One down another to go

One Cup Final played (in England) and another goal for The Man on Fire.

The Canada - USA Ice Hockey final is due to start shortly. I think.

I shall take a look and see if I can remain interested.

Phantom weather again

Poor weather forecasting continues. A big storm was predicted for yesterday that included freezing rain and snow. The schools were closed in anticipation.

We had a bit of rain and....nothing else.

The odd thing is today's paper reports it as if it actually happened.

Big game?

I might watch my first Ice Hockey for donkeys years on Sunday. Canada got off to a slow start in their games and slipped up, losing to the USA.

They seem to have recovered and got back on track. Assuming there are no more slips, the final could be a rematch with the USA.

The Phantom Storm

'tis a glorious day. Beautifully sunny.

By now we should be well into a major storm. According to the weather forecast.

How irritating

Made a special trip to Walmart for some DVD cases and they didn't have any. At all.

How can that happen? Isn't the point of barcodes and associated 'stock' technology to help prevent that sort of thing happening?

Honestly these places sell spindles of 50 and 100 discs but don't stock a similar number of containers for them. What do people keep them in when they've used them?

You asked for it...you got it

Back on January 19 I blogged about British Airways antagonising their cabin staff ahead of a second vote over action to maintain their working conditions.

The vote is in. 81% in favour of a new strike. Some people never learn.

But then if the company suffers, the bullying managers will still have their personal fortunes.

It's life, jim, but not as we know it

I've heard it said many times that according to the laws of aerodynamics, a bumble bee cannot fly.

Apparently that was a myth. I mean, obviously they can fly, but it's a myth that they shouldn't be able to.

Anyway, I discovered this by accident when I was bemused by a report in today's paper. Someone has called for movies to follow more closely the laws of science.

Perkowitz said he liked Starship Troopers, but criticised its giant insects, saying if you scaled up a real bug to that size it would collapse under its own weight.

An odd thing to say given these were creatures from another planet. There would be any number of factors influencing this. Gravity differences reducing the weight? Maybe the bodies weren't that heavy; a large mass doesn't necessarily mean a heavy weight. Maybe they were not technically bugs?

I was about to use the bumble bee example until I found it was a myth but the expression "not as we know it" still comes to mind.

Blogging

A lively day on the Guardian blogs. Lots of talk about referees again as a couple of them again showed themselves to not be up to the standard required; one in particular being a serial offender.

I'm dreading the coming world cup in that respect.

A tad one sided

Nothing wrong with having a focus on 'home' athletes but Canada's coverage almost excludes non Canadians.

I've seen no interviews with winners, regardless of where they are from and no features on legends unless they were Canadian.

One 'foreigner' they did talk about other than just mentioning him was a Canadian who is now competing for Australia.

BBC has consistently interviewed winners as well as the 'British interest' and also has Foreign (ex) athletes in their analysis/commentary teams.

Now, to be fair, I haven't been glued to TV coverage, but I have seen enough to have noted the difference.

Monctonian not dead

TORONTO - Monctonian's publicist has confirmed that the blogger is very much alive, despite Internet reports that the English icon had died.

The publicist said Monctonian was watching Liverpool FC in his living room on Thursday afternoon when the rumours began to spread.

Canwest posted a report saying he had died and it was quickly picked up all over the Internet.

For real story, go here.

Lucky break

Yesterday's snow was nothing like what was expected. The extra body worked well and we had it done in five minutes. We should invite him over every time a bigger fall is expected.

The only thing was I found myself working quicker watching the speed at which he worked and I came in breathless when it should have been a leisurely clearance.

Snow again

Not likely to be as much as originally predicted but there's going to be quite a bit of snow today. Schools are closed...so there's two noisy teenagers here today, what with the house guest. Was I like that at their age?

Pancake Tuesday

Yum yum.

Gold

I thought we were in for a repeat of the previous night.

Same event, but for men. Canadian takes the lead on the penultimate run, but this time it was a Frenchman who went last.

He got close but not close enough and Canada got its first Olympic Gold on home....soil? Ice? Snow?

Winter Olympics

Good opening ceremony.

These games have been keenly awaited in Canada for months, now. Lots of ads on TV and encouragement to support the Canadian Athletes. Never saw such pride like it in England.

Apparently Canada has never won Gold on home soil and this seems to include the 'main' games of Montreal in 1976 as well as winter games in Calgary. Must admit I was surprised at that.

I still remember Ben Johnson winning gold and announcing that records could be beaten but a Gold Medal couldn't be taken away.

Then he failed the drugs test and they took his medal away.

Anyway, a couple had good chances in one of the skiing competitions last night and one took the lead on the last but one run...only for the American to take it from her on the very last run. Typical.

A Gold so early could have removed so much pressure from the others later.

If nobody else wins, all the pressure is going to come down on the Ice Hockey team.

Elephants

Until a month or so back I had never heard the expression "the elephant in the room" and now I seem to be coming across it almost weekly. The funny thing is it seems to be most prevalent in newspaper articles about football.

Huh?

Quote from a vegetarian on another forum.

Not eating real meat but eating meat substitutes just endorses the idea that eating meat is ok and this seems an odd thing for a vegetarian to do.

Still if people want to do it, it's no skin off my nose. I just find it odd when you can cook burgers, shepherds pie, sausage type things with grains and veggies.

So it's odd to want a meat substitute but it's not odd using veggies and grains to make Burgers and Sausage type things? That's just as much a meat substitute isn't it???

Of course, sausages and burgers don't have to be made of meat but that's only because they are a veggie alternative; a substitute for meat.

About turn

It's not just Canada where party politics can be turned on its head; behaving in a way opposite to what one would expect. Like Conservatives abolishing Ambulance Charges and Liberals re-instating them and then scrapping one of the Conservative schemes for low income people.

In the UK, Labour is reportedly considering financial inducements for reporting people fraudulently claiming benefits.

That's the kind of thing Thatcher would have suggested. Maybe she did?

Idol

Ellen DeGeneres made her debut as a judge on American Idol last night. She was good, including one very funny moment.

Tons better than Paula Abdul. On this showing they might just survive the loss of Simon Cowell after all.

Tax

We did our tax returns yesterday. The free online resource was useful as usual. Free if income doesn't exceed a given amount.

There is one part, though, that seems to behave differently every year. While that might seem like the memory playing tricks, we took a look at last year's and we did indeed have to make entries in a different way this time to achieve the right result.

Fortunately Revenue Canada doesn't see the information input, just the result of the information.

Although there is software, some people actually make the entries by hand. The tax office is effectively receiving the assessment and can follow up later if they wish.

The last tax form I did in the UK was just a case of entering income and allowable expenses and the tax office did the assessment from there.

Look-a-likes

Eh?

A TV show about look-a-likes and none of them looks like anyone. Mind you, some of the 'stars' are unknown to me.

Lost again

Arsenal. Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.

* * *

Snow again today. Not much - just a couple of inches cleared and more fallen since - but 24 hours ago there was none forecast.

Oh....Arsenal lost again. Hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.

It's a hard life

Looking forward to a good day's footie and rugger today, beginning with the Merseyside derby and bacon sarnies and coffee @ 8.45 am., followed by a choice of Man City or ManU.

After that it's the attractive looking Spurs v Villa game, but I don't know if I'll watch that or the England v Wales rugby international. I'm sure we'll lose that so I don't really want to watch. And it's only on the computer; not so comfy. We'll see.

* * *

Discovered the rugger kicked off earlier than the footie, so watched it and then the second half of the footie.

We won the rugger. We were better than I thought judging by media reports over the last year or two. Always nice to beat the Welsh.

A test

Parked my bike in the racks outside the drugstore yesterday and, as I was walking to the door, suddenly doubted I'd put the lock on. I looked back and saw the lock in place.

As I exited with my shopping I fumbled for the key and it wasn't there. Immediately I decided that had been the reason for the doubt earlier; I had left the key in the lock!!

Of course, the bike was still there. It's not the first time I've done that.

Still amazing

Our hospital opened a new ambulatory unit recently and the blood clinic just relocated there. It's a new procedure and the number of people already there when we arrived was the highest it's been for a long time.

But we were still in an out in around 10 minutes. That place is just so well run.

Yikes

Off to a couple of medical appointments shortly. Minus 25, feels like -34. Not doing the nearest one on foot this time even if the route was clear the whole way for my wife's wheelchair.

Looking forward to getting back.

Scare story in the Guardian today about the cost of UK energy bils going up by "up to 20%" by 2010. I recall reading of big increeases already over the last few years. I was paying £37 a month in 2004 for gas/electricity. No idea what it would be now, but it's about $230 a month here and that's with 5 months of winter and air con in summer.

Groundhog Day

They do that here too.

A little furry animal will decide what the weather will be. Can't be any worse than the forecasts lately.

Again???

I don't believe it.

I complained about what I saw as an unnecessary third plow pass on Friday night.

It has not snowed again since then yet the bloody plow passed sometime this morning. That's more than two whole days of nothing; no plow and no additional snow.

If it was essential, why not again on Saturday or Sunday.

As before, it's not a huge amount - so why the need? - but with the minus 28 temps overnight it will be hard and compacted for the poor bugger who has to bend over hacking away.