Posts tagged “Canada”

ChittahChattah Quickies

It’s been a while since I posted short snippets around links I’ve found fascinating, and while that means these stories don’t come out of this week’s news, I think they are all are provocative and worth being aware of.

Marketers change pronunciation in ads to attract shoppers [CBC] – The value of the Z as a cultural indicator when selling products in Canada. Canadian companies remind of their status by highlighting the “zed” while some American companies will create a Canadian-specific ad, replacing “zee: with “zed” (depending on the product and it’s meaning – and cost)

Because cars are so closely tied to image and identity, it’s very important to get that identity correct when speaking to Canadian car buyers. But in the end, it all comes down to dollars and cents. If the product is low-end and utilitarian, marketers will go cheap and run the U.S. product name, commercial and pronunciation in both countries.

But when there’s a risk of offending the identity of Canadian buyers of big ticket items, marketers will spend the extra loonies to do a custom version for Canada.

Threat of Death Makes People Go Shopping [Inkfish] – Here’s a finding that we really don’t want to see in the wrong hands!

Nothing says “Let’s hit the outlet mall” like nearly being wiped out by a rocket. A study of both Americans and terrorized Israelis suggests that certain people respond to the threat of death by going shopping. Because if it’s your time to go, you may as well be wearing the latest from Forever 21 Michigan State University marketing professor Ayalla Ruvio and her colleagues performed two studies of potential shoppers. The first took place in Israel. Questionnaires were handed out at a community center in a town just one kilometer from the Gaza Strip, during six months of daily rocket attacks there in 2007. The same surveys were distributed in a second town farther from the fighting, where residents were aware of the violence but not in direct danger. The questionnaires were meant to ferret out a few different answers about people. Did they experience post-traumatic symptoms such as nightmares or memory loss? Did they cope with negative feelings by buying things? How often did they return from a shopping trip with items they hadn’t meant to purchase? Other questions assessed how materialistic the subjects were-did they place a lot of value on owning nice things? Israelis who were experiencing daily rocket attacks, unsurprisingly, reported more post-traumatic stress. People who felt more stress admitted to more compulsive or impulsive shopping behaviors. And both these effects (feeling stress and going shopping) were stronger in more materialistic people. For their second study, the researchers used a group of 855 American subjects, meant to be demographically representative of the U.S. population overall. Subjects filled out an online survey that measured their materialism, shopping habits, and how much they thought about their own death, as well as other factors. Once again, for people who were more materialistic, there was a relationship between fear of death and impulse buying.

Because the more materialistic Israelis experienced more stress, the researchers think “materialism makes bad events even worse.” And when materialistic people feel threatened, they buy things they don’t really want (or maybe can’t afford). The findings don’t only apply to people living in the Middle East. Events that make people fear for their lives can include car accidents, assaults, and natural disasters. Yet Ruvio puts a positive spin on the ubiquity of trauma. “This presents an opportunity for both manufacturers of impulse items and the retailers that sell these products,” she writes. When a severe storm or a military crisis is brewing, she suggests stores put their high-profit-margin items up front where impulse shoppers will see them.

While retailers may be able to benefit from people’s crises, shoppers themselves won’t. Previous research, Ruvio writes, shows that “most materialistic individuals derive little satisfaction from their consumption activities.” So much for retail therapy.

Weird T-Shirts Designed To Confuse Facebook’s Auto-Tagging [Wired Design] – The space where conceptual art meets technology can be interesting, where working solutions can be produced to comment on the problem without fully solving it, and yet point the way to a possible future where those problems are addressed this way.

How to fight back? Just buy one of Simone C. Niquille’s “REALFACE Glamoflage” T-shirts, a series of bizarre, visage-covered garments designed specifically to give Facebook’s facial recognition software the runaround.

Niquille dreamed up the shirts as part of her master’s thesis in graphic design at the Sandberg Institute in Amsterdam. FaceValue, as the thesis is titled, imagines new design solutions for the near-future, mining the ripe intersection of privacy, pattern recognition and biometrics. The shirts, custom-printed for around $65, are one of three such imaginings–a tongue-halfway-in-cheek tool for pushing back against the emerging trends of ubiquitous, computer-aided recognition. Covered in distorted faces of celebrity impersonators, they’re designed to keep Facebook’s algorithms guessing about what–or more accurately who–they’re looking at.

“I was interested in the T-shirt as a mundane commodity,” Niquille explains. “An article of clothing that in most cases does not need much consideration in the morning in front of the closet…I was interested in creating a tool for privacy protection that wouldn’t require much time to think in the morning, an accessory that would seamlessly fit in your existing everyday. No adaption period needed.”

Promoting Health With Enticing Photos of Fruits and Vegetables [NYT] – Bolthouse Farms created a fanciful website that visualizes food-related social media content.

“It’s not that I don’t have an Oreo every once in a while,” Mr. Putman said. “We just want folks to understand that beautiful carrots have badge value the same way peanut butter, chocolate pie does.” Having badge value means something is interesting enough to deserve a hashtag.

Bitcoin Beauties promotes use of currency by women [SFGate] – If this provides empowerment to someone, then that’s great. But I don’t understand this at all. It seems like Trending Topic + Nekkid Ladies = something.

The company’s slogan is “Beauty, Brains, Bitcoin.” Its logo is a sketch of two voluptuous, nude women, posing pin-up style beside the stylized bitcoin “B.” The company website, yet to be completed, is now a photo collage of women, some topless, silhouetted against a beach sunset. Blincoe refers to members as “our beauties.” For Blincoe, there is urgency in staking a claim for women in the highly lucrative world of bitcoin, a crypto currency that by many accounts has the potential to shape the future of how transactions take place and currency flows online. For now, the main function of Bitcoin Beauties is hosting a small-but-growing weekly gathering where women talk bitcoin.

The Anti-Digit Dialing League [Orange Crate Art] – A mostly-forgotten (and mostly unsuccessful) rebellion against a technological advance. Also see the followup here.

The Anti-Digit Dialing League was a short-lived movement that arose in 1962 and faded, it would seem, in 1964. Founded in San Francisco, the ADDL opposed “creeping numeralism” and fought a losing battle to preserve the use of telephone exchange names.

Out and About: Steve in Ottawa

Last week I was in Ottawa speaking at Carleton University as well as delivering the closing keynote for UXcamp Ottawa. Here are some photographic highlights of my time there. Look for the rest of my pictures on Flickr.


Joseph Henri Maurice “The Rocket” Richard


Suzy Q Donuts.


The Canada Hall in the Canadian Museum of Civilization. Depicting 1000 years of history, this was an outstanding exhibit. In addition to the familiar elements of contemporary museum design, it had just enough realism, sort of the heightened-fakery from a movie studio backlot. The open-ended design enabled an immersive stroll through recreations of the past. As you wandered you could go in and poke around stores, schools, mills, airports, and so on. It was almost like being in a holodeck, strolling through time (and from east to west).


Building environmental control module or splash screen for circa 1974 television news magazine?


Recreation of the Robert Frank image used on the Rolling Stones’ Exile on Main Street cover.


Stickers stuck to poles outside of the National Gallery. I took the picture without knowing what the heck I was looking at, though. It was only when I got my ticket for the National Gallery and was asked to put the same sticker on my clothing did I realize how those poles ended up like that.


That about covers it.

Omni Quickies

Not Quite Smart Enough [NYT] – Smart appliances are back, yet again! Engineers are crammed atop happily dumb products because, well, because they can. The classic of course is the Smart Fridge, the result of jetpack-denied technologists channeling their rage. We’ve heard the use cases over and over again, we aren’t that interested (are we?) but comically, that doesn’t seem to stop them. From past work, I believe there some wonderful opportunities for technology to have a meaningful impact in domestic chores, but this repetition of an undesirable product just isn’t it. Bonus funny/sad: Mike Kuniavsky’s 2008 blog post looks at the history of these ridiculous things. /SP

Still, there are differences in what is offered this time around – especially in the role of smartphones, which were not widely on the market a decade ago. In addition, even if the idea of a connected home, controlled by a smart electrical grid, is years off, it is more than just a pipe dream. For now, though, manufacturers are promoting the high-tech gizmos on their smart appliances, rather than focusing on the potential for being a cog in a smart grid. Samsung offers a French-door refrigerator with an LCD screen and its own apps, allowing consumers to check the weather, browse the Web for recipes, listen to music and keep tabs on what is in the refrigerator. The 28-cubic feet, four-door refrigerator costs about $3,500. LG is introducing a refrigerator that allows consumers to scan a grocery receipt with their smartphone so that the refrigerator can track what is inside. So if you buy some chicken, for instance, the refrigerator will keep tabs on when you bought it and tell you when it is about to expire. If you have chicken, broccoli and lemons in your refrigerator, it will offer recipes that include those three ingredients, even narrowing recipes based on specific dietary needs and goals. Several manufacturers are introducing washers and dryers equipped with Wi-Fi that alert consumers on their television or smartphone when a load is done, and gives them the option of fluffing towels for another 10 minutes or adding a rinse cycle. LG’s robotic smart vacuum can be told, again, through a smartphone, to clean up the living room. And since it’s equipped with a built-in camera, its owner can secretly watch what the nanny is doing, too.

Tenured Professor Departs Stanford U., Hoping to Teach 500,000 Students at Online Start-Up [The Chronicle of Higher Education] – Last week we explored the innovative physical learning environment at the Swedish Vittra school. This week we learn that the future of educational institutions may involve abandoning the halls of the academy entirely in favor of virtual pedagogy and entrepreneurial ventures. Is the university destined for obsolescence? Freelance online classes challenge the value proposition (and often prohibitive cost) of a university degree by offering affordable alternatives that connect teachers who are motivated to share knowledge with students who are eager to learn and apply it, regardless of location. This reminds me of a recent Kickstarter project I funded called Don’t Go Back to School: A handbook for learning anything. For $25 I am getting a whole course and textbook on independent learning. Bargain! /TC

During his talk, Mr. Thrun explored the origins of his popular online course at Stanford, which initially featured videos produced with nothing more than “a camera, a pen and a napkin.” Despite the low production quality, many of the 200 Stanford students taking the course in the classroom flocked to the videos because they could absorb the lectures at their own pace. Eventually, the 200 students taking the course in person dwindled to a group of 30. Meanwhile, the course’s popularity exploded online, drawing students from around the world. The experience taught the professor that he could craft a course with the interactive tools of the Web that recreated the intimacy of one-on-one tutoring, he said.

Interactive film, Bear 71, blurs lines between wild and wired [Montreal Gazette] – News articles on this work, currently showing at Sundance, have difficulty classifying it. Is it a film? A documentary? An interactive experience? Multi-media project? All-encompassing digital experience? An interactive film? Akin to Steve’s comments on smart-appliances above, the interactive multi-media experience has also been around for awhile – remember ye olde CD-ROM? This project, however, is doing more than just using technology to give viewers some ownership and direction in the story-telling. The film-makers seem very tuned in to the philosophical implications of inserting all this technology into a very natural environment, and conscious of the irony of their ambition to use technology to bring us closer to our animal state, despite their claims that technology is the very thing drawing us away from that state. Bear 71 official site. /JN

Enter Jeremy Mendes, a Vancouver-based artist and three-time Webby Award winner with a special talent for interactive work. “I drove out to Alberta and met Leanne [Allison], and when I saw these images, I knew right away that it was bizarre: It was surveillance equipment, essentially. These are the same cameras we use on ourselves. They’re the same cameras in Times Square and 7-11,” says Mendes. “I thought, ‘This is a technology story about us and this bear.'” “We prepared an outline and did all the research, and realized this was a story about communication. It’s about the communication humans use, and the communication animals use,” says Mendes… Call it the natural bulletin board, or deciduous Internet, but the scents tell each animal’s story to other animals – very much the same way we use Facebook of Twitter to keep tabs on other humans. “Humans probably had the same ability to understand that information before technology removed us from the natural world,” says Allison…It’s such a different approach to filmmaking and art, that it may take a while for the average Joe or Jane to take it all in, but that’s kind of the point: We’re only half-awake to our animal nature, and all our ambient technology only serves to shove us deeper and deeper into a state of instinct denial.

ChittahChattah Quickies

Dissident Creates by Remote Control [NYT.com] – Of course this is a political act as much as an artistic or commercial one (and some art theorist can probably explain why it must always be all three, yes?) but this seemed a novel application of remote collaboration software, at least in the way they’ve framed it.

In an unusual collaboration with W magazine, Ai Weiwi created a story line for a series of photos that were shot on location in New York by the photographer Max Vadukul as Mr. Ai looked on, art directing via Skype on a laptop computer. Mr. Vadukul would set up a shot and look to Mr. Ai for approval. “We could see him on the screen, scrolling through the images,” Ms. Solway said. “What was so interesting was his attention to every detail. There was this big shower in Rikers – we thought it looked very dingy, but he said the grout was way too clean and graphic.”

Don’t Blink! The Hazards of Confidence [NYT.com] – While the whole article primarily deals with the decisions that financial professionals make (scary scary stuff), the principles on judgement and decision-decision making feel sound, if challenging.

You are probably an expert in guessing your spouse’s mood from one word on the telephone; chess players find a strong move in a single glance at a complex position; and true legends of instant diagnoses are common among physicians. To know whether you can trust a particular intuitive judgment, there are two questions you should ask: Is the environment in which the judgment is made sufficiently regular to enable predictions from the available evidence? The answer is yes for diagnosticians, no for stock pickers. Do the professionals have an adequate opportunity to learn the cues and the regularities? The answer here depends on the professionals’ experience and on the quality and speed with which they discover their mistakes. Anesthesiologists have a better chance to develop intuitions than radiologists do.

Personal Eco-Concierges Ease Transition to Green [NYT.com] – Last year we did a research project that looked at “going green” as a journey. We met people at various stages along that transition and what their decisions were like at each of those stages. No surprise to see businesses appear explicitly aimed at facilitating the steps along that journey; indeed we identified other products and services that were or could speak to that goal – beyond usage to growth.

“The problem with going green is that people think it takes so much work, so much effort, so much conscious decision-making,” said Letitia Burrell, president of Eco-Concierge NYC, a year-old business in Manhattan that tries to make it easy for people to rid their homes of toxins, hire sustainable-cuisine chefs and find organic dry cleaners. It is a niche business, but a clever one. At least a half-dozen services of this type have sprung up around the country in recent years, both to help time-starved consumers manage their lives and to assuage the guilt of those who worry that they are letting the planet down. “There are people who come to us gung-ho and they want to make a sweeping lifestyle change,” said P. Richelle White, who left a corporate advertising job four years ago to start Herb’n Maid, a green cleaning and concierge service in St. Louis. “These are busy professionals who don’t have the time to do the research themselves about different products and services.”

Sexy, religious images spotted on new money [CBC News] – Getting feedback to designs before going to press is proven once again to be a good idea. Seems like a great application of a focus group, since the feedback needed is shallow and not very nuanced, although interesting to note that the social dynamics of a focus group limit the naturalness of that feedback – so much so that it made it into the report!

The Bank of Canada fretted that Canadians would find all kinds of unintended images on the new bills. So the bank used focus groups to spot “potential controversies.” “The overall purpose of the research was to disaster check the $50 and $100 notes among the general public and cash handlers,” says a January report to the central bank. Almost every group thought the see-through window looked like a woman’s body, but participants were often shy about pointing it out “However, once noted, it often led to acknowledgment and laughter among many of the participants in a group.” On the other side of the bill, there’s an image of a researcher at a microscope and a depiction of the double-helix structure of DNA. But the DNA strand evoked something else. A Vancouver focus group thought it was “a sex toy (i.e., sex beads).” Others thought it was the Big Dipper. There was no mistaking the microscope, but when focus groups flipped over the bill they noticed the edge of the instrument showed through like a weird birthmark on Borden’s cheek. Respondents also thought the former prime minister was either cross-eyed or that each eye was looking off in a different direction, the report says “Others felt that the PM’s moustache is unkempt.” Every focus group thought they saw religious iconography on the face of the Peace Tower clock. “It was often described as ‘The Star of David.’ Others referred to it as a ‘pagan’ or ‘religious’ symbol,'” the document says-Bank of Canada spokeswoman Julie Girard said the bills got tweaked after the focus groups. “Before and after those focus groups, there were design changes for multiple reasons,” she said.

ChittahChattah Quickies

  • The Beaver gets a new name [CBC News] – An iconic Canadian history magazine is changing its name to avoid a variety of misunderstandings. The current issue of the 90-year-old Winnipeg bi-monthly, The Beaver: Canada's History Magazine, is the final one to have that name on the cover. In April, the magazine will be known as Canada's History.

    "Use of the word 'beaver' on the internet has taken on an identity that nobody could have perceived in 1920," said Deborah Morrison, president of Canada's National Historical Society. "And increasingly, if we put 'The Beaver' in a heading, we would be spam-filtered out."

    The society also conducted market research last year with readers, and the conclusion was that the current name was just not working as an appropriate title, she said.

    "Canadians were twice as likely not to subscribe because of the title of the magazine, even if they showed an interest in Canadian history," Morrison said, adding there were also a lot of people who thought the magazine was a nature publication.

ChittahChattah Quickies

  • Canadian authors to pen easy-to-read books – Several Canadian authors are joining forces with a literacy group to launch a set of easy-to-read fiction books for adults with poor reading skills.

    The project in Britain engaged the services of bestselling authors such as Maeve Binchy and Ruth Rendell to write simpler stories. As a result, adults with minimal literacy abilities said they wanted to read more after picking up the books.

    Eaton says the Quick Read Canada books will be available next fall in libraries and literacy centres for free or, in retail stores for about $10.

ChittahChattah Quickies

  • TD National Reading Summit: Creating A National Reading Strategy for Canada – Reading is under pressure from screen-based learning materials in classrooms and screen-oriented entertainments in homes are reducing the access that children have to print materials. The reduction of book budgets for school and public libraries that many provinces experienced in the 1990s has made it harder for libraries to engage students and adults in developing reading habits and skills. More research confirms the importance of reading in academic success, enhanced quality of life, stable economies, and strong communities.

    Becoming a reader is at the very heart of responsible citizenship, but we often lose sight of what reading contributes to our sense of self, our cultural awareness, our capacity for self-expression and, ultimately, our notions of engaged citizenship and the collective good. Reading is about so much more than a technical act that allows us to communicate, consume media and perform the activities of daily life. To be literate is necessary, but it is not enough.

ChittahChattah Quickies

  • Bruce Sterling on the normalcy of the future – [See also our recent interactions piece: We Are Living In A Sci-Fi World]
    They’re phantom far-out notions gobbled up by the real world. They packed in there so deep that nobody notices them. So, yes, I can write about it. It’s just: it doesn’t look futuristic. It looks way too real.

    Why isn’t it grand? Why isn’t it as fantastically grand as the spectrum of all possibility? Well, why isn’t today grand? Why didn’t we wake up this morning in direct confrontation with the entirety of past and future? The present day is the only day we’re ever given.
    (via BoingBoing)

  • An interactive map of more than 52,000 prose-literacy profiles across Canada – The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) defines the following five levels of literacy:

    * Level 1—Very poor literacy skills. An individual at this level may, for example, be unable to determine from a package label the correct amount of medicine to give a child.
    * Level 2—A capacity to deal only with simple, clear material involving uncomplicated tasks. People at this level may develop everyday coping skills, but their poor literacy makes it hard to conquer challenges such as learning new job skills.
    * Level 3—Adequate to cope with the demands of everyday life and work in an advanced society. It roughly denotes the skill level required for successful high-school completion and college entry.
    * Levels 4 and 5—Strong skills. An individual at these levels can process information of a complex and demanding nature.

ChittahChattah Quickies

  • Canadian authors to pen easy-to-read books – Several Canadian authors are joining forces with a literacy group to launch a set of easy-to-read fiction books for adults with poor reading skills.

    The project in Britain engaged the services of bestselling authors such as Maeve Binchy and Ruth Rendell to write simpler stories. As a result, adults with minimal literacy abilities said they wanted to read more after picking up the books.

    Eaton says the Quick Read Canada books will be available next fall in libraries and literacy centres for free or, in retail stores for about $10.

ChittahChattah Quickies

  • Summer Reading Programs Gain Momentum for Students About to Enter College – Nationwide, hundreds of colleges and universities, large and small, public and private, assign first-year students a book to read over the summer, hoping to create a sense of community and engage students intellectually.

    While there are no reliable statistics on summer reading programs, a recent survey of more than 100 programs by a student researcher at Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, Minn., found that most had started in the last four years, although a few go back decades.

    The range of books colleges use is enormous, covering fiction and nonfiction. Classics are largely absent, with most of the works chosen falling closer to Oprah than academic.

    Still, a certain canon of summer reading is emerging: books that are readable, short, engaging, cheap. Often, it helps if the book is a best seller dealing with some aspect of diversity, some multicultural encounter — and if the author will come to speak on campus.

  • Canada Reads — CBC Radio – Canada Reads celebrates five Canadian books for three months online, on the air and at public events. It all leads up to a week-long show hosted by Jian Ghomeshi. In this annual title fight, five celebrity panelists defend their favourite work of Canadian fiction. One by one, books are voted off the list, until one panelist triumphs with the book for Canada to read this year.
  • Beyond the Book – Beyond the Book: Mass Reading Events and Contemporary Cultures of Reading in the UK, USA and Canada is a 3-year interdisciplinary research project.

    Our main objectives are to determine why and how people come together to share reading through a comparative study of selected mass reading events.

    The mass reading event is a new, proliferating literary phenomenon. Events typically focus on a work of literary fiction and employ the mass media as a means of promoting participation in the themed activities and discussions that take place around the selected book. Beyond the Book uses research methodologies drawn from both the humanities and social sciences to investigate whether mass reading events attract new readers and marginalized communities. We also wish to determine whether this contemporary version of shared reading fosters new reading practices and even whether it is capable of initiating social change.

  • "ONE BOOK" READING PROMOTION PROJECTS (Center for the Book: Library of Congress) – "One Book" projects (community-wide reading programs), initiated by the Washington Center for the Book in 1998, are being introduced across the U.S.A. and around the world. Here's lengthy list of authors, communities, and dates.
  • The Big Read – The Big Read is an initiative of the National Endowment for the Arts designed to restore reading to the center of American culture. The NEA presents The Big Read in partnership with the Institute of Museum and Library Services and in cooperation with Arts Midwest. The Big Read brings together partners across the country to encourage reading for pleasure and enlightenment.

    The Big Read gives communities the opportunity to come together to read, discuss, and celebrate one of 30 selections from American and world literature. This initiative supports innovative reading programs in selected communities, providing engaging educational resources for discussing outstanding literature and conducting expansive outreach and publicity campaigns, and a Web site offering comprehensive information about the authors and their works.

  • Literary Reading in Dramatic Decline, According to National Endowment for the Arts Survey – (July 8, 2004) Literary reading is in dramatic decline with fewer than half of American adults now reading literature, according to a National Endowment for the Arts survey released today. Reading at Risk: A Survey of Literary Reading in America reports drops in all groups studied, with the steepest rate of decline – 28 percent – occurring in the youngest age groups. The study also documents an overall decline of 10 percentage points in literary readers from 1982 to 2002, representing a loss of 20 million potential readers. The rate of decline is increasing and, according to the survey, has nearly tripled in the last decade.
  • 15 Books That Have Stuck With You (yet another of those Facebook etc. "memes" that are more like chain letters than memes) – Pick 15 books that will always stick with you. Don't take more than 15 minutes. Tag 15 friends including me because I'm interested in seeing what books my friends choose.
  • My pictures from Belgium 2009 (345 of 'em!) – Here's the whole set on Flickr. I'll continue to blog highlights from the trip.
  • Google book project far from settled – As the deadline draws near for authors and publishers to opt out of a proposed legal settlement allowing Google Inc. to forge ahead with plans to scan millions of books, more opponents of the landmark deal are stepping forward, and the local literary world is growing more perplexed.

    "Smart people, major players that are sophisticated in the ways of publishing, are still at loggerheads," said Ted Weinstein, a San Francisco literary agent. He said they're not just arguing whether the deal is good or bad, "but still expressing disagreement about what exactly it will do. That's a problem."

ChittahChattah Quickies

ChittahChattah Quickies

  • Lu's: A Pharmacy for Women is North America's first women-only pharmacy – In Vancouver's tough Downtown Eastside where many pharmacies feel risky because they focus on dispensing methadone to heroin addicts. The welcoming atmosphere of the new full-service pharmacy was designed in conjunction with the University of British Columbia's school of architecture.
  • Alaska Airlines to fly San Jose-Austin 'nerd bird' – The route which connects the two tech hubs has been dropped by American, the original Nerd Bird carrier, and then picked up by Alaska, starting September 2.
  • Would you like ketchup with your cake? – To commemorate its Canadian centennial and thank Canadians for 100 years of support, Heinz has created The Great Canadian Heinz Ketchup Cake — an ideal dessert for any celebration. It's red, perfectly spiced and delicious. Think carrot cake without all the work. "We all think of ketchup as the perfect complement to hotdogs, hamburgers and fries, but its unique taste makes ketchup an ideal flavour enhancer for many recipes, including desserts," explains Amy Snider. The professional home economist and culinary nutritionist works with Heinz. "Heinz Ketchup not only adds great flavour to the cake, but it also creates a wonderfully moist texture."

    (Thanks, Mom)

Pictures from our trip to Toronto

You can see all of my Toronto pics here, with a few selected below. They’re all kinda shrunk down to fit on this page, so click on any of them to see them larger.

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Trompe l’oiel
Famous building in downtown Toronto that makes appearances in movies every now and again.

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The city awakens
Coming downtown, via the 427 from the airport at 6:45 am. I think the monochrome image with the red flag is pretty damn cool. No Photoshop effect – it just came out like that.

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Yung Sing Pastry Shop
This little place in the Baldwin Village is right near U of T as well as the (former) Northern Telecom office on University Ave. I used to go to this place and get Chinese buns – with a million different fillings – fried rice, coconut-bean-something, barbecue pork or beef, chicken, etc. It was the first place I had ever experienced this particular type of Chinese food and I really loved it. I decided to take a quick walk up there the other day while in town and see if it was still around. It was fun to go back – the food was pretty good, but not stunning. Has it changed, or have I?

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Half-Mast
Several Canadian soldiers were killed the other week in Afghanistan, and the Prime Minister is going through some Bush-esque steps – barring photographers from the arriving bodies, and not ordering flags at half-mast to honor them. (I may have the story only partially correct?).
I suspected this business had their flag at half-mast as a deliberate note of honor despite the government’s lack of action in that direction.

When I see large Canadian flags, especially ones waving politically, I can’t help but wonder about evolving Canadian nationalism. When I lived in Toronto during the first Gulf War, I would often drive to New York State and would be very struck upon crossing the border to see many many huge huge flags proclaiming support. I felt that was in contrast to the under-patriotic tone in Canada. It seems like Canada has moved up a notch after decades of self-deprecation – I like to believe it came from the I Am Canadian rants of the late 90s, but I don’t know if anyone else would support that notion.

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Smart Car
We saw quite a few Smart Cars driving around Burlington/Oakville. Here’s a working Smart Car, all made up to be a messenger vehicle.

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Dessert Faves
clockwise, Nanaimo Bars, Vanilla Slice, Butter Tart.
I’ve only ever seen Nanaimo Bars and Butter Tarts in Canada, so I try to make sure to get some every time I’m home. They are just damn good.

Many days on the way home from high school we’d stop in and get one of those Vanilla Slices- very very good – seems like they are traditionally from Australia. The same bakery from high school is still there and still sells ’em.

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Falun Gong protest march
We were in the Spadina Garden restaurant (now located on Dundas) when this parade of Falun Gong protesters came by. When the owner came to take our order we made a comment about it and he went into a serious (if somewhat unintelligible) rant about these crooks and how we shouldn’t look at the parade. It was a bit of a bummer moment – I don’t understand the politics or other aspects of the issue and no doubt its highly contentious, but I didn’t really want his opinion when I was trying to eat his food and look at his window.

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[murmur]
These signs are quite common in Toronto – you call the number on the sign, punch in the code (even though this one was worn away) and hear some details about where you are standing.

If we didn’t have to pay international roaming charges on our cell, we would have tried it to see what they had to say. Kind of a drag, then. You can hear the info online as well at

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Spadina Station
Waiting on the platform for the Bloor trains at Spadina Station. The famous (from the Shuffle Demons) Spadina bus (either 77A or 77B) are long gone, replaced by the LRT that now emanates from a gaping maw in Spadina Road, just south of Bloor.

There are other TTC stations that have attached bus/streetcar stations, but do others have the icons next to the station name? I didn’t think so.

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Dining Lounge – Dancing
A shuttered restaurant (The Blue Moon Saloon?) on Bloor St. in the Annex.

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The Tap – DJ, Moe Berg
TPOH frontman Moe Berg is the DJ at the Tap on Bloor St., Saturday nights. He was there when we went in, too. Kinda noisy to hear anything, but always fun to drop into the Tap anyway.

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Parking Lot Fruit Stand
When this place opened, it seemed like it was in the parking lot attendant booth, with a tray out in front. It didn’t even seem like a legal business; more like someone was squatting with fresh fruit in a highly commercial area.

But more than 15 years later it’s still there; it’s grown into a little building but it still looks pretty damn haphazard.

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Senator David A. Croll Apts.
Location of the infamous Rochdale experiment.

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Liebeskind with new glasses
“I believe there is no longer an argument as the role and importance of museums in shaping civic, regional and national identity, giving scale to aspirations and opening new horizons.”

Daniel Liebeskind has designed “The Crystal” as part of the expansion of the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) and the whole thing is called the ROM Renaissance. Yet another of a super-modern building laying on top of a very traditional building. I’m not so sure I like it, but it will certainly be dramatic when completed.

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We Kill You.net
I guess it’s some sort of public art guerilla collaborative. This location is was up on their site along with many others.

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Eat Fish…Live Longer!
Sign in the window at Buster’s Sea Cove in St. Lawrence Market

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Bloor Cinema
The Bloor Cinema, where I first saw indie films such as Roadkill. Or various bizarre animation festivals (early Bill Pympton stuff). We were walking by there during this last trip, and the HotDocs film festival was going on, and they were inviting people in at 11:30 pm for a free screening, so we went in.

This was free, remember.

They introduce the movie and thank the sponsor for the film and talk to the director and then roll it. We get the usual film festival promo trailer, and acknowledgments screens, and then an ad for Cadillac.

And the audience begins to boo.

I don’t normally do this but I shouted out against the booing “You’re seeing a FREE MOVIE so shut the f*** up!” It was a big flashback to my days living in the Annex with all the hipster posing that went on. I remember people laughing too hard at strange indie films and feeling like that was how they felt they were supposed to react, rather than anything sincere or heartfelt (or backed up by actual thoughts). I almost had forgotten that feeling from my time in Toronto and having this strong reaction to the anti-advertising booing (at a FREE MOVIE) brought it all back, and I realized that in many ways, I was very glad not to be living in Toronto any more.

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Site of the former J.J. Muggs
Remember when restaurants had clever names like J.J. Muggs? This place was so 80s, green marble everywhere, waiters that would crouch down and call you buddy with a slap on the shoulder. This was where I first learned to drink (and I was never that much into it) – Long Island Iced Tea, and something that was like a fake root beer made of many different alcohols. Good stuff. Pitchers!

They had an incredible all-you-can-eat Sunday brunch buffet that featured half-lobsters (a whole lobster, cut lengthwise). I remember going and staying so long, eating lobster (and King Crab and everything else) that I just waited out being full until I was hungry again.

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Hockey on Yonge St.
They closed down Yonge St. and there were a million teams of kids playing road hockey (aka street hockey). Only in Canada!

Campbell’s Gardennay


I realize I’d been away from Canada quite a while when I saw Campbell’s Gardennay on the grocery store shelves (of course, you know I’m into that stuff). It just seemed like the worst, most awkward faux-Euro brand name. I’m amused to see American DiGiorno appear in Canada as Delicio, but mostly, this Campbell’s soup name just seems weird and strange. But then, I don’t live in the target region. Anymore.

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