Cheers & Jeers
JEERS:
Spring in absentia disorder (SAD). Do readers have any idea how tired journalists get of having to gush over the first spindly crocus or the first rusty shopping cart to emerge from a dirty snowbank as “signs of spring,” more than a month after spring has actually sprung — all in a bid to boost public morale? The last episode of “Rick Mercer Report” had a bit about a couple feeling buoyed by a weather forecast of plus one after months of sub-zero temperatures, only to have their spirits sink when the forecast changed from plus one to minus one. We know the feeling. The good news: Wednesday’s forecast calls for sun and a high of 13.
CHEERS:
to weather wags. Yes, we whine and complain about the weather. (See Jeer, above). But there’s not a thing in the world we can do about it besides make the best of it (apart from curbing greenhouse gas emissions). Thankfully, some people go further and try to find the humour cloud in the fog lining. @bobhallett tweeted on Friday, “This is one of those great cold and wet days in St. John’s, such that if you emerged from a coma, you’d have no idea what month it is.”
JEERS:
to meter-maiming. So, St. John’s has had the heads lopped off so many of its parking meters that it has given up on some of them, leaving the ones marking 136 parking spots on Harbour Drive out of order until a new cashless system is introduced in June. Doesn’t that feel a bit like giving up? The city has totted up $1.5 million in lost revenue, repairs and replacements since 2015. Couldn’t the city install a few security cameras in places to try to catch the culprits in the act? Surely it wouldn’t cost any more than the price paid for doing nothing. Other cities have meters that are able to live out their natural lives undisturbed. Here? Not so much. So jeers, too, to people who’ve never seen a meter they didn’t want to decapitate.
CHEERS:
to Macgyver medicine. P.E.I. veterinarian Dr. Claudia Lister recently successfully amputated the paw of a 50gram dwarf hamster named Mr. Nibbles after the creature injured the appendage in his hamster wheel. Lister had to jury-rig tiny operating tools and research the right dose of anesthesia for what was her smallest patient of all time. Mr. Nibbles is doing fine and is said to be in talks with screenwriters about a biopic based on his ordeal.