Flowing off in all directions...

This is the first time I've had two straight days off this year. Oh, the joys of working retail. Of course, I spent most of yesterday doing today's and tomorrow's work. Oh, the freakin' joys of retail.
Water on sale this week: 30-packs (15 L total) of other peoples' tap water for $2.97. Given that the national average price for tap water is $1.14/1000 L, 15 L for $2.97 is a rip-off of truly epic proportions. Which is probably why we sold 98 pallets of the stuff this past weekend...enough to fill an average swimming pool. And that's just one store.
It takes 17.5 kg of water to produce 1 kg of water bottle. Not to mention oil, which (of course) those bottles are made from. Oh, yeah, like that's sustainable.
Especially when up to 80% or even more of these bottles are not recycled.
(If you click here and look at the red counter at the top of the page, you'll see a running total of how many beverage bottles and cans are landfilled, littered, or incinerated in the U.S. so far this year. It's a big number, believe me, and the rate at which its getting bigger is almost unbelieveable.)

People. I'll never understand them: sometimes I wonder if I actually am one of 'em.
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Lately the TV meteorologists have been collecting accolades for the "lovely weather" we've been experiencing here in Southern Ontario--highs between 16 and 21 (60-69 F) and mostly sunny conditions.
Bah, humbug.
I hate spring. Partly because it heralds the approach of summer, which is far and away my least favourite season. I remember a sign that used to grace the billboard outside the Dairy Queen in Parry Sound, Ontario in midwinter: "Closed For The Season. Reason? Freezin'!" One of these days I'm going to erect a billboard on my front lawn that says "Closed For The Season. Reason? Heat's In!"
But the biggest reason I hate Spring is summed up in the opening lines of The Waste Land by T.S. Eliot:

APRIL is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.

Look outside, everyone. Don't look up at that yellow ball in the sky whose season of worship is approaching: look down, instead. Note the mud and muck, the dead land, and further note a season's worth of detritus revealed in all its shabby glory as the last of the snow melts. Scraps of soggy paper everywhere, discarded Timmy's coffee cups--if you're not Canadian, think of all the garbage you see from any six fast-food chains. And, hmmm, water bottles. The residue of road salt mixes with the mire, turning everything a filthy gray.

Gross.
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The Olympics should never have been awarded to China in the first place...and I'm not saying that because Toronto lost out to Beijing. Toronto, for entirely different reasons, doesn't deserve the Olympics either.
But China? Who had that brainwave, anyway?
Now that the mistake has been made, however, we're sort of stuck with it. I appreciate the concerns of all these protesters who are impeding the international Olympic torch relay--do I ever--but I don't think they've thought their actions through. Neither have those who call for a boycott.
The Olympic torch signifies peace and brotherhood. By extinguishing it or blocking its progress you're basically announcing to the world that you're against those concepts. As for boycotting the games, all that does (besides deprive many athletes of a lifelong dream) is hand the host country more medals. Is that what we want?

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So now they want to ban food advertising aimed at children. I love this country, but sometimes it drives me right 'round the bend. Yes, childhood obesity is a problem; yes, advertising undoubtedly contributes to it. But I am sick to death of our governments trying to play parent.
They especially like to do it with television, have you noticed that?

"But Mom, I want to watch HBO!"
"Jenny Canuck, if I've told you once, I've told you a kilotime...that's un-Canadian of you! Why can't you watch CBC? Or, if you absolutely must abandon your Canadian heritage, just watch Showcase, instead! You'll only have to wait a year or two for all that Yankee crap you like, and waiting nourishes the Canadian soul! Just look at our health care system!"
"Dad, how come drug commercials in Canada are so screwed up?"
"Well, son, the government doesn't trust us to know what's best for our own bodies. So it allows commercials to either say the name of the drug or what it treats, but not both. Which means you'll see commercials that are almost impossible to decipher, as well as spots that highlight a condition and advise you to 'see your doctor', which you were probably going to do anyway."

Now they want to ban food ads aimed at kids. I'm sorry, but do they not have the slightest inkling of psychology? The more inaccessible you make something, the more you increase its allure. That's pretty basic. To think, under the previous government, we were all set to just hand our kids over into a national daycare program practically out of Brave New World. And all because the government knows how to raise your kids better than you do.

Somebody's been drinking the Kool-Aid. Or is that just bottled water?