British Columbia mini-rant - Deer at the dinner table · Wednesday August 12, 2009 by colin newell
A Ucluelet woman has been ordered by the Ministry of Environment to stop keeping a black-tailed deer as a house pet.
Janet Schwartz took in “Bimbo” as a fawn five years ago, after its mother was killed by a car, she told CBC News.
The doe sleeps in a bed in Schwartz’s home, dances to Elvis, hugs like an old man and eats at her table. Its diet includes fruit and junk food.
The blue meanies at the Ministry of the Environment say that the Doe has got to go.
Bimbo has been with Ms. Schwartz for almost 6 years now…
so, In B.C. this is a legally binding common law relationship.
I say leave the couple alone.
And isn’t it funny that a government that behaves like an obsequious old house-elf from Harry Potter towards every little ache and pain from the likes of VANOC – bares their teeth at a little old lady and her live in venison.
Shame. Shame I say, shame!
A government that is now less popular than swine flu and less credible than the RCMP can ill afford to be smacking around old hippies and their hoofers.
So back off already… before we call in the rest of the herd.
Summer Food Fun and Drink - why Ikea sucks · Tuesday August 11, 2009 by colin newell
Ikea. Junk furniture made with unsustainable materials manufactured and collated by exploited workers so we can have dilapidated and readily disposable crap in our shrinking living space.
Ikea is in the hot seat this month after being caught vandalizing hundreds of pieces of public and private property. Picture at upper-right: Unreal.
Given that IKEA’s environmental stewardship is more global wrecking ball than actual contributor to real solutions, their recent botched ad campaign seems entirely apropos – Corporate guerrilla art it’s called. They spray-paint (vandalize) public space in the name of corporate kitsch and coolness – and it bites.
Ikea. You stink and it ain’t the reek of laminate.
IKEA—third largest global consumer of wood— gets many of its raw materials from regions where illegal logging is rampant and environmental stewardship is as absent as your parents on your first big night out. IKEA’s wares, and the industrial location of its big-box stores (consumers have to travel by car to make their purchases, or even exchange faulty small parts), speak to a unfailing disregard for environmental consideration.
The hoo-haw around Ikea’s use of “chalk spray” graffiti to complement a TV ad campaign aimed at driving viewers to a website where they could enter a contest to win $15,000 worth of furniture – has caused them to back peddle faster than a RCMP officer at a taser inquiry.
The ads featured a yellow dotted line framing the slogan “Any Place Can Be Beautiful,” a website of the same name and “Aug. 10,” the date Ikea plans to deliver 5.5 million flyers to Canadian homes.
Although I have never been a fan of the crap that they sell, I am now even more resolved to never set foot in one of their soul crushing retail outlets. Shame on Ikea for stealing our public space and branding it for commercial gain.
Comment [4]
Summer Food and Drink series - 2011 rant #30 in stickiness · Wednesday July 22, 2009 by colin newell
The year is 2011. Vancouver. The former emerald gem of the Canadian south-west is in ruin. Several years of utter neglect and government sponsored raids on the community chest have left this former city of dreams in a patina of rust and deterioration.
A private police force cautiously roam the few streets not declared off limits by endless civil strife, skirmishes between resistance militias and the almost complete collapse of infrastructure.
Those people brave enough to venture into the chaos, bewildered in the crumbling streets, look for a reason for this nightmare – and a scrap of food not already sold off to the occupiers.
I gaze across this futuristic hellscape, and I spot a gas powered automobile from the early days of the 21st century. It’s burned down to the tire rims and largely stripped of every valuable piece of metal or wire – but I can still make out the bumpersticker… shown above
Available from CafePress.Com
Buy one of these now – while you still can. Place it on your still running automobile, bicycle, rickshaw, skateboard or burro!
And thank your lucky stars you still have a job and 3-square.
For now
Summer Food Fun and Drink 2009 Starbucks in decline - Chapter 5 · Friday July 17, 2009 by colin newell
The Seattle-based gourmet coffee chain said it is changing the name of one of its existing stores in its hometown to a name that reflects the neighborhood location.
The store will be called 15th Avenue Coffee and Tea. It will open next week and will serve coffee and tea as well as wine and beer.
Isn’t that like McDonalds changing its Victoria area outlet names to Madame Elizabeth’s Crumpet and Tea house?
Or GM or Ford changing their name to Henry’s Perfectly Reliable Maker of Motored Carriage?
Someone should have told their marketing people that you can’t buy authenticity.
Many industry pundits feel that the Starbucks brand still “resonates” with those who drink coffee regularly. But with the recession now in its second year, the brand may be struggling more because it is considered “premium,” and therefore an expensive product, by consumers.
No. No. No. It is because (in my opinion), Starbucks coffee is not the Starbucks coffee of, say, 10 years ago. In 1992, I used to delight in an extra large black coffee from Starbucks; rich and hot, filled with body and mysterious flavors.
Now it just tastes like the inferior coffee beans that the real specialty coffee companies are passing on that maybe, just maybe, is not good enough. Dunno. You judge.
The fact is, better coffee has arrived in the form of Victrola or Stumptown or Vivace and Intelligentsia
Nobody is going to be fooled by this. Corporate coffee is corporate coffee however you slice it.
Starbucks needs to move aside and let the real coffee brew.
Comment [3]
