It took the government FOUR years to announce then implement this. Amazing how long it takes from announcement to action when it comes to our federal government. The National Do Not Call website is launching today, add your number there and telemarketers will stop calling you.
Did you click on the link? Having problems? Yes, that means the website is not working. As reported on Canada.com, the site is experiencing difficulty because of traffic. I find this amazing since this service is outsourced to none other than Bell Canada.
Do not expect to be completely free of calls, check out the large amount of exceptions that the federal government approved during the past four years:
charities
political parties
polling companies
businesses with products or services they’ve inquired about in the past six months
businesses that they’ve had relationships with in the past 18 months.
I’m slowly getting through my picks from Adam’s Wine List. I’m not much of a wine expert but having someone give recommendations based on what they have drink is a pretty efficient way to learn. For the past year or so I’ve been focusing on wines from Italy and France as a way to immerse myself in a specific wine region to learn the regions, grapes and their respective tastes. This week’s wine was a 2007 Louis Jadot Beaujolais Villages.
Without realizing it, this was one of the “newest” wines I’ve tried in recent memory. I’m no wine expert and I’m surprised I tasted what I considered to be a newer wine taste, but it was still very pleasant. It was less fragrant than last week’s 2006 Banfi Centine but the taste was not as developed. I’m thinking that this would be a better “keeper” wine for it to develop more. It’s still not a bad wine at all, and I recommend it, but definetly feel it would get better with age.
The media surrounding the real estate market has been in denial for several months, if not over a year. Despite a lot of negative statistics, building associations, the real estate board and agents on TV have repeatedly been saying that the market is fine, and healthy and still worth it for people to be buying and selling homes.
However, if you cut through the rose-colored glasses, you’ll see that sales in Toronto, the GTA, and ALL the cities surrounding us are down for the year by 20-67%. the Building Industry and Land Development Association released these numbers Friday:
The new 2009’s are announced and the 600cc series got a big makeover. The outside look matches better with it’s 1000cc sibling, the ZX-10R while the bike itself has lost 20lbs and gains Showa Big Piston forks. I still love the CBR-600RR.
Over the past few years, digital photography has literally exploded in popularity. It’s by far supassed where film photography was in the previous decade which has ben languishing for years. However, a quick trip through Flickr, Facebook, and the blogsphere reveals many stylistic difference between online photos and print photos from film.
What I’ve noticed is that many pictures are adjusted so that contrast and saturation is set very high, almost to “unrealistic” levels. I’ve wondered why this is so prevelant as in film photography, the developers at your local photo lab always strived to give you the most “natural” colors. However, with so many do-it-yourself photography via digital imaging, images online skew towards very saturated and high contrast photos.
Equipment may play a large part in this. Most people are editting photos on laptop computers which are almost always equipped with 6-bit or low-contrast LCD screens. To make the pictures “look right” on those screens, they have skewed many of the adjustments so that they look less natural on a full, bright CRT or 8-bit desktop LCD monitor. Professionals adjust their monitors and calibrate their photo software so that what they see onscreen is replicated correctly in print media, but the DIY person probably doesn’t do that.
This is so prevelant now that I think that the online photo “style” is now widely seen online and almost expected. Even the photos I showcase on the nav bar of my blog are skewed to match the style of photography mostly found these days, even though I have a calibrated, 8-bit LCD.
After 100 years of getting “natural” colors through advanced development in the labs of Kodak and Fuji, the digital world has turned this upside down and sided more with unnatural tones and contrasty highlights in online media. Photography is art, there is no “right” way to do it. It’s good to see so many people enjoying the hobby of photography.
LIGHTS launched her first “official” video online. Lately I’ve heard this track getting airplay on Virgin Radio and saw her plug her music on CP24 on the 25th. Her popularity is growing!
Her website: http://www.iamlights.com/
Her myspace: http://www.myspace.com/lightsnoise
Her video blog: http://www.youtube.com/LIGHTS
Note: Video changes to MySpace video because it was in better resolution.
Fancy the Nissan GT-R? Already signed up to receive one in the new future? Make sure you know that the GT-R is one of the most invasive cars to be on the road. The Nissan GT-R is one of the cars that feature an Electronic Data Recorder (EDR) also known as a ‘black box’. In today’s article at Autoweek, they provide information on the use of the EDR in the GT-R.
Black boxes are legal in the USA as long as they comply with the US Dept. of Transportation requirements. The DOT does not mandate black boxes, but if there is a box, they have rules that the manufacturers must follow. What’s interesting aobut the Nissan box is that it is not activated in a crash, instead it’s active all the time! Moreover, it stores almost a week’s worth of data that can be used by your dealer to void your warranty. Specifically, “Nissan specifically warns owners that they could void warranty protection by running a car with its vehicle dynamic control (VDC), governing traction and stability, turned off.”
It’s unknown how this affects Canadian cars. We have different transportation laws as well as different privacy laws. I’ll make a second post once I confirm if the EDR is equipped on Canadian GT-R’s.
This is one of the Italian wines on Adam’s List. My friends and I had it with a home cooked Indian dinner last night. The 2006 Banfi Centine was very aromatic when I opened it – right away I noticed it had a sweeter, fruity aroma compared to my normal go-to wine: Châteauneuf-du-Pape.
The wine tasted great and was very balanced. To me, this is a great wine to bring to dinner with family or friends because it is very versatile. It’s not super dry nor super fruity tasting and is great value at $17.95.
Adam is better at describing it’s taste: “strong flavours of blackberries, black cherries, and a hint of spice”. Wine Spectator’s James Suckling: “Very rich and ripe aromas of blackberry and earth follow through to a full-bodied palate, with soft tannins and a long finish. Shows lovely flavors. One of the best values from Tuscany this year. Best after 2007. Score – 88.”
This was the second time that I had been to Red Violin. It’s a brazilian steakhouse where the meats are delivered to you freshly grilled on skewers and then served sliced at the table. The have a great salad buffet that includes mussels, shrimps and smoked salmon – but you need to exercise restraint here because if you fill up too much, you won’t be able to enjoy the wide selection of mains that will arrive at your table.
On the skewers are various grilled meats like garlic beef, roasted chicken, sirloin, ribs, pork – all prepared in different ways and brought to your table on large skewers. The wait staff brandish large slicers and cut a piece to your satisfaction and you pick it up with tongs provided at each table setting. It’s one of the best venues for ‘meatatarians’.
The dessert is a skewered piece of pineapple that is roasted with butter and cinammon – it’s DELICIOUS. I warned everyone to leave room for dessert as it is really quite fantastic. It’s such a simple dish but done so well.
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