Life Is Not Purgatory

Mayhem & Destruction
Actually, we're (Don and I) just tearing apart the front steps today! I need to crash for a few hours after running in to work on 4 1/2 hours of sleep, before we start.

I Am Robin Goodfellow

You are that merrie wanderer of the night - outgoing and playful. Like Robin Goodfellow you enjoy a great joke, even when the joke's on you. You're the life of the party - you have a happy disposition and you like to laugh and have a good time. You're mischevious and you enjoy pulling someone's leg, but your jokes are generally good-natured and well meant (unless of course you're dealing with some fool mortal). When it comes right down to it, you'll do what you can to help out a friend.

Which Trickster Are You?
Take the Trickster Test at www.isleofdreams.net.

How to Steal an Election (Again)
Miami-Dade county, home of the hanging-chad has completely replaced the punchcard ballots with a new touchscreen voting system that will digitally record the vote choices to prevent dimpled and hanging chad mishaps in the next election. These new devices created by Diebold and a handful of other companies promise fast and efficient election results, although not nessasarilly accurate. The two big hangups:
- The are prone to crashes and allow for no manual recount capability.
- Diebold's CEO, Walden O'Dell is a Major Republican donor quoted as saying "(he'll) help deliver Ohio to the GOP next year." (these machines are also in place in Ohio.)

Wonderful.

Flat Saskatchewan?

Exhausted - Yup.
Minor Sunburn - Yup.
Mosquito Bitten - Yup.
Relaxed - Yup.

So, I just got back from Prince Albert a few hours ago and I had an excellent time. I met another friend of Gayleen and Ryan, one whom we had heard stories about and now have a face to place the name with.

We spent the Saturday (after the six hour raod trip) helping to unpack (at least in theory - I was totally wiped and was pretty much useless except for alphabetizing their video collection.)

On Sunday we went to P.A. National Park and went swiming and hiking for the afternoon, at at an interesting Greek-owned Italian Restaurant, and played Chez Geek until 1:00am, before poiling back into the car for the raod trip back home.

Sunday, I had set a 10:00am departure time (with the acknolwdged expectation that we wouldn't actually be gone until 11:00am) and actually got out the door at 11:06! While we did miss our turn off we did find an alternate way back that actually shaved at least a half-hour off our transit time, arriving home at about 5:15.

Anyways, tons of Purgatory stuff to do... later.

Sleep
I miss cool weather... it's been a while since I've had a day off and my lack of sleep due to heat is certainly not helping my mood. I am greatly looking forward to taking the weekend off and goinf to Prince Albert away from work for a whole damned weekend. Hopefully I can recenter myself then.

Oh... I think this quote is very apt - and should be used more by patriots in the USA.
"To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public."
- Theodore Roosevelt
Twenty-Sixth President of the United States
1901-1909

Wait, Watch and Worry
Michael Moore is an excellent filmmaker, and without question with both Fahrenheit 9/11 and Bowling for Columbine being such great successes he has brought political discourse to mainstream theatre. If his intention was to spark debate and prompt the undecided voters into engaging themselves into the political process – it is likely that he has succeeded. If his intention was to film a documentary from a journalistic viewpoint, with even a modicum of objectivity – that was a dismal failure. I’ll bet the former was his intent.

Even if you take the entire film with a grain of salt, or even as much salt as one could swallow there is still sufficient potency left in the movie to cast doubt upon the current miserable failure as President of the United States of America.

The thing with Michael Moore is that he is a master of context, and while not one thing in that movie will likely be provable as false, certain parts are most definitely taken out of context, and used to portray a very, negative image – not to say that these images are incorrect, however. But for every moment of Bush looking like or speaking like an idiot, there is an image or sound bite of him saying or doing things that the American people can respect.

However, most frightening is the recent report that the US Department of Homeland Security is making preparations to delay the November elections in the case of a terrorist strike against the US that would interfere in the electoral process. Postponement of elections for the good of the nation was done before, in Germany, in the 1930’s and with the wonderful USA Patriot Act in force in the US, shades of that former regime are becoming all too frequent.

So join me in hoping that my worst case is just that, and that the Bush Administration will not be given another opportunity to pillage from the rest of the world, once has been more than enough. Until then all we can do is wait, watch and worry.

How Fitting

Ouch
So… I’ve been officially exiled from Raven’s “Weblogs I Read Daily*” list onto her “Misc. Weblogs” list, for well… completely justified reasons:

At one time, Laz's blog was among my favourites to read. He's been posting less (because of work pressures) and about less interesting topics ('cuz of work pressures) but it's still worthwhile reading when he does post. So don't let yourself slip into LollyBloggerHood again, eh Laz??

So… I have to ask, what would people like to see in my blog, because generally I enjoy the feedback I receive even if it does mean my exile… so comment away and I’ll do my best to earn my way back into Raven’s and others good lists and hopefully I won’t be shot by the Minister of Internal Security (gratuitous Junta reference).

Correction
Thanks to the chimerical James I have been informed of a rather large error in the seat calculations in the seconf last post. It should have read 135 Liberals rather than the 155 it did... It has since been fixed (as well as some really bad typos). My thanks for pointing that out.

Promotion
So as of Monday, July 5th I assumed a new position as the Rooms Division Manager for my hotel - and I think I am up for the challenge. I was beginning to get bored with my current position and was seriously entertaining a couple of offers I had received to move elsewhere, but declined because I was either unwilling to take a step down from my current position or was disinclined to move too far away from my friends and my comfort zone.

This new position gives me responsibility over the Front Desk, Housekeeping and Room Maintenance (but not building maintenance - which given it pretty much involve big ticket items almost always requires the GM's approval). I'm looking forwards to it - I like how my Front Desk works and I hope to be able to achieve a similar success with Housekeeping.

Election 2004 (#1) - It's a tie!
So it's pretty much official, barring a couple of Judicial recounts currently going on in a few ridings, Mr. Paul Martin remains the Prime Minister of Canada.
135 Liberals
99 Conservatives
54 Bloc Quebecois
19 New Democrats
1 Independent

That means jointly the NDP and the Liberals control 154 (50%) of the 308 seats in Parliament. So we have a 'stable minority... isn’t that an oxymoron? But alas, I have to eat a little crow… Paul Martin was not anointed as dictator in the landslide I predicted upon his ascent to the leadership of the Liberal party, and instead he barely squeaked out a stable minority. I am guessing that the Liberals will attempt to put the Independent member or a (moderate) Conservative in as Speaker of the House of Commons, in an effort to break the actual ‘tie’ we currently have. Wait and see I guess.