Here we are, at the end of another work week for me and for the postal folks who walk around this neighbourhood delivering all this junk mail. I’ll bet they’re just as glad to see a weekend as I am.
Two pizza flyers – Pizza 73 and Dominos as per usual. I ordered Dominos last night as it happens and was greeted at the door by a delivery guy who was probably around the same age as my father. Retirement doesn’t mean much anymore, does it? In my own job, it was decided to dump the mandatory retirement at 65. Now people can stay at their desks until rigor mortis sets in if they want to. I’m torn over that, I think. Granted, it’s not like 65 is the age that senility and feebleness suddenly take over. A lot of older people remain very healthy and mentally sharper than I’ve ever been. But it’s also too bad that what should be the golden retirement years wind up spent in jobs they may or may not like (Greeting at Wal-mart for example) because their pensions or retirement savings just aren’t enough to get by on.
TD Bank’s asking what retirement looks like, too, and they’re willing to help a person find the right plan for his or her future. I ought to be getting that stuff a little more organized too, but I never really had any available money for investments until this year – although I suppose if I’d resisted buying a stereo, tv, dvd player, desk, sofa, chair, new speakers, a rowing machine, and hundreds of dollars worth of movies and music over the years I might be better off…
Premier Brad Wall sent a flyer advertising just how much he’s done for our province since being elected by people other than me. He’s bragging about debt reduction, investments in infrastructure, income tax reductions (not that I’ve noticed) and a fiscal insurance policy “to safeguard Saskatchewan’s future.” I don’t follow local politics. I find it incredibly boring, overall. I’ll mention this infrastructure thing, though – some Saskatchewan stats to share:
Saskatchewan’s highway network consists of 26,250 km of roads, or roughly 14% of the province’s entire rural road network. Saskatchewan’s highway and municipal road networks together constitute the largest rural road system in Canada, totaling over 190,000 km.
On a lot of the highways the speed is posted at 90km/h and it better be followed unless you want your car to fall apart before you reach your destination. The demise of the rail system in this country has increased the number of semi trailers and there’s nothing worse for a thinly paved road during a hot summer than a fleet of trucks rolling over it. They get dips and cracks and holes that may or may not get dealt with before the snow falls and then water gets down there and melts and freezes and melts and freezes again and one morning you discover that you could lose an elephant in one of those potholes. Although you’d find him quick enough just by listening to him bellow.
Brad Wall claims he invested a billion bucks into highways, schools and hospitals this year and plans on another $1.5 billion for next year. Is an election year coming up? Not until 2011. But, I’ve known of Premiers to call one a year early and hope to ride for four more years on the popularity wagon.
If Brad’s been spending a billion, why is the Saskatoon City Hospital Foundation looking for donations? Because there’s never enough money to go around. They want to add an HDTV to their operating room. It’s not so they can watch House, though – it’s to go with their laparoscopic surgery camera. They’ve been doing these kinds of non-invasive surgeries for 20 years already and hope to get enough donations for two more cameras so they can have three suites decked out with the best technology available. Day surgeries are pretty popular options now.
The Lung Association has sent out their Christmas seals again this year – complete with a 100 year anniversary announcement. Wow. I wonder if any family has collected the seals for a hundred years. Thirty-three of the American ones are part of a slide show at christmasseals.org. Every Canadian Seal since 1927 is here.
Kampaign for Kids is running their raffle for their 15th year in a row. The Red Cross runs it for child-related services and is giving away up to $60,000 to people who buy tickets. I don’t think I bought tickets last year but they’ve still got me addressed by name from the last time, guess.
SaskTel (motto “Ahead by a Century” which is inexplicably stupid) is giving away an HDTV and home theatre system — geez, maybe Sasktel could give the TV to the hospital. They need it more than I do. They’re trying to get people to buy their Max Hi-Def channels. Har-de-har-har. I don’t even watch the four I get with rabbit ears for free. Why would I buy more? I realize I’m hooched as of February 2009 but since I rarely ever turn the TV to an actual station instead of AUX, I’m not too sad about losing my snowy signals. It all goes to DVD eventually. I can wait.
I couldn’t wait to dig into “The Daily Burn” this week though. Stupid Capital One played a damned trick on me, though. Here I thought I’d wound up on the Devil’s mailing list now that I have this atheist blog but alas, I was wrong. It’s just a zany post-Halloween “Hell Freezes Over” advert. It’s all Capital One’s fault, too. They have “No Hassle Rewards” for their points earning plan. Apparently hell would freeze over before anyone tried that. Now the Devil’s blowing snow with a $666 machine.
Oh, it’s worth keeping, just for the novelty value. I’m sure it incensed a few churchies, though. It must have done. But it’s so cute from a heathen perspective. Almost funny enough to make me convert to Capital One, but I’ll resist it.
I don’t know if I’ll be able to resist the Inspired magazine from Sobey’s though. They have some nice recipe ideas in here. It’s a wonder people even buy recipe books anymore. The entire Compliments recipe selection is on-line. Every food company has a site, some specialized products from companies have their own recipe sites, and I’ve even just gone into Google and typed out items from my fridge and cupboard and let a flipping website plan my meal for me. That worked out really good but I think I’d like to try this Smokey Applewood pulled pork sandwich recipe this weekend.
That’s definitely a plan.
One Minion's Opinion 
hmmm….