Selling Out

So it's been a while. Not much happening you ask? Well no, not really to be honest. But one significant piece of news, which I'm sure everyone knows by now anyway, is that I'm leaving Canada in May.

There are several reasons for this decision, including my Grandma's 80th birthday, my cousin is having her first baby and there are the possibilities of sharing a beer with Doctah J in Monaco and with MJ in London over the summer. Added to that, of course I miss my family and friends over there very much. Though it's not an easy decision to make, because of all the wonderful friends I have here in Canada and the good times we do have.

However, one big factor was a couple of weeks ago, a large marketing company in Halifax asked me to do an assignment for them as a test to see if I'd be a good addition to their staff. That went well, I had a productive meeting with the Vice President and I decided if they offered me a position I would take it. But then they dithered over the decision and after going two weeks without a yes or no I decided I didn't want it any more. What I realised was that at nearly 25 years of age and with 2 degrees in the bank, I finally should grow up a little bit and find a proper job, which goes against a lot of my principles of messing around in the restaurant game.

I love working at Dofsky's, with my mate Richie - trying to outdo each other with our Borat impressions and then going for some beers after work. I do enjoy that my day starts at 6pm and genuinely get a kick out of serving people, especially when they love the wine I recommend or the cocktail I've just made them. But it can't last forever. Dan and I had a pleasant evening at Bearly's last night, listening to a pretty cool blues jam but we were served by a waiter who was about 40. That was another message - grow up Matty!

So I'm gonna try and get a career of somesorts in Cardiff - I've always known I don't want to live in Halifax forever and then I can try and save some pennies to visit Australia and Fiji next year. After all, Richie will be in Perth then in his brother-in-law's restaurant, so I can sponge some accomodation and if the rat race is getting too intense, escape back to my roots there.

Scott Skins Cheese and Bacon please mate!

Themes

So last week I ranted on about the inaccurate estimates for Halifax to host the 2014 Commonwealth Games bid - $700 million in fact turned out to be $1.7 billion. Well a similar story has continued today involving London's costs of hosting the 2012 Olympics.

When London won the bid in 2005, they calculated it would cost £2.4 billion, which has escalated to £9.3 billion today, around 18 months later. Wow, quite a difference. And this has been announced in a week where another part of London, Wembley, has celebrated the contractors handing over the keys for the new stadium. Which is just about finished, Great but originally, Wembley stadium was supposed to cost £400 million and be ready for May 2005. Although the official line is that it eventually cost £757 million, compensations and overruns add on another £350 million. And it is two years late in its completion.

So who is making these calculations? I seriously want to find out who comes up with such figures and how as I really cannot understand why they are so inaccurate. It is very strange.

But not as strange as 4pm this afternoon. I flicked on CNN to see the headlines - something about some Govenor something or other was the lead story. So I flicked onto CBC in the hope they were showing the BBC World news. They weren't - it was the Canadian news and their lead story was about this Shiekh Mohammed guy admitting to several acts of terror over recent times (including 9/11) and that he beheaded an American journalist. Pretty serious stuff in my opinion - although what is true and what is not is unknown right now but I was curious as to why CNN hadn't led with this story. Perhaps because it has been flying round all day (I first read it this morning) and they were trying to cover the most recent news and that Canada really is a little slow and behind the rest of the world and had only just picked up on the Al-Qaeda guy?

The Doug Bodgers

So I mentioned I was playing Dodgeball with Cole and some of his Journalism cronies yesterday. It turns out we were competing in a twelve-team charity tournament and look what happened:

Embarrassing

So you heard that Halifax has pulled out of the Commonwealth Games bid? Pathetic and shameful is my reaction with no one doing themselves any credit whatsoever.

According to this timeline, Halifax was chosen as Canada's bidding city way back in December 2005. So that's about sixteen months of subsequent work and investment wasted. Sixteen months that Hamilton, Ottawa and York could have used to do a better job. I bet those cities and their residents are pissed at Halifax right now. And what about the other Commonwealth countries? As Halifax was on the exclusive final shortlist of three bidding cities from three bidding countries, it prevented another city from another country to get on that list. According to Wikipedia, my trusty source for most 'facts' countries including Singapore, New Zealand and Wales were considering a bid back in the day. So are these countries gonna be pissed at Halifax for taking a spot away from them and then passing their opportunity away? Maybe.

I tell you who else is pissed at Halifax - Halifax athletes. Now I know the young lady in this article quite well and know how badly local athletes wanted the games to come here so they could have access to better facilities and not have to relocate across Canada to improve, as so many have. If you think that's not the most elegant picture of Leanna, try this one instead.


Or this one, with her lover.


Now I'm not criticising Halifax for not winning the Commonwealth Games, but for making such a huge farce out of their bid. Seriously, who are these analysts who estimated the games would cost $700 million? The job centre is where I think they should be. Seriously, the costs of getting the bid have not risen from $700 million to $1.7 billion - the 'experts' just fucked up. Bigtime. Why not get me to estimate how much the games would have cost? It seems that I could have picked a number out of the sky and had as much chance of creating a realistic estimate as those who are paid to do that.

And what about Cossette Atlantic? This is the marketing company who was in charge of promoting the Halifax bid. Yeah, their reputation must be doing well this morning. Cossette are also the company I was supposed to be working for last September but couldn't find the cash and though I was incredibly excited in working for them and am not bitter in any way, if I worked there today, I wouldn't go round shouting that from the rooftops.

So what now? Well, several journalists have correctly pointed out both Nova Scotia and the HRM were willing to invest hundreds of millions of dollars towards Halifax - improving infrastructure, facilities, housing etc etc etc. So do it. And get a CFL franchise or something to build that stadium you were on about. It doesn't really matter that the Commonwealth Games aren't coming here, the city could still improve itself for the benefit of its residents and appease people like Leanna. Seriously, I'm willing to bet Nova Scotians aren't too happy with their Government right now for the embarrasment they've caused through their amateurishness (spot the hypocritical amateur journalist) so this cloud gives quite the opportunity for the city to redeem itself.

As for me, I'm going to expand my horizons further and continue to try new things in life - I'm playing dodgeball on Sunday with Cole, wicked!

Confused

So I did something on Friday I'd only done once before and that was two years ago. I caught a Halifax Regional Municipality bus. And then I caught another one to get home.

But Homer Simpson says the only people who use buses are students and lesbians. I know I'm not a student anymore so does that make me a lesbian?