Last night before work I went to get a bag of “Cheese Pleasers” and a bottle of diet cola at the drugstore. One of the more tastier bottles of pop I’ve had in a long time. The afternoon shift was just winding down and people getting cheques and I got mine at the end of the line up. Most places usually do a direct bank deposit but because of the high turnover rate at my place, forget it. I got to my dialer and the tap shooter isle was filling up fast by 4:55pm. Friday nights there’s nothing to worry about same with Saturdays.

I had a good start to the night and it was steady going. I got 4 CC’s for another $7 bonus. Anne said she’s going to order Her vacation pay hopefully before cutoff and this way I’ll have enough for my website and Lodge dues plus I’ll have my bonus money and a full week. Anne has her vacation pay accrued as well since last September.

After work I had Anne on the cell walking over an icy parkade freezing my hands holding a bag of cans and keeping my back pack shouldered up. I broke the connection heading by Tim’s and I went to wait for my train at Corona with Mike waiting ahead of me. He’s a good kid I work with on taps but I only needed the train that came by to Central station and up to the street level and to the banks ATM’s. I was so tired I forgot to put the envelope into the ATM machine slot. Having a check of everything together, and my withdrawal cash. I hurried down to the trains and no sooner did I sit down the Clairview light chimed for the train. I was able to read some more of “Runner” on the way home.

I called Anne at Clairview. You have to really pay attention because those buses come whipping around the corner. They’re in and out of the station in a hurry. I had about a good 15 minute wait. Kids filing in people on cell phones, not a good environment to hunker down with a good book. But a Northgate bus pulled in and I had Anne on the phone again and talked with her up to the set of lights up here and home.

She had a nice roast cooking for us as well. Mash potatoes and pees. She bought the roast for 1 cent. The markers were distracted or something and the price checker just ran it through without thinking. It wasn’t a very big roast or anything but enough for 2 working people on a budget. We watched the local news and I was back on the computer shortly after midnight.

Incidentally, for you horror buffs out there, I found a pretty good website on short horror fiction “horror masters .com.” I personally like Gothic and traditional horror as I was weaned on horror and science fiction at about the same time. In my teens I loved “Dark Shadows” in the 1960’s. Surprisingly there are very few novel adaptations of the old vampire. One of my favorite horror stories of all time was a story by an American writer, Charlotte Perkins Gilman “The yellow wallpaper.” Angus Moorehead did an adaptation of this for radio some years ago. It’s mainly a feminist Gothic/Horror story but I loved it just the same. One of my other favorite traditional horror stories was Edgar Allan Poe's "The Cask of Amontillado." Allan Parsons project did a song on this. I have other short stories in the Gothic/horror tradition but these 2 are my most memorable short stories in this genre. I’m not really into modern types of horror like King or Anne Rice. Nothing against these writers but being a science fiction/fantasy fan the last 2 authors mention are not high on my reading list. But this year I’m going to read more horror fiction.

Anne left out of here about 40 minutes ago and she’s just now filing into work. I’ll get a call on her first break shortly before 3pm. At least we have access to some cash to pay my last 2 bills so that’s ok.

And the markets seem to be improving. At least the price of oil is recovering slowly, sitting at $46 for the weekend and that’s pretty good. I’d say if this keeps going oil should be at $50 by the end of this month and on the upward climb. The day’s of $100/$145 barrel oil are not sustainable but local news still is talking about recession this recession that several references a night. But $50 oil is still good. Oil is better at $70 of course and that’s more or less sustainable (in the past) from April-September. When oil is at $60 by the end of February watch all of these Nova Scotia trades people hop on the plane for the Alberta gravy train. But we’re not at $70 oil yet or even $50 but it’s going to climb and get there sooner then latter.

What’s interesting is Harper’s budget of over $30 billion for a sustainability package for Tuesday voting. The NDP said they’d reject the budget out of hand but the Liberals will want to see it first. At least they have better credibility then the NDP who have never been elected to Parliament since Confederation began. NDP are mostly for Union workers that get fat pay cheques and a lot of perks the rest of us don‘t get and are a minority in the Nations workforce overall. If the Liberals say the budget is acceptable, then we’re going to an see economic recovery here in Canada by the end of the year. The NDP is rejecting the budget because they don’t like the PC’s not for the sake of the budget itself, which would be about the same thing if the NDP got elected and passed one of their own. Fat chance that‘s going to happen. The NDP think they’re doing Canadians a favor by sending us to the polls again for the 4th time in 4 years. What to get a better deal and so that they might get 2-3 more seats in the House of Commons? This tells me the NDP is nothing more then a self serving fringe party no better then the “Greens.” The Coalition Government for those outside Canada not in the know, is The Liberals (Democrats) The NDP (Far left) and the Block (Separatists) Personally the Block should have no business in Canadian politics in the first place. So, needless to say I’m a little anxious about this budget Tuesday. Anyway Bloggers, I’ve got to go, I hope I’ve not insulted anyone today see you all latter.

Anyway Bloggers, that’s all for now.

e. Jim