A Top Ten List:

What not to put in a Love Letter. I'm shamefacedly stealing this from here. I don't know if it was written by Dan, Wilford or Avanoo, but it's worth repeating.


(Image by John Cox)

Last night, for the first time in years, I read through some old love letters, which spanned ten years – from junior high school through college.

Strangely, I remember many of my letters being profound and funny. I remember wondering, after I’d written them, how any of the recipients could possibly resist me. Now, years later, I don’t know how any of those girls put up with me.

I’ve used lessons from those old love letters to construct an important top ten list – the top ten things NOT to write in a love letter. Given my history, I plead with you to take my advice at your own risk. Here it goes:

1. Wordplay isn’t play when it makes you nauseous: “I am so in love with u! Not with the letter u. But with u!”

2. Your past relationships usually aren’t a turn-on for your present fling. “My last girlfriend was a basket case… but you seem very mentally stable.”

3. Don’t write poetry when you’re not a poet. “Pecan pie. Why oh why. Did I choose you for dessert. I would have rather crossed the desert. If not for your doughy boobs.”

4. Don’t spell important words wrong. “When I look into you’re eyes… I see a reflection of myself.”

5. Don’t write anything that comes off as self-absorbed: “When I look into you’re eyes… I see a reflection of myself.”

6. Don’t put your (roommate’s) cologne on a handwritten letter to a girl who is allergic to that cologne: “Were you trying to kill me?”

7. Don’t write stuff that puts your sexuality into question (unless that’s what you want): “I’ve seen other guys in the locker room, and…”

8. Don’t talk about fifteen kids: “Sometimes I think I want to have fifteen kids with you!”

9. Don’t belittle demons. “I know your anorexia thing sucks, but it’s really not that big a deal.”

10. Don’t quote the wrong Shakespeare line: “Draw thy tool. My naked weapon is out.”

A final thought: I am so sorry to the girls who had to endure my love letters. This list is a consolation… so that the lessons from my mistakes can be heeded by others and, perhaps, put to good use!

Some of the comments were good too. See the original at Avanoo.

Michelle's Waitress' guide for TIPs.

Yesterday Son#1 and I went for lunch at the restaurant in Fort Saskatchewan where Daughter#1 works. It's a nicer restaurant than the Boston Pizza she used to work at, but she says the tips aren't as good. She is waitressing this summer to make extra money for college, which she leaves for in two more weeks. The food was great.
While we were there, four 30-something french guys took a table. They were mostly dressed well, but this morning my daughter said they were dirty-mouthed and lewd. She said she was worried at the time that I'd overhear them and go over and make a scene.

Damn right I'd have gone over there and made a scene. Good thing I didn't hear those f*ckers. On top of that they spent $80 and only tipped her two bucks.

That led to a discussion this morning about how customers tip. Here's a summation of what she said.

My Daughter's rules (expectations) for Tips:

• Old guys alone tip pretty good. They tend to flirt. But it's kind of sad sometimes, having to put up with the way the worse ones undress you with their eyes.
• Old guys in groups tip well too.
• Old couples don't. Not sure if the old ladies are jealous or what.
  
• Yet a group of little old ladies together will tip well if you joke around and get on well with them.
• Middle aged guys who're alone are usually cheap.
• Middle aged guys in groups are pretty good, unless they're french. Then the tips suck and you still have to put up with the stares and dirty suggestions.
• Oilpatch labourers like Pipeliners are 50-50 unless they're regulars. Then they tip great.
• Pregnant women are poor tippers. We try to be extra nice to them because we know they don't always feel well, But so far they've usually been miserable and often complain. They shouldn't be let out of their house.
• Teens and student boys don't know they're supposed to tip, and so usually don't.
• High school girls and female students in groups tip well too.
• It's always fun to have your friends come in because you know you're gonna get a good tip.
• Co-workers tips suck, but waitresses from other restaurants tip ok.
• I really like big groups of drunk people. They usually tip great.
• Dealing with families with little kids is hard on a waitress. The kids want what they want, the parents want you to listen to them, and the parents are usually so tired by the trial of chasing their kids that they lose patience with the waitress and tend not to tip.
• Try to get the customers to compliment the food. If the Chef comes out and thanks the customer for complimenting his efforts, the tips are always good.

By the way, if you're in one of her cheap categories and do tip well, good for you. But stereotypes don't arise without a reason, so you're an exception ok?

NASA kills Global Warming Movement

A month ago the title for this blog entry would have been wistful thinking, today it is merely jumping the gun. I nearly wrote something about this story last week, but held off, as I was curious to see first if the midstream media would pick it up, or ignore it. Sadly, after a week, I only see editorials and opinion pieces like these from the National Post, Digital Journal, the Sun newspapers, and Investors.com.



If you're reading this, you probably already know that in late July or early August NASA quietly tried to correct faulty temperature data that supported the Human-caused Global Warming fraud. Al Gore used this data in his propaganda film, 'An Inconvenient Truth,' which purported to prove 7 of the 10 hottest years in the last 100 were after 1995. A Y2K bug in the data was discovered by Canadian researcher Steve McIntyre who published his findings on his website, www.climateaudit.org. McIntyre's website was subsequently crashed by pro-kyoto activists. (In 2003, McIntyre, along with economist Ross McKitrick demolished the IPCC's infamous hockeystick graph that suposedly proved there was a huge spike in global temperatures in the late 20th century.) The new data shows that five of the hottest 10 years were before World War II, and only 3 years in the last 10 were among the warmest: 1998, 1999, and 2000. But the warmest year was 1934.



Another scandal the global warming hysterics would like to ignore is that many of the weather stations utilized by the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (G.I.S.S.) for their pro-global warming data are not scientifically reliable. Veteran meteorologist Anthony Watts has been traveling the continent examining these weather stations for himself; and guess what? So far many of the 227 sites he's examined so far have been incorrectly sited next to urban heat bubbles like waste treatment plants.

It's comes as absolutely no surprise to me that when contacted directly about this, the director of the G.I.S.S. and global warming hysteric James Hansen said he is not concerned about the long-term reliability of his institutes temperature readings.

I guess he's taken a page from global warming's high priest, Al Gore, who has publicly stated that it's ok to mislead the public in order to further the global warming cause.

Another attempt to Stifle Debate

Roy Jones' attack on Gibbons Town Councilor James Rollison’s judgement for writing a letter to the editor questioning the science behind today's global warming hysteria is a typical response of the climate change lobby. It’s exactly the sort of thing the climate change hysterics do whenever dissenting opinions are raised:

-marginalize the global warming dissenter;
-misrepresent what the global warming dissenter said;
-and attempt to stifle debate by claiming the matter is settled.

First, Roy questioned James Rollison's acceptance of climatologist Dr. Tim Ball as an authority on the climate. A discerning reader might find it odd that Jones so blithely dismisses the credentials of a Climatologist, and favors two enviromental activists: Retired geneticist David Suzuki and Mamologist Tim Flannery. I’ll be perfectly happy to accept at face value the rantings of Dr. Suzuki or Tim Flannery if we’re debating the genetics of fruit flies or habits of Kangaroos and other Australian marsupials. I'll also grant Suzuki credibility in the subject of being a media celebrity. The subject here however, is climate change.

This is exactly the kind of frippery the UN Panel on climate change relied upon to pad their list of scientists who supposedly supported their re-written ICC report: Yes, their signatures were on the report, but it’s old news now that most were not climatologists. How many were biologists, sociologists, and political scientists? Dr. Ball’s name was on that list, at first without his knowledge, and later against his will.

Roy Jones wants you to disregard this climatologist’s learned opinion because he “has a history of being a climate change denier.” That doesn't change the fact that Dr. Ball is a climatologist who is speaking out on issues within his professional area of expertise.

In his effort to discredit Dr. Ball's credibility before your readers, Roy Jones misrepresented him as a climate change denier. Dr. Tim Ball doesn’t deny climate change is occurring. Any elementary school child knows the climate has changed over time. They learn very early about the ice ages, and that the climate during the age of the Dinosaurs differed from the climate today. Roy Jones was falsely putting words into Dr. Balls mouth.

Secondly, Dr. Ball’s position is that there is little or no scientific evidence that human activities are causing climate change. It’s a historical fact that the IPCC has not yet, after several years of alarmist reports, ever produced any scientific proof that humanity is causing climate change. The best they have so far are computer models that cannot even mimic historical changes when programmed with the climate data from the recent past.

Finally, earlier this summer bloggers discovered that NASA’s climate data contained a y2k error, and that the agency had quietly corrected years of bad data. Global Warming hysterics can no longer claim that 9 of the 10 warmest years of the twentieth century were after 1995. 4 of the top ten hottest years were in the 1930s, and only 3 of the hottest years were in the last ten. The data can be seen for yourself at this NASA website:

NASA’s New Figures: http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.D.txt
NASA covers up evidence that it’s data collection was faulty:
http://www.dailytech.com/New+Scandal+Erupts+over+NOAA+Climate+Data/article8347.htm
NASA quietly corrects faulty data that supported Global Warming: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2007/08/09/did-media-or-nasa-withhold-climate-history-data-changes-public

Don’t hold your breath waiting for the national media to carry this story either.

Seen today at the foot of the Alaska Highway

This old guy passed me and Son#2 about 250 miles North West of Edmonton this afternoon.

He had an ear to ear grin and looked like he was at least 80 years old.