Not only can you claim the Home Renovation Tax Credit, but condo owners can claim their share of renovations done to the building that were paid for with the condo maintenance fees. There are some caveats, the renovations must be of the same nature that would qualify in a home (e.g. furniture and appliances do not count) and there must be proper documentation by the condo corporation.

The documentation is the hard part. I would encourage you to print out this article from the Toronto Star and show it to the board, and let them determine if they can provide the documentation.

The LCBO has highlighted the following selections as their Wines of the Month for January 2010:

• Grove Street  Cabernet Sauvignon 2006
• Gerard Bertrand Grand Terroir 2007
• Fielding Estate Pinot Gris 2008

LG just launched a new line of televisions at CES today. The Infinia line are all LED backlight and feature local-dimming (a must for all LED TV’s). The top end LE9500 has 240 local dimming segments while the LE7500 and LE5500 have 16.

Pricing is not yet available.

Some of you noticed that All-Clad’s Stainless Steel line had significant discounts over Boxing Day. These sales were pretty rare for All-Clad and the reason is that they were clearing out that line in order to introduce the new d5 Stainless line.

The new d5 line is a 5-ply design of  stainless steel and aluminum. In addition to the new cooking surface, they feature redesigned handles that are more comfortable and less likely to heat up, and a pour lip that allows less dripping.

The copper and brushed stainless lines have not been updated.

At the end of this year (yes, 2010) the Chevrolet Volt will be available for sale. This hybrid is different than all the others made by the major car companies – it can run on it’s battery only, and charge while parked with an electrical outlet. Toyota is rumored to be developing a plug-in Prius and Mercedes just announced a plug-in S400 concept. However, can a car like this succeed in Toronto?

Toronto is a very urban city. It has many, many high rises and multiple-unit dwellings where the garages are shared among all the residents. Most apartments and condos have few, if any, available electrical outlets for use by residents. How will these people charge their cars? This affects people at work too – have you considered how you can plug in your car at your office parking lot?

Toronto’s older neighborhoods lack garages. In fact in my neighborhood there is only street parking available for residents and most of the downtown core is like that. Will you run a 100-200ft power cable to your car overnight?

I’m curious how this will all play out. Plug-in hybrids or electric-only vehicles will be pretty efficient, and don’t produce much carbon. It might do good in the lawn-and-garage suburbs but it will be hard to tell how well they can sell in the urban areas.

Possible solutions are incentives for multi-dwelling buildings to implement charging technology in their garages. Having charging stations in public lots. Inexpensive home-based charging centers. It will be interesting how the private and public sectors deal with the charging issue.

The Globe and Mail published an article of the 50 best employers in Canada. A pretty good article and something to target if you’re a job seeker.

This is probably the ultimate TV right now. Arguably better than Sony’s XBR8 which also featured LED backlighting with local dimming. Remember, not all LED backlights are created equal, and the XBR8 and Samsung’s 8500 have the local dimming feature for the blackest blacks on LCD. The full review is at AVGuide.

Too bad this set didn’t come in 50″ or 52″. 55″ is a bit too big for my living room.

It’s 2010! Where did the 2000′s go so quickly?

Since you are all probably at home nursing hangovers, check out these blogs from my friends:

http://www.blainekendall.com/

http://photos.blainekendall.com/

http://miketanphotography.com/

https://swareztravels.wordpress.com/

http://www.walterlaidesign.com/blog/

http://adamwine.wordpress.com/

http://mike8bits.wordpress.com/