A Wednesday Car

[the_goren_show]

It's Wednesday (Link for title description.) and well, turns out I did something very wrong and something very right according to the world.

I think they were both somethings right but I've been wrong before.

The something wrong I did involved an event at work.  I simply forgot I wasn't supposed to do certain things for the residents due to liability issues and when a board member learned of it, reprimanded me in a friendly manner.  Okay, I get it, don't do that anymore.  I won't.  Or at least if I do, I will swear the person to secrecy and never mention it myself but it's more a case of I won't because I managed to ruin a $125 pair of wool pants in the helping.  I am not made of money and will avoid any situation where I have to ruin another pair of pants that are worth more than a days work brings in to the bank.

The something right involved the inimitable Mr. Max who I am sure is a Wednesday car.  Johnny Cash in the link has it about right I think and in the end, after spending time on Google to make sure I could do it - even though I've done it a hundred times in the past with other cars and this one too just on the opposite headlight - I was able to conquer my anxiety and change the damn headlight that went the other morning.  In a WalMart parking lot, in my suit I changed the headlamp because I realized if I was bold enough to go to WalMart in a three piece suit, I could damn well change the headlight.

I'm still battling the urge to just give in to the depression waiting in the wings to consume me.  It's a moment to moment thing and I'm constantly looking for distraction to keep from going under.  Last night it was YouTube videos, today it's been thinking about the CRTC (Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission) and the way the Canadian government keeps reversing or overriding decisions it makes. 

The CRTC's purpose, taken directly from its website, is "Today, the CRTC supervises and regulates Canadian broadcasting and telecommunications while remaining independent – so it can serve the needs and interests of Canadian citizens, industry and government. It reports to Parliament through the Minister of Canadian Heritage."

I'm not sure how the CRTC thought that killing unlimited internet access was serving the needs and interests of Canadian citizens.  Nor am I sure how people who hate our Prime Minister think that his decision to squash the ruling is bad - there's a job I wouldn't want for the world no matter how bad mine is at times - he's stopping a ruling that would cost the people complaining money and they still hate him for it.  As I watch the nightly news and see another huge takeover of Canadian media in the offing I have to wonder how much use the CRTC is when the defense the big boy in question is using boils down to 'the others guys already did it, you have to let me do it to!'  the CRTC goes and pulls this bone-headed effort to get ahead of the Netflix/downloading generation trend and kill unlimited net in a move that appears to the average person as if there's someone at the CRTC rooting for the big boys to take over all.

Without the smaller ISP I am on buying excess bandwidth at a discount from the big boys, I couldn't afford internet thanks to the tendency of the big boys to annoy the snot out of you until you bundle.  To discourage this behaviour, I've ditched the big boys from as much of my billable life stuff as possible.  Yes, I am with one of the big boys (Rogers Communications) for my smart phone but only because the small company that I originally signed up with when I first got a cellphone got eaten up by progressively bigger companies until Rogers digested it a few years ago.  Because of the very real possibility of my small net guys (currently in the process of being eaten up) having an outage, I got a 500 MB data package for the smart phone.  Smart phones, however are not that fantastic for internet browsing since a lot of sites don't have mobile friendly setups *eyes LJ* and I do most of my browsing online at home at the desktop.  I'm not a gamer, a big downloader of things other than the odd Youtube night here and there so I'm pretty sure I'm under whatever cap they would set up, but I'm not one hundred percent positive of that.  I have to work for a day and a half to buy a replacement pair of pants, I'm sure not willing to spend the same on a month of internet.   

This isn't to say that I don't see where the big boys are coming from.  The nature of the internet is changing and not everyone is as text based as I am in my net wanderings.  (I'm also one of the few people who NEVER goes over his plan for cell phone minutes - unless you're bleeding, dying, or stranded drunk somewhere, email me - I don't even have a land line anymore!)  Netflix alone must give the big boys bandwidth nightmares.  Anyways, that's all pretty tl:dr so if you want to hear an intelligently thoughtful rant on it go here and scroll down to the bottom to listen to George Stroumboulopoulos outline it pretty succinctly.

Alright, enough rambling for Wednesday.  Time to prepare for Thursday.

Comments

[ecosopher.livejournal.com]

Firstly, what did you think you were doing, using your iniative and helping someone?!

We went with one of the bigger-players-which-used-to-be-smaller, which is great for many reasons: they are based in our state (Western Australia is like... Ok, well put it this way. You know on soap operas, when they want to get rid of a character, but they don't want to kill her off, so instead, she goes to Australia? Western Australia is the place she goes if it's an Australian soap).

Another reason is they absolutely do not keep ringing us up every five minutes to bundle something or other - I'm the same as you with my mobile, and any plan the Big Boy/s can come up with will cost me more than me just buying prepaid when I need it.

You're not the first (lj) person I've heard talking about the CRTC, and you're not alone in your disdain...

[the-goren-show.livejournal.com]

I know! The audacity of me for daring to be useful. What was I thinking... XD!

As for the CRTC, disdain is the polite word for it.

[vyrdaeom.livejournal.com]

I have, as a right, not bothered with the CRTC ruling crap because...

Yeah. It's crap. And I've enough things to piss me off sometimes that I don't need to rage more at the Goverment too, or the CRTC for that matter, for being stupid.

As it is, I think you broke my brain over you being helpful for someone. :P

[the-goren-show.livejournal.com]

The odd part is the government is doing what the people want by making the CRTC reverse the decision and Harper's still getting hell for it. Can't win for losing if you wear the PM's hat.

Hey! I help people. Sometimes, when the moon is in retrograde and they aren't being asshats and I haven't been told I CAN'T help!

[vyrdaeom.livejournal.com]

True, but then again it's Harper so people might just be hating it on the principle he's done it, not that he's doing something the people want. It's an automatic response thing, I think. You see Harper's name in the news someplace and it's instahate.

XD - you big softie you. :P