I wrote him a song:Leftover monster, how are you doing?- RG>
I've been waiting to see you all day.
Leftover monster, what is brewin'?
I bet it's the same as yesterday.
This one, I suspect, has legs.
This morning, I had the privilege of a sneak peak at furniture retailer Philip Van Leeuwen’s recently renovated showroom. Set to open tomorrow again after an eight week break, me and a few fellow bloggers, designers and media types got a glimpse of what you will see next time you’re back in store…
First, the floors. Phew. Shiny, white, marble floors. Whoa!
Then, the layout. Opened way up on the lower floor, the flow is just plain better for those who need to circulate (ie: staff), and enhances the view through the space.
Finally of course, the furniture. In addition to the cutting edge in contemporary design, many of the most recognizable modern classics (real and/or reproduction) including my favourite the Henry Miller chair, the neat Nelson bench, and the timeless Saarinen tulip table were on display, for customers who need to touch, see and try before they buy. Oh, and it looks like there may be a few things on sale…
Thanks to @JenniferCross of Phillip Van Leeuwen for her kind invitation, to Samantha @starfishevents for taking care of the details, and to Shakira @LittleCakes bakery for the sublime carrot cupcake with cream cheese icing!
Afghanistan is now the second most corrupt nation on earth, just after Somalia, according to Transparency International, a Berlin-based advocacy group.
---In recent months Karzai has particularly infuriated Western allies by removing most foreign observers from the UN-backed election watchdog group; and by dropping several cabinet ministers, respected for their competence, in favour of dubious ones chosen from among supporters of his key warlords, regional leaders such as Ismail Khan, Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum, Hahi Mohammad Muhaqquq, and Gul Agha Serzai.
For good measure, Karzai has also brought forward curbs on media freedom and reneged on promises to Washington to bring in urgent new anti-corruption laws.
For the coalition, the temptation to play deus ex machina grows ever-stronger, reminding us of the dreary succession of puppets desperately installed and de-installed by the US in South Vietnam:
So far, there are 8 candidates for Mayor and 36 candidates for the 23 Councillor positions. Of the 44 declared candidates, 13 have websites that you can visit. I’m not sure the reasoning for launching a campaign but not having a website with your basic information available (incumbents excluded – public information about them is readily available.). From first impressions, what’s the benefit in getting your name out there but with no info about yourself or campaign platform. It seems to suggest that you plan on running but you don’t have a plan in place yet. Mind you, some candidates have homepages but no information. Not sure that that is any better. I could be wrong but it doesn’t make me feel good about these candidates.
Anyway, here is the list of candidates with campaign websites:
MAYOR
Jane Scharf http://janescharf.com
Jim Watson http://jimwatson.ca
Councillors
Ike Awgu Bay Ward (Ward 7) http://welikeike.ca
Mark Taylor Bay Ward (Ward 7) http://gotaylor.ca
Keith Egli Knoxdale-Merivale (Ward 9) http://keithegli.com
James O’Grady Knoxdale-Merivale (Ward 9) http://jamesogrady.ca
Tim Tierney Beacon Hill-Cyrville (Ward 11) http://timtierney.ca
Katherine Hobbs Kitchissippi (Ward 15) http://katherinehobbs.ca
Michael Kostiuk River Ward (Ward 16) http://michaelkostiuk.com
Stephen Blais nbsp; Cumberland (Ward 19) http://stephenblais.com
Bruce Chrustie Rideau-Goulbourn (Ward 21) http://rideau-goulbourn.ca
Allan Hubley Kanata South (Ward 23) http://allanhubley.ca
Perry Simpson Kanata South (Ward 23) http://perrysimpson.ca
The community of Tofino, British Columbia is considering a ban on fast-food franchises and chain restaurants including Tim Hortons, Starbucks and the usual cast of characters.
In 2008 Los Angeles, California banned new fast food franchises from being built in South LA. This is a seriously poverty-stricken area of the city and they figured taking away the McDonald’s would help improve the health of the citizens.
A lot of school boards have banned all forms of junk food from being sold on school property. Others have lobbied to have fast-food restaurants banned from the vicinity of schools or even to have fast-food advertisements banned from school areas and from television during children’s programs.
Meanwhile, the fast-food industry, or QSRs (Quick Service Restaurants) as they’re called within the industry, is growing by leaps and bounds.
McDonald’s is located in 126 countries on 6 continents and operates over 31,000 restaurants worldwide. The McDonald’s that opened in Moscow in 1990 is the busiest in the world.
You can get a Big Mac almost anywhere these days. They’re called Maharaja Mac in India; Croque McDo in France, and McFiesta in Guatemala.
The largest McDonald’s in the world is in Beijing.
Burger King has more than 11,100 restaurants in more than 65 countries. KFC is located in 25 countries. Subway has almost 40,000 restaurants in 90 countries. Pizza Hut is in 97 countries, with 100 locations in China. Even Taco Bell has 278 restaurants in 12 countries other than the US.
Fast food has been around since Ancient Rome. A lot of people didn’t have facilities for cooking back then, so on almost every street corner were stands that sold bread soaked in wine.
They’ve been flogging street food like this all over the world for ages – from East Indian noodle shops to Middle Eastern falafel joints to West African kebob carts.
Because most QSR food is meat-centered, (also fat and salt-centered) I don’t often eat it. I will occasionally have a veggie burger at Harvey’s – but never their horrible salt-saturated “crispy” fries. Harvey’s really has the only palatable fast food veggie burger. They used to have good fries, too, but then they switched to these nasty fries instead.
There are other fast-food veggie burgers, but they’re all pretty bad. I have no idea what that thing is they sell at A&W, for instance. It’s a hard dry disc with slippery brown chunks in it, drowned in slimy white stuff and held together by a small stale bun. They call it a Swiss Veggie Deluxe for some reason.
So, If I want to grab some quick lunch on a Saturday it might be a Harvey’s burger or some pad thai from Thai Express. But really, that’s about it.
I can’t even remember the last time I set foot in a Wendy’s or a Burger King and I certainly haven’t been in a KFC since long before they changed their name to initials. I think I’ve been to Starbucks once in my life.
But I know plenty of people whose day isn’t complete without a coffee from Starbucks or Tim Hortons or who swear by the McDonald’s McBreakfast McSandwich or whatever it’s called or who have pizza night from Domino’s every Friday.
Is there any QSR you visit on a regular basis? Are there any you would miss if they decided to ban them all? Would you like to see a revival of the wine-soaked bread stand? I think I could get hooked on that one.
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PS: I’m not taking a laptop, but will do my best to find some sort of internets over the next week to perhaps combine a couple of rest stops with some blog updates. But if that doesn’t pan out, I will be back the following week with stories of my travels. Maybe even with some photos if all goes well. Meanwhile, please talk amongst yourselves.
"The Bloc Québécois decided yesterday to pull out of the Canadian Parliamentary Coalition to Combat Antisemitism because it found it 'biased' in favour of Israel and against the Palestinians."
Sometimes, I’m convinced the gods conspire to create smiles.
Just when I find myself in the mood for a new film that might fit one of my aforementioned favourite genres, along comes Greenberg opening in select cities this upcoming March 26th.
And – as if there wasn’t enough good to go around, out of the blue pops a friendly message in my inbox from the fine folks at Alliance Films! They want this girlaboutOtown to help giveaway free passes to see this quirky fun film that is sure to generate at least a little bit of semi-serious reflection among those of us approaching a midlife crossroad of some kind or another. Here is a synopsis:
“Roger Greenberg [Ben Stiller], single, fortyish and at a crossroads in
his life, finds himself in Los Angeles, house-sitting for six weeks for his more successful/married-with-children brother. In search of a place to restart his life, Greenberg tries to reconnect with old friends including his former bandmate Ivan [Rhys Ifans]. But old friends aren’t necessarily still best friends, and Greenberg soon finds himself spending more and more time with his brother’s personal assistant Florence [Greta Gerwig], an aspiring singer and also something of a lost soul. Despite his best attempts not to be drawn in, Greenberg and Florence manage to forge a connection, and Greenberg realizes he may at last have found a reason to be happy.”
So, I figure – why mess with the gods, especially when it comes to the magic of movies? Instead, why not help spread a few smiles…
To win one of 4 passes for two to see a special advanced screening of Greenberg, on Wednesday, March 24, 2010 at the Empire 7 Cinemas, just leave me a comment letting me know two things that are on your mind.
The giveaway ends next Thursday, March 18 at midnight and I will randomly select the winners Friday.
Last night GC and I went to Loblaws and gathered a bunch of ingredients for a Cob Salad. Then we unshopped, putting all those ingredients back where we found them, and drove over to Farm Boy instead, because we love Farm Boy. (Sometimes when we can’t think of anything to do, one of us will suggest that we go hang out at Farm Boy, and we both brighten up. It’s the friendliest grocery store in town.)
But actually, this post isn’t so much about Farm Boy as it is about the conversation we had on the way home from Farm Boy.
We were talking about the health care system and how the aging population might bring it to its knees if we don’t fix it first (obviously not “we” as in GC and me, but “we” as in Canada).
As we all know, people tend to use substantially more health care resources towards the end of their lives, when they’re old and/or sick. If a huge chunk of the population gets old at the same time, it’s going to overburden the health care system.
The topic wandered around to whether one political party would be more inclined to fix it than another. I said I didn’t think so, because it’s largely a function of demographics, and none of the political parties can do anything about the fact that the boomers are getting old.
But then it hit me that maybe the Conservatives are the least likely to fix it, because they’re working against the shifting demographic reality instead of with it.
The reality is that with an aging population, you have increased expenses on the health care front. But the same demographic reality also means a falling crime rate, since crime is most prevalent among young men.
A smart government would use the savings from the falling crime rate to help offset the increasing health care costs.
The Conservatives are doing the opposite: Despite falling crime rates, they’re pushing through their so-called Law and Order agenda, which will force us to spend significantly more money on cops, courts and corrections. Mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenses – just one element of the Law and Order agenda – will necessitate the expansion of our prison system to accommodate the sudden influx of new prisoners, most of whom have committed victimless crimes.
Instead of reaping some economic benefit from one end of the demographic reality to apply to the other end, we’re going to be hemorrhaging money from both ends as a consequence of Conservative ideology.
Related posts:
Make sure to keep your tires inflated, otherwise you'll get a "pinch flat," caused by your rim pinching holes into your tire when you hit a bump or sidewalk. This leaves your innertube with a telltale pair of holes, called a "snake bite."
"This case shatters any lingering thought that we can spot a terrorist based on appearance."
Let’s examine a hypothetical situation, shall we? Let’s suppose you are a blogger and you have a pleasant, widely read blog about your life – your family, things you do, places you go, local interest stuff.
Okay? Now let’s suppose that one day someone decides to write an article about bloggers and your blog is one of the several discussed in this article. You only find out about this article by accident as it’s not in a widely-read publication. You read the article and find the author has made some devastatingly unflattering assumptions about you and your family based on what he has read in your blog.
Questions to consider:
Some of you may recognize that this hypothetical situation is based on something that actually happened recently and will notice that I deliberately changed some of the circumstances and have not named the blog or the author/article in question. I didn’t want to make this about that situation specifically, but rather about situations like this, generally.
Over time, blogger become accustomed to their small (or large) circle of commenters who we think of as our “readers”. They are nice, normal, intelligent people (for the most part) and make us feel comfortable and make us feel like we’re part of a safe, supportive community.
But that’s not reality. The reality is that many, many more people read your blog than actually comment on it. You’ll know this, of course, if you have a stats counter.
You have no idea who these people are, why they’re reading your blog or how they even found your blog. You may never know what they’re doing with the information, ideas, photos or words they find on your blog. Maybe they’re doing something good with it. Maybe they’re doing nothing at all with it. Maybe they’re doing something not good with it.
Do you think about all these lurkers, these silent strangers, who every day become privy to the bits and pieces of your life?
Councillor Alex Cullen, chair of city council’s transit committee, said by phone Monday that the fee hike moves the transit system toward a city council goal of having it funding half by property taxes, half by rider fares.Not to say that the OC Transpo fare hike isn't significant for users of our local service, it's nothing like the 25 per cent fare increase for NJ Transit; a hike that's coupled with service cuts, to boot. Executives with NJ Transit said the hikes and cuts were necessary due to the "hard economic times" lowering state and federal transit subsidies.
He said the taxpayers’ share is necessary because even people who don’t use public transit benefit from it, citing less road congestion and pollution as examples. Cullen also said investing in transit is much less expensive than the alternative — more roads and road maintenance for more cars.
The 25-percent proposed increase would be the highest in the 30-year history of NJ Transit, the nation’s third largest public transit system. Other increases over the years, including the last one in 2007, have been in the 10 percent range.So... not many are happy about the 7.5 per cent OC Transpo fare hike, but at least we can be happy we're not dealing with the 25 per cent fare hike down in New Jersey.
"We recognize that any increase is a burden for our customers, particularly during a recession," [NJ Transit executive director Jim] Weinstein said. "However, we have worked to keep local bus fares below the regional average and preserved some important discounts for seniors and people with disabilities, as well as for students and others who are among the most transit dependent."
He said that with a reduced state subsidy of $33 million, the loss of $150 million in one-time federal stimulus money, a 4-percent decrease in ridership due to the economic downturn and contract obligations, there was no choice but to raise fares.
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