Do you suffer from Gas Pain?

You know, part of me accepts the gas price as part of the price of living in the western world, and yeah, maybe it should be used to offset some of the pollution and other wear and tear on Mother Earth... but part of me is pretty annoyed at how seamlessly every gas station in Greater Victoria raises their prices within the same hour. In Vancouver at least there is variation in the prices -- sometimes even within the same block! Not so here. Eventually I calm down and grit my teeth while I pump a few more litres into the tank.

But then I read an article like this one from CTV.ca:

Canadians are being gouged at the gas pumps across the country by as much as 27 cents a litre, says a new report.

The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA) examined gasoline prices before and after Hurricane Katrina and found an unjustified hike in prices after the disaster.

"There's absolutely no doubt in my mind that we're paying far too much at this point for gasoline," Hugh Mackenzie, an economist and researcher with the group, told Canada AM on Thursday.

"There's no doubt in my mind that we're dealing with an industry that has the market power to charge what the market will bear."

Mackenzie said there was a psychological barrier in Canada about paying more than $1 a litre for gasoline. But, after Katrina, the psychological factor was broken and exploited by gas companies.

Yep.

When I ran into Colin (of the Coffee Crew blog) the other day, he told me the real reason for high prices at the pump: The Dog Ate My Refinery. And you know what? From now on I'm going to accept that reason and giggle while I fill the tank instead of gritting my teeth.

Uniformity

I found a new blog recently, by repeatedly hitting "next blog" past a bunch in languages I couldn't read until I found KJ's Bulletin Board of the Brain. I knew I was going to blogroll it when I found her rant about an odd design trend -- turning books backward on the shelves (spine-side in) to create a uniform look for a room. Oh. My. God. One day, an intelligent race of beings is going to send along the equivalent of small-pox infected blankets to wipe out interior decorators; I hope I live to see it.

Further up the Blogger dial is Tim, over at derivative works. I was looking back at older posts when I came across his thoughts on FM Radio. For me, FM radio lives only in the van... I flip between a half dozen pre-programmed stations hoping one will refrain from pissing me off long enough to get me to my destination, or at least a traffic light. It seldom happens. Most mornings, I listen to Kool FM (107.3) which describes its sound as "hot adult contemporary." Their morning hosts are the least annoying without putting me to sleep (hello? CBC? I'm looking at you!), but eventually their promotional blather starts to build up crud on the dial and I flip to a Vancouver station 94.5 The Beat, which plays top 40 dance. I seldom get through an entire song before flipping away to 100.3 The Q (annoying guitar rock with fun DJs and decent news info) or 98.5 The Ocean (sometimes I luck into a half-decent 80s tune). By then, it's usually safe to flip back to Kool FM for the last few minutes of the drive in.

Home is a different story. Generally for the 4-4:30 drive, I listen to C-FAX 1070 on the AM dial (yeah, seriously old school). They call themselves "Victoria's News Authority"; I tend to call them "the angry old guy channel" because they have listener call-in shows where folks call in and give the guest their opinions. However, I can usually suffer the afternoon call-in show because it is liberally peppered with news, traffic and weather updates -- all of which are key for getting me the hell home.

If you read Tim's rant, you'll note there's one station not programmed into our radio: JACK FM. When they first started broadcasting, I really enjoyed the mix, but it has steadily narrowed to a blend of almost a perfct cocktail of The Q and Kool FM -- but those stations have real people; they take requests; and they are still passingly local. The Victoria JACK FM is no different than the Vancouver JACK FM or any of the other JACK stations all over North America. JACK FM is no different than McDonalds, The Gap, or WalMart in its mission of standardization, creating a sameness that keeps the masses from developing any kind of personality or opinion. Perfect for a nation that needs soldiers.

And yeah, I took my conspiracy theory meds today. How about you?

centennial_uvic

j31_centennial_uvic
Originally uploaded by triviaqueen.

Speaking of conspiracies.... I was out taking photos today.... (A lot of photos... I literally walked around Victoria for 5 hours taking photos for the Victoria Grid Project while I waited for the car windshield to be replaced... I took about 450 photos in that timeframe. Astounding really.... but I digress) I took a bunch of photos of the mosaics on the Centennial fountain and when I started to edit them, I realized I knew what the person at the top of this mosaic was holding: the UVic Crest!

The weird thing is, the mosaics were done around the same time UVic opened in the mid 60s.... and I just never noticed this detail. I had a very DaVinci Code moment when I realized it, though; felt just like Tom Hanks.