Dear Lorne Mayencourt! The remix.

Posted on 11/22/2005 by cheesefairy

Dear Lorne Mayencourt,

A belated congratulations on trouncing Tim Stevenson in the provincial election. Well, those 72 votes were hardly a trouncing but hey – you won! Though I was expecting great and crazy things from you, I have heard nary a peep from you. Too busy? Too tired? Who knows.

Until today.

This morning I heard that you were the lone dissenting voice in the BC legislature when the decision was made to roll back the newly granted 15% pay raise for MLAs. And I smiled a little at your self-confidence. Because of COURSE you are worth a 15% pay raise. You, sir, are our North Star in a sky full of supernovas. I am sure the rest of your constituents would agree. That is why I am suggesting a vote.

What? You say you have already participated in a vote? No, I don’t mean that you and your co-workers get to vote on whether or not you get a raise. Anyone can do that. Just yesterday, I held an informal vote in my workplace and all my co-workers and I agreed that we should all get a 20% raise. Unfortunately, we have bosses who decide whether or not we get a raise so when we voted “yes,” really all that was indicated was high self-esteem.

The kind of vote I mean is where your constituents decide whether you deserve a raise. Maybe it could be preceded by a performance review where you print up little pamphlets and attend some meetings and the people in Vancouver-Burrard get to decide what kind of job you’re doing. 15%? 10%? Maybe even 25% – who knows!

Because really, WE are your bosses. And yet we have no say in your working conditions at all. All we get to say is “Lorne” or “No Lorne” on a ballot once every 4 years and the rest of the time, you get to say “yes” and “no” on all kinds of things. Like pay raises.

Now personally, I haven’t seen you do a 15% pay raise’s worth of work since you’ve been in office. But don’t leave it up to me. Put it to the electorate. They voted you in, albeit barely. Perhaps they think you’re worth it.

And for Christmas I would like some silver hoop earrings because I lost my favourite ones.

All my love,
Cheesefairy

Posted in serious | 3 Comments

Thank you, Mr. Swain

Posted on 11/17/2005 by cheesefairy

At last, someone with some clout has said what I’ve been thinking about the Sponsorship Scandal and the resulting hoohaw about reinstating accountability throughout the goverment.

Mr. Swain is quoted in a Vancouver Sun article as saying:

“Two hundred and thirty-eight new rules, plus legions of comptrollers and auditors, will not prevent malfeasance if a prime minister decides that a higher cause justifies playing fast and loose with the rules.”

Exactly. The bureaucracy is eating itself trying to increase accountability at the lowest, most visible levels whilst up in the clouds, where the big bosses are and where they all scratch each others’ backs with nice, big golden sticks, people are still going to do what they want, accountable to no one, because they have no fear of the consequences and know they can justify anything they do.

And also:

He predicted that parliamentarians, who have demanded better program management, will be “appalled to discover that the red tape of ‘management improvement’ was eating a huge and ever-larger fraction of the resources they have taxed Canadians for.”

Only by highlighting the costs can the federal bureaucracy avoid the “system breakdown, the total constipation, that would be the inevitable consequence of the full implementation of the recently announced reforms.”

Ha. Poo joke. Ha ha.

On a side-note, I started reading the Gomery Report last week and was delighted with its readability. It is written in the first person and with lots of titilating phrases like, “A veil of secrecy” Ooh, the intrigue!

On another side-note, while I’m here & talking about politics, should the Vancouver Fire Department be able to tell me how they intend to vote so I can vote like them, if I happen to admire and trust firefighters so much that I don’t even want to make up my own mind? I don’t even trust Saint Aardvark that much. That’s why I am supporting the Nude Garden Party.

There was a little ad in the paper today from the Vancouver Fire Department that said “we’ve assessed all the candidates and we think you should pick Jim Green for mayor and the following list of people for councillor. You can clip this list to take with you to the booth if you like.” How weird: a) a cheat sheet for voting and b) voting like a firefighter. I guess it’s like a personal shopper: well, I don’t know what my best colours are. Here, you with the porkpie hat and the well-groomed goatee, YOU pick a bunch of sweaters for me to wear for the next 4 years.

Posted in outside, serious | Comments Off on Thank you, Mr. Swain

Orange is the Best

Posted on 11/16/2005 by cheesefairy

We bought some tangerines on the weekend and MAN are they good. They smell and taste like orange smelly felts! But the best part is the sticker. It says “Gaypak Murcott” and has a picture of a smiling orange.

I prefer not to think of this as me eating something that is smiling. I prefer to be amused by an orange called Gaypak Murcott.

In fact, I might create a character with that name to spice up my novel a little.

Posted in funny | 3 Comments

Priceless

Posted on 11/15/2005 by cheesefairy

Sandals with socks = wrong.
Sandals with socks and a suit = really fucking wrong.
Sandals with socks and a suit in November = You done been smote. Now get out of my way, I’m trying to get up the escalator.

Posted in Goddessa Smites You, idiots | Comments Off on Priceless

A Nice Long Post About

Posted on 11/13/2005 by cheesefairy

Our New Bed.

I have never slept in a bed so lovely, so soft and firm and cartoon-cloud-like. (Because if it were a real cloud I would wake up soggy and polluted every morning and it would be so much easier to get out of it and get on with my day.) We bought it at Parker’s Mattress Factory on Broadway at Main St, where the sales staff did not offend us or follow us around or offer us coffee (other stores did…why? So we could spill it on the $2000 mattress and then have to buy it? hmm?) and also they were not Sleep Country and we wanted to prove that yes, you can buy a mattress anywhere else. Why? Because it’s a nice thing to do.

Parker’s makes their mattresses in their own factory in Vancouver and the man who sold us ours had the surname “Parker” which, even though he seemed kind of sour about his life, made us feel like we were at least paying for his dinner or something. Buy local, eat fresh, etc.

We bought the frame at Ikea because though there are lots of lovely, unique wood bed frames out there in the world, we didn’t have a quillion dollars to spend on the frame nor the 6 months it would take us to drive all over the lower mainland looking at everyone’s Buy & Sell ads up close.

Last Saturday, we put it all together. This took about as many hours as you might expect. We put the frame together in the bedroom but we did not measure the room beforehand (obvs. not so wise) or account for the fact that our bedroom door needs a few feet of space to open or close and now it doesn’t have those few feet anymore so it’s open all the time. (Wanna come over?) Our room actually is just the bed now. It’s kind of like a ship, sailing us to dreamy land every night & casting us ashore every morning into the cold November rain. Where it is hard to hold a candle.

Here is a shot of some lunatic on the street with a duck umbrella on a cold, wet November morning:

Nutbars in this city, I tell ya.

Anyway, after years on a futon and months on a two-mattress futon, Saint Aardvark, Seamus Sebang O’Harrigan and I are all very, very pleased with our bed.

See how the headboard is actually a bookshelf? That is especially handy now that we have no room for bedside tables.
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Posted in ducks, outside, serious, television | 1 Comment