Young Drivers of Canada (Ottawa) requires that you use your own personal vehicle (car) for teaching others how to drive.  In my case I was teaching Standard in my very own $45,000 car that was only a year old.  It was the nicest “Young Drivers of Canada” car on the road in Ottawa.  Either way, expensive or cheap the end result is the same, your car gets destroyed and you pay for it!  Certain methods that Young Drivers of Canada requires you to teach as an instructor are all designed for automatic vehicles.  Due to this there is extensive wear and tear on the vehicle when you’re teaching Standard.  Note that Standard instructors are not paid more money to compensate for this fact.

For all those who drive Standard out there, imagine this.  Over the course of six months 250+ new drivers have driven your car for 12+ hours each.  They have ridden the clutch extensively, burnt the clutch, dropped the clutch, stalled the vehicle dozens of times in one lesson and then there’s the shifting.  Perfecting a smooth down-shift is an art, especially when you’re doing it to accelerate.  Accidental down-shifting is downright idiotic and causes massive damage to the clutch and flywheel.  I had various students that would accelerate out of second gear and slam the shifter back into first and then drop the clutch like it burnt their foot.  For anyone who has never experienced this…DON’T.  Allow me to describe it to you: The car lurches hard enough that you’re thrown forward, tires squeal, and the engine revs high.  If that wasn’t bad enough you’ve now drastically dropped speed without hitting the brakes confusing the car that is tailgating you.  (Ottawa drivers love to tailgate Driver Instruction vehicles).  A mistake like this at the wrong time could cost you your car if not your life.  The thing that amazed me is that certain students would repeatedly make this mistake.  This is after hours of instruction, explanations and taking it slow in huge empty parking lots.  They already knew what they should be doing but then again these were students that never practiced

So here I am, three and a half months after leaving Young Drivers of Canada and paying out of my own pocket to fix the damage to my personal vehicle caused by their students.  I will be picking up my car today after having been without it for the past week as it’s been in the dealership.  The cost to replace my clutch and flywheel is $1600 and I have no one to thank for it but Young Drivers of Canada!

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Update: 2008/07/01

Rogers now has the data and phone plans listed for the iPhone on their website. They’re not cheap and the way the features are bundled they’re done in such a way to severely limit your options. For instance your unlimited evening minutes start at the ungainly hour of 9:00 PM. If you would like to get the 6:00 PM buy back option you have to get a whole $20 bundle that would include it.

I’m curious to know if Rogers inked an exclusive deal with Apple and they will be the only ones carrying the iPhone in Canada. If that is so then I have another idea. If one were prepared to just buy the iPhone outright and shell out $500 then you could always just get a new 3 yr contract, get the iPhone for $199 and then cancel the contract and pay the $400 cancellation fee and you only ending up pay an extra $100 and can use the iPhone with your existing plan and SIM card.

Update: 2008/07/11

So the iPhone was released today and to no surprise Rogers had little to no stock which is just simply retarded. I guess I was right that there will be a shortage for a while. People also seemed to be surprised that you could only get the phone on a brand new contract. CBC has quite a long article here on the whole debacle. I’ll just have to keep waiting until things get sensible. There should be a new model out by that time, lol.

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When the Staples Dell commercial first aired there were layoffs happening across Canada at Dell.  As it turns out it didn’t take someone long to point that fact out to Staples who quickly edited the commercial to state “Hey everyone, all your cars have been towed.” (not verbatim)  It’s just one of those little things that to some are blatant and to others inconsequential but still happened.

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Hope everyone has fun shoveling and remember, bend your knees!

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Like I said I don’t buy my beer at The Beer Store, the reason quite frankly is that Ottawa is conveniently located across the river from Quebec. Anyone who’s ever purchased beer in Quebec knows that it’s A LOT cheaper. For instance a 24 of regular Alexander Keith’s in Quebec is a mere $24.99 at Loblaws. That’s not just a couple of dollars, it makes the drive well worth it. The only problem right now is that Keith’s Red is only available in cases of 12 in Quebec. The price for a case of 12 is $18.99, it makes a lot of sense to pay $6.00 more and get the 24.

I recently emailed Alexander Keith’s (Labatt) trying to find out when the 24′s of Keith’s Red would be available in Quebec. This was their quick response:

“Unfortunately, due to marketing strategies the 24 pk bottles of Keith’s Red Amber Ale are not available at this time in Québec. We will however make note of your comments to our Marketing Department as we base our products on consumer demand.”

So it would seem that there is not currently enough consumer demand yet in Quebec for 24′s of Keith’s Red. Again, maybe there is enough demand but Labatt is just not aware of it. Here’s what we can do, if you’d like to see 24′s of Keith’s Red on the shelves in Quebec, send an email to: lcs@labatt.com and let them know.

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It wasn’t until a couple of months ago when I went to transfer my existing balance of Petro points over to my PC points and found I could no longer do that.  I was very disappointed and now have no reason to go to Petro Canada for gas over any other gas station.  I’ve even looked at other rewards programs at all gas stations and for what they’re all worth they’re not worth the bother for me.  So until something better comes along the closest gas station to me gets my money.

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The funny thing is how much money they’re willing to pump into this little agenda of theirs.  They’re dedicating 55 officers and million dollars planes to catch these speeders.  In my opinion that’s a massive waste of money considering studies have shown that most accidents don’t happen from high speed driving but rather from just not paying attention.

Let’s face it, the speed limits currently on our roads are highly outdated.  Nobody drives 100 km/h on the highway unless you’re driving through Ottawa.  If the speed limit is 50, people drive 70/80, the limit 100 people drive 140/190 km/h.

The honest truth is no matter how strict you get with speeding it’s never going to stop.  Unless you start doing really crazy things like shipping offenders off to Guantanamo bay or Syria to have their feet whipped etc.   As far as I know we haven’t been taken over by the US so we should be ok for now.  I guess the whole thing is just another money grab!

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Canada of course feels compelled to change along with Bush’s decision to avoid trade disruptions but there is much opposition to the change for many reasons.  One of the big ones is computer and electronics.  Microsoft now has a patch out for Windows Xp and Vista should change automatically.  Many IT professionals have been working over the past couple weeks to patch networks and databases because of this change.  Airlines are opposed to the change due to the headache of scheduling international flights.  It’s still unknown how this change is going to affect medical equipment and patients as a result.

Ranting aside, don’t forget to set your clock ahead one hour if you haven’t done so already!

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I don’t know what goes on there, do they train their people, do they have an ethics standard, do they believe in helping people. Why does a few minute hold mean fourty-five minutes? Why when you call to have a mistake fixed on your bill do they screw up ten other things. Do they hire people to randomly screw up your bill every couple of months? If they don’t, how do the random screw-ups happen?

Do they get the simple fact that bad customer service is worse than no customer service? I’m only one person, but one who’s fed up and if you consider the cost of internet, phone, mobile, and television each month Bell has lost over $3000 a year from losing me as a customer. Sure one person doesn’t really bust the bottom line but come on we live in North America where bottom dollar is all these fuckers live for. Through the very nature of Capitalism good, no great customer service is demanded not for the very fundamentals that good customer service nurtures but for the sake of money. THINK ABOUT THIS BELL… For every 100 customers you lose on all four services you lose over $300,000 a year, that’s a quarter million for every 100 people. You can’t tell me that doesn’t affect your bottom line. Come on, you could use the money, maybe invest in your customer service!

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Two men from Chipman, N.B., and one from Fredericton were arrested along with a fourth man from Nova Scotia. A fifth person is being sought.

Sgt.Terry Kennedy of the RCMP said 2,400 cartons of illegal cigarettes were seized. He said if those cigarettes had been sold, it would have meant a major loss of tax revenue.

“[The] 2,400 cartons of cigarettes that were seized represent $42,300 in tax. We need to do what we can to reduce the lost revenue to our governments who are struggling to balance their books to provide universal health care. That’s the reality of this.”

Kennedy said the impact of illegal cigarettes goes beyond lost taxes. He says small store owners who sell tobacco have complained they lose a lot of business because of contraband cigarettes.

It would appear that the gov’t should get involved in more crime as the financial gains seem much better. I would say they’re already involved in crime in some fashion or another so why not take it a step further.

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