Oh you southern Albertans and your shnooks. 
Though we’ve had two weeks at and slightly above freezing here, too. Very pleasant. Aaaaaand highs of -20 by the weekend. Ah well, only three more months and winter will be over.
Oh, you Saskatchewanians and your eternal optimism. 
Woo-hoo! Canadians finally get the Super Bowl complete with Super Bowl ads!
Only, it’s in 2017. (Cite.)
Why not now? CTV, just dovetail those old and tired Canadian Tire (a truck made of ice? seriously?) and Home Hardware (my local HH has neither tools nor screws nor anything advertised on TV, just “decorating ideas”; a friend calls it the “Gay Home Hardware”) ads in with what we really want to see–the game and the famous commercials–and let Canadians share with their American friends.
CRTC, how is that so hard? Give us what we want–the Super Bowl game plus the commercials–now!
The delay is to give Canadian companies time to produce Wow Superbowl ads. If we don’t get it up to 35% Can-con in time for the 2017 Superbowl then the decision will be reversed.
While I hate watching horrible local car dealership ads during the Superbowl as much as the next guy, part of me thinks this is really a horribly unfair decision by the CRTC. CTV pays a shitload of money for Superbowl broadcast rights, and now the value of the ads they can sell will be virtually nil since advertisers will assume correctly that anyone who has access to the original US broadcast will not watch on CTV.
The mildness of this winter has caused people to completely lose their minds. We had a little snowstorm here the other day–maybe 6-8 inches, a nice amount of snow, but pretty standard and ordinary for, you know, January. It even stopped in the middle of the night so the roads were pretty clear for the commute.
From the way people are talking you’d think it was six to eight FEET. The news has been a nonstop parade of “Be careful! Roads are extremely treachorous! Accidents have been reported! Snow makes things slippery!” Last winter if we only got six inches in a snowstorm we would all be celebrating our great good fortune. And it’s January! It snows in January here! Good Lord, it’s like everyone had their memories wiped after last April and forgot how to operate a shovel.
When did snow plows (ploughs?) start driving at 40 KPH maximum on the highways? I don’t remember them being so damned slow when I was younger.
In the last few years they max out at 40. My commute is long enough, but last night I got stuck twice behind plows going 40 KPH and it was torture. I got home at 8:00 last night, after leaving my office at 4:10.
Plows will drop their speed when spreading abrasives or de-icers (salt etc.). Dropping such materials at higher speeds will merely cause it to bounce off the road surface or bounce off your vehicle. The abrasive spreader is usually calibrated to not operate when the truck is above a certain speed.
I’ve started a thread about the award for Mayor Nenshi (thought about just putting it in here, but wanted him to get a bit of attention on the Dope generally, to counter-balance the Rob Ford coverage.)
Apparently there was an unfortunately, um, phallic map at a Toronto station, which has since been removed.
Well, that there’s a big picture of a penis. It always surprises me when things like this make it all the way to printing and being put up - how does no one see this?
I guess printers just don’t have dirty minds. 
Or they knew what it looked like but tried to see if they’d get away with putting up the map anyway.
It just needed a bit of public art to distract people. You know, like that nice abstract sculpture that Ray Barone’s mother made. 
When I got up at 6:45am this morning here in sunny Lethbridge it was a chilly -11. Now, at 12:45pm, it is +13 and the wind is whipping like a mofo, spraying gravel against the front door of our offices.
Alberta weather, baby! Gotta love it!
Piper Cub (5 minutes ago): “You know what season I hate?”
Me: “Which one?”
Cub: “Summer!”
Me: “Why?”
Cub: “You can’t go tobogganing, and mosquitoes drink our blood!”
Something I like about winter is that there’s no thunderstorms. I hate thunderstorms. It’s one thing I don’t like about summer. Also, during the summer, everyone on public transit stinks. But I generally like summer. I find that every season has things to like about it.
I miss Thunder Bay thunder storms. We rarely have them in Vancouver, and they can be so beautiful. Emily, I wish you could see one from Hillcrest Park, safely insulated in a car, and watch the lightening on the lake. But I understand how some fear it. My great grandmother apperently saw someone struck dead by ligtening, and feared it. She passed this down to her children, and my grandmother and father both are very nervous. But me, I miss the light shows.
I tried to call the reporting line today about a fraudulent telemarketing call I received. (set up to sound like a debt consolidation service but wasn’t) . (You can find the number by searching
for Phone Busters or Canadian Anti-fraud Centre…it directs you to the same place.) There actually is a menu… after the “pour service en Francais” prompt and a few others you get “If you were promised a cruise or vacation as a prize, press 1” There were other numbers to press for a Nigerian Scam, (described it, not called it that) for solicitations in the mail, etc.\
It was funny to listen to the different scams. Mine didn’t quite qualify for any so I went to the “For other enquiries press 7” which was “experiencing high call volumes” so I ened up reporting on line.
Something just made me gigle about listening to this list of frauds, it felt like phoning customer service with a cable company.
Oh, another cool thing that happened this week. I received my Canadaland Show t-shirt for being a contributor to his fundraising drive. I would never have known about Canadaland except for the Canadopers. So… thank you everyone for the tshirt!
The sun is setting on the Sun News Network (that’s Fox News North for you folks in our southern colonies). What are the odds of them blaming the lack of interest in their product on the gub’mnt?