Rants and Raves

I travel on BC Ferries a few times each year. Lately with the kids we spend a lot of time in the kids play area which is a welcome attention grabber for the kids.

A long time ago BC Ferry Corporation changed where smokers were allowed to smoke. Previously smokers could smoke anywhere outside, but the change restricted them to a small spot on one outside deck.

My question though is why they chose to place this location right outside the windows to the kids play area? Does this really make sense? I certainly don't want to watch people smoking, and I really don't want my kids to watch people smoking as well.

I've only noticed this on the spirit class ferries, but these are the ones that we seem to ride the most.

Soon after I got my new cellphone and phone number, I started getting calls from @Blockbuster informing me of overdue movies. These calls were destined for the previous owner of the number since I rarely rent from @Blockbuster any more.

This morning I called to get this fixed up. I called at a few minutes before 10 and the person that answered sounded cheery enough. It sounded like the store was already open. When I started to explain the issue she cut me off saying she couldn't help me because the store wasn't open yet.

I was dumbfounded. I was a little speechless.

I verified that she couldn't help me and she said yes. She needed to get the store ready. I asked if the fact that I am a customer made a difference and she said no. She couldn't help me because the store wasn't open yet.

Not being totally coherent I said something to the effect that "That is pretty bad.", and she actually said no it wasn't! I hung up after that since I didn't want to deal with her any more.

On the weekend we made a trip out to Costco to grab a few necessities (and a few other items too). After Costco we had to head across Millstream Road to buy some dog food at Petsmart.

The intersection is a pretty busy one, and the lights are regular green lights. If people are turning left, they need to yield to people driving straight.

Well, that didn't happen. Some dude in a white Ram turned left, following some other vehicles, not seeing me. I honked at him for cutting me off.

I get it that people make mistakes, but at least own up to them. This guy just ignored me, and that made me mad. Pay attention while driving!

I read a ridiculous article on Canada.com today. You can read it for yourself here.

The gist of the story is that the author feels like parking tickets are hurting downtown businesses.

I absolutely could not take the author seriously after she wrote "I've had a few in my day -- probably 10 a year since I moved here in 1989". She has received approximately 200 parking tickets in downtown Victoria. What the hell? Did you not know you need to put money in the meter? It's not that hard to get back to the car before time runs out. Do you not own a watch?

She even complains about one ticket she got when she parked, then went into a store with a sale without putting money in the meter. Well, duh, I think you deserve that one.

The whole point of the parking meters is to keep people flowing. You come to downtown, you do your shopping, then you leave. Without the meters people would park their car and leave it there all day thereby clogging downtown. No customers could get to the shops.

At Starbucks, why do they keep the Grande/Venti lids at the back? Surely those are the most popular sizes people order. I've seen so many people grab the wrong sized lid. Why not put the more popular sized lids at the front?

For that matter, why not design their cups to all use the same size lid? That would make the most sense to me.