Give a little; get a little

Just watching the news and noticed there a movement to help some of the people in our community who are not able to handle the cold temperatures. Not just homeless people, but those who don't have the money for heating, seniors and others who don't have the same resources some of us do. One of the websites profiled is ChangeEverything.ca.

Claude and I have been posting a few things on Craigslist recently - one of the items I was going to post this week is a long, very warm coat that I have, but haven't used for a while. I think I will be donating it tomorrow, along with whatever else I can find that I don't have a use for and it warm.

Anyone else out there who has an extra coat, hat, pair of mitts, blanket etc - give it up to someone who really needs it!

'Night all - stay warm.

Neighbourhood excitement

Yesterday we were working around the house, trying to clean up before our big trip, when we got a visit from the neighbour right beside us. He is a nice fellow who we don't see all that often. He started to tell us that he has had a visitor for the past couple of days that has been living on his patio. The neighbourhood skunk has come to stay!

Anyway, our patios are sunken in below ground level on the ground floor in the back, so we figure the skunk went exploring, fell onto his patio and doesn't have the climbing skill to climb up the 3' concrete block wall to freedom. We also think he may have hurt himself in getting to the patio because he doesn't seem to be scrounging to get out even though he hasn't had any food or shelter in days. This morning he was shivering too. None of us who are involved want to exterminate the little fellow, so in light of the recent weather developments, we have given him a box to sleep in until he is healthy enough to make his way out. We've also provided some food to try to lure him up the ramps we have made to ease his escape.

Below is a photo of him from yesterday on the mat in front of our neighbours patio window. Cute little fellow. Our neighbour has been joking about keeping the critter as a security system!!


Update: On the Sunday night, the skunk made his way over to our deck but couldn't find the ramp up out of our patio due to the amount of snow that had fallen. Looking at the little skunk paw prints all over our deck, he checked everywhere and then went back to the deck he knew at the neighbours. Unfortunately, by that time our neighbour had removed the ramp down to his patio and turned the box they had made as a shelter for the fella unsidedown because he thought the skunk was gone. When the skunk came back, he fell into the neighbour's patio and ripped up the box trying to get into it. Anyway, the good part is that Animal Rescue was able to come the next day and get the little guy. They carted him away, warmed him up, fed him and fixed up any injuries. Skunkie should be living back in the wild - probably a lot better than South Granville - by now. A good end to a rather trying time for a little fellow.

Merry Christmas!!!... oh, wait... ???

Ok, so snow makes me feel all Christmas-y - esp. as we don't get much snow in Vancouver. It started snowing yesterday around 3 or so and hasn't stopped yet. It is that lovely, wet, fluffy snow - heavy but pretty.



Vancouver gets on average one snowfall a year (which doesn't stay very long), so when we do get snow people tend to make the most of it - or at least have a little fun with it! This is from the parking lot at Oakridge Mall - a little snow art.

The Great Mac 'n Cheese Search 2007 (in Vancouver)

Two good friends of mine are cheese-crazy - they both love cheese. I mean, REALLY love cheese. And they have great taste in cheese - he is the only person I know who has a raclette!! In their pursuit of great-tasting cheese, they have decided to begin a search for the best macaroni and cheese to be had in Vancouver. As they know, I love to find information - and am a fellow cheese lover - so they enlisted my help to figure out where they should start.

Below is the list I have come up with so far, although I'm sure I've missed a few. So I'm hoping people who read this post might comment on any other restaurants they know that also serve up a fine mac 'n cheese!! Also, I'd love hear about best experiences with mac and cheese and any great recipes - just 'cause I love to collect recipes.


Cru
Zin
Café S'il Vous Plait
Bistro 1734
Doll and Penny's Café
The Ocean Club
Johnny Fox's Irish Snug
Yaletown Brewing Company
Van Dusen Festival of Lights (Shaunessey Restaurant)
Romano's Macaroni Grill
Feenie's
Burgoo
Diner
Travelling Gourmet (a personal chef, in case they wanted to stay in for the night)
Salty Tongue Urban Deli
and for another night they may want to stay at home...
Les Amis du Fromage


In my search, I found some amazing recipes - esp. one on eGullet that included foie gras, white truffles, madiera sauce and un-holy amounts of cheese. I have also quickly learned that searching for info like this on your lunch break, while eating your tuna pasta salad, is not terribly fair to your tuna pasta salad. It makes anything you are eating for lunch taste like cardboard.

Update on Restaurant wiki

So, after an email conversation with Mark Hurst of AddYourOwn.com, he invited me to be the resident- volunteer-cleaner-upper-and-spamfighter. Kind of a fun little thing to do in my off-hours and a good way to continue getting more experience online, etc. Besides, what foodie doesn't love to have the power to blast away all those spammers clogging up a perfectly good restaurant wiki!!

So, once again, go check out AddYourOwn.com and... add your own!

Previous related post

Don't drink the water

If you're from BC, I'm sure you're already aware Vancouver, Burnaby and the North shore all still have a boil-water advisory on. It is expected to go on for a couple more days. Yay!

http://www.vch.ca/public/update.htm

Restaurant wiki

On BoingBoing today, there is a link to Uncle Mark's Gift Guide and Almanac - a very cool gift guide for the season (btw - I love the blender in his guide. My blender can't do much except for soups and other very soft items - this looks to be the perfect thing!). While poking around his site, I found a restaurant and city guide wiki that he created entitled AddYourOwn.com.

It is a great little tool that allows you to add restaurants for major US cities, and one Canadian city - Vancouver! Some good suggestions of where to go and fun to add your favorites. Also nice because you can edit existing entries (e.g. I added the info that Tamarind is now closed).

Anyway, check it out when you have a moment and add your favorite restaurant!!

More on Net Neutrality...

Sabina over at Librarian Activist has written a wonderfully informative post on Net Neutrality in Canada - lots of links, lots of great info! Head over and check it out.

Also, she has pointed out the website Neutrality.ca a website that provides lots of good information on the issue in Canada. Both of these are great jumping off points for informing yourselves and others about this issue. Also, please sign the petition and check out Kevin McArthur's suggestions for other ways of getting information out there. I'll copy and paste them below so you can't miss 'em!

Btw - check out our fancy, schmancy new badge of honour on the left sidebar promoting Net Neutrality!! Simple but clear (of course, if any of my animator/fx/talented artist friends feel like making a fancier one - please do!! The more attention we can bring to this, the better!)

What can you do? (From Neutrality.ca)

• Write, call and email your member of parliament. We have local representation for a reason; use it.
  
• Write, call and email the CRTC. Explain to them why a neutral network is important to Canada.
  
• Call your ISP, explain to them that you support network neutrality and ask for them justify their violations of network neutraliy.
  
• If possible, switch ISPs to a neutral provider. We are currently looking for neutral network partners to recommend in areas that are open to competition.
  
• Sign the petition at the bottom of this page. Include your name, email, city and optionally a phone number.
  
• Get involved. Tell as many people as you know about network neutrality, explaining this concept to people who are non-technical but use the internet on a regular basis. Have them contact their representation. We are currently looking for someone to create a video explanation of net neutrality that does so without inflamatory language. If you can help contact us.
  
• Protest. Find like-minded indivuals and protest MP's offices that refuse to address the issue of network neutrality. The more visible the fight, the more likely that consumer rights will prevail over telecommuncations company's interests.
  
• Last but not least, blog this page. The more people the better. Please link to http://www.neutrality.ca
  

Net Neutrality comes to Canada...

Yesterday, CP wrote a couple of articles on the beginning of the struggle for net neutrality in Canada. I immediately thought that I would blog it. Due to work and life in general that didn't happen - although I must admit I thought it would be interesting to see if the media would pick it up in today's papers.

After a search in one of Canada's best media databases, it looks like there definitely was some pick-up, although I would have been happier with more. The story ran in 11 newspapers - but that is across all of Canada. Really, I would have hoped that it would get more play than that! This is an issue that threatens to stifle the democracy of the internet - allowing everyone equal access to all resources.

To me, this issue is akin to have sponsors for a library. Only the resources that are written or published by those sponsors are part of the library catalogue and have signage - everything else isn't. Users can easily access that which is sponsored, all other materials are still available - but good luck in ever finding them as there would be no information on where to find them! What do you think the likelihood is of users struggling through library stacks with no information on how to find the books they want? This is what TELUS and Bell want to do - be able to allow easy access to the websites that they have agreements with, and to hell with the rest of the web!

I think I am going to contact Pippa Lawson of Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Law Clinic to see if there is any way I can help get the word out. If any of you feel the way I do (and if you don't, email me - I'd be happy to discuss this with you until I change your mind), please get the word out!!!

Access to information is SO integral to a free and intelligent society!

Reading material:
http://news.google.ca/news?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rls=GGLG,GGLG:2005-38,GGLG:en&q=net+neutrality&scoring=d

Income Trust announcement

For anyone who hasn't read the newspapers today, the Tory government announced yesterday their new "tax fairness" plan. Interesting the way they are positioning this - because fairness is not what comes to mind.

Basically, their plan boils down to tax charged on the distributions from income trusts, that will be fazed in over the next 4 years. At the end of that four years, corporate income tax will go down by 1%. Hmmmm. Yeah, so less income trusts for us to invest in - and less money from the ones we do invest in - and then the companies get a tax break. Yeah, fairness is definitely the first word coming to mind...

Interesting that the two companies that Flaherty focused on in his speech were TELUS and BCE - who had both announced that they would become income trusts shortly. Great way to start a media catfight between two companies who are already at war. Now they can argue which one of them instigated this action by the government.

Anyway, if any of you have a large amount of money invested in income trusts, you may want to re-focus your investment strategy. Although, I wouldn't suggest selling anything today... :-)

Update: This is a really interesting article from the Toronto Star about how these changes will affect people across the board.