Then and now.

The other day my wife was called and told that our movie rental account had been chosen to have a free movie. That was pretty cool! So she went out and got a movie called the Kite Runner. It sounded like something that would be a good sit down to watch movie. Without going much further here I will say that we started it and then promptly stopped it after seeing the movie rating as it came on the screen. So, some of you may have seen the Kite Runner and have nothing but accolades for it. So, anyways, the rating of the movie flashed on the screen and among the ditties mentioned it said, "...sexual assault of a child..." This actually made us a little sick when we saw it. I know this kind of shit happens in the world and there are movies with references to children being abused but do I really need to, possibly, watch a scene that makes reference to this? Again, not having seen the movie I have only my imagination to go on with this but that is definitely not where I want to go.

We then put in an old black and white movie we have starring James "Jimmy" Stewart called, "Mr Smith Goes to Washington". Put aside all the "Rah Rah America" stuff in there and it was awesome! Such a contrast between how movies were made back then compared to now. No naked women, raunchy sex scenes, no violence up the wazoo, swearing every second letter, etc. Watching it actually made me want to be a better person (I can't believe I just said that). Movies rarely have this effect on me. You have a man in a position of power thinking about the good of others and he's fighting the corruption all around him. He doesn't fight it with violence but with talk and upright action and the corruption does not make him compromise. A man of principal who does the right thing because it's the right thing, regardless of personal cost. Man, what a role model! What a life to aspire to! The Bible talks about the Christian living a life that makes others thirst for Christ. A life "seasoned with salt". If the salt loses its saltiness.... Jimmy Stewart, a.k.a Mr Smith's life made me thirsty.

If there was more of that in the movie world would that kind of movie make money? I think the movie would have to have the sex, violence and nudity with a character who gets the job done in order to be successful. It's just nice watching something good that doesn't have that.

Way ta go, Jimmy!!!

The Alberta Advantage

I have been musing lately on how interesting things are with our move to Saskatchewan. Although we are here there are still things that tie us to Alberta. The one and only good thing is our friends there. The others, well...

Take for instance my old job. I have emailed them asking for my T4 slip to be mailed to me and they returned a very professional, "No problem.", email. Since I know the people behind the "No problem", I can guess that they will wait until the very last day of tax season before they drop it in the mail to send to me. Who knows, they may even keep it for a day or two extra as this is what they did with my final pay - waited until a few days past the legal limit before mailing it to me. They also failed to pay me my holiday pay but I figured that at least I got the majority of the money from them and would never have to see/talk/email/deal with them again. Sadly, the T4 remains one of the bad links to Alberta and the garbage of that old company. I will not name the company...yet. Who knows, maybe by the time I actually get to naming it they will have gone bankrupt or the bosses put in jail.

The second thing is our Health insurance - AB Health to be exact. When we were moved in here and all was well we contacted AB Health to see how long we had coverage before we needed to switch. Sadly, we should have contacted Sask. Health. AB Health said we had to go an extra month past our 3 month timeline. This meant they got an extra month out of us in terms of money. They also told us that, get ready for it, THEY would complete all the necessary details to get us switched over to Sask. Health. I remember asking my wife, "WOW! That's kind of wild that they would do that, eh?" So, this last week I was thinking that we hadn't heard anything about our health stuff AT ALL. I mentioned this to my wife when I got home from work and low and behold she had been thinking the same thing that day. So, she called to find out what's up and discovered that we have NO health insurance at all. AB Health DIDN'T complete the necessary details to get us switched. So, my wife had to do a bunch of running around to get the Sask Health benefits application and then complete it. It made me wonder, "If anything happened where we were required to use AB Health what would they have done?" Would they have taken care of us? Or, would they have left us twisting in the wind? Why, I wonder, would they say one thing and then not do it? This again is the other thing that keeps us tied, somewhat, to Alberta.

I can hardly wait for the day when I can say, "I am a full Saskatchewanian again. Hear me ROAR!!!". Until that day comes, I'll have a VICO and keep the bunny-hug done up.

The new year.

It's been pretty busy in Curtville this year. Work is insane and this has been the biggest busy of this busy year. It's pretty overwhelming and I am getting stretched more than I have been in a LONG while. Hopefully I can make it through this time.

I was in town today and noticed something interesting. It is really quite amazing how the stores move from holiday to holiday as soon as they possibly can. There are Valentines Day AND Easter stuff already on sale here. I was thinking, "How quickly we forget Christmas." I wonder how this is. It seems like I spent weeks gearing up for Christmas. Weeks. Anything commercial having to do with Christmas was everywhere. Now, it's like a wind just came and blew it all away. Where did it go? What happened? Oh, another holiday it coming? Gotcha. Better start gearing up. Really bizarre. Does humanity need this? Is this what we're about? Moving from one celebration to another with no thought as to what we're celebrating. Get the gifts. Give the gifts. Stay up til midnight partying. Buy something red and chocolatey and heart shaped for that special someone. Buy something chocolatey and rabbit-ish to celebrate the death of Jesus Christ. What's next?

Thoughts and a rant and...

Happy New Year everyone. Man, I got a real hankerin' for chocolate.