Over Here, Clark.

As in most places pay phones are becoming less common in Saskatoon.  And especially rare is the good old phone booth.  But a few still exist, such as this one on 22nd Street and Avenue D North.



There's no door, presumably to reduce the chance of people loitering.  Loitering is the argument often given for getting rid of phone booths.  Not that there's much point these days.  As in most places you can't phone a phone booth here anymore, which is a much better way to prevent loitering.



This one is in very good shape, with no real signs of vandalism.  Perhaps this corner is too busy for the taste of wouldbe vandals.

SaskTel is a Crown Corporation owned by the Government of Saskatchewan.  It provides various telecommunication services, including local and cellular phones, Internet, and digital TV.

I'm sure many of you will get what the title of this post refers to.

Oops.

This sign currently visible on the billboard at 22nd Street and 3rd Avenue has a grammar error. An apostrophe followed by an s indicates possession, not plurality. Plurality is indicated by just adding s. Taxis is the correct plural of taxi, while taxi's means something that belongs to a taxi, such as in the sentence "The taxi's front window was cracked." If I were paying a bunch of money for a sign I would want whoever designed it to know their grammar.

A Winning Hand.

As someone who plays poker online I quite like this sign for Anderson's Transmission with its quad Aces theme. After all there are few better hands in many types of poker than quad Aces. Yellow on the other hand isn't a colour I associate with poker.

Decay.

An abandoned and boarded up house on 22nd Street that is currently being overrun by trees planted in front.



Several lots over this car sits abandoned in an empty lot. Presumably it was abandoned by the owners there, as the police would likely have removed it if it was a stolen vehicle.

Mr. Bush Visits Saskatoon.

This is the kind of post I'd like to do more of, one dealing with a current event the day it happens. However, I doubt the next one will be this ambitious.

Former US President George W. Bush came to Saskatoon today to speak before a paying audience at TCU Place, aka the Centennial Auditorium.





It will of course come as no surprise that there were both plenty of people who wanted to see Mr. Bush...



...and plenty who didn't. These were amongst the earliest arrivals, spouting the usual stuff about the September 11th attacks being an inside job, and also mentioning the Bilderberger Group.



This guy was probably the most odd of the protesters. He kept to himself, and kept telling people to read the Book of Revelation and that they were supporting Satan by attending Bush's talk. Not surprisingly at least a couple of times when I was in earshot people asked him to take off his mask. He refused.






As the crowd waiting to get in swelled, so did the number of protesters.





All this went on as traffic continued to pass on 22nd Street.



The protesters largely congregated on a block of Pacific Avenue set aside for them. This placed them across from TCU Place with 22nd Street in between.







These two women did protest on TCU property early on, but from what I could see were eventually asked by security to move.



The local media were of course out in force. Did I count as one of them for today? I'll leave that to the reader to decide.







External security was provided by both private security guards and members of the Saskatoon Police Service. I didn't see any of the members of the RCMP or US Secret Service involved in the operation.





The protesters were loud at times but otherwise didn't interfere with the proceedings, at least while I was there. Those waiting to get in largely ignored them.

Personnel Carrier.

An SUV used by the Canadian Forces recruiting office in Saskatoon, which is located on the corner of 22nd Street and 4th Avenue. This photo was taken on 22nd Street.