Monday, June 2, 2008
Last Friday I went to the neighbourhood pub for a well earned drink and a bite to eat to cap off the work week. The entire time I was there, two kids, about five and eight years old, were running around playing, screaming and crying. The older one, a girl, took pleasure in kicking her younger brother’s ass playing video games and loudly taunting him about it. This went on for TWO hours… the entire time I was there.
No one wants to watch or listen to other people’s kids misbehaving. I NEVER would have done anything like that as a kid. My parents had no tolerance for that shit. If my sister or I acted up as those little rotters did last night (we wouldn’t have), we would have been out of there in about three seconds flat. Not only would we get to go home hungry but we would have also been grounded for two weeks. In my day grounded meant whatever enjoyable activity I would have done had I not been grounded would be taken away. TV? Video games? Not a chance. Since eating out was considered a treat, we probably wouldn’t have seen another restaurant for six months after an episode like that.
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2 Comments | 
rants | Tagged: alcohol, bars, blame canada, children, kids, parenting, parenting class, parenting licence, pubs | 
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Posted by William
Sunday, May 4, 2008
The public transit system in Toronto gets me around most places. Inevitably, this means I’ll be exposed to the advertisements posted throughout it. Posters adorn bus shelters, subway platforms and the interior of the vehicles. Ad screens are popping up throughout subway stations. Sometimes the vehicles themselves, too are plastered with giant ads.
Sex is pervasive in our culture and media; it is used to sell pretty much everything. Except for sex, it seems. I think this calls for a great big HUH?
Case in point: Alesse is a popular contraceptive pill, AKA birth control, for women. This advertisement has been annoying me for some time for the simple reason that this it has absolutely nothing to do with sex. Go ahead… read it.
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1 Comment | sex, thoughts | Tagged: ad, advertisement, advertising, Alesse, BCP, birth control, contraception, contraceptive, marketing, media, sex, the pill | Permalink
Posted by William
Saturday, May 3, 2008
I haven’t posted anything in a little while, so I figured I had to make it up with something REALLY BIG…
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Leave a Comment » | Uncategorized | Tagged: Blizzard, chocolate, Frosty, Frosty Float, ice cream, McFlurry, Twisted Frosty, vanilla, Wendy's | Permalink
Posted by William
Sunday, April 13, 2008
What’s the deal with people on public transit who crowd around the entrances of the vehicle? Instead of moving further inside, they clump and prevent people from getting past. It particularly bothers me when this occurs on the newer model “low rider” (aka low floor) buses. Due to the internal configuration, a newer low floor bus has about 1/3 less capacity than an older model. These new buses lend themselves to the clumping, as no one seems particularly interested in climbing the two small steps required to access the seating at the back of the bus.
Come on people! Is it really that hard to get up there? I’ve been particularly annoyed with these lazy bones riders through the winter. We’ve had some bitter cold weather, and the bus driver will leave people standing outside rather than make any attempt to corral them to the back by shouting.
To make matters worse, the automated stop announcement system has also provisioned drivers with a button to push which plays a recorded announcement asking riders to ‘please move back’. Unfortunately there are some problems with this.
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7 Comments | etiquette, public transit | Tagged: bus, etiquette, laziness, lazy people, low floor, low rider, public transit, toronto transit commission, transit, ttc | Permalink
Posted by William
Monday, March 31, 2008
I was reading the Metro newspaper on the way to work this morning; I’m always interested in municipal affairs, so the articled headlined “More money for municipalities” caught my eye. More on that in a bit.
If you’re not familiar with the municipal structure of the Greater Toronto Area, here’s the Coles Notes version. From 1954 to 1997, “Toronto” was a group of six municipalities that belonged to the higher level Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto; the member municipalities were:
- City of Toronto
- City of North York
- City of York
- City of Etobicoke
- City of Scarborough
- Borough of East York
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Leave a Comment » | rants, Toronto | Tagged: amalgamation, conservative, megacity, Metro, Metropolitan Toronto, Mike Harris, tax, taxes, Toronto, Toronto Star | Permalink
Posted by William
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Ah, the epic battle. Actually it’s not much of a battle. Cplus sucks, and here’s why.
It’s got Benzene! …Or at least it did. Benzene is a carcinogenic chemical that can be formed by the breakdown of two other chemicals sometimes found together in pop: benzoate salts and ascorbic acid. Luckily someone at Health Canada’s got our back.
According to the packaging, Cplus contains 5% real Sunkist fruit juice, aka orange juice. OJ is a well known source of vitamin C. So why is it that the Nutrition Facts reveal that Cplus contains 0% of the recommended daily intake of vitamin C? Which part of the orange juice did they include? Obviously not the nutritious part…
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1 Comment | rants | Tagged: ascorbic acid, benzene, cplus, Crush, Orange Crush, orange pop, orange soda, pop, R.E.M., soda, vitamin C | Permalink
Posted by William
Saturday, March 22, 2008
Apparently a law was passed in California 30 years ago making it a criminal offence for a tree to block solar panels.
Let that thought percolate in your brain for a second…
Why would someone pass such a law? Trees clean the air we breathe, and provide habitat for birds and animals. Solar power is a clean, renewable source of energy. These are both good things, so why would solar panels be considered more important? So important, that blocking one with a tree in California could earn you a fine and a criminal record.
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1 Comment | rants | Tagged: clean air, environment, law, laws, legislation, politics, renewable energy, ricockulous, solar, solar panel, solar panels, tree, trees | Permalink
Posted by William
Monday, March 17, 2008
We’re coming up on Spring, how are your resolutions coming along? I hope you haven’t forgotton them already!
I tend to come up with resolutions that are easily accomplished. Perhaps I don’t put much faith in the whole resolution thing, or maybe I just can’t be bothered. My 2007 resolution was to defrost my freezer, and I didn’t get around to that until the summer! Speaking of defrosting, I think I’ll be due again in a couple of months. Damnit!
Determined to do something useful this year, I came up with a seemingly innocuous resolution for 2008. Althouth it may be simple, this time it’s not a once-a-year thing; it’s got to be sustained indefinitely. Go to the gym? Hah, I know myself better than that. I opted to start taking a lunch to work. I had grown fond of the company cafeteria, which has a different menu every day; if I didn’t like what they were serving I could always fall back on the Tim Hortons that’s in the building. Sometimes I’d even venture outside to a restaurant or local food court. Swiss Chalet, Spring Rolls, and the like. Mmmm.
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1 Comment | thoughts | Tagged: cafeteria, defrost, finances, freezer, money, new years, new years resolutions, resolutions, sandwich, saving, tim hortons, timmies | Permalink
Posted by William
Saturday, March 8, 2008
This is a followup to the post I need a new BlackBerry!
I finally got my new ‘berry on Monday. Even though the product was backordered since it’s brand new, I decided to go for a Red BlackBerry Curve 8310. First impression: worth the wait!
It’s amazing what a difference 23 grams makes. The Curve is noticeably lighter than my 8700 was. They keypad, although slightly narrower, is still quite easy to use, even if you’ve got manly thumbs. Unlike the more expensive “corporate” models 8700 and 8800 which come with belt clips, the 8300 series includes a pouch.
Is it just me or does it look like Super Mario with Goomba’s Shoe? See the resemblance?
2 Comments | technology | Tagged: 8310, blackberry, blackberry 8310, blackberry curve, crackberry, curve, goomba's shoe, red curve, rogers, super mario 3 | Permalink
Posted by William
Monday, March 3, 2008
I’m trying something new! This blog has been around for a month, and I think there’s plenty of potential here. I’ve decided to give WordPress a try. I’m not sure I’m thrilled, as the WordPress system seems to go down from time to time… Does anyone else use WordPress, or another blogging tool you’d recommend?
My old host Orbit Online is a great place to hang out, but I was concerned the requirement for a registered account was discouraging some people from leaving comments. So, if you’re reading my blog, I want to hear your opinion. There’s no point in being a talking head spouting my own worthless undervalued opinions if I don’t get to hear yours too. So on that note, go leave some comments!
N.B. As an unfortunate side-effect of the transition, comments that were previously left are nolonger available. Sorry! The good news is that all of the old posts are back, so if you didn’t leave a comment before because you didn’t want to register for an account, now’s your chance to shine!
1 Comment | Uncategorized | Tagged: blog update, site news, wordpress | Permalink
Posted by William
Another Talking Head 
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