Blessed by the Potato

Oh, I’m scheduled to have my cytoscope procedure < shudder > on the 23rd, which is election day, so I’m going to go to the advanced polls to cast my ballot.

Unfortunately, that means I can’t wait for the last-minute estimates to come up so I can decide which way to vote. While I don’t savor strategic voting, it is unfortunately necessary sometimes in our first-past-the-post system.

Here’s my thinking: I’m a fairly left-of-centre guy, so for me the choice is really between the NDP and the Greens. I don’t want the conservatives to get any sort of power, and I’d like the liberals to get a minority or less again. So basically, if the NDP have a decent shot at getting a seat in my riding (say 30% or more support), I’ll probably vote for them. If not, I’ll vote Green and give them the $1.75 for the next election.

The only concern for myself really is getting reasonably accurate polling numbers to determine that over a week before the election.

For others, I’m worried that fears over conservative insanity will lead to another liberal dynasty (Wayfare, for example, is considering voting for them just because she thinks they’re the only party that has a chance against the conservatives, despite thinking that they’re rotten to the core and just need to go). It’s unforunately a fallacy of perception: if many people believe they’re the only ones with a shot, then they’re the only ones who’ll get enough votes. Any party can keep the nutjo–conservatives out of power, as long as enough people believe they can and actually vote for them.

Sadly, I can’t reach quite enough people through my webpage to really get that message out, but I encourage you all to vote your conscience (even if it is for the liberals or conservatives). At the very least, the wide vote-split might encourge the parties to actually go through with some form of election reform so that we’re not faced with this again next year.

So I saw my urologist yesterday, and while all the signs point towards me having a kidney stone, they couldn’t actually find one on the CT scan. So that means it’s possible that another rare disorder is causing the same symptoms, and he wants to rule those out with some further tests. Sounds like a good idea, and I was all for it.

The first test is to make a visual inspection of my bladder’s lining. This involves sending a camera up my urethra and poking about. Sounds awful, but I figured it’s better to be safe than sorry, you know? So I went and looked up what it involves:

“The cystoscope is as thin as a pencil”

Ye-gads! A pencil is not thin when we’re talking about my urethra and ureters! We were looking for a kidney stone the size of the ball bearing in a pen that was causing me the worst pain of my life, I do not think an instrument the size of a pencil is going to help my condition any!!

“Ah, so that’s where that pack of rusty razor blades went.”

“You may have a mild burning feeling… to relieve the feeling, you may be able to hold a warm, damp washcloth over the urethral opening.”

I don’t like the sounds of “may be able to” when talking about holding a damp washcloth. It’ll be too painful to hold a washcloth?

Right now I’m trying to sort through a sorry debacle resulting from ordering goods from the states.

What happened was: I ordered some stuff from Disney Direct (the Nightmare Before Christmas houses that I got Wayfare for Halloween) via their phone-ordering system, since they were sold out in stores throughout southern Ontario. They were on sale, so I got them for $60 CDN, and ended up having to pay $44 for shipping. Ouch.

You’d think that at that rate, the shipping company would have it here overnight, take care of customs clearning, and all that jazz, right?

Nope.

DHL has got to be the worst courier company I’ve ever seen. After charging that ludicrous amount, and making no mention of the fact that I’d have to pay additional Canadian tax on the order, they shipped it to me a week later (not a long delay, but certainly not $44 quick). Over a month later, they sent me a bill for another $13.80, claiming I had to pay GST on the item, and that there was a small checkbox on the delivery sheet that said by accepting shipment I accepted the charges. (The box simply says “Destination Duties” with a box beside Receiver and Sender, with Receiver checked). The delivery driver never mentioned additional charges.

And this is Disney, giant consumer conglomerate motherfucking Disney. How could they not know/tell me that there would be GST charged for ordering their crap? Keep in mind, when I called them they immediately transferred me to a Canadian representative (the lady was in Texas, but supposedly all she did was handle orders from Canada).

Compare this with Home Star Runner, where I bought a few T-shirts last year. Shipping was pricey, at $15 (again off a ~$60 order), and I had to pay GST: but they warned me twice before completing the transaction that as a Canadian customer, that would happen. They shipped via USPS/Canada Post, and it arrived faster than my DHL couriered Disney crap. And to top it all off, the GST charge was COD — I paid my very nice postal worker on the spot (I even had exact change ready since I had been warned about it) and that was that. No bills in the mail, no wasting an additional 50 cents on a stamp to send my payment, and no service charge. And this was from two guys in their basement and their Yahoo storefront (well, they’re a bit bigger than that, but no where near the level of business Disney must have with Canada).

And that’s the thing that’s really getting my ire lately: these ridiculous service charges for things. So as I was saying, I get hit for this $13.80 bill for the GST on my Disney order. Yet doing the math will clearly tell you that the tax on $60 (including PST, actually) is only $9. There’s also a $5 service fee for the priviledge of getting this BS bill in the mail.

It’s not just this, either. For a long time I was actually paying London Hydro more to “maintain my account” (read my meter, type up and mail me my bill) than I was actually paying for electricity! I swear, that ridiculous $20 service charge was the single greatest inhibitor of conservation behaviours in my apartment. “Turn the lights off? Hell, I pay more in service charges than I do for electricity. Why don’t I pull my other computer out of storage and leave it on 24/7 so I can have some background tasks running without interfering with my gaming system…”

So what is with these excessive processing fees? Why does it cost more in many cases to charge me for a service that it does for the service itself? Why do I need a membership and photo ID to buy unhealthy quantities of tomato soup and paper towels at Costco? Are they afraid of roving bands of consumers coming through and picking the store clean of its warehouse-packaged goods and leaving behind naught but the asking price?

The bureaucracy is expanding to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.

On an unrelated note, I’m a switcher (though to a Shadow Priest).

The parched soil scrapes and crunches beneath my hands as I pull myself up on the ledge and catch my breath from the climb. I look solemnly at the grity ground swelling around my fingers, afraid to look up to see how much further this cliff rises. Knowing I cannot delay forever, I lift my gaze to find to my great surprise that the land has levelled off.

This is the end then; I’m out of the pit.

I take off my shoes and dig my toes into the ground, playing with pebbles to distract myself from reality. It’s overwhelming to think about, after over a year spent in that hellish place. Part of me fears I’ve gone mad, inventing hope where none existed before.

A moment, at least, I can spare to reminisce. So much pain that year, and so much hard work wasted on dead ends. I’ve accumulated a lot of scars from the experience, not the least of which is the damage done to my stubborn pride. It’s clear that I’m not the man I was before I was lost there, a change that I’m sure must be apparent on my face — not that I’ve seen a mirror for a year. Sadly, I doubt the changes were for the better.

I sigh and put my shoes on. Time to move forward. My knees crack as I rise, and I doubt I’ll ever again stand my full height, with my back twisted and hunched. I try to survey the plains before me, but find that I can’t pick out any discernable features: the landscape has been plunged deep into shadow by what I’ve left behind. Definitely flatter though, of that I’m sure.

Perhaps that’s better, I think to myself: small hope seems more real, and I almost feel greedy for wishing that these trials were over all ready.

Not knowing for sure what lay ahead, only that it couldn’t be worse than what I had been through, I plunge ahead into the darkness three steps before halting. Already the dry, caked earth is not so harsh and unrelenting; no longer seeming to resist my every step with a malevolent purpose and infinite patience. My spirit soars again, and I spare just one more moment to turn and spit in the gorge.

I don’t bother to wait for it to land.

Happy New Year’s Eve, everyone!

Well, I ended up checking Futureshop’s boxing day sale against my better judgement. It didn’t turn out too bad in the end: I got a 512 MB SODIMM for my dad’s laptop for $80 (with a $30 rebate yet to come), Civilization 4 for $30, and my dad’s present: QuickTax (which mysteriously existed in a quantum state of in stock but not released on the website). I only ended up going in person because I just needed to get out for a walk and stretch my legs, and it’s not all that far from my parents’ house.

Turns out it went a lot smoother than checking out the website, which was really slow from the traffic, and which kept running out of stock on things on sale, which would then come back in stock, only to be out of stock again between adding them to your cart and going to the checkout. And the system wouldn’t let you order something out of stock and just wait for it to come in — no way you were going to save money that way!

In other news, a record number of hits to the webpage was received yesterday, and I didn’t even check it myself! 40 hits. Wow. However, I don’t have the tools to say if that was one person reloading a lot through the day or 40 unique visits. Either way, it might be getting popular enough for me to consider getting a new host with renewed fervor.

Netbug sent me a flash animation that I just love (well, the animation itself is mediocre, but the whole package had me laughing out loud. I’ve watched it 8 times tonight :)

The Ultimate Showdown (of Ultimate Destiny)

Sorry I haven’t had more updates going over the break. That time has been consumed first by the hectic pace of family obligations, movie watching, and poker playing, and later by the sweet, seductive time wasting embrace of Civilization 4’s “one more turn”.