A Reason Not To Tweet.

If I had a Twitter account I would probably end up dong nothing but countering the BS tweets put out by other Twitter users.  Visiting an art page last night I saw the owner's Twitter feed, and it was full of a bunch of right wing nonsense pretty much unrelated to the content of the page.  And that's just one example I came across totally by accident.  I see enough other tweets blogged and otherwise commented on that I would have a target rich environment.  No thanks.

Gas In Saskatoon, November 11, 2013.

Midday might not be the best time to post this, but I doubt I'm going out again today.  Over the past week we had another price drop, leading to a price of 112.4 cents a litre at most locations.  But I saw a  couple of stations this morning with their prices at 111.4 cents a litre, so it will be interesting to see if other stations follow suit.

Chilled.

It's a good thing I like a cool bedroom, as mine will be pretty cool tonight.  The probably not hugely accurate thermometer on my Grundig G8 radio says it's a balmy 64 degrees Fahrenheit, and I'm guessing it will drop a bit more before the furnace kicks in again at 5 AM or whenever it gets cold enough to start up again.

Outside temperature at the moment?  -24 degrees Celsius, give or take a degree. 

Now I need to check the air deflector on the register....

Annoy Function.

One of the ads running in the Canadian market for Full Tilt Poker makes mention of the website's "realistic" poker sounds, such as the swishing sound of cards being dealt and the sound of chips being raked across a poker table.  But one sound that has yet to appear on their site, and I assume others, is the sound of players fiddling with their chips.  If you've ever played poker, or even just seen it played on TV you'll be familiar with players making all sorts of noise as they play around with their stacks when they're not playing a hand.  It would be an interesting sound to add to online poker software, as it might annoy your opponents and effect their play.  Of course unlike real world poker the online player would have the advantage of being able to turn the sound down if it got too annoying. 

Oddly in all the poker I've watched on TV I've never heard anyone complain about players making such noise.  Given some of the stuff poker players do complain about it's surprising no one ever seems to blow up at other players for being too noisy.

Accumulation.

Boy, do I ever have a lot of CDs in my bedroom.  I was just rehousing them, and I know I have more than I thought.  And that's on top of what I have elsewhere in the house. But I know that my collection is small compared to those of others.  In any case I really need to listen to them, instead of listening to MP3s on the computer.

I Was On Potter Crescent Today...

...but I didn't see Harry.

As I predicted driving was fun today.  Trying to drive down 8th Street with no traction is not recommended.

Curses!

I actually have to drive tomorrow.  It won't be as bad as it would have been today, but still....

Gas In Saskatoon, November 4, 2013.

Today was not a fun day to drive in Saskatoon.  But at least the price of gas dropped since last Monday.  Gas in Saskatoon is now 113.4 cents a litre at most locations.

Evil Approaches.

Once again most of you have failed to stand against it.  The evil known as Daylight Savings Time.  Sooner or later you'll get tired of that silliness, and join sensible people like those in Saskatchewan and get rid of it.

It Never Fails.

We worry whether we'll have enough candy for Halloween.  When it's all over we still have some left.  Like I need any more sugar. to eat.

Infestation.

With this being Halloween season some folks have decorated the outside of their homes.  One thing I've noticed this season is that a lot of people have black plastic rats as part of their decorations.  I'd love to have a chunk of that business given how many I've seen in the last few days.

Gas In Saskatoon, October 28. 2013.

I've decided to make a minor change.  For the next while at least these posts will be done on Monday instead of Friday. 

Gas in Saskatoon is currently 114.9 cents a litre at most locations. 

Ugh.

I've got a bad feeling about the upcoming week.  I suspect I'm going to spend much of it cold and sore.

Odd Choice.

Safeway has long been a fixture on the Canadian retail landscape.  But its future became unclear when rival grocer Sobeys announced its acquisition of the chain earlier this year.  The federal Competition Bureau has now approved the 5.8 billion dollar sale, but one of the conditions is that Sobeys will have to sell off some of its assets in Western Canada, including both Safeway stores and its existing Sobeys, IGA, and Price Chopper stores.

Yesterday Sobeys announced the 23 stores it will need to sell off.  The single location to be sold in Saskatoon is the Safeway located in the Centre at Circle and  8th shopping plaza.  It's a decision that's sure to leave many Saskatoon residents with questions.  That location is in one of Saskatoon's major shopping centres, and does lots of business.  It has been renovated in the past few years, and also includes a gas station that just opened last year.  If there was a Saskatoon Safeway that seemed doomed to disappear it was the other 8th Street location, located in the Cumberland Square Shopping Mall.  That store is small by modern Safeway standards, has no room to expand, and needs some reno work.  More importantly it is located immediately across the street from a Sobeys.  Of course it is possible this store will simply be closed by its new owners.

Who might buy Centre Mall Safeway?  There wouldn't seem to be any obvious candidates at the moment. Canadian grocery retailer Loblaws already operates a Real Canadian Superstore grocery on 8th Street. Perhaps a chain not already operating in Saskatoon would be interested, although operating a single store might not be the most efficient way to go.

Even with the sales Sobeys will see its holdings increase by 190 stores.  Whether any of these will stay as Safeway stores, or will be rebranded as Sobeys or some other name, it still unclear at the moment.

Loblaws itself is in the middle of buying the Shoppers Drug Mart chain.  The deal is currently under Competition Bureau evaluation.  And it's a big deal, worth 12.4 billion dollars in cash and stock, which should be an indication of how major a brand Shoppers is in Canada.  Besides health care products Shoppers sells various other products, including a considerable amount of food products, which presumably means we'll see Loblaws brands appear on Shoppers shelves if the sale goes through.

Bulk Dump.

Talk about easy.  I've barely gotten out of bed, haven't left the house, yet I've already entered 7 bills at Where's Willy.  I also entered them at my Canadian Money Tracker account, which I really only use these days if I run across a CMT marked bill.  They're all 2004 series $20s, which adds to the fun.  Hopefully they'll all get hits before they get pulled from circulation, as the intent is supposedly to replace older bills with the new polymer $20s as soon as possible.

Gas In Saskatoon, October 11, 2013.

Regular visitors from Saskatoon might have noticed I missed posting about last week's gas price change.  That's because none of the stations seemed to be able to make up their  mind what the actual price was.  There was way too much difference to state "the" price.

That's not a problem this week.  Gas in Saskatoon is currently 119.9 cents a litre a most locations. 

Those Things, Those Whatchacallems.

If you've watched even a bit of US TV lately you've probably seen the ads for Burger King's new SatisFries.  They're a crinkle cut style French fry that apparently have less fat and calories that other fast food fries.  But you won't be eating them in Canada.  Here you'll be eating GratiFries(and MagniFrites in French speaking Quebec).  "But they look the same," you might say if you've seen both Canadian and American ads. And they are the same.  But apparently the different branding is because focus groups found Canadians liked the GratiFries name better.  Go figure.  They're a product developed by Burger King with Canada's McCain Foods, who make one third of the world's French fry products.

I haven't had any yet.  I did have some of BK's Poutine With Bacon today for lunch.  No, you don't want to know what my blood pressure is.

And speaking of fast food differences if you're an American looking for your Popeye's chicken fix keep your eyes open if you're in Southern Ontario.  Ads during the Major League Baseball playoffs alerted me to the fact that the chain, which I've seen ads for a lot on some US TV channels, has set up franchises in Canada.  Only in Ontario at this point, so I won't be making their spokeslady happy and chowing down on some anytime soon.  Their Canadian website is here.

Thank You Dodgers.

No more annoying Tomahawk Chop nonsense to insult our ears.

It's Slow.

Over the last 24 hours certain Internet sites have been sluggish for me, or haven't come up at all.  Can I blame the Tea Party for that, since US government servers might not be getting proper attention, resulting in problems?  Or should I blame the rush to sign up for Obamacare, which has apparently caused problems for the US government website involved?  Or is it actually Grand Theft Auto V's fault, since the online gaming portion of the game went active yesterday, and was expected to suck up a lot of bandwidth? 

I know it's not my fault, so I have to blame someone, right?

Theme Song.

This may be an appropriate song for the first week of October given the mess Stateside.

Tea Party supporters, I hope you enjoy a bunch of government services you need being screwed up because you support slitting your own throats.