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I am a luddite.  I never play videogames.  I never have,  but I won’t say “I never will”.

I am intrigued by the Wii system, especially since they are coming out with fitness programs-Pilates and Yoga. Sounds like a great way to save on gym fees.

 I am amazed by how huge the video game business has become…bigger than movies and books and music combined!

Grand Theft Auto 4  is expected to make a billion dollars around the world. 60% of that…or 600 million dollars…will come from North America.

If you ranked the game in terms of box office, that would be 17th, sandwiched between Jurassic Park and Raiders of the Lost Ark.

About 70 million copies of earlier versions of the game have been sold.  That’s close to the number of albums Whitney Houston has sold and better than the numbers racked up by U2, Celine Dion and Shania Twain!

Sometimes I feel like a mix tape in an MP3 world.

Mary Ellen Beninger

Here’s guessing that there will be more television coverage today of the Britney Spears-Kevin Federline custody hearing than the Democratic Presidential Primaries in North Carolina and Indiana.

My favourite campaign ad is the Star Wars spoof in favour of Barak Obama

Check it out

http://weblogs.chicagotribune.com/news/politics/blog/2008/05/star_wars_the_empire_srikes_ba.html

Burma- or Myanmar-is making headlines for a number of reasons. First, the humanitarian disaster in the wake of Saturday’s cyclone.  And a number of celebrities have also taken part in the “Free Burma” campaign.

My favourite is Jennifer Aniston’s funny take on this serious story.

Check it out.

http://www.eonline.com/uberblog/b134644_aniston_gofer_copes_with_star_demand.html

Mary Ellen Beninger

So the TTC strike is over.  Alot of politicians say “enough is enough” and want to declare the TTC to be an essential service.

That would mean the surprise weekend strike would be the TTC’s last.

 I can’t help wondering if the Premier’s musings last week about taking away their right to strike was the final straw for some union members. Maybe they decided this was their last chance to strike and they were going to take it…so it became a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I am in favour of declaring the TTC to be an essential service but I do wonder where this stops?

Is bus service less essential to people in Oakville or York region?

What about Go service? A strike at Go strands hundreds of thousands of commuters.  Should they be declared an essential service? Could you? Alot of the people who provide Go service work for CN Rail, a national company so I don’t know if stripping them of their right to strike would even be legal.

These are the kinds of questions politicians should be asking- and answering- now that the crisis has been averted and the busses and streetcars and subways are running again.

I’d also like to know how much this stunt cost city businesses.

The one day wildcat strike a couple of years ago cost an estimated ten million dollars. 

Just think about all the restaraunts and stores that didn’t see staff show up and all the would-be customers who stayed home rather than deal with chaotic traffic.

We were supposed to come into town for shopping and dinner Saturday but cancelled our plans because of the transit strike.

How many other people decided to stay home as well?

Just asking.

Mary Ellen Beninger

We have vacationned quite a bit in the Far East and one of the things I cherish is the customer service.  Clerks routinely give a little nod of the head when they hand you your change or your credit card and reciept.

In some countries, this is called a wai, and the lower the bow of the head, the more esteemed the customer. 

I despair of customer service here in Canada. It’s hard to find a clerk and when you do, they often aren’t very informed. They can’t tell you where to find something or when an out-of-stock item will be in.

I recently ran into a problem ordering wallpaper.  I gave the clerk the wall dimensions and she assured me one double roll would be more than enough. It turned out I needed twice that much and had to push them to get it in before my painter was done.

If you don’t know, don’t pretend you do.  Refer the customer to someone who does know.  I know it’s a problem getting good help but bad service will drive away customers. I know I won’t go back to that store again.

On the other hand, good service means loyal customers. I have a great guy who does windows, another man who I call every year to deep clean my BBQ and a company that responds promptly when we have trouble with our electronics.

I am also very lucky when it comes to my vet, my family doctor and my dentist.

We recently had to buy a mattress and box spring. Talk about an expensive grudge purchase.  The first mattress turned out to be defective and they sent out a service guy right away.  After he confirmed the problem, I called customer service back and they gave me the name of the replacement model we could get at no charge.

We didn’t like the new model and asked if we could replace the replacement. After the service rep checked with her boss, the answer was “yes”.  I am very impressed with Sleep Country and when I need another mattress in a decade or so, I know where I’ll go.

Mary Ellen Beninger 

Just thought I’d share the latest videos of the puppies.  I like the white one giving mom (Oasis) kisses.

CLICK HERE 

My husband is still holding out for a girl dog.

I’d take a stuffed dog at this point.

Mary Ellen Beninger

My life is in an uproar. Not only am I dog-less for the moment but we are having our home painted. It looks like my house threw up. There is stuff everywhere. And just when I thought it couldn’t get worse, the painter moved into the bedroom so all the closets had to be emptied.

The chaos is getting to me.

That could explain why I am spending more time than usual watching CNN and Fox and MSNBC and obsessing about the U.S Presidential race.

I hope next week’s Pennslyvania primary settles things, because the Democrats are doing themselves no favours with their sniping.  I can’t understand why Hillary Clinton and Barak Obama spend more time attacking one another than attacking Republican nominee John McCain.

Nor can I understand why the networks spent more time on the silly “I am less elite than him” debate than the fact neither democratic contender asked pointed questions of General Patraeus when he was before the Senate.  The next American president is going to have to deal with Iraq from day one.

We know that McCain is hoping for a miracle-some sort of ill-defined victory.  But other than differing on the timetable for withdrawing troops, Clinton and Obama haven’t said much about their long term strategy for Iraq.  Do they pull out troops even if the country is about to implode?

Do they leave troops behind to prevent Iran from taking advantage of the political vaccuum created by a weak Iraqi government?

Do they wash their hands and let America retreat to its more traditional isolationist stance?

Those are the kinds of questions someone who wants to be Commander-in-Chief should be ready to answer, not who is more elitist; a former First Lady who made 200 million dollars last year, or a best friend of Oprah Winfrey who made 20 million on his best selling book.

A pox on both their houses.

The lone person who impresses me at this moment is Michelle Obama.  She’s smart. A mom. An MBA. Black and female. The perfect presidential candidate-especially since she doesn’t want the Sisyphean job in the first place.

Mary Ellen Beninger

I thought it was time to update you on our hunt for a new puppy.

Sponge died on the giant bed on Valentine’s Day, so we have been without a dog for 2 whole months.

It’s killing us.  We actually have to talk to one another.  It used to be terrific. I would go home, rant about my day or traffic to the dog and by the time my husband showed up, I was calm and she was full of biscuits.

It was a win-win situation.

We thought we had the perfect puppy- a white female English Bull Terrier from a great breeder in Kentucky.  The one we loved was born deaf and was placed with a home where they can deal with the required extra training and patience.

So we waited for his next dog to whelp and Oasis gave birth over the weekend to five puppies, all apparently healthy.

The problem is they are all boys!

( Here’s the video link of the new puppies…click here)

So now we have to decide if we get a male dog or wait for the next litter in another month and hope she has a white female. I don’t know if I can go that long without a dog.

When our first English Bull Terrier Willy Bumper died, we looked in the want ads 10 days later and found a white female for sale in Pickering. That was Sponge and she was a perfect fit for our family.

This has been the longest we’ve ever been without a dog so we may re-think our preference for a female.  The breeder assures us when it comes to English Bull Terriers the females are the alpha dogs and much more dominant than the males, providing you get the boys fixed right away.

I am torn between wanting a dog-any dog- or wanting the perfect dog.  The breeder takes the attitude that you may not get what you want in life, but somehow you get what you need.

A very unstressful philosphy and one we may adopt.

Any advice? A girl or a boy? Pros and cons, please and thanks.

Mary Ellen Beninger

The Olympic torch relay is set for San Francisco this afternoon and tens of thousands of protestors will be on hand.

They will be demonstrating-mostly-against China’s record on human rights.  The Chinese government isn’t allowing coverage of the protests to reach a domestic audience. Not only do they control access to the Internet, they also have been censoring CNN broadcasts.

Let’s be clear.

China won the rights to host the 2008 Summer Games because they were willing to spend billions on new facilities and to shut down factories to ensure Beijing air is safe for the athletes to breathe.

This was never about sports or politics.  It’s about money and the investment the Chinese government is willing to make to proclaim their prescence as a global super power.

But the Chinese are finding out the global spotlight isn’t always a good thing.  It can shine on their economic power and national pride as well as on their dismal environmental and human rights record.

Despite protests along the Olympic torch route, there is no way China will begin talks with the Dalai Lama about a free Tibet, or stop selling weapons to the Sudanese government.

We can only hope this potential loss of face doesn’t make the Chinese government more xenophobic and retreat back into their borders.  The best thing for the world and the Chinese people is more transparency, more trade, more communication.

Here’s hoping that message-at least-gets through

Mary Ellen Beninger

What is going on?

No sooner had we lost the Sponge after 13 terrific years, than we heard about poor Michelle, whose 6 month old St. Bernard puppy had to be put down because of heart problems.

And another friend’s 3 year old Yorkie broke his neck during a freak accident with a dog walker.

It’s been 6 weeks since I found Sponge dead on the giant bed-a heart attack- but I still break down in tears at odd times.

This recent trip was the first time in decades we returned home without being able to look forward to seeing the furry member of our family.

Sponge was always great at the dog sitter’s but so happy to come home she would be speechless. She literally could barely bark when we would pick her up for the ride home.

After one trip she was so thrilled to be back home she made a flying leap from the top of the stairs to the middle of the bed….and lay there in doggy heaven.  It was an impressive feat, considering English Bull Terriers aren’t most athletic of breeds.

We had hoped to pick up our new puppy from a Kentucky breeder sometime this month, but we will have to wait a while longer.  The first puppy we had picked out turned out to be deaf.

That can be a genetic complication in white English Bull Terriers. She was terrific , but has been placed with a family better suited to dealing with her special needs. 

I give the breeder high marks for doing all the testing before placilng his puppies. That’s why you deal with reputable breeders and not puppy mills. 

The next litter is due mid-month. If Oasis gives birth to a white female, we will make plans to drive south in June to pick her up and add her to our pack.

It’s going to be a long, quiet and rather sad 8 weeks… but the summer should be fun.

Mary Ellen Beninger

What day is it?
What country am I in?

I’m still messed up after flying 30 hours back from the Far East.

We spent almost 2 weeks in Singapore, Vietnam and an Indonesian beach resort called Bintan.

Vietnam was the highlight of the trip. We visited Ho Chi Minh City-or Saigon.

It is flourishing, with construction cranes everywhere, crazy traffic and terrific restaraunts and shopping.

Vietnam reminds me of Hong Kong, only without the pollution and high rises.  It’s on the up, and while a communist state, it has embraced capitalism with both arms. Everybody is out to make a buck and get ahead.

My favourite thing was how they’ve turned the Vietnam War-or as they call it the American War- into a tourist attraction.

There is the War Remnants museum with captured U.S tanks and pictures of victims of Agent Orange.

You can buy U.S. military dog tags at the market.

And outside of town, you can check out the tunnel system the Viet Cong used to thwart the American invaders.  Their ingenuity was amazing, and given what they were willing to do, they deserved to win the war.

I was left wondering, as I looked at how some fighters lived underground for years and had to scramble thru tiny, dark tunnels, refashionning abandonned U.S Jeep tires into shoes and unexploded bombs into landmines, if I would be able to make those same sacrifices for my country.

It’s sobering to realilze alot of the VietCong fighters were female.

I know I would make a lousy warrier.

The highlight of the trip to the tunnels was a chance to fire war-vintage weapons. I tried the AK 47.

My ears are still ringing and my shoulder still hurts from the recoil.

Judging from what I saw in Vietnam, I can only hope the pen is mightier than the sword…or the AK47.

Mary Ellen Beninger