Knick Knacks

Like knick-knacks on the the shelf, there have been a number of little things on my mind lately that individually are nothing to complain about, but collectively add to the static blocking out items of more relative importance that I want to think about. My objective here is to lay out the knick –knacks so I can start to forget them.

Beiber, Justin: (Canadian Singer Embaressment  Idiot). It boggles the mind that ANY news service, even the bottom-of-the-barrel-lets-make-stuff-up, Faux… err  Fox News would spend more than two seconds on the antics of this mental midget and the headlines he hopes to make. If the reporters would not show up, he would learn that he is not as important as he thinks he is (unless you are a girl between the ages of 8 – 12, who are infinitely more intelligent than Beiber).

“I Lost Everything – I have No Insurance”: What morons. In the last three months news stories have hit the airwaves about families who spend hundreds on Christmas presents but REFUSE to pay the pittance premium for content insurance when they are renting. Wake up, people! It is an added cost of renting, like utilities. Many of these renters have combinations of phones, cable, cell phones, Xboxes, Play Stations, etc. paying the connection and monthly fees, but REFUSE to buy content insurance to protect their toys. These morons need to get their priorities straight.

Darwin Award Winners:  “…Citizen Smith, was killed late last night while walking on the right side of the highway. S/he was wearing black jeans, and a black hoodie with no reflective patches. The driver of the SUV  accidentally hit Citizen Smith who was pronounced dead on arrival …” Far too many variations of this happen in the winter, and my give-a-damn, just gave up.  From the time they can walk, sometime between 9 and 14 months of age, we teach our children to walk facing traffic: on the LEFT side of of the road. Anybody walks on the right, especially after sundown, is simply playing Russian Roulette and may end up strengthening the human gene pool as a result.

Reporters who get “assaulted”. Having seen on the news how reporters hound people they deem to be newsworthy, invading their personal space with microphones, and cameras, it is surprising how few of these vultures have been  pushed out of the way. In a society that is generally considered to be ‘polite to a fault’, why is there no common decency and respect shown by people who report the news? There are no legislators, provincial or federal that have the intestinal fortitude to write and enforce respectful boundaries for the Fourth Estate. Even allowing every citizen one metre radius of personal space between themselves and the media could be enough to keep the peace.

Social Service Drug Addicts. It has long been accepted that drug addiction is a disease primarily of the mind, but has very strong affects on the body, and spirit. So treat them as a victim of a disease by placing them in residential programs, psych wards, and other acceptable means of treatment. Sounds like a plan, right? Well what we do with these sick individuals who are unable to find work due to their disease, is pay them not to look for work. An estimated 250,000 people in BC alone extrapolates to 2,5 MILLION Canadians are on social services, collecting a ‘paycheck’ on the last Wednesday of the month (thanks to the generosity of the taxpayer).  It takes nothing short of a court order to have any one of them tested for illegal drug residue, which would prove to the courts that the person is using his/her public funds to purchase and use non-prescribed drugs. If they have enough money for tobacco, alcohol, marijuana, heroin, cocaine, crystal meth, (and the list goes on), perhaps the government is giving them too much money to begin with. Order a random series of blood an urine tests, and anybody who has illegal drug residual in either system needs to be cut off the money supply for a three months on the first offence; one year on the second offence, and with three strikes - they’re out. PERIOD. NO MORE BUCKS.

“I can’t find a job in Vancouver/Calgary/Edmonton/…”   In the BC North alone there are 1,000 jobs right now, today, just in construction paying union wages for everything from Labourers, to Journeymen, to supervisors. Never mind all the ancillary jobs to support the industry.
BUT the jobs are in places that are cold (a previous boss used to tell people who complained about the cold to work harder), experiencing upwards of six months of snow per year, and 18 hours of daylight in the summer. To those who continue to complain: If you are too lazy to work: STARVE.

I do one part of my job and put on a forced smile, because I have a job to do and every job has something that we dread with every fibre of our being, but it has to be done. For some people it is quarterly reports, others it is budget development, somebody has to drain the swap full of alligators, and clean up after the elephants. Overall I love what I do,where I do it, however once every 18 months I am forced to spend a week in Vancouver. Vancouverites, tend to be under the misconception that anybody who is not within an hour’s drive of ‘Metro’ are desperate and anxious to get to the city at all costs, whenever they can possibly get there, and to provide poor country bumpkins with the opportunity to have their flights and hotel paid is equivalent to Nirvana. Well I have news for you Vancouver, you can keep your city, your smog, ALL of your suburbs, and overbearing crowds. Yes, I have to be there one every 18 months and will undertake my duties as efficiently and effectively as I can possibly muster, but please do not, under any circumstances, even for a nano-second delude yourself into thinking you are doing me a favour.