Day 155: "Free"dom of Choice

(Nikon D90, 35mm DX, f/5.6, 1/40, ISO 400)

Red or blue?  Which do you choose?

Day 74: Nickel and Dime'd

(Nikon D90, 35mm DX, f/4, 1/60, ISO 400)

Yum!  Another glorious start to the week.  Today's post is brought to you by Tim Horton's incompetency! 

So, usually when I go to "Timmies" I grab a doughnut because I don't drink coffee and don't find their cookies or muffins really all that great.  Now, a doughnut costs $0.95 total and I - being coin-conscious - typically pay with a loonie and four nickels.  It seems though that the cashiers in my building happen to be completely dumbfounded whenever I hand them enough change to get a quarter in return.  

Every time save for one occasion that I pay, I get this "wtf" look from the cashier, who then repeats the price of the doughnut, to which I then have to respond that I'm aware of what the price is and that I'd like a quarter in change.  Perhaps I'm being a bit nitpicky, but the fewer coins I have to fumble around smaller than a quarter, the better.  I've never been questioned outside of these two Tim Hortons in similar situations.  Usually the person might pause because they're slightly shocked that I gave them enough change to make their life a little easier, but they handle it with no problems - not the case with these particular Tim Hortons.  

Needless to say, it's fast becoming a everyday annoyance.  Early start tomorrow, so hopefully more later.

Day 41: Voting Day Redux

(Nikon D90, 35mm DX, f/1.8, 1/125, ISO 200; +1.0 EV Post Processing)

T'was voting day again - RSU style.  Unlike the RCS elections, this time there was a significant lack of low-budget 'Vote Here' signs.  I love beating a dead horse (metaphorically, a real horse could probably kick my ass).

I had been debating whether or not I should vote this year.  I ended up doing so.  See, whenever I'm on the fence on something I'm usually pretty easy to convince if you've got the charisma and the ability to speak confidently/persuasively.  So it's guys like Chris (pictured top) that are - in my opinion - worth voting for.  We had spoken in the halls of TRSM about week prior and he laid out the things he wanted to do if he were elected.  

Pretty simple stuff.  The fact that he's in ITM and put up with my asshole-ness (I had just woken up from an impromptu nap and was pretty groggy) was worth extra brownie points.  I had pretty much exhausted all of my votes on names that I recognized or people who were more than just letters on a piece of coloured paper.  Of them (I think it was like 10?) I knew four or five personally (as in we had met) and only two bothered to give me their schpeal on what they'd do if they were elected BEFORE voting started.  On top of that some nameless guy tried to solicit my vote today on my way back to class.  He tried to recount all the things that the current group of electees managed to do in the past year.  

Problem is, I don't give a damn.  Your 'track record' means jack shit to me.  It's not like the same group of people run every year, so what good does consistency do?  Having little sleep this morning, I was in "asshole-mode" already.  So I asked him what I asked Chris: What would you would do for someone like me, who doesn't care for attending things like pub nights, or the parade & picnic (that they throw during the first week of school every year).  His response?  "Well we try to do what we can for the majority".  

Is it just me or did he just imply "well that's too bad, we can't do anything for you then".  Seriously, we were taught in Marketing class just a couple weeks ago that that'd be the wrong approach to take.  He lost me after that point.  Chris at least told me what he would do for someone like me, and the other candidate I spoke to did the same without me having to pose the question.

Aside from that, there wasn't much else eventful today.  It snowed, but what else is new in Canada?

Day 23: KISS

(Nikon D60, 35mm DX, f/1.8, 1/50, ISO 200)

Simplicity.  We need more of it.  While the photo above speaks only about communication, it can be applied to other aspects of our daily life.  We spend so much of it freaking out, worrying, and complaining about either things out of our control or minute problems that are so trivial.  I mean really, is saving two minutes really important enough to necessitate cramming into a subway train when there is another one on the other side of the platform (going in the same direction; I'm referring to a station at the end of a line, like Finch, Kennedy, or Downsview Station in Toronto) that has empty seats?  Does saying "yo man that course is so gay, so much work" make it any easier?  I think not.  

"Keep it simple, stupid" - a concept I was introduced to this concept during programming class in Grade 11.  I don't think it's something that should be just limited to programming though; people of all walks of life could use a dose of it.  By far my biggest pet peeve with the more recent part of my generation (Generation Y) is their tendancy to complain about everything and how they feel that succeeding is a right rather than a reward.  An excellent example of this is the school system.  How many kids fail in elementary or high school?  How many teens get into University not because they earned the right to but because they sweet-talked their teachers into boosting their grade because they failed to earn it?  Most of my friends got into school fair and square; I can only recall offhand one friend who asked for a grade bump and he at least had the decency to surpass the minimum entry requirement by a fair margin.

When I graduated High School, I did not have the grades to enter University.  In fact, the string of mail addressed to me in May and June was really just a spat of rejection letters.  The only reason I got in the following September is because I applied for an extension and spent half my summer in school to get my Calculus grade up.  I fought my way in.  I fought my way into a program I didn't even like and pretty much wasted the year (in terms of academics and finances) before switching into my current major.  I bet if more kids spent half the time they did complaining and put that into solving the very problems they were complaining about they'd have the other half to do as they pleased.  Simple.

Don't even get me started with photographers.