Once Banff burns, hopefully this province will wake up and realize the arrival of climate change. Hopefully.

You know what really sucks though about the bikes and commuting? Its not even the drivers or the infrastructure, it’s the damn theft. They gotta get that figured out. I’d have one of those cargo bikes in a heartbeat, as our driving is 95% just daycare and back and/or groceries. But the theft in our city is insane, I can’t even run into the grocery store without a not-insignificant chance the things not there when I come out.

Our city is struggling with the opiod crisis (like many other cities), and the stolen bike trade seems to be one of the many primary sources of funds for that sort of thing. You’ll see homeless people downtown riding on super expensive mountain bikes, I saw a guy wacked out of his mind on a Pivot Firebird once. Clearly stolen, but the cops just allocate token resources to it, while people walk around openly downtown with battery powered die grinders. I watched a guy a few years ago go through one of those New York kryptonite locks like it was a bar of butter, before I could even act on it (plus I was in a skyscraper a few blocks up). We called it in, but I mean buddy was probably back at his encampment before that call even reached a cruiser.

So I’ve got a rule with my bikes (I’ve got a high end eMtb and a fairly high end road bike), if it’s not in my line of sight or I’m not on it, then it’s not outside. I had a job a few years ago that allowed me to bring it into my office, but my last job that wasn’t possible. I work from home now, so it’s moot, but I just don’t trust leaving it anywhere, which rules out most in-city bike use. Big problem.

This province and it’s people are completely fucked, and frankly are now finally reaping what they sow. Problem is you and I, and all the other people who didn’t get their degrees on Facebook, we are all caught in the crossfire of this friggin mess.

The people who progressive policies and governments best serve, are ironically the ones who fight it the most.

The Jasper fires are kind of all unrelated to this, the situation up there started years ago. But don’t be looking for any positive change with this situation, or any common sense with this government. Everything they touch immediately turns to ashes, pun intended.

Full time commuting is pretty dangerous. I’ve been riding bikes for years, and all of the issues I’ve run into over the years almost all came on commutes.

I just treat it as a special treat every now and then. If you do it everyday it gets old pretty quickly. I mean if you have a nice commute then maybe it’s OK. I used to commute into downtown in a city where the war of Bikes vs Cars was very much alive though, and I just decided ultimately it wasn’t worth it. I mostly just ride outside of times when everyone is overfilled with rage, and it’s more enjoyable. Sucks it has to be that way :/

Is this game still a borefest? I played it for a week last year, and it just didn’t do it for me. Is it worth jumping back in yet, or should I wait another year or two?

With everyone using those god damn earpods now, I think you could literally have an air horn attached to your bike, and they still wouldn’t hear it. I just have a little plastic bell attached to my bike, and I have about a 20% success rate with it. It always gives me pause when someone acts startled, and shocked, yet I’ve rang my bell 4 times, and my 108 tooth hub freewheeling is literally roaring like a swarm of bees. Yet it’s naturally my fault I’ve startled them.

Removed by mod

Removed by mod

A democratic bank? It’s a monopoly in Calgary, one “credit union” owns them all now. Modern day credit unions simply exploit tax advantages, they aren’t this touchy feeling cooperative thing anymore. They are very much for profit in all but name and are as rotten as the other banks. Should get your hands on the executive payroll.

As for Calgary Coop, yes you get to elect the board. They play favourites, and you can have your choice between Corporate Bob, Corporate John or Corporate Margaret. You can run, but they play favourites and heavily promote their choices of the ideal candidates, which of course are slightly different versions of themselves. They’ve made some pretty controversial choices the last 5 or 6 years too. They aren’t even part of the Federation Coop anymore, Calgary Coop is just branding now. They overprice everything and then offer you the so called rebate. Its a joke.

I mean Westjet is heavily engaged in human cruelty, so…

They are saying that the bullet might have been up to some conspiracy stuff. I’m dumb as shit, and even I got that first read. C’mon. The bullet might have been from one of those Disney movies, or straight from the acme factory. You don’t know.

For real though, don’t take life so seriously. It’s hard to find humor in serious events where people died, don’t get me wrong, but at the same time a little bit of color might bring a bit of joy or a laugh to someone at a time when everyone is trying to get us to all focus on darkness.

The only thing cooperative about Calgary Coop is it’s name. Its about as cooperative as I am when it comes to sharing a bag of chips on the couch on a Saturday night.

Coops don’t really exist in true coop nature anymore. Its like everything else, they get a few peckers involved and they suddenly start looking like for profit organizations.

There are some credit unions, but they very much act like banks, and aren’t really any different than other banks. There was a big merger that just happened with First Calgary and ConnectFirst (see what I mean?), and Servus and Connectfirst have also merged. Its pretty hard to call them an actual credit union at this point, at least in the traditional sense.

You are ten years too late for MEC. Its also a for-profit corporation now, thanks to some really bad leadership. I think you can see the trend at this point.

I know if I was an ISP, I’d be like, Oh shit, we lost those logs again.

Fast forward 24 hours

Awww shit, it happened again

And so on…

Take a step back man, you gotta look out for number 1. You aren’t abandoning anything or anybody. Being connected like this is great in some ways, and in some other ways it’s literally the worst thing that’s ever happened to the human race. That isn’t on your shoulders, and its quite an admirable thing to say you know what, I need a break. Not many other people have the courage to do so.

I’m sure you’ll find some happiness and some colour on the other side bro, here’s to you finding it 🤜🏼

Just so you know, that wasn’t me. We are having a perfectly reasonable convo, I assure you.

There’s nothing with modern complexities that is going to last that long. Think of the complexities of today’s system. I mean I’ve got my original PlayStation, it’s 25 or 26 years old now, and it mostly functions to your point, but it also hasn’t been heavily played (or really played at all) for about 20 years. But my PS2, I went through three of them in 6 years. My Xbox is almost 20 years old, it’s my second (and is making weird noises). And so on. My PS4 at 10 years old runs, but makes a ton of noise and is definitely slower than it used to be. It ain’t making it to 20, that’s for sure, I mean maybe now that it gets zero use it might.

My point is, the more intense they got, the more problems I started to have. As the boomers like saying too, shit ain’t built like it used to be.

Us folks with original model Switch’s ain’t barely getting two hours either, though.

As others have said, it really depends on the game. But I would say >90% of my PC gaming is done with a controller. I’ve just become so adapted to them, that the keyboard and mouse just feels foreign now. Even with FPS, most of the time I use a controller. I’m aware of the advantages of using a mouse obviously, but again I’m just conditioned to it now.

There were some cheap ass weird ones in North America too. I remember for Christmas we’d ask for a Joycon or something like that, and we’d get “the Joycron,” which looked nothing like a controller, had a weird shape, felt like shit and was cheap as hell. The old man would be like, arrrr we saw it at the BiWay and it was 99 cents, why do you need the one thats $60? Then he would play it, and sure enough, by February you had the real one.

I agree. That thing was HUGE. I have tiny hands too, and always struggled with it.

I also didn’t really like the N64 controller, it was kind of a weird size too, and it just had a weird layout.