Thursday, July 24, 2008

Windmills

Never heard such bitching in all my life. First the tree huggers whine about coal power and nuclear power. The provincial gov promises to get rid of the coal power, right. They couldn't build nuke plants fast enough to replace the coal plants that they wanted to shut down in the time frame outlined. Typical politician bs and everyone knew it. Can't put anymore hydro power in Ontario as they have every river and stream big enough for a turbine damed already.

Along comes the greenest power out there other than solar panels. Windmills. A few companies want to put wind farms in southwestern Ontario as we have good winds and flat land. Perfect for windmills and green power to boot. You would think everyone would be cheering left and right. Wrong. The first wind farm was going to go in the lake off shore like they do in Europe. Well the bitching started. "They are ugly", "They block my view of the lake", They will kill the fish". Gawd I never heard such crap in my life. It went downhill from there. These people want to spend millions to put these farms in to give us cleaner power and everyone lined up against them. "They will lower my property value", "They make too much noise", and my fav, "They will kill the birds".

Let me tell you if any bird flies into a windmill that has blades that are over 100' long they are just improving the gene pool. Noise??? There is no engine, it's a generator!!! A little whoop whoop whoop sound from the blades going around. And as for lowering the property value, well I guess they are still better than the polution from the coal plants. More people are coming around just to look at them, maybe a tourist attraction for an area that could use the traffic.

Thursday, July 17, 2008

Cell phones and driving

Quick and dirty. I hate people who think they can talk and drive with one hand. Most of them can't drive with two hands so what makes them think that they can drive with one hand and no brain. There is no excuse for this anymore. With blue tooth headsets and car stereos now or add ons like blue tooth mirrors etc you can have hands free calling and talking while you are in the car.

This rates right up there with putting your makeup on while driving or reading the map on the steering wheel.

nuff said. Soon to be against the law in Ontario and hopefully everywhere.

Wednesday, July 9, 2008

The Iphone

My take on the Iphone. Nice hardware. Can't fault Steve Jobs and crew. They make good stuff and then turn their marketing department loose to create a frenzy to buy it. I'm not sure who is better, Steve or his marketers. The only problem is that Steve usually makes products that are so cutting edge that they are ahead of their time and the services that they run on can't handle them.

Thus the screaming in Canada over Rogers offering the Iphone and their packages to go along with it. Great hardware with shitty packages will cause pissed off people. The hype has been going for over a year while we in Canada waited for the hardware only to get screwed on the packages at the last minute. No wonder there are web sites with over 50,000 people signing up that want Roger's ass hanging from the flag pole.

The only happy people are Bell and Telus. Bell is offering the Samsung Instinct with an excellent plan in August and Telus has the Diamond and later Touch Pro which I want later this fall. Telus I am sure will offer the $15.00 unlimited package that they had last winter that was a great hit.

The Iphone might be the nicest phone out there for multimedia right now but there are others coming fast and people will not buy it if they think that they will get screwed at the end of the month on their bills. Just wait a few months and then we will see the articles about people with 500 to 1000 bills from Rogers.

If you are thinking about getting a new phone or your contract is coming due then do you research before you head to the store to buy new or renew. Visit the Howard Forums web site. Link at the right. The best source of info on all the hardware and packages from all the service providers in north america. Great site.

Night Shift

A little slow this week. First week of night shift in about 10 months so I am not awake at the right time of the day. Takes a few days to get the bodies clock straight again. I don't mind the shift. It's getting switched over to it that sucks. Afternoons is easier but it's nights for the next two weeks, so....

Put up or shut up. lol

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Drivers in a hurry to get nowhere

This is more a rant from my wife but I agree with her 100% The drivers in Windsor are nuts. Red lights mean very little and yellow lights just mean speed up. Stop signs are just for window dressing and I have already been rear ended once for stopping at a stop sign when the guy behind me just expected me to run right through like everyone else. Intersections are death traps that you enter at your own risk and green lights give you no safety at all. I have seen people that don't even try to slow down at yellow lights and blow through the intersection when the light has already gone red.

The newest craze is all about the construction on ECRow our local freeway. It is down to one lane in a lot of areas now and they have pylons up and signs warning people to merge right or left. Now there are a lot of people who after a few days move over to the right early but there are still lots who roar up the left lane until it is nearly gone and then try to cut in at the head of the line.

My wife's has seen things that I didn't know if I should laugh or go out and buy a Hummer no matter what the gas cost. She said that people in the main lane are now moving out and straddling both lanes to stop people from racing up the left lane to cut in. One day a truck moved out to stop someone from getting past everyone. The guy behind honked and yelled to no avail. The traffic stopped and the truck driver got out and came back to the car. The driver got out of the car and next thing they were pounding each other on the road. The wife called 911 and their only concern was if she saw any weapons. Good grief I guess they get so many calls like this they don't care unless someone is going to shoot someone. The other favourite trick of the road warriors was seen today on the freeway. Three cars moved out to block both lanes and a van who would have none of this drove right down into the grass in the median and roared ahead to pass them.

Of course these acts of stupidity get them a few cars ahead and then they still have to slow down in the single lane and don't get to where they are going any faster. Unfortunately the construction season is just getting underway and we can expect this until xmas. I can see it getting worse and road rage is going to hurt or kill someone. Where the hell are the cops. You think they would be out there watching especially in the morning and again in the later afternoon at rush hours. Unfortunately they are nowhere to be found at these busiest of times. Not that they are any great role models for driving. I pull up to a 4 way stop with a police car facing me. I stop and he rolls right through the intersection, sigh. The wife says she sees the same thing all the time.

They don't see stop signs either.

ps. If the city put in red light cameras they would have enough money in a year to build their own tunnelled road to the bridge and to hell with the province :-)