Slurpee Heaven

Tracie and I went to the stampede yesterday. Let me tell you this, the Calgary Stampede isn't the amature hour. Some serious money and planning goes into putting it on.

The photo to the right is my business idea for a mall, a bank of slurpee machines with every conceivable flavour. Here they are selling for $3.00.

The photo on the left is a money making scheme using green screen technology. Basically they have pre-recorded videos of people dancing without heads and they superimpose the head of you or your poor children onto the dancing bodies and give you a copy of the video.

I think it cost $100,000 to buy a video.

This photo to the right is at the Bell X Rodeo. It was a pretty good show, and the had a really good setup, but I have to admit I thought the bmx/skateboard/rollerblade show in the other building was better. The Bell X Show was much more professional, if only because of the big name sponsers and money that was put into it. Of course they were selling videos and shirts, but I left a little disappointed, especially when I compared it to the other show that only had a quarter pipe and a table top but were able to do some pretty spectacular tricks.

Other than going to the stampede, we got some money converted to Hong Kong Dollars as well as Australia Dollars. I don't know if I told you this but about six months ago, my bank tried to lower my ATM daily withdrawl limit to $500 because I had never actually used my entire limit in the previous year. As if I have enough money or reasons to willy-nilly take out $1000 from my account every day. I call them and told them that, while yes I understand that they are doing it for my protection, I keep my pin secret and it is a real pain in the ass to not to be able to take out $1000+ if the occasion so requires.

It's rare that I need to take out my limit, and even more rare that it is a problem when I do because you can just use debit to buy anything you might need. Yesterday was the exception, we wanted to buy mini-doughnuts at the stampede. They don't take debit or credit cards. Then we wanted to get milkshakes at Peter's Drive-in. They also don't take debit or credit cards. Apparently you can't just call the bank and get the limit raised by $20 and they won't tell you the pin number to your credit card so that you can get a cash advance either. I guess there is nothing I can do about that though.

Two more sleeps untill we are on our way. HooRay!

-Gary Milner