Air Care

I took the car through AirCare this week.

This is an annual rite of passage for those in the Lower Mainland (bi-annual for vehicles after 1992). You spend 30 -45 minutes in line and having your vehicle tested, pay $23 per year and the environment gets cleaner, great in theory............. BUT IT'S A JOKE.

Last year our venerable Toyota failed miserably and we figured "well that's it" but the car still runs fine, burns a litre of oil a month, and we only put about 5000 K a year on it. I was bemoaning our fate to neighbour McGyver who says "well let me see what I can do".

So McGyver cleans out a filter, adjusts the timing so that the car runs horribly and disconnects a hose - the result ...........

Pass with flying colours.

The car runs just fine for another year. This year McGyver spends 10 minutes under the hood, disconnects the hose again and the car runs miserably to the AirCare station where it once again passes easily.

Bear in mind this is not some black smoke belching beater - the car is just old and as such, according to my mechanic, the government wants it off the road. I might feel bad except that if I lived in Kelowna or Kamloops or anywhere besides the Lower Mainland I wouldn't even have to go through the whole process.

Of Course We Lose to Mexico

In a classic illustration of all things Canadian the men's baseball representatives to the World Baseball Classic, the singularly least interesting sporting event I know of, lose to Mexico.

Not to take anything away from Mexico, who has a strong baseball tradition and its' own professional league, but after defeating the prohibitive favourite Americans all Canada had to do was win or give up less than 3 runs in a loss to advance.

The final was 9-1 Mexico so, barring a South African victory over Roger Clemons, the Canadians will all be heading back to their respective pro teams tomorrow. At least it gave us one more chance to watch Stubby Clapp.

Oscar Night

In the end they just couldn't do it. The saga of the two gay sheepherders was denied by the Academy and the Oscar handed to Canadian Paul Haggis's study of racial tensions in The City of Angels.

Asian Pot luck, a few laughs with friends and Canadian content on the last 2 "Best Picture" Oscar winners, Haggis wrote the screenplay for "Million Dollar Baby", added up to a good evening.

My tension level will be high this week as Hearts prepare for their Scottish Cup Semi-Final tilt against cross city rivals Hibernian this coming Saturday. But everybody is in the same boat so I shouldn't complain.

I mean everybody else obsesses over Scottish Football don't they ?