Don’t private the Eglinton crosstown
Politics, transit, and graphs. I love everything about this ad. And it’s right, too. These public private partnerships have been terrible for Ontario.
Tomorrow is election day, so get out and vote!
Putting it in Perspective
Today I heard Pearl Jam’s Even Flow on Q107, Toronto’s classic rock radio station. I’m not sure how many would consider it classic rock, but it certainly has a better home there than on Edge 102, Toronto’s station that calls itself “new rock” (despite still playing Nirvana 6 times a day). The time when Even Flow came out is about as far from today as from when Led Zeppelin started making music.
A warning to college profs from a high school teacher (not me)
A retired teacher from Maryland blogs an open letter to university professors about the effects of No Child Left Behind.
If Ontario ever heads this direction, I’ll be racing to elevate my position to convince the powers that be otherwise.
Literary Analysis
I’m watching Pulp Fiction, and I started to notice extra details like shot selection and scene construction, and character development. So now as I’m watching the movie, I’m spotting them, and looking them up on another website to learn even more about them.
I’m using film theory and literary analysis, by choice. I feel so mature.
Biodegradable
Today I needed to buy laundry detergent. I noticed one from Arm and Hammer that touted itself as biodegradable and phosphate-free. Great, I love having an environmental option when I shop (whoever tracks the groceries I buy on my credit card must notice this). But as usual, I looked to see if there was an even better option. And I noticed that all the Tide bottles I looked at said phosphate-free. In tiny writing on the front. Sunlight didn’t even say anything.
I had to look up later the significance of phosphates (here it is – wikipedia) and it is the sort of thing that could be more prevalent on the label. But the bigger issue is how the hell have none of the major companies made a biodegradable laundry detergent?! The market is there – the EU has already mandated it.
I bought the Arm & Hammer. It was also way cheaper than chemical-rich alternatives from other companies. Now let’s see how it cleans…
I before E except too often to make this a useful rule
They really shouldn’t teach “I before E except after C”, because there are far too many counter-examples. Off the top of my head:
Their, weird, weigh, eight, height, either, neighbour, protein, apartheid, Reid, vein, science, and best of all, fallacies.
The time would be far better spent explaining “you’re” vs “your”.
Changes on Facebook
Whenever Facebook updates something, such as notification settings or email, they do it silently. Every time this happens, posts about it will go circulating on news feeds for a couple of days, warning you. If you don’t catch it, it’s usually not the end of the world, but I’m sure sometimes it can be a big problem. So people complain.
But how bad is it, really, compared to how other companies would go about it?
What most companies would do is present you with pages and pages of legalese, that you would scroll down without reading, and click “I agree” at the bottom. Or they’d send you an email saying “we’ve updated some stuff, just FYI” and if you could be bothered to click and not delete the email immediately, you’d get a list of such changes, usually padded with heaps of boring text and/or legalese. Then you would complain.
I think the “Facebook is messing with your settings AGAIN” posts on the news feed are more effective, because instead of clicking “I agree”, you think, “god dammit Facebook” and read the thankfully concise info and change your settings. DONE.
Waiting Lists
Wow, I just called an apartment co-op inquiring about rental availability, and they said they had a wait list starting at ten years, for a bachelor. What?!
Necessary questions:
- What could make a building so good that people are willing to plan one or two apartments ahead that they want to live there? I know it costs nothing to add a name to the list, but don’t you think of moving forward with your life, especially…
- …When it comes to bachelor apartments. If I was living in a bachelor now, I would certainly hope to move up a little more in ten years. What about owning a house and building equity?
- Maybe it’s worth calling back, just in case my life 12-15 years from now is nothing at all like I hope it’ll be and at least I have a fantastic apartment. Damn, that’s depressing.
yongeblood 