Phendrana Drifts

Because of the nature of where I live (not near a Safeway or a Save-On Foods) I go to T&T Supermarket in West Edmonton Mall a lot. It is an Asian foodstore, which is largely fine with me. A bit too much live Tilapia and not quite enough cookies, but otherwise a decent store.

They do announcements often, first in what I would suggest is Mandarin or Cantonese (but really, how would I know) and then in English. The thing that strikes me though, is whether my language is vastly more efficient or if the other language just is long. Or perhaps I am missing something, like the secret sale on Tilapia.

The Mandarin goes on for about a minute and a half. Long, and full of vigour. What ever the T&T guy is describing, it is exciting. Then the T&T woman comes on to tell me what I missed. "Thank you for shopping at T&T. Enjoy your day!" she says in her halting English. Hmm... suspicious.

I was at the Legislature today watching question period, and the term "lap dog" came up a couple of times. I wondered, what made the term what it was? Because my dog, even when sitting on my lap is prone to doing nothing that I say. dictionary.com didn't know the etymology of the word, nor did a short cursory search on Google. The Online Etymology Dictionary didn't know either. Still, my dog is sort of a lap dog in that she sits on my lap from time to time. But follow orders? Not so much.

In the never ending quest of useless knowledge about myself...

I drink a great deal of milk. More than most. In fact, more than anyone else I've met. After careful consideration, Allie and I have determined the following:

I drink around two litres a day. I thought it was considerably more, but she said no, that while some days I drink about three litres, it averages out to about two.
I have been consuming milk at this rate for around 20 years now. Prior to that I certainly also drank milk, but I can't say how much.
There are 365.25 days a year, meaning an annual consumption of around 700 litres.
700 multiplied by 20 is 14,000 litres.
One litre of water or milk is one kilogram.
There are 1,000 kilograms in one metric tonne.

Conclusion: I have consumed 14 tonnes of milk in 20 years.

Isn't science fun?

I am reading the second half of the Chretien biography by Laurence Martin, Iron Man, as well as reading the news. In case you had not heard, Warren Kinsella was testifying today at the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee. I just can't get over how Kinsella continues to hate Paul Martin. I mean, I am certainly not Martin's biggest fan, but I do believe in party loyalty to some degree. Naturally Kinsella would claim he was under oath (although it looks like he asked to be) and I appreciate that he would need to tell the truth, but if I were a Liberal, would I ever be upset at him.

Kinsella has a blog, but it doesn't have permalinks to each post, so read it sooner rather than later if you want his thoughts on his testimony. I can't believe this war inside the Liberal party keeps going on.

I have Elton John's Sorry seems to be the hardest word going through my head. And a massive headache. I guess the headache is taking up more room than the song, come to think of it.

My Xbox is dead, and has been dead for about a month. I keep wanting to play a bit, or buy either Splinter Cell or Jade Empire, but alas, it remains dead. It had a brief moment of life this afternoon, but it was for naught. I will have to buy a new one. Sigh.

I'm so excited, I have taught the dog a trick! She can now stand her hind legs and spin for a treat. I think it is very cute. Others are not so impressed.

Allie: Why couldn't you have taught her a useful trick. Like healing?

Duncan: This isn't a role-playing game. I can't train my dog to heal us.

Allie: No, silly. Heeling, you know sitting still.

Duncan: Oh.

There is a blogging scandal here in Canada over the sponsorship scandal here in... Canada. Well that sentence made more sense in my head. Regardless, an American conservative blog has published a good portion of the testimony despite a publication ban. There is speculation that this testimony is so juicy that the Liberals may go to election before the testimony is made public it is so damning.

Apparently I have to be careful how I word the rest of this. In fact I may have already gone too far. CTV news announced the name of the blog, but they have lawyers and what not. And insurance. I do not. All the same, any one searching on Google for five seconds should be able to find it.

Now in my opinion, what I read didn't seem all that more juicy than the stuff we've already heard in the Gomery Inquiry, but maybe it is me and my opinion of the Liberal government - I expect them to misspend and misappropriate millions of dollars.

I am the sole employee of my organization, so we contract out our payroll. It is relatively inexpensive and effective, and from what I can tell, almost all non-profits do it. We started with our current provider in November, and the first two months went exactly as planned. Then January I was paid late.

I called them after getting my paycheque on the last day of the month, rather than the two days before that my contract specifies. They soothe me, say they will fix it. At the end of February I will be paid two days before the last business day of the month.

February 25 rolls around and I get my pay stub (which usually arrives a day or so early) and it says, get this, that I am being paid for time worked up to February 26, but the pay date is March 1. Grr. They mixed the two days up. Grr.

I call again, act angry (well I actually was) and they agree to courier me my cheque because direct deposit isn't possible to be sped up. It arrives on February 28 and they promise it will be fixed.

I call again in mid-March. Just to confirm. Calm soothing voice assures me all is good. I should be paid on March 29.

March 29, no pay. March 30, no pay. March 31, no pay. I call. I ask how hard is it? You take my annual salary, divide by 12, deduct what the government thinks it deserves, and toss the rest in my account two days before the last business day of the month. They explain that when they last diddled with my file the status was changed from automatic to manual. So if I never called to complain I would have never been paid? Yes.

They can't courier me a cheque (back to that routine) the same day, but one should arrive tomorrow morning. Grr.

So that morning, yesterday morning, April 1, the day my rent is due, starts. I go through my day. Nervous. I go down and get some coffee. The Purolator guy goes up and think smugly to myself, ah there is my paycheque. I finish my coffee, confident my pay cheque is waiting for me. But instead there is a note. My signature was required. There is only a piece of paper.

I call Purolator, they can't send the driver back, but the package is available to be picked up at 5:30. My bank closes at 6:00. I call QP, he agrees to come and get me and drive me in my quest. All goes according to plan. Depsite rush hour and long distances, we get my cheque to the bank at 5:40. I ask if there is a hold on it, because like I said, I got to pay rent.

I call Allie on the cell phone to order pizza, because now we are paid. And there is money in our account. I get home, and try and pay for the pizza, but the cold words of "Insufficient funds" appears on the pizza guy's machine. Grr.

I call the bank, and indeed there is no hold on the cheque, but they won't be able to process deposits that happen after 4:30 until midnight. Midnight? Who is working then to go, yup, Duncan deposited his paycheque alright?

At 9:30 this morning I solemnly celebrated my pay cheque, by now 60 hours late, with the arrival of new Star Wars toys.

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