By now most of you have heard that Rogers has reached an agreement with Apple to carry the Iphone here in Canada. Reports are saying not to expect the phone until the end of the year. These things are about as pricey as a Blackberry. I think the next cell phone upgrade I’m going to get will be an Iphone. Now if it only came with an AM radio.

A God/s Fight (AGF) out of MSN has been a message board I’ve been going to for quite some time since 1999 when it was a busy chat room. Occasionally I go there and post responses to posts. This morning I responded to about 6 of them. One in particular about this recent food shortages and it’s official. Food shortages at the agricultural level are because farmers are using the land for biodiesel fuels instead of food. I also discovered replies can be sent to ones inbox. I like this. See AGF in the links section.

For years the Alberta Govt has had strict regulations about the environmental impact of the tar sands toxic tar pools. This has never boded well with me. We need the tar sands because they are (for now) our only engine to economic growth here in Alberta. Yesterday hundreds of ducks went and landed into one of these toxic ponds. Hundreds of birds were killed.

The Alberta Govt has strict policies in place to protect the environment when it comes to the tar sands and measures have been in place for decades to prevent this sort of thing from happening. So what went wrong? Some blame the weather from last weeks snow storm. These toxic ponds apparently have warning bells of some kind that have kept birds and other wild life away for years. Now the Alberta Govt is in damage control mode and groups like Greenpeace who have been championing the cause to end the tar sands are now saying “I told you so.” Ok, so one accident in all of decades of strict safety measures to prevent this sort of thing from happening. This has been the first time such a thing has happened. I’m all in favor of shutting down the oil sands project if Alberta had a back-up economic model. But even though Asian trade and Prince Rupert are barely on the radar screen we don’t have a back-up economy. I feel bad for the ducks. We need a better way to dispose of these toxic pools. This has been one of the things I’ve never liked about the tar sands but without the oil sands we’d be knee deep in recession here in Alberta.

Wow, we’ve got a lot of rain out there over night and still coming down. About 21 mm, that’s almost an inch of rain. We need the moisture. We’re lucky if we get about 155mm rain every year. About 8 inches.

Not much going on today. I got up about 6:15am to do the cbi thing and then went to bed. I had trouble sleeping after that. I think I finally got to sleep around an hour later. I think I got about 6-7 hours of sleep.

This afternoon, it’s off to work for my 5-9 shift. Last night I had a pretty good night doing ASRAB and CPA. I think I pulled in about $775. Most of my total was on semies. No credit card sales. Some days are like that. I barely managed to catch the train after work last night running into the doors as they were closing shut and I got a seat to myself to boot. I got home early enough to watch the 3rd period of the Detroit/Av’s game broadcast out of Denver. Wings won (my team in the pool) 4-3 taking a 3-0 series stranglehold on Denver. Sorry J.

Last night I got into a 1996 pod cast featuring Timothy Zhan talking about his Star Wars trilogy at the time. It was fun to listen to. Also, Cory Doctorow & John Scalzi interviewing each other. Bacon on a cat? Too funny. Thanks SF Signal.

Still reading Ps. Uggh at this rate, I won’t finish until Labor Day. It’s got some good story lines in it and the book is easy to read. Not on a YA reading level or anything but also not on a Charles Stross reading level either. I can’t read Stross. No offence to the writer and I have 3 of his novels but people don’t talk like that in real life like his characters do. He’s a great writer just now my bag. Too over the top for me. I’ll stick with Peter F. Hamilton and Neal Asher. Stuff I can understand.

Speaking of tech toys and all Anne and I are still waiting for a pension fund cheque to come in. If we can get it that is. We’ve gone this way before but things have changed now since she’s reached the age of her funds maturity. We might not get the cheque to get our 42” HD TV. I’m not holding my breath or anything. The hardship request went in last Friday. It’s only Wednesday so it’s still to early.

Anyway Bloggers, that’s all for now

e. Jim