Why Don't We Turn This Whole Place Into a Roundabout?

Apparently the Region of Waterloo Council is still under the impression that the area is located smack dab in the middle of France. Another roundabout has been informally approved, this time much closer to the core of the city than any of the previous efforts.

Just down the street from me, the new installation at Union St. and Margaret Ave. apparently will serve the maybe 2 hours a day it is at all difficult to get through the intersection, and at that, the only real problem posed is a little bit of a wait to turn left from Union onto Margaret.

Again those in favour tout the slowing of traffic, and the diminished severity of accidents. But they are still neglecting the fact that this is not Europe, and drivers around here have not grown up with roundabouts, and that we here in North America still tend to follow a persuasion of driving over-sized vehicles. Combine that with a relatively poor explanation on the MTO website of how to properly navigate the intersection, and you've created an intersection that many older drivers are going to avoid, funneling more traffic down side-streets like the gonged up Ellis Cres. project of last year.

On top of this, the roundabout is immediately adjacent to one of the larger bush lot park and trail areas in the region, and that it is frequently used by pedestrians, including children. As soon as a steady flow of traffic is created through that corridor, the park will become much more inaccessible to people living nearby on the west side of the park.

The severity of accidents may decrease, but I guarantee there will be a higher incidence. Hopefully council does the right thing and does not formally pass the installation of this roundabout. Give it time at least and let people better acclimate to the slew of roundabouts already constructed at just about every boundary of the Region.

Crocodile Rock

After getting to sleep at 4:30 this morning, I dragged my ass out of bed again at 9:30 to hop on Ticketmaster in time for the 'onsale' of tickets to the Elton John show in town next month. Somehow, despite being a fan since she was 15, my mom has never gone to a show, and wanted to be sure to get in on this one. At 9:58 on my computer time (tickets were officially on sale at 10) I had access to buy tickets, and by then already could only buy a single ticket, not even a pair. I had thought about grabbing a block of 4, or two pair, and selling the ones my mom wasn't going to use on eBay, but when I could only get 1, I decided not to push my luck.

The show sold out within half an hour (the Aud isn't exactly a huge venue), and after that, there were already tickets for sale on eBay at 3 for $1800 for the cheapest seats in the place. I don't know what the market is like for single tickets, but I should have gone back for some more singles. I'm sure I could have gotten at least $300 more than I paid.

I'm sure I fared better though than people who were lined up outside the Aud last night already in hopes of getting tickets. 16 hours in the wind and cold and forecast 25 cm of snow, to maybe have the line move fast enough to get your tickets in the first half hour, or sit half naked at your computer, grab your tickets and be done with it. That's what you get for not having even a little faith in technology.

Berlin

Elect Me Vice President in Charge of Volcanoes

I just finished reading Cat's Cradle, the first Vonnegut book I've ever read, and loved the cynical quasi-sci-fi feel, and will be on the lookout for more at the used bookstores as soon as I finish reading the rest of the stack of books I've accumulated. Today's post title is brought to you by chapter 9.

I've been playing a lot of online poker lately, finally giving in to the temptation to play for real money (and so to play 'real' poker). It lacks the interaction of sitting around with buddies to play a game, but then it makes you care less about the money you're taking in if you win, after all the ideal buddy game sees everyone at even money in the long run anyways. By that definition though, even the poker I've played with friends haven't really been 'buddy games'. What I mean though is that there isn't the same ability to read people, or feign strength or weakness. And trash talk in a chat window inevitably comes off as some blend of obvious, lame or immature. Again, I suppose to so much different from home games, just with less feeling.

Anyways, after having any and all plans for my weekend dissolve, I spent most of the day yesterday playing poker while Carolyn worked and actually made money in the more traditional sense. When you play electronically, you end up getting a sense of unjustness in the way the cards are dealt cause there's no physical deck there to reinforce the real logic. But yesterday was a day where I felt I was getting the short end of the deck. Despite playing for real money, I'm still playing in the lowest stakes games on the site, and getting realistic play is still a bit of a challenge. Suffice it to say, its very hard to 'bluff' people out when you don't have cards (as was most often the case) and when you do have the best cards, its almost inevitable that they will be in with a crap hand that ends up getting the cards they need to make theirs better.

All that said, I am at a pace now of winning just enough to keep playing a few games at a time, kind of like winning a free ticket in the lottery. Its annoying, and I think its time to move to slightly higher stakes so at least I make better players beat me for my money, rather than beat me with luck.

/end poker

I've also been looking at a site tracking some local blogs, which I have from time to time looked for over the years. Infact, I've thought for a while of maybe trying to create something along the 'ist' line of local blogs for the Waterloo area (see Gothamist,LAist, or Torontoist). But between living in the shadow of London and Toronto which actually have venues capable of/willing to host decent music acts and the like, its been more of a whim than anything. However, seeing some of the quality of blogging out there (clearly far superior than anything you'll find here), if someone could get them all on board, there could be the makings for a decent collective blog. Anyways, probably another whimsical idea (my homebrew is going down rather smoothly at the moment), but look for some updated links to some local bloggers in the near future.

Used Book Browsing

A few days back, Carolyn and I met up and walked uptown for a coffee. Having spotted a used bookstore on the way there that she'd heard about, but was unsure of the location of, we decided to stop in on the way back. In particular she was after a few Timothy Findley books, the titles of which I don't recall, and a copy of The Screwtape Letters.

The store was actually the main floor of a 1930s or 1940s era house, stuffed with 8 foot high shelves spaced too closely together to be able to stand far enough back to read the titles on the top shelf or two. Despite not finding The Screwtape Letters, she did find one of the Findley books she was after. I, on the other hand, after not finding any Douglas Coupland came out with Cat's Cradle, and a non-fiction book by Isaac Asimov, who I've only ever read a short story of for a project back in highschool english.

The stop planted a bug, and we decided to hit up another bunch of stores downtown today. The first stop was a disaster, with books spread into sections such that many had one or more overlaps with other sections making it difficult to really find anything. Some sections sorted by author name, others by title, and some apparently not at all, it was impossible to find anything specific, without randomly coming across it. The prices however were cheaper than the uptown stop (a trend that was true of every other stop as well).

A couple more stops, without finding good condition copies of the Findley books she was after, or any condition copy of The Screwtape letters, and myself not finding anything by a rather limited list of authors I was after (more or less George Orwell, Chuck Palahniuk or Douglas Coupland) we finally headed home to check out Amazon.ca.

A quick google found one more store in town we had missed, right by the universities. It turned out to be the smallest of any of the 5 stores we ended up at, and really the most bland. But despite its lack of musty bookstore character, it had the best, and cheapest selection.

She ended up with a couple Findley books, and settled for the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe in lieu of not finding the other C.S. Lewis work she was after. I, being the geek that I am, finally found a Coupland book (Miss Wyoming), and also came out with two more non-fiction science books (Comet and A Brief History of Time).

The moral of this long-winded story? University students will sell off their good books to the store closest to them for beer/rent/tuition money, leaving the stuffy, musty stores to jack up their prices on books with mosquitoes squished in the inside cover.

Oktoberfest Sucks

Have I mentioned lately how much I love the admin around the university? Really I do. I love how none of their multiple online systems seem to interact with one another. I love how the different departments of the admin themselves don't interact. I love them not putting my paycheque through on the scheduled pay date, with a MasterCard bill sitting and collecting interest. I love the vagueness of the responses when I ask for some clarification in trying to track down just what happened to my money. And I especially love being told that my pay request would be in on a specific date, that being today, and still not finding it there.

Other people get charged twice for their tuition because no-one cross checks things.

And still others are forced to write petitions to stay in school only to be informed, after being told that the petition was denied, that a completely different term from the one that the petition was written for was actually considered. Was there any kind of outline of the whole petition process to be found anywhere on line, or were people more forthcoming on the phone, this kind of thing could be avoided. But instead, the administration around the university just continues to build great report with those that ever have dealings with them.

And then there are the people swarming to the city for North America's biggest beer festival. Driving like idiots. Staggering around like idiots. Closing streets. Its an overrated sham, like every other year. I don't understand why people need an excuse to drink beer in the first place; but then they wait until the price on it is jacked up, and the stuff being served is old stock being cleared off in mass quantities. Don't get me started on sitting through the awful music, along with accordion accompanied covers of otherwise tolerable songs.

Am I bitter? Just a little bit. But at least not watered down like all those $6 cups of beer that in no way actually taste like a good German brew.