Tuesday, October 28, 2008

The big dark...

Not even Hallowe'en and there's a winter storm warning for all of us here in Ottawa.

There's a certain part of winter I don't mind. That time around Christmas when snow is almost quaint and you've almost missed having it. But the snow we have right now isn't big and bright and fluffy and floating down in giant clumps. That child-beating bastard, Bing Crosby isn't singing his joyous duet with David Bowie just yet.

Looking outside, this snow is like shards of glass.

On my side of the street it's blowing west. On the other side it's headed east, as if this snow is important enough to warrant its own traffic system.

This is February snow and I hate it. Goes with the solid summer of rain and last year's record snowfall.

What is that thing called? It's like hibernation for humans. Oh yeah. Coma.

Sign me up.

Saturday, October 25, 2008

It strikes me as amazing how often I consider turning into a criminal.

Not a 'bad' criminal, per se, but I guess that depends on your point of view.

A teacher once told us about a story he was researching about B.C. grow-ops. Turns out, a group like, say, the Hell's Angels would give a homeowner $50,000 to use their house to grow pot. An electrician would come in to hook it all up, they'd haul in the dirt and all the homeowner would have to do is water the plants. If something weird started to happen, there was even a 1-800 number they could call and a chemist would be sent over to test the soil and make sure everything was running smoothly. After the 'season' was over the plants were harvested and everything was shipped back out of the house.

Criminal? According to the courts; just barely.

See, judges in B.C. got so fed up with wasting taxpayer money on trials that they reduced the penalty to a $5,000 fine if you were caught. There would just be more grow-ops anyway, so the judicial system wasn't even a bandaid compared to the problem.

Every time I think of ways to cut back my spending, or if something like my phone or car needs a repair, or when I watch my crushing student debt loom over me I think about the B.C. grow-op story.

With $50,000 I could be debt free in a day and still have some left over to live comfortably for a year or take a vacation. At this point, another $5,000 penalty seems like a joke compared to the rest of my debt.

I should be thankful I don't own a house out west, otherwise, I might be making a phone call. Instead, I find ways to become what I call an urban or modern bohemian. I've even considered growing a beard because it might save me from the ridiculous cost of razors.

And rich people wonder why things like piracy are such big issues. Consumerism itself creates criminals.

Friday, October 17, 2008

Sprawl-mart...

Sometimes unions get out of control, but most times it's the company that does.

You mean to tell me that a union in a garage bumped up costs to customers by over 30 per cent? How underpaid are these poor guys? And ontop of that, Wal-Mart, arguably the largest seller of everything ever can't spare the profits? I don't buy this horseshit for one second and you shouldn't either.

The article should begin; "In an attempt to keep it's strangle-hold on the souls of underpaid employees, Wal-mart destroyed their first unionized workforce with lava and herpes pouring from the mouth of a seven-headed beast with seven crowns and terrible halitosis."

It would be more run-on, but it's still early.

Labour Minister David Whissell is apparently on the case. Send him a message and put some pressure on him to do a good job and get these guys their jobs back.

His addresses are at the bottom.