a bus ticket. I left out of here shortly before 2pm. It was a beautiful afternoon under clear skies. There was a nice breeze blowing while I was waiting for my bus. On the way to Clairview station, I didn’t know with 100% certainty that I had no kettle on the stove element at home. Usually I measure twice cut once kind of a thing. I got off the bus at Clairview station and onto an awaiting bus to go back the way I came and back into my apartment. The kettle was actually on an element but nothing was on. Whew. I left feeling good about that and on with my day. But I had a long wait until my next bus came by and the bus bench was all dirty to sit on so I was warming up in the bus shelter actually perspiring. Finally my bus came and I was on my way, for good this time.
I got my lottery ticket for Saturday night’s draw and a diet coke and broke open my book to read on the train to Audrey’s. When I got to Corona and upstairs then inside the staff had the basement roped off. Another reading? But this time it wasn’t poetry. One of the staff escorted me to the basement special order and there waiting for me was Book one in Steven Erikson’s massive “Malazan series.” All the SFF book cases were moved around but I was able to sort my way through long enough to see C.S. Friedman’s latest “Feast of Souls” from the “magister trilogy.” This works. I paid for my books and headed over to Tim’s.
I bought a coffee and a blueberry fritter. Good stuff. Of course I never won anything in Roll Up. I enjoyed my treat and relaxed but figured time was running out on my bus transfer as Anne had my bus pass for work. I bought for the first time a ticket from the 12 foot tall ticket machine and punched it to validate it. I took the South train and read my book back home and a bit under blue skies back at Clairview. It was really nice out there.
Once inside I was waiting for my wife to call me on her 5 pm break while I was researching books I’d like to buy. She didn’t call until about 7:30pm and she ended up raging on me because I hadn’t had anything substantial to eat all day. So I decided to go over to Burger King and get a double bacon cheese burger. They looked pretty busy and 4 customers had ordered and received their order while I was waiting for mine. “Are you still waiting?” Someone said behind the counter. I was getting a bit peeved off. Finally the guy brought my order. At one time I was so discouraged I asked for my money back but he ignored me and brought the order. I was ok with it.
Once back home and inside I took my insulin and wolfed my meal down. It was really good but pricey. $7.45 for a burger the width of a SF novel, including large fries and drink. I really enjoyed this and I called back BK saying something like, “You’ll get my business again.” All this before the Oiler/Flames game.
Again no goals in the first period. The Oiler’s scored a wrap-around by Tom Gilbert. Then right after that the Flames scored. It was all Calgary after that. I felt bad for Coach Craig MacTavish, Charlie Huddy, Billy Moores as the players left the bench leaving a stunned Oiler staff under the red lights watching the Flames fans, then they move on. But that was indicative of the whole Oiler season. They take one step forward and 2 back. So what does coach MacT do now? Will he resign? I hope not, MacTavish, Huddy, Moores make a great combination. They also have a $23M D to get signed up as well and look to resign Roloson and Kotalik this summer. Kotalik says he likes what he sees and likes playing with Hemsky. But with half of the Oiler’s salary cap on their D, they don’t have a lot of wiggle room unless they clear payroll. I see them getting rid of Penner, Horcoff and Brodziak in a trade for a big name goal scorer during the off season. But the Oiler’s are done for this year. The Oiler’s ended up with 85 points on the season. March 20th the Oiler’s held 7th place but lost 7 of those 9 games that was the difference maker for them missing the playoffs this year. Now it’s time to cheer on any Canadian team in the playoff’s. That leaves only Calgary, Montreal and Vancouver and the playoffs begin Wednesday. I know Calgary will face Chicago in the first round.
Some interesting stats here. Calgary scored 254 goals and Edmonton scored 234 goals but goals against were identical at 248 each. The Oiler‘s needed to have scored 20 more goals and a big part of them not scoring those goals are players like Dustin Penner. The good things this year were the Oiler‘s great road record and Roloson who basically carried the team. If the playoffs began today, it would be Montreal (93) points in 8th spot vs. Boston Bruins (114) in 1st in the East. In the West it’s St. Louis (90) vs. SJ (117) for 1st in the West. In the middle of that is Vancouver (100) and Calgary (98) It’s going to be an interesting playoff race.
The big 6/49 draw was won last night for a total of $15,267,589.50. Now that doesn’t necessarily mean that 1 person won the jackpot. It sure wasn’t me but it could mean that a group of people shared the winnings. 2nd place was won by 2, for a total of $207,645.50. I’d settle for that. That would mean 5 numbers plus the bonus number. So Wednesday’s draw is an estimated $3.5M. Anne gets the quick pick for that. This time I didn’t get any of those numbers but the spread of those numbers is interesting: 5,6,7,11,17, 34, 48. The bonus number was 48. Now, I’ve picked spreads like that before. I usually do a random pick. Same as a quick pick but I like to have some control over the numbers.
By now most of you have heard the news about Dungeons & Dragons Co creator Dave Arneson passing away. I first played D&D in the early 1980’s. I’m playing it now in another incarnation called “Oblivion.” Oblivion isn’t the same as D&D of course. Strange how last year Gary Gygax passed away and now Dave Arneson.
Well, my Easter weekend is almost over. I think what I’m going to do is to see about working Monday 5-9 Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday 1-9pm and Friday morning for 29 hours and skip Saturdays. This kind of like gives me 3 days off. Providing there aren’t any more cuts to shifts. As for the security guard job, I decided to milk what I have right now and wait for the bottom fall out of this company. I think the next set of cuts (if there are any) will most likely be in the summer some time, around the end of June or there a-bouts and in which case I think head office will have just “Business” and the evening shift. I might still survive off of that until the economy is improved. A sure sign of this around here is when oil is about $60/barrel and it looks like this might happen before the summer. In 1997 oil was around $25 at the beginning of that year and the economy was just picking up. It’s predicted that Alberta will lose about 15,000 jobs during this recession.
In other local economic news in the Provincial budget last week, The province is going to increase a carton of cigarettes up to $3 a carton, which range in from $60-$80 depending on the brand is a lot of money for smokers. A case of beer will cost an extra $1.30 more. A case of beer in bottles is usually more then in cans but I’m not much of a beer drinker. But a case usually costs about $25 for a doz. My favorite beer is Stella Artois. A case of this will cost about $30! My wife wanted to go out and buy me a case of beer but it’s hard to get a beer down when I take my insulin so early.
And finally Sci-fi chick is actually talking about science fiction. Gasp, What no Urban Fantasy? Seriously though, the site is posting some new Stargate Universe trailers on the website. The show looks good. Links to Sci-fi chick are in my link section.
Anyway gang, that’s all for now
e. Jim
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