Friday, December 17, 2004

WTF?!?!? We used to shoot pellet guns at each other all the time....maybe not so much on the schoolyard. Why is this even news? What a waste of e-space. I wish we got counselling for every traumatic thing that happened to us back then....

7-year-old fires pellet gun in Saskatchewan schoolyardLast Updated Fri, 17 Dec 2004 07:12:06 EST
NORTH BATTLEFORD, SASK. - A seven-year-old boy who used a pellet gun to shoot at other children in his school playground is facing disciplinary action but no criminal charges.
The trouble began on Wednesday morning with a schoolyard scuffle at McKitrick School in North Battleford, Sask.
The RCMP says two boys got into an argument before class.
One of the boys went home and returned with a pellet rifle. When students got out for recess, he started firing.
Several students were shot at, including the boy he'd fought with, before teachers intervened and confiscated the rifle.
The school called police and the boy was removed from school.
RCMP Cpl. Robin Bittorf said it doesn't appear anyone was hit.
"Two boys that we knew were shot at don't show any injuries at all," he said.
Bittorf said it's up to the child's parents, school officials and social workers to deal with the matter now.
The Youth Criminal Justice Act doesn't apply to children under 12.
"We can't charge him criminally for his actions and, as he is only seven years of age, I'm not sure he really understands the magnitude of exactly what he did," Bittorf said.
Since the weapon involved was a pellet gun, the owner can't be charged with a firearms offence, he said.
The boy's future at the school is under discussion. Ron Ford, the director of education for Battlefords School Division, says the school has a zero-tolerance policy on guns and is taking the incident very seriously.
"We see this as an average little guy doing a very foolish thing ... but we need to get the attention of him and his guardian that we view this as a serious issue," Ford said.
"He will be away from school until we're certain that is the case. And certainly more important to me is that he get the necessary counselling for him and his guardian."

Wednesday, December 15, 2004

Canada Goes To Hell Legal pot? Legal gay marriage? Universal health care? What's next, free porn and candy?
By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist

Did you hear the screams? Did you feel the menacing chill? Did you see the black and ominous clouds, moving north?
Did you sense, in other words, the very presence of Satan himself as he laughed maniacally and tossed around bucketfuls of ultrathin condoms and little travel-size packets of Astroglide like confetti while riding his Harley Softail up to Toronto or maybe Edmonton to join the ghastly and sodomitic celebrations?
Because it's happened. Canada's high court just ruled that the government can, if it so desires, redefine marriage to include gay couples, which it has declared it will do almost immediately, thus solidifying Canada's place as the chilly yet mellow and gay friendly and hockey-riffic epicenter of all known hell.
It's true. It's rather amazing. Gay marriage will be completely legal in Canada very soon. It's been oddly ignored in much of the U.S. media and hasn't really been much discussed among those in the terrified red states except when, deep in the night, from their respective lumpy twin beds, they whisper to each other across the room as they pop their Ambien and stroke their portfolios and curse their very genitals: oh my God what's wrong with those freakin' Canadians?
I mean (they continue), I thought they loved red meat and brutish sports and manly hunting. Are they all just freaks and perverts now? Have they been sniffing too many elk pelts? Is it something in the clean and plentiful water up there? Something to do with those weird French-esque people in Quebec, maybe?
I knew we should've been paying more attention to that border! Didn't I say so, honey? Didn't I say we should keep an eye on those northern weirdos after they dissed the Iraq war and legalized pot and sort of went about their happy and calm Canadian business whilst we here in panicky red-blooded America chewed our own karmic legs off in a paranoid and jingoistic rage? Hippies and perverts, I said! Save a few bombs for Ontario, George, I say!
Let us now do the naughty math: Canada has roughly 32 million inhabitants, of whom about 75 percent are over 18, of whom it can be loosely estimated that anywhere from 2 to 8 percent are gay (depends, of course, on who you ask).
All of which translates into a ballpark figure of anywhere from 1 million to 2 million gay Canadians of legal marrying age who will now eagerly laugh and kiss in the streets and confound poor reactionary born-again George W. Bush, and they will flash their wedding rings at parties and annoy all the single people, all while proving for the umpteenth time that love knows no gender limitations or legal restrictions and will trump your whiny sanctimonious religious puling any given Sunday. Heathens!
It's getting more confusing by the minute, isn't it? I mean, Canada now has legal pot and legal gay marriage and universal health care and no known terrorist enemies and a relatively successful multiparty political system. They also have, according to U.N.'s Human Development Index, one of the highest qualities of life in the world. All coupled with a dramatically reduced rate of gun violence and far better gun-control legislation than the U.S., despite having the exact same per capita rate of gun ownership and gun-sport enthusiasm.
What the hell? How is this possible? Why aren't they scared to death like whiny red-state Americans? Why don't they want to kill each other along with anything that might threaten their access to televised hockey and cheap beer and yummy poutine?
Aren't they aware of what's happening in the world? Don't they know they are openly hated for their freedoms and their cafés and their vinegared french fries? Aren't they human, fer Chrissakes? Oh, red states. How confused and irritated you must be.
After all, unlike the U.S., Canada backed the Kyoto Treaty (along with 165 other heathen nations). They also spend more per capita on education and less on health-care overhead than the U.S. They have a $10 billion federal surplus, a new record. They are not, as of yet, abusing the hell out of their vast natural resources (freshwater, huge forests, oil and natural gas, mineral deposits, etc.) and embarrassing themselves on a global scale every single day and making a mockery of their constitution or their citizens' civil liberties. What the hell is wrong with them?
Yes yes, I know, Canada's universal health care is flawed and not always of the best quality, and a great many Canadians think their prime minister is a bit of a schmuck and they hate paying taxes and of course they can be all profitable and progressive when they don't have a massive bogus unwinnable war to pay for, one run by a ravenous and fiscally idiotic federal government, and they only have one-tenth of our population and one-fiftieth of our desperate consumeristic gluttony. They have it easy, right?
Remember, Canada is boring. Canada is rarely in the news. Canada has no massive belching socioeconomic engine like America does, what with our NASCAR and Hollywood and Fox News and bad porn and the absolute best medical care on the planet despite how only a tiny fraction of us have access to it while the rest languish in bloated abusive HMOs and poverty and disease and 40 percent of us have no access to health care whatsoever. Take that, Canada! Oh wait.
We hate gays and love guns and think pot is evil but hand out Prozac and Zoloft like Chiclets. Meanwhile (as "Bowling for Columbine" so beautifully illuminated), Canadians leave their doors unlocked and don't feature violence and death on every newscast and still value community and diversity and discussion over solipsism and protectionism and a general hatred of foreigners and the French. See? We rule! Oh wait.
All of which makes you wonder: how many more countries will it take? How many more nations will have to, for example, prove that gun licensing works, or that gay-marriage legislation is a moral imperative, or that health care for all is mandatory for a nation's well being, before America finally looks at itself and says, whoa, damn, we are so silly and small and wrong? Is there any number large enough? After the announcement that gay Chinese and gay Russians may legally marry and grow lovely gardens of marijuana as they all get free dental care, will America remain terrified of nipples and queers?
Canadians. So mellow. So laid back. So gay. So not producing any truly superlative modern-rock music or ultraviolent buddy-cop movies and not actively siccing Wal-Mart or Starbucks or Paris Hilton on the rest of the world like a goddamn cancer. They're just so ... nice. And boring. And calm. And solid. And friendly.
And they simply beat us senseless on the whole open-minded, progressive thing. Kicked our flag-wavin' butts. Trounced our egomaniacal self-righteous selves and made the red states look even more foolish and backward than the whole world already knows them to be.
They did it. Canada made the whole gay marriage issue look effortless and obvious and healthy, and a massive black rain of hellfire did not pour down upon them and the very idea of hetero marriage did not immediately explode and their economy did not unravel like all the sneering cardinals and right-wing nutballs screamed it would. We must ask, one last time: what the hell is wrong with them?
Oh wait. Maybe we should rephrase. What the hell, we should be asking, is wrong with us?

Wednesday, December 08, 2004

Mark Morford has hit the nail on the head AGAIN....

What Are You, On Drugs? With so many Americans popping prescription meds, who needs nature and sex and exercise?

The odds are very good that you are on drugs.
Right now. This minute. As I type this and as you read this and as false Texas dictators rise and sad empires crumble and as this mad bewildered world spins in its frantically careening orbit, there's a nearly 50/50 chance that some sort of devious synthetic chemical manufactured by some massive and largely heartless corporation is coursing through your bloodstream and humping your brain stem and molesting your karma and kicking the crap out of your libido and chattering the teeth of your very bones.
Maybe it's regulating your blood pressure. Maybe it's keeping your cholesterol in check. Maybe it's helping you sleep. Maybe it's helping you wake the hell up. Maybe it's opening your bronchial tubes. Maybe it's brightening your terminally bleak outlook.
Maybe it's adjusting your hormone levels or controlling your urge to weep every minute or relaxing the blood vessels in your penis or cranking the serotonin to your brain or pumping carefully measured slugs of alprazolam or fluoxetine or sertraline or atorvastatin or esomeprazole or buspirone or venlafaxine or any number of substances with Latin-rooted jawbreaker names through your flesh in a bizarre dance of miraculous vaguely disturbing death-defying scientific wonder.
Forty-four percent of all Americans. That's the latest number. Almost half us are popping at least one prescription drug and fully one in six are popping three or more, and the numbers are only increasing and this of course doesn't count alcohol or cigarettes or bad porn and it doesn't count the mad megadoses of jingoistic flag-waving God-slappin' fear -- which is, as evidenced by the last election, a stupendously popular FDA-approved drug in its own right. But that's another column.
Have a teenager? She's probably on drugs, too. One in four of all teens are, according to new research. And we ain't talking pot or ecstasy or meth or fine cocaine or Bud Light or any of those oh-my-God-not-my-baby devil drugs that are so demonized by the government, but that by and large are no more (and are often far less) toxic and addictive and caustic than any of your average 8-buck-a-pop silver-bullet chemical bombs shot forth from the likes of Eli Lilly and Glaxo and Pfizer, et al. Ahh, irony. It's the American way.
All of which means one of two things: either it's the goddamn finest time in history to be an American, living as we are in the age of incredible technology and miracle medicines and longer life expectancies and $5 coffee drinks and a happy synthetic chemical to match any sort of ache or pain or lump or rash or spiritual crisis you might be facing.
Or it's the absolute worst, what with so many of us heavily drugged and over half of us massively obese and IQs dropping like stones and our overall quality of life deteriorating right under our noses and shockingly huge numbers of us actually finding Shania Twain somehow interesting. Which perspective is right for you? Ask your doctor.
It's become so you can't crack a joke about Prozac or Xanax at a party without at least three or four faces suddenly going still and unsmiling and you're like, whoops, as you suddenly realize that you can, as you walk the streets of this fine and heavily narcotized nation, imagine at least one very expensive drug pumping through the time-ravaged body of nearly every other person you pass. It's a bit like knowing their secret fetish or favoritest dream or on which nether part they want to get a tattoo. Except totally different.
And you might say, well, so what? So what if pharmaceuticals help us cope, relieve the pressure, help us survive this ugly and irritating world? Better living through chemistry, baby, so long as you don't mind the numbness and the glazed eyeballs and the heart palpitations and the lack of true feeling in your fingertips and the nightmares about snakes. Right?
So long as you don't mind the slightly nauseating sense that you have lost some sort of vital and perhaps irreplaceable link to the animal world and the luminous organic planet. But, as Dubya says, who the hell cares about that crap when you got baseball and war and apple pie?
Because here's the nasty truth: it's a highly toxic BushCo world right now and we've set it up so it's only getting worse, darker, more poisonous and unsettled and unsanitary. Maybe all our meds just help us maintain some sort of jittery and numbed balance, some sort of sad equilibrium. The BushCo doctrine dictates detachment, exploitation, abuse of every known ecological resource and profiteering from every known loophole and caring not a whit for nature and organic systems and balance? Hey, like nation, like body.
But let's be fair. It must be said right here that many of these drugs indeed help an enormous number of people and restore lives and bring light where only darkness once reigned and far be it from me to begrudge anyone his or her chemical-assisted reprieve from genuine suffering.
But here's the thing: it's still only a fraction. Only a small number of people whose doctors prescribe these meds like candy actually need them, and as for the rest there are these things called lifestyle change and dietary change and perspective change and even spiritual shift that can affect the overall health of your life like a goddamn miracle, like a thousand drugs combined, changes that millions simply refuse to undertake because, well, it's just too damn hard.
We don't want to know. We don't want to understand deeper, complex natural systems. We want pills, not awareness. We want magic bullets, not true magic. We want to eat what we want and exercise not at all and pay no attention to our bodies and our quality of life and expect it all to work sufficiently well until we die at 90 and they forklift us into our refrigerator-size coffins. After all, we're Americans. We're not supposed to care.
Nevertheless, it bears repeating: maybe what's lacking most in this society is a true and thoughtful and nuanced connection to and understanding of the natural systems, soil and sunlight and sustainability, lunar rhythms and whole food and maybe knowing where the hell your water really comes from. You think?
Because the truth is, it's not all that hard to get informed. It's not all that hard to affect serious change in your life and eat better and kiss better and require less chemical crap in your bloodstream and slowly but surely reduce the need for medication in your life. It is far from impossible to clear out the toxins and flush the BushCo-endorsed crap and defy the demonic corporate pharmaceutical PR and reevaluate just how you tread this life. They just want you to think it is.
Note to send out to Dave & Nic, Heather Gibb, Grant & Alana.

Hmmm..do you realize that that email subject line left me humming Elvis tunes all day? Damn you, Liwiski! I had to change it to deflect the singing in the head back to you...

Hello everyone....how are things in balmy Manitoba? (Apparently 'Friendly Manitoba' doesn't apply anymore).

Everything is okay around here. Life seems to be getting busier and busier despite the attempts to 'simplify' things. I've been finding that even though I hoped my schedule would lighten up over the winter, it certainly hasn't so far. Work has been insane the past month or so -- the production environment freeze started on Monday (no new changes or applications can be deployed in production for a month or so so that infrastructure changes can be made -- mainframe moves, server reassignments, etc), so all the development teams have been scrambling to get everything done in time. Of course, as I'm in Support I'm on the receiving end of 'incomplete' applications and non-existent documentation, so I've had my work cut out for me getting up to speed on the new applications, scheduling deployments, bug fixes and enhancements, and helping out the dev teams work on production issues as well as doing my normal day-to-day stuff. Hopefully this will slow down over the next few weeks.

The racing season went very well. I ended up 21st overall in the Alberta Road Cup for Cat 1/2, which is a 'best-all-round' rider award based on road race points over the season. I thought that was pretty good considering I didn't even race my first Cat 1/2 race until the Canada Day Crit in Edmonton. Being a hammerhead and racing every race available certainly helps! My team, Synergy, ended up 5th overall in the team road points category and 1st overall in the team Journal Cup standings, which is the track award. Synergy is certainly the most prolific team on the velodrome tracks, and is also very active in the track organizational council (CBTL -- see below). As some of you may or may not know, I was hit by a car in May while on a team ride, which destroyed my beautiful bike, but luckily spared me from any permanent damage. The guy who hit me basically fled before the Calgary police got there and I've been having a hard time since then trying to get the police to do anything about it. I'm just now getting an insurance claim processed on my own house insurance policy. Whether or not they catch the guy, I've surrender to the fact that I'm just relieved to finally be getting this ordeal behind me. On the bright side, I'm looking forward to getting a brand new 2005 road bike and a new wheelset to replace what I lost. I love saving up for and shopping for bike goodies!

Now that it's off-season, I'm working out at a power lifting gym with seven of my other bike teammates, focusing on improving strength and sprinting power. We're getting subsidized quite generously through the team. Three of the guys that I went to Tucson with last year are coaches at this particular gym so we had the privilege of getting a specialized training plan and dedicated coaching for a really good price. It's a good environment to work out in since people definitely notice when you don't show up. I also hope that the discipline required for power lifting technique will help me out as well, if only to save myself from getting injured. So, we're doing that three days a week, Tuesday and Thursday after work and Saturdays in the late morning. I'm still running four days a week, M/W/F/Saturday mornings, and still curling on Saturday afternoons!

I'm still Treasurer for my bike team and webmaster for the Track (velodrome) organizing body. It's year-end right now and we've been scrambling to get financial reports and copies of all our cheques/receipts/expenses/income reconciled in order to maintain our society status and be able for charitable money (i.e. casinos) through the AGLC (Alberta Gaming and Liquor Commission). It's been a lot of work (yep...volunteering can be a bitch sometimes), but things should quiet down considerably after New Year's. I've also committed to building an online registration system that will tie into the CBTL website (http://www.cbtl.ca), so that will keep me busy going into January and February and March and April......

It's also Christmas party season, and we've had our share so far. I'm pretty sure by the time New Year's rolls around, I'll be ready for some R & R and ready to apply some focus to my training regimen, since I'll be sick of drinking beer....NOT!

Speaking of beer....Joe officially gave his notice at the bar (Swan's Pub) were he has bar-tended part-time for four years a few weeks ago and his last shift working there is on Saturday. It will definitely be great to have him around in the evenings. He has a very good chance of going full-time with Telus Mobility in January which will mean a guaranteed income and benefits, which will be awesome. He's come a very long way in the company in just a year, and I've been trying to convince him to stick it out. He's very good at what he does (Data/Network Analyst), but he is growing weary of dealing with clients all day. He's been talking less and less about finding something else though, so maybe that's a good thing? I'm really hoping that freeing up some of his time will allow him to pursue more healthy things in his life -- eating better, exercising more, reading, finding some hobbies/activities that he's interested in.

We have a new addition to the family as well. We got a new cat, a 4-month old male named Bandit. He's black & white and really cute and cuddly. He can also be quite a handful at times. We felt 2.5 year-old Gizmo was going through feline seasonal affective disorder (don't think there's such a thing but that's what we labelled it). He would sleep all the time and wouldn't even come downstairs to see us when we were home. He still does a lot of that -- he's really a sloth in a cat's body, but for the first few days when we brought Bandit home and he was in a felicidal stage, he would follow the kitten around like a shadow and take the odd swipe at him. Now they've really warmed up to each other and he treats Bandit more like a chew toy. How weird...

This was a good year for travelling. I went with four friends (several from my bike team) for self-organized training camp in Tucson, Arizona over the Easter weekend this year, putting on some mileage in anticipation of the racing season. We did 800km in six days in the wonderful Arizona heat. It was a wonderful trip that I'd like to do again. Joe and I went to Toronto for five days in July to see Madonna in concert with some friends from Calgary, Vancouver and Toronto. Joe and I decided to make a mini-holiday out of it and stayed with friends for a few days and the Royal York for a few others. It was an intense trip as we spent most of the time 'socializing'. The Madonna concert was the first of several big shows we got to see this year. We also got to see Sting & Annie Lennox in concert in Calgary and I went to Sarah Maclachlan with Reid Cummings here as well. All were very good.

In August I went back to Grandview for a week for my great-uncle and great-aunt's 50th wedding anniversary. I managed to get a few days of rest up at the lake with mom and dad. Four weeks later, I returned to Grandview again as Grandma Dalgleish was ill in the hospital and her condition was getting worse so the grandkids trekked home to see her one last time. I'm very glad I did, as she passed away two days after I left back to Calgary on September 28th, so I had to return to Grandview once again for the funeral the weekend following in early October.

Joe and his friend Nick flew out to Vancouver for a short three-day getaway in mid-October while I was up running in the Banff Ekiden Relay Race, a perennial fave of my running club. We sent three teams up this year, and had a best team finish of 21st. Eight of us spent the night in Banff in a huge condo with a common hot tub. Great fun.

Not sure what's going on for holidays next year. The bike group are still planning a training trip south sometime around Easter again. We had debated places like San Diego, Durango, Colorado or Taos, New Mexico for a change, but now everyone seems to be swinging back in opinion to heading back to Tucson again. It seems to be the one of only a few locales that are civilized, safe, and guaranteed to be hot and dry for our visit -- plus the cycling is phenomenal. Nicole Liwiski's parents lived in Tucson when we were there last year, but they've recently relocated to Newfoundland (Nic's dad accepted a position at the new Voisey's Bay nickel mine in Labrador). It's unfortunate they won't be there since they fed us (five famished cyclists) and their own guests an incredible Easter dinner when we were there last year!!! It's that darn Manitoba-native hospitality, I tells ya!

Joe and I were planning on heading to the east coast sometime in the summer/fall of 2005, but I don't think that plan's formulating fast enough. Joe hasn't been back to his PEI stomping grounds in over 10 years, but it may have to wait at least another year. Neither of us can commit the time nor the money. We're seriously considering buying a house this summer, so it's probably best to return to some twisted form of frugality. I still have the trip to Arizona and the World Master Games in Edmonton (both requiring a week of holidays) to contend with. Maybe if things work out we'll be able to head to a tropical locale early next winter or something.

I'm still hoping to get back to Manitoba sometime in the summer of 2005. Nothing planned yet, but I'm feeling guilty about not heading to Grandview for Xmas, even though I stated that I would start heading there in the summer when there's more to do and see than head there in December. I have to stick to my convictions....I'd still like for Joe to someday see where I came from...which would be a lot better sell in the summer, obviously, however I've been sensing a chilly reception to that idea if we ever did come to Grandview together. I'm pretty confused as to the perceptions and possible reactions my extended family has of this, since they appear to be okay with things on the surface and then act or talk differently otherwise. They've all met Joe on neutral territory, but impeding on their turf may cause a different reaction. I'm trying to remain very cautious, yet optimistic. Integrating into my extended family was the main reason why I came out to my family, after all. Sometimes I feel that after all of my analysis and perspective-taking, all my views of the situation have been completely off the mark. The big Supreme Court decision on same-sex marriage constitutionality came out yesterday. Can you imagine if I had to send out wedding invitations someday? How GAY! LOL....I'd only get married for the gifts, naturally! Hey, if we're buying a house soon.....we definitely need some new stuff......hmmm?!?!?! ;-)

We're still seriously thinking about moving further west to Vancouver or Victoria someday, mostly for the lifestyle improvements we feel would result, however I've become very fond of the optimism and energy Calgary has and I foresee a bright future for this city - maybe. I'm happy with my job, my partner, my friends. I'm really getting tired of the conservative, money-centric (ie. whoring - the city would sell the Calgary Tower to China if they could make a buck out of the deal) attitudes in the municipal and provincial governments, the blatant rampant suburbanism and consumption here and lack of culture and traffic madness as a result, and particularly growing very tired of the Prairie climate. Some things to weigh out, I guess.

Anyways, enough about me. What are you guys doing for the holidays? Doing the Chyz thing, I presume? I have to tell you guys again how much fun I had visiting you in September. It was so much fun to play with the boys! They're growing so fast. I hope that I'll be able to do it again this summer as well. Time will tell...

I will REALLY try to call you guys before Christmas, however if that doesn't happen, of course I will make the annual call to Nic on our birthday. If I don't talk to you before Christmas, have a good one, say hi to the boys and the family, and I'll talk to you soon after.

Take care and talk soon
Reid




-----Original Message-----From: David and Nicole Liwiski [mailto:dliwiski@mts.net]Sent: Tuesday, November 30, 2004 5:40 PMTo: Reid DalgleishSubject: Viva Leishvegas!
Hi Leish!

How are things?

Working out hard as usual?

Uncle Greg is out visiting. Dwayne and Hazel have moved to the St. John's, NLFD. Dwayne has a job with the Voisey Bay mine out there. Greg will probably be living in Winnipeg.

Busy with the kiddos. A is playing hockey and Mark continues to grow. Things, in other words, are going fine in the Parkland.

Take care and keep us posted.

David

Thursday, December 02, 2004

Built-In Obsolescence
It doesn't seem all that long ago that we were arguing over built-in obsolescence. It was an era in which consumers were increasingly unwilling to sit and let the whims of corporate America, their quest for ever-growing profit, define the public's welfare.
Yet even then, as protestors stared down rifle barrels and radical laws were passed protecting the environment, even as black America began to emerge from a centuries-long hell and migrant laborers began to discover power and self-respect, even then it was a challenging notion that Detroit might build in obsolescence so that we'd have to buy new cars instead of driving reliable ones.
It was a radical notion then, but look around you now. It's the norm.
How long will that fancy camera last? How long does it take before that sleek, new PDA is tossed into the closet? Will they last as long as your car? And when they're gone, will you just go out and buy another one, paying again for what you paid before?
How much longer will CDs last -- CDs that pushed vinyl out the door. How much longer will DVDs last -- DVDs that are pushing CDs out the door. Will they last as long as your car? And when they're gone, will you just go out and buy another one, paying again for what you paid before?
2Mhz, 66Mhz, 80MHz, 400Mhz, 800Mhz. 386, 486, Pentium, Pentium-II, Pentium-III. G3, G4, G5. You KNOW that when each one goes, I go out and buy another, paying yet again for what I paid before.
This is important. It's important for industry that we buy and buy and buy, that we never stop. Ever increasing streams of revenue based on ever shrinking costs. Don't think sales. Think perpetual rental.
Built-in obsolescence. It's the business model for the 21st century. We won't own anything anymore. We'll rent everything forever. And we'll owe our souls to the company store, as well we should -- for our own good.