Looking for some Liberty

The trek through IKEA is rather stressful.  They've laid out the place like a course that they want you to follow.  Rather than go up and down rows based on my needs or desires, they would prefer that I follow their meandering course so that I pass every single thing they are selling.  Imagine if all stores and places were like that?

What if YouTube didn't allow me to search for videos that I wanted?  What if I had to do things there way instead of mine.  Okay, actually, they seem to be changing YouTube to force me to do thing that I don't want.  Maybe they took a page from Apple or Microsoft and decided that it's their way or the highway.

But I digress....as much as they will let me.

I just want some liberty.  We talk about freedom, but we really don't seem to have it.  Maybe Rousseau was right.  Stay inside the lines, have your quarter for your shopping car deposit, no substitutions with your combo meal, no you can't have those channels with that cable package.  I grant that none of these things is really that oppressive..... but they kind of are.

I don't think freedom is about doing whatever you want.  I do think freedom should not allow you to harm others, or even bother others.  If I believed that you should do whatever you want whenever you want without regard to anyone, then I wouldn't mind those annoying people on the bus whose crappy music bleeds out of their earphones.

No, I just want freedom from the people who could so easily give it to me.  I want to choose the channel I can watch.  If nobody wants a crappy channel, then it will go out of business and free up advertising dollars for someone else.  If I want to quickly blast through IKEA without checking out every piece of unpronounceable furniture, that should be my right.  If I want to have multiple names on my YouTube account, leave me alone.

Snowplow--More Priorities Out of Whack

Isn't it always the way.  You get all your winter crap on:  your boots, your gloves, your toque (winter hat, for all you non Canadians).  You get out there, work up a sweat (even worse sometimes, but I don't really want to joke a bout some poor old guy having a heart attack) and finally the driveway and sidewalk are clean.  Then, you hear that dreaded noise.

The snowplow.  Invaluable for making the roads clean, driveable and safe, and perhaps the most frustrating device ever created for the man or woman who has just finished plowing their driveway.  All that work gone for nought.

I have no idea  when the snow plow was invented.  I know they have been around since World War II at least.  I live in a country where they come in all shapes and sizes.  I've seen huge ones, and ones that fit onto an army jeep.  Someday, some half drunk backyard mechanical MacGyver wizard will probably rig one up to a bicycle. (I did a quick google search, and its already been done...I should have known)

Nevertheless, despite years of innovation, despite incredible engineering, the snow plow still manages to plow me into or out of my driveway.  Finish cleaning and it will come past my house and form a perfect barrier between me and the street.  Go out for a quick errand (maybe to the beer store) and come back to find that I have to shovel my way back onto my driveway (or try to ram myself through, and get stuck, and not get to drink the beer I just went out to get).

I have heard that there is an invention to prevent this, but I have never seen it.  If it exists, please tell me, or better yet tell the town council, how I can get this machine to plow my street.  We have superfast internet, but we I still face a mountain of snow  before I can go to work.  Once again, our priorities seem completely out of whack.