Gas In Saskatoon, May 17, 2019.

After a month the price of gas has finally changed again, and surprisingly it went down.  Gas in Saskatoon is now 127.9 cents a litre at most locations.

Casualty.

There are a lot of jackrabbit in Saskatoon these days.  But I think we're probably down at least one today.  Walking down McKercher Drive I spotted a crow scavenging on a dead animal in the road.  From its size and colouring I'm guessing it was a jackrabbit.  Given how many of the are around I'm surprised we don't see more dead ones.  Hopefully if this was a female its offspring are old enough to take care of themselves.

It should be noted that if you find a baby jackrabbit please leave it alone unless there is no other choice.  Mother jackrabbits leave them alone most of the time, only coming back to feed them briefly late at night.  If you do need to move one use clean gloves to avoid getting human scent on them, as a mother may reject one that doesn't smell right.

Early Sunday.

This isn't normally a time I'd be up and out of bed.  But my parents had an early flight to Victoria, so here I am.  Driving at this time of day sure is nice, as there is virtually no traffic on the roads.  I was disappointed because my local 24 hour convenience stores didn't have any microwave popcorn for a very early snack.  Weird.

One Month.

Regular visitors may have noticed an absence of gas prices posts here of late.  That's because the price of gas in Saskatoon hasn't changed in a month.   The last change was the week of April 12.  That's pretty surprising.  You'd think they would have found some excuse for it to change.  Next weekend is the Victoria Day long weekend, generally considered the first long weekend of the summer season.  So it will be interesting to see if prices change over the next few days, presumably going up.

I Needed One Today.

You may find this hard to believe, but I don't have a cell phone.  It's not in my personal budget, and I don't have many people who'd want to phone me when I'm on the go anyways.  But I just had an experience where I could have used one.  Walking along I came towards a house.  An angry man was shouting at his wife.  Given how he was behaving I was worried he might attempt to attack her, but he decided to stomp back to his car.  If he had gotten violent all I could have done was run to one of the other houses, ring the doorbell, and hope someone was around to call the cops for me.  Trying to physically stop an assault would likely have just made things worse, as I have no training in any sort of combat art.

I hope the guy gets some sort of help, but I wouldn't be surprised if he doesn't.

Paper Surprise.

I got a nice surprise this afternoon.  I dropped into the Centre at Circle and 8th Dollarama to buy a couple of things.  I paid with a ten, and in return got back a 2006 series five dollar bill.  When I expressed surprise at this the clerk mentioned he'd seen recently seen a twenty from the previous series of bills.  The 2006 series were a slightly modified version of the 2002 series bills, incorporating a new holographic stripe on the front, and gold metallic "dashes" on the back, to deter counterfeiting.  They were the last Canadian fives printed on paper, being replaced by polymer bills in 2013.

Besides the surprise of it actually being a paper bill this late in the day the bill itself is in terrific condition for its age.  The paper is still very crisp, there's little creasing, and it's very clean.  This all makes me wonder where this thing has been all these years.  Has it been sitting in someone's personal stash?  Did it come out of the bottom of a cash drawer, or the safe of some business?  It's a reasonable guess it didn't come from a bank, since they're supposed to return any paper bills to the Bank of Canada for disposal.  There's no way to find out of course.

Flakes.

I woke up this morning to find some flakes of snow lazily floating out of the sky.  Unfortunately they didn't last long, as we need the precipitation here.  We've had virtually none this month so far, and there have already been several brush fires in the Saskatoon area.  To the west of us the town of Biggar actually declared an emergency earlier this week as a result of a nearby brush fire.  The current forecast calls for only a 30 percent chance of showers today, but Saturday night and Sunday are supposed to see rain and snow.  Let's hope that forecast holds up.

900.

I've been waiting for this one for a long time.  I've finally had my 900th bill hit at Where's Willy.  It hasn't travelled very far since I entered it back in 2017, but a hit is still a hit.  My total hits at the moment are 1068, so the next big milestone will be hit 1100, which is probably some time away.

Global Flops Again.

If you're reading this, producer and lineup editor of Global's supper hour newscast, you screwed up again.  Why was Tiger Woods winning the Masters today your lead story today?  Woods is an American, and the Masters take place in Augusta, Georgia.  Bad weather in Eastern North America and Monday's Alberta provincial election are stories that should have been given priority.  Woods should have been placed near the end of the program. 

Gas In Saskatoon, April 12, 2019.

Time to dig just a little bit deeper into your wallet.  Gas in Saskatoon is currently 129.9 cents a litre at most stations. 

Double Deal.

I went out to get a snack a bit ago.  I got a nice surprise when I received a bill marked for both Where's Willy?  and Canadian Money Tracker at the Safeway in Market Mall.  It's the first marked bill I've entered into CMT since July of 2016, while the last marked bill I'd entered at Where's Willy? was in September of last year.  My entries were the second hit on this bill, which travelled from Saskatoon to MacDowall and then back to Saskatoon.

Gas In Saskatoon, April 5, 2019.

Up we go again.  Gas in Saskatoon is now 123.9 cents a litre at most locations.  I'm guessing we'll see 130 cents a litre pretty soon.

Done Early.

I actually managed to get my 2018 income tax return done this morning.  Usually I do it a couple of days before the deadline.  Hopefully if I actually get a carbon tax refund from it the cheque will appear by early May as a result.

Gas In Saskatoon, March 29, 2019.

I'm sure no one will be surprised to see prices have gone up.  Gas in Saskatoon is now 119.9 cents a litre at most stations.  On the first Friday of 2019 it was 97.1 cents.  Some sources expect it may be in the 130 cents a litre range by mid April.

It Could Have Been Better.

Baseball season is here.  Unfortunately the Blue Jays lost their home opener this afternoon against Detroit.  But it actually was a good game.  There was no score into extra innings because the Blue Jays and Tigers played well, not because both teams played equally horribly.   And Toronto hasn't won a home opener since 2011, so we probably shouldn't be surprised they didn't win this one.

Cool, I actually have a Detroit Tigers tag.

Up From Below.

I saw my first gopher of the year today.  It was standing outside its burrow, looking for whatever it was looking for.  Hopefully it hasn't come up too early.  And it may not be living in the best place, just on the edge of the University of Saskatchewan campus.  I'm pretty sure U of S groundskeepers have taken pest control measures against their burrows in the past, such as by the bus stop in front of the main library building.

Gas In Saskatoon, March 22, 2019.

Filling your tank got a bit more painful this week.  Gas in Saskatoon is now 114.9 cents a litre at most stations.  I won't be surprised if another increase is in the offing.

I'm So Out Of TV Touch.

This morning I came across an article about how the show SMILF, seen on the Showtime channel in the US, has been cancelled amidst allegations of misconduct against the creator and talk of questionable activities on the set.

Seeing the article was the first time I'd heard of the show.  To be fair it apparently aired in Canada on Crave, a service I don't have.  But it made me think about how much TV has changed.  I can remember a time when CBC and CTV were Canada's TV networks, and the US networks were NBC, CBS, and ABC.  So it was a lot easier to know what was actually airing.  These days you have who knows how many networks and speciality channels, and the streaming services like Netflix are producing their own material.  It's gotten to a point where you probably need to be a professional, or an obsessive TV junkie, to know and keep track of what's going on.

In my case it doesn't help that I don't really watch dramatic TV anymore.  I just can't seem to hook on to any series.  I thought I might watch Magnum PI to some extent, but a couple episodes was all I got around to.  A couple of years ago I had the idea that I would just pick one show and watch the whole season of it.  I may have to consider doing that again next fall.

Gas In Saskatoon, March 8, 2019.

Unfortunately a big jump up to report this week.  Gas in Saskatoon is now 109.9 cents a litre at most locations.

Gas In Saskatoon, March 1, 2019.

And just a little bit further down we go.  Gas in Saskatoon is now 100.6 cents a litre at most locations.