have to admit it was a spot of 'happy' in amongst all the 'sad' that generally dominates the news.  So I really got nothin' bad to say here other than congrats to the couple.  I'm sure you've fuelled the dreams of a new generation of little girls who want to find that prince someday, and may you be/become fantastic role models to those that are still entranced by royalty.


Gas Prices

Compliments of:
http://cheezburger.com/Asset/View/4708796928

They're up, they're down (kinda), then back up... where will it end?!  Oil companies try to blame federal and provincial taxes, governments try to blame oil companies and greed... reality is it's the consumer getting screwed in the end.


Just a few points here...

1. Somebody is getting rich (not me or you I assume... well, maybe you).
2. The government tax rate on fuel doesn't vary on a daily or weekly basis.
3. It's all based on supply and demand (maybe mostly... there's other theories out there).

Solutions?

1. Drive less.
2. Develop an alternative fuel source.
3. Become an oil baron (or baroness).

Myself?  I've adopted the 'drive less' philosophy (the others are beyond my mental capacity), which is hard because I live a good half hour drive from the nearest major centre.  My appointments and errands are now all co-ordinated, and there has been a lot more "I don't need that right now, it can wait for another day" conversations in our house.  The bonus?  My car will last me a lot longer as well.


Beyond all that, I got no other opinions on going-on's recently.  May you all have a fantastic Canada Day/Independence Day long weekend.  

Ciao!

It's a rainbow-rific kinda day

God/the Universe/<insert your deity/power here> decided this morning that I needed a bit of a pick-me-up and presented me with a very lovely rainbow. Now I did need a pick-me-up (see previous post on this subject), and it was appreciated. Way to go God/the Universe/<insert your deity/power here>, you rule! 

The well of black gold at the
end of the rainbow.

As I was driving, however, I started wondering just where the end of the rainbow and promised pot of gold was. Initially, as evidenced by the picture on the right, it appeared there was no pot of gold but perhaps a well of black gold at the one end.  I'd have taken that in a pinch, but I'm sure the company that owns the well may have taken issue. So then I started contemplating the other end of the rainbow, hoping that it held better promise.

Much to my excitement, the other end appeared to be somewhere near my work!! How fabulous would that be if I came into work and found a pot of gold?! I sure as hell wouldn't be hanging around for the rest of the day, I tell you what!

Sadly the further I drove, the more it became apparent that the other end of the rainbow was nowhere near my work, and my hopes of walking out the door with a big ole 'sayonara!!' were dashed. I'm thinking the end was maybe a Tim Horton's or something, although those places are more gold mines than pots thereof.

Curse you, optical illusion!!! Oh well, at least the colors were pretty.


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The census man

Recently, our federal government decreed that by law every Canadian citizen had to fill out their census form. The goal? To be able to more accurately gauge our fine country's demographics, and ergo, our needs.

Now while I have other theories about the actual goal of this new law, I'll keep them to myself and instead leave you all to exercise your imaginations and speculate wildly.

This all seemed like a fantastic idea at the time, but the department tasked with the census, Statistics Canada, has epically failed on the follow-through, given our experience and those of our friends and neighbors that we have talked to.

We were all supposed to receive a paper survey in the mail, along with a secure access that allows one to complete the survey online. Why a secure access code? I have no idea.

Well, we received neither. Instead, we received a politely worded little reminder reminding us it was law to complete our survey.

Not wanting to spend the rest of my days incarcerated, I phoned the number provided to see what was up. I was told that yes, there had been a big screwup, and a secure access code would be arriving in the mail shortly, and would I mind completing the survey online? No problem.

Fast forward approximately three weeks, and still no access code, nor paper survey. One afternoon there was a knock at the door and lo and behold, it is some poor unfortunate soul from Statistics Canada. Once we were done pulling the dogs off him (they were happy to see him, honest), our names were recorded and we were handed a paper survey to fill out.

And then he was gone.

Gone, unfortunately, before I realized there was no magic code on the paper form he had left us with so I could dispense with the annoying paper and do our survey online. Not only that, but we didn't even get a return-addressed, postage-paid envelope in which to return our paper census survey.

This is shades of the recent correspondence we received from Canada Post regarding a change our rural address is undergoing for which we had to return a form. It did include a return-addressed envelope, but no postage (which, ironically, it did require). But I digress...

So a week later I still have not bothered to fill out our census form, waiting in (likely) vain in the midst of a rolling postal strike for a magic secure access code which may never come. Might be time to bite it and fire up the pen and pony up some dough for a stamp.

I tried calling one more time, however after being informed the wait to speak to an agent would exceed 10 minutes I decided I had better things to do with a beautiful afternoon.

My tax dollars hard at work.

Fantastic!






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