Election Day is over. I spent over six hours glued to CBC Newsworld, wondering how the election would turn out. Of course, I went to the polling station straight after work to cast my vote. I'm glad the Liberals kept their two seats in Alberta, the only two in the province. Unfortunately, the NDP do not have enough seats to keep the balance of power. I would have voted NDP, but I felt it would have been a wasted vote. In my riding of Edmonton-Beaumont, the incumbent, David Kilgour (Liberal), beat out his closest rival (Conservative) by a mere 131 votes. Mr Kilgour has represented our riding faithfully for about a quarter of a century, but the rural area south of Edmonton (part of the new riding) was a small-c conservative region, a fact that explains the closeness of the final count.
Today there was no free sample at Starbucks, contrary to what it said on the Yahoo! site. As a result, my friend and I paid for a full cup. We didn't actually ask for the free sample, we were hoping it was an unadvertised special. Everyone who ordered the new Frappucino light paid for theirs. (Maybe they were hoping it would be free, as well.)
Want a CD from pre-2003 for under $4? Better hurry, the bookstore at the UofA is clearing out all of their music. 80% off retail price! This deal is especially good for cheesy pop music that you wouldn't pay $15 for, but like one or two of the songs on an album (and if you are philosophically opposed to downloading music). To save you some time, if you like classical music, there's nothing good left.
24.6.04
On my way to work, the bus passes through the riding of Edmonton-Strathcona, one of the city's most highly-contested ridings. There is a good battle between Conservative Rahim Jaffer, Liberal Debby Carlson and NDP Malcolm Azania. (I guess with the environmental-ish flavour of the riding, it wouldn't be fair to exclude the Green Party's Cameron Wakefield either.) I have to smile everytime I think of Michael Moore and his idea that we shouldn't vote Conservative because that would break Canada's ethic.
"And that ethic says: 'We're all Canadians, we're all in the same boat. If one of us gets sick, that person should get health care 'cause we're all affected.'
"The American way is pull yourself up by your bootstraps: 'Me, me, me, me, me. It's mine. It's mine.' You know? Don't go that way. Your Conservatives are trying to take you that way."
Anyway, this riding has lots of giant lawn signs, propped up with large wooden frames from the three major parties. On Connors Hill (or is it Cloverdale Hill?) there is a house with a couple of these large Conservative signs where somebody crossed off the first two letters of the word "strong" from the phrase "For a strong Canada." He isn't too far off.
I wouldn't vote Conservative, an idea which isn't too strong here in Alberta. That leaves the Liberals and NDP. Here in Edmonton-Beaumont there is a candidate running for the Communist party. She might get a few votes for fun, I think, or from those dissatisfied with all the major parties.
My first experience in the river valley with my inline skates this past weekend wasn't too exciting. I climbed hills with my skates on, which is worse than walking uphill (because there's always the possibility of rolling down the hill backwards). I wore off the sides of my wheels, while doing this decreasing their lifetime significantly. My friend on his bike wasn't as unlucky. We went for coffee afterwards, a remedy for my blue toes caused by this climbing.
"And that ethic says: 'We're all Canadians, we're all in the same boat. If one of us gets sick, that person should get health care 'cause we're all affected.'
"The American way is pull yourself up by your bootstraps: 'Me, me, me, me, me. It's mine. It's mine.' You know? Don't go that way. Your Conservatives are trying to take you that way."
Anyway, this riding has lots of giant lawn signs, propped up with large wooden frames from the three major parties. On Connors Hill (or is it Cloverdale Hill?) there is a house with a couple of these large Conservative signs where somebody crossed off the first two letters of the word "strong" from the phrase "For a strong Canada." He isn't too far off.
I wouldn't vote Conservative, an idea which isn't too strong here in Alberta. That leaves the Liberals and NDP. Here in Edmonton-Beaumont there is a candidate running for the Communist party. She might get a few votes for fun, I think, or from those dissatisfied with all the major parties.
My first experience in the river valley with my inline skates this past weekend wasn't too exciting. I climbed hills with my skates on, which is worse than walking uphill (because there's always the possibility of rolling down the hill backwards). I wore off the sides of my wheels, while doing this decreasing their lifetime significantly. My friend on his bike wasn't as unlucky. We went for coffee afterwards, a remedy for my blue toes caused by this climbing.
19.6.04
Just before I mowed the lawn today, I saw a mosquito. Usually I just put up with mosquito bites but this year, you can't take any chances. So I searched for my mosquito repellent before starting. Since I am working on four hours of sleep today, I discovered that a good stress reliever is to pull weeds in your garden. Bonus points if the root comes out on your first pull.
The price tag on the S500 was apparently too high for my father, so he returned it and instead bought a bargain-basement, discontinued HP PhotoSmart 935 digital camera. It is 5.3 MP with 3x optical/7x digital zoom, uses SD memory cards and 2 AA batteries. The thing is a power sucker, and it takes a long time (~10 seconds) to write pictures to the card. 15 minutes of usage and the two 2100 mAH rechargable NiMH batteries are drained. Heck, the indicator goes down to 65% when you turn it on for the first time with the new batteries! Not bad value for $250, though.
I watched Fight Club at my friend Karl's house last night, along with Jeremiah and Arif. Then we watched and played along with the 1 a.m. Price is Right with commercial breaks filled with B.C. government-sponsored advertising. I suppose that is how small TV networks in northern B.C. find their dollars, because there is no target market in Houston, Kitimat or Smithers.
The price tag on the S500 was apparently too high for my father, so he returned it and instead bought a bargain-basement, discontinued HP PhotoSmart 935 digital camera. It is 5.3 MP with 3x optical/7x digital zoom, uses SD memory cards and 2 AA batteries. The thing is a power sucker, and it takes a long time (~10 seconds) to write pictures to the card. 15 minutes of usage and the two 2100 mAH rechargable NiMH batteries are drained. Heck, the indicator goes down to 65% when you turn it on for the first time with the new batteries! Not bad value for $250, though.
I watched Fight Club at my friend Karl's house last night, along with Jeremiah and Arif. Then we watched and played along with the 1 a.m. Price is Right with commercial breaks filled with B.C. government-sponsored advertising. I suppose that is how small TV networks in northern B.C. find their dollars, because there is no target market in Houston, Kitimat or Smithers.
17.6.04
Web-based email to your heart's content.
Apparently, HoTMaiL will increase their capacity to 25 MB, up from their 2 MB limit. The new capacity is is one-quarter of the capacity that Yahoo! offers, and one-fortieth of what Gmail offers.
You would think that Microsoft could afford to do better with all the money they make: 92% of all computers in the world run Windows. And unlike other web-based email services, spam actually counts towards your quota in Hotmail. Does this mean I will get 23 MB more spam now?
Apparently this change will take place in July, which conveniently coincides with their end of Q2 financial statements. If you can't wait for your own Gmail account, Rediff is an email service based in India that will offer you 1 GB of storage today.
Apparently, HoTMaiL will increase their capacity to 25 MB, up from their 2 MB limit. The new capacity is is one-quarter of the capacity that Yahoo! offers, and one-fortieth of what Gmail offers.
You would think that Microsoft could afford to do better with all the money they make: 92% of all computers in the world run Windows. And unlike other web-based email services, spam actually counts towards your quota in Hotmail. Does this mean I will get 23 MB more spam now?
Apparently this change will take place in July, which conveniently coincides with their end of Q2 financial statements. If you can't wait for your own Gmail account, Rediff is an email service based in India that will offer you 1 GB of storage today.
14.6.04
The Canon PowerShot S500 digital camera my parents ordered last week has come in. What's not to like about it? Five megapixels, 3x optical zoom in a case smaller than a box of cigarettes. The compact size also means that you need to buy proprietary rechargeable batteries (at $70+ each) instead of traditional AA ones, and may be non-existent (obsolete) within three years.
I signed up for the new Bonfire music service at futureshop.ca and received a $10 credit. Bonfire is a front-end for puretracks.com. After relegating myself to using two pieces of junk temporarily (IE and Windows Media Player) to access the site, and much browsing for good music (of which there was little), I settled for Audrey de Montigny's new album, which is mostly in French but still a pleasure to listen to. It cost $8.55. For a bunch of digital files with copy protection. Je peux toujours utiliser un peu de pratique sur mon français.
What else? I got an extension at my current job until the end of August. So I guess I was doing a good job, after all. This means I get to keep my cell phone as well. Not that I was becoming attached to it or anything...
I signed up for the new Bonfire music service at futureshop.ca and received a $10 credit. Bonfire is a front-end for puretracks.com. After relegating myself to using two pieces of junk temporarily (IE and Windows Media Player) to access the site, and much browsing for good music (of which there was little), I settled for Audrey de Montigny's new album, which is mostly in French but still a pleasure to listen to. It cost $8.55. For a bunch of digital files with copy protection. Je peux toujours utiliser un peu de pratique sur mon français.
What else? I got an extension at my current job until the end of August. So I guess I was doing a good job, after all. This means I get to keep my cell phone as well. Not that I was becoming attached to it or anything...
11.6.04
Too bad the Flames lost Game 7 by one goal. If only they didn't play so badly in the first minute of the second overtime in Game 6, this wouldn't have happened.
Anyway, we people in Edmonton are supposed to stop our love-in affair with Calgary. Ditch those flags. Donate your jerseys to charity. And on and on...
On Tuesday, dell.ca was a popular place to be on the web. One of their "upgrade" options cost -$1017, rather than +$349. That means you could get a Pentium-M (Centrino) 1.6 GHz notebook with 512 MB RAM, 40 GB HDD and 64 MB video card for less than $1300. Lots of people took advantage of it and ordered. But then Dell sent everyone an email to those who did and only offered them a 10% discount on the customer's initial configuration only. And no, I missed out on the "offer". Computer technology is going to *significantly* improve in about a month. So don't buy a new one just yet.
In other useless news, Microsoft patented the double-click in the U.S. The behaviour of this corporation is just mind-boggling.
Anyway, we people in Edmonton are supposed to stop our love-in affair with Calgary. Ditch those flags. Donate your jerseys to charity. And on and on...
On Tuesday, dell.ca was a popular place to be on the web. One of their "upgrade" options cost -$1017, rather than +$349. That means you could get a Pentium-M (Centrino) 1.6 GHz notebook with 512 MB RAM, 40 GB HDD and 64 MB video card for less than $1300. Lots of people took advantage of it and ordered. But then Dell sent everyone an email to those who did and only offered them a 10% discount on the customer's initial configuration only. And no, I missed out on the "offer". Computer technology is going to *significantly* improve in about a month. So don't buy a new one just yet.
In other useless news, Microsoft patented the double-click in the U.S. The behaviour of this corporation is just mind-boggling.
4.6.04
I usually take the #66 bus to work. This is because I always miss the #64 by about half a minute every day. This has happened every day (not an exaggeration) for three weeks now. So now I will leave 5 minutes earlier so this doesn't happen anymore, as the #66 takes a nice scenic route.
Anyway, on the #66 yesterday there was this woman dressed in camouflage-coloured clothing (with matching handbag), a bit manly and really short hair who had the urge to reveal her life to the bus driver. (She's not a regular on this bus.) The distracted bus driver in turn forgot to let a boy and his skateboard not one, but two bus stops too late. I, sitting in the back, yelled at the driver (for the boy) after he passed the first one, to no avail, because the message got lost in the chatter by the woman.
Things I learned about this woman (while I was trying to concentrate on reading my book):
- she wants to work for ETS but "not as a bus driver" because she only has a class 5 and 7 driver's license
- her salary went down this year because her employer told her her qualifications were insufficient (one year short of a BA)
- she believes women bus drivers are more compassionate because they don't drive over curbs, and brake properly
- she doesn't usually drink, but the night before she felt like drinking lots of beer with her friends and that's why she was tipsy
I noticed the chatter stopped as we approached downtown, wondered why and looked up. She was sleeping, probably because she was hung over.
Today I met my friend K. at his new digs in downtown (Edmonton City Centre East). We sat in front of the City Hall pool and chatted for about an hour. It was a beautiful day, and K. noted that weekdays at lunch are the only time you will ever see a busy downtown. I appreciated the break from staring at a computer screen for four hours.
I also in-line skated in public today. It went pretty well apart from my skates loosening a bit when I got to Mill Woods Park. The braking was minimized by grabbing onto poles when rounded corners or at intersections or by jumping on to the grass. I'm now ready for the big time - and the whole purpose of getting in-line skates - the city's river valley trails.
Anyway, on the #66 yesterday there was this woman dressed in camouflage-coloured clothing (with matching handbag), a bit manly and really short hair who had the urge to reveal her life to the bus driver. (She's not a regular on this bus.) The distracted bus driver in turn forgot to let a boy and his skateboard not one, but two bus stops too late. I, sitting in the back, yelled at the driver (for the boy) after he passed the first one, to no avail, because the message got lost in the chatter by the woman.
Things I learned about this woman (while I was trying to concentrate on reading my book):
- she wants to work for ETS but "not as a bus driver" because she only has a class 5 and 7 driver's license
- her salary went down this year because her employer told her her qualifications were insufficient (one year short of a BA)
- she believes women bus drivers are more compassionate because they don't drive over curbs, and brake properly
- she doesn't usually drink, but the night before she felt like drinking lots of beer with her friends and that's why she was tipsy
I noticed the chatter stopped as we approached downtown, wondered why and looked up. She was sleeping, probably because she was hung over.
Today I met my friend K. at his new digs in downtown (Edmonton City Centre East). We sat in front of the City Hall pool and chatted for about an hour. It was a beautiful day, and K. noted that weekdays at lunch are the only time you will ever see a busy downtown. I appreciated the break from staring at a computer screen for four hours.
I also in-line skated in public today. It went pretty well apart from my skates loosening a bit when I got to Mill Woods Park. The braking was minimized by grabbing onto poles when rounded corners or at intersections or by jumping on to the grass. I'm now ready for the big time - and the whole purpose of getting in-line skates - the city's river valley trails.
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