I'll take Potpurri for 800 Alex

While the ADDers, preteens, other gamers, and people who simply don't know any better are drowning in the saliva of their own nervous breakdowns over Halo 3, I'm starting to get pretty excited about Unreal Tournament 3. Its the Cadillac of FPS and the latest instalment is raising my blood pressure because the editor is being ported to MAC finally so I can make a U of S map or perhaps virtually kill people from all over the globe in a rendered version of Saskatoon's Broadway Ave.

Sunday Suz and I will be making perhaps our last hike of the year as snow has been our third wheel last two outings. I've posted most of this years trips on another blog which is mostly finished, I'll drop the URL when its more done. We're hoping to tackle the Wasootch Ridge as long as the snow doesn't impede us. We're not ones to cower from snow but its actually pretty dangerous unless you have crampons. I'm excited about taking an avalanche course in November so I can prowl the backcountry in safety.

Big news out in Calgary is the Royalty Review Board's conclusion that oil & gas royalties should be hiked by 20%. Its looking like the province will adopt their findings which is proving to be a thorny issue for Encana which is threatening to pull a couple billion in investment next year. There is of course no correct percentage. Instead it seems that the government wants to get as much as it can without disrupting too much economic activity. With such loose parameters you can imagine that all players are struggling to construct logical arguments supporting some percentage or another. In fact there are no logical arguments on either side. Considering that the oil isn't going anywhere if Encana doesn't want to suck it out, I wouldn't be too worried about their threats. Incidentally, the province experienced the same gloom from the industry back in the 1950s and again in the 70s when the royalty was introduced and later hiked.
Their childish threats though are unfortunately easy for me to forgive what with Encana building this cool half "u" shaped skyscraper downtown. Its going to be 800 feet tall and will be the tallest outside Toronto. Its no Burj Dubai but its pretty cool.

Driving through Calgary tonight on our way to see Superbad I found myself praying to Turnicus Lefticon, Roman God of Opportunity.

My endeavours in the world of haute finance (Suz is brilliant!) have been much muted of late. Summers' volatility has made me rather gun shy but perhaps when the sun vacates in the long winter months, I will feel a greater urge to sit in front of my computer screen for an extra hour a day.

From my last post, you might be able to guess that I spent an entire Friday night on Youtube watching all the bizarre clips from the 1970s Sesame Street I grew up on. Strange animated odes to numbers like some sort of Pythagorean Renaissance, involved vignettes about the letter W. The whole show struck my adult brain as an effective OCD factory. I was also left wondering if I was part of some sort of experimental generation? And was the experiment a success?