Monday Meanderings and Complaints

Well, the Academy Award show was okay last night although it always runs a little long. For me, a song and a dance and the presentation of the five big awards would suffice. But my ladies like to see how the stars are decked out, so it's all fine with me. Just feed me a chip or cheesie every now and then, and I'm content.

Meanwhile, I have two gripes to post.

One: I went to a site that advertised in Facebook. They had a come'on that got me, so I clicked and answered ten questions that would prove that I was a genius ... or not. Except when I was done, they wanted the name of my cell phone provider and my cell number. Apparently, they wanted to send several IQ question weekly to my cell — for a fee of course. They wouldn't even give me a score without the info. Can you believe the cheek?!

Two: I am a dedicated Diet Coke drinker although I am making an effort to reduce my consumption. I had been doing fairly well until Zachary came along. Somehow, his arrival coincided with the departure of my discipline — for moderate eating too. Well, I'm trying to do better again, and with the price of pop (soda, soft drinks) escalating, I'd better make some progress.

While I don't normally track pop prices or any other kinds of prices, I can clearly follow the trend at our neighbourhood drug store, Shoppers. When it opened in the autumn of 'o5, Shoppers sold three cases for nine dollars — not bad. Mind you, one was required to purchase three cases to get the deal; one couldn't buy just one for $3.00 for example. Well, they increase the cost at the beginning of each year — 3/$10 in '06, 3/$11 in '07, and 2/$8 in '08 — to the point where in January '09, the deal is now 2/$8.99. Let me do a little math. While we were paying 25 cents per can five years ago, we are now being charged 37 cents per tin, which approaches a 50% increase at a time when the cost of living only rises 2-3% per annum.

I suppose both Coca Cola and Shoppers are increasing their profit margins every year, but a 50% increase is beyond the pale for me. We're in a recession, but it disturbs me that corporations keep escalating their prices without compunction. Over the past few years, one excuse has been the rising costs of production and distribution due to significant increases in the cost of fuel, but although those costs decreasing by almost 50% in the past six months, the corporations are still raising their prices drastically.

Yes, I do realize that soft drinks are a luxury item, so no one should feel very sorry for me, but that's just something that I happen to track, and I'm sure that most producers and vendors of most items continue to jack up their process as much as possible.

I must get back to what I was doing before Zach came along: i.e. restrict myself to one or possibly two cans per day.

But not today, I'm afraid, for I woke up with a sore throat, and ice cold coke with its little bite feels better than anything on my throat.