Woof

Oh yea, we also adopted a dog.

Steve and his wife adopted one also.

They got along great for about 15 minutes when they met the other night. Lots of sniffing and marking, but not even a hint of a growl. Then, food was introduced to the mix, and that changed everything. A bloody paw on Sasha was the only visible wound from the melee that ensued; impressive given the noise the two of them made. Our dog, Tyson, has been listening to commands better since that all went down though.

Last night was a pretty mellow night of a few beers and busting open some board games with Carolyn. Overall its been an unusually low key long weekend.

Olivetti

Hippy Dippy Weatherman

If there is an afterlife, George Carlin now knows whether or not fart jokes truly are universal.

Why Don't We Turn This Whole Place Into a Roundabout?

Apparently the Region of Waterloo Council is still under the impression that the area is located smack dab in the middle of France. Another roundabout has been informally approved, this time much closer to the core of the city than any of the previous efforts.

Just down the street from me, the new installation at Union St. and Margaret Ave. apparently will serve the maybe 2 hours a day it is at all difficult to get through the intersection, and at that, the only real problem posed is a little bit of a wait to turn left from Union onto Margaret.

Again those in favour tout the slowing of traffic, and the diminished severity of accidents. But they are still neglecting the fact that this is not Europe, and drivers around here have not grown up with roundabouts, and that we here in North America still tend to follow a persuasion of driving over-sized vehicles. Combine that with a relatively poor explanation on the MTO website of how to properly navigate the intersection, and you've created an intersection that many older drivers are going to avoid, funneling more traffic down side-streets like the gonged up Ellis Cres. project of last year.

On top of this, the roundabout is immediately adjacent to one of the larger bush lot park and trail areas in the region, and that it is frequently used by pedestrians, including children. As soon as a steady flow of traffic is created through that corridor, the park will become much more inaccessible to people living nearby on the west side of the park.

The severity of accidents may decrease, but I guarantee there will be a higher incidence. Hopefully council does the right thing and does not formally pass the installation of this roundabout. Give it time at least and let people better acclimate to the slew of roundabouts already constructed at just about every boundary of the Region.

Valid Code

As nice as being able to control the finest details is with code, differences between things like '&' and '&' that have you Googling around for 2 hours before you find them can be rather frustrating. But now my pictures are displaying properly in Firefox 3, so its worth it? And really, what else do I have to do?

Last week's awesome weather has faded into cold rainy crap, putting an abrupt end to any plans to have an outdoor poker night this week on the picnic table I built this weekend. I'm not a fan of the furnace kicking on overnight in the middle of June.

I am however a huge fan of the Netherlands domination of Group C at Euro, despite handing an undeserving Italy a pass to the quarter finals in beating Romania yesterday. Beyond changing in 9 second string players, there's not much more Holland could have done to help Romania along. Here's hoping they don't go ahead and choke now against whoever of Russia or Sweden they meet on Saturday. If they keep playing the way they did in the group stage, I'm convinced they can beat any team out there. The key is not getting too cocky.

Faxe'd in the Butt

Tasty meal...but moving the chicken off the grease hotspots that my grill tends to develop and still keeping it upright was a bit of a challenge. I think I'll go back to rotisserie next time around.

Hup Nederland!

After a France-Romania draw, the Dutch are the leaders of Group C after taking it to the Italians. You can dispute the first goal all you want, the fact is, until the player beyond the end line gets treatment, he is still in play. Further to that is Holland's pretty second goal and the 3rd goal.

The plan now is to be back at Kickoff for game 2, hopefully the French supporters show up as strong then as the Italians did today.

In other news...the Catholic school board is at it again with their monopolistic business partnerships. Apparently my mom ordered Grad photos for my brother a few weeks back at an astonishing total of $162 dollars for a very limited package of photos. Well, while I was out today apparently the people at the company that the Catholic School Board chooses to do the grad photos called my mom up and promptly informed her that she wasn't entitled to the photos she ordered, despite ordering over their '$100' dollar minimum. In the world of cash grabs and monopolizing people with a once in a lifetime opportunity (e.g. graduation), Lifetouch / Life Touch has done their utmost best to fuck over the little man. Similar to the uniform monopoly run by McCarthy's for uniforms in Catholic schools in the area...this bullshit needs to stop. The Catholic schoolboard, if they want to sustain themselves within a society with so many other religions needs to stop buying into these bullshit contracts. And the people who run these companies need to be held accountable for their actions. If no-one is willing to even file a complaint (i.e. my mom) then these issues won't come to the forefront.

So if you have an issue with Life Touch / Lifetouch and their photos...be sure to at the very least file an e-mailed complaint with the board. If the board doesn't hear about it, they have no official cause for concern. In the end...no matter what watermarks you put on your proofs Lifetouch, educated people will find a way around it.

A New Distraction

Less than a week after the end of the Stanley Cup playoffs, Euro 2008 is underway. Sure the NBA playoffs are still going, but now that the Pistons or Spurs can't win it, I'll be pretty much satisfied with whoever wins. That said, I'm not a huge Kobe fan, and think Garnett deserves a ring, so go Celtics I guess.

The Euro so far has been great. Despite Groups A and B not being very deep, the games have been contested fairly evenly, even in the case of the poorly ranked Austrian team who are only there by virtue of hosting this year's tourney. I have my concerns about the Netherlands even making it out of the group phase, somehow getting lumped in with both Italy and France who at any given time are football forces. Somehow 3 of the top 10 teams in the world ended up in the same group of the European tournament, but if nothing else, it will provide for some fiery, tightly contested play. As I write this, 5th ranked Germany has scored its 2nd against 28th ranked Poland, and they still get to play Austria who is ranked below Canada (?!) in the world.

Anyways, competition and all that, I hope to go out to Kickoff in campus plaza for the Netherlands-Italy game tomorrow. What Kickoff lacks in menu, it more than makes up for in tasty, obscure imports on tap and always having a soccer game tuned in.

Hup Nederland!

Summer Love

To the couple having sex just off the trail next to Laurel Creek: Sorry we ruined your party. Maybe a bit further off the trail next time would be better for everyone, but at least you were able to laugh about it.

And really who can blame you with the nice weather finally. Plenty of activities I want to do outdoors as well. For now though I have some home brew to bottle.