Gas Price Rant #8 · Wednesday February 20, 2008 by colin newell
Gas prices spiraled up 6 whole cents today. Across the country. At the same time. At all the pumps. And stations. Regardless of what inventory existed at each station.
In the last quarter, oil companies have recorded profits that are almost unimaginable. Sadly that “riches beyond avarice” does not trickle down to the retailers – not by a country kilometer. The distributors all the way up to the executive branch of most North American oil companies and refineries are making gains that are largely incomprehensible by the rest of us – hell, even banks are taking a second look at the performance of oil companies.
Why do gas prices go up in such a predictable way? Well – Oil is the number one commodity on the Planet. Coffee is next. It is a 100% “whatever the market (that’s you and I) will bear”. And since neither you nor I are going to get out of our cars anytime soon, expect the gas prices to keep rising and the profit margins of companies like Exxon to balloon faster than the U.S. deficit.
What can we do?
Nothing. Suck it up, pump it in and pay it out.
Now that attitude might be depressing and all. But You could get your sorry ass out of your car and walk downtown from time to time. Or park the car and take the bus to work. Or just leave the damn thing in the parking lot once a week.
I do not feel too bad overall – I did not own my 1st car until I turned 40 – and I bought a Honda Civic. In 8 years I have put less than 40,000 miles on it. Why did I wait til I was 40? Well. I got sick of buses and with aging Parents, they started needing the kind of attention that would require more immediate transportation options.
All gestures great and small · Sunday February 17, 2008 by colin newell
I witnessed two simple yet complex and complementary events today that I thought I would share.
While walking towards Clover Point on Victoria B.C.‘s scenic Dallas road, my wife and I heard the cacophony of dozens and dozens of cars.
A wedding I thought. Wrong.
As we were approaching the spectacular vista, we were quickly surrounded by a joyous throng of Kosovar-Canadians celebrating their independence… as of today.
Young and old waved the flag of their homeland, their joy infectious and emotional. Although it took a few minutes for me to lock in on the sheer magnitude of what I was witnessing – I eventually did and felt my eyes well up with tears. I can only grasp at what these new Canadians were feeling – but on a basal level I got it.
Ironically, I had last seen the Kosovar flag some eight years ago while witnessing a significantly more sombre march down Shelbourne Street – by an impromptu collection of fighting age men brought together by tragedy and genocide some 7000 miles away.
As we walked back to our car we reflected on how the World has just changed… perhaps for the better.
Lunch today was an order of foot-long hot-dogs at the Willow Galley in Oak Bay’s Estevan village – an old favorite. While walking up to the entrance, I noticed a familiar face – Stanley Cup champion Geoff Courtnall, formerly of the Edmonton Oilers. And like any other 40-something semi-middle aged dude, I act like a teenager meeting up with one of his idols… just like three or four other guys my age did as they approached this well established fish and chip shop.
Except there is a twist to this story.
While we were all there waiting for our orders to come up, a 4-door sedan pulled up to the intersection and Geoff was the first to spot the fact that the elderly couple in the car had a flat tire. So – who is the first to volunteer to change the tire? That is right – Geoff Courtnall. While a handful of giddy dudes stood by waiting to talk story with a hockey idol from a bygone era, our Stanley Cup idol make quick work of a tire-change… seemingly in minutes.
These two events, although completely unrelated, give us moments of hope in a deeply troubled World – where we can share tears of joy with complete strangers as they wave their new flag…
and tears of laughter when 2 elderly folks are quickly sent on their way by the spontaneous gesture of a sports hero.
Blog of the Month - illegalsigns.ca · Saturday February 16, 2008 by colin newell
Ok. New category. I was going to call it the “It’s about damn time awards…”
But I thought better.
I got an e-mail today from my good buddy Rami Tabello at IllegalSigns.ca in Toronto.
IllegalSigns.ca – the Toronto area website that sticks it to the big players in the outdoor sign industry that are cluttering your sight lines and the visual environment for corporate profit. Oh yes, and installing outdoor signs without the right permits or paperwork. There is nothing that angers me more than rich corporate fat cats that feel that the rules that apply to you and me – do not apply to them.
And in this blog, once again, I pick on Pattison Outdoor (a wing of the Pattison group) that does business in Toronto.
Jimmy Pattison, by the way, just bought the Guiness World Book of Records and in some ways the irony of this purchase is not entirely lost on me… but read on please.
IllegalSigns.ca is an absolute inspiration for me. I tend to think of myself as a pretty gutsy, devil may care individual… but I am not. The good people at IllegalSigns.ca have more healthy pairs than the Dallas Cowboys (and their cheerleaders!)
I mean, who in their right mind would take on Pattison Outdoor in the press, like the good people at IllegalSigns.ca, without hard facts to back up their accusations.
Example: IllegalSigns.ca was tipped off recently by a Pattison Outdoor employee that the Pattison Outdoor Group was about to butcher a healthy elm tree (illegally) because the tree was obscuring the billboard.
This billboard was illegally installed on public property. Check out the series of photos and feel some of the anger that I feel every time I think about Pattison Outdoor. We salute those Pattison Outdoor employees brave enough to stand up against their employers!
Rami Tabello’s website even gets insiders at Pattison Outdoor offering excuses about visual clutter in Toronto in the comment fields of the web-site.
My question is this: Why would I be immediately fined or jailed if I did this and yet a big company headed by a billionaire can get away with cutting down trees without permits and erecting signs in some of our most beautiful cities without the proper paperwork or permits?
Ok, so Pattison Outdoor is not the only player in this lucrative sign market in Toronto. Astral Media and CBS-Outdoor (yes, CBS Television) is a big player in Toronto, Canada – and they appear to bend as many rules as Pattison Outdoor.
But don’t take my word for it. head over to IllegalSigns.ca and get angry with me.
Really, I want you to see some of this stuff. And then take a look around at your visual environment.
Update February 18, 2008 – Read here for more example of illegal Pattison Outdoor in Toronto.
Update February 19, 2008 – Read here for a brilliant Toronto Star article that covers the activities of Illegalsigns.ca
Hayden live in Victoria Alix Goolden Theatre · Thursday February 14, 2008 by colin newell
It was a great relief as a mid-40 something dude to find that I was not the oldest man in the Alix Goolden Theatre, Victoria for Hayden’s concert tonight.
Hayden, after all is pushing 40. Not that it shows. Because it doesn’t.
The standard uniform at tonight’s Hayden show was plaid for dudes, facial hair and lots of it and a sensitive hang-dog expression.
All the girls (and there were lots of girls) look exactly like the women that I work with at the University; somewhere between 20 and 30, pretty and plain and fitted into clean blue jeans and cotton t-shirts.
The vibe at the Hayden concert was squeaky clean in plaid with youthful freshness.
And If you have never heard of Hayden, do not worry. Most people over the age of 30 haven’t. I think he falls into a music category I call coffee house. He falls dead center in the genre I think.
Hayden’s voice is as brittle as a dried egg shell in the coldest corner of your refrigerator. – His voice as plaintive and vulnerable as an abandoned wet dog whimpering on a country road.
His music defies complexity. His guitar chords and general playing style is (for yours truly – a guitar slinger from the eighties) is aggravatingly simple but evocative in a peculiar kind of way.
To be blunt, I recognized many of his songs from the SUB Cafe at the University where I work – but the lyrics were wrapped, folded and hidden like an unsent love letter forgotten under a sofa… which is to say: When he is singing, I cannot hear or understand a god-damn thing. And as a guitar player and singer, this aggravates the heck out of me.
Which is part of who Hayden is.
For me, a part time musician and producer, there is a lot of stuff or substance in Hayden’s music that appears beyond the audible… perhaps with the imagination of the listener – When he is strumming and working it out with his keening vocal delivery, I can hear French Horns, acoustic bass and a variety of unidentifiable instruments somewhere between my ears. But I wish my ears could pick out the lyrics.
My wife summed it up for me after the concert:
“Colin, you are way more talented than Hayden is… on the Piano and the Guitar and when you sing…”
That might be so but Hayden filled the house and the plaid-clads and pretty girls in the crisp blue jeans were loving him.
Jenn Grant of Halifax opened the show with a half-dozen songs reminiscent of what Feist is currently doing; bouncy, fresh, approachable and organic…
Lyric-wise? I could not understand a damn thing she was singing either.
