I remember, not all that long ago, when car shows were cool. Bob Segar signing ‘Like a Rock’ as the newest Chevy pickup smashed through a wall of rocks and massive fireworks explosions celebrating all that bravado that is the American Car Industry…
Now you go to the Detroit International Car Show and you get this…
A pick-up truck. This is what the greenies are calling a pickup truck. I can haul more in my 2003 Toyota Corolla than that POS. It looks like a cheap dollar-store toy that was made in China with melamine-tainted plastic.
Look at this commercial.
Could you see loading a single bail of hay in the back of the “Smart” “Pick-Up”?
“Common sense is not so common.” – Voltaire
I love common sense. Common sense is such a relative term. What makes sense to me likely is gibberish to someone else. But that doesn’t stop us from all saying what is common sense, from our perspective.
“Common sense is the most widely shared commodity in the world, for every man is convinced that he is well supplied with it.” – René Descartes
So how do I define common sense? I over-think it of course. Common sense is just that, plain simple thought. Turn the breaker off before changing a light switch. Why? If you don’t you will get electrocuted. That’s common sense. The bag of garbage is at the front door. Why? Whoever opens the door next needs to take it out to the trash bin. Common sense.
When my kids do something that makes no sense to me whatsoever, I fire a comment to them say to use their common sense. Of course they did, their perspective is different from mine. I may have the maturity of a nine year old boy at times, but I have 26 years more experience than him.
So comparing the common sense of my kids to my own is like comparing Apples and Cauliflower. That I can deal with, although I will still act like the old guy sitting on the front step telling people to get off his lawn.
Where common sense starts to raise my blood pressure, is when there are people of the same or older age than I, using their common sense and failing. A good example of this is the debate in Ottawa recently about wither the public library should stop charging fines for late fees to help encourage more people to use the library. That makes about as much sense as saying that parking bylaw officers should stop giving tickets to help encourage more people to use parking spaces.
Another fit of common sense is stance that if the Americans don’t want our oil sands, we should sell it to China because they do. Never mind that Eastern Canada imports oil still. Why would we not build our own pipeline from East to West and put a few refineries in Ontario to process it? Why would we become self sufficient and not import any oil?
More common sense in my own community. My township is hiring a consultant to develop a concept and plan of what the people in the township want as the plan for the township for the next several years. The consultant will cost $25,000. An ad in the local paper would cost $65 and get the same results. Common sense.
So when my son says it makes sense to use the Krazy Karpet to sled down the stairs because there is not enough snow in the yard to sled outside, who am I to argue?
Drive like crazy: or in the case I had today, park like crazy. I was trying to leave my parking spot, a guy wanted it, but wouldn’t back up so I had room to get out first. Note to drivers, if you want a parking spot, let the person who’s leaving the spot, leave the spot!
Eat a bagel: or in my case, five dozen. Go to St. Viateur Bagel. The bagels I bought went from the wood-fired oven to the bag in about two minutes. My car still smells like bagels now. Which is a good thing. So good. Usually when a parent comes home from a trip, the kids ask if the parent bought toys; my kids ask if I brought bagels.
Let your friends know you are going to Montréal: only after you state you are on your way home. This way you are not trucking back stuff they are too lazy to drive to Quebec to get themselves.
Buy gas in Ontario: Crossing the Ontario/Quebec border jacks the price of gas slightly (1.16/1.19 per liter), but going drive 20km east to Dorion, it’s 1.27/l and along Decarie Blvd, 1.37/l. Always remember to fill up BEFORE you get to Quebec. The exception to this rule is going to Ottawa and getting gas in Gatineau, but this blog posting is about Montréal.
And in winter: bring windshield washer fluid. Montréal roads + winter weather = salt spray on your windshield.
Unlike my connected contemporaries, I took a semi-break from technology over this past Christmas break. I did tweet a bit, mostly while playing with my new Kobo Vox e-reader tablet, but mostly I spent time with my kids, did some work around the house, repaired stuff and the like.
That said I’d sit down most nights looking at the laptop and think about writing something, but then I ended up watching a movie with my wife or reading a book. It’s nice to disconnect from time to time.
That being said, the rest of this week is the slow startup of some new adventures, and with the kids being home from school for week two of their break, some activities with them.
Resolutions:
Very cliche I think to do them, everyone does them and most break them after XYZ number of weeks and admonish themselves. Last year I resolved to stop buying coffee from Tim Hortons, which I was sort of successful at. We went from spending $35-40/week at TH to about $10/week. Buying a coffee maker and finding a good coffee that I like to drink helped. Towards the end of the year, the more we were out the more we’d be spending on that dreaded drive-thru. What I discovered was, I need a good travel mug. I also resolved to write more and well, as the 20 or so regular viewers of this site can attest to, I have done so. There is more writings I have done which is not published yet, but I have done them.
So this year I resolve to do two things:
- Buy a good travel mug so I stop buying Tim Horton’s swill called coffee
- Write more.
Easy to do, I think.
What I’m reading:
Thanks to my wife’s purchases of the years I own many books on by Lowell Green. This year at Christmas I was presented with his latest, “Here’s Proof Only We Conservatives Have Our Heads Screwed On Straight”. She even had it signed for me.
This book is in similar fashion to his last book, “Mayday! Mayday! Curb Immigration. Stop Multiculturalism. Or it’s the end of the Canada we Know!” with his opinion mixed in with some well placed facts and statistics, combined with some snippets from calls to his show on CFRA and his former national talk radio show.
Read the book. Even you few lefties who read this blog, read the book. It is not so much of an eye-opener for me, but a reaffirmation about some of the wrongs of the left.
More later…
Why can I not buy anything Canadian anymore? We have friends who live in the southern US and the common thing we hear from them is that they’d love us to send them something that is “Canadian”. This is harder than one would think. Or at least harder than I thought it would be.
In the hunt of things Canadian, my exploration led me to Upper Canada Village. I’ve been there dozens of times, my first time being in May of 1985 as a Grade Three student in Mr. Paul’s class at Escott Public School. After moving to the area in 2005, my wife and I bought seasons passes for a few years to take our kids as it was just down the road from our house. As I remember it, they had a really nice gift shop with lots of Canadian things, had is the operative word in that sentence. Unless Jim Shore Disney figurines, sterling jewelery from Thailand, tin ceiling art from India and Melissa and Doug toys are Canadian. Where was the Canadian? Well… They did have one four foot display of books and videos on the War of 1812, the Seaway and Upper Canada Village. They also had some beautiful (and expensive) Inuit carvings in a display case by a door. That was it.
Some background. Upper Canada Village opened in 1961 as a re-creation of life in Upper Canada in four distinct periods of time, with some buildings displaced from the St. Lawrence Seaway Project being used along with period costumed interpreters. Great concept that gradually blurred. The four distinct time periods merged into 1860′s, buildings altered to kind of represent that time period. Over time the place has stagnated due to poor management, unionized staff caring more about their pay cheque than their job and a constant dumbing down of some of the great stories of our Canadian history. Still, it was Canadian and the attraction and the goods sold there represented Canada.
Enter the Provincial Government of Dalton McGuinty, and some pin-head bureaucrat in Toronto who needed to see the attraction’s attendance go up. A new “discovery center” was built and the general store (gift shop) was renovated as part of it…. into a cheap touristy ketch store of overpriced knockoffs made in China, India, Thailand and Taiwan. A veritable United Nations of overpriced, generic crap that could be bought at gift shops anywhere from Flordia to Winnipeg and any/everywhere between.
The problem isn’t just with the gift shop, it goes to the core of the problem, the idiocy of the St. Lawrence Parks Commission which operate the Village. Take the price and marketing efforts of the Upper Canada Village’s “Alight at Night” event. The event is advertised on their website as being $13/adults, $10/Youths and Seniors, Children 5 and under are free. First, according to the Parks Commission, if you are 13 years old, you are an adult and pay full price. For a family of four, two adults, two kids youths, you are looking at $46+HST, to go look at Christmas lights. For my family, it would be $66+HST.
Ah, but go in person and look at the sign where you get your tickets. Adults are $13/each, Seniors $10 and Children Free. So which is it?
Being the curious person I am, I asked a few different families while I was searching for something Canadian. I found that one family of five paid $26+HST, as their three kids were free. But the next family I talked to indeed paid $46+HST as they were two adults and two youths. A third family I asked gave me an earful about how the ticket sales person tried to charge for their kids and he had to argue to get them for free by pointing out the signs above the sales person’s head. They paid for four adults total (parents and grandparents) and their three kids were finally no charge.
My own experience from last year was enough to tick me off with this stupid coupon promotion they did with fine print details that basically invalidated their promotion discount. The only reason we went that time was because my kids were right there with me as I was getting the tickets and since they were bundled up I decided not to argue over $20. I suspect the St. Lawrence Parks Commission made a lot of money last year, and this year from Dads not arguing over an extra $20 but stating that this would be the last time they’d go to the Village. I was one of them last year and I almost was lured in by the cheap admission this year.
After hearing the complaints about the pricing, I did ask if they enjoyed the attraction. Most of the comments were along the lines of, “It was better last year” and “that was it?” Hardly a glowing review (no pun intended). I mean, it’s Christmas lights. Hard to mess that up right? After the third family I decided to get out of there as the point was made.
When I went to leave, I had found a bottle of medium amber Maple Syrup from the Maple Forest that is part of the park, and it was in a glass bottle shaped like a maple leaf. Kitsch yes, but it was something. Off to the cash register to buy for our friends. I asked the clerk, why is there not more Canadian items. Her response was what I expected but I was still shocked to hear it, “Canadian stuff doesn’t sell.”
HUH?
That electrical frying sound was my brain twitching from the short circuit caused by that statement.
Canadian things don’t sell in the gift shop of an attraction that is about Canadian history in Upper Canada. HUH?????
I gave the clerk the bottle and said, “I guess you wont be selling this then” and I walked out without the bottle.
I am still stuck without something Canadiana for our southern friends with less than a week until Christmas and less than 24 hours left to get a package in the post. Maybe I’ll find a Canadian Flag somewhere. I know however that unless things change drastically at Upper Canada Village, that will be the last time I darken their attraction again.
