Some days, you've got a coherent idea of what you want to say, a clear three columns of ideas that flow naturally from one to the other. Some days, you don't have that, and just have a scattershot of observations that barely fill a paragraph. This week, after having a great deal of difficulty attempting to create a column on a consistent subject, I will instead take a different approach, and do sort of variety pack, taking fun size tidbits and trying to construct a whole.
First, the Saskatchewan government has been reforming the province's liquor laws, which has revealed some oddly specific laws which are going by the wayside. I am referring to the law which prohibited people from opening their own beer on the golf course, which has now been removed. I can't figure this one out, since there doesn't seem to be any logical reason why a golfer should not be allowed to open their beer. If it's because they litter caps, then that's the courses' problem and also an incentive to use cans instead of bottles. If they are intending to save their beer for later, it's just making them slightly inconvenienced. While I admit that I was not around when the law was put in place, and perhaps it made complete sense at the time, looking at it now it's just making me scratch my head, wondering how it could have happened.
Next topic, south of the border they are having their annual Black Friday event, where consumers act like antagonists in zombie films, flooding into stores in an effort to get cheap televisions or other big deals. The hype behind the sales feed into them, with normally sane people participating in the madness in order to see what the fuss is about, and maybe save a few dollars. Personally, I don't think it's worth it, no matter how much you save. I'd much rather go to the store on a slow day and pay a few dollars more, because then you get in and out more quickly and can then go on to spend your time much better. Plus, staff at the store is going to be much more helpful when they're not stressed out from the abuse and simple lack of time that is endemic to a chaotic sales day. You can't really put a price on sanity, it's much more valuable than any half-price LCD screen you can find.
Moving right along, complaints are coming from the launch of Nintendo's Wii U console, which is apparently cursed with a lengthy firmware update on initial launch. Said update has caused impatient people to abort the procedure, which in turn has caused some consoles to break completely. While it might be Nintendo's fault for shipping an incomplete system, at some point you have to wonder if people almost need to learn this lesson. Sometimes stuff doesn't happen immediately, and getting impatient doesn't get people anywhere. It's not a cheap lesson to learn, the console is $300, but I have little sympathy for someone who ignores the warning that interrupting that process could damage the system. As frustrating as it can be, perhaps those who are waiting for the process to complete can do some light cleaning or make small meal, give themselves something to do so they don't get antsy and break their new toy.
So that was this week's collection of fun size topics. Like all fun size things, it's less satisfying but at least there's a bunch of them.
