Oh, I Nearly Forgot

The other day I saw X3: Everyone Gets Killed, or whatever it's actually called.

Long story short: visually amazing (as usual), but probably a little far from canon for serious drooling fanbois. I suppose the movies have their own continuity now that we might as well just lapse into. In the course of X3 we learn several (semi-)important things (my standard go-elsewhere spoiler warning applies):

1) Bolivar Trask is not, in fact, a cranky Hispanic anthropologist but actually a husky black guy who works for the Department of Mutant Affairs. Oh, also he didn't invent an army of invincible mutant-killing robots, he just has the mutant ability to really, really not like mutants.

2) The Juggernaut is Australian. Apparently even the Pacific Ocean couldn't stop him.

3) Bobby Drake is a huge asshole, and Piotr Rasputin doesn't talk much.

4) Jean Grey didn't die at the end of X2; a submerged personality that actually controls her powers (and which calls itself "Phoenix") preserved her in a cocoon of telekinetic force under the lake. This Phoenix personality is driven entirely by passion, and is incredibly dangerous. But then, we knew that.

5) Cameron Bright is totally going to get typecast as "little boy whose DNA is the answer to the unscrupulous government's increasingly difficult metahuman problem."

6) Sir Ian McKellen still gets all the best lines.

7) Famke Janssen: Forty and fabulous. Ahem.

In other news, I really like Wikipedia. You could probably tell.

Your Local Overlords At Work

Today I got a property tax bill in the mail. This is not the bill for my apartment, which is sensible. This is the bill for my parking stall, which, being on a separate title instrument, gets its own bill.

The bill is for $38.42.

Payable, through the city's TIPP program, in twelve monthly installments.

This does nothing whatever to dissuade me from my established theory that everyone, everywhere, is stark raving mad.

Told Ya So

CHMC's take on the Calgary market can be found here. This isn't me talking, it's Her Majesty's Government. You know, those guys in Ottawa who know everything. You might want to pay special attention to "Figure 3" which gives an inkling as to why this is all happening.

Looks to me like in the short run (by which I mean the next 2-4 years) the only thing that'll bring Calgary housing prices down is if those Mr. Fusion things start getting really popular.