And count slowly

People enjoy griping about the way people drive in their city, and here I go. Saskatoon has its share of problems but unlike any city I’ve seen before. Unlike Calgary, my chief annoyance with Saskatoon drivers is that they drive too slowly. The unposted and average speed limit of Saskatoon is 40 km/h. I don’t advocate speeding, but there should be a collective effort to get from A to B. Driving should be like dropping onto a stream, flowing towards your destination and dropping out at the right eddy. In Saskatoon it’s like trudging through waist deep water. I’ve never seen a more complacent populace of motorists. There is a customary delay of 1 Mississippi... 2 Mississippi... 3 Mississippi... 4 Mississippi... 5 Mississippi... before releasing the brake when the light turns green. And proof positive of this custom is that people consistently drive through aging yellow lights with the surety of a cannon-baller who knows there’s water in the pool. Then there’s the four-way face ballet. That’s when four drivers are at a four-way stop and are all looking at each other trying to decide, with a series of subtle eyebrow raises, which one of them should proceed next.

Travelling through this culture of the driving dead is not without its advantages. Like the last remaining able-bodied punk in a town overrun by zombies, I move briskly through the motorcoma. It’s not uncommon to see five cars lined up in one lane and the lane next to it empty at a red light. The driver of the fifth car must know that they’ll be waiting 25 mississippi’s before carefully inching forward. Of course, they’re not worried, they’ll just roll through when it’s yellow. And I’ve mastered the eyebrow twitch that entitles me first passage at the four-way stop.

I think I enjoy driving in Europe the most. There seems to be an understanding there. There’s a flow. You must take your opportunities when they come or they’ll be taken from you. And, as mother fearlessly demonstrated, following the rules over there is purely optional and you can drive wherever you want. One way street? I don’t think so. Tram tracks? No problem! Pulling into traffic and hitting the brakes? Mastered. License? Pff. And with a forward-shooting water canon on the front of her car she never had to master the eyebrow twitch.

Release the hounds!

Since the first time the corporate computer network was connected to the information superhighway, curious and internet savvy employees have been surreptitiously reaching out beyond the company firewall to interact with the world. Early on in this era, their browsing was quite innocent, exploring what the cyber world had to offer, perhaps since there was no internet at home. This of course ate up company time causing a cascade of reduced productivity and eventually a drop in net capital gain. Since no company wants to pay an employee for two weeks for what could be done in one week, managers had IT implement countermeasures such as restricting internet access to its employees to certain times and certain work-based sites. This meant those employees had to find other methods of getting what they needed from the net, which meant IT had to find other ways of implementing restrictions, ad vitam aut culpum.

Much like the race between virus programmers and antivirus programmers who exchange leading each other by a nose, there is a race at the office between Instant Messenger users and Information Technology departments. It is a race between good and evil. On one side you have people for honest and unrestricted communication at the office (PHUC OFF) who enjoy chatting with loved ones and long distance family members while their workload permits. On the other side you have Big Brother whose primary task is to remove all elements of potential distraction so as to allow the employee’s focus to be but on his task. These elements include but are not limited to sunlight, oxygen, peripheral vision, hair space, humour, opinion, blinking slowly, foot tapping, coffee refilling, window out-looking, face scratching and confirming dinner plans. A babysat worker is a productive worker! People are now free to delete the ubiquitous resume line “Able to work proficiently without supervision”, be it spurious or not. It's no longer applicable.

Over my years, many a trusty chat client has fallen at the end of a hoplITe spear. MSN, Trillian, Skype, Gaim, Meebo and Jabber to name a few. They each seem to last a few months before they are spotted by sentries and the hounds are loosed. I am currently winning this race thanks to a neat, little web-based messaging service called RadiusIM. So with my alert sounds turned down to a two foot audible radius I can chat away again to my heart’s content work permitting. At least for now the sun is shining and I'm tapping my feet. We’ll see how long this one lasts before Big Brother slaps my hand and takes the toy from this baby again.

Trafficking Safety

51st street sees its normal amount of congestion in the morning as people commute (which, in Saskatoon, is a 12 minute drive at most) to their jobs but today it was unusually backed up. Why? Because the Saskatoon police had a check stop set up and were pulling cars over for inspection. What they were looking for, according to stories leaked to radio stations, were “safety violations”. As Source approached the check stop she observed a car having its wheel well inspected. For unsafe mud? Upon reaching the check stop she happened to be waved through without inspection. Safety profiling? That’s a new one.

There are so many things wrong with this police action. Let’s break them down.


Personally, this irks me because I can’t count the number of non-moving violations I could rack up in a sting like this. Busted out signal lights, no parking brake, faulty power steering, cracked windshield, non-functional wiper blades. Not to mention body damage and enough bullet holes that my truck could assist in a reenactment of the Battle of Batoche. They’d probably see what a threat I was to public safety and draw their guns and yell at me to exit the vehicle. Then I would stand there with my hands up while my idling truck slowly rolled into a police car.

For all the shameless ways a city makes money by fining its well-meaning citizens for violations Jesus himself probably committed in his time (leaving his sandals in a no sandal zone), this would stoop to a new low, unworthy of any city council elected by its people. This grabasstic cash cow would be eclipsed by the GDP lost by people being delayed on their way to work.

Okay, so it’s not about vehicular safety. And if you’re like me you’re probably thinking the cops received a tip or an ongoing investigation has led them to an attempt at seizing a car loaded with drugs. But during morning rush hour? I guess I’d feel bad for Bill who’s dutifully bringing the hash brick in his briefcase because it’s his week for “Bong Friday” at the office.



We don’t quite have the knack the American government has for manipulating the press with “everything is alright, go back to sleep” propaganda but this is still a pitiful attempt. We also don’t have that all purpose, hot button “T” word that can be used to front random, privacy-violating police action. This may have been more like, (police chief on phone to press core) “I dunno, tell ‘em it’s uhh, it’s uhh, safety something-er-other.”

Did I miss anything?

There's something to be said for "been there, done that"

In my random internet travels I came across the most pathetic picture ever.

Apparently, this is a picture of two 19-year-olds trying to have an 80's PARTY.

WTF? What is 80's about this party? That your jumping on your parents' couches? That you're drinking out of a lava lamp? That’s just as 80’s as the "Unbelievable" by EMF or "What's the frequency, Kenneth?" by R.E.M. they have blasting from the stereo.

The only thing 80's about this is that’s when the Oilers won all their cups. Otherwise, I think you had to have been then to get it right.

Know her ass from his elbow

Sometimes when you’re watching a cop show on tv the coroner, upon examining a skeleton, will say to the cop, “Well, the victim was female as you can tell by the ***** of the pelvic bone.” To which I always respond internally, “I can’t tell, you bastards! Show me!” So here it is: both skeletons have those looping bones at the bottom of the pelvis. The loops of the female (against the white background) seem to flare out more than the male's, seemingly "out of the way" for pushing out other humans. The female pelvis is also wider and shallower.

Inaugural entry

Not sure what to expect? Me neither. Stay tuned.

At any rate, this will be a sure-fire way to reduce productivity at work. I’m kidding, it couldn't possibly be reduced any further.

Thanks to Marianne and Kate for their inspiration through their fantastic blogs. As soon as I know how to display links to yours I will. Thanks to Lindsey for sweetly convincing me that surely someone will find what I have to write about interesting. And thanks to Mom and Dad for suggesting I have one.

Let’s see now…