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.

The White Stuff.

Snow is back  in Saskatoon.  Not a huge amount yet, and a lot of it is actually water at this point because it's around freezing and there's still ground heat.  But it's a sign of things to come.  So take it a bit easy this morning as you drive.

Gas In Saskatoon, Septemberr 27, 2019.

I doubt anyone is surprised there's a price jump to report.  Gas in Saskatoon is now 114.9 cents a litre at most locations.  What did surprise me is that the price didn't go up almost immediately after the Saudi oil facilities were attacked.  Perhaps the fact the summer driving season had ended had something to do with it.

A Little More Paper.

Today was the day to redeem my beverage containers for the deposit money at SARCAN.  When I took my tally sheet to the payout window I got a surprise.  The clerk gave me a paper five dollar bill.  I haven't seen a paper bill in probably a year or more.  And this one is still very crisp.  I guess it must have sat in a safe someplace for some years.

Breakaway, 20th Anniversary.

Wow, September 13, 1999 is 20 years ago.   Space: 1999 debuted 44 years ago.  Time sure has gone by.  As always at this time of year we wish you an unhappy Breakaway Day. 

Despite this being an old fandom with virtually no chance of a revival someone thinks it's still worth putting out product.  Shout! Factory has released the complete series on DVD and Blu-Ray this year for the North American market.  I would imagine this is probably the last commercial release we'll see for the series, as I doubt there are too many under 40 members of the fandom.  This being the 20th anniversary I really should give the whole series a view again. 

40 Days.

The limited suspense Canadians had been feeling is over.  We now know the federal election will be held October 21st.  As I said, the suspense was limited, since there had to be an election in October, and the parties had all been unofficially campaigning for a while now.  Hopefully the turnout will be better than yesterday's Manitoba provincial election, which saw a dismal 53 percent of eligible voters turn out to vote.

Gas In Saskatoon, August 30, 2019.

As summer comes to an end we have a bit of a price drop.  Gas in Saskatoon is currently 106.9 cents a litre at most stations.

Mocking The Clickbait 18: You Need Better Scientists.

New Evidence Tells Scientists What Really Happened On Noah's Ark.

There's no new evidence to be had that will change the fact that there was no Noah, ark, or worldwide flood.  If a scientist actually believes otherwise they aren't a very good scientist.

Saying No.

I recently posted about a campaign billboard I saw in Saskatoon for the People's Party of Canada.  Now the company that has been hosting the signs is pulling them, after complaints the signs are anti-immigrant.  Pattison Outdoor Advertising initially said the billboards would remain up, but yesterday changed their mind, and will remove the billboards as soon as possible.  Interestingly the ads weren't actually paid for by the PPC, but do reflect the party's policy that immigration should be greatly reduced.  Canada currently takes in about 350 thousand immigrants a year.

Gas In Saskatoon, August 23, 2019.

A slightly more worthwhile drop to report this week.  Gas in Saskatoon is now 109.4 cents a litre at most locations.  With the Labour Day long weekend coming up at the end of next week it will be interesting to see if the price goes up or down.

You Will Anyway.

October will see a federal election in Canada, and more and more political advertising is staring to appear.  This morning I saw a billboard for the People's Party of Canada along Saskatoon's Warman Road.  On it was the slogan "Say NO to mass immigration."  My response was to think "Just say no to Maxime Bernier," the PPC's leader. 

But what I say definitely doesn't matter in this case.  Whatever your thoughts on current Canadian immigration policy you'll likely be saying no to Bernier and the PPC regardless.  The last I heard the party was polling a mighty 3 percent of decided voters.   I wouldn't be surprised if Bernier retains his seat, but the chances of them electing anyone else are probably iffy, despite planning to run candidates in all ridings.  The Liberals and Conservatives are running at pretty much a dead heat at the moment, so a lot of potential PPC voters aren't going to take the risk voting for them, because it might help the Liberals retain power.

Gas In Saskatoon, August 16, 2019.

It's a drop barely worth noting, but it's still a drop.  Gas in Saskatoon is now 111.4 cents a litre at most stations.

Gas In Saskatoon, August 9, 2019.

Further down we go.  Gas in Saskatoon is now 111.9 cents a litre at most locations.