2010 In Review

I figured I had better get a December post in before the entire month was written off.  The wife and I have not had a whole lot of free time now that we are a family of three; though, as we move into 2011, I'm hoping to find time to post regularly again.

Anyway.

2010 was an excellent year.  Early on, I was still living and working in Vancouver (oh, how I miss Vancouver).  On February 12th, after a period of steadily increasing rage, following a change in management (this happens often), I stopped working for my then employer and embarked upon a 30-day retirement trial period.  This was doubly interesting, as Michelle had accepted a job in Alberta back in December of 2009, and we were living apart while I lazed around and negotiated terms on a new job in Alberta.

So, with a one-last-chance-for-bachelorhood opportunity staring me in the face, I spent more than four weeks sleeping in until the late afternoon, playing video games, watching television, and consuming copious amounts of beer and pizza with friends.  It was the most amazing time in my entire life.  In the words of Peter Gibbons from Office Space, "I did nothing.  I did absolutely nothing, and it was everything that I thought it could be." 

Another noteworthy event that occurred during this period was the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver, which I simultaneously viewed on television and lived vicariously through Jason, who came down in February to attend a bunch of events, whilst enjoying the free accommodations at my place.

My main memory of the Olympics is having never seen so many people in one place at once.  It was utterly impossible to get downtown from the North Shore, where I lived, or anywhere else for that matter.  The SeaBus was lined up all the way to the mid-Lonsdale area, and it took me 3 separate attempts to get downtown on the one day I tried.  On my third, and only successful attempt, I took the usual bus I previously would have ridden to work, which was packed to the brim with society.  The bus driver bluntly declared over the intercom that the only way the bus would continue to move is if every person at every stop was able to successfully board.  I have never seen -- felt is more accurate, given proximity -- so many people on a bus in my life, and I have a picture somewhere of this, though I can't be bothered to find it right now.  I remember conducting a headcount and stopping around 90.

Sometime before March 13th, Michelle came back down to Vancouver, and we packed up and embarked on a trip to Airdrie, Alberta, near Calgary, where I had taken a new job.  My retirement ended and work began again on March 15, 2010.

Most of the remainder of the year was an uneventful blur of Michelle's progressing pregnancy, work, and, of course, trips to Wal-Mart, with the exception of an awesome long-weekend insanity trip to Osoyoos in May (with Jason, Erik, and Karyn), a trip to California (with Jason) to ride every rollercoaster at Knott's and Six Flags Magic Mountain in August, and a trip to the Big Island of Hawaii with Michelle in September.

I don't feel much like elaborating on these trips right now, except for mentioning the part where the 5 of us rented a 21-foot jet boat in Osoyoos and took turns submerging ourselves in the barely thawed lake water.  While my reaction to the freezing abyss was loud and profane (as expected), the best one occurred when Erik jumped in.  There was a brief moment of silence as his head disappeared beneath the surface, and then returned with a face consistent with the color of Papa Smurf.  He declared that the water was "COLD".

Finally, on December 2, 2010, after 2 solid days of hospital trips and labor (for Michelle), our son was finally born.  Cedric Leonidas.  For a long time I thought about writing the events of this in detail, as it was quite the adventure, but I'm pretty lazy and there is pizza nearby with my name on it.

As I slide my chair out to enjoy said pizza, I was just thinking to myself that if Vancouver wasn't horrendously overpriced and filled with idiots (the friends I have there are excepted, of course), I'd probably still be living there.  However, I traded a city of 2.5 million idiots for one with just one million, and a significant reduction in cost of living.

What does 2011 hold in store?  I don't want to make any announcements just yet, but a further reduction in idiot population is in store, along with another decrease in cost of living.

Good News, Bad News, and the End of the Year

Today I bring a couple of stories that are a bit late in coming, but I feel worth mentioning.

I'll start with the bad news.  This is one that has been all over the local news in Edmonton but is just so shockingly terrible, it has to be mentioned yet again.  According to the latest edition of the Alberta diagnostic code, homosexuality is listed as a "mental disorder" alongside pedophilia and bestiality.  The code is used by doctors to classify illnesses (both physical and mental) for billing to the province of Alberta.  The "homosexuality code" has been used to "treat" patients over 1700 times between 1995 and 2004 (according to the Edmonton Journal).

Alberta health minister Gene Zwozdesky has pledged that the code will be immediately reviewed and that “It is simply an incorrect and unacceptable classification and I've ordered it to be removed immediately.”  The American Psychiatric Association made the same change in 1973 followed by the Canadian Psychiatric Association in 1982.

So, really, they're only a few decades too late...

But, onto some good news and a (seemingly) rare good travel story.  For those who would be travelling with presents over the holidays, both the TSA and CATSA (Canadian Air Transport Security Authority) asked that presents not be wrapped to allow for easier inspection.  It kind of sucks, but I can understand it.  But last week, Jaunted reported that a few airports in the USA were offering gift wrapping services inside security.  To top this off, most of them were either completely free or free with a charitable donation.

I think it's nice to finally see a good air travel-related story and a good way to end 2010.

And to summarize, I don't mean to speak too much for my co-contributers to the Deli, but it's been a big year for all of us. You can definitely expect more of the same for 2011.  I know Terry will be back to ranting about...whatever it is he is most angry about at the time very soon.  I'm sure parenthood will provide many more...sources of material.  Erik will still randomly show up and write several pages on...something.  And I'll be here to find random crap and complain about travelling.


So from all three of us, Merry Christmas, Happy Festivus, Happy New Year, etc.

Erik's Favorite Albums of 2010

It's no secret I have a lot of music; I figured I'd make up a list of the favourites I picked up in 2010; not all of them are 2010 albums but phttbhtt.

In no particular order:

Arcade Fire - The Suburbs

Arcade Fire's Funeral is one of my all-time favourite albums and I was worried - after Neon Bible being good (but not great) that The Suburbs would be part of a continuing slide from greatness for the huge band. Fortunately, I was wrong.

The Suburbs is a story about urban life and decay, fleshed out through lyrics, musical talent, and big sound. I'm a sucker for strings in a band, and Arcade Fire's got them in spades. It took a few listens, but I think The Suburbs is now my top Arcade Fire album.

If you haven't seen it yet, fire up a copy of Google Chrome and visit The Wilderness Downtown, the "music video" for "We Used To Wait". It's a showcase for what HTML5 can do for the interactivity of the web and it really sets the mood for the song.

The thing that really pisses me off the most about Arcade Fire is that Edmonton never seems to be on the list of stops for their Canadian tours before they bugger off to Europe for dates in countries I've never heard of.

Bedouin Soundclash - Light the Horizon

I almost bought this album about six times, from the day it came out and over the following weeks. I finally just picked the damn thing up and I've been wondering since what my problem was.

It's Bedouin Soundclash's best work to date. The whole disc is catchy enough to sing along to - it may not be "pure" reggae and sound like Bob Marley, but I think that this is what the modern evolution of the genre ought to sound like.

As a side note, Jay Malinowski (the lead singer) released an album of his own, Bright Lights & Bruises. I haven't heard the whole thing, but the single "There's a Light" may as well have been on Light the Horizon.

Stars - The Five Ghosts

So, I saw Stars live twice in 2010 - first, on my birthday (May) in the small, sweaty venue that is The Starlite Room. I had never heard (or even heard of) The Five Ghosts and was surprised to find out that the concert was actually a release party for the disc - they played through most of the album in order and only then did they get to their older songs.

Five Ghosts is part hopeless romantic, part frantic dance party, and part bone-chilling ghost story, and yet somehow it all works together. A review of the album on iTunes comments that Stars may be losing some of their charm by "moving to" an electronic sound, but I'd argue that they're just returning to their roots - their 2001 Nightsongs is very much electronic, but the new songs feel more filled-in and complete than their earlier electronic sounds.

Oh, and speaking of older songs and hopeless romantics: I have no idea how I'd never heard "The Aspidistra Flies" from the 2001 Comeback EP. Torquil Campbell and Amy Millan's call-and-answer vocals are heart-wrenching in person... and she's just so damned cute.

I liked Five Ghosts enough that I saw Stars again at the Winspear Centre on Halloween. Edmontonians: if one of your favourite bands has a show at the Winspear, just go. Don't think about it. The acoustic engineering of the place is friggin' magic. Nothing like ghost stories on Halloween either - and for me there was no creepy girl hitting on me and my girlfriend like at Starlite!

(I think she was just trying to steal my wallet.)

Hawksley Workman - Meat and Milk

Speaking of performances at the Winspear Centre... I've seen Hawksley Workman there twice and I would go again in a heartbeat. His personality, stories, and just pure variety of styles mean each live show is interesting and can sound totally different from the last (and what's on the studio recordings). Wigs, piano, overdriven zany guitar solos, ballads with touching lyrics, prison-escapee style overalls, toy drum kits... he's got it all.

I'm not going to say either Meat or Milk were earth-shattering albums, but both contain solid tracks for Workman fans and candidates for pop radio singles. Next time though? Please don't release the whole album in the USA and then trickle it out to Canada one single at a time via digital download services. Fans start to get agitated!

I'd like to compliment the guy for being able to remember all the words - and get them out without passing out from lack of oxygen - to the song "We'll Make Time (Even When There Ain't No Time)".

John K. Samson - City Route 85 EP

Technically I bought this on the very last day of 2009, but I saw John K. Samson live at the Haven Social Club in early 2010. The club was crammed full and I was sitting maybe ten feet from John, the lead singer of the Weakerthans (he really is 98% of that band). By candlelight he sang material from old Weakerthans songs to tracks from his new City EP.

You'd figure another song about how terrible Winnipeg is would start to get a bit old, but the songwriting in "Heart of the Continent" is brilliant (like every other song of his). Hearing the stories behind the songs just solidified John K. Samson/The Weakerthans position as one of my all-time favorite artists.

There were a few letdowns in 2010 too; Forgiveness Rock Record from Broken Social Scene had a heck of a lot of hype but I'm afraid it just didn't do anything for me. There were a couple good tracks, but overall... meh. Jason Collett released Rat a Tat Tatt / To Wit To Woo; I couldn't get into that one either, even after a few listens. Year of the Black Rainbow by Coheed and Cambria tried to be harder and grittier than previous Coheed albums. Unfortunately, it just alienated me as a fan of their established prog style... I'm not looking for a thrashy noise-fest but that's what Year felt like to me.

Anyway, I'm sure there will be plenty of new music for 2011 to add to my ever-growing collection. (Hooray!) So far, the biggest learning experience here is that I'm really terrible at writing about music... but I shall try again anyway. See you guys later.

Temporary Delay

Just a note that I will be away from posting for a bit until our new family addition is settled.

Gran Turismo 5

Greetings, all!

I have been in an absolutely delightful mood this week.

You see, 5 years and 9 months ago, Gran Turismo 4 was released on the PlayStation 2, and much win was had.

On the PlayStation 3, Gran Turismo 5 Prologue came out on April 15, 2008, giving us a small taste of potential future win.

Last Wednesday, Gran Turismo 5 finally arrived.

After 2 hours of Deerfoot-ing my way home at 3kph, after a late meeting at work and in horrendous driving conditions, I arrived at Wal-Mart and sprinted across the parking lot and then inside towards the electronics department of my beloved Supercenter.

After a few gut-wrenching seconds of searching for a blue-vested angel, I located one of the celebrated celestial beings and informed him of what I required. His reaction to my request was not unlike that of a heroin addict's to a 5kg gift-bag of smack, and he cheerfully pranced over to the locked games cabinet.  We briefly discussed how long it had been since Gran Turismo 4 on the way back to the checkout, and after he rang it through, I dashed back to the car and broke several traffic laws to get home.

Words cannot describe the awesomeness of this game, but I will give it my most offensive and blasphemous try:

If somebody offered me free, front-row, floor seats to the Second Coming of Jesus Comeback Tour, I would decline in favor of staying home and playing GT5.

GT5 has everything.  I could bore you with the details of Karting, NASCAR, or World Rally Championship racing, how there are 1,031 cars, or how you can race VW Buses around the Top Gear Test Track at a blistering 75kph, but it's not necessary.

All that needs to be said is that the best part about the game is that you don't even have to race to enjoy it.  Gran Turismo 5 is simply the best experience out there for any car enthusiast.

Without this game, your life will be forever rendered a shriveled, worthless husk of sadness.

Go buy it.  Now.

That's all I have this week, I can't be away from GT5 to write anything else.

Below are some shots of a few of my cars that I took during replays and in photo mode.

Papers, please!

Jason wrote an interesting piece on Wednesday, discussing the Soviet Union of American States' airport security practices.

While I agree with one of his main points, "The problem with this whole system likely isn't (as some people suggest) that the TSA is some evil organization bent on destroying the freedoms of good law-abiding citizens.",  I personally suggest that the only problem with the system is that it's run by the government.

The TSA was created as a reaction to September 11, 2001, on November 19, 2001, to monopolize airport security screening under the wing of a government department.

Of course, remembering that with great power comes great responsibility, we can rest in comfort knowing that TSA employees sleep on the job, bypass security checks, mistreat passengers, sexually harass children, the elderly, and the rest of us, hold lavish parties at the taxpayers' expense, and steal passengers' belongings and sell them at a handsome profit (I originally had a link for 'mistreat passengers', but couldn't settle on just one; if you really want an example, just Google TSA pat down under the News tab).

In fact, Rapiscan Systems, one of the two manufacturers of those pesky airport full body scanners, is a client of Michael Chertoff's security firm, the Chertoff Group; if this doesn't immediately surprise you, you probably aren't aware that he was the second United States Secretary of Homeland Security!

If it were up to me, when people board a plane, each of them would take a free loaded handgun from a barrel conveniently located by the jet-way, and upon arriving at their destination, they would return said handgun to an empty barrel, much like 3D glasses at a movie theater.  If you believe, as I do, that there are far more rational, sane individuals on this planet than terrorists hell-bent on killing us all, this is an extremely economic, workable solution.

Jason also says, "So we have a crappy system but it's all we have and if you want to fly without incident, you've got no choice to go through it.  The only thing I know is that the next time I go through a security checkpoint, I'll just keep my mouth shut and just get it all over with as fast as possible."

While I agree that his chosen solution is probably the only practical one available, one must remember that, as Bodie Thoene said, "Apathy is the glove into which evil slips its hand."  The one thing I am absolutely sure of, is that flying without incident will never be a result of the work of the TSA, only one of pure probability.  After all, these organizations are run by the same people who can't do something as simple as balance a national budget.

For now, if flying is something you can't choose not to do, as I try to, then you'll have to live with organizations like the TSA, and probably ones a whole lot worse as America continues its rapid decay.  It's only a matter of time until "Papers, please" becomes, once again, the most commonly used introductory sentence.

I suggest everyone watch the movie The Lives of Others, if they want hints of what the coming Utopian socialist future holds for the Western world.  Each day that passes has me thinking more and more about emigrating to Asia, the new land of opportunity.

A couple of other funny things happened this week:

Vancouver taxpayers on the hook for Olympic Village as Millennium Water goes into receivership

Read more: http://www.theprovince.com/business/Vancouver+taxpayers+hook+Olympic+Village+Millennium+Water+goes+into+receivership/3845267/story.html#ixzz15xtRrCL1


B.C. government cancels Campbell's planned income tax cut

Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/business/income+suspended/3845348/story.html#ixzz15xtgKIkI


And Gordon Campbell resigned.  He spent 26 years in the public service. Sometimes I wonder how it feels to know that your life has resulted in nothing but a net economic loss to society over the course of one's career.  I've never understood how we even allow career civil servants to exist.  They don't even pay taxes!

For everyone who is paid with the tax dollars of others, those deductions on your payroll statement don't mean anything.  Just because the government takes vast sums of private sector income and redistributes it to a select few of you, and then takes some of it back in line items like "income tax", doesn't change the fact that all of that money came from the employment of capital and labor in the private sector.  Therefore, no public sector employee ever pays taxes unless they work for the government for a shorter period of time than in the private sector, and even in this case it's usually not true because they tend to draw a public pension for the rest of their useless and unfulfilling existence.

Lol.  I knew I'd get to a true rant at some point.  Good night, everybody!

The Woes of Air Travel

As a rather frequent flyer, I generally keep myself up-to-date on the latest in travel-related news.  Lately I've been seeing a rather notable increase in the number of security-related air travel stories coming out of the USA.  It seems that the TSA is rather quickly gaining some rather bad press.

First, Slashdot brought to light a story from the San Francisco Chronicle about a three-year-old girl having to suffer a pat-down at the hands of a TSA security agent.  According to the report, the girl was terrified after watching her teddy bear go through the x-ray machine and refused to go through the metal detector.  She was then subjected to the standard TSA alternative: the pat-down.  Apparently the girl's father captured the event on video but since it has been posted on YouTube, it has now been removed "due to a copyright claim by Tribune".

Today, I picked up an article from Adam Savage's Twitter feed (via Mike Tyka) about an incident involving Penn Jillette from the comedy/magic duo of Penn and Teller.  I don't think I could possibly re-tell the story with the same impact as it coming directly from Penn himself.  Please do read it in its entirety here.  However, to sum up, Penn was required to have a pat-down and the TSA agent did not ask his permission before patting down his crotch.  Insanity ensued.

Also today, Jaunted and the Toronto Star have articles about Wednesday November 24 being "National 'Opt-Out Day'".  Basically, the idea is to start a grassroots movement where people will opt out of the full-body scanners now deployed across the USA in favour of a pat-down.  The Jaunted article also points to the TSA's latest blog post on their "new pat-down procedures".  Although there isn't much relevant information in the blog post itself, it's worth noting just because of the volume and nature of the comments left by users.  I would like to note that Jaunted is extremely anti-body scanner.  Their views do tend to be a little skewed when it comes to that subject.  However, the idea of a (possibly) large percentage of people choosing the "alternative" screening method on one of the busiest travel days of the year (the day before American Thanksgiving) is worthy of note.

However, earlier this week, the Toronto Star had a much more interesting article comparing North American aviation security to that of Israel.  Israel obviously faces a more "present" and constant security threat due to high-tension relationships with neighboring countries, proximity to active war zones, and the activity of local factions which have been labelled by some governments as terrorist organizations.  To be clear, I don't want to get into the issue of the ongoing tension/conflict in the middle east.  I only mean to state that the risk of a major security threat is, in general, much higher in Israel than it is in North America.  With that aside, the article describes how security is handled at Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion International Airport (TLV).  Most of the screening is done without any direct involvement of the passenger.  The security personnel at TLV are trained to properly profile people based on their actions, body language, and level of eye-contact.  In addition, small things like bomb-proof rooms and boxes in the luggage screening area make it so only a small area needs to be evacuated (instead of the whole airport) in case contraband is only detected by more traditional methods.  TLV claims to be able to get passengers from the street to the gate in an average of 25 minutes.  I doubt any major North American airport can boast that.

On a lighter note, Jaunted also reported Canada's own famous photobombing squirrel has put his $0.02 worth in.  The "squirrel" recently tweeted the following gem:

TSA is handling this "enhanced patdowns" thing all wrong. What they need is a "free hugs" sign.

Now that I've got all of that out of the way, I believe I will opine.  The problem with this whole system likely isn't (as some people suggest) that the TSA is some evil organization bent on destroying the freedoms of good law-abiding citizens.  It all comes down to a few simple things.

The main issue is actually a culture and training issue in the TSA.  The policies for security screening seem to be changing far more rapidly than can easily be kept up with.  As a result, it seems that frequently many people and TSA agents are uninformed as to what the appropriate procedure is in certain circumstances.  If the TSA wants to be constantly changing its policies to keep up with the changing issues of airport security, then it needs to be ensuring that ALL of its security agents are kept abreast of these changes. However, training only goes so far.  The consistent thing that I have noted in all of these recent security horror stories is the arrogance of the TSA agents.  Although I will admit that I haven't read any of these stories from the opposite point-of-view, it usually seems that the TSA agents view themselves as all-powerful.  They almost seem to want to intimidate passengers into conforming to their idea of security screening.

To fix this requires a culture change in the TSA organization.  They need to instill a set of ideals and values in their employees that they are not the almighty gods of air travel but merely one part of a system designed to keep the average person safe from the few individuals wishing them harm.  They need to be aware that just because someone is requesting a pat-down instead of a full-body scan, that they are not doing it to be a trouble maker.  They are doing it because they either don't like the idea of someone seeing through their clothes or don't believe the level of radiation put out by the machines is safe.

This, of course, necessitates a change of attitude by the average air traveler as well.  The TSA has not implemented body scans as part of some nefarious scheme to see people's naughty bits and irradiate them.  To be honest, I don't envy the person who has to see all of those body scans.  I am quite sure that the people working for the TSA genuinely believe they're doing the best job they can protecting the USA from airplane-related terrorism.  With it being North America, for every person with a good body, there would be at least 5-10 overweight to obese people.  Not the sort of thing I want to see all day.  Also, people, in general, need to learn to be patient at airports.

Well, I've made enough detours from my point.  The fact of the matter is that the type of cultural change required by the TSA would take a normal large corporation a decade or more and the average american traveler is not likely to become any less indignant (possibly rightfully so).

So we have a crappy system but it's all we have and if you want to fly without incident, you've got no choice to go through it.  The only thing I know is that the next time I go through a security checkpoint, I'll just keep my mouth shut and just get it all over with as fast as possible.

Edit:
The day after the above post I found a fantastic story by the Seattle Weekly on what they call "Airport Body Scan Porn".  This article gives you a pretty good idea of how "visible" your private parts are when going through a full-body scan.  I couldn't have put it better than how the article is summed up:

The point, perhaps, is that anyone who is aroused by vaguely discernible outlines of average people's asses is likely either Amish or an 11-year-old. And anyone else probably gets a similar kick just looking at you with tight jeans on. Basically, there ain't much you can do about that person.

But yes, by all means, raise hell about airport body-scanning. It's not like there are more important things to worry about in America.

Amen.

It doesn't pay to pinch pennies

There's a big difference between being cheap and being value conscious.

Someone asked me this week why I don't have the bare minimum car insurance coverage in Alberta (and hence, spend more than is necessary). The reason? When we moved back to Alberta from BC, we found that we were able to insure both cars with full coverage in combination with our renters' insurance for almost the same total cost as insuring just one car in BC with basic coverage (and a very high deductible).

Thus, in terms of value, given that we were already saving a huge pile of money in relative terms, we opted to pay the minor incremental charge for full coverage.

I was also asked this week why I recently cancelled my cable. That's also very simple: it was a giant waste of money. I found it pointless to pay a monthly sum for a service I hardly used, which is why I now have Netflix (unlimited entertainment-on-demand and $7.99/month; easily one of the best decisions I've ever made, and one of the best services offered in Canada today). Excuse the grammar, but I don't not have cable because I want to save the cost of having it, I don't have cable because I don't use it enough to get my money's worth -- that is, my value out of it. That money is more usefully allocated elsewhere in our budget (like the Hawaiian vacation category).

Something that is odd to me, though, is that a lot of cheap people -- you know, the type who tip servers poorly and pinch pennies on miniscule expenses – tend to be extremely risk adverse.

Let's consider two people who make the same amount of money each year.

Person A (our cheap example) stiffs service staff, avoids parking meters, picks up change from the sidewalk, returns their cans and bottles to the depot, and religiously puts away $20,000 every single year into GICs and low-risk Mutual Funds, yielding 2% (we'll ignore taxes, for simplicity). After ten years, Person A has accumulated $223,374.

Person B tips well, focuses on cost reduction in the major expense categories (where the real damage is done), leaves dropped change on the ground, and gives their cans and bottles to children and the homeless. Person B actively invests in equities and fixed-income securities yielding 7% (easily higher, with effort). To achieve the same amount as Person A at the end of our ten year timeframe, Person B only has to put away $15,110 per year. This is almost 25% less than Person A's $20,000, and, provided the end goals of Persons A and B are the same, Person B's quality of life is about $5,000 a year better than Person A.

Our last trip to Hawaii in September cost less than that, and we stayed at the Mauna Lani Bay in an Ocean Front Room (rack rate $865/night USD). Of course, we only went because we scored a deal for less than $200/night (value conscious :D).

If Person A goes on vacation -- and if they did, they'd probably drive and stay at the Travelodge -- they put themselves even further behind Person B.

My point is, the world has way too many Person As. The tools are out there. Educate yourself, invest wisely, and become a Person B.

For the record, there is a Person C, who invests like Person B, but pinches pennies like Person A.

That person is called a giant asshole.

Arbitrarius Maximus

I've been rather busy traveling the world lately (possibly more on this later) so I haven't had much time to scour the intertubes for the usual randomness and inanity that I try to provide.

However, this week, something caught my eye that I couldn't resist talking about simply due to its (as I would call it) "WTF factor".

I follow the TSA's Twitter feed simply due to the amount I travel (especially in the USA).  Usually it's a heaping pile of monotony about what not to bring to the airport.  However, this week something really caught  my eye.  There has been a lot of controversy lately about what electronic gadgets need to be removed from your back while you're clearing security.  With devices such as the Kindle and iPad rising in popularity, the definition of "what is a computer" is becoming somewhat gray.  The TSA blog team set out to clear this confusion.  They stated that the official TSA policy (see here) is "Electronic items smaller than the standard sized laptop should not need to be removed from your bag or their cases."

To me, this raises the question of "What defines a standard sized laptop?"  Does this apply to netbooks?  What about smaller laptops, such as the new 11" MacBook Air?  Apparently I was not the only one confused.  The TSA blog team again tried to clear things up.  In this post they stated the following: "So with those rules in mind, the 11” model of the MacBook Air is fine to leave in your bag, and the 13” model must be removed prior to X-ray screening."

And that is when my "WTF alarm" was set off.  The TSA has come out and said that two (essentially) identical pieces of electronics which only differ in that one is slightly larger are to be treated completely differently.  How is it that an 11" MacBook Air (measuring 11.8" x 7.56" x 0.56" - 49.956 cubic inches) provides so much less of an opportunity to hide drugs/weapons/explosives/other contraband than a 13" MacBook Air (measuring 12.8" x 8.94" x 0.56" - 64.082 cubic inches)?

It just doesn't make sense to me...

Retirement Slingshots

A couple of weeks ago I said the TSX would probably make a run for 13,000.  We closed at 12,925 on Friday.  That's a 2.6% increase in the index in the last 2 weeks.

Also on Friday, the CREA adjusted their housing forecast.  It's nice to see some recognition of the actual market, but I guarantee you this is the first of many.

Then, in more exciting news, a useless politician (I guess that adjective is unnecessary, really, as a useful politician would be an oxymoron) named Jim Prentice resigned from his post as Environment Minister for a newly created position at CIBC.  He was kind enough to help out Canadians by shutting down Taseko's Prosperity mine development in BC -- who's stock subsequently fell 29% last week -- and putting his left foot forward towards socialism with the negation of BHP's PotashCorp deal.

How odd that he decides to leave just a few months after qualifying for his gold-plated, government pension.

Yes, that's true.

Meanwhile in the US, Ben Bernanke is pulling the one lever he has available to him, which happens to be the one labelled "debase the currency".

One of my favorite blogs has a good piece on how to position yourself.

On the one hand, I'm glad I'm not an American right now, but on the other hand, I find it hard to see how Canada will avoid being severely harmed by this.  When the exchange rate with the US dollar hits $1.50 CAN to $1.00 US, all I can hope is that we are selling our commodities based on prices in Yuan or ounces of gold. 

Another exciting story that is gaining momentum involves the lawsuits against JP Morgan and HSBC for silver manipulation.  Back in early September I mentioned I was looking for a way to play this opportunity, and I'm still doing that.  I think that silver still has quite a large upside, and is a lot more accessible to the average Joe than gold. 

A couple of amusing facts were posted on Garth Turner's blog today: first, only 9% of Canadians own equities, and only 1% of Canadians have investment assets of over $1 million.  Retirement, for my generation, is going to be one of those crazy things your grandparents were able to do back in the good-old-days.

Looking into the future, I am sure of three things: higher taxes, increasing price inflation in consumer goods (groceries, gas, utilities), and massive deflation in debt-financed assets (real estate). 

Lastly, I pose a question that I have asked many friends and coworkers over the last couple of weeks:

How many wealthy people do you know directly?  I know wealthy is an ambiguous term, but let's define it as an unsubsidized person -- that is, no inheritance or family riches, no lottery winnings, no government pension -- who has accumulated enough liquid net worth to not work for the rest of their lives.

The answers I've received for the most part have been zero.

Let me follow this, then, with another question.  If the number of wealthy people you know is almost nil, than isn't it likely that they do things quite differently than the majority of people, with respect to personal finance? 

Celebrating your once-every-two-months Sunday off from Starbucks by buying a second investment property with a 2% cash back and 35 year amortization mortgage from CIBC, while driving your leased 2010 Cadillac Escalade to Holt Renfrew to put your coworkers' Christmas gifts on your home equity line of credit is probably not going to slingshot you into retirement.

Disclaimer: All content on this site is provided as general information only and should not be read as investment advice.  All site content, including advertisements, shall not be construed as a recommendation to buy or sell any security or financial instrument, or to participate in any particular trading or investment strategy.  The ideas expressed on this site are solely the opinions of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the opinions of sponsors or firms affiliated with the author(s).  The author may or may not have a position in any company or advertiser referenced above.  Any action you take as a result of information, analysis, or advertisement viewed on this site is your responsibility.  Consult an investment adviser before making any investment decisions.

Self-Immolation and Diarrhea

My apologies once again for being a day late; we didn't get home from Edmonton until after 9pm last night, and I was too tired to come up with anything coherent after unloading the car.

I'm still at a loss for a good subject today, which is probably because I haven't had a good trip to Wal-Mart in a couple of weeks.  We tried out the new Costco northeast of CrossIron Mills last weekend, but it lacks the robust character that Wal-Mart exudes.  I almost feel like I have to dress up to go to Costco, whereas if I show up at Wal-Mart in nylons, a fur coat, and a pirate hat, while carrying a lightsaber, I'm one of the classiest people there.  Yes, Virginia, a good trip to Wal-Mart is like a good bowel movement (I've always wanted to use the phrase "Yes, Virginia" in a sentence).

There's still no real news worth my effort commenting on in the market; several earnings reports last week disappointed me, but no real surprises were had.

On a rageful note, last night's 60 Minutes was astonishing.  They interviewed public sector figures who looked straight into the camera and said they had cut their budgets to the bone -- that there was nothing further they could do to save money without badly disrupting service to the needy.  Oddly enough, they neglected to consider removing even a single penny from the 'payroll' portion of the budget.  When 99% of all government revenue goes to salaries, pensions, and benefits, it's hard to make a dent on the cost side by reducing the material aspects of the services it renders.  Funny how that works.

Unfortunately, 60 Minutes didn't even mention the fact that the average public sector worker makes over twice that of the average private sector worker, which makes me sorry to say that I have lost a considerable degree of respect for their journalism.  This is the first time I can remember that they've truly disappointed me.

Government budgets are actually one of the simplest things on earth. The sole source of revenue is taxation (in one form or another; i.e. royalties, user fees, inflation).  Thus, the entire equation is:

Total Tax Revenue - Cost of Government = ___________

Balancing the budget is a trivial exercise; unfortunately, because they have the ability to run deficits, they have no incentive to keep the outcome of the above equation to a positive value.

In business, if revenue decreases and cost does not decrease proportionally, bankruptcy eventually occurs.  In government, the currency becomes worthless.

Speaking of bowel movements, I am going to dust off a story from the Terry Archives.

About three and a half years ago, I was working in a small mining town called Elkford (pop. ~2,500) in southeastern British Columbia.

The primary entertainment venue in the town (aside from the time they bussed in strippers from Calgary to another location, which is a separate tale for another time) was a bar called "The Lamplighter".  Every Wednesday at this establishment was "Wing Night", and on that night they served 30 cent wings.  Thus, being able to recognize a good deal when I saw one, I religiously consumed 24 wings every Wednesday for 5 or 6 months.  One night in particular, however, I ate 24 hot wings -- normally I would mix a dozen of one flavor with a dozen of another, just to keep things interesting.

The next morning, I got up and went down to catch the bus to the mine, which usually came by my stop at 5:50am.  As it was early in 2007, winter was still in full force, and it was very cold and very snowy.  At 5:49am, as I stood  waiting for the bus, which I could see a few blocks away, I felt the faintest rumble in my abdomen that briefly made me think "I guess I could go back to my apartment and use the bathroom, because I can always drive my own car to the mine, but I'm confident I can make it to work."

The bus ride from my stop to the mine was typically 40 minutes.  About 10 minutes into our journey through the dark wilderness, disaster struck. The angry, disgruntled remains of the wings were battling my willpower to contain them internally like the scene in Aliens where Ripley fights the alien queen in the airlock with the power loader.

I immediately broke into a cold sweat, and I could hear my heart pounding in my ears.

I began to repeat a mantra in my head over and over again "Terry, crapping your pants on the bus is probably not in your best interest."

As time slowed down around me, I ran through scenarios in my head where I rationalized calmly asking the bus driver to pull over on the mountain road in sub-zero weather so I could run outside and end the suffering immediately.  However, this was not a decision to be taken lightly, lest I be known for the rest of my co-op term as "the guy who stopped the bus to take a dump in the snow at 6:15 in the morning".

So, with the mental discipline of a monk who is able to self-immolate without making a sound, I clenched as tight as they keep the gates at the US Embassy in Iraq, and counted down the remaining 30 minutes, second by second.

When the bus pulled into the parking lot at the mine, I broke into a full-sprint on my way to the washroom, and in full legs-in-the-air-like-Jeff-Daniels-in-Dumb-and-Dumber style, triumphantly relieved myself.

And that, kids, is why I no longer eat two dozen hot wings in one sitting.

Things I Have Learned (Vol. I)

I've been living away from home for a few weeks now. Things I have learned:

1. I am still alive. This is a big plus.

2. GOD DAMN I have a lot of stuff. Where did this all come from??

3. The Roomba is a lot better at vacuuming than I am. It might not be very good either but it sure keeps at it longer than I do.

4. When you leave hot dog buns on the counter for nearly two weeks they turn stale. But when you have A STEAMER, you can turn them back into wonderful almost-new fresh buns. I am not even making this up. It is like magic or some crap.

5. That Funny Smell is the cork thing you put the pans on. Being boiled in the water under the steamer. Because you took the steamer off to check the buns, but then the goddamn cork thing stuck to the bottom of the steamer when you put it back in the pot. Brown water comes out of it too. I think it'll dry out back to normal.

Random Ramblings

The following is a bit of a shotgun blast of thoughts; I am in the midst of a week-long work seminar, and my brain is not functioning well enough to be cohesive.  Garth's post over at Greater Fool is excellent today, as well.


The most frightening moment in my entire life occurred in a Grade 12 Social Studies class, which is now about 8 years ago.

However, I still remember it like it was yesterday.

Our teacher, who's name I no longer recall, posed a question I thought to be rather simple:

"How many of you think people should be able to do whatever they like, as long as it does not harm anyone else?"

I was one of three people, out of a class of over 30, who raised a hand in agreement.  If this doesn't concern you, then you are already beyond help.

Now, one can make the argument that a lot of people in that class were either high or didn't care, which is probably true, but that shouldn't have amounted to the 90+% of them who supposedly disagreed.

That brief moment has helped me understand why everything in our world is the way it is, and why I am the way I am.

It's also one of the many reasons why I am a member of the Ludwig von Mises Institute, and encourage anyone with an open mind to explore what it has to offer.

Just a thought.

In other news, the TSX appears like it may make a run for 13,000 or possibly even beyond.  At this point, it doesn't matter.  We have seen some pretty hefty corporate earnings on essentially zero revenue growth.  This means that margins are peaking, which is not what happens in the middle of a "recovery".

Also, there's a reason my mailbox is inundated with junk from payday loan companies every week, and my bank constantly calls to offer me newer and exciting ways to become enslaved to them.  For the record, I have never had a line of credit, nor have I a use for one.

Growth in Consumer Credit Collapses by 50%

With real estate, it doesn't matter if we avoid the massive decline that has already begun, because even if valuations were to flatline and maintain existing levels for the foreseeable future, the large number of people who have been living beyond their means by sequentially rolling their consumer debt into their mortgage, expecting to continue using the double digit appreciation seen over the last decade (due entirely to one-time modifications of lending practices) to "pay it off" are going to be in serious trouble.

As I have said before, there are only two ways to succeed financially, and only one way that you can control. Luck and hard work.

On a side note, I am not a permabear.  I just call it like I see it.  If you had asked me my opinion in March of 2009, I would have told you to put every single penny you could find into the market.  If you had done so, you'd likely be up 2000% today.

Delay

I haven't been happy with anything I've churned out this evening, so rather then post something sub-par, I'll give it a day.  Check in tomorrow...


In the meantime, check out: http://mises.org/daily/4776

Manual Labour and the Morris Technique

The market is still extremely overbought, as America continues to try and convince its populous that destroying the currency is a good idea, and I will be sitting on the sidelines for the foreseeable future.  A post regarding an amusing event in my personal life will have to suffice, this week (don't worry, there's no mention of Wal-Mart this time).

I very rarely engage in manual labour.  This is primarily due to three separate, yet equally important, reasons:

1) It's one of my greatest phobias.

2) My self-calculated hourly rate for such work is so incredibly high that I wouldn't be able to afford the invoice if I were to hire myself.

3) When engaged in manual labour, I invariably end up applying something called the Morris Technique.

The first two reasons are fairly self-explanatory, but the third deserves some elaboration.

The Morris Technique is an extremely powerful, genetic, evolutionary-perfected method of performing manual labour that has been passed down from generation to generation, over hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of years.  Put simply, whenever a situation of difficulty presents itself during a manual labour event, one immediately casts aside all safe, relevant, and logical paths forward, and, instead, applies higher and higher degrees of rage-filled brute force until either immense, irreparable damage occurs to the object being worked on, or massive personal injury ensues.

A third outcome, which more or less compliments the previous two much like an aged cheese with a fine wine, occurs when one or more Morris' work on the same project together, and apply the technique in unison.  This outcome, naturally, is monumental physical violence between all parties present.

So, with all this firmly in mind, I awoke early Saturday morning with the spirited intention of changing the summer wheels and tires on our 2009 Toyota Matrix to their winter counterparts.

I began the task with a brisk trip to Canadian Tire at around 9am.  Once there, I located a reasonably priced 2-ton hydraulic jack, and also picked up a flashlight because, well, one can never have too many flashlights. Returning home triumphantly, I found the rear jacking point on the car, as indicated in the manual, and began raising the Matrix with the utmost of certainty.  When a thunderous crack echoed through the garage, I knew something had gone horribly, horribly wrong.

It appears that for no reason that I can comprehend other than to save costs, the rear jacking point is a hollow structure made out of 1/4 inch thick sheet metal instead of solid steel.  Thus, the relatively small diameter head of the jack I had just proudly purchased managed to gently destroy its way through to the mysterious environment on the other side.

Pausing momentarily for several minutes of loud and creative profanity, I grabbed the Toyota-provided spare tire jack out of the trunk -- the kind you crank with both hands -- so that I could use the four individual jack points on the side of the car to do each wheel.  I began with the driver's side rear, which went well, and subsequently proceeded to the driver's side front.

After removing the front summer tire and mounting the winter one in its place, I began to notice something was amiss when the torque wrench refused to hit its limit on any of the lug nuts, after several minutes of tightening.  It was then that I saw that the hub centric on the summer wheel had not come off with the wheel and had instead fused itself onto the original hub, and stood tauntingly between me and victory like King Leonidas and his 300 Spartans at the Hot Gates stood against Xerxes. Following the rapid completion of more profane outbursts, I applied a derivative of the Morris Technique to the hub centric using the back of a cheap blade screwdriver and the lug wrench.  This failed to work.

I pulled the winter tire off, remounted the summer one, lowered the car, moved the jack to the rear, raised the back again, started removing the single tire I had managed to get on the rear driver's side, all while waiting on hold with Kal Tire.  After the store manager finished laughing when I had asked if I could get the car in that day, I inquired whether I could get the hub centric off the front hub myself, and he pointed out that I could try pouring boiling water on it.

So, after several additional and exciting verbal blasphemies, I re-tightened the winter tire on the rear driver's side, lowered the car, moved the jack back to the front, raised the front, removed the summer rim for the second time, and start pouring a volume of boiling water equivalent to the Red Sea on the hub.  Many minutes of Morris Technique-ing later, I managed to pry off the hub centric, and angrily smashed the winter tire on and worked violently to complete the remainder of the task as quickly and unsafely as possible.

The passenger's side went quite smoothly, and after raising and lowering the car a total of 7 times with Toyota's Fisher Price jack, I spent the remainder of the weekend in unbearable pain.

A job well done.

DENIED!

This just in: Gran Turismo 5 has been delayed AGAIN!

I think at this rate Duke Nukem Forever may come out first (hur hurr).

That is all. I'm going to go play more Forza 3.

Good news, everyone! I've taught the toaster to feel love!

Hello there. You may note I am not a.) Jason or b.) Terry. I am, in fact, named "Erik" and will occasionally contribute to this compendium of universal knowledge. I am not going to try to write with any regularity or consistency in subject, but I figured I'd share a few things that have happened to me lately.

I have moved away from home (a gradual, molasses-like process over the last month or so) and have found that it isn't nearly as big a deal as it seems on the box. Setting up is quite expensive and I'm grateful I was able to combine stuff with my girlfriend, who had an entire collection of kitchen things. Most of my stuff belongs in the living room and den and either takes batteries or has a cord sticking out of it.

Speaking of which, my laptop decided to go into death throes while watching some TV before work. When your hard drive starts going "bzzzzt-CLICK" you are pretty much boned and the hourly backups that Mac OS does through Time Machine have saved me once again. I'm not sure if it's something I'm doing or if this computer just likes eating hard drives but when I replace this dead one it'll be the fourth hard drive transplant in my Macbook Pro.

It's a pre-unibody variant, which means instead of taking the battery cover off sliding the drive out, you get to take about 40 tiny horrible screws, remove the keyboard, undo ribbon connectors, etc. to get at the guts. I can almost do this in my sleep now (I don't need directions) - I just can't decide what drive to replace it with. Seagate laptop drives have been treating me badly, but they sell a 7200 RPM drive with 32 MB cache and a 4 GB onboard SSD compared to Western Digital's best, which is a 5200 RPM unit with 8 MB cache and no SSD whatsoever. I'll probably just get the fast one and inevitably have it break again, but by then I'll likely be replacing the laptop so ptthhbhht.

Bought the first DJ Hero game for the Xbox 360. Got it for $50 with the controller, hooray. It's actually quite fun. Must work out the "sweating profusely" and "table jiggling all over the place" issues though.

My condo comes with a year of free Telus service - phone, TV, and internet. This is the only way they got me to try their new Optik thingummy after years of bad dealings with them (through friends). I believe they've run fibre to the building- neato. The $60-ish a month Shaw connection at my parents produced a pretty solid 18 Mbit/sec download and 1 Mbit/sec upload, but Speedtest tells me my new connection is 25 Mbit/sec down and 1.75 Mbit/sec up - not bad for free. (Don't get me started on asymmetric internet connections though. I'd trade 10 Mbit/sec down for another 1 or 2 Mbit/sec up.) The only caveat is watching TV through a set-top box will consume some of this bandwidth.

I was completely NOT SURPISED AT ALL when the installer left without getting phone or TV working - par for the course with telecom companies.

Now to work on that weird feeling of "having to go home" when I am home.

Foreclosure Fraud and Relative Wealth

Earlier in the day, I was considering simply posting a note stating that I would get around to this week's entry tomorrow, given the stat holiday. However, I have now changed my mind, as I am completely paralysed from the gargantuan feast of epic that we had for Thanksgiving.

On the investment side this week, I bailed out of a small position (around $10k) that I was holding in the materials sector last Monday, realizing a respectable 20% profit that only took 3 months.

The rapidly developing foreclosure fraud issue in the US, and a rally that appears to represent a complete separation of the market from any semblance of fundamentals has caused me to pause. After all, I am not interested in speculation, I am interested only in value investing. I no longer see any opportunities in the latter, though there are plenty of bandwagons to jump on for those interested in the former. Discouragingly, I see some very strong similarities in the market right now to late 2007.

On another note, I find it rather interesting to consider the concept of relative costs. For the sake of argument, let's say you have a net worth of $100,000 (makes the math easy). You take your wife (and, lol)/or girlfriend out for a fancy dinner – that is, you skip the Red Robin and head to the essence of middle-class luxury: Earl's. You both have a couple of cocktails, share some calamari, both have steak, and share a dessert. You get the cheque, add the tip, and it comes to $100. You have just spent 0.1% of your net worth on one meal.

Now, let's say that Bill Gates (net worth: $54B US) takes his wife out to dinner. Let's also say that he takes her to one of the most expensive restaurants in the world, where, after I did some Googling, it seems it costs about $700 for two to dine, excluding tip and alcohol. To make the math easy, let's round this up to $1,000. This works out to 0.0000019% of his net worth.

To put this into perspective, for Bill Gates to spend the equivalent amount on dinner that we have just spent at Earl's, he would have to relieve himself of $54,000,000. This means he could buy a new Gulfstream G550 private jet ($50 million), use it once JUST to go to dinner -- and then crumple it up and toss it out -- and then buy a new single-use Bugatti Veyron to drive back home. He would still have about a million dollars in change.

My point is, there becomes a point where one attains an amount of wealth beyond which it is pointless to compare any expense to the average person. If we take the $1,000 cost of the most expensive restaurant meal to determine what this value is, it works out to a million dollars.

When you look at it in terms like that, becoming 'wealthy' doesn't seem that far out of reach.

Disclaimer: All content on this site is provided as general information only and should not be read as investment advice.  All site content, including advertisements, shall not be construed as a recommendation to buy or sell any security or financial instrument, or to participate in any particular trading or investment strategy.  The ideas expressed on this site are solely the opinions of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the opinions of sponsors or firms affiliated with the author(s).  The author may or may not have a position in any company or advertiser referenced above.  Any action you take as a result of information, analysis, or advertisement viewed on this site is your responsibility.  Consult an investment adviser before making any investment decisions.

Tidbits I

There are a few wonderful little stories I've picked up off the interwebs over the last few days.  Nothing worthy of a full write up, but definitely enough for a mention.



Slashdot has spread the word about an ABC News story on the new DEATH RAY in Las Vegas.  Sadly, this isn't some sort of crazy stunt by the latest super-villain-themed hotel on the strip.  Vdara, one of the latest hotels to open on Las Vegas' famed strip, was built in a c-shape.  As a result, at certain times of the day/year, the entire hotel acts like a giant parabolic mirror which amplifies the already powerful desert sun to a small portion of the hotel's pool area.  ABC reports that some hotel guests are suffering from "severe burns."  I love engineering errors that are completely unintended side effects.  I guarantee if someone designing the building had asked "Will this glass facade focus the sun's rays and cause burns?", they would have been laughed out of the office.



Jaunted reported last week on a story from the UK about a couple who were rather suddenly kicked out of a Blackpool hotel for giving a bad review on Trip Advisor.  Apparently, they were half-way through their stay when the hotel manager stormed into their room demanding that they leave.  The police were even called to evict the couple.  It gets better: the evicted man was a cancer patient on his first vacation after finishing chemotherapy. Talk about a publicity nightmare...



The Chicago Blackhawks revealed their new Stanley Cup rings last week.  After looking at the new design, it's pretty obvious that Chicago has been waiting a long time for the cup to return.  The ring weighs 91 grams (3.2 ounces) and contains 404 gemstones totaling approximately 8.0 carats.  I'm not sure if it's impressive or just gaudy.



According to Jaunted, Ferrari World in Dubai will be opening by the end of this year.  For around $60 USD (and a plane ticket to Dubai) you can experience the following Ferrari-related rides:

• Formula Rossa
• The world's fastest roller coaster (apparently somewhere between 125 and 150 mph)
• Acceleration to maximum speed in 4 seconds using an aircraft carrier launch system
• G-Force
• Designed to simulate G-forces by taking you 100 feet up and then propelling you vertically straight back down.
• Fiorano GT Challenge
• Duelling coasters
• Cars look EXACTLY like an F430 Spider
• Speed of Magic
• A slower flume ride
• Simulates being shrunk and travelling through a Ferrari engine

Nothing more interesting from me for now.  Hopefully I'll manage to find something new to rant about soon...

Pop goes the bubble, James Cameron, and Netflix

A shift in mainstream sentiment is underway in Canada right now. In Victoria and Vancouver, the most delirious of Canada's real estate markets, people are starting to realize that, in fact, human nature isn't all that different, no matter what side of our southern border one happens to be on.

Some wonderful articles this week that both illustrate this -- and make me wish I had put in a larger order for my “I told you so” t-shirt series -- can be witnessed below:

Greater Victoria real estate sales hit 20-year low in September

Olympic village buyers trying to back out

Did you see the sales numbers for new R/E units?

Alexandre Pestov has also made another excellent update to his original paper on the housing situation: http://www.scribd.com/doc/38509625/The-Elusive-Canadian-Housing-Bubble-Fall-2010-Musings

After a decade of unprecedented credit expansion, culminating in the lowest interest rates of all time and no need for a down payment to obtain 35 year financing (in fact, you can get PAID!), the party is now over. As the herd mentality takes hold and spreads from west to east, the difference between money and credit will show its head once again, and those who hold the former will find themselves in a very pleasant position.

I don't want to talk real estate much further; first, because so many others listed on the right hand side of this blog do a better job than I can, and second, because I find it bothersome. Thanks to the knowledge I've gained from the Austrian School of Economics, I generally find it more frustrating to know exactly what's going to happen and then watch it play out, than interesting.

My wife and I have never understood the obsession the majority of our peers have with open houses and HGTV 'house porn', as Garth Turner calls it. To us, if a portion of our portfolio dividends can cover our entire rent and utilities, while simultaneously eliminating the risk of being trapped in an immobile, illiquid, depreciating asset as jobs migrate elsewhere, great!  Don't get me wrong, there will be a time to own real estate in Canada again -- much like 1992-2004 -- but that will be sometime between now and 2015, depending on how quickly the herd of buffalo impacts the cliff bottom.

In other fun news this week, world-renowned environmental scientist James Cameron was up in northern Alberta, advising the locals on the benefits of filling the world's energy needs with campfire Kumbaya instead of synthetic crude oil. While I highly doubt the people of this country are truly that stupid, I have increased my supply of ammo and canned goods accordingly, as any good hedge fund manager would.

In addition, I signed up for Netflix earlier this week. Now, there are some complaints about some of the content, and they are probably warranted, but I have found it to be a wonderful replacement for the horrendously expensive waste that cable television is. I just need to find a way to get hockey...

Honestly, for a monthly cost less than one McDonald's meal, Netflix is a pretty good deal. Best to get on board soon, though, I imagine the gods over at Canada's OPEC of telecommunications aren't too happy, and will find a way to rape us the way we deserve. Much like Rogers is doing to Wind Mobile (another favorite company of mine) 

See, when the government grants you an oligopoly over an entire industry, and then years later allows small competitors to gain some foothold in the name of 'competition', you can simply subsidize a money-losing subsidiary to destroy the competition. All you have to do is outlast the funds of the competitor, which is easy when the majority of the country is surgically attached to your 3-year-contract teat.

Look at that, I just got home from Wal-Mart prior to spewing this onto the page and I didn't even mention it until the very end!

Wal-Mart, Firearms, and Obesity

I was at Wal-Mart again today. The anniversary event is still on, and I took the opportunity to stock up on a year's supply of laundry detergent and several crates of pudding. Did you know they have power scooters that you can just take and use while you are in the store? You don't even have to walk!

I only noticed the scooters today, as it seems they are normally in use by the true pinnacles of human evolution (i.e. http://www.peopleofwalmart.com/?p=17652).  Michelle wouldn't let me use one, even though I offered to let her ride shotgun...

Another unfortunate feature of our present society can be witnessed at Wal-Mart over the next couple of days, and that is the paycheck cycle.

An excerpt from a Reuter's article last year sheds some light:

Q: How are consumers holding up? What are you seeing in terms of the paycheck cycle — when Walmart sees its sales decline as shoppers run out of money in between paychecks?

“We still see that … pronounced paycheck cycle. So it tells me that our customer remains under a significant amount of pressure. … The trend that we’ve seen away from credit … that trend continues. You see less in the way of credit, more in the way of cash and debit.

… Many of our customers receive food stamps, welfare, other forms of government assistance. On the first of the month their EBT card would be charged, and we can see literally real-time once the clock strikes midnight and EBT cards are charged, you can see our results start to tick up.”

http://blogs.reuters.com/shop-talk/2009/08/13/30-minutes-with-wal-marts-cfo/

Two weeks ago there was an interesting survey that found 59% of Canadians polled would be in financial difficulty if their pay was delayed one week. Incredible. I tend to maintain 6 months of living expenses in a highly liquid account (which we could easily stretch to more if we adjusted our lifestyle), but I guess that's just me.

In other news, as my past weekend involved educating Albertan migratory waterfowl on the different levels of the food chain, I stopped in at both locations of Wholesale Sports in Edmonton looking for a longer barrel for my Remington 870, or, in the event a barrel was unavailable, a new gun.

There seems to be this illusion that Canadians are not gun-toting nuts like those folk south of the border, but at both locations, I waited upwards of 45 minutes in line, on a Thursday evening, within 2 hours of closing, to talk to one of the six sales people at the gun counter (I prefer the north Edmonton branch, because they have a “take a number” machine).

I didn't even have to wait 45 minutes to ride X2 at Six Flags Magic Mountain last month.

I ended up buying a second Remington 870 at the north location (all the 870s were sold out on the south side). The price difference between a new barrel, which I would have had to continually swap with the shorter barrel, and a new gun, was only about $100. I love Remington; for less than this Netbook, I picked up a brand new 12 gauge.

I then elected to pay my hunting taxes – I mean, buy my licences – online; I thought I had thwarted the need to physically go down to any kind of venue for such paperwork. Turns out, after my WIN card renewal, my Wildlife Certificate, and my Game Bird licence, I still needed a Federal Migratory Waterfowl Permit. This piece of wonderful bureaucracy can only be picked up at select venues, and not online. It was sold out at the first 3 places I went, and I was finally able to get one of 6 left at a Shopper's Drug Mart Post Office outlet.

My last point of rage for the day involves fat people on airplanes.  I really think companies need to step up and take the baggage approach to ticket pricing.  Passengers should be charged BY THE POUND.  The volume of fuel used to transport a cesspool of lard is quite different than that used to transport a small bag of electrons.  What do you think?

Process

Today's regular update will be pushed to tomorrow, as I just got home from Edmonton.

I am also in the process of combining this blog with another, and that should be complete by tomorrow also.

Unnecessary

This weekend NHL.com has reported that Chicago Blackhawks defenseman Nick Boynton will be suspended for 1 regular season game.  The suspension comes after Boynton made a throat slashing motion towards Tampa Bay Lightning centre Blair Jones during a pre-season game on Sept 22.

Is this seriously what the NHL has come to?

Frankly I think that 1 game wasn't enough.  Trust me, Boynton won't notice missing one game and a couple thousand dollars.  The league needs to send a message that juvenile behaviour like this won't be tolerated.

An Inauspicious Beginning (Again)

Unlike Terry, I don't plan on talking much about finance, WalMart, or lunch meat.

I'm going to use this space to share the random tidbits of the internet and the rest of the world that I somehow manage to find.  To be honest, I don't really have a target audience for all of this information.  I just think that I manage to locate a reasonable amount of interesting/irreverent/irrelevant stuff and I figure the rest of the world need to see it...for some reason.

You can expect to see posts on everything from tech to music, hockey to world travel.  I'm good at diversifying.

Posts from my old blog have been imported and can be seen in the archives.

Anyway, on to something interesting...

Test Post

A few minutes ago, I mentioned to Jason that we should use this new site for both of our blogs, as both of us have started to write regularly again, and, like a workout partner at the gym, the whole thing will probably work better if we capitalize on the motivation provided by the other person's posts.

Plus, it makes it easier to argue like massive idiots!

Moving on, speaking of deli-related items, I had an EPIC donair for lunch today at a place called My Donair on the east side of Macleod Trail, just south of 42 Ave S (Calgary, AB).  Parking is sort of tricky; I ended up doing a big loop that put me northbound on Macleod (I was originally going south, down from 36 Ave where I work), where I was able to turn right into the stripmall-ish setup.

They had a deal we lucked out on as well; on Tuesday, if you buy two, you get the second one half off.  We were immediately disappointed to find out this didn't apply to the Jumbo size -- 300g of meat vs 160 or so for the next size down, called Deluxe -- but I ended up so full from the Deluxe that I fear what would've happened had we gone with the Jumbo...that's what she said.

Sorry.

Good restaurants near work seem to be hard to find in Calgary, but I'm up to 4 of them now.  Unfortunately, unlike Vancouver, I can't walk to any of them.

Well, that's probably a good enough start.

Back to being lazy...

Trip From Hell

I don't normally talk about my personal life much in this blog but I feel for once I have to stand up on my soapbox and rant a little. I figure if I had to deal with this crap for the last few days, the interwebs can deal with me writing about it.

As most people know, I travel a lot for work. I'm usually out of the country at least once every couple of months. Because of that, I tend to feel rather lost/naked when I don't have my passport on me. In preparation for an upcoming trip to Nigeria, I had to send my passport off to the Nigerian High Commission in Ottawa to get an entry visa. This is a pretty normal practice. Unfortunately the application process is a little...convoluted. For example, they require a signed copy of the online application form. However, there is no way to print out the application after you have finished it. In addition, the online application consists of 4 separate pages of information. So I ended up having to re-fill in the entire form, print out each page, sign them, and send them off. Thankfully we use an immigration/visa consultant who is familiar with these sorts of things and can act as a liason between ignorant people like me and foreign consulates.

Unfortunately, I was also scheduled to go to Houston this week for training. After not hearing back from the Nigerian High Commission by Wednesday of last week, I talked to my immigration consultant and asked her to get the Nigerian High Commission to send back my passport, with or without the visa. Thursday I was notified that my passport was on its way back and would have my visa. Again unfortunately the Nigerian High Commission will (for whatever reason) only ship using Canada Post. They had shipped my passport using Canada Post's Next Day A.M. Priority Courier.

However, Friday morning came and went. No passport. Apparently they had missed the cutoff for Next Day A.M. service by about 45 minutes and my passport had been received in the collection for Friday Next Day service. But this is Canada Post. They don't work weekends. Next Day A.M. meant Monday morning.

So the only option available to me was to head down to Canada Post's main sorting depot on Saturday morning. I arrived to find a mostly empty building. Not counting security, there were approximately 4 people working. One of them managed to tell me that they were shutdown until Sunday afternoon and had approximately 1.4 MILLION pieces of unsorted mail.  I was told that the odds of finding my passport in that pile was almost nonexistent.

This meant it was time to try rebooking. After 2 hours on the phone with the company travel agent, the hotel I was booked in, and the limo companies transporting me to/from the airports in Edmonton and Houston, everything was rebooked for Monday night. I would go to work and hope that my passport arrived in time.

So Monday morning arrives. After spending Sunday night packing and preparing to travel, I was hopeful that I'd actually get to go. Slowly the morning passed away and no passport arrived. I all but gave up on my chances of going. Just after lunch, Canada Post's tracking website was finally updated and showed that my passport had been put on a truck in Edmonton at 10:50 am. But where in the city was it?

My ride to the airport was booked for 2:30. Finally, at 2:00, I found someone able to provide some real help. Our receptionist mentioned that Canada Post sometimes just drops courier packages in our mailbox. I stood at the window with baited breath as she walked across the street and returnee with an armful of mail. And in that armful my passport was waiting for me. I couldn't believe it. One would think that for something as important as a passport, a signature would be required. But I'm not one to look a gift horse in the mouth. I finally had my passport with 30 minutes to spare.

Naturally, my ride to the airport was 5 minutes late. Thankfully I allotted some extra time. At 3:00 I finally arrived at the airport. I finally started to think that I'd actually make it. I went to check in. The desk agent couldn't find my booking. I pulled out my itinerary. Somehow my travel agent had rebooked me for Sunday night and not Monday night. Perfect.

So I call up the travel agent as fast as I could. Fortunately there were still seats available and it was relatively easy to make the change. Or so she said as she put me on hold. 20 minutes later it's getting to be questionable as to whether I could make the flight. So I head to the ticket desk. The ticket agent tells me that she can see my travel agent is in the process of changing the ticket but isn't finished. So she issued me what was essentially a conditional ticket, put my luggage on standby, and told me to run for the gate. I was still on hold. So I put my on-hold phone through the x-ray machine and hoped I wouldn't miss anything. I got through security, picked up my phone, and within seconds heard "Mr Constam you're good to go."

I run up to the gate just as boarding was starting. Of course this means the gate agent is too busy and can't verify my ticket. After another agonizing 10 minutes, she finally gets to me and checks me in. I'm set. Except that my departing flight to Calgary was leaving out of a gate where they dock small planes at lettered gates. I was told to go to door H. Door H is near the end of the right side of this long hallway. I get there and there's no plane. I run back to the start of the hall, head down the left side and just run as hard as I can. Th plane was at door E, at the end of the right side. I'm the last one on board. I look at the flight attendant and ask "Will this plane actually take me to Calgary?" She replies "Why wouldn't it?" I quip "You have no idea the day I'm having..."

I'm finally in my seat. I'm set. I only now have to manage to collect my luggage, pass through US customs, and get through security in my hour and five minute layover in Calgary. Then the pilot comes on and says that we'll be delayed a few minutes because Calgary's airspace is busy. Great.

I arrive in Calgary 13 minutes late. I start running again. Seriously, if running through airports was an Olympic sport, you could give me the gold medal right now. I get to the American departures area and stop to wait for my luggage. I had no idea if it even made it on the plane due to my temporary stand-by status. Ten agonizing minutes later, my suitcase appears. I manage to fly through US customs and manage to get through security with only a quick full body scan and minor bag search. (Seriously, for me, that's a good deal.)

With 15 minutes to spare, I jogged up to my departure gate for Houston. Suddenly, it occurs to me that since my ticket was a last minute purchase, I might be in a good enough class to get an upgrade using a normally useless blue system-wide upgrade certificate. I was right.

So after what was a rather insane day, I was rewarded with a big comfy seat, a row to myself, an ice cold beer, and a wonderful dinner of chicken curry and rice.

As much as I am still angry with Canada Post, I do have to thank some amazing people and companies: my travel agency BCD Travel for acting so fast, Air Canada's ground crew in Edmonton and Calgary for being immensely accommodating, and my wonderful flight attendant Barry on AC8106 (YYC->IAH) for making my day end on a good note.

I never want to apply for a visa again. I think I'd rather stay home...