Segacs’s World I Know

• It’s great not to need a car… except to do groceries… or to visit IKEA or Wal-Mart… or to visit family and friends in the suburbs… or… okay, I guess I do need the car after all.
• The most frequent musical taste of car sterero blasters seems to be hip-hop, followed by middle eastern music, electronica, and – in one amusing isolated case – polka.
• The air pollution is much more noticeable. Everything in my apartment is covered by a layer of indistinguishable dust, and the air has a distinctive staleness to it.
• Our city’s crumbling infrastructure has meant three cases of the water being shut off over the past week alone. Someone might want to fix that, maybe? Just sayin’.
• With so many great takeout options, restaurants and cafes right nearby, sticking to my food budget is proving to be difficult.
• What’s louder than trucks, ambulances, construction workers and honking horns put together? That’s right, university FROSHers!

The squeegee kids are protesting, complaining that they just can’t get a fair shake:

After four years on the streets, Hohaus says he’s lost count of the number of tickets he’s been issued.

Hohaus acknowledges he’s a drug addict and squeegeeing helps feed his habit.

But it’s his way of life, and he begrudges those squeegee kids he calls “weekend warriors.” “(What) keeps me going is the fact I got to make it to tomorrow.”

Poor baby. Oh, and quit attacking my windshield.

The Canadian blogosphere is abuzz today about Barack Obama’s gaffe:

U.S. Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama has been trying to burnish his foreign policy credentials. So it didn’t help when he called Canada’s leader a “president” during a debate Tuesday.

Asked what he’d do about the North American trade deal, Obama said it needs changes, so he’d “immediately call the president of Mexico (and) the president of Canada.”

A mistake worthy of… Dubya Bush.

To some people, this might indicate that Obama should spend more time reading up on the governmental systems of the different countries of the world, particularly the US’s neighbours.

To me, it just indicates that he clearly hasn’t heard Joe’s rant.

Has it really been 20 years since the infamous Montreal Flood of ’87” that flooded homes, buried cars and turned the Decarie Expressway into a river?

And next year will be a decade since Ice Storm ’98.

How time flies…

Quebec’s transport minister is going to introduce a bill to, among other things, ban cellphone use on highways.

This is the way the tide has been moving for a while now, all over the world. So I can’t say I’m too surprised. I even understand the arguments for it. Distracted drivers are dangerous, and cell phone use is distracting, no doubt.

But I still strongly disagree with the ban, for several reasons:

• Plenty of other distractions exist aside from cell phones. Are we also going to ban fumbling with the radio dial, sipping morning coffee, talking to passengers, dealing with crying children in the backseat, driving while distracted, or driving while tired? Where does it end?
• Cell phones reduce stress, which in turn reduces accidents. Who do you think the better driver is going to be? The person driving erratically through traffic to get to a client meeting on time? Or the one who can simply phone ahead and explain that the traffic has caused a delay, and then relax and drive the rest of the way there without panicking?

• Cell phones are most useful in cars when there’s an emergency. The man who phones ahead to the hospital to let them know that his wife is in labour and they’re on their way in surely doesn’t deserve a ticket.

• On very long drives, it can actually help to phone someone and talk to them, to avoid road fatigue and to stay alert.

• Truckers, bus drivers and taxi drivers communicate via CB or central radio dispatches. Are there plans to ban those practices too? If not, why not? If the excuse is because to them it’s useful, then consider that to many individuals, the ability to talk on the phone while driving is also useful. What’s good for the goose ought to be good for the gander, after all.

• It’s a naked revenue grab. Too many people are bound to break this law, resulting in higher ticketing revenue for the government.

• It’s a politics-only move. Like restricting liquids on planes. It plays into the stereotypes of the evil, SUV-driving suburbanites with their cell phones wreaking havoc on the roads. It doesn’t really make anyone safer, it just makes people feel safer. In my opinion, that’s a shoddy reason to restrict personal freedom.

The point is, this is probably going to be law, one way or the other. It’s too unpopular, politically, to make arguments against a total ban. But it’s a waste of a law. To truly improve our road safety, energy could be better focused elsewhere.

All signs are pointing towards it. In the NHL free agent frenzy of the past few days, Gainey pushed hard for marquee players like Briere, Smyth, and of course Souray, but in the end was forced to settle for Roman Hamrlik and Bryan Smolinski. Not exactly the top-6 power forward or the powerplay quarterback we so desperately needed.

We have some young promising talent in training camp this year, and there’s a long history of teams proving that you don’t need the superstars to be good. I hope that Gainey and Carbs get the team into gear this year, push them to realize their potential and to play a more offensive style of hockey that can actually get us somewhere.

But when players are turning down offers from Montreal to sign for less money elsewhere, it doesn’t bode well for the long-term future of the team. Have we reached the point where Montreal’s media-frenzied Hockeymania is driving too many talented players away, sending them running scared? How long can we keep going down that path before we turn into the NHL’s major league farm team?

I have to say, though, that I love living in a city where hockey is front-page news in July.

The crown has passed… to Mexican multibillionaire Slim Helu, worth an estimated US $67.8 billion.

Something tells me that Bill Gates isn’t too upset. His US $59.2 billion can buy a lot of consolation.

According to this, when it comes to terrorism threats, Canada’s gotten more dangerous:

Canada’s “elevated” threat level is now the same as that of the United States, and “elevated” is the third of five levels, below “high” and “severe.”

Three other Western countries this year – Britain, France and Norway – also had attack levels bumped up.

Twenty-three, including Ireland and Israel, had levels lowered.

Coming soon: a new Israeli Tourism Ministry ad campaign in Canada, enticing people to visit Israel… for their own safety.

I’ve never enjoyed the heat, nor the humidity. Most people I know think I’m crazy, but I’ll happily take a bright, snowy winter wonderland day over a hot, sticky summer sizzler anytime.

The heat has many effects on me, none of them pleasant. Sunburn, dizziness, general lethargy… and laziness. The kind that leads me to sit in a vegetative state in front of the fan, trying not to move, avoiding anything that involves work or even mental exercise.

In case you haven’t figured it out yet, yes, I’m actually trying to justify my lack of blogging by claiming heat exhaustion.

Okay, it’s a lame excuse. But, really, it’s just too hot outside to get all hot and bothered about the news lately. Even though there’s plenty of it to stress about, to be sure. But lately, I can’t help but feel that writing about it is serving no practical purpose other than self-agitation.

Never fear: I’ll be back to my usual ranting and raving self as soon as it cools down a bit. Meanwhile, back to my summer of barbecues, terraces, cold drinks and mental laziness. I highly recommend it.