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Saturday, September 28, 2013

Facebooked Again.

Curses!  I was going to make a comment about a  news article on the Star Phoenix website.  But once again they only take comments from Facebook accounts.  I have no interest in getting a Facebook account, so apparently my opinions aren't of interest to the paper.  You'd think they wouldn't want to limit their audience that way.

Friday, September 27, 2013

I'm Surprised It Didn't Happen.

Tonight I was watching Charlton Heston in the 1971 sci fi piece The Omega Man.  A few minutes into the film the thought came to mind that Clint Eastwood could have played the lead in that movie.  And that got me thinking that it's surprising Heston and Eastwood never did a film together.  Given the kind of films both men did, especially westerns, and the tough guy characters they generally played, it's odd no one cooked up a project involving the two of them.  Eastwood and Heston were friends, and reportedly talked about remaking Sam Peckinpah's Ride the High Country in the late '80s. 

One genre that the two didn't share was science fiction.  Other than a bit part early in his career Eastwood had no involvement in the genre.  The closest he got after becoming famous was 2000's Space Cowboys.  Compare this with Heston, who in the course of 5 years appeared in the first two Planet of the Apes movies, The Omega Man, and Soylent Green.  It would be interesting to know if Eastwood was offered sci fi movies, but rejected them, or if he just wasn't considered for such films.  The latter seems rather unlikely.

Gas In Saskatoon, September 27, 2013.

The price of gas dropped this week, and for some places it was a double dip.  Most stations dropped their price to 116.4 cents a litre, but as of this writing some had dropped the price another cent.  Presumably the rest will follow suit, eventually.

Tuesday, September 24, 2013

"Citizen" Behaving Badly.

The so-called sovereign citizens movement is making news again.  A Calgary woman has had her rental property seized by a man who claims it's an "embassy house."  Her efforts to get his guy removed have failed so far, with the Calgary police saying it's a civil matter, since he originally occupied the home as a renter. You'd think it would fall under laws against fraud, somehow, but apparently not.

These sort of cranks go on about their rights.  But they have no concern about the rights of others.  It's attitudes like this that are likely to lead to violence by one of them sooner or later.

Friday, September 20, 2013

Gas In Saskatoon, September 20, 2013.

I had thought our next price change might be up, but instead it was down.  Gas in Saskatoon is now 119.9 cents a\ litre at most locations.  Perhaps we'll see a price increase in a couple of weeks, just in time for Thanksgiving driving.

Return To Tomorrow.

When people think of British sci fi TV from the '70s they're most likely to think of Tom Baker era Doctor Who or Space: 1999.  But there was another somewhat successful series that will be unfamiliar to many. The Tomorrow People ran from 1973 to 1979, and revolved around a group of young people with psychic powers, which marked them as the next stage of human evolution.  I saw a few episodes on CBC at come point, but it was never a major part of my childhood.   There was also a brief revival in the 1990s.

Not being a part of the fandom I was surprised when I saw that a new American version is about to debut.  On The CW of all places.   An American revival of a show unknown to most American viewers seems an odd move.  I would assume the rights to the series were probably cheap.  As you can imagine some fans of the original are not looking forward to this.  They probably don't have to worry, as I wouldn't be at all surprised if the series doesn't last much longer than the 5 episodes apparently already in the can.

Thursday, September 19, 2013

Shiver.

Environment Canada has issued a frost warning for Saskatoon tonight.  A reminder that nasty ole Winter is sneaking up on us. 

Monday, September 16, 2013

Narrow Target.

Over the weekend the local paper carried an ad flyer from easyhome, a rent to own home furnishing and electronics company.  The headline on the flyer says "We're Pulling The Goalie So You Can Score!"  Said "goalie" is a young woman wearing goalie pads, a goalie mask on top of her head, blue panties, and a t shirt that ends just below her breasts.

Who is the target this ad, exactly?  It would seem to be horny teenage boys given the scantily clad and vaguely, if I may use a potentially offensive term, jailbaitish model.  Or perhaps it's horny male university freshmen, since we're just a couple of weeks into the school year and a lot of university students may have come to town with little furniture.  The "so you can score" bit of the headline strengthens my suspicion that is the case, the implication being fairly obvious that if you get stuff for your place at easyhone you're more likely to get some hot girl to hook up with you.

I have no idea what the demographics of the typical easyhome customer are.  But you'd think they'd be a bit more conscious, here in the second decade of the 21st Century, that a T&A style ad like this might turn off some sorts of potential customers.  And any business wants as many customers as possible.

Saturday, September 14, 2013

My Biggest Fan?

Right now it seems to be the bot system at Facebook.  For some reason it scans this place every couple of days if I've been posting a bit, producing multiple hits.  And I don't even have a Facebook account.  I'm guessing someone over here has a link here on their Facebook page.

Friday, September 13, 2013

Gas In Saskatoon, September 13, 2013.

Just my luck.  Yesterday I put gas in the car.  Today the price went down.  Gas in Saskatoon is now 122.9 cents a litre a most locations. 

13, 14, 13.

Another year has gone by, and it's time to once again commemorate an important anniversary on this blog.  Once again it's Breakaway Day, this year being the 14th anniversary of the Moon being blown out of orbit.  Kind of neat that September 13th in 2013 falls on a Friday the Thirteenth.  As for September 13th, 1999 it was a Monday. Talk about a bad start to the work week, especially if you were working in emergency services or the international space program.

Thursday, September 12, 2013

Spooky.

Most weird.  I'm sitting here playing a couple of tournaments on PokerStars.  I was dealt 9c8s in both at roughly the same time.  I wonder how often that happens in a day.

Saturday, September 07, 2013

Gas In Saskatoon, September 6, 2013.

This time my price prediction was correct.  The price of gas did go up.  Gas in Saskatoon is now 125.9 cents a litre at most locations.  It's a reasonable guess the next price change will also be up.

Friday, September 06, 2013

Endangered Species.

Walking near the Bessborough Hotel today I saw something I hadn't before, and it's very likely I won't again.  It was a vehicle belonging to Sun News Network.  I was tempted to knock on the passenger side window to ask the young lady sitting inside why she was working for them, but of course I'm not stupid enough to do something like that.

SNN may not be around much longer.  The attempt by parent media company Quebecor, owner of various Canadian media properties, to create a Canadian equivalent of Fox News, has proven unsuccessful.  Viewership numbers have been tiny, and requests to the CRTC for a change in their carriage status on cable, which Quebecor has claimed to improve the station's potential audience,  have been rejected.   My question is why SNN  hasn't tried advertising on other TV networks and the print media in an effort to increase their audience, as I've seen no evidence they have.

Wednesday, September 04, 2013

Check, Then Check Again.

If you're going to get a tattoo in a foreign language you'd best do lots of research.  Especially if your tattoo artist doesn't read the language.  Actress Hayden Panettiere is apparently having work done on a tattoo after finding out one of the Italian words was misspelt.  It makes you wonder how many other people are running around with such tattoos, especially those using characters the tattooist isn't familiar with.  

Tuesday, September 03, 2013

Uncitizen Citizens.

Dene Moore of the Canadian Press has written an article about the self proclaimed "sovereign citizens" movement in Canada.  If you've been following the activities the similarly named groups in the US much of this will sound familiar.  Members refuse to pay taxes, obey various sorts of government regulation, and try to support their claims with complicated legal gobbledegook.  One Ontario "Freeman" is even apparently trying to recruit his own police force, just as some American believers in such things have tried to do.

Although not mentioned in Moore's article another group with similar ideas and rationalisations in Canada is the Church of the Ecumenical Redemption International, which has been mentioned several times before on this blog.  Members reject current Canadian law because it doesn't acknowledge the King James Version of the Bible as a legal text, and do things like claim their vehicles don't need to be licensed because they are Church property being used for Church business.  As you might imagine these arguments do not work well when presented to law enforcement and the judicial system.

So far no one has been seriously hurt by members of these and similar groups, unlike some of their American counterparts.  Hopefully that remains the case. 

Rethink That.

Hey, Miley Cyrus.  I hear you're thinking about dropping your last name, and just being Miley.  Just like Prince and Madonna.  My advice?  Don't.  Prince and Madonna could do that because those are strong, iconic, intriguing names.  Miley?  Not so much.  Imagine if Madonna, all those years ago, had used her middle name, Louise, instead.  Yeah, you're not starting from scratch, but still.  Miley used by itself sounds like the name of the sitcom you'll be doing in a few years, where you play a high school teacher.