Most Depressing Day of the Year

Congratulations on surviving the most depressing day of the year.
January 22nd 2007 is the most depressing day on the calendar based on a highly scientific examination including things such as credit card debt, lack of sun etc.....
We did it.
It gets better from here on out.

Stephen Harper a Year in Review

Tomorrow marks a sad day for Canada.

It was one year ago on January 23, 2006 when the Canadian people said that they were tired with Liberal rule and had to pick someone else.

Thats how we got Stephen Harper and his merry band of Conservatives.

Lets take a look back at a year with Stephen Harper as Prime Minister.

First their is David Emerson the Liberal turncoat who Prime Minister Harper welcomed in to his Cabinet.
After his party called Belinda Stronarch such charming names as Tramp and Slut for leaving the Conservative party for a party that more closely represented her political beliefs.

We can't forget about Michael Fortier who was Harper's campaign co-chair during the election.
Who was and still is not an elected member of Parliament.
(He had an opportunity to run in a few by-elections this year but declined, maybe because he couldn't win)
This from the Prime Minister who promised that he would bring a new sense of accountability to Ottawa.

Then there was the Conservative "Environmental Plan" that had such lofty targets for reduction of pollutants some where in the year 2057...
But wait when he realized that Canadians were not dumb enough to fall for his plan, he fired the Minister for the Environment, Rona Ambrose, and replaced her with John Baird.
Who's new plan is the old Liberal initiative that Harper canceled when he took power.

There was also the cancellation of funding for Women and Aboriginals groups. Traditional strong supporters of the Conservative party....wait maybe that's where they went wrong.

Of course there was the whole same sex marriage debacle.
An issue that was decided before he was even elected, was brought up again to appease his right wing fanatical voter base.
Irregardless of the fact that he once again was attacking hard won rights of a minority.

Income Trust's remember that promise?
Harper was not going to change the rules at all, and he did.
Who lost the most?
The people who could afford it the least our Seniors.
Billions were lost overnight that many will never be able to recoup.

Alright thats enough for now this is starting to depress me.

We are fed up with hearing how everything is the Liberals fault, your in power now. You are now longer Canada's "new" government and it's time to take responsibility for your governments actions.

Mr. Harper please don't forget that you and your party were not elected based on your political beliefs, but the fact that a message had to be sent to the Liberal Party.

They seem to have got the message.

There will be an election before this year ends and I can't wait to send Mr. Harper a message of my own.

On a Lighter Note

Let's start the week off with some fun stuff.

First up is some vintage Madonna.

This video was filmed about 25 years ago when Madonna performed Everybody for the first time in public.

God that makes me feel old.



How 'bout some funny commercials.

Let's start with a beer commercial there usually good for a laugh or two.



Here's a plasma television commercial.

Warning!!! This not for people with weak stomachs.

Lots of Visitors

Well another milestone of sorts has been passed.

At some point in the last couple of days we had our 1200th visitor.

I can't believe that there has been that many people stopping by.

I know that Mary stops by almost every day I just need to teach her how to leave comments.

Thanks to everyone for stopping by I appreciate it.

Mother Nature

This picture was taken at a logging camp in Sweden. It shows the roads leading into what remains of the forest. Its not photoshopped this the view from the air.

More Viral Videos

First up....

Are you hot? The search for Americas hottest cartoon.






Next a fantastic commercial for Evian Water.

Dance, White Boy, Dance

Love it....




Here is a link to the full and better quality version.

Gay Marriage and Domestic Partner Benefits

With the Gay Marriage debate in Canada finally put to rest, the debate is heating up among our friends. Last year while Mark and I were on a holiday with two other couples that we have been friends with for years, the marriage question came up. Okay I brought up the marriage question if were going to be honest. I wanted to see what the other couples were thinking. It was an even split. First of all a bit of history, Mark and I are the "newest" couple at 13 years the other two have been together about 17 years and 25 years approximately. I was really surprised by the fear that the discussion brought out. I have always seen myself as being married at some point, but it was only in the past few years that it became a legal option, and took on more relevance for me. I have discussed marriage with Mark to some degree and he really does not want to get married. I don't think that it has anything to do with our relationship, at least I hope not, but he always tells me that its just a piece of paper. I won't go into all the reasons that it's not just a piece of paper as that's not the point of this rant.
Currently as a common law couple we share all the benefits of a married couple in the eyes of the law as well as our respective employers. The company that Mark works for and I used to work for is a very progressive employer and offered domestic partner benefits almost fifteen years ago. This was a time when there was no other legal option for gay and lesbian couples other than a common law situation. Now that there is an option, how long until companies start insisting that employees be legally married to continue to receive these same benefits. I don't think its a huge leap to make. Here is a link to an article from the U.S. where the trend has already begun.
Just something to think about while were on the quest for equality.

Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead

In 2004 a fantastic comedy/horror film was released called Shaun of the Dead. It was a spoof of all the zombie movies that have been made over the last few years. It was not a very big success at the box office but did fairly well on dvd, I think you could call it a cult film.
The creators of Shaun of the Dead are back with another spoof on a classic formula. This time they go after action/cop movies with Hot Fuzz.
The trailer is not great but the word is the movies is hilarious.
Simon Pegg wrote and starred in Shaun also has penned the new Hot Fuzz.
Avid movie watchers might recognize Simon from a small role he had in Mission Impossible III with Tom Cruise.

Here's the trailer for Hot Fuzz




Shaun of the Dead, rent it if you see it at the video store.

Nintendo Wii - I finally got one....

The Nintendo Wii launched in North America on November 19th, 2006. After almost two months of searching I was finally able to purchase one last week. All right it wasn't exactly two months of searching, I was hoping that I would get one for Christmas but no one else in the family was able to find one for me. I did spend a a few days driving all over Ottawa and Gatineau looking for a store that had a system in stock. I must have visited about thirty stores minimum. I'm sure some of you are thinking that I'm crazy. I started my quest in earnest back on Dec 27th with my brother. The first store we went to had no Wii's surprise surprise, but they did have PS3's. Which my brother snapped up quite quickly. Without getting to technically geeky the PS3 is much more advanced than the Wii in a processing capacity and technological advances, but I have always been a huge fan on Nintendo and their games.

My addiction goes all the way back to the original Nintendo Entertainment System known as the NES. I spent hours playing Super Mario Brothers on that system and to this day I have never actually completed the game.


That lead to the Super NES a few years later and more Mario games.






Next up was the Nintendo 64 and arguably the greatest Super Mario game of all time. Super Mario 64. Recently resurrected on the Nintendo DS.





Not long ago Nintendo said goodbye to the cartridges that had given them years of financial success and switched to cute little cd's, with the launch of the GameCube. The system launched with Mario Sunshine yet another award winning game staring that fantastic little plummer named Mario.







That brings us to the present and the Wii. If your not familiar with the new system the major technological advance is the controller. Nintendo has really been considered a third place player in the console wars for the last few years. The sales of the PS2 and the Xbox eclipsing that of GameCube. So what did the bigwigs at Nintendo decide to do? Go after the non-traditional gamer. When Will Wright and Maxis tried this with the development of the Sims game they tapped in to a market that was largely ignored and produced the largest selling game of all time. Nintendo focused on making a controller that was accessible to everyone. They eliminated as many buttons as possible and made the controller motion sensitive. So all you have to do is basically wave the controller at the screen and the characters will respond accordingly. Since I got my Wii home and took it out of the box I have conducted I highly scientific experiment with my friends and family. Over the last week we have had many people over to play, with their ages ranging from late twenty's to their earlier sixties and there has yet to be a person who didn't enjoy playing Wii sports. This system is going to be huge. I guess its already huge selling almost 2 million units since its launch. Now the countdown begins for Mario Galaxy which is expected to go gold in March.











Here is a video in the style of the PC and Mac commercials comparing the benefits of the PS3 and the Wii. Enjoy.