Monday, January 31, 2011

sold some baseball cards

Unusual event over the weekend. I got an order on Sportlots for a baseball card sale. After a good start selling 1-2 orders a month for the first few months I hadn't had an order since March last year. I guess my area of interest is thinly traded. I thought maybe I was deleted or blacklisted somehow, although my feedback has been positive.

I sold a 1973 o pee chee Jerry Koosman for $0.75 to a guy in Ontario. I sent the payment into store credit. I hope to get back to cards later this year and start the big hockey program. So I expect to be doing some buying to finish off a set or two from the 1978-1983 era.

I have a bit of clean up to do as well move some unwanted cards like the 1996 score NFL complete set. I was able to move the 1991 upper deck high number NFL although I ended up giving it away on kijiji. Plus I've got some data now on which of my listed cards are moving. Some of them which came along later and I don't care about I may unlist and just toss to free up storage space for when hockey starts to get sorted.

Saturday, January 29, 2011

Tunisian billionaire Belhassen Trabelsi in Canada

What to do about Belhassen Trabelsi. Let's look at it this way.

He has $1000 million.

He's in Quebec and wants to stay in Canada.

Quebec needs $400 million for a new arena.

There's no extradition to Tunisia anyway so perhaps for a strategic goodwill gesture to his new country such as building an arena for the community of Quebec to enjoy he would still have plenty to live well on and spend in Canada.

For all we know he made his money fighting Islamic extremism. Perhaps what happened in Tunisia can stay in Tunisia for all that the great majority of Canadians care. If he wants to be here, stay out of trouble and contribute to the community.

Thursday, January 27, 2011

happpy power anniversary

Good news on my power bill. My rate got adjusted from $146 down to $79. Same thing happened at my last apartment it went from $50 to like $6 and settled in around $25. I expect it will settle around $100 a month here too. The adjustment didn't account for the winter months since I've only been here since August.

I must watch less tv or something since my rates tend to be lower than previous tenants, which is what the initial monthly power rate is based on. Still it's a nice surprise an extra $67 a month.

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Margaret Trudeau

So Margaret Trudeau has a book out. First off any and all discussion of Margaret must begin with this.
Jean Chretien was a good prime minister.

His wife refrained from sleeping with Mick Jagger.
ok now that's out of the way. I didn't read her book and I'm not going to spend my time or a royalty for her on it. I did hear from this book that she says she's bipolar. Maybe it was already somewhat known. Anyway how apropos.

I remember it was less than a generation ago it was known as manic depressive. Back then it was a very serious condition requiring heavy medication and typically psychiatric hospitalization. And a stigma that would stay with you all your life. But alas today we have this new apparent "lite" version with the catchy name bipolar and unlike manic depressive no obvious symptoms; and lots of people apparently have it.

But to me what I see is just more excuses, a convenient new way for people to deny responsibility for their life decisions. Toss in this other new disease borderline personality disorder BPD and you're set. Make bad life decisions; act like an idiot 24/7 or whenever you choose to; and if anyone says anything just throw bipolar or BPD back in their face and wash your hands of the matter; then go back to continue what you were doing.

Maybe Margaret is bipolar. She's still responsible for what she did and she still owes Canada an apology for the way she acted.

Why does she go by the name Trudeau? She left him and went on to marry someone else after.

Monday, January 24, 2011

Pittsburgh Penguins

Is Gino Odjick in shape? Can Georges Laraque be available? How about Tie Domi.

The Penguins need to bring in someone to restore order out on the ice. The brazen running of Crosby, cheap shots behind the play, has gotten out of hand. This goes back at least to game #7 of the stanley cup finals rematch.

They should have brought in Jody Shelley or Todd Bertuzzi when they were available.

Saturday, January 22, 2011

paying for the CRTC is money for nothing

Another disgraceful story. So now the CRTC has decided we can't listen to money for nothing any more. This was a global #1 hit in 1985, a vintage year. Now they are being revisionist and trying to rewrite history from a militant politically correct stance.

Screw you CRTC you bunch of little faggots. How dare you try to impose this new rule on the people of Canada today. This is a bold provocation.

Stephen Harper talked the talk with his Beatles mug and standing up on stage with his guitar. Now he has to walk the walk if he wants to win the next election. Stand up for rock n roll. Stand up for freedom. Stand up for Canada. Harper needs to personally intervene in this case and overturn the dire straits ban. For a bonus terminate the bureaucrats who created this distress on the people of Canada.


Looking at the bigger picture though is this any surprise. Starting with mandatory seat belts a generation ago there has been a remorseless expansion of the government into the affairs of free, private, law abiding citizens - see the new HRM public skating helmet rules below; and now this attack. The time has come to push back.

Wednesday, January 19, 2011

cops in the news

There seem to be more news stories lately involving folks getting into confrontations with the police

- story out of Mexico some Canadians say they were roughed up and the woman raped
- Ottawa story some woman fought a bunch of cops for some reason, lost the fight, now she's suing
- the usual anguish from the Toronto G20 some people are upset how their arrests were handled blah blah blah

So what to make of it. Well in today's politically correct society cops have been on the defensive for many years. At G20 they were so timid they stood by and countenanced hooliganism and their own squad cars being torched.

Let's consider the Ottawa case. The cops were dealing with trouble, a disturbance in some neighbourhood. They stopped some woman passerby randomly, took her name and id and sent her on her way. End of story right? Annoying and inconvenient for the female perhaps but no real harm, the cops were just exercising their judgment to do their job. Anyway Ms. Uppity foolishly turns around and goes back to the cops to stage a confrontation, incredibly questioning and challenging them to their faces about why they stopped her. The police were trying to do their job to establish and maintain the rule of law. They don't answer to her, how dare she bypass the proper complaint channels and presume to confront the officers directly to their faces while they were on duty.

Anyway Ms. Mouthy gets a trip downtown for her trouble like she deserved. At the squad for whatever reason she decides to fight four officers at once punching, kicking, screaming. Surprise she lost that fight and possibly took some punches and a kick off a female officer. Oh well she did pick the fight! That's what happens in a fight you know.

So now of course Ms. Ottawa is the victim and is suing. Again we see the attitude in the media that the cops are on the defensive. Questioned, challenged, undermined at every turn.

Toronto G20 has been discussed and it's the same story.

Onto Mexico. Some people apparently don't understand that once you cross the frontier and leave Canada you lose any of the customs and protection of Canada. Incredibly some of the tone of the Mexico case are trying to apply the rules imposed on the Ottawa and Toronto cops onto Mexico's. That's preposterous, Canada's politically correct rules don't apply outside Canada!

If I was the Mexican ambassador to Canada I would remind the Canada media and government this about it
What happens in Mexico stays in Mexico.
The story seems farfetched to me. But the attitude of the lead up is remarkable. Two drunk Canadian tourists get in some late night confrontation in a restaurant. Kicked out of there, they continue the altercation out onto the street. Cops show up and they get into a fight with the cops. Bad idea - this ain't Toronto/Ottawa police.

So maybe they did get roughed up at the police station. Who knows. Maybe it was a bad idea to be acting drunk and disorderly while guests on the Mexican's turf, then disrespect the Mexican police who showed up to deal with the situation that they created.

Friday, January 14, 2011

Target buying Zellers

Lot of news coverage about Target buying Zellers. I don't have a lot to add. I once worked for Zellers back in like around 1993. I needed a job back then so I've always been a bit grateful and tried to choose to shop at Zellers some of the time. Interesting it worked out to about $8 million per existing store which somehow seems like a premium.

I'll miss Zellers but with Target there will still be a counter to walmart which we need. Although maybe now I don't think I'll need to make a special effort to spread some business over to them because of some loyalty from the past.

The flag waving around Zellers was really overdone. Parent Hudson's Bay is American owned. And go into a Zellers and you'll have to look pretty hard to find much made in Canada. Pretty slim pickings, walmart inventory is about the same percentage made in Canada which is negligible.

Thursday, January 13, 2011

more stupid rules - HRM skating helmet law

I was driving to work the other day past the new BMO Centre arena. I was in there before and it is a nice place.

So the outside electronic message board is up and I drove past an announcement that helmets are now mandatory in public skates.

Sheesh! what a joke, a disgrace, an embarrassment. We've had public skates in Canada for about 100 years and we didn't need helmets. Why is a new rule being imposed now? This and all the other stupid new rules like 12 year olds in booster seats, new restrictions on smoking and drinking.

The wussification and feminization of our society has gone too far. This has to be stopped and rolled back. If some unreasonable, overprotective female wants to put ridiculous rules on her spouse and family then that's their burden. But today these same idiot rules are being imposed on all of formerly free society.

Freedom is a right and a responsibility. At some point in a functioning society adults have to be required to make their own decisions and own the consequences of those decisions. It cannot be the government's responsibility to live people's lives for them. We cannot and should not regulate every action of every person 24/7/365. Common sense and good judgment cannot be imposed.

If an adult chooses not to wear a helmet skating then he is aware of the risk and has to be free to live with the consequences good or bad. He's only hurt himself if something happens. This responsibility cannot be transferred onto the police, criminalized, regulated, or taken over by the government.

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Computer is fixed

The contractor came by my place last Friday and fixed my Dell computer. It's working properly again. He replaced the motherboard and the video card. Just in time since I didn't have a display. I'm glad to be back online; under warranty too so didn't even cost me anything.

Dell was very good about the warranty work. Thorough too with follow up. They called me to check that the tech had made an appointment. Then they called again after to check that the work was done and I was satisfied with everything. I was very happy with how it turned out.

I might still buy another year of warranty if I can. I'll check the price. It was lucky this was covered under warranty.

For the display I've switched to HDMI. Prices on these cables are finally starting to come down. I got a six foot no name cable at wal-mart for $10 and it works fine. The display seems crisper and faster now with HDMI - especially youtube. It was a bit different plugging my speakers into the monitor but it worked.

HDMI is a great invention. One cable, one plug, audio and video, HD, plug it in and it just works.

Tuesday, January 04, 2011

The new year

Well another year has begun so it's a good time to think about what I'd like to get done this year.

2010 was a busy year with lots of changes, some good and some not so good. I moved during the summer. I switched jobs at work during the year. Started dating. Looking back on the Jan 2010 post I paid off the car so that was good. There was some negative stuff like the health problems my parents had to deal with.

For 2011 I'm looking for more stability. Stay solvent financially keeping income and spending balanced. Hopefully work will continue to run well since I'm happy with my job after the switch. But I can't really control that. I don't plan to move this year the new apartment is ok and moving is just too much. There are some things I'd like to improve around my place with furniture and such so hopefully be able to get to that.

Of course there's the perpetual take a proper vacation PEI or Ottawa who knows maybe this will be the year.

One resolution is to get better at getting ready for work. I've allowed this to drift to become too long from the moment my alarm goes off to the time I'm at my desk. This is historically around 1 hour and I will work on getting lunch and clothes ready the night before, getting up as soon as the alarm goes off, moving more efficiently in the morning to get ready.

There's still that Important Matter that really needs to be done. Although painful it still needs to be worked through and should have been taken care of a long time ago. So again it has to happen this year, in the first half of the year preferably. Who knows maybe the resolution of that will open up some possibilities that have been on the edge of my radar for a long time.

Monday, January 03, 2011

back online

I was offline for a couple of days there starting new years eve. The display on my monitor wouldn't come up.

The display has been flaky for some time. Last summer the white plug stopped working so I switched to the blue VGA cable. That worked for a few months then it failed a couple of days ago. I bought a 6 foot HDMI cable at walmart for $10 as my video card also has HDMI. Alas HDMI also didn't work.

As a check on the monitor I ran my DVD player into the monitor using the HDMI cable and that worked. I also tried running the PC output both blue VGA and HDMI into the second TV I have next to the computer. Again no display signal. I could see the lights coming on the PC and the keyboard and mouse were lit up so I was pretty sure it was the video card on the PC, especially given that the white DVI had already failed last summer.

I checked the papers and luckily the computer was still under Dell 1 year warranty. I called the number and had my service code ready. The tech was in India it was slightly hard to hear her at times but she was ok. We went through the procedures to confirm yes the monitor is turned on, yes I tried VGA and HDMI, yes I tried again plugging into the tv instead of the monitor.

Then her supervisor had a pretty good idea. She told me to check under the power cable for a connector behind the PC. There was a covered connector and after popping off the plastic cover there it was a VGA connector. I guess that's the one that ships with the PC, I had added a custom graphics card when I bought this PC. I attempted plugging that in and was a bit surprised it worked, I had a display again.

I was a bit worried they would then brush me off with the problem solved. However the Dell support was good. She agreed there is a problem with either the graphics card or the motherboard. They are actually sending a tech to replace both under warranty. She said it should happen this week and gave me a tracking number.

So far so good then. I'll be glad to get the replacement parts I don't want to be down to one display. Hopefully the repair will go smoothly and the system will be back to health. If it goes well I'll check the price and may purchase one more year of warranty coverage.