Monthly Archives: November 2007

A Little Snow Can Cause A Lot of Damage

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A little snow can cause a lot of damage if it all collects in one place. For anyone not aware, this part of Ontario got an early taste of winter last week. Even today, 4 days later, there is still a large amount of snow on the ground. I’m not even sure if enough melted today to allow us to see the grass again. After the really late snow we had last year, a whole lot of people got caught off guard with this “early” snow storm. Like most people I know, I didn’t have the winter tires on the car and we had to search for things like boots, gloves, shovels, windshield washer fluid and more.

Unfortunately, it looks like our neighbours also got caught by the early snow:

The neighbours gazebo was crushed by falling snow

The neighbours gazebo was crushed by falling snow

Their house has a metal roof much like ours and unfortunately,with the warmer weather today, all of the snow on the roof started to come down. In the process, it looks like it wiped out the gazebo on their deck. Super Crappy!

Now, snow on metal roofing is a rather interesting thing. When it melts enough, the entire sheet of snow will come crashing down. It can sound like a freight train if there is enough snow buildup. I’ve learned to avoid the edges of my house on warm sunny days after we have had a decent snowfall. I got hit once by a smaller load of snow coming off of my roof the first winter we lived here. It didn’t tickle at all.

Canadian Tire Christmas LED Light Promotion!

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In case you missed it being advertised, there is a Canadian Tire Christmas LED Light promotion on now. On top of getting up to 50% off of various multi-coloured Noma LED light sets, you can also make use of the $2 off coupon from the Ontario Power Authority. The Every Kilowatt Counts program sent coupons out to all homes in Ontario a number of weeks ago. Don’t worry if you can’t find your coupons for the LED Christmas lights though. Canadian Tire usually has a bunch of them in store. You may have to ask the right person but when I bought my lights today, I just had to ask the cashier about it. Even then, I think she already applied the discount before I even asked for it. :)

For a set of 70 Noma LED Christmas lights, it cost $5.40 after tax and after the rebate was applied. That’s a savings of about $9.40 per set of lights!

Don’t wait too long though! The Canadian Tire Christmas LED Light promotion is only on until November 23, 2007. Also, don’t forget that the Every Kilowatt Counts coupons are only good until November 30, 2007.

It’s Official: Bye Bye Bell Cell Phones

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It’s official, I told Bell yesterday that we are canceling our cell phone service with them. The count down is now on!

I had to go through the whole retention rep process again and I figured, I’d let the rep do her thing and try to find something that would work to keep me as a customer. The best they could do was to offer me a 10% discount on my current plan and a couple new phones if I signed a new contract. The other option was a new plan at $20/month per phone with only 30 minutes of airtime. Oh, and they would toss in call display for free.

No deal, no good, I’m heading to Virgin Mobile.

Oh, the sort of funny part of the call was when the rep tried to tell me that Virgin didn’t use the same network as Bell.

BCE Press Release: Virgin Group and Bell Mobility Announce Partnership to Bring Virgin Mobile to Canada

Oh, and yes, I realize I’m not really getting rid of Bell completely as Bell will still get some of my money since they partially own Virgin Mobile Canada. Yes, it sucks but Virgin is my best option.

Noma Outdoor Solar LED Lights

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I was flipping through the Canadian Tire advertising flyer this weekend and I noticed a number of solar powered LED Christmas light options. For example, here is a 200 light solar outdoor LED light kit. At first glance, it looks like the prices are a little steep for what you get. The Multi-coloured set (linked above) is $60 for 200 lights for a total length of 86 feet (two 43 foot strands).

I poked around on the Canadian Tire website just now and found the Noma 100 LED light set for $25. This strand is about 33 feet long. Two strands would be $50 and about 66 feet in total. It would seem that the lights are spaced out more on the solar LED light kits.

For only $10 more, you do get solar powered lights. Now, at the minimal cost of running LED lights, you’d probably never pay off the $10 difference in electricity consumption alone. Just think of the decorating possibilities though! You don’t need an extension cord to reach your trees outside that you want to put lights on. That’s a good savings of $10-$15 right there so maybe it is worth it to buy the Noma outdoor solar LED lights.

The biggest question I have is in the middle of December, how much daylight do you need to charge the batteries? It would really suck to get these and find out that a typical Canadian winter day doesn’t have enough daylight to charge the batteries. I’d hope to get 6 hours out of a charge too. With the sun going down around 4:30PM these days It would be nice to have the lights stay on until around 10PM.

Well, I likely won’t be buying any of these solar LED lights but at the rate my blue spruce has been growing this summer, I’ll be buying a couple more sets of the “regular” Noma LED Christmas lights for outside.

KISS FM, Ellen and the Writers Guild Strike

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On the way to work this morning I was listening to KISS FM. I happened to catch their little entertainment news bit and they were talking about how Ellen DeGeneres has “crossed the picket line” to do her shows. They played a little sound bite where Ellen basically said that she wasn’t doing her monologue and was sitting in the audience in support of the Writers Guild strike.

Sandra and Carter then went on and on about how terrible it was that she was crossing the picket line and how she should be supporting the Writers. By doing her show but saying she supported them she was really just saying she didn’t need them… Anyways, soon after that, there was a mention of Bill Clinton offering to help resolve the strike and Sandra thought that it wasn’t a bad idea as there are lots of people affected by the strike who don’t get paid if the shows aren’t made.

Hold the phone. Anyone else notice something flawed with what Sandra is saying? First she says Ellen is doing something terrible by doing her show without the Writers. The she says that the strike is bad because it affects other people (like the camera and equipment operators, etc) who need their pay cheques and the strike should be resolved as soon as possible.

Sandra, pick a side to support!

Ellen is doing a good thing by keeping her show running. Her people all get their pay cheques and all she has to do is sit back and say she supports the Writers. Yes, Ellen’s show will be a different format while the strike is on and eventually it will get a little dull and boring without the extra skill the Writers bring to the show. At least she is keeping her people paid and they aren’t getting affected by the issues that the Writers are striking over.

If Ellen is doing a bad thing by making new shows then what about all of the “Reality TV” shows that don’t really need writers? Are all of the people involved in “Reality TV” shows crossing the picket lines too? Are they all terrible people?