Blog of the Month - illegalsigns.ca · Saturday February 16, 2008 by colin newell
Ok. New category. I was going to call it the “It’s about damn time awards…”
But I thought better.
I got an e-mail today from my good buddy Rami Tabello at IllegalSigns.ca in Toronto.
IllegalSigns.ca – the Toronto area website that sticks it to the big players in the outdoor sign industry that are cluttering your sight lines and the visual environment for corporate profit. Oh yes, and installing outdoor signs without the right permits or paperwork. There is nothing that angers me more than rich corporate fat cats that feel that the rules that apply to you and me – do not apply to them.
And in this blog, once again, I pick on Pattison Outdoor (a wing of the Pattison group) that does business in Toronto.
Jimmy Pattison, by the way, just bought the Guiness World Book of Records and in some ways the irony of this purchase is not entirely lost on me… but read on please.
IllegalSigns.ca is an absolute inspiration for me. I tend to think of myself as a pretty gutsy, devil may care individual… but I am not. The good people at IllegalSigns.ca have more healthy pairs than the Dallas Cowboys (and their cheerleaders!)
I mean, who in their right mind would take on Pattison Outdoor in the press, like the good people at IllegalSigns.ca, without hard facts to back up their accusations.
Example: IllegalSigns.ca was tipped off recently by a Pattison Outdoor employee that the Pattison Outdoor Group was about to butcher a healthy elm tree (illegally) because the tree was obscuring the billboard.
This billboard was illegally installed on public property. Check out the series of photos and feel some of the anger that I feel every time I think about Pattison Outdoor. We salute those Pattison Outdoor employees brave enough to stand up against their employers!
Rami Tabello’s website even gets insiders at Pattison Outdoor offering excuses about visual clutter in Toronto in the comment fields of the web-site.
My question is this: Why would I be immediately fined or jailed if I did this and yet a big company headed by a billionaire can get away with cutting down trees without permits and erecting signs in some of our most beautiful cities without the proper paperwork or permits?
Ok, so Pattison Outdoor is not the only player in this lucrative sign market in Toronto. Astral Media and CBS-Outdoor (yes, CBS Television) is a big player in Toronto, Canada – and they appear to bend as many rules as Pattison Outdoor.
But don’t take my word for it. head over to IllegalSigns.ca and get angry with me.
Really, I want you to see some of this stuff. And then take a look around at your visual environment.
Update February 18, 2008 – Read here for more example of illegal Pattison Outdoor in Toronto.
Update February 19, 2008 – Read here for a brilliant Toronto Star article that covers the activities of Illegalsigns.ca
Hayden live in Victoria Alix Goolden Theatre · Thursday February 14, 2008 by colin newell
It was a great relief as a mid-40 something dude to find that I was not the oldest man in the Alix Goolden Theatre, Victoria for Hayden’s concert tonight.
Hayden, after all is pushing 40. Not that it shows. Because it doesn’t.
The standard uniform at tonight’s Hayden show was plaid for dudes, facial hair and lots of it and a sensitive hang-dog expression.
All the girls (and there were lots of girls) look exactly like the women that I work with at the University; somewhere between 20 and 30, pretty and plain and fitted into clean blue jeans and cotton t-shirts.
The vibe at the Hayden concert was squeaky clean in plaid with youthful freshness.
And If you have never heard of Hayden, do not worry. Most people over the age of 30 haven’t. I think he falls into a music category I call coffee house. He falls dead center in the genre I think.
Hayden’s voice is as brittle as a dried egg shell in the coldest corner of your refrigerator. – His voice as plaintive and vulnerable as an abandoned wet dog whimpering on a country road.
His music defies complexity. His guitar chords and general playing style is (for yours truly – a guitar slinger from the eighties) is aggravatingly simple but evocative in a peculiar kind of way.
To be blunt, I recognized many of his songs from the SUB Cafe at the University where I work – but the lyrics were wrapped, folded and hidden like an unsent love letter forgotten under a sofa… which is to say: When he is singing, I cannot hear or understand a god-damn thing. And as a guitar player and singer, this aggravates the heck out of me.
Which is part of who Hayden is.
For me, a part time musician and producer, there is a lot of stuff or substance in Hayden’s music that appears beyond the audible… perhaps with the imagination of the listener – When he is strumming and working it out with his keening vocal delivery, I can hear French Horns, acoustic bass and a variety of unidentifiable instruments somewhere between my ears. But I wish my ears could pick out the lyrics.
My wife summed it up for me after the concert:
“Colin, you are way more talented than Hayden is… on the Piano and the Guitar and when you sing…”
That might be so but Hayden filled the house and the plaid-clads and pretty girls in the crisp blue jeans were loving him.
Jenn Grant of Halifax opened the show with a half-dozen songs reminiscent of what Feist is currently doing; bouncy, fresh, approachable and organic…
Lyric-wise? I could not understand a damn thing she was singing either.
Canada Post Rant #1 · Thursday January 31, 2008 by colin newell
Imagine you are sitting down to dinner with your loved ones…
like you do every day.
Except for one small detail.
Today a stranger wanders into your home and shovels extra plate-fulls of food for you to eat… whether you want to or not.
You have no choice about this extra food.
Or do you?
And so it is with Canada Post and all the bull*hit junk mail they ladle into your inbox every day.
They say that Canadians, in general, want junk mail.
They say we need it. Community announcements. Public Service stuff. It is all there. Every day. We need it in our diet.
Nonsense I say.
Did you know that you can put a red dot on your mailbox to say NO to junk mail. Junk mail is, as we know, mail that has no specific address – and occupant is not you… so do not worry.
A Vancouver businesswoman is putting her money on the line to raise awareness about your junk-mail options.
Read her story here
In the meantime, care for more mashed potatoes?
Looking inward adlib number one · Thursday January 24, 2008 by colin newell
Ok. Stream of consciousness blog entry based on what passed through my brain first.
CBC Website reveals “After interviewing hundreds of witnesses, Vancouver police have no clear suspect descriptions following what they describe as the latest targeted shooting death to occur outside a restaurant in the city.”
The restaurant is Gotham Steakhouse in Vancouver.
From my perspective, the most gauche joint in town and the most likely (for regular folks like me) to find suspiciously rich people inside. You know, like going to a Canucks game – which is something that I have done in the last 6 months (and will again in one month…)
Canucks Games: Where people go to be seen – they are rich folks right? You have to be rich to see the games regularly – or have several hundred dollars to toss IF and ONLY IF you are in town and your other expenses have been covered… because if they are not you are looking at a 400$ evening for a game of ice and puck.
Anyway. Shooting at (I am sorry, Outside of…) Gotham Restaurant.
“Would you like a Potato with your 21 ounce Kobe, Sir?”
Actually, I see a surgeon over in the corner… Maybe I can get my quad bypass now and save the time eating.
Shooting. 2 dead guys. 1 horrified fiancé wearing a tiara. A lot of shocked and confused bystanders not entirely sure who or what shot whom.
I still love Vancouver. Vancouver has always had gangsters and want-to-be gangsters, hoodlums, hooligans, thugs and otherwise arrogant and self-important wankers. Every city has them. Maybe Vancouver has more per capita.
Will I stop going there? Hell no. I respect the ability of professional killers to safely hit their targets and leave us innocent and law abiding citizens the heck alone.
Case dismissed.
B.C. Ferries rant number 3 · Friday December 14, 2007 by colin newell
The newest member of B.C.‘s ferry fleet arrived Thursday and the people who didn’t get to build them have a kink or two in their bulkheads.
And so do I.
They’re now urging Ottawa to use the $82 million in import duties to support the province’s shipbuilding industry.
The Coastal Renaissance is the first of three ships to be built in Germany by the Flensburger Shipyard, for a paltry $524 million.
Peter Julian, the NDP-MP for Burnaby-New Westminster, said “about 5,000 direct and indirect local jobs were lost by the short-sighted provincial government investment in the German shipbuilding industry, rather than supporting B.C. jobs.”
At a ceremony for the ship’s arrival, B.C. Ferries president David Hahn said “I am more concerned about lowering ferry fares for British Columbians than subsidizing the shipbuilding industry.”
Say what?
The Flensburger yard was a bankrupt shipyard and the reason it’s able to compete in the manner it does today is simply because the government invested in it. Sound familiar?
Yes, the shipyards of British Columbia are very busy, thank you very much. It is just that the optics of this situation do not bear up under closer scrutiny. For instance, B.C. shipyards were shut out of the bidding process – and that includes the Washington Marine group – current owners of the former Fast-Cat Ferries
So Ottawa. Give us the import duties back… and maybe the Gordon Campbell Liberals can restore the funding to the Women’s Centers in the Province that have faced budget cutbacks this year.
Take a Safe Boating Course and get your Boat License in BC from Boater Exam.
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