no poetry, just politics

It's been a few weeks since my last politics post ... my apologies, I've been too busy following the election to actually write about the election. Plus I don't really have happy thoughts about the whole thing, so I have a hard time sitting down to write about unhappy things. Why I am unhappy you ask?

Well for one, Harper's dead eyes during the debate scared me. Secondly, I have a home phone number and so I get 3-5 nuisance polling calls a night. And finally, I am feeling unbelievably disenfranchised because despite the fact that I live in the 4th largest city in Canada, not one of the leaders has bothered to show up here yet. Not even Harper, and his riding is here.

I'm feeling particularly disheartened because despite the fact that I live in a riding that should be up for grabs, as it is an empty seat (former cabinet minister Jim Prentice has left politics - an exit that I'm pretty sure had something to do with the above-mentioned Harper dead eyes thing), but still, according to project democracy, some random woman named Michelle Rempel is going to win my riding with 54% of the vote. Not because she's fabulous mind you - according to a trusted source who was at a meet and greet with the candidates last night, she's actually quite the opposite. On her website she talks about lower taxes, fighting crime, and the coalition. There are three things wrong with those statements - Canada already has a low corporate tax regime, crime is on the decline, and there is no such thing as a coalition. And then today she was the only candidate not to show up at a debate at the U of C, even though she actually works at the U of C! According to her spokesperson, she declined because "her campaign team didn't like the moderator." Um, I don't like snow in April, but I still walked to work this morning! You can't always get what you want Michelle! I'm sure that attitude will serve you well in Parliament. All the best to you, but please know that while you might end up representing my riding, I will never call you my representative.

Okay enough with the sad ranting, on to better things that have come out of this election. Such as this awesome video and website. As someone who has multiple relatives from Cape Breton, I particularly enjoy the Rita McNeil reference. Embedding is has been disabled, so you'll just have to check it out on youtube or just go directly to shitharperdid.

it's the little things pt. 3

So this week has not been stellar, due to a variety of extenuating circumstances involving asshole husbands (not mine), crappy jobs (again not mine), and fathers in the hospital (this time it was mine, but it turns out he's fine). Plus it was colder than it needed to be for April 7th and so I was feeling rather down on my walk home from work. But then, about 3 blocks from home, the sun came out, a great song came onto my ipod (see video below) and I caught the eye of a guy in a car turning right, and he smiled and waved. He was cute too. And unlike this guy, he was wearing a shirt! Plus we have so much in common: he was wearing aviators, I wear aviators; he drove a Subaru, I drive a Subaru; he had a Lake Louise bumper sticker on his car; I was there just a few weeks ago! I think that means we're dating now. Now if only I knew his name ...

goddamn you mother nature pt. 2

On Sunday morning this is what I saw when I walked out of my house. Keep in mind that it was April 3rd. It was all kinds of awesome.*

A good 20 cms of snow had fallen since Friday night. I could only take the picture on Sunday morning because it was too depressing to leave the house on Saturday. One - because of all the snow, and two - because I was very hungover, thanks to celebrating JM's 35th birthday on Friday night. I won't get into any of the gory details of the night, but needless to say on Saturday I would have paid 100 dollars for someone to hand deliver me a quarter pounder, fries and fountain pop.

And yes, that is my spanking new car. Love it.

* incidentally, if I look back at previous posts, there was a similar bad news snow story in April of 2010 ... not sure why I was surprised this time around. I'm a sucker I guess.