Put that Stop Somewhere Else

A couple of posts back I was complaining about B.C. Transit. Well I'm back at it. B.C. Transit are you out there? Please think on this:

For some reason there seems to be a desire to strategically locate bus stops just past an intersection on four lane connector streets. This means that during busy times the bus stops just on the other side of the light and blocks one of the two lanes of traffic going that way. This means that some cars either have to wait on the other side of the intersection and miss the light or in the case of the more inattentive or oblivious drivers they end up stuck in the intersection behind the bus. Now they're stuck there blocking traffic when the light changes.



Now I understand that they are trying to locate the stop near major intersections where people are transferring from one bus to another. I also believe in having a good public transit system. I just don't see why the bus stop can't be another 40 metres from the corner, allowing the cars to at least get through the light before they have to wait behind the bus. Answer me that B.C. transit.

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Circus

Little Jackie Showers recently joined a lawn bowling club. Yes it is true and you youngsters out there can stop chuckling. I didn't sign up because of an urge to lawn bowl, although I suspect I may try out the game next summer. I became a member because of croquet, which of course is no laughing matter.

The thing about a lawn bowling club is they are very protective of their grass. The rules require you to wear flat-soled shoes whether you are lawn bowling or playing croquet. And they mean flat. No heel and no tread. Being a rule follower since my earliest days I decided that I best go get me some flat shoes. I hoped for some Stan Smiths, but these proved to be elusive. I mean, I'm sure they were out there somewhere, but it was Christmas Eve and I needed these for a tournament on Boxing Day. I only had time for visiting one mall.

The sporty stores and the old people's walking shoe stores didn't have anything that fit the bill. Having no success I began to realize my options were dwindling. Desperate times...

Call for venturing into "Aldo". Now for those of you not familiar with "Aldo" it is a shoe store for cool people. I do not belong there. Sure, sometimes I'll tag along while the missus looks at shoes and one time I even went in there alone to buy her a pair of shoes she had pointed out on a previous trip. But go into "Aldo" alone for myself was like going into La Senza to browse. It wasn't right.

Of course I quickly sensed that my discomfort was matched by the young, attractive and clearly hip sales girl that approached me. You see, guys like me and the "Aldo" girls don't cross paths. Our worlds are far apart. This fact was as obvious to her as it was to me. I was wearing sweat pants after all.

As it turns out there were several flat-soled products to choose from so she dutifully went and got my size each time I asked to try a different one. She would bring me the box and then drift off about twenty feet to cooly watch me out of the corner of her eye as I tried on the different pairs. I must give her credit for maintaining a visage not unlike those guards outside of Buckingham palace. Not a grin or eye roll escaped. But inside that head I know there was a pretty good situation comedy going on.

This is the shoe.

I ended up shelling out way too much for the shoes and then, dammit, most of the other croquet players showed up in their sneakers.

Where You Going Bus Driver?

Here's an annoyance with a solution. Anybody want to tell the people who matter?

Okay, so here's the deal. I don't know if this is specific to my hometown or not, but it seems unlikely. Here when a bus is on a street with two lanes going in its direction and is stopped at a bus stop blocking the right lane, the bus driver turns on the left signal when pulling out from the bus stop. The problem is that if you're coming up in the left lane you can't tell if the bus is just signaling it is pulling away from the curb to go down the right lane or if it is signaling that it is actually going to move into the left lane.

A bus signaling to move into the left lane makes sense, but signaling that it is pulling out from the curb seems unnecessary given that the bus is blocking the right lane and all it is doing is starting up and going down that same lane. The act of signaling this maneuver doesn't help anyone. It just causes confusion.

So here's my solution. When a bus pulls into the stop the driver should use the flashers. Everyone behind the bus will know the bus is stopping. When the driver wants to start again the flashers are turned off. Then we all know it is going to start moving. If the left signal then comes on we know it is going to move over one lane. No more guesswork, no more confusion, no more jamming on the breaks for no reason. Annoyance solved! Now if I can just get someone who matters to listen.

I'm Glad We Can Get Back to the Weather

Attention cashiers, yeah I'm talking to you again. Do we have to do the "have you finished all of your Christmas shopping" dance for the three weeks leading up to Christmas? This is only slightly less annoying than asking me what I'm doing for the weekend. Okay it is quite a bit less annoying than that, but still...

To be fair it is not just the cashiers, it might even be YOU! Do we have to treat Christmas shopping as if it is some horrendous task and all share our war stories. Oh the horror. I think you all know what I mean, even those of you who so innocently partake in this tradition of the festive season.

I like Christmas shopping. I don't see it as some chore that I'm dreading and can't wait to finish, but I usually don't start until real late. This makes the question "are you finished your Christmas shopping?", or its close cousin, "are you ready for Christmas?" rather amusing, especially when people start asking it two weeks before I even start to shop or get ready. I prefer the two day all out blitz just before Christmas. I go armed with my list and a wad of cash and get it done. And no, I don't want to be giving out no updates as I go.

My New Year's resolution is to do 52 blog posts this year. So keep me honest. Yikes, I just noticed that's how many I did last year. Here's to not backsliding.

Fruitcake Anyone?

Okay, it's time for me to step up to the plate and defend an easy target that keeps getting bashed unjustly at this time of year. Yes, I'm talking about Christmas Fruitcake. Fruitcake is the butt of more jokes at this time of year than tofu. I don't know whose Christmas Cake all these complaining people are eating, but the Missus makes a damn fine fruitcake and I'm pretty sure she hasn't got some secret that nobody else is in on. I say, lay off the fruitcake.

Crispy or Original Recipe?

Okay, time for a real controversy. Enough of this lightweight stuff. An alert reader, Lisa, has identified an alarming new product. Alarming because it is sure to lead to much marital strife. She is concerned that her husband actually approves of the latest in brownie pans. See it here:

http://www.thinkgeek.com/homeoffice/kitchen/a1aa/?source=google_home_office&cpg=ogho1

Lisa says:

"I was horrified. What a wretched contraption. Everyone knows that the lovely, soft, gooey inside pieces are where it's at. Who wants a hard crispy overcooked outside edge? That's the bottom of the barrel (or the sides, as the case may be). If there was an invention that rendered all bread slices as crusts, who would want such a thing? Maybe 1% of the population? The crazy 1%, that is."

I leave this one open for discussion.

Speaking of crispy overcooked edges, one of my favourite such stories is of a teacher I worked with who decided to be really keen and bake some bread with his elementary class. Well, teaching in elementary can really demand your full attention and sometimes you can forget about things such as the bread you put in the oven awhile back. He remembered it all right when the fire alarm went off and the school was evacuated. Now that was some hard crispy bread.

How Do You Know?

What do Swine Flu shots, global warming, and 9-11 have in common? You can find plenty of people who fall passionately on either side of the great divide that each issue has. And that's annoying. How does Joe Regular Guy know the truth when everyone on both sides claims to be telling the truth and says everyone on the other side is lying.

I've been thinking about this lots lately, but it is my blog topic tonight because of a recent debate that hijacked my Facebook status update. Two friends, regular readers of the blog I might add, got into it over the flu shots. Both were able to send me links to strengthen their positions. The same happens if you talk about global warming. People I know and respect fall on both sides of the issue and can send me plenty of links. I'm drowning in links, but it doesn't bring me any closer to knowing what the truth is.

Perhaps there is a way to know which links to believe and which ones are bogus, but it is not something that Joe Regular Guy can figure out, so these debates must be getting mired in misinformation. We've got more access to information than ever before, but we can't know what's good information and what isn't. So until someone comes up with a better way here is how I decide what's what. Not based on the truth, since who knows what that is, but on the probabilities of the truth. And I'm open to changing my mind on any of these if someone can present a convincing argument (and by that I most definitely don't mean a link to someone's expert opinion on what the truth is) that I've got the probabilities wrong. It is quite likely I could end up being wrong on all three of these issues, and that's what's so damn annoying.

Let's start with the Swine Flu shots. Why would the people who are saying to get a shot be saying so if it wasn't safe? There are two reasons I can think of. To make money for the company that makes the shots or because if lots of people get the shots the benefits to all are greater than the risks to the individual. It seems incredibly unlikely that all the shot advocates are in the drug company's pocket so I'll rule that out. If it's the latter then I don't feel too bad getting a shot because I'm a team player and I'll take one for the team. More likely it seems to me that the shot advocates are telling us to get a shot because it is good for us both as individuals and a society to be inoculated against the flu. It makes the most sense. And the kicker is that the Calgary Flames were first in line to get the shots. Why would an NHL team risk their high priced talent on something that is as risky as the anti-shot people would have you believe. It doesn't make sense. I'm trusting the Flames on this one, so I got my shot.
Yeah! We got our shots and now we're all going to die!

Next up, global warming. Global warming advocates have made a pretty convincing argument, but they could be wrong. What I find strange is that the people saying they are wrong seem to be in fields other than climatology. So the experts on climate are pretty much in agreement, but it is others that say they are wrong. That tips the scales in favour of global warming being a real problem, but it does not mean the naysayers are wrong. I am sure at some point in history all the experts in a certain field believed one thing and were proven wrong by others who weren't in the field, but it would seem to be less likely than the experts being correct.

Another point is that although naysayers could be right, if the naysayers are wrong and we continue to do nothing about the amount of CO2 we're pumping into the atmosphere then we're really going to have a big problem. The costs of doing something don't seem to be that great when compared to risk of doing nothing. Not only that, but what is the motivation for these climate experts to be telling us this if it isn't the truth? I can't see one. On the other hand there is plenty of motivation for the climate change skeptics. Who wants to risk their high standard of living by maybe having to pay more carbon tax? So this one breaks down for me as: experts with no apparent hidden agenda vs non-experts with plenty of possibilities of a hidden agenda. Put me down as in favour of starting to do something to reduce emissions.

Lastly lets look at the 9-11 thing. Was it an inside job? Again if you watch a YouTube video you can see some pretty convincing stuff. The question is, do I believe it is likely that a consipracy of that magnitude is possible. The answer is no, it does not seem likely that it could be pulled off without someone finding out. So for now I'm not buying it. Now if the Calgary Flames tell me that the U.S. government attacked it's own people then I'll have to rethink things.

Whew, I'm exhausted. Next post I'm going back to talking about tube socks or stir sticks.