What bugs me about people rant #1 · Wednesday March 26, 2008 by colin newell
Anyone remember a time when Google offered a service for those people so busy that they did not have time to search the net – so they could call up Google… and get an operator on the line… to get someone else, a living person, to find what they were looking for… Naturally, this idea did not last long.
Makes you wonder: Is this one of the main reasons that the Planet is doomed? Or is there another reason?
Discovered this today – note photo above left: If you are way too busy to spend the minute and a half registering for my coffee website, there is a web site you can go to that has a userid and password already created just for you!
Uh-huh. And how screwed up is this?
I deleted the userid and password that was created for my website.
If only to screw with these lazy people. I mean, if you are going to visit the CoffeeCrew website, I have certain expectations…
And speaking of lazy. My favorite story is the one about the lady who contacted me from Southern California (and what a horrible place that is!) – She sent me a list consisting of question after question about coffee basics… all of which is on my website about one click or two away from the main page.
But no.
She was too busy.
And so I asked: “All of this is on the website. Why don’t you look it up?”
And she replied: “I am way too busy to spend anytime reading your website!”
It begs the question: How do stupid people survive? Is there an army of sympathetic people out there that have pity on the lazy and stupid people… kind of carrying them along… day by day. Or is it just a case of random chance? Everyone survives despite an assumption of a more logical outcome? Who knows?
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Ingmar Lee - Tip of the Fedora · Tuesday March 25, 2008 by colin newell
To call Ingmar Lee a professional protester is like calling your dentist a practitioner of pain for payment.
Ingmar, a Victoria area resident and (I am pretty sure) taxpayer, is the darling of University (and College) students, the unwaged, the working poor, and those, it seems, too unworthy of living on Bear Mountain… or in the Uplands… or in any privileged enclave too sacred to house the many (and seemingly teeming) population of unwashed on the lower Island.
Because hey, you are either pro-development or your not…
As if it was that easy to pick one side or the other.
But to dismiss Lee as a professional protester and his associates as Welfare bums and Hippies illustrates the utter contempt that most pro-development types feel for Activists of conscience like Ingmar Lee (and, by the way, anyone that doesn’t drive a Hummer or live on Bear Mountain).
Call me crazy but when was it such a big deal to throw up your hands and say: Hey, hang on a second here! How about some open discussion about what is going on around us?
Protest , the last time I checked, was not a crime.
Anyway – The CBC surprised me with an article on Ingmar this morning. It seems that he has taken out a permit on mineral rights for the Bear Mountain region.
Which for a Bum (not my words) like Ingmar — is utterly brilliant.
And we need to take a moment, regardless of our orientation on the subject of development… and credit Ingmar on his stroke of pure genius.
To put aside our differences… just long enough to think a little more clearly.
And think about… where we live. And remember that big development does not have to be painful, is not always necessary and like the dentist should be something we all attend to… when we need to.
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Mother Nature is your friend · Tuesday March 25, 2008 by colin newell
With Easter comes the tradition of visiting Tofino, British Columbia and the Middle Beach Lodge. And with this adventure comes the risk of strong weather…
Picture at left – A six foot two Blogger stands in a fresh fall of snow… in Spring
And not the kind of strong weather we associate with a mid-March West Coast; lashing waves, wicked winds, driving rains that feel like tornado driven acupuncture needles…
But winter weather; snow, sleet and horizontal hail the size of rosary beads… less forgiving as well.
But this is Spring – albeit early Spring. And the fact that Easter is at an unusually early juncture for this year; March the 23rd… and apparently it has not been this early since 1066 or something. The next time Easter will be this early will be in the year 2030… and hopefully by then I will be piloting a Hover-Honda between Victoria and Tofino…
Because this year, our little Honda Civic was a little life saver on the winding stretch between the West Coast and civilization. It was snowing. A lot.
Between the Tofino-Ucluelet junction at the Pacific Rim highway and Sutton Pass some 1400 feet above Sea Level and 25km from Port Alberni – this neck of the woods can be mighty unpredictable this time of year. And so it was.
Our little Honda sedan cruised confidently through a moderate snowfall, somewhat effortlessly, up to the summit – by which time there were 4’ snow drifts on the sides of the road (about 1’ of fresh powder) and maybe 1/2” of snow on the highway.
With the Honda wearing a fairly healthy pair of All Season Radials (read SUMMER TIRES), it is risky business to attempt this kind of hill climb. But we did it.
And it wasn’t blind driving. Oh no. I was watching the oncoming traffic for signs of a more intense conflagration… i.e. bloated snowmen mobiles… but this was not the case. The cars coming towards us were dusted lightly. So we pushed on and we were rewarded with clearing skies as we passed over the peak.
We arrived in Port Alberni within 45 minutes of the alpine experience and decompressed at Tim Horton’s with Maple dips, black coffee and some much maligned roll-up cups
The rest of the trip was uneventful except, ironically, for one mini-van driving bonehead that we encountered on the approach to the Langford turn-off (near the proposed Spencer exchange and Thetis Lake) who was dodging between lanes and cutting off drivers more unpredictably than a pin ball. He cut in front of us so close and so swiftly as to cause a minor shock wave as he blocked the wind in our path.
This is why people kill each other on our highways.
Anyway – it was a wonderfully romantic weekend at Tofino. We re-experienced the joys of married life – communing with other romantics, people watching, weather watching… and hoping for safe travel in the future.
Aeroplan Rant #2 · Sunday March 16, 2008 by colin newell
I have been having a series of e-mail conversations with Canadians.
They start thusly:
I hate Air Canada and Aeroplan and I want you to help me get them
Oh, if it were only that easy. I mean, I am just a Canadian writer – and not a very good one at that. This blog relies on the overflow from some of my other more popular projects. You know what they say: If not for the grace of the internet as a whole, the bulk of us want-to-be writers would toil away in obscurity – where, by the way, most of us belong.
And thanks to the creative powers of the Internet, when you type Olympic Rant or Gas Pump Rant or Spotted Owl rant, I am right there near the top of the pack…
Lucky me… Lucky you…
However. Today, the spotted owl came home to roost.
And behind those sinister spotted owl eyes were two very evil Air Canada pilots… and if you looked really closely, those pilots are actually Air Canada and Aeroplan senior executives. Damn them. Damn them straight back to Toronto where they probably live in mindless wealth… somewhere in Forest Hill no doubt… right beside CTV anchorperson Lloyd Robertson (who is a nice guy after all…)
Digression concluded.
Anyhow – up and until several months ago, I had over 60,000 Aeroplan points… Until a few days ago, that is, after 365 days had passed since I had made my last Aeroplan purchase.
And now I have none.
14 years of travel with my wife… back and forth across North America and to Hawaii – well over 100,000 miles… and I have been reduced to this: ZERO POINTS – because I did not fly anywhere in the last 12 months.
Air Canada. Aeroplan. I hate you evil greedy-gut bastards!
On the humorous side of this, my wife wryly offered:
You must have seen this coming… you read your mail don`t you?
She has a point, god bless her.
I suck too.
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