G Is King.

Looking at my posts this month I just noticed that so far only one hasn't begun with G.  This one won't change that.  I didn't do this on purpose, it's just one of those funny things that happens when you aren't paying attention.

Gas In Saskatoon, October 25, 2019.

A bit of a surprise this week.  Gas in Saskatoon has dropped to 105.9 cents a litre.  Given Monday's election I wouldn't have expected it to drop this much.

Goku Approved.

During my travels this morning I ran into something that left me shaking my head.  It was an empty can of Dragonball Z Spirit Bomb energy drink.  It has a nice picture on it of Goku about to throw a Spirit Bomb.  It's certainly one of the odder tie in products I've seen in a while.

But it is culturally appropriate.  The Japanese have been drinking what we'd recognise as energy drinks, there called eiyō dorinku, nutritional drinks, since at least the early '60s.  I would imagine someplace in Dragonball Z someone is portrayed as drinking what would be obvious to the original Japanese audience as an energy drink.

I'm sure someone would be upset at the idea of using a cartoon character to promote energy drinks, which are generally not recommended for kids.  But the North American audience for DBZ isn't really kids.  Most fans today may have been kids when the show first appeared here, but that was more than 20 years ago.

Go And Vote.

As always I encourage those of you who can to vote in today's Canadian federal election.  I don't care who you vote for.  I do have my opinions on who you should and shouldn't vote for, but in the end that's your choice.  And if you ever needed an incentive to vote it's an election like this, where the Conservatives and Liberals are neck and neck, and there's a high chance we'll have a minority government.  Early voting was up this year, so hopefully that's a sign the overall numbers of voters will be up this year.

Futile.

This week I spotted some election signs for the Christian Heritage Party.  It's one of those parties you look at and ask "Why bother?"  According to its Wikipedia entry the party has been around since 1987.  Yet in that time they have failed to elect even one candidate, not even coming close in any riding.   The party has pretty much no public profile outside its current supporters, leader Rod Taylor being ignored by the media. Their high point was in their first election appearance, 1988, when they won 3.56 percent of the vote.  In the 2015 election they won 0.97 percent of the vote, which was in fact an increase from 2011, when they won 0.84 percent.

The demographics become less in their favour with each passing year.  The percentage of Canadians who identify in some way as Christian is decreasing, and of course many who do have no interest in the conservative policies of the CHP.  They aren't likely to attract the support of those non-Christian voters who might agree with many of their policies.  And this election they face competition from the People's Party of Canada, which has former Conservative Party cabinet member and leadership candidate Maxime Bernier as leader. 

Having said all that I wouldn't be surprised if the CHP is around for future elections, which the PPC, which I suspect is as much a vanity project of Bernier as anything else, will not.  Stay tuned.

Gas In Saskatoon, October 18, 2019.

So much for that nice downward trend.  Gas in Saskatoon is now 114.9 cents a litre at most locations.   I assume the current escalation in Syria is probably not helping.

Gas In Saskatoon, October 11, 2019.

Another drop to report.  Gas in Saskatoon is now 108.4 cents a litre at most stations.  Nice to see it not go up before a holiday weekend.

Google Will Get You For That.

Recently one of the candidates for the People's Party of Canada put up some campaign signs in a local park.  This morning I took at look at them.  They're for Guto Penteado.  The Guto on the signs is presented in a font similar to one Google has occasionally used, and the letters are in several colours, again reminiscent of Google.  Seems to me that crossing paths with Google like that is not a good idea.  It's unlikely Google will have a chance to take action before the campaign ends, but why take the risk?

As for the PPC it will interesting to see if they're around this time next year.  To date they've remained under the 5 percent range in the polls.

Gas In Saskatoon, October 4, 2019.

We're down a bit again.  Gas in Saskatoon is now 112.9 cents a litre at most locations.  With Canadian Thanksgiving a week away it will be interesting to see if more change is in store.