I Smell an Election

Rumour has it that Harper will be calling an election this weekend, meaning an election the Tuesday after Thanksgiving.

I'd like to remind Canadians that we don't have to settle for Dumb or Dumber. It's time we gave Jack Layton the number of seats he deserves.

*scurries over to elections.ca to make sure her address is up to date*

There's No Love Lost...

Between the city of Gatineau and myself. It's no secret that I have nothing to recommend about this backward money-grubbing city and that the only way I could have survived another couple of years in this area would have been by returning to Ottawa.

One of the biggest issues I have is the draconian parking enforcement. Here are two examples:

1) One day, I parked my car in front of my house at about ten to five during the week. The way parking is set up at my house is that I have to drive down a narrow laneway and then park in the backyard. To get to the car, I have to go down a flight of stairs. In the front, though, I only have two steps to go down. So, I had parked on the street in order to fill the car for some excursion or another. During the week, I'm only allowed to park one hour in front between the hours of 8 and 6PM, so I needed to be out of the spot by ten to six, then move the car for ten minutes. Well, with seven minutes left on the metre, a parking enforcement officer came by and told me that he was watching me and that if I wasn't gone in exactly seven minutes, I was going to get a ticket. He could see that I lived there and was loading boxes and that there were a ton of empty spaces on the street. He could have let me have those ten minutes. Instead, he sat there staring at his watch while I shut up the car, drove down my laneway, parked in the back, did a couple more loads up and down the stairs, and then came back to the front once 6 came. He was still there, making sure I didn't repark until it was 6:01.

2) I'm beginning to fear that I will be rushed on Saturday morning. I need to drive to North Gower, boost the coach, and hook up the car for the first time. A friend is meeting me at 9:30 to move the mattress in and I need to be out of there for noon. So, I thought that I could bring the coach up on Friday. I don't trust the neighbourhood, so I would sleep in it with my cellphone kept closeby. That would give me all of Friday night to get the coach loaded. I called the city of Gatineau to see if this was okay and made one heck of a mistake: I told the lady where I live. She informed me that I cannot park on my street, no exceptions, not even to load the coach on Saturday. She said that she knows my address and is looking foward to sending someone over on Saturday to ticket me.

I'm fairly sure this is just talk on her part to discourage me, but Saturday night onward I am sleeping in Ottawa and I will never, ever return to this city to live ever again.

Tales from the Legal Code of Quebec

Did y'all know that until April 15th of this year, it was illegal to have a GPS in your car?

I joked with my friend last night that she should have a GPS so she won't get lost when she goes to my place. She said she has one, but doesn't use it in Quebec because they're illegal here.

Turns out, she wasn't all that wrong since the law only changed very recently.

I do suspect it's a case of the law not keeping up with technology, though, because the law said that it is illegal to keep a screen of some sort where the driver can see it. An exemption needed to be made for GPS units.

Took them long enough.