For someone who totally sucks at golf I get an unusual number of compliments on the quality of my swing. And not compliments from people suck an equal amount but people who are quality players who shoot in the 70s.
globeandmail.com: B.C. carbon tax kicks in Canada Day
Dear Trish O’Brien,
I know there are other people like you and that the Globe and Mail article only mentions you and Margaret Moon and only includes your respective comments but you’re an idiot (and so are the people that agree with you). Allow me to retort to your stupidity (and that of Ms. Moon) in a childish, offensive manner that retains a factual basis (except for the insults):
“The government should look at themselves first before they look at tackling little guys like me,” said Trish O’Brien as she filled up her fuel efficient Suzuki Aerio.
I hope when the government looks at itself it sees taxpayers and citizens cause that’s who put them in power and who pays the bills. That being the case I hope when they see a major social issue that needs addressing in order to help its citizens that it would implement policies that address those issues. Oh, you know, like GLOBAL WARMING. This applies even when it’s not in the interest of the government in power to do so as the opposition will likely put together a cheap campaign (I’m looking at you Carole James) that’s designed to pander to stupid people who can’t do math ($100 tax rebate is more than $50/yr in carbon tax).
BTW: If you were so environmentally conscious maybe you wouldn’t have bought a Suzuki Aerio, a car with some of the worst fuel economy figures in its class. Maybe you should have gotten a Honda Fit or a Yaris, cars that are similar in size and utility. (Note: I drive a car that has figures worse than her car but it was the most efficient of the choices on my list)
Ms. O’Brien said she wants to see consumer incentives to go green from the government before being hit with taxes.
The government *IS* offering consumer incentives to encourage people to go green, it’s taxing products that are environmentally unsound and thus encouraging to pursue other alternatives to your environmentally destructive ways. You know, like gasoline! The government also has policies in place that encourage people to trade in their polluting old cars for new cars, it’s called Scrap it. Oh snap, you’re a moron.
“I think it’s b.s.,” said Margaret Moon of Victoria. “If they wanted to fight climate change they should have done it a long time ago.”
Yes, since they didn’t start dealing with it 25 years ago when scientists first brought it to our attention they, therefore, shouldn’t do anything about it now despite the science becoming clearer and the effects of it becoming extremely obvious (no Arctic ice this summer? Awesome!). Are you an American that voted Republican?
She said she’s not convinced that fossil fuel use is entirely responsible for global warming, citing past ice ages, and she considers the $100 government cheque a form of hush money. “That’s kind of like giving a baby candy to keep us quite for a while,” said Ms. Moon.
Yes, it’s not entirely fossil fuels fault. It’s all the methane that comes out of your ass you stupid cow. All that methane coming out of your ass (and your fellow cattle) are a significant contributor to global warming and guess who decided to eat tonnes of beef? You! (Note: I’ve largely cut beef out of my diet). So while the match we’ve applied to fossil fuels is not entirely to blame for global warming, it is certainly the greatest cause for it.
As for your ice age suggestion, how does that apply to global warming? The ice age was caused by the *cooling* of the earth, global warming is about the *warming* of the earth. I sure hope you don’t eat cold chicken and drink hot beer.
P.S. Globe and Mail, what stupid writer did you allow to write this? Or what editor decided that an article with no factual standing should be published? Are you guys pro-global warming? Ok, you’re not as bad as Rogers but you’re not making friends with me.
Shopping in US for Canadians is like digging for gold in 1849 San Fran or drilling for oil in the 19th century: you’re going to find stuff you can’t believe.
5qt enamel cast iron dutch ovens for $30? Hellz yeah!
Energy bars for half the Canadian cost? Yep
Dress shirts for half? Of course
Shorts for less than half? Certainly
Wine for half? DAMN!
Ahhh, another Pixar movie. Can’t wait! The reviews are so far stunning – it’s miles ahead of #2 Iron Man on Metacritic right now.
My Pixar ranking:
1. The Incredibles
2. Ratatouille
3. Finding Nemo
4. Monsters Inc.
5. Toy Story
6. Toy Story 2
7. A Bug’s Life
8. Cars
I love Pixar movies but hate Dreamworks’ movies – the pop culture references are lame, the humour weak and the storylines are always boring. Dreamworks makes movies to make money, Pixar makes movies they want to watch.
I keep a reasonably tight eye on my fuel consumption, not because of fuel prices (I don’t drive enough to really care) but because it’s just another way to measure my driving. If my fuel number starts slipping I know I’m probably wasting fuel as my general routes aren’t that different. My car is rated at 9.6L/100km in the city and most of my driving is in the city so I shoot to keep my number under 10L/100km which I usually do although the last tank was a race to the finish (9.86L/100km).
For this tank I’ve decided to see what I could do to save fuel and the early results are quite impressive, I’ve improved my numbers by over 15%. After about 16 litres of gas I’ve covered about 195km which works out to about 8.2L/100km. That’s pretty amazing as I haven’t changed my routes, I’m still driving to the same places but I’ve implemented a few changes into my driving style to find the extra mileage.
On my last tank I got 500km on 49.3L and right now if I used the same amount of gas I’d get just over 600km. Not bad at all. At $1.45 a litre that’s a nice savings, it’d lower my fuel bill from about $70/mo to about $55/mo. If you drive more it could add up to a lot more.
As to how I did it, I drive a manual and I started short shifting a lot more – I’m upshifting as early as 2000rpm (and I’m keeping it under 3k), I’m lifting earlier when I see traffic slow up, I’m slipping out of gear a little bit earlier. It’s extremely boring stuff but it all adds up. If I was more disciplined I could probably squeeze another 5% out of it.
Not a bad way to help save money and slow down the heating of the planet.
Update: For reference the improvement is 24mpg to 28.6mpg
Been meaning to write this but haven’t had time. I’m not a stickler for great service as I just don’t get worked up about stuff but I certainly appreciate it a great deal and I absolutely hate bad, stupid service. I’ve worked in the customer service business for many years – both in call centres and in retail and the level of competence in both fields is usually remarkably low but I’ve had several very good experiences recently. To wit:
Eyes Inspire – Charles, the Senior manager, provided me with honest, straightforward service. He misquoted the price of the sunglasses I was looking at and chose to stick with this lower price he had quoted even though I didn’t ask about it nor did I push him on it. I checked out a couple other stores and his quote was indeed truthful and the other stores opted to lie to me about their pricing. The Eyes on Burrard salesman even quoted me a much higher price even though I could see the pricing list as I was next to him. Highly recommended.
Apple – I had a problem buying a QuickTime plugin on their site and had to call sales and the sales rep was very apologetic and very willing to try to fix the problem for me despite it being a $30 item. He eventually transferred me to a customer service rep who was equally friendly and while they didn’t solve the problem they were helpful and never made me feel stupid in anyway nor did they want to get me off the phone which is a miracle since most of these people are timed.
WestJet – Flew WestJet up to Calgary on business last week and the flight crew was cheerful and actually appeared to want to be working for WestJet which is something I never see with North American airlines. The plane was clean and well-lit and the whole trip actually felt pleasant despite the cattle car sized seats.
Rex Grill – Took Dad out for Father’s Day at Rex which is located in the financial district. For a place in this area the food was very reasonably priced ($280 for 5 of us) and the service was terrific. Friendly, unpretentious service that was helped by the fact that it was a quiet night. I would go back to this place in a heartbeat – this would be a great place to have a guys night out where you drink several bottles of wine (very reasonably priced).
Bad:
Dell – I needed to order a restore CD for my laptop as it didn’t come with one (Dell was trying to cheap out on everything back then) and I found a page on the US site that allowed me to order one for free. The US one was for US customers only so I went and found the Canadian version and filled it out. All was fine except the Dell rep wrote me back to tell that Canadian customers don’t get email support and I would have to call for help. FAIL. If you’re not going to offer email support for Canadian customers then don’t let me write in. How hard is it to figure that shit out? (Fixing these types of problems was actually part of my job 2 jobs ago and I was very, very good at it but I was also about the only person who gave a shit about this type of stuff)
Any good or bad to report?
It’s always said that eating more fish is good for you but there lies the obvious problem that there’s not enough wild fish to go around and the farmed stuff ain’t exactly environmentally friendly.
For example I enjoy a nice slab of salmon and generally prefer the fattier farmed Atlantic stuff but how exactly do I balance that out with the knowledge that these fish farms typically do a great deal of damage to neighbouring waters and in some cases they are the cause of death for some wild salmon runs. Eating the wild stuff just ends up killing off the wild stocks.
What say you?
A mini-history of the web. I have this terrific book called Dealers of Lightning that details the early era of computers where guys like Taylor, Metcalfe, Alan Kay, Alvy Ray Smith etc basically created what we have now. They were decades ahead of the rest of the world. Well worth reading.
Oh man. I don’t get sick often and I rarely get food poisoning of any sort, even the really mild upset stomach type but this round of food poisoning has been rough. 2 days long with everything but bloody stool. Right now I think I’ve taken too much Pepto Bismol and my lower intestines are clogged up so I’m way too gassy and I can’t clear it (at least that’s what I think it is).
Jesus. This sucks.
The only upside is that the U.S. Open has been on TV from 8am till 7pm both days I’ve been sick, at least that makes the food poisoning bearable.
Oh yeah, also making it more bearable is that Ernie and Ron both have it too (in unrelated meals).
Report Takes Aim at ‘Model Minority’ Stereotype of Asian-American Students – NYTimes.com
Waste of money? Why would you want to fight a positive stereotype? You don’t want people to think we’re smart?