trevoro.ca | blogElegant Solutions to Complex Problems

An auction closed a few days ago on Ebay for a “Haunted Possessed Disney Stitch Teddy Bear.”
The seller actually wrote up a pretty interesting story about the whole thing. Apparently his efforts to ditch the haunted bear were in vain.

“I had taken the teddy out to the landfill site just outside of the city limits, and buried it under any other debris I could find close by. It had been close to 3 weeks since we had seen the thing, and we were starting to think that the nightmare was over.

In the early evening on a Thursday, I let our dog outside, just as we normally do all the time. After he had been outside for about 10 minutes, I thought maybe he had found some food, or something else to eat, as he usually does. I looked outside, and saw him laying in the snow, and he wasn’t moving. I ran outside, and grabbed him, and noticed the Stitch toy laying beside him. Our dog was breathing, but unconscious. I rushed him inside, and called the vet. We were able to take him to the emergency clinic, and after examining him, we were told that they could notice nothing actually wrong with him. It appeared that he had just passed out, but his blood pressure was extremely high, and he was still having problems breathing. They kept him overnight for observation, which was good, because I wanted him kept as safe as possible.

Freaky…
Here‘s a link.

Last weeks rise in oil prices prompted me to do an obsene amount of reading on the subject of peak oil. It was a subject that I’d already been familiar with, after seeing the (amazing) documentary entitled “End of Suburbia“. The recent events surrounding the oil price hikes have prompted some more mainstream media sources to cover the subject as well. Most notably, the New York Times (free registration required, or click here), which is running a story regarding energy depletion, with a focus on oil itself. Rolling stone is also running this story, by James Howard Kunstler, who is featured in End of Suburbia.

I haven’t been able to stop reading about our impending doom however perverse and macabre that may seem, I feel the need to inform myself as much as possible on the subject. A great deal of my time has been spent attempting to verify facts and figures, compare data, and determine whether or not sources are credible. After spending about a solid, hardcore few days doing some research, the issue of peak oil seems like an inevitability. The only varying factor appears to be when oil will reach its production peak. Many industry analysts say the next couple of years, some say its already happened, and optmistic figures suggest 20 years.

Regardless of time frame, we should probably have more of an open-discussion regarding this issue. The consequences could be potentialy catastrophic (Read Jared Diamonds ‘Collapse’ to see what happens to resource depleted closed systems). We should be taking a pro-active approach to removing our dependency on oil.

I’ve just thrown up a screenshot of my uber-l337 desktop. :p
Take a look here.