Anyone else remember that episode of The Simpsons where Chief Wiggum is looking up old laws and discovers one that reads “Five kicks of the same can shall be considered illegally transporting litter”?  That’s the first thing I thought of when I came across this: a list of strange laws from around the world.  Their section on Canada is particularly sidesplitting.  For example:  it’s against provincial law to kill a sasquatch in British Columbia, while in the town of Uxbridge, Ontario residents are forbidden from having an internet connection faster than 56k.

I’d just like to state for the record that this site doesn’t source any specific laws, so take it with a grain of salt.  Still — definitely a fun read.

Nothing beats the taste of a great Canadian soda, and there weren’t any greater than The Pop Shoppe. Starting in London Ontario 1969, The Pop Shoppe let consumers buy their soda directly from their distribution outlets, bypassing the typical retail route and passing the savings on to the customer. It sounds crazy, but it worked — within three years they’d expanded to over 500 stores and eventually branched out into the states. People were mixing and matching cases and returning refillable bottles all over the country.

The good times couldn’t last forever though, and despite having some of the best tasting soda on the market (and a big time spokesperson like hockey legend Eddie Shack!) the company folded in 1983. The general consensus is that the business was killed by a combination of store-brand sodas entering the marketplace in major grocery chains and Coca-Cola’s introduction of a diet cola.

In 2004 The Pop Shoppe made a quiet return. Store shelves in small convenience stores were being stocked with Black Cherry and Lime Ricky Pop Shoppe bottles for the first time — and they were just as good as ever. In the four years since, the product has successfully rolled out into much larger availability, with select Zellers stores featuring the product and the 7-11 Food Store chain recently signing on to carry it in all of it’s Ontario locations.

Have you had your Pop Shoppe lately?

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Ok, ok — so we’re not really bringing McDonald’s Mondays back. But I stumbled across this clip on YouTube today and couldn’t help but want to share in the silliness.

The best part? Ronald is having nothing to do with it. Now that’s a clown who has his priorities straight.

They say small minds are easily amused, luckily I was absent for commentary on this topic during the publishing of this contest, lol. 😛 In any case, Crush Canada has cleverly put together a flash site for all to enjoy and be easily amused (we promise, we won’t judge you). Oh, and while you’re there, be sure to enter to a win a Hollywood studio tour for four.

Disclaimer: No bunnies were harmed in the making of this website, well.. except for that white one (Don’t click the ‘X’, uhhm… )

A lot of people would argue that Expo 67 was Canada’s crowning cultural achievement. I was born thirteen years to late to have experienced it first hand, but from everything I’ve read and watched on the subject I’d be inclined to agree.

I also love how the internet can create a public archive of personal footage. Back in 1967 who would have imagined that the people of 41 years later would be able to view videos of their family vacation from anywhere in the world?

So without further adieu, I present you with 3 minutes of Expo 67 as seen through the eyes of a vacationing family.

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If you’re interested in a comprehensive guide to all things Expo 67, click here. Any of you SmartCanuckers have any memories of the event first hand?

Peter Phillips the 11th in line to the throne, became yesterday the first of Queen Elizabeth’s grandchildren to wed, marrying his Canadian bride Autumn Kelly.

Autumn Patricia Kelly was born in 1978 in Montreal, Quebec. Kelly graduated from McGill University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in East Asian Studies in 2002 and started a career as a management consultant. While at University, she worked as a bartender and model.

Girls out there wondering how Autumn Kelly got to meet Peter Phillips 😉 … Autumn Kelly and Peter Phillips, who was working for WilliamsF1 at the time, met at the Canadian Grand Prix in Montreal in 2003.

Interestingly Peter Phillips could have lost his place in the line of the succession to the Throne because Autumn Kelly was a Roman Catholic. However, a couple of weeks ago she renounced her Roman Catholic faith for the Church of England.

So as the Telegraph puts it: If by some tragic mischance, or distressing Nepalese-style bloodbath, the Prince of Wales, Princes William and Harry, Prince Andrew, Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie, Prince Edward and his children and the Princess Royal were all snuffed out, it will be Peter Phillips rather than his feisty sister Zara whose head will one day appear on the stamps. And his wife will be the Canadian Autumn Kelly.

Well it’s not the first time that Dairy Queen have had an offensive or inappropriate commercial so you shouldn’t be very surprised.  Love2save posted about this commercial in the forum and here’s what she had to say:

Does anyone see anything wrong with the new DQ commercial that has the little girl expecting the little boy to have a sundae sent over to her table and then she just looks at the camera and says “it’s like shooting fish in a barrel”? I may be reading too much into this but I just think it sends out a very wrong message.

Here’s the commercial:

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Discussion of this DQ commercial on the forum

They serve the same Queen, fight the same foe and lay down their lives with equal valour and sacrifice. But when the fallen heroes of Canada and Britain come home, the welcome is very different.

In Canada, roads are cleared and police stand to attention to welcome home fallen heroes.

In Britain, hearses carrying their war dead routinely get stuck in traffic without even so much as a police escort

Click here to read the full article

I came across this unconventional radio interview at Blue Blogging Soapbox about the seal hunt. It really bothers me that out of the thousands of endangered species out there, so much focus has been put onto the seal hunt, one of the few remaining sources of income to many Newfoundlanders. I am totally against cruelty to animals, but I don’t like being manipulated by organizations who aren’t very honest about their claims and have profit objectives.

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The Scientific American has a very interesting article about why stores label items as, say, $19.95 instead of simply $20. You probably think it’s simply to make the item appear cheaper and that you’re not fooled by this trick. Turns out there’s more to it than that.

Click here to read the interesting article at the Scientific American.

Or if you’re too lazy to read the article, here’s the paragraph that sums it up:

As Janiszewski and Uy explain in the February issue of Psychological Science, people appear to create mental measuring sticks that run in increments away from any opening bid, and the size of the increments depends on the opening bid. That is, if we see a $20 toaster, we might wonder whether it is worth $19 or $18 or $21; we are thinking in round numbers. But if the starting point is $19.95, the mental measuring stick would look different. We might still think it is wrongly priced, but in our minds we are thinking about nickels and dimes instead of dollars, so a fair comeback might be $19.75 or $19.50.

Canadian wireless carrier Rogers Wireless said Tuesday it has reached an agreement with Apple to begin offering the iPhone later this year, putting an end to months of speculation on the subject.

“We’re thrilled to announce that we have a deal with Apple to bring the iPhone to Canada later this year,” the carrier said in a statement. “We can’t tell you any more about it right now, but stay tuned.”

Continue reading at AppleInsider

Warning for crude language

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Remember the dial-up years? Slow frustrating Internet, busy signals, cheesy alien-like dialing sounds… I’m so glad dial-up’s history.

I hope BELL’s throttling doesn’t screw us up and send us back to stone age Internet with dial-up speeds (that’s almost what I get for torrent downloads nowdays).

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Jim Squires posted this awesome Muppets clip on his blog and I couldn’t resist posting it here.

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