Plane prepares to leave Germany, Les conservateurs de Stephen Harper gagnent, Martin annonce son dépar
chris lloyd
to pm
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Dear Paul / Stephen?

I'm not sure when the exact handover date is, when Stephen will get
the keys to the "pm@pm.gc.ca" account, or when Paul will have cleared
out his Inbox, so for the next few days I'll keep writing to Paul; but
if Steve is already reading this, please let me know. Also, please let
me know if I can address you as Steve. It fits better the
single-syllable salutation.

Claudine and I drove Judy and Peter to the airport yesterday morning,
then had a nice lunch at the Beatty and the Bistro just before voting
right next door. I hadn't heard from you (Paul) so I voted with my
heart and principles and tradition and went back to the NDP. Ran some
errands and visited with Mary. Shelled out $90 for a refurbished phone
from the crooks at Telus. Yeah, that's right, that company is a great
big crook. Here's their strategy:

1. Offer a free phone with a 3-year contract;
2. Phone has a 1-year warranty;
3. Phone is designed to break down completely after 1.5 years;
4. Fees to a) send phone to company and b) have phone looked at by
technicians and c) fixed by said technicians easily outstrips an
average monthly income, and;
5. Simply buying out the remaining year of contract costs double a
refurbished phone, so;
6. Yet another consumer is suckered into another useless technological gadget.

Fucking crooks! They'll rue the day! That day in March 2007 when I
return their phones and chargers, preferable in some violent manner,
hopefully involving the CEO of the company and his dirty anus.

The phone does have a photo function which is cool. Once I figure out
how to use it I'll send you another picture of my own butt. That's
worth the $.25 it costs each time to email a phone-photo. Can you
believe it! Fucking crooks!

We watched the election results live at the Somerset after priming
ourselves with a screening of Wag the Dog. Almost nothing is more
frustrating than having a bunch of political commentators speculating
on what early results mean, when those early results are gleaned from
1 polling station out of 220, and those results involve maybe a dozen
votes in total. I know there is a lot of time to kill while votes are
counted, but surely they can talk about something else until things
get really close. Perhaps they could talk about how nuts people can
get while playing those ridiculous Video Lotto Terminals. That has to
be one of the most gruesome and disgusting methods for a government to
raise revenue. For anyone to say otherwise means they have never sat
in a bar for any length of time with those ridiculous noises while
vacant-eyed people pump money into the machines, with strange 'codes
of honour' based on how long/how much money they've pumped in, waiting
for the big payout. It's fucking sick and any government making money
off these machines should have its collective head examined. Same goes
for people who allow the machines on their premises, all in the aim of
making a greedy buck. It's nothing short of sick and pathological.
What a colossal waste of time and energy.

Now I'm even more depressed. And yesterday was supposed to be the most
depressing day of the year. Maybe my poll results will spread some
cheer. Thanks to everyone who responded over the past couple days. I
apologize for not getting the results out faster but we slept in;
Claudine's sore throat and cold is not getting much better and we
aren't sleeping as well.

Chris Lloyd's Federal Election 2006 Poll 22 January 2006 (32 respondents)

1. Did how the media reported on polls influence your voting decision?

90% reported that the reporting of polls had no influence on their vote

2. Do you plan to vote in this election?

90% planned to vote

3. Are you voting for (a) change 3%
or for (b) a party and its specific platform 80%
or (c) your local candidate? 17%

4. Do you find Stephen Harper 'scary'?

17% said no; 83% said yes. Some said 'yes' a little more emphatically,
which included some 'yikes' and a few definitelys; "less scary" still
counts as 'scary', as does "as scary as Mike Harris", as does
'stupid'. Comparisons to wolves, references to mock turtlenecks and
the late Princess Diana were also counted as 'scary'.

5. wine or beer?

Wine and Beer ended the poll in a dead heat at 32%; close behind was
'both' at 29%; 7% preferred something else.

6. CSI or Six Feet Under?

SFU just edged out CSI, 33% to 27%, which was also the same percentage
of folks who watched neither, often because of no TV whatsoever. 13%
preferred different shows.

-chris