Eliminating the Extravagance of Bottled Water
This morning’s Globe and Mail featured an article about how cities are considering following London’s lead on banning bottled water. I can only ponder why it’s taking so long for everyone else to follow suit? Except in certain situations where a locale has poor or unsafe water (which are extremely rare cases), bottled water is an unnecessary extravagance. Especially when many scientists state that there is virtually no difference between tap and bottled water. And on the issue of safety, there is no evidence that bottled water is more or less safer than tap water (see Health Canada FAQ). In fact, as bottled water is considered a food product is subject to Health Canada regulation. Municipal drinking water is much more tightly regulated and monitored than food products. So you are essentially paying a very high premium for marginal convenience and a fad.
As for those people who argue that bottled water comes from fresh spring and other pristine natual sources, well they had better check their brands. Apparently, brands such as Aquafina and Dasani bottle their water from public sources (aquifers) - the same place tap water comes from.
I look forward to a drastic reduction in bottled water on store shelves in Canada. I end up seeing the discards littering our public spaces and needlessly filling up our landfills. And you will end up saving yourself some money.
Newfoundland Gallery Now Up
I have out together a gallery of some of my images taken during various trips to Newfoundland (mostly St. John’s and Ferryland). You can check it out at Photomatic.
Table 17
After a second visit to Table 17, I guess it is time to post a note about this cozy little resto located in Leslieville.
We learned about this new restaurant through our neighbour John who is one of the three owners. He has put a lot of work into this place and it shows.
Our first time at Table 17 was about a week after it opened and we were a party of 10 celebrating the birthday of a friend (this was back at the beginning of July). The air conditioning in our section of the restaurant was not working on this hot and sweaty evening and our server forgot to place the order of the birthday boy. That was the bad part. The atmosphere was fun, cozy and laid back and the food was delicious. If my memory is serves me right, the hot balls, beet root salad, spring onion soup, pickerel and sirloin were the major hits. Combined with copious amounts of wine, a good time was inevitable!
My second visit to Table 17 took place last night. With a friend visiting from Vancouver, we decided to head back. Jen and I our guests had the black cod as their main which was raved about and did not disappoint. I had the steak frites for which the hangar steak was cooked perfectly but the seasoning could be improved. A little too salty. But the frites were stellar. Hot balls were thoroughly enjoyed by all and I couldn’t resist getting the beet root salad to start.
It appears that Table 17 is trying to use locally raised produce and meats as much as possible - which is great. They do have some Ontario wines but not enough for my liking. It seems that for the by-the-glass choice, there is only one Ontario wine in each of the white and red to choose from. While I love wine from most countries, I really do like our Ontario wines and if given the choice will order those.
The service was friendly and prompt with no snafus this time around. With almost two months under their belt, the dining room continues to be full with a nice mix of various demographics.
With good food, good service, reasonable prices (dinner will likely run about $110 per couple) and a casual atmosphere I will likely be back again soon. Well, at least until the baby is born, And then I will probably not see the inside of a restaurant for some time!
Table 17
Rating: 3.5/5
782 Queen Street East (just a few blocks east of Queen and Broadview)
416-519-1851
Your Big Chinese Brother
It is fairly well-known that privacy rights in China are essentially non-existent. However, when I read this article in the Wall Street Journal today reporting on the extent to which listening devices are present in that country I was astounded.
The whole scenario reminded me of the part of the Dark Knight movie where Lucius Fox helps Batman get a fix on the Joker’s location using a computer program that piggy-backs all the mobile devices in Gotham. Now that was only a movie and you have to suspend your disbelief that something like that would actually work. In this case the Chinese are stating that they have microphones in every taxi for the safety of the drivers. Yeah right! I loved the quote in the article from a Chinese taxi driver who says that he would never take a photograph/video of his passengers without permission believing it to be a volation of their human rights. Yet he doesn’t seem to be the least bit worried about whether recording their conversation is a violation of their human rights. I guess the definition of what constitutes human rights is not all that universal?
Sort of makes the whole Rita McNeil wiretapping incident sound downright legal and democratic, eh (tongue-in-cheek)?
The Dark Knight
We weren’t planning on seeing the latest installment in the Batman movie franchise on opening weekend. But it was raining, we were bored - so we decided to take a chance on a matinee yesterday.
Well, no lineups and we got to see the much talked about Dark Knight. I really enjoyed this movie - even better than Batman Begins (which was a great movie). While the critics raved about this one, I would stop short of that - simply a good movie. Heath Ledger gave a great performance but I don’t think it was quite Oscar worthy - sad to say but the Americans usually get all caught up when an actor dies and play the post-humous card. I guess that sounds cold but while it was a great piece of acting, in my opinion, it isn’t quite up there as being Oscar worthy.
Much darker than the last one. Good script and well-acted. It is rather long, but I don’t feel that much could have been omitted and I certainly wasn’t bored at any point. Lots of parallels with the war on terror and the theme of “do the ends justify the means”. Maybe a little too much - most of us in the audience are intelligent - we get it and stop hammering us over the head with the message.
Doesn’t matter if you like super hero movies or not - this is just a good movie period.
p.s. Trailers for the Watchmen and the new Bond movie were shown before this movie. I think the Watchmen movie will be disappointing. The new Bond movie looks good and keeping in style with the last one - gritty and dark.
Intoducing Onelazyeye’s Photomatic
I finally got around to getting all my photos from our recent vacation to Eastern Europe processed and then sorted into a gallery. While I will continue to regularly post photos to this site, people do like to see themed galleries so I obliged. I will introduce new albums to the gallery from time-to-time so check back often to see what is new.
You can check out the albums here at Photomatic.
I Don’t Think They Really Get It
I read in the Financial Post today that Alberta has announced a $4 billion climate plan funded by this year’s budget surplus. $2 billion of that will go towards a fund that will encourage the development of carbon capture and storage technologies. While it is admirable that they are making some effort, this really is not about protecting the planet but more about making sure Alberta can keep selling oil and making money hand over fist. I am certainly not against making money but this is rather short-sighted and does nothing to address the fact that fossil fuels are both a finite resource that is nearing its peak and is a major source of carbon emissions. What would be more visionary and have a greater pay-off for future generations of Albertans and Canadians is to put that money into a fund that backs alternative energy and clean technologies. Be a world leader and sell/monetize this technology to the rest of the world. That’s where the present and the future is.
Sigh … Canada, under Harper’s reign, is missing a huge opportunity to be a world leader in alternative/clean energy technologies. We have the expertise (science) and the skilled labour force. The current government’s inaction really rankles me.
Cracking Down on the Oil Sands
Following up on my recent post complaining about the environmental disaster which are the oil sands, there was an article in the National Post today about how Alberta has put forth a new policy that will allow them to shut down mines that don’t clean up toxic waste tailings ponds in a timely fashion. I am really pleased to see the Alberta governmental agencies take the lead on this as Harper and Baird certainly aren’t going to get off their asses to do anything to displease their oil buddies.
It will be interesting to see if this policy will have teeth and result in the companies taking actions to clean up their mess.
A Few More Vacation Photos
Still got a few more photos to get through. Hoping to have all of them done by the end of the weekend. Here are just a few more from the Budapest leg of the trip.
The Hungarian Parliament buildings are in the background.
The Parliament buildings. The amount of details in the structure are incredible. A lot of money is spent keeping this building clean.
Who Do You Think Will Win Euro 2008?
One hour away from the first semi-final match - Germany vs. Turkey. It has been a great chanpionship so far. Lot’s of drama, upsets and heroics. And really great football. All the teams in the semi-finals are quite deserving - Germany, Spain, Turkey and Russia. I do think that Germany will advance to the finals. The Turks have run out of steam and miracles, especially with so many players who will be missing due to suspensions and injuries. If they do manage to pull off a win it really would one of the greatest upsets in Euro history. I anticipate a 3-0 German win.
Even though the Russians are surging and playing very well, I believe it will be Spain pushing through in a close match. Spain 2-1 over Russia.
And a great final matchup if Spain and Germany end up facing each other. You can never count the Germans out and they do have good team uniformity and tradition. But I give it to the creative Spaniards who will edge out Germany 3-2 in the final.
Regardless of who wins, it will be a lot of fun to watch!
Btw, I usually suck hard at these sort of sports predictions so don’t go basing any gambling bets on the above.