What the heck? It looks like I've been de-listed on Google. No mention of "Pablo's Dog Blog" anywhere! It's a shame, because I used to really enjoy looking through the logs from my web counter, to see all the crazy things that people had typed which led them to find my blog. Now where are people going to go for novelty dog sweaters? Or brazil women with big asses photos? I don't know why they would suddenly de-list me like that. What a drag!

The new phone book is here! The new phone book is here! I'm somebody now! Millions of people look at this book every day! This is the kind of spontaneous publicity that makes people. Things are going to start happening to me now!! My apologies to Steve Martin (aka Navin R. Johnson in "The Jerk"), but I'm totally wired to see my name in the new phone book that was just delivered to my door today. Okay, so maybe there aren't "millions" of people in South Eastern Manitoba that look at this particular phone book, but this is the first publication of my name since I moved into my new house. Yay... the new phone book is here! (I'm such a geek!)

Happy Boxing Day!¹

¹ Boxing Day is a Canadian tradition, whereby everyone² goes to the stores on the day after Christmas in order to (attempt to) take advantage of HUGE after-Christmas sales. It is the single largest shopping day of the year in Canada. People will literally wait all night at the front entrance of a store, in order to be the first one in when the doors open for business. No. I am not making that up.

² When I say "everyone" I actually mean: "a lot of people." However, I myself have never gone shopping on Boxing Day. I find that the stores advertise their mega-sales in order to lure you into their stores. But then they only offer extremely limited quantities of the items they advertised. So your chances of getting one of their killer deals³, is very minimal at best. Sure, you can get regular sale prices on a lot of other common items, but (to me) it is NOT worth the hassles, line-ups, traffic, and all the other annoyances that you will definitely encounter on this day. (I much rather prefer staying home to watch television, or maybe to try out my new Christmas gadgets. There aren't any traffic jams on the trip to my refrigerator!)

³ Having said all this, I must admit that there actually are some killer deals to be had.. it's just that you don't stand a very likely chance of ever getting one. One example of such a deal is a Winnipeg furniture store that offers a complete dining suite for 99% off of the regular price. The catch is that there is only one suite available, and they don't tell you where it is located within the store. Of course there are tons of people waiting to get this deal so as soon as the store opens, everyone madly runs about the store, trying to get lucky. Once the prize suite is found and claimed, the store hopes that all the other people will stick around buy something else, since they are already in the store and all. In my view, the whole day is a just a big gimmick. But have yourself a happy Boxing Day anyway, eh?

Merry Christmas! ¡Feliz Navidad! Fröhliche Weihnachten! Joyeux Noël! However you say it, I hope that you have a very merry Christmas. Remember the reason for the season!

Yesterday I finished up with raking leaves on my front yard. This is notable for the simple reason that recent temperatures have been well above normal in southern Manitoba. Almost all of the snow had melted and so I thought to myself, why not finish up with my raking? Well it seems that I picked the right day to do it, because it has been snowing almost all day today, and it looks like we're going to be getting a lot of that white stuff over the next few days. Oh well... the unseasonably warm weather was fun while it lasted.

Oops... they did it again! In the past, I've written about my crazy neighbours from across the street (see: here or here.) Well this time it seems that they stepped a little too far over the line, so to speak. Saturday night, I was washing my car at a nearby service station and I noticed an RCMP cruiser that was filling up with fuel. Suddenly, the officer got into his car, and peeled off of the parking lot with full lights and sirens blaring. When I finished up with my car wash a few minutes later, I made my way back to my house and--in what is becoming a common occurance--there were a couple of police cars parked in the neighbour's driveway once again. This time they seemed to be staying there a little longer than usual, and the next morning I found out why. It seems that my good ol' neighbour has been picked up for armed robbery and is currently being held in the Winnipeg Remand Centre pending his trial. Oh well... from what I can tell, there are still a bunch of other potential young hoodlums that are living in the house across the street, so I don't think that my usual evening's entertainment will be ending any time soon.

"Sexy but classy" is how the potential owner describes his latest innovation: a hair salon with topless stylists! The girls would either be topless or scantily dressed while they, uh... service their customers. The new store, to be located in Winnipeg, is supposed to open in February 2003 and will be named "A Cut Above the Breast." (Hey, that really is classy!) Now why don't I ever think of cool business ideas like this? I guess that's why I'm not making the big bucks... yet.

Turbulence is expected. The occasional run-in with a bird may be inevitable. But usually, when you're in a jet airplane, you don't expect to crash into an elk. But that's exactly what happened yesterday, as a Canadian Forces Lear-jet burst into a flames after colliding with an elk on a runway in Oregon. Luckily the crew of four managed to escape the wreckage moments before the fireball exploded. Ironically, the airport had planned to install a fence next summer to keep out the wandering herds of elk that inhabit the area. (Sorry... I can't help myself. There's just something I find funny about an airplane crashing into a elk.)

Holy... cost overrun, Batman! Canada's Auditor General, Sheila Fraser, released a report on Tuesday that shows Canadian taxpayers will have paid CDN$860 million for a gun registration program that was slated to cost only CDN$2 million. To put this into perspective, that is 43,000% higher than their original forecast! Yes, you read that right: fourty-three thousand percent higher! Oh baby, when it comes to wasting money there is nobody even in the same league as the government and our wonderful politicians. And in this particular case, what really gets me pissed off is that this stupid gun registry is a pointless feel-good exercise that will not help prevent any crime whatsoever. Any sane person can tell you that all the criminals won't suddenly go and register their guns anyways, so what is the point of this money-draining registry?