Category Archive: Wreckollection

Jan 01

Vital Statistics 2007

Vital Statistics

2007

2006

a Canadian dollar is worth $  0.96 US $  0.86 US
a domestic postage stamp costs $  0.51 $  0.51
a local call on Bell pay phone $  0.50 $  0.25
a liter of Pepsi costs $  1.79 $  1.79
a liter of water costs $  1.69 $  1.39
a liter of milk costs (purchased in a four liter bag) $  1.19 $  1.25
a liter of gasoline costs $  1.04 $  0.87
a loaf of bread costs $  1.67? $  2.29
a paperback novel costs $12.99 $11.99
a weekly (Time) magazine costs $  5.95 $  5.95
a comic book costs $  3.99 $  3.99
a daily newspaper costs $  0.94 $  0.93
a collectable card (Yu-Gi-Oh!) pkg. costs $  4.99 $  4.99
a regular bus ride costs $  1.90 $  1.90
a medium cup of coffee costs $  1.17 $  1.17
a basic cable television package $27.49 $25.99
a first run movie rental costs $  4.39 $  5.39
an adult movie theatre ticket costs $  9.95 $  9.95
a children’s movie theatre ticket costs $  7.95 $  7.95
a babysitter (for Things 1 & 2) costs $  8.00/hr $  8.00/hr
a boy’s haircut $  9.95 $  9.95
a adult man’s haircut $ 14.25 $12.95
a medium combination pizza $ 14.35 $16.35
a new home computer (3.4GHz/160 GByte hard drive/)   $1387.00

 

Jan 01

Memory Lane at Our House 2007

Ma will remember 2007 for her patio but moreover as the year her father put up with the same kind of crap she did a couple of years ago (and we aren’t talking about the Canadian Winter, although that was part of it).  Like daughter like dad, there was a fairy tale ending, but more for him than for her. He is now frolicking in Florida, land of Disney, while she is still soldiering on at home here with The Three Stooges.

Pa will remember 2007 as the busy year that wasn’t.  There was lots of running around but nothing to show for it on any front. All my running and dieting has led to a net weight loss of exactly 0 pounds (I would like to claim the glass is half full but did I mention the dieting part).  At least my mortgage was finally paid off in 2007… but, alas, I will have to wait until next year when I pay off the second mortgage (remember the patio) before I can officially celebrate.

Thing 1 remembers 2007 as the year he discovered and read the entire Les Chevaliers d’Emeraude series of books.  It was also the year he discovered Internet Role Playing Games, the Naruto cartoon on TV and chin-ups.   

Most Memorable News Event:  nothing comes to mind

Favorite Show: Doctor Who.

Favorite Movie: The Transformers     

Favorite Music: Stronger by Kanye West

Thing 2 remembers 2007 as the year he discovered massage furniture (and had the whole family vibrating towards the Sears Home Center whenever negotiations arose to get him to tag along on any kind of serious shopping excursion).  He also discovered the magician/illusionist Criss Angel and jiu jitsu over the course of last year.

Most Memorable News Event:  nothing comes to mind

Favorite Show: Malcolm in the Middle. 

Favorite Movie: The Transformers    

Favorite Music: In the End, Linkin Park

 

Jan 01

New Year Resolutions for 2008

I will strive to make next years review shorter.

Ma will not break any more New Year resolutions (by not making any).

Thing 1 will do 10 chin-ups and spend more time learning and less time playing on the internet.

Thing 2 will go to jiu jitsu three times a week and promise not to flip-out(side of jiu jitsu).

Jan 01

New Year Renovations 2008

I have been told (again) that some changes are to be made in our kitchen (i.e. last year’s New Year renovation that was somehow supplanted by the patio).  I hope the changes do take place this time and are, in fact, renovations as opposed to my being called upon to cook more.  The kids hope so too because when I cook they pray to God after the meal.

Jan 01

Epilogue 2007

Oh yeah, I almost forgot.  A couple bridges fell down last year, but only one was made in China.

Jan 01

2006 Year-end Review

The Chinese called it the Year of the Dog. The United Nations dubbed 2006 the International Year of the Deserts and Desertification. It was the year that animation turned 100 years old.  2006 also marked the 100th anniversary of:

  • the Teddy Bear;
  • AM radio;
  • Bubblegum;
  • the perm hairdo;
  • the Planters peanut brand;
  • the Kellogg company;
  • Rolls Royce
  • Sonar
  • Jack London’s book White Fang;
  • Sherlock Holmes and the Hound of the Baskervilles;
  • the Great San Francisco earthquake and fire;
  • the feature film – a.k.a. movie (i.e. “The Story of the Kelly Gang” is the 1st feature film)

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.

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  •   Alzheimer’s disease identification [almost forgot that one]

Jan 01

Story of the Year 2006

Ancient Ice Shelf Breaks Free from Canadian Arctic  by: Associated Press    29 December 2006

A giant ice shelf the size of 11,000 football fields snapped free from Canada’s Arctic.  The Ayles Ice Shelf, roughly 66 square kilometers (41 square miles) in area, was one of six major ice shelves remaining in Canada’s Arctic.  The collapse was so powerful that earthquake monitors 250 kilometers (155 miles) away picked up tremors from it.  “It is consistent with climate change,” Vincent said, adding that the remaining ice shelves are 90 percent smaller than when they were first discovered in 1906.

(Hurting) Headitor’s note: The event actually occurred in 2005 but the story did not “break” until late in December 2006 – which is in itself something of a story, if not “the” story of how stories that don’t involve impotent Hollywood gossip or inane political bickering rank in our news agencies’ perception of what constitutes news. 

In a related story, our Canadian Prime Minister gave the cold shoulder to an international gay and lesbian convention hosted by Canada in order to oversee exercises designed to bolster Canadian sovereignty over a Northwest Passage that many expect will become a busy and viable alternative to the Panama Canal in the not too distant future.  Later in the year, at a United Nations Climate Conference, his Environment Minister’s defense of a Made in Canada alternative to Kyoto that would deliver measurable results by the year 2050 received an icy reception.


Jan 01

Innovation of the Year 2006

British Columbia and Alberta sign an agreement to eliminate inter-provincial barriers to trade at a time when Canada’s productivity in relation to the rest of the world continues to fall.  Perhaps if more provinces follow their lead, productivity within Canada will actually achieve the unprecedented levels that are required to recapture ground lost on the world stage (without selling out our country to the world at large).

Jan 01

Conspiracy of the Year (or Righteous Indignation is a One Way Street) 2006

Holy Jihad batman, even with all of the attempts of all ah the governments everywhere to keep the truth about Islam off the record; they are managing to out themselves.  France, Europe’s country with the largest Muslim minority population continues to blame “Youths” for the rash of firebombed cars in predominantly Muslim communities.  Canadian Police announce they have cracked a terrorist cell comprised of persons of, “South Asian descent …in their teens or early 20’s.”  Across the pond in London, British Police foiled a plot by 21 “very evil people” who intended to detonate liquid explosives aboard several transatlantic flights to the United States.   Meanwhile the Religion of Peace (once everyone in the world submits) opens the year by responding to a Danish cartoon with riots, bombings and murders.  They respond to a Papal admonition with more of the same.  Elsewhere (in a remote province of Canada?) an Islamic paramilitary organization based in Lebanon crosses the Israeli border under the cover of an unprovoked missile barrage to ambush, kill and kidnap Israeli soldiers. When this leads to the same response right back at them, the Islamic world and, moreover, the United Nations cry foul; even as they continue to ignore white Arabic jihad in Darfur (Sudan) and surrounding countries that continue to wrack up a genocidal death toll on black “Muslims” in proportions that dwarf all but the Jewish Holocaust of Nazi Germany.

Related story: Age of terror, Age of Illusions by Robert Sibley

Jan 01

Sleeper Story of the Year 2006

“Canadians Tired”

Shortly after Canada votes Paul Martin’s Liberals to the sidelines in the wake of their AdScam fiasco; the Canadian Tire Corporation quickly trashes its long running, and equally annoying Canadian Tire Neighbour Guy ads campaign.

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