Bloor Street Market is the new Loblaws store that arised from the ashes of the Valu-Mart that was below the Manulife building at Bay and Bloor. The new store design does not really change the layout, but the store has gotten a fresh fascade with some stone facing, and new cabinets and counters. The butcher and fishmonger areas are much more approachable and there’s a large focus on convience foods (pre-cooked foods at the deli, salad bar, prepackaged ready-to-heat meals.
There’s quite a concentration of grocery stores on Bloor. With the new Market by Longo’s , a larger Rabba’s, the exclusive Pusateri’s and Whole Foods all a block away from this location. At least I have a lot of choices. What I like is that these are grocery stores, not supermarkets. There is no pharmacist, there is no 1 hour photo lab, no consumer hard goods – pure grocery. If they can concentrate on good, fresh product, they may get a lot of loyal customers who prefer to walk than drive to get groceries.
I posted earlier about Onkyo’s new 2010 receivers, and the specs impressed me so much, I bought one. I’ve had the Onkyo TX-NR808 for about about three weeks now and it’s been a positive experience so far.
There’s a lot to like about this receiver. What pushed me to buy it over the other receivers I’ve seen in the past two years are these features:
Graphical Overlay over HDMI – high end models had this feature but this is one of the first for a $1000 receiver
HDMI Upconversion to 1080p – earlier models did not upconvert HDMI, only analog
7 HDMI ports including one front port – useful for my cameras
USB input for iPod/iPhone control – can switch between iPhone control or using receiver GUI
Ethernet port – for playing music found on your PC
Like most receivers, it has a ton of features I will probably never use. This includes support for HDMI 1.4 for 3DTV, second subwoofer out and Dolby PLIIz height channels.Installation was a snap, and I finally got rid of all my optical/digital coax cables and use a complete HDMI setup for PVR, DVD and XBOX. I haven’t hooked up my PC yet – I haven’t felt the need to since the receiver can play the music on my PC using it’s network features. A great feature is the ability for the receiver to find new remote control codes using the Internet. The manual had no code numbers for the XBOX but when I used the receiver it quickly looked it up.
There are a few nuisances that take getting used to. The most distracting is a “click” sound when the receiver switches between 5-channel sound to 2-channel sound, and back. Normally this doesn’t happen often but some poor HD channels on rogers have the main show in 5.1 but switch to 2.1 during commercials. The workaround is the force the receiver into 5.1 for all inputs. I think the volume control is a little too finite, I could use a bit less control there – it takes too long to turn down a loud commercial. It’s also a very large unit, small cabinets may have trouble fitting the 808. Lastly, the remote control cannot be my only remote, it doesn’t replicate the “list” key on my cisco PVR which gains entry to the recorded shots.
A firmware update was available two weeks after I received the unit. Trying to do the firmware update over the Internet cause an 35-1 error. Luckily, some helpful people on AVSForum pointed out that the solution was to do the update while the receiver was in the USB/NET mode. Selecting that mode allowed the firmware to be successful.
Overall I recommend this receiver, however the 708 is $200 less and doesn’t lack any of the important features. If I were to do my purchase over again, I’d probably stick to the cheaper 708. If you are looking for receivers, I recommend Electronics For Less which does free delivery for most receivers but also has a storefront in Markham.
I’m a huge fan of Survivorman, and was pleased to learn that Les Stroud has a new TV series starting next week. It’s called Beyond Survival and debuts on Discovery Channel in the United States.It doesn’t look like it’s available in Canada. Shame. Gizmodo did a recent interview with him talking about his gear and setups during shooting.
Update:
This show is coming to Outdoor Life Network (OLN) on September 5th.
A unique fundraising event is happening at the Carlu this November. Called the Chef’s Challenge, it features Gorden Ramsey and local Toronto chefs leading teams against each other in a cook off. You can get on the team by being one of the five top fundraisers. The selected Toronto chefs are Massimo Capra, Lynn Crawford, Jamie Kennedy, Mark McEwan and David Rocco – household names to anyone that watches the Food Network.
The top 25 fundraisers also get a VIP Brunch in a private home the local chefs and Gordon Ramsay.
The Canon S95 is an update to the Canon S90 that I have mentioned previously. Canon seems to be aggressively going after this space with an update to the camera only a year after it’s release – and soon after the announcement of the Panasonic Lumix LX5.
The new S95 features a new sensor and 720p video recording capability. The front control ring was redesigned to give better tactile feedback. It also adds a built-in HDR feature for better dynamic range. They also tout the Hybrid IS system, however give very little detail about how it works.
The verdict is out on how much better the S95 is in low-lighting conditions than the S90 or the SD4000-IS with it’s back-illuminated CMOS sensor (of which I own). I’ll wait for the first reviews to come out and see what the high-ISO shots look like.
For larger luxury cars, the following made the “Top Safety Pick”. This required them to have a “Good” score for all four IIHS crash tests and standard stability control.
HardOCP just reported that BFG is liquidating it’s business. I’m disappointed because I really liked the company, it’s products, and it’s excellent customer support. They offered factory overclocked graphics card for PC’s and stood by them with a lifetime warranty. Recent margin pressure on the graphics card industry must’ve just been too much to handle.
I love Calvin and Hobbes. It’s too bad Bill Watterson moved on to other things, but such is his choice. One of my best gifts was the Complete Calvin and Hobbes – a box set of every strip bound in three volumes. Earlier, the Calvin and Hobbes Search Engine was created, a searchable index of all the strips.
It’s a private project, and Andrews McMeel Universal, the owners of the Calvin and Hobbes strips have been militant in the past about squashing any usage of the name and imagery on the web. I hope it will continue to exist but AMU have proven themselves to be ruthless. A note has been added to the page about a cease-and-desist letter already on the way.
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