The Besz Dispenser - This Week's Rant

For the week of March 10rd, 2000

Fill this

Hate to be the bearer of bad news to everyone here, but it's looking like the gas prices are not going down any time soon. Quite the contrary in fact, they are actually going to go up. Way up. And guess what? It's apparently not going to stop being like this until about next year. Yippie Skippy.

Now this is only a prediction done by the US Energy Department. They are saying that prices will jump to about 13% by the summer, which means that prices will go up to about 83c a litre. Sounds great, doesn't it? Here's an even better tidbit: even if the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries increases production at their March 27 meeting, it still won't help us at all.

Looks like I'll be getting lots of exercise in the next little bit, maybe eating more fruits and vegetables, taking the bus more. Oh wait, they are also going to be affected. Truckers will charge more for shipping the goods, so prices at your grocery store, retailers, and anywhere else that has to ship via truck will go up as well according to how far they have to be transported. And if you want to take the bus, fine, but if they aren't running with natural gas, then you could be paying more for your rides around town too. Feeling better now?

I'm not. I commute everyday, as do hundreds of thousands of people, and I'm feeling the pinch badly, just like they are. Pretty soon, it'll be hard to pay my gas bill to get to work to pay my gas bill. Or, I'll have to start trying to cut costs in other ways, like buying bulk Spam tins, and a filter inside my faucet so I can drink water from the tap. Walk to work, maybe, even though it may take a bit of time (I work in Guelph). Course, maybe that day hike wouldn't be so bad? Or perhaps make a bunk for myself in the stock room at my work. All I have to do is bring extra clothes, watch them in the sink.

Or not. I'm not that anal. I'd rather start selling my shit then doing that. But maybe this is a good time to start trying to find other means of transportation. Like more encompassing bus and train systems. They'd cost more at first, but if more people started using them, their prices would actually start to decline, only jumping to support the increase in users by adding trains and buses into the system. Find more efficient energy sources like natural gas, electricity, and the like. Hell, I think it'd be pretty cool to see a nuclear powered GO train, running from Thunder Bay to Toronto at speeds of 180 kph, wouldn't you?

All I'm saying is that we better find something else pretty soon, because cars in any case should go the way of the dodo, and we could make this world a better place in the process. Or I could just be getting high off the gas fumes here.

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