Without Lube...

So, a friend here at the office is excited this morning. He tells me: "Gas is down 2 cents and its the long weekend, wow!" At first i buy into it, thinking, its payday, good time to gas up. But its a temporary high, and i quickly wake up. Gas is down 2 cents a litre to just under $1.30 ... 6 months ago, its was 0.95...

You know what bugs me about all this? I live in Saskatchewan, i travel to Alberta regularly. There are hundreds of unemployed oil rig workers currently in Alberta. The oil sands are running full steam, but half the oil wells in Alberta are capped at the moment, as Big Oil has pulled out. Due to the royalty increase by the AB government. Doesn't this seem wrong? shouldn't there be some regulation committee from one of our north American governments saying...

"wait a minute, If you want to do business in this country, get those rigs going, or we will find someone who wants to exploit our resources."

The other thing that pisses me off is the difference in gas prices south of the border. a vast amount of Canadian oil flows south to the United States of Gas Guzzling SUV's. Why is it that we here in western Canada are paying $4.93 a Gallon for gasoline when the Mobil on the corner of 1143 Atlantic Ave & Bedford in new york is selling it for $3.89!!! Our dollar has been at par with the american dollar for 6 months now, so that isn't it.

Canada EXPORTS its oil. The USA Imports a majority of its oil. The refinery is 200 miles from where i fill up, and yet my fuel is more expensive than a New York cabbie's? How can this make any sense to anyone?

I guess my point is that generally Canadians at the moment, are getting bent over, and Lube is too expensive...

Facebook sucks.... but Digg Rules.

I've always considered myself big social networker. I use email more than i pick up the phone, i use text messaging, I post on dozens of forums, i use instant messaging, Trillian is a godly program. But Facebook? who's insane idea was this? Its like a virus. I signed up for this thing because i heard so much about it. Everyone and their... cat. Has a facebook page. At first i didn't see the point. I added my sister, and my fiance. I found it mildly amusing.... And then it started growing. I was under attack. You remember that giant screen with all the little nuclear strikes on it from that movie War Games back in the 80's? thats what it felt like, my sister's freinds friend of a friend has added you as a friend!

you've been invited to play pimp warz?!
you've been given a sticker!
your mother is has gotten a kiss from random dude_04!

it never ends, my mailbox just fills with this crap.

And peer pressure makes it even worse. I have a lot of female cousins. Am i willing to get the nasty talk back and phone calls if i deny them as a friend, or delete them from my list...

I understand that i could probably filter most of the crap out with the proper settings, but do i really want to go through that much hassle? I shouldn't have to filter out that your cat has a new outfit Jenny... nobody else cares either... stop posting about it!
.....

The rant is not supposed to be until tomorrow, so I'll move on to digg Digg Rocks. Power to the people to choose their content. I'm a little late to jump on the digg band wagon, but get me a hat and I'll yeeehaw with the rest of them.

So Yeah.. dig rocks.

Obama VS Hillary VS McCain

C'mon folks. Just get it over with already. I don't see what the problem is here.

McCain symbolizes a continuation of the Bush era. I think we have all had enough of that.

Obama is a good speaker, but is unelectable. From what i've read, he's barely american.

Clinton... She's a colder hearted version of her husband... who's years in the whitehouse brought nothing but prosperity to your country.

... this should have been an open and shut case long ago. and Its getting a little old.

Just vote Mrs Clinton in for her thrird term already and get off my news feed.

Wednesday's Rant

So the middle of the week... hump day. The day during the week when the weekend is too far away to care,The Calgary Flames just bombed out of the playoffs, and soemone usually pisses you off so much you want to rant at the world.

Every week, i'll plan to post one of my rants. I have many, and ranting into the void of the inter-web (2.0??) seems like a good place to do it. However! i'm going to start by reposting something from a madtv sketch i've always held dear. It dates me somewhat, but whatever, a classic is a classic.


(Comedian Craig Anton walks onto the stage, looking angrily and wearing only a towel.)

Craig: You know what I hate?

Audience: What?

Craig: When I drop my toothbrush near the toilet! Yeah! You know what I hate?

Audience: What?

Craig: Using it after I drop it by the toilet! Yeah! You know what I hate?

Audience: What?

Craig: When I get that little hangnail, that little piece of skin. I pull it, and I pull, and I pull...that little piece of skin past my ribcage! Yeah! You know what I hate?

Audience: What?

Craig: Hootie! I hate that guy! Hootie I hate, but I love the Blowfish. I love them! What are you doing with that Hootie guy? Get away from him! Run little blowfish, run! You know what I hate?

Audience: What?

Craig: Country music! Yeah! I dunno what country that’s from but it sure as hell isn’t mine! I’d like to get ‘em on a bus and...put ‘em in the bus and take them down to the equator, you know, put hats on ‘em and then ...put ‘em right out there and put honey on their hats and let the national guard of equator...land come out and just put their hands in vices so they have that little twangy drawl, that... gggyyeeeeaaaaa....Yeah!

(Someone on the set hands Craig a drink and he takes a sip.)

Craig: Thank you. You know what I hate?

Audience: What?

Craig: When my underwear goes way, way, way, way up my butt! No wait, I like that. You know what I love?

Audience: What?

Craig: Spring in Minnesota! Oh, when the snow melts, and there’s money and gold on the ground, or maybe Grandma after she ran away at Christmas time. But you know what I hate?

Audience: What?

Craig: That guy on TV. You know that guy who’s always on TV, always going...on the TV, eeeee-eee-eee, he’s got that thing, ee-eee-eee on TV...I hate that guy! You know what I love?

Audience: What?

Craig: Halloween! There’s nothing quite like the look on a little kid’s face after he takes a bite out of a caramel covered onion! Yeah! You know what scares me?

Audience: What?

Craig: Vans with no windows! You know what I love?

Audience: What?

Craig: Kitten pie! Haha... Did I say kitten pie? I meant pecan pie. Pecan... You know what I hate?

Audience: What?

Craig: When somebody says something to you and you can’t think of something to say back to ‘em. Like that one time I saw the guy from TV, with the thing, you know, and he’s talking to me, and he says something to me and so I couldn’t...but I got something to say now. Shut up stupid!! Yeah!!

(The camera slowly zooms in on his face.)

Craig: That’s it.

Earth Day - I don't see any Earth

So its spring right? Wrong. Here in this little corner of the world its been a beautiful spring. I've had the BBQ out for a month, cleaned off my deck, and had stopped wearing a jacket. Wonderful!

On Saturday i woke up to blizzard. The poor sucker that lives next door to me parks outside and had 2 inches of freezing rain coating his vehicle. It's supposed to be cold like this for another week. What the hell is going on with the weather? And this is just here in the Canadian prairies, I haven't seen so many hurricanes, Tsunami's and earthquakes in the news ever.

This brings me around to earth day. I've never celebrated earth day. Frankly, i don't celebrate many "days". But it seems to me that climate change on this magnitude requires more than a day. How about an Earth Month? or an Earth Century... something.

Into the Void

So here it is. I've finally succumbed to the ideal that someone out there cares about what i have to say about something.

I guess its not all bad. I suppose it is an expression of hope that i set out to write about my many cynical ponderings and questions. And, expect that somewhere in the many-faceted cesspool that is the inter-web, someone will care enough about what i say here to have a thought, or... just maybe, respond with an opinion.

As you can tell already, I'm not the most upbeat person. Since birth it seems, my cup has been half empty. I do very well with just half that cup though, thank you very much. I've been making lemonade out my lemons for a long time... and I even think I've found that someone who's life has given them vodka.

In any case, this posting is just a test. Hopefully more substance to come in the future.