What Have I Done? Why, I Got Myself A New Friend

Meet Sam. Sam's my new friend and living in my apartment. Sam measures 50" diagonally and came with a 6 month free rental of a High-Definition PVR. I got Sam just in time to see Jack Bauer in HD goodness tonight.

Sorry to those of you who thought I actually got a time machine... I'm still working on that. And for those who couldn't guess... Sam is short for Samsung.

Comeback City: Part 2... AND 3

Thursday night curling update... Last night we played the top team in our group. After the last two weeks of terrible play, we weren't expecting much, and the game started out proving that. We went down 3-0 after the first two ends. We were able to get one point with the hammer in the third end, but then we put it together and stole points in the next 4 ends to go up 7-3 after 7 ends. We figured that the other team would conceed the game at that point, but they wanted to play the last end. No problem, we thought... we just got to stop them from scoring four points or more.

Yeah, it didn't quite happen that way. Mucking up the ice by not taking anything out, we allowed them to put four rocks in the four-foot, thusly tieing the game. It was heartbreaking, but there's only so much a second can do.

However, not all is lost, as we go into the last game of this part of the season with a 2-2-1 record. If we win, we should be promoted to Group A for the last bit of the season. So, we may throw the game to stay in Group B. We'll see.

Oh yes, on another note... Today is the day.

All Good Things...

"The Good Times Are Over!" (23kb .mp3)

So, it's the day after the election. The conservatives won a minority, however it's not a strong minority. The NDP, while winning more seats than last time, did not win enough to have a balance of power within the minority goverment. However, having said that, I don't expect another election very soon. As bringing the government down would have to include the Liberals, we will be election free for a while. With Paul Martin planning on stepping down from the leadership of the Liberals, a race for his position will be on. A new leader won't be chosen for a few more months, and then, I would assume that the Liberals would want to have their leader in his (or her?) position for a while before facing an election. I think this minority will last for 3 years.

However, I must now express my sadness with the defeat of Roger Gallaway in Sarnia-Lambton. With the Gallaway's being family friends of our, and my mom working in his constituency office, I certainly enjoyed some good times with regards to federal services, etc over the last 12 years. For example, I have my official House of Commons daily planner on my desk right now as well as House of Commons magazine holders holding old copies of National Geographic and ITE Journal. I suppose what I'm most grateful for the co-op term I spent in Ottawa in 2000 when I had my job for the then Regional Municipality of Ottawa-Carlton. Not that he got me that job, because I got that myself through the University of Waterloo co-op program, but I did get to rent out the spare bedroom in his downtown apartment. An apartment that was the third floor of one of those nice heritage homes... it was sweet. Not to mention, since it was going unused, I got to park my car at his parliament hill office, instead of paying through the nose for downtown parking. That was also the term where I got to attend the Liberal Christmas party, during which I got to pee beside Paul Martin.

Yeah, I had it sweet. I know that. But another side effect of all this was that I actually got involved and interested in politics during the last 12 years. All in all, I'm pretty thankful, and wish my mom, Roger, and everyone else who worked in the constiuency office and in Ottawa a happy retirement or good luck in what they do next.

Sure, I'm a little disappointed. But all good things must come to an end.

Stupid Democracy

Well, that's the last time I ever endorse candidates... my endorsements apparently work like poison.

Election Endorsement

So, as it's customary for major national publication to endore a party or candidate, and seeing how Matt's Blog Is Stupid is a major national publication, I humbly submit my endorsement for Election 20X6.

Vote for Roger Gallaway in Sarnia-Lambton! Why, you ask? Simple. It'll keep my mom in a job in the Constituency office, and that always gives me quick and easy access to government services. C'mon, I know you want to.

But what if you don't live in Sarnia-Lambton? What if you live in, say, London-Fanshawe? Well, in that case you should vote for Dan Mailer, whose dating my cousin. Because I could alway stand to know more people in high places.

Anyway, so the polls suggest a Conservative victory, which means that Paul Martin will be on his way out of 24 Sussex Drive. That's a shame really, if for no other reason than he's the only leader of a party who I've peed beside in a public washroom. That's a good story, I should tell you sometime. But, no, I didn't take a peek... get your mind out of the gutter, gosh!

There's a couple good websites I've found that try to predict the outcome of the election riding by riding. My favourite is The Election Prediction Project, which has been around since the Ontario provincial election of 1999, and has quite a good record of success. The other is democraticSPACE.com, which uses some complicated mathematical formula to predict each riding. This one claims to have good record (only off by no more than 4 seats in total for any given party), but doesn't show the riding by riding result of the last election, so who knows how close it is on a riding level, but it should be pretty good on a national level. Personally, I'd like to see a minority goverment where the combination of the governing party and any one other party can get a majority vote (ie. the combination of the Conservative vote and NDP vote can pass a bill).

An endorsement for my own riding (Kitchener-Waterloo), you ask? Well, alright... vote for Edwin Laryea... but don't tell anyone I told you that.

Go vote, if you can! If you can't, I still love ya.

What Have I Done? Part 2 - Now With A Shocking Twist!

A followup... last Monday I made an overly dramatic and well, to be honest, quite lame post indicating I had done something quite out of character suggesting that it was eating me apart from the inside threatening my very moral fibre of my being. Ok, I'll admit it was quite over the top. So, I'll take this time now to inform you, my loyal readers, of what happened.... I bought me an HDTV at Bestbuy. Not just any HDTV... a 50" Samsung DLP rear-projection TV. The whole point was that spending that kind of money was quite out of character for me. Now it wasn't an easy decision as I had been mulling it over ever since Marty moved out with his HDTV back in August, but I sucked it up and made the purchase. It felt kinda good, actually. Since it was a super deal, Best Buy had sold quite a few, and they were out of stock of my TV. That forced me to buy it on Layaway and wait until it came in stock. Now, here comes the shocking twist...

I went back to Best Buy today to cancel my order.

What happened that made Matt cancel the purchase of something he's been wanting for so long? Did his thrifty side kick in while waiting for the TV to come in stock? Did he realize that he'd rather spend that money on a Carribean vacation? Did he make a vow never to watch TV again (not bloody likely)? Find out on another installment of Matt's Blog Is Stupid!

Falling On Hard Times

After a stellar start to the second part of the curling season with two wins, our team has struggled as of late, losing the next two. There are two games left in this part of the season, so one more win and we're still guaranteed a .500 record, but I don't think we'll be advancing to the A division for the third season. That's ok... we're just waiting for the playoff to bring our "A game." Boo-Yeah

Holy 75" TV, Batman!

I've recently come into possession of my work's video projector. My boss is on vacation, so it needed to be somewhere where we could get at it if needed. So, what's the only logical course of action during a time like this? Hook it up to the video games and cable box, of course! It sits on the coffee table, and I sit in the dark, basking in all it's bigly goodness. 75" diagonally (of course I measured it). The only drawback is that it's not high-def or anything, so the large size kind of amplifies the limits of the resolution. But I'm not gonna let that get me down, because giant Mario Kart makes up for everything!

What Have I Done?

Matt says...

"What have I done? This isn't happening... What have I done?

You think you know a person, and most of all, you think you know yourself. But then I go do something like this.

What have I done?"

What is Matt talking about? What did he do... or what didn't he do? What foul evil deed haunts his very soul?

Find out in another installment of Matt's Blog Is Stupid!

24 Is Back, Baby!

Election 20X6

I had real grandiose plans this election to be on the cutting edge of politcal commentary, making note and exposing the asinine and condescending quotes that the politicians spew out on a regular basis. It didn't quite turn out that way. I found out that actually paying attention to stuff like that really depresses you. Another thing working against me is that I find that I'm not really rooting for someone in this election. It's like watching a hockey game between Anaheim and Nashville... you like hockey, so you can appreciate the game, but you're just not into it like when the Leafs (or whatever your favourite team is) play. But I digress...

So, it looks like we'll be having a Conservative minority if things keep going the way they're going. One positive to take away from that is that it looks like the Conservatives may actually score some seats in Quebec, which I feel having another viable federalist party in that province goes a long way for Federalism. And another thing... you gotta feel for Jack Layton and the NDP. No matter what they do, and no matter how many people say they agree with them the most, the Liberals are continuing to persuade the "soft" NDP vote to vote Liberal just to stop the Conservatives. Seriously people, vote for the party (or candidate) you want to win. It's only way you'll ever get what you want.

Two more weeks until my favourite TV night. That'll make it all worth it.

Old School Sting vs Knights

I was in for a treat on New Year's Day as I went with the fam to the Sarnia Sports and Entertainment Centre to see the Sarnia Sting play the London Knights. This was the first Sting home game I've been to in over a year. Now ever since the Sting moved from the Sarnia Arena to the SSEC, the atmosphere has been awful at OHL games in Sarnia. Maybe things have changed (unlikely) or perhaps it was because there were a good number of London fans there (likely), but this was a great game to be at live. In the first few years of the Sting being in existance, the Sarnia-London games were always bigtime rivalry games... Lots of intensity, hits, fights, and players playing like they really wanted to win. I think it has lost it's edge since London was moved from the West division to the Midwest division, but last night you couldn't tell. It was the second game of a home and home series, and it started with a fight (which actually is kind of lame). Anyway, the past two years, Sarnia have really been a horrible team, while London... quite the opposite. But Sarnia prevailed this time, winning 5-2. There was a nice brawl with a few minutes left in the third, and some superfans were able to distract the London bench. It was not a good night for the Knights.

Anyway, to top it all off, at the end of the game all the Sting players lined up on the blue line and saluted the fans by raising their sticks. I thought that was really cool. I don't know if they've been doing that all season when they win at home (which really can't be all that often) or if all OHL teams are doing it now, but I thought it was a great idea, and it really makes me want to root for them the rest of the season.