Going into work was ok yesterday but snowing to beat the blazes. I worked my way through about 4 inches of snow through the parkade and across the street divided by snow drifts a foot high in the middle of 106th St. I hope the City has that cleared going in for latter today. The first half of the shift started out slow. Everybody was getting CC sales except me. The back wall of our tap section was consistent high totals and so was my isle mediocre low totals. The only thing worthwhile last night was we “were watching” was “Return of the Jedi.” Otherwise the night was crap. Not just that but M & L were laughing beside me so loud I couldn’t hear the customer. I had to shout out and say something. I didn’t like doing that but come on already.

I tried calling Anne at break but couldn’t get through. Performance wise I did a bit better in the 2nd half and I got a few CC sales for a $15 bonus. I was glad to get out of the office and it had stopped snowing and warmed up a bit. I got the train home and read more of “Runner.” So far I’m enjoying the book. The writing is accessible and that’s what I like.

I watched Raw last night. On a scale from 1-10 I’d rate Raw a 7. It was a pretty good show. Chris Jericho getting fired, the return of Ted DiBiase. I enjoyed the show and Anne made me a nice lunch.

And from the silly but strange department it seems that 2 Google searches from a desktop computer generates about 7 grams of C02 but wait didn’t “Al Gore say he invented the Internet?” This is misleading and you can read more about it here when my end of the Internet is up to speed I‘ll provide a link. But if that’s the case then and if those environmentalists want to keep their credibility, they better toss away all their computers into the nearest green bin they can find. The average person btw produces roughly 450 litres of C02/day or about 900/grams. So multiply this by 8 Billion people. That‘s 7, 200 000 000 kilograms of C02 being generated by people around the world each day. Over 7 trillion games of CO2 we humans generate. I mean if we’re to believe the global warming environmental alarmists that CO2/green house gas emissions are man made caused by human activity, which most people realize they‘re not.

Other items: Coast had an interesting show on the US economy and all it is mostly bad news. Yes the markets are all down Monday but yeesh why can’t they at least attempt to paint a positive picture of some kind, anything. The guest (David Smick) was mentioning how each bank in the US has petty cash set aside total to the estimated amount of $50B+

Over there on SF Signal they’re reviewing Mike Resnick’s “Starship” series. All of these books are in print and I think I’m going to order the series. Books 1-4 are out. I’m beginning to enjoy military SF.

I added a couple of links to my links page. “Jerry Cornelius’s Blog” and Eugene’s (ByThor) Blog. Eugene’s Blogging isn’t as frequent as Jerry’s.

And of course what would a Tuesday be without a cute cat photo. This is of Pledges, my 18 year old. Hard to believe I’ve had him for 18 years as of June 1991. I was 38 years old at the time chasing after Mary a girl that lived down the hallway from my bachelor apartment at the time in the early 1990’s. We were just friends and nothing ever happened between us but it was her and her roommate Tracy that picked Pledges out for me at the Westmount shopping mall pet store. The pet store is long gone of course and so is the $100 I paid for Pledges. Money well spent. The other cat photo is of Sporty. I took this a few days ago.

I don’t catch a lot of news on weekends but I did miss a very interesting story. This was most likely mentioned on CHED radio (Coast) but a house fire occurred (South side) Saturday night while the home owners were away. Of course most house fires don’t occur in the Green of summer. It could have been any house. Happens often in a big city. However this home belonged to retired Suncor oil executive Jim Cater. Fire investigators have said that this was a work of arson due to several molotov cocktails and neighbors heard the sound of broken glass coming from outside to confirm this. Speculation has it that this could have been a work of Eco Terrorism at least that’s what they Peace together. I have my suspicions of who the culprits are, cough-cough. I'm just sayin' 

From the Rant department: Speaking of oil and such, today hundreds of oil sands trades people (most of which come from Nova Scotia-NS) are leaving the oil sands in doves. They go back to NS because they can live off of a better EI check then they could here in Alberta. Sure oil is under $40 a barrel but in a few months from now oil could be back up around $60 and these trade workers will be flying back. It’s the Union that lays them off. Well Greenpeace wanted a slow down in the oil sands didn’t they? But not on their terms.

The running joke in all of this is that the “have not provinces” are complaining that Alberta isn’t spreading its wealth around. Hello? Well we are look at all the jobs that people from other provinces and foreign workers have picked up here over the last several years. And these people have the gaul to whine when they get a job for $12-$14 an hour saying Alberta isn’t spreading its wealth around. Yeesh. And when times go bad they run back to their own Province where EI claims are much higher there then in Alberta and play this game back and fourth between good times and bad times. Nothing against foreign workers, at least they stay and stick it out when times get tough here. So these oil sand laborers making huge Union money they save it all up and live on EI. They pick up part time jobs at home. “Oil sand jobs are picking up again honey, lets ride the bus back for Fort Mac’s gravy train. Tell your mom to look after the kids.” And I know what I’m talking about. My father did the same thing from Vancouver only instead of playing the shell game he stayed here with his wife. They spent about 7 years riding the Alberta economic gravy train in the 1970’s but packed it up in late 1979 to retire back in our home town of Coquitlam. They didn’t come back loaded either. I’m not saying that it’s a bad thing to get a job here and then go home when times get tough here, all I’m saying is don’t whine about Alberta not spreading its wealth around, we do. Just look at how many people get jobs here from Ontario and other Eastern provinces. The foreign workers that come here that don’t speak English, I wonder if they’ve even heard of Edmonton before: “Canada, right?”

And finally one last thing. “How to hallucinate with ping-pong balls and a radio.” Thanks to the link from Coast. You can read about it here.

Anyway Bloggers, that’s all for now.

e. Jim