Call Dateline's Chris Hanson, stat

We were at the new ice cream shop in Warwick and were munching on some nice soft-serve when we saw two kids and their mother taking photos. Very cute moment. The little girl put on this cute hat and some older fella shouted out that she looked sharp. Okay.

Then he goes that unfortunate step further. "I been watching you modelling that all this time," he says with just that trace of lechery that made me and my wife flinch a bit.

He probably would not have gotten away with that comment in the United States, I'd bet.

The 200 dollar grocery bill

I guess this is what happens when you get married. Today we went to Lindo's in Warwick to get groceries - it's a holiday weekend and we needed to stock up a bit. So for the first time in my living history I received a bill for $201.60.

Married life and its related grocery planning, huh?

And for my friends in Canada and the U.S., that $201.60 only got us four bags worth of groceries, by the way...

But yeah. When I was single, my grocery bill seldom approached fifty bucks. And that's hitting the store on a weekly basis, perhaps. Now it's grown by an exponential factor instead of a simple multiple of two. Not good, heh.

and now some cable paying fun

So now I receive my first bill from Cablevision. The charges, predictably enormous. What's a little strange is that they tacked on a late fee to the bill.

So when we called to say that this is the first ever bill we've received, the customer service rep says that we could have gone to the office to pay the bill beforehand. Wtf? Why would we go to pay a bill without knowing that we had a bill to pay? Shoot I don't even know what day of the month to expect bills, and *still* don't.

I need to invest in these kinds of businesses. With a virtual stranglehood on the market they can do pretty much whatever they like and make good profits.

Signal before you turn, idiots

To the 40-ish woman in the grey hatchback, and the many others who drive in the same manner, please re-read your drivers' instruction manuals or whatever guides you used to get your licence.

Not using your indicator lights until you've already stopped and are already turning makes zero sense. It does not help other road users at all.

Indicate before you turn.

Do I have to take a wooden mallet to you guys or something?

Belco's website

Belco needs to update the info on their website. They still have "EasyLink" listed as a method of paying bills. And I just realized that the stamp on the pages is 2005. Guess when you're the only show in town you can get away with not being fully accurate.

Blatant twisting of words

By the way, for a 'premium hotel', Elbow Beach sucked mightily when it came to providing decent-quality rooms for our wedding party and guests. Or perhaps that's what you get when you pay the local rate. Just our experience, anyway. Won't be staying there ever again.

So I crawl through the blogosphere and see this very serious headline from the official PLP Blog, titled "Gibbons calls Bermudians "Very Xenophobic"". That's a serious charge to levy against a senior MP, so I go to the blog entry and read through it. Now, there's no actual quote taken from the statement besides the two words "very xenophobic", so I go to locate the statement through the Gazette site.

Within that article, the paragraphs that I gather the snippet of interest comes here:

"We've spoken on this side of the House on a number of occasions on the issue of welcomeness. Bermudians have historically been seen as friendly, that was important for tourism, but we can also be very xenophobic as well.

"The report says we need non-Bermudians here and speaks to some of the difficulties and challenges they face in this Country.

"If we're going to continue to attract the best non Bermudians we can, we're going to have to continue to look at our policies in respect of immigration and how we treat non Bermudians as a whole. Bermudians need to understand the importance of having them here."

Now as a political party site, I'm not surprised that the goal is to interpret terms to suit whatever agenda is being raised, but this was blatant and appalling, to turn a statement that I personally see as accurate, into what's then portrayed as the MP labelling all Bermudians as xenophobic. Clipping one sentence into a mere two words can make any statement turn into something entirely different.

For the record I think the MP's statement was accurate. Sure, many of us enjoy meeting and speaking with visitors and guest workers, but I have witnessed on many occasions locals muttering under their breath (or speaking it loud), "damn Filipinos" or "damn Portagees", for example. It's behaviour that disgusts me, but is present in Bermuda and I don't think it can be denied.

Now the PLP and current government can choose to call for a boycott of the Gazette, and use their own avenues of communication to provide news, but on the basis of their own blog's twisting of a statement, it's extremely hard to believe that they have an interest in providing accurate information to the public.

Reset the volleyball count

Got off the volleyball schneid with a short pick-up game at the resort in Jamaica, by the way. Thank goodness. Hadn't gone that long without hitting a ball in quite some time. Maybe I'll find opportunities this summer to continue. Lord knows my body needs the activity.

Missing Bermuda

One day back in the island and I realize that I surely didn't miss the driving tendencies of those who live here. People not looking while driving, people stopping well beyond the line at traffic lights, and of course people who just ride through red lights. The policy of "say a few lines and hope the problem goes away" continues from the powers-that-be.

Post 501 - another dump fire?

Back from a nice honeymoon and wading through the usual muck and grime that is politics in Bermuda. Right now I'm more tired than anything considering what's going on with the powers that be. Come on, Government, get it together. Are they aware of the dissatisfaction with the general public? Stop the pettiness and do the jobs that you were elected to do.

And good lord, moving the date of a national holiday with a month's notice? How freaking irresponsible is that? Even if it is the correct decision, you can't just manufacture such an important change of date on such short notice. This isn't even taking into account businesses that are affected, it's also individuals who've already planned holidays or scheduled other events. Seems like a feeble attempt to win some public sentiment, done on a whim and advised by whatever PR firm we taxpayers are paying to make the government look prettier.

Anyway my 501st post on Blogger is inspired by the very disgraceful news that there has been yet another fire at the old Pembroke Dump. What the hell? It's been what, two years since we had Mount Doom taking place and the promises of sorting out the situation, and boom, we get another fire at that site. Who is running the show over there? Or is this yet another totally random and unaccounted-for "accident" that takes place on the island.

Glad to be back on the rock.

Things not sorted out

Just realized that the bus service as far as I know, is still operating on a work-to-rule basis. Which means no extra buses for the extra tourists who will now compete with regular commuters for a finite amount of seats during rush hour times and the like. Ouch.

Also, the ZBM and ZFB situations with their staff, isn't that still in a arbitration phase or something? Nothing's resolved yet, I think. So at anytime people could still go on strike.

Heck, we could be on the verge of quite a few strikes as summer approaches.

GP1 and the rest of us drivers

The Gazette has noticed that GP1, the official car of the Premier, has been spotted breaking the laws by parking illegally on Washington Street and at a later date double-parked on Reid Street. Some folks are totally up in arms about the hypocrisy of the Minister of Transport deliberately violating traffic laws.

Ordinarily I'd be inclined to join them, but the sheer fact that only when GP1 is seen breaking the law that such a story makes headlines doesn't sit well. Our whole society when it comes to being on the road is pretty disgusting. We in Bermuda have been breaking that law on going up Washington Street for many years, and that was well before it made the newspapers. It took the bus drivers going on strike to draw the attention of the Police and actually discourage people from using that road as a thoroughfare.

Double parking? That's been a national past-time for years in town. Nothing gets done and drivers don't make the effort to obey the law. It's convenient to do so, so impeding other vehicles and pedestrians is of small concern to the public.

Re-routed to Jamaica

For the fourth time. Yep, that's where we're headed since the whole Mexico thing fell through due to the outbreak of this variation of a flu virus (and propped up by the mass media's panicked response and government's predictable follow-up). To say nothing of the ludicrous actions proposed by certain businesses around the place to screw over regular joes.

Anyway, Jamaica doesn't excite me nearly as much as Mexico did. Not only because I had never been to Mexico while I have three stamps in my passport already for Montego Bay, but also the facts of dealing with a new language, different cultures that I hadn't been exposed to, the potential to seeing amazing new sights.

That said, it's still a vacation and it's also a honeymoon and I will try to make the most of it as I can. Until the powers that be decide to quarintine me anyway since we're travelling through the U.S. anyway.

Roaches, the great survivors

It's true. They never completely die, do they?

Yesterday we discovered our first set of roaches in the new place. Small ones, no goliath flying types yet. But still a sign that perhaps, this place is now truly a home instead of just a property to live in.

Today we bought some roach bait/traps, along with the old standby of Baygon. Unfortunately I think the version now being produced is a bit more like a spa treatment to the bugs... Say what you will about how toxic the old stuff was, it was effective at incapacitating any roach, fly or moth that was wandering around.

But now we have this product that's supposedly safer for the environment. Que sera, sera.

It's not even being made in Barbados anymore... now it's Mexico, of all places.