The Half-Finished Bottles of Inspiration Lie Like Ghosts in my Draft Folder

Blah. Do you ever have one of those weeks where everything you turn your hand to seems pointless and uninspired? It's because of weeks like this that, for every post I actually publish, there is another one sitting in draft form: some barely started, some just a collection of links, some half done and some fully completed but pretty much worthless.

Take this post I wrote yesterday for example:

I don't know if Gary Mason (subscription required but you're not missing anything) in the Globe is living in the same city I am. Sure people here like the Canucks, but,

"And I would dare say the Canucks now mean more to their city than the Leafs do to Toronto"?

C'mon. I've lived in both cities and this is just silly. Hockey is just not as big in B.C. as it is in Ontario, a fact of life.

Also from the Globe comes this comment on the 'mini-budget' brought down by the Liberals yesterday,

"To keep the debt from rising too quickly the government will use 100 per cent of its surplus to fund some of its borrowing costs."

And this comment,

"B.C.'s surplus is forecast to hit $1.3-billion in the coming year's budget. It's forecast for $600-million in 2006/07 and $400-million in 2007/08.

"We have a promise not to let our debt grow faster than our economy," Ms. Taylor said. "I'm concerned. I'm taking action."

B.C.'s debt is forecast to hit $35.9-billion this year."

I get the feeling that the government and the media are using a different definition of the word 'surplus' than the one I use. To me, a surplus is only a surplus if you're not going deeper into debt. As in, I wouldn't say to my girlfriend, "I had a surplus of $20,000 this year, but I'm using $10,000 to pay down that $50,000 loan I took out."

The mini-budget itself doesn't spend much money (which is good - especially considering the uncertain debt situation!) but I'm not sure the biggest priorities in B.C. right now are corporations (especially with corporate profits as a % of GDP at record highs (see page 8) and seniors. I would've been more inclined to devote the money to child care and education, but that's just me, I guess.

Meanwhile the Globe's webpoll, which is usually relatively sensible in a world of dumb media poll questions with dumber possible answers (yes, I'm looking at you, Macleans) serves up this: "According to pollsters, the North American infidelity rate is roughly 25 per cent. Have you ever cheated on your significant other?"

What, they just felt left out because other people had done polls and they hadn't? Surely they could have left out the first sentence - what purpose does it serve except to bias the result in some impossible to determine manner?

...As you can see, it's clearly not a very good post. But at the same time, it seems unfair to call it bad; A post which aspires to so little can hardly be said to have failed. Maybe next week will be better.


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The title to this post is adapted from 'Till I am Myself Again', which is one of Blue Rodeo's best songs (which is saying something) and also happens to suit my mood this week.