Roll up the rim... to pollute! · Thursday March 8, 2007 by colin newell
An Ottawa inventor has created a “labour-saving device” to help Canadians effortlessly “Roll Up the Rim to Win” at Tim Hortons.
Paul Kind, 62, spent three years developing the Rimroller — a plastic device the size of a bottle opener that cleanly slices open and unrolls a rim in one fluid motion.
“Do you know that Tim Hortons (sells) close to 300 million cups every year?” Mr. Kind said yesterday. “When you think of all the effort expended by these different people rolling up their rim, you realize what a labour-saving device this is.”
Uhm. Hello!?
300 million empty cups that get thrown in the trash… the land-fill… the sidewalk…
The trees!
I have been in Tim’s and I steadfastly refuse this stupid and polluting practice. Hello! Does anyone else get this? The waste? The blight on our landscape?
Mr. Kind said he purchased “hundreds” of Tim Hortons coffees over the last three years to conduct rim-rolling experiments.
“I always asked them for a double cup every time,” he said. “They probably wondered why, but there certainly was a good reason.”
Tim Hortons Coffee is a Bad corporate citizen.
Bad. Bad. Bad.
Enough of this freaking pollution already…
and as you know… Tim Horton’s Coffee sucks.
Supplemental reading — The Story of Stuff
Comment [9]
Canadian jobs...gone · Wednesday March 7, 2007 by colin newell
TORONTO — As many as 700 workers at Air Canada’s Vancouver maintenance facility will lose their jobs because of a decision by Delta Air Lines Inc. to move work on its jets to China to take advantage of cheaper labour costs.
Air Canada Technical Services (ACTS), a division of Air Canada parent ACE Aviation Holdings Inc. said today that Atlanta-based Delta, has decided to terminate its contract and relocate airframe work on about 100 wide-body Boeing 767 jets.
Cheaper labour costs huh?
My wife was in a series of meetings in Vancouver not too long ago that included neo-con guest-speakers from the likes of the Fraser Institute (Conservative think-tank run by rich old businessmen…), British Columbia Liberals and other high-rollers.
This was at a time when the Liberal government in B.C. just finished gutting the apprenticeship programs – figured we didn’t need apprenticeship programs anymore. Right.
Various neo-cons were getting up and rah-rahing the Liberal party for their right-thinking… no pun intended.
Then one of my wife’s bleeding-heart left-leaning fuzzy thinker friends stood up and said…
Sir. How did you get here today? By plane you say? Indeed. Now, as your jet is screaming down the runway… thousands of pounds of airplane and thousands of pound of thrust… defying the laws of gravity… Would you rather have a B.C. certified and Federally certified journeyman aviation mechanic maintaining that aircraft or some minimum wage hump from some third-world outsourced back-water? Well?
There was a modest round of applause for the fuzzy-thinker.
And it is my point exactly: We need to be careful that we do not give away too much…
before there is nothing left.
ATM - Banks: they get you with the fees · Tuesday March 6, 2007 by colin newell
At a time when the federal finance minister is asking Canada’s big banks to justify a raft of ATM banking fees, Canada’s second-largest bank is reporting its first quarterly profit of more than $1 billion.
Bank of Nova Scotia reported Tuesday morning a first quarter profit that smashed all expectations at $1.01 billion, or $1.01 a share, up almost 20 per cent from $844 million, or 84 cents a share, a year ago.
Ok. On a more personal note, I do not generally pay ATM fees.
How!? Why!?
Well. I never use ATMs other than the ones my native financial institution offers. Ever. Never, ever, ever.
I speak up for the millions of Canadians that are getting reamed up the wazoo by Canadian banks.
Make no mistake about it. Canadian (and American) banks are evil as Satan. They profit from you. They profit from your misery (read – hold your mortgages…)
Your money? It aint your money according to the banks.
The banks feel they are doing you a favor by handling your money.
It is more theirs than yours.
Or so the story goes. And ATM fees. Well. While they have you bent over the Maytag, it is just an extra reminder of who is in charge.
So like oil companies, banks rule. They always will.
They screw you today. And they will tomorrow.
How can you fight back? Stop using non-native ATMs.
When life gives you lemons... start baking · Sunday February 18, 2007 by colin newell
True confession. I have been lusting after this one kitchen item for years, for over a decade in fact. My first real kitchen appliance was a Champion Juicer that I bought in 1988 or 1989. It is still running like a top. Just not in my kitchen. In my Mom’s kitchen – she pinched it from me just before I got married and never gave it back. Of course, she says, I can have it back whenever I want it.
Right.
Anyway. I digress.
The KitchenAid Artisan mixer is going to make life a little easier for me. I do 100% of the baking around the house and 50% of the chef work. I am the Chef’s assistant in fact. More of a sous chef. A great stir-person. A dicer. A whisker. That’s me.
Anyway. I make all my own muffins, bars, cookies, biscotti, cakes and (lastly) breads. The breads are most definitely at the end of the list because they are the most labor intensive.
Not anymore. Now that I have the KitchenAid Arnold SchwarzenMixer life is going to be that much easier. The 7 watt hand blender will be relegated to omelette duty and my uber-cool Paderno hand-blender will just keep on doing what its doing.
Anyway. I have my mixer. Yipee. Stay tuned for recipes.
Who wants dinner?
