Hard Money.

The current issue of The Atlantic has a profile on UFC fighter Quinton "Rampage" Jackson, which you can read here. The article details Jackson's activities in the runup to his July 2008 fight with Forrest Griffin, and his subsequent July 15th arrest after an evening of vehicular mayhem. One of the issues mentioned in the article is that of money, with UFC frontman Dana White stating that something like half of the UFC's stable of fighters make 100 grand or more a year. Of course this also means that the other half don't make that kind of money. This made me curious, so I decided to look for UFC salary information online. Although there is some dispute how much certain fighters get paid the range of salaries is interesting, and rather disturbing on the low end. At the bottom you have fighters who are making 3 thousand dollars for fighting on a UFC undercard, while at the top end you have someone like Chuck Liddell who has made as much as 500 thousand dollars in base salary for his fights. Given the money involved in things like gym time and so on some of the lower end salaries probably barely cover expenses, if at all. But some say even someone like Liddell may be being short changed given how much revenue UFC pay per view events draw in. Still, such salaries do explain some of the luxuries Liddell was shown with in a profile I saw a while back, like several expensive vehicles.

As with some of the boxers I see on TV I really have to wonder why some of the older UFC fighters keep at it. They must realise by now they're never going to make it to the pay level of a Liddell or Canadian fighter Georges St. Pierre, who is making in the 100 grand plus range these days. Do they really want to fight for chicken feed when there's always the risk of a permanent injury? Because of the variety of styles and tactics involved there's probably a lower chance of the kind of debilitating brain injuries that can result from boxing, but having wrecked knees or a damaged shoulder isn't great either.

As for Jackson hopefully he's handled his money well. If he is convicted for what happened in July he could spend up to 3 years in jail, and I can't help but wonder if he might not have trouble getting back into the UFC with a criminal record.

Survivors

As I stood waiting for the bus this morning a chickadee sat on the branch of an evergreen by the bus stop proudly calling out his "deedeedee" to whoever would listen. When you think about it it's amazing how these little birds survive. With little more than their feathers for warmth and whatever bits and bobs of food they can scrounge they manage to ride out winters that can sometimes hit -30 Celcius or colder. No doubt some do die, but many more chickadees, sparrows, and other small birds make it to see spring and another mating season. Of course it doesn't hurt that human behaviour helps them along, both by providing trees and other types of shelter, and by offering them food they wouldn't otherwise have.

A Present From The City.

garbage
Originally uploaded by mr. gueguen

This afternoon city workers came by and left us this lovely little present. This type of garbage can will be familiar to many residents of Saskatoon, and presumably residents of other communities. They've been in use for years here in some areas of the city. But now the city is expanding their use to areas that had previously been served by large multiple dwelling garbage containers. Located in back alleys each was intended to serve 6 homes. Many newer areas never saw the larger containers since they lack back alleys. The intent of replacing the old communal containers with new individual ones is to eventually allow the city to charge for garbage pickup should that prove practical. Obviously it wouldn't be fair to charge a fee based on weight with communal containers, as there would be no way to know who was putting in what.
Another advantage of these, one suspects, is less chance for arson. The communal containers have been regular victims of arson attacks over the years. With the new containers being located in people's yards, and only rolled out onto the street when collection is scheduled, it should be harder for any little firebugs to casually set one on fire.

Pulling Double Duty.

When most people hear the name John Carpenter they think of the filmmaker behind such flicks as Escape From New York and the original Halloween. But Carpenter has also been composer or co-composer of much of the music used in his movies. Above is one example that has caught my ear over the past few days, the theme to 1976's Assault On Precinct 13. To my ears it sounds fairly contemporary, probably due to its minimalist nature and the sounds used. As for the movie itself it was made for 100 thousand dollars, a budget piece even by the standards of the era. Today some movies probably spend more on the female lead's makeup than that.

I came across this clip via this thread on the Vintage Synth Explorer forum, which has more Youtube clips of Carpenter the composer in action.

Gas in Saskatoon, December 5, 2008.

This week saw yet another drop. Gas is now 83.9 cents a litre. It was interesting to see a Macleans(Canada's equivalent of Time and Newsweek)cover shot from mid June the other day on speculations of how your life might be with 200 buck a barrel oil. No doubt we will see oil at that price eventually, barring a major breakthrough in alternative energy, but it seems a lot further away now than it did when that issue was printed. Unfortunately a lot of economic ministries in various places, including here in Saskatchewan, were banking on the revenue higher prices was going to bring, so their budgets have gotten a wee bit screwed up as a result, as have the plans of anyone who bought a lot of petroleum product at price X expecting it to get a lot more expensive by now, not drop. Just goes to show that economics is far less predictable than some would like us to believe.

Doggy Dollars?

I had a bit of a chuckle today when I got a couple of twenties out of an ATM. The prefix on the serial number on one of them was ARF, making me wonder if the Bank of Canada has taken to hiring dogs. Last week I had one that had the prefix ALL.

Yesterday I saw a license plate that had a letter combination that I'm surprised got past whoever makes sure offensive letter combinations aren't used: FKK. I'm sure most readers can imagine how it could be pronounced like a popular swear word.

A Gentle Finish.

November is ending the way it started here, with nice weather. It was a degree or two above freezing today, ending a month of surprisingly mild weather. There hasn't been much snow yet either. Tomorrow will see December begin with a high of 4, but things are expected to cool off as the week progresses.

In Memoriam

With coverage of the ongoing economic crisis and then the Mumbai terrorist attacks dominating the news I managed to miss that former Platinum Blonde bassist/keyboardist Kenny MacLean died on November 24 of an apparent heart attack. I only learned of his death today via a CBC interview with Jason Priestly. So I figured I'd post his video debute with the group, "Crying Over You," in tribute. MacLean was brought into the group when singer Mark Holmes decided he wanted to concentrate on singing and not split duties as bassist as well. I'll also note that the guitar solo on this song was actually played by Alex Lifeson of Rush.

It's funny to think that I watched that video as a teenager way back in 1985, and now presumably some of the people in that video may have children the same age I was then. Time sure flies.

Gas In Saskatoon, November 28, 2008.

Continuing the trend, another week, another drop. Gas in Saskatoon is currently 86.9 cents a litre.

Homemade Hamburgers, Yum!

You'd think there wouldn't be much difference, but there's just something better about hamburgers made from scratch even over patties made fresh in the meat section of your favourite grocery store. Perhaps it's the spices and so on you put in homemade ones that a commercial product won't contain. And those of you who don't eat meat? I really feel sorry for you right now.

Shut Up Week.

Unless you just came out of a sealed capsule at the bottom of the ocean, or have been running around with your fingers in your ears shouting "Lalalala, not listening!" for the past while(a not unreasonable response right now) you no doubt have heard the regular stream of dire predictions coming from various quarters on the economy. The Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development is the latest group to release a negative outlook for the world economy. And with each one the markets seem to go on a rollercoaster. So perhaps it's time for all of them to shut up. Keep their predictions of doom and gloom to themselves just for a week and see what happens. What's the worse that could happen? I can't see it being much worse than the Dow Jones and TSX dropping 400 points one day because of some prediction from an expert, followed by them going back up 250 points the next day because those involved realise there's still money to be made.

Modern media doesn't help things. It allows almost immediate dissemination of such material, and hence an almost immediate reaction from the markets. If this blog for example was in any way influential with the movers and shakers in international markets there could be a response from some interested parties within a few minutes of this post being published. The pundits and organisations that create such material might want to consider that fact before flapping their big mouths.

Gas In Saskatoon, November 21, 2008.

You can probably guess the content of this post. Yes, the price of gas dropped once again. It's now 88.9 cents a litre here in Saskatoon. But to break up the monotony I'll mention that the price of diesel is currently 112.9 cents a litre. One of the advantages in the past of diesel was that it was always a few cents a litre cheaper than gasoline, so you could save a bit if your car was diesel powered. But not right now.

I Always Miss The Cool Stuff.

There was a lot of press today about a meteor that streaked over the skies of Western Canada last night. If you were in the region I hope you got to see it, because I sure didn't. My father figures he saw the bright light it generated as he went for his after supper walk around 6:30 local time. Me, I was indoors and saw nothing. Fortunately several cameras in various places caught its descent, and I saw one spectacular example on the news this evening. It was amazingly bright in some locations.

Radio-activity.

radios
Originally uploaded by mr. gueguen

I recently realised that I've begun to build, unintentionally, a collection of small radios. It's interesting to compare the three modern radios with their great grandfather. Clockwise from the top we have:

An M-zone R-363 shortwave radio. I picked this one up at a local London Drugs mainly to use for shortwave and other radio noises in the kind of weird music making that interests me. These normally sell for 20 bucks plus tax, but London Drugs regularly discounts them to $9.95. Frankly I wouldn't pay 20 bucks for one, but the discount price was cheap enough. The only thing digital about this thing is the frequency display. The actual tuning mechanism is analog, and sloppy analog at that, although that slop does allow the radio to tune to frequencies it's not officially designed to, but that you'd want to hear. Build quality is of course iffy as well. Cheesy little radios like this appeal to many beginners because they're cheap, but an experienced shortwave listener will actually have more fun with one, as they know how shortwave signals work and therefore know what can and can't be heard on a portable with a tiny whip like this one's. I suspect a lot of these get returned by novices who think they aren't working because they can't hear anything, not realising they're listening at the wrong time of day for the frequency range they're tuning, or that propagation conditions can sometimes prevent signals from reaching you. You can find this radio under other brand names as well.

Next is the Sony SRF-59 AM/FM Walkman. I've mentioned this little dear on here before. It's been getting a lot of attention from radio hobbyists because of its great long range AM performance in a compact size. I've had a lot of fun with this one, and it's been a frequent occupant of my belt when I've been outside for long periods of time. I'm still on the original AA battery I put in when I first bought it early in the year. Even the dirt cheap headphones Sony provided with it are still working well. If you're an AM DXer you should really buy one of these.

Next we have the blue no name FM radio. I bought this little thing for a buck at the local Dollarama store. Yep, a mere loonie. I hate to think what these actually cost to produce, but I could hardly turn it down at the price of a chocolate bar. Of course it's got tinny audio and dubious RF performance, and the included ear buds aren't particularly comfortable, but it's fun to fool around with, and fits in a pocket. This one even has a built in light so you can use it as a flashlight. Why? Who knows what the designer was thinking.

Finally we have an ancestor of these guys, the RCA VIctor Six Transistor AM radio. This turned up in my Grandmother Carr's stuff as my parents were helping her move recently. Other than a scratchy volume contro/on-off switch this thing is in very nice condition, making me suspect it didn't get used much. I'm not sure of the exact age of this radio, which was made for the Canadian market according to the inside of the rear cover, which also says its a model PA5. Apparently these were made by Toshiba, as they share similar details to certain Toshiba models, and of course were made in Japan. They come from an era when the number of transistors was a selling point, hence the prominent Six Transistor engraved on the front. My example stil has its leatherette carrying case and ear bud, both of which are in nice condition for their age as well.

Gas in Saskatoon, November 14, 2008.

Are you surprised, dear reader, if I report the price has dropped again. Probably not, especially if you heard the price per barrel of oil may drop to 50 bucks or lower. In any case the price of gas in Saskatoon today is 92.9 cents a litre. Just a little drop, but still a drop.

Snow Away.

Unfortunately it's snowing today. I was hoping it would stay away for a while longer. There's a good chance most of today's batch will melt tomorrow, but sooner or later we'll get our usual permanent winter coating of the stuff. Rats.

Gas In Saskatoon, November 7, 2008.

No photo this week. The price of gas in Saskatoon is currently 94.9 cents a litre, yet another drop. Sure makes filling the tank a bit more comfortable, doesn't it?

The Man Behind The Voices.

As a followup to my Stewie and Superman's baby post here's an article from Fast Company magazine about Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane. Seems he's building up quite the empire. And it's an empire that still requires a good chunk of direct involvement from him, since he does the voices of several of the main Family Guy, its soon to hit the air spinoff The Cleveland Show, and American Dad characters along with taking part in other areas of production such as writing music.

I Don't Wanna Watch A Cosplayer.

No election commentary tonight. Maybe tomorrow if I think of something worth posting while tromping around in the cold tomorrow. Rather I'll comment on the recent Entertainment Weekly cover featuring the guys playing Kirk and Spock in the upcoming Star Trek movie. Sorry JJ Abrams et al but I won't be rushing out to see this one. I was dubious about the concept from the start, but seeing the EW cover shot all I could think was that the guy playing Spock looked like a cosplayer. And that just made me even less inclined to go see it. In way it's like deciding to make a James Bond movie that's not only a '60s period piece, but has whoever is playing Bond wearing the same kind of hairpiece Sean Connery was, it just seems cheesy.

A Gentle Start.

It may be November 1st, but it sure didn't feel like it outside in Saskatoon today. It was ten degrees above freezing, and the 5 day forecast indicates daytime temperatures will remain above freezing through Wednesday. I'll take this kind of weather as long as we can.