2006-04-19

Gimmie fuel, gimmie fire, give me that which I desire

Well, gas prices have climbed to a sickening $1.03/litre here in Edmonton today. So what did I do? Well, drive all around Edmonton, of course!

I decided to take a trip up to Londonderry (not Londonberry as I have heard it referred to in the past) Mall. Then over to Castledowns for a bit, and then downtown for a spell. (I discovered that they now have Triple Whoppers, which sounds like a dream come true.) Finally a trip down Whyte Ave. Why? Well, isn't it obvious? The hot summertime ass! (Or, on occasion, the tanks).

Tomorrow I think I'm going to take my camera down there... it is high time a Google image search for "whyte ave ass" gets some actual responses. (To be fair, "red mile ass" or "fifth avenue ass" or "the forks ass" also give poor results, and I know from personal experience that all 3 locations are great places to see some hot ass)

Mmm...ass.

Er, where was I again? Oh yes, gas prices. Well, lets do a quick rundown, shall we?

  • Harper declares that the GST cut is all his government is currently prepared to do about gas prices. Inasmuch as there's not a whole lot else that can be done, that makes a fair bit of sense. CTV.ca manages to avoid blaming Harper personally for gas prices, which is quite a surprise coming from CTV.
  • "Mixed signals from Harper, MacKay on relief for drivers" reads the CBC headline on the subject. It observes that before Harper said the comments from the previous item, Peter MacKay stated:
    There [are] discussions about that right now, and we have a budget coming and we're getting all kinds of submissions ... on what to cut and what not to cut.
    The CBC can't figure out why this is, probably because its a total shock to them that items in the budget might be kept under wraps as a surprise. (Alternatively, Harper didn't want to bring up matters under discussion or negotiation lest the discussions failed to lead to any policy matters)
  • A letter in the Edmonton Journal today asked:
    By the way, how can Safeway offer seven cents per litre off? It all comes from the same place, right?
    There are actually two errors in that question:
    1) Safeway's price starts out usually 3-4 cents per litre higher than everywhere else. Meanwhile, everywhere else usually has 3.5 cent discounts in place already. And Safeway's 7 cents is only available for club card customers who've spent over $30 in groceries
    2) Safeway's gas isn't the same as everybody elses. A close friend of mine told me to shop at Domo with her 7 cent off coupons instead, because she's found Safeway gas doesn't give her very good gas mileage compared with other gas companies.
  • All the oil may not come from the same place, but certainly has the same world market price. This Edmonton Journal article covers the implications on everything from Edmonton's pump prices to the financial viability of Wal-Mart