The other night I walked in the door, and low and behold my wife was taping a CNBC original documentary for me.  Big Mac: Inside the McDonald’s Empire was an interesting, if not enlightening peek behind the closed doors of the world’s largest fast food corporation.  It examined the missteps that lead the company to it’s first ever quarterly loss a few years ago, the change in direction it prompted, and a number of other cool slices of life from behind the glass doors.  We got to meet McD’s head chef responsible for all of the new menu choices.  We saw their rigorous new menu item quality control testing.  We got a peek into their operations in China.  All in all, a pretty cool look at things.

Knowing the cable channels, there’s a good chance this will run over and over again for the next month.  If it doesn’t, you can just hop on the official website to check out some pretty lengthy clips from the show.  A great chance to see how things are done.

This article about Bill C-61 and how it threatens our universities was published in the Queen’s Journal. It’s a serious situation that can have grave consequences on our rights, universities and much more!

A proposed change to copyright law could change the way Canadians share media. It could also have a negative impact on the education system, said English professor Laura Murray.

An anti-circumvention clause in the bill would make it illegal to break digital locks on copyrighted material, nullifying the new allowances for most digital media.

Murray, also the author of the book Copyright: A Citizens Guide said, If passed, the bill could have a serious effect on Canadian universities.

“Decoding is being criminalized when there are a lot of legitimate purposes for it, especially regarding education,” she said.

Click here to read the full article

Let’s oppose this Bill before it’s too late!

Click here for information on how you can help

Click here to join the Fair Copyright for Canada facebook group

Always ask someone you love before you put anything in your mouth

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Financial micromanagement might not be for everyone, but sometimes it really helps to see where every penny is going.  You’d be amazed at how much you might spend on coffee or snacks.

In the past I’d used Excel to track my spending.  It might not have been the most simple form of tracking, but it was the most flexible in that (so long as you’re fairly competent with Excel) I could chart that data any way I wanted.

Still, there’s something to be said for simplicity.  Recently my family has tried to use the web-based MoneyTrackin.com.  It provided a good set of features, but still didn’t work exactly as I’d wanted.  Up next we’re probably going to take a look at Wesabe or Yodlee MoneyCenter.

What about you?  How do you track your spending?

Have you been enjoying your time in the garden this year?  You weren’t using any pesticides or herbicides, were you?

If not, David Suzuki wants to take a peek at how things are growing this year!  Take a photo/write a story about your garden for you chance to win any number of prizes from this years David Suzuki Digs My Garden program.

I could care less about the prizes — I just want a visit from the David Gnome.

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It’s only six weeks until this years Terry Fox Run kicks off, so I thought it was a good time to get Terry and his cause back in peoples minds.

Terry’s considered a national hero by most every Canadian.  If by some chance you’re not familiar with his story take a peek at the above video.  It’s a great retrospective put together by the fine folks at ESPN.

This years run will take place on Sunday, September 14th.  If there’s not an event in your area get in touch with the Terry Fox Foundation to see about organizing one.  You’d be hard pressed to find someone in this country whose lives haven’t been touched by cancer.  It’s a killer that affects all of us, and every dollar helps. Click here to visit the Run’s official site and find out what you can do to help.

Earlier this year, MC over at Culture Kills amazed me with a little tidbit: bagged milk is a uniquely Canadian product!  Who would have imagined?

Outside of our borders, jugs of milk are the customary choice of many dairy consumers.   Otherwise the typical cardboard box that we also have available will usually make do.

Milk bags have several advantages over their jug-filled cousins:  smaller packages means less spoiled milk, the bags are recyclable, they use significantly less plastic than jugs, etc..  Outside of Canada, a few other countries that randomly dot the globe use milk bags as well: India, Poland, and Israel all prefer the milk bag.

For more on the subject, visit the post that enlightened me over at Culture Kills.

Looking for something fun to bring the kids to this weekend?  Every Saturday and Sunday this summer they’ll be hosting ROMkids weekends at the Royal Ontario Museum.  There’s a special theme, artifact, and tons of activities aimed at the younger visitors courtesy of the ROM.  ROMkids is included in the regular cost of admission, so there’s no extra cost.

Visit their official site for the full list of themes and their corresponding weekends.

I’m a big believer in the term “newsertainment.”  Back in the days before CNN, television news was news.  It wasn’t meant to make a profit — it was a legal requirement for the station to have and it always ran at a loss.  Although that may sound like a downer, it also meant they could afford to have some integrity.  With only an hour to fill each evening, typical news broadcasts featured real news (and on slow days, just a little filler) rather than what we get now.  One missing white girl or one case of food poisoning, despite being terrible for the people involved, is not national news.  But when you have 24 hours to fill so that you can keep the ad dollars coming in?  You’ll take whatever you can get and make it news so that your manufactured news can bring in the green.

So what does all of this have to do with McDonald’s?  Not content with just taking the money from the big M for the commericals run between newsertainment segments, several news organizations have begun accepting cash for McDonald’s product placement.  During their morning news segments, McDonald’s new iced coffee will be prominently featured on the anchors desks in place of the typical cup of coffee or water.

The further selling out of the news or the ultimate in integrative advertising?  You decide.

[via The Telegraph]

Professor Randy Pausch, who inspired countless students in the classroom and others worldwide through his highly acclaimed last lecture, has died of complications from pancreatic cancer. He was 47.

But we don’t beat the Reaper by living longer. We beat the Reaper by living well – Randy Pausch

I rode my bike today; the cumulative effects of the chemotherapy are hurting my stamina some, but I bet I can still run a quarter mile faster than most Americans – Randy Pausch 

We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand – Randy Pausch

I have been inspired by Randy’s last lecture and I strongly recommend you watch it if you haven’t already done so.

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A true inspiration, RIP Professor Randy Pausch.

Last year it Sam the Record Man.  This year it was the Funland Arcade.  Next year, will it be CHUM?

The Globe & Mail is reporting that the landmark building that has housed the AM station since the birth of rock’n’roll in the 1950’shas been sold to condominium developer Aspen Ridge Homes for $21 million.

There’s no word yet if Aspen Ridge intends to tear the building down and build brand new or somehow incorporate the original building into the design The tear down option is certainly most likely, but only time will tell.

It looks like the broadcast booth for 1050 on your AM dial will have to find a new home sooner rather than later.  Let’s just hope they find a good home for the sign.

A few days ago I posted about the closing of the Funland Arcade.  Many of you were glad to see it go and I can’t say I blame you.  It was an important place in my life and the lives of a lot of gamers, but none of what you said about the place was wrong either.

I made the pilgrimage to say goodbye yesterday as was planned.  They had closed the doors the final time two days earlier than expected.  The crew disassembling everything let me come in and take a look around anyways.

If you’d like the whole story, hop on over to theBBPS.

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For most people this is one of those YouTube videos that’s simply too much to believe.  For me, it’s a part of my local heritage.  You see, I live right alongside the Welland Canal, “where the ships climb the mountain.”   Too bad it’s motto isn’t “where the ships kick bridges @#$%s.”

Not too worry — despite the all-engulfing fire, nobody was hurt.  Turns out it was the result of a sleepy (I think that’s PR code for drunk, but who can say for sure) bridge operator lowering the bridge too early.

Ever have anything horrific like this happen in your neck of the woods?

Just a heads up from a guy with a heavy heart.  Toronto’s historic Funland Arcade is scheduled to empty it’s quarter boxes for the last time tomorrow.  It was the last real arcade in the city — it was also one of the first having opened back in 1962.  To put that into perspective, Sam the Record Man had opened across the street only a year earlier.  It looks like there’s a pre-set lifecycle to landmark buildings on that block — 46 years and done.

I’ll be taking the trip into the big city tomorrow to take some pictures and shake some hands on Funland’s final day.  If you see a robust gentleman with a Castro-style hat and beard, come on over and say hi.

Happy 400th Anniversary beautiful Quebec City 😀

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