Personal

Oh The Inner Turmoil And Sense Of Vigilante Justice…

Mulder

You can thank my sister in Toronto for this one. This was especially gratifying since Spidey has been my favourite superhero since watching the old classic cartoon series every morning as a child. Thank you CHCH for making sure I got my daily dose of Spidey and Rocket Robin Hood.

Spidey

You can Click here to take the “Which Superhero are you?” quiz…

…Crossed with my Baldness, Business Sense, and Thirst for Power!!

This one was almost a given … although there is something sinister about being closely matched with Dr. Doom that is appealing too!!

Lex Luthor

You can Click here to take the “Which Super Villain are you?” quiz…

Randomness Be Damned, Tim Horton's Gives Me The "Seam"

Mulder

The Tim Hortons SeamI have been drinking Tim Horton’s coffee for as long as I can remember and drinking it from literally dozens, if not hundreds, of different franchise locations. And I want some answers.

Why, oh why, is the seam in the coffee cup ALWAYS lining up with the space in the lid created when you pull back the tab.

I know most of you are saying “What the heck is he talking about?” but I want you to pay attention. This cannot possibly be random. The diameter of a Tim’s Extra Large lid is 9cm, meaning the circumference is approximately 28.25 cm. The space created by the pull back tab is approximately 2.5 cm, which means the “seam” that runs up the cup should only appear in sip gap approximately once every 12 cups. Yet I seem to get the “seam” at least 80 to 90% of the time.

This is far too great to be random. It must be in the procedures or equipment Tim Horton franchises use to fill, stack and dispense the lids. In fact, I would go so far as to say the randomness probably comes in the “wrist twist” that some employees may add when pressing the lids down on the cup. If it wasn’t for that “wrist twist” I would think that 100% of the cups would give me the dreaded “seam”. And trust me, I am starting to hate it.

You get that uncomfortable bump in the lip of the cup and if you try to twist or remove and replace the cap, you inevitably get a leak in your cup due to the improper fit.

If you have noticed this or if you go out to Tim’s I urge you to pay attention to how often you get the “seam” and come back and comment.

I know this post wasn’t very political, but as Peter Truman of Global used to say “…but that too is reality.”

I Almost Forgot To Post This Photo

Mulder

This was taken in my car, January 17th, 2007 from the front seat while I sat in the “Canadian Position”, my body hunched over, hands between my legs while I waited for the car to warm up. I managed to get one glove off and snap this before my fingers froze off. This was one of those mornings where inhaling through your nose caused your nostrils to stick shut and inhaling through your mouth gives you an ice cream headache.

Temperature-Morning-January 17, 2007-Ottawa

Yes, that says minus 21 Celsius. And the whole time I sat there shivering, my teeth clattering, I kept repeating. There’s no warming like global warming. There’s no warming like global warming.

I clicked my boots together three times and voila … my seat warmers kicked in.

Merry Christmas

Mulder

I wanted to drop a quick post on here before Santa shows up. I know that many of you will be loitering around your computers tomorrow so don’t be shy and tell us what Santa brought you in between opening gifts, services, Christmas dinner and family time.

I hope everyone has a Merry Christmas.

Pssst … Santa … Is It Too Late To Send You My List?

Mulder

Last year, many of you may recall that my Christmas wish was for one of those cool trapper skin hats Roots provided to our Canadian Winter Olympians. Well last year Santa stiffed me.

So in keeping with this tradition of not getting my Christmas gift request, I thought I would share this years request. I know it won’t be under my tree, but a guy can dream, can’t he?

Some guys want Ferraris. Some guys want Porsches. Others want a Mercedes-Benz or a BMW.

Me? I want a Tesla.

Tesla

Tesla Motors is a start up auto company based in Silicon Valley and it was started with seed money from the owners of Google, Ebay and Paypal. Pretty good business partners, I would say.

They build an electric car, that unlike Toyota’s, uses standard off the shelf laptop batteries to power it. I imagine they avoid Sony batteries. They take advantage of the high volume, low cost laptop battery market which is constantly improving itself in terms of capacity, recharge speed and weight. This utilization of the high volume consumer market will help them as a company.

The car can go from 0 to 100kph in less than 4 seconds and it can go about 400km on a single charge. The average fuel cost is 1 US cent per mile according to their website.

I remember reading an article about them in Wired magazine and recall that the car does not generate heat from operation. So the company put an electric heater in it which begins working right away (but does limit the driving distance). This is an interesting feature for the Canadian winters. It may end us having to assume the ‘winter position” of being hunched over with our hands wedged between our legs as we wait for the car to heat up.

This company sold out of their 2007 models in a mere four months and they are taking orders for their 2008 models now. You can get yours for a cool $92,000 US (base price). I suspect the price will eventually come down as more Ontario MPPs, unionized teachers and the head of Hydro One snatch them up.

Oh, and did I mention, that other than a slight whining of the rotor, the car is pretty much completely silent. No engine revving, no gears shifting. It’s truly 100% electric and packs a whallup. This car can theoretically hit about 13500 rpm and go 130mph and takes as little as 3.5 hours to charge up.

Today I wrote our Prime Minister asking him to invest in getting a Tesla manufacturing plant in Canada. A nice green move, jobs and a great looking car for the press photo op.

But, alas, for now I will just have to keep staring at the pictures of this car and dream. If anyone out there is interested in donating to the “Get Mulder A Tesla” fund, let me know.

Ottawa Bloggers Gathering – Some New Faces In The Crowd

Mulder

Tonight’s Ottawa Blogger gathering (my third) at Marshy’s in Nepean seemed like a good time for all. The conversation primarily stayed political and topics that came up ranged from Income Trusts to Quebec as a Nation to Mark Steyn’s book to Hugh Segal to David Dingwall to makework government programs getting cut to the Income Splitting session on parliament hill this coming January. Sara will do her darndest to make that one well known and I will do my best to attend since it directly affects my family.

Their are two pictures below of the 9 of us who attended this one.

On the left side we have Paul O., a frequent commenter on this blog and a few others. This was Paul’s first venture out. Paul has a blog but we are going to have to bribe him with a beer to get the URL. Next is Victoria, a very politically minded non blogger who hopes to have a blog up and running by Christmas. Listening to many of her views, I would say she would get a good ear from BloggingTories. The next one down the table is yours truly. A hefty 30 to 40 lbs more since I quit smoking. Time to cut out the ribs and wings and get a few salads under my belt. And bringing up the anchor position on the left side is OttawaBlogger mainstay Victor, the Phantom Observer. Victor has been to every one of these that I have been to and is well known to the Blogging Tories and the Red Ensign Brigade. As usual, he had his patented fedora.

On the right from the front of the table moving backwards we have Nikki, a politically minded friend of Sara who is right beside her. I noticed that like many of the female blog crowd, she had some good strong views on topics and it was nice to have her speak her mind. As we all enjoy, some disagreement in the discussions always makes it interesting and fun to debate. next we have Sara. You might know Sara from A Choice For Childcare. Sara is making a lot of headway pleading the case for single income families and stay at home moms and doing a great job of it. Next is Shameer of ShamTheToryMan. Shameer has quite astute at both Canadian Politics and American Politics and I learn something new from him everytime we sit down. He has also been to every one of these meetings that I have attended. Beside him is Matt from A Step To The Right. Matt is always smiling and we discovered that like many other right leaning bloggers, we are both reading Mark Steyn’s book right now. Beside Matt is his girlfriend Jenn who seemed to enjoy herself. I think her and Matt are a bit down as they just lost one of their two cats. (Maybe they can adopt a new one from the Harpers!!)

Ottawa Bloggers November 25, 2006

Ottawa Bloggers2 November 25, 2006

We were all disappointed our friend Brent Colbert didn’t make it out, but apparently Brent was the recipient of a surprise birthday party this evening. I think if the planners had told him he couldn’t make the blogger gathering that it would have ruined the surprise so we forgive him… THIS time!! Happy Birthday Brent!!

It was great getting five new faces out to this gathering. Hopefully YOU will come attend the next one.

Ottawa Has A New Mayor But Returns Every Incumbent Councillor

Mulder

Tonight I had the privilege of attending the campaign party for Larry O’Brien, who just happens to be the new mayor of Ottawa.

Larry swept to an early lead taking just under 50% of the vote. The right leaning voters united behind his banner while the left leaning voters divvied themselves up between incumbent Bob Chiarelli and Alex Munter.

Funny, that’s just what I said would happen back in February. Albeit back then the right leaning candidate was to be Terry Kilrea and not Larry O’Brien.

I had the luxury of attending the event with ShamTheToryMan and Matt from A Step To The Right and below are a few pictures that I snapped with my cell phone.

BobConceding

Bob Chiarelli shows up to concede in a classy speech.

Larry1Small

Larry gets the crowd going with his victory speech. Plough those furrows straight Larry. Plough ’em straight.

LisaSmall

Provincial MPP Lisa MacLeod showed up to celebrate with Larry. I seem to run into her everywhere.

MattNLarry

Matt (A Step To The Right) with Larry.

ShamNMatt

ShamTheToryMan and Matt (A Step To The Right)

All in all a surprising evening. We now have a straight arrow businessman in charge but we have returned a left leaning council so it is going to be interesting to see how things develop.

Phew. Hopefully, tomorrow I can stop looking at the sign farms.
signssigns.jpg

Another Ottawa Blog Mafia Gathering Scheduled

Mulder

With the municipal election wrapping up, we are now ready for our next Ottawa Blog Mafia gathering. This event is open to all bloggers or politically minded people so don’t be shy. We may bark a lot, but we don’t bite.

Where: Marshy’s Bar and Grill at Centrepointe

When: Saturday November 25th at 7pm

Of note, Marshy’s now has free wireless internet access so if you feel dangerous, you can bring your laptop. There is no Sens game that night so traffic shouldn’t be too bad for anyone on the 417.

If you are thinking of attending, please drop me a note or comment below so we can make accommodations should the numbers get too far out of hand. If anyone has any questions feel free to email me at webmaster@officiallyscrewed.com

See you there!!

ADDENDUM: This gathering is in no way directly (or indirectly) tied to this blog site or the owner of this blog site. This gathering is just an announcement of the owner of this blogsite’s intent to be at the above location at the above specified time. This gathering is taking place at a bar/restaurant that is open to everyone in the general public, including the bloggers that seem to want to join in.

Sorry for the legalese, but since the event is an open event, I don’t want to be held liable for any actions or anything that may happen as a result of anyone attending this gettogether. i.e. if you choose to attend and drink and drive, I am absolving myself of any legal control over you. I also suggest that you do not attend this event alone if you have no familiarity with the area where we are gathering or any of the people attending.

You are your own keeper. I am not your keeper, nor am I to be held responsible for your actions or the actions of anyone but myself.

Ok, now that that is out of the way we have about a dozen or so people tentatively confirmed already. So spread the word, grab a friend who likes talking politics and drag them on down next Saturday night.

Why Can't They Just Send Me My Bill?

Mulder

I woke up this morning and made my weekly run down to the “community mailboxes” which my neighbourhood has. You see, I don’t go down every day because I don’t get much mail. I only get flyers. This morning, in one week I received the following.

-34 pieces of advertising for businesses. 34!!!! It’s time our nation got a “do not mail” list to go along with the “do not call” and “do not spam” lists we need.

-5 bills

-6 political notices (not unexpected with a municipal election on Monday)

But what peeves me off more than the fact that the majority of mail is advertising is that even the mail that is not meant to be advertising has a bunch of gobbledygook in it.

Let me explain.

I opened up my Hydro Ottawa bill and inside the envelope was one sheet of paper with my bill, two inserts that were identical telling me to look up (for overhead wiring) before I do any work. For those that know Kanata, you will notice that our residential neighbourhoods have NO overhead wiring. We are an underground wiring community. But on top of the two inserts (one English and one French) I got a copy of this quarter’s Hydro Ottawa’s Currents a mini newsletter with full blown colour photos, information on LED lights, air conditioner disposal, etc.

How many of my electricity bill dollars does it take to pay someone to generate this crap? I don’t pay my electricity bill to keep a marketing team employed. I pay for my electricity.

Next. My Enbridge Natural Gas bill. Inside was one sheet of paper with all my billing information. I like the size of this one as it is small and full of info all on one sheet. But what does Enbridge go and add? One insert asking me “What’s hiding in your ducts?”. Another insert asking me “Who helps you weather the weather?”. Both advertising for services Enbridge offers to clean ducts or tune up my furnace. But it doesn’t end there. I got an insert telling me about my new rate information. I seem to get one of these every month because the rates fluctuate. This one was to inform me of a decrease in delivery charge. (Yes, Virginia, bills go down too). But then the kicker. I also get a newsletter called the Enbridge Pipeline!! Again, a piece of marketing fluff telling me all about natural gas and how Enbridge works with it.

Can’t my mailbox be JUST for my personally addressed mail? Can’t companies just send me my bill and not all the fluff? I am getting tired of compressing all the garbage and turning it into a fireplace log. But on the plus side, it does help keep my Enbridge bill down when I burn these logs.

In light of this, I have created a new poll regarding do not call, email or phone lists.

Does A Poppy Mean The Same Thing To Immigrants?

Mulder

Throughout my childhood when the end of October rolled in our teachers handed us all a small envelope that contained a poppy. I wasn’t aware of what it meant the first few years other than to know the money went to help the veterans of the wars in some manner. You see my parents were immigrants from Greece and to them the poppy did not specifically mean much. But every year my father or mother gave me a quarter or two to put into the envelope to bring back to school the next day.

I don’t know why, but I was always proud to wear that poppy and in the occasional year I lost the poppy in the wind or the wear and tear of being a kid I always felt bad. Like something was missing. I think this originally stemmed from the fact that I would not have a poppy to wear at the Remembrance Day ceremony our school had every year.

Why am I telling you this?

Because today on the Lowell Green Show a woman who worked for the Legion called up and told Lowell that she had worked three days for 4 hours a day at a poppy table and that not one visible minority had come up and given a donation for a poppy in the 12 hours. I wrote it off as a perception because I am the son of immigrants and I am well versed in the meaning of the poppy and I hope our schools are doing as good a job educating our children about this, because quite honestly, there are probably many parents who just don’t know what the poppy is.

Whether what this woman said is true or not, I don’t think your ethnic background should matter with respect to the show of support for our military and those who fought to defend not only our freedom, but the freedom of many other nations.

I hope that no matter what YOUR background is, that you pick up a poppy and wear it proudly from now until November 11th.