Vote 2010

It was municipal election night in Ontario tonight. About half of the people/answers I put a mark beside turned out to be winners. I was really surprised by the outcome of the fluoride vote... a narrow victory for the "no" side. I don't personally mind that our water won't be fluoridated, but I just found the "no" campaign was mostly based on fear and ignorance. I hear it called a "poison" and the phrase "evidence suggests there might be adverse health effects" when any major (reputable) medical association I could find said that there's nothing wrong with it. Then there was the "we're not sure, so better safe than sorry", which is one of the worst arguements that anyone can use for anything... being not sure (uninformed) is pretty sorry.

I have this nagging suspicion that there's a swelling of an underground "Tea Party"-like movement happening in Canada. It seemed that every candidate had in their platform that taxes should never be raised more than inflation. Not that that is a bad idea, but the way it was always thrown around made it seems very disingenuous. Is there any jurisdiction in Canada that ties taxes directly to inflation? I'm not sure... at least I've never heard of one.

And the point of tax increases brings me to the subject of LRT (light rail). It seems after approving the project, asking the other levels of government to pitch in financially and getting the funding, almost all the regional councillors are now calling for a reconsideration of the project because they think the Region's financial portion is too much. What I ask is did they think that we wouldn't be on the hook for some of this project locally? Did they think that the other governments would reject the funding, allowing the locals to be able to say that they tried... but then the Feds and Queens Park called their bluff? Do they think there's no cost to not having this project built and running in say, 30 years time? How many widened roads will we need that we don't have space and money for? Do we want to shape our cities to be an all-driving-all-the-time adventure?

All that and I think it's humorous that Toronto elected Rob Ford. That'll be fun to watch (but it also fits with my underground Tea Party theory).

What's the Trade-In Value on a Law Degree?

So I just started up a new video game I purchased: FIFA 11. I went through about 3 "Terms of Service" type documents that I had to agree to to be able to just start the game. Since when was it necessary to be a lawyer to just play a video game? The documents are so long (like so many others that come with software) that it would take an hour to read. So obviously, I didn't read it and just said "agree". Maybe I just gave all my earthly possessions to EA Sports, I don't know.

Seriously EA, it's just a video game, not a real estate transaction.

Is It Still A Band If It's Only One Person?

I downloaded a few new songs for Rock Band this week (Bob Marley, The Tragically Hip and The Doobie Brothers, FYI). It got me thinking, though, that I might be the last person I know that still plays Rock Band anymore. No matter... I'm still really looking forward to Rock Band 3.

Goodbye, Uncle Bryan

I don't really know much of what to say at times like this, so it'll be short.

So long, Uncle Byran. I love you and I'll miss you.

I'll see you later.

Post From A Nerd With Too Much Disposable Income

I bought a new computer today! I've been meaning to get a good gaming rig for a while, and the recent release of Civilization V has finally pushed me over the edge. I trust that this one will be able to handle any game out on the market and last for quite a few years.

I'm excited, because I've got a few games over the last couple years which I've been able to run on my work laptop, but not to the optimal performance. Now I have a personal PC that I can keep my own stuff separate and save my laptop from the extra work.

For those that are interested, specs:
Intel Core i7 870
1.5 TB HD
12 GB RAM
ATI Radeon HD 5770 (1 GB)
DVD Writer/Blu Ray Drive
and so on.

As a side note, as the sun was setting tonight, I saw a full on double rainbow all the way across the sky.



What does it mean?

What Happened This Past Week

I took a "vacation" week this past week, and it included a 3 day trip to Cedar Point. We went down on Tuesday, got Starlight tickets, then had 2 day ride and slide tickets for Wednesday and Thursday. All the while, staying in Hotel Breakers, right on site. Being the last full week of the summer, lines were fabulously short. Many rides were walkons, including Raptor, Magnum and Gemini. Longest lines included Millennium Force, Top Thrill Dragster and Maverick, of course, but none were longer than 30 minutes. We even did the water park, which is a first for me.

I think I've decided that there's no reason to not go on weekdays... it's completely worth the vacation days and the crowds are just so much smaller. Also, staying at Hotel Breakers is completely worth the extra $50 or so just for the convenience.

Next year, I'd like to try weekdays in early June. I think the crowds could even be less at that time.

Goal over the winter: get back on the weight loss, so the rides aren't quite so tight. I got on everything alright, but some were close.

What Happened This Weekend

We ended up 2-2 at the tournament this weekend and in 3rd place, which was our most likely finishing position going into it. The kids weren't able to pull of an upset, but made it exciting taking Guelph to all 7 innings, losing 7-4.

Now... back to my regularly scheduled life.

All Good Things Come To An End... Baseball Too

This weekend the baseball season ends for us, appropriately with the season ending tournament. We finished the regular season in third out of five, a couple games over .500, so it can't be considered a disaster at least. However, we had a terrible time trying to beat both Guelph and Kitchener and it got a bit frustrating as some games we were real close to them and some we were just blown out. We managed a win versus Guelph and a tie versus Kitchener over the course of the season... together with all wins versus Cambridge and Woodstock, we ended up with our third place.

Well, we got one last chance versus Kitchener tonight, but it was one of those "blow out" games. It will be hard for us to make the final now, as Guelph had already beat Kitchener (it's a round robin format). But nonetheless, we still have three games to go and at this age, I just hope they're having fun out there.

I'll have to reserve my thoughts on the experience of coaching for a later date. I'll say this though... we had our first practice in February. It's been a long season.

Well, That Was Needlessly Complicated

I tried updating the look of my good ol' blog here, but with all the alterations made to it over the years and it basically being a hybrid of the classic blogspot, the new blogspot and haloscan (echo) commenting system, the experiment was a complete failure. I couldn't get my title to display right (since I deleted that widget to get that picture up top) and I certainly couldn't get my comments to go back in. Good thing I saved a backup of the template first. Seriously, I should just let go and revert to the default commenting system on blogspot here.

Not Hiatus. Writing Drought.

I haven't had much to write about recently. Truth is, usually I don't but can find something inane to post anyway. But I can't even make something up this time. Since September of 2004 (almost 6 years!) I've managed to post something every month, except for one. I'd say that's a pretty good track record.

There have been many blogs started by people I know, and most of them quickly fizzle out, some after less than a month. That's too bad, because I think the blog is a great way to keep up to date with the happenings and opinions of friends... much better than Facebook. I can understand how it can get discouraging if you have a streak of posts with zero comments and you aren't sure if anyone is actually reading. On the other hand, it's really encouraging when you get some post with lots of activity in the comments (my bar for "lots" is set at 5 at the moment). Just a note to those who have blogged and stopped, if a link to your old blog appears to the right, I was always reading.

Here's the funny thing about this post. I started it as a post basically to fill the gap until I had something to write about and it turned into a post about blogging itself. See? That's how easy it is. You don't have to have great things of great importance to say, just put down a blurb every once in a while. So, if you haven't blogged before or you used to and haven't in a while, give it a go (again). Not everything on the internet needs to be shared through Facebook.