Oh, and here’s an interesting article from CBC - Feds to monitor social media round the clock.
Yeah, I find it creepy. I want a government that listens to me, not a government that listens in on me.
Seriously? They don’t plow side streets during the winter? That’s nuts.
We never used to plow the side streets in Brandon or Winnipeg, either. (I don’t know what it’s like since I moved away…) Too much snow, nowhere to put it and more of it on the way. We’d just let it get compacted and then sand it down. Winnipeg was especially fun because the streets are barely wide enough to allow parking on one side and ‘two’ lanes of traffic. (In practice, it’s more like one and a half lanes of traffic; you’d just pull over into a parking space/driveway to let the oncoming car get past you.)
A cool link to 'How to build a Rainbow Igloo’.
Remember what I said about Calgary’s street plowing policy being “wait for a chinook?” I wasn’t kidding. 
On a different note, we saw this truck driving down the #1 highway (16th. Avenue) in Calgary a couple of weeks ago. I keep telling you guys that we’re not all rednecks out here, but some of us are more redneck than others. 
Huh? What am I supposed to be looking at, the antlers?
The antlers on one side, the feet sticking out the other side, the big truck, the redneck stickers all over the truck - it’s really the whole package.
I didn’t realize those were “feet.” But really, you would not believe how much this resembles the Ottawa valley. Once you get outside of Ottawa, and into Arnprior, Renfrew, Cobden, Pembroke, Petawawa, Eganville, Killaloe, etc. this is standard fare.
In fact, it’s probably standard throughout most of Canada, apart from yer big fancy, shiny cities. 
…Bancroft, Oshawa, Sutton…
I am so sick of hearing stupid-loud vehicles being driven by dumbasses.
Edit: though, Oshawa is near the cultural boundary where stupid-loud pickups with raised suspensions and big knobbly tires are outnumbered by tricked-out sedans and coupes with fart-can mufflers, big wheels almost touching the wheel-wells, and tires about a millimetre high. Still stupid-loud, though.
They plowthe side streets in Winnipeg, but in order of priority (for example, any side street that a school bus has to get down takes priority).
I see. So the people who think Albertans are all rednecks because of things like this are thinking quite myopically. Lawyered!
It just means that there are a lot of redneck wanna-be Albertans out this way jonseing to be manly. Ft. Mac gives them a chance to find somewhere to fit in – sort of a cross between a gulaug and a zoo.
Don’t mind me. I’m just pissed off at the new bubba-truck with Alberta plates towing a trailer with a piece of shit car on it that ran me onto the shoulder yesterday morning. What congenital defect is it that makes it impossible for a bubba to negotiate a corner on a hill when it snows?
And why was I even working yesterday rather than visiting family and friends down south, and why am I on the road today? My winter schedule has been seriously fucked up due to the domino effect of trial rescheduling initiated by a fourteen transport pile up. What does a bubba do when he can’t get a job in the patch? He drives truck. And crashes it out my way, asserting his gawd given right to close the highway and fuck with my schedule.
Earlier in the week while I was dealing with yet another adjournment resulting from the fourteen transport road closure, a mayor was blaming this week’s road closure (three transports in a head-on in the snow) on driving too fast (causing head-ons) and following too closely (causing pile-ups), and specifically not on snow, road maintenance or road design.
Anyone who enjoys watching NASCAR should be prohibited from driving, and any truckers wanting to use the Trans-Canada out this way should be required to use a freighter pilot and to have a flagman walking in front of them, 'cause their just too fucking stupid to be trusted to drive.
The only proper use for bubba truck and their big brother transport buddies is to squish piece of shit over-revving cars with loud mufflers and Harleys. Aside from that, I wish they would find somewhere other than the highway when they get the urge be all manly-man. Somewhere else like Alberta. Please take them and keep them.
What is it about Albertans. and trucks, and trailers? Apparently, you can’t be a real Albertan unless you drive a pickup truck, and have a trailer of some sort.
Seriously, what’s with that?
Library cards should be free to those who are resident in the library’s city.
I really do not understand why Albertans have to pay for library cards. I never had to pay for one in Ontario.
And strangely, I have to pay to be a ‘research reader’ at University of Toronto. It has gone up to $300.00 this year, and I’m not entirely sure it’s worth it. Yet when I go to work in Edmonton, the equivalent card at U of A is free.
Do you have to be enrolled in anything or employed there to be eligible to pay for the card, or can anyone pay for a card?
Serious answer, from a non-bubba with four-dood Jeep and a trailer and a share in a boat trailer, and who shares a drive with family with a quad-cab pickup, a full size suv, a trailer and a boat trailer.
Regardless of location: hauling campers, small boats or canoes, sleds, atvs, dirt bikes, camping gear, hunting trophies, and for comfort, ground clearance and 4wd on bush roads
Rural: trash for the dump run, building materials, comfort on bumpy un-paved roads (although it sounds like that would apply to a lot of urban Alberta roads too if they are not plowed in the winter) and 4wd on snow drifted roads
Distance travelers: four wheel drive and some weight (not an empty box) makes for one hell of an improvement when driving in the winter, and provides somewhere to sleep comfortably when some fool bubba manages to close the highway.
Bubbas give the rest of us a bad name. If it has a loud exhaust, tries to beat you off a light, has bull balls swinging from the hitch, or has misogynistic, gun fetish, conspiricist or Confederate stickers on it, it is a bubba and should be quaranteened and be instrructed on personal hygiene and basic literacy.
Are you sure? My impression is that as an alumnus, I have a “card for life” at the U of T libraries. (Not that I can take advantage of it from here, but that’s the way things go.)
Suggest that you take a good look at the agreement. Any questions, PM me.
Understandable. But most of my friends and neighbours don’t need such things. Rather, they blast their pickups away from the stop sign on hardpack snow, sideswiping parked cars, and not caring. Their trucks have never done a lick of work in their life, and never will.
Their trailers (which have more bedrooms than my house) sit in their driveways, as status symbols. Until they take them out, one weekend a year. :rolleyes:
I’ve often said that if one thinks that “it ain’t fun unless it runs on gasoline,” one should be prohibited from owning any gas-powered machine: truck, snowmobile, boat, ATV, etc.
Same here.