It’s Monday.

I had my first day of work.  It was swell.  Some of this, some of this, some of this.  P.S. I’m going to be one of those guys.  Those guys that had too much free time to post links and big photos on a white web page and offer slightly idiosyncratic liberalized commentaries.  Who will try to post a lot but won’t as much because now he gets paid for his brain time and his real time.

Here is my Google profile starred items summary, aka your news.

• Good news for (any type of) Rogers customers – you get free (selected free) television program right here. [Torontoist]

• Killer or Krusty? – Whassa deal with Michael Ignatieff – One of the world’s most notable intellectuals or oddly annoying jabberwatt?  That word sounds like a dumb person from a Star Wars planet (ie. Wookie planet, Ewok planet.  When you see Wookie and Ewok together, you feel like George Lucas got a bit lazy in his writing because it looks like he’s just re-arranging letters). [Globe]

• God believes in me – “God may have created man in his image, but it seems we return the favour. Believers subconsciously endow God with their own beliefs on controversial issues.” [New Scientist]

• How Torontoist and other city sites are elevating local news – they are amazing,  a true progression in civic issues and involvement.  [National Post]

• Harper is !!!!! – Making creepy lonely faces at Commonwealth parties. [Globe]

• David Chang does Montreal – NY Chef buzzbuzz David Chang hangs out at Atwater mainstays Joe Beef / Liverpool House / McKiernan last weekend, and duh loves Montreal. [National Post]

• Boobs now cheaper than wings (!!) – And you can thank the concept of division. [Star]

• THE skeptical environmentalist – interview with statistician Bjorn Lomborg. [Globe]

• How the Greens could win it all – if all of Canada was meeeeeeee! [Globe]

• Solar power 50% less expensive this year – ummmm…. hi? [Scientific American]

• Your skin is deaf – people hear with their skin as well as their ears. [Scientific American]

• Crunchy men unite! – Scientists prove a dirty child is a healthy child, just like we all thought.  The guilt is melting off.

• No more corporate or union campaign donations in Toronto?!? – this is the best news that’s happened to politics in a long time!  Why aren’t we dancing… yeah?

Why China needs a “free” internet.

Click for a better look at comparing Google image results from China and non-China.  Good for Obama for advocating for a free internet during his visit to China.

The unsurprising organics crit.

[via New York Times]

“Organic food is not only not better for the planet,” he (Agribusiness Syngenta CEO Michael Mack) said, in an interview at The New York Times building on Tuesday. “It is categorically worse.”  The problem, Mr. Mack said, is that organic farming takes up about 30 percent more land, on average, than non-organic farming for the same yield (though this varies by crop, of course). If the world wants to feed its fast-growing population on existing cropland — and Mr. Mack is clear that he does not want forests chopped down to clear more land for biofuel production, let alone food — then productivity becomes a key factor, he said.

Well that’s a lot of words!  Words from a major agribusiness CEO.  Not surprising, but worthy of discussion.  Critics often cite that organics are less productive than traditionally grown agronomic crops.  Lies lies lies.  Thus no new land is needed, and absolutely no “ecological disaster”.  I’m sure he has his own proprietary research, but his claims are definitely no more true than long term reports on organic productivity.  And uh… you use Atrazine and antibiotics for everything, and that’s not disaster for ecological systems?  Feminization of wildlife, antiobiotic resistance, major water contamination.  These are massive problems!

His talk on biofuels would have been fair 5 years ago but no longer.  Everyone is moving away from food-based biofuels like corn and for good reason.  Biofuels is too broad a term, but many types of these energy sources have nothing to do with food. Organics are not a fad.  More and more market share, more and more economies of scale, thus cheaper for everyone, and no longer just for rich paranoid parents.  This food renaissance is here, friends.

Food + scotch.

[via Globe &  Mail] :

Sturdy Scotsmen may say that a tot of whisky with porridge is a pure dead-brilliant taste combination. But how’s this for a real eye opener: a wee dram of Bowmore Darkest 15 Year Old coupled with spicy duck breast, mole poblano and creamy polenta?  Single-malt Scotches are the latest in latest food-pairing trends, with adventurous epicureans lining up for tasting events.

Laphroaig is one of my favourites – can definitely see it going with a rich meat like duck or even lobster (the vanilla notes would work super well with both meats).  Horn tooting time – I can safely say I’m in the process of making about half a dozen friends total Scotch scoundrels!  What’s wrong with another expensive habit right?   But hey.  Fine things, simple pleasures, in pursuit of the sublime feelings of food.  In many ways that’s a humble and noble pursuit, just like seeking out sublimity from music.  That euphoria.  Islay 4eva!

Dinner.

[photo via dine.to]

Boy, oh boy Toronto.  You have a silly burger fetish.  Enter me sounding like an unfortunate restaurant industry pundit:

 

“During these tough economic times, people don’t want overly priced precious food.  They want reasonably priced comforting, soulful, filling food to take away from their daily stress.  Everyone loves cheeseburgers.”

 

Sounds like hot air, but what do I know.   Good food is good food.  What probably started with Mark McEwan’s Bymark burger, Toronto has been following the pursuit of the perfect gourmet burger for awhile now, and many shoppes from fast food to haute gourmet are popping up all over town.  Just this weekend, Oh Boy Burger Market took the meat crown in a recent Toronto Star article, Burger Bar in third.  This place has only been open for a month, and was originally Rice Bar right on Augusta in Kensington.  It was close to the venue so we decided to try it out.

Appetizers: Cheeseburger spring rolls and panko onion rings.  The idea of cheeseburger spring rolls is hilarious and could’ve been great, but it wasn’t.  Ground beef tasted subpar and dirty powder seasoned, beef fat made the mixture too liquid-fatty-orange-oil. Panko onion rings were delicious – well fried, light batter, and al dente onions.  Some may have wanted the onions cooked longer, but I liked it.  Still taste some real onion but not too sharp.

Mains: I had the organic certified banquet burger with a really nice thin slice of peameal and smoked provolone.  Eric went a bit exotic with a lamb burger with Danish blue, kimchi, and Dijon.  Ordered a nice arugula salad with garlic chips and cherry tomatoes.  Our burgers were gorgeous, what more can we say.  Maybe a too heavy on the blue cheese on Eric’s but still niiice.  My burger had some perfect bites.  You know, the perfect balance where you can taste everything, and it’s all glorious.   Appreciated that they cook them to (about) medium.  Naturally raised organic beef eases the guilt too.  At least they get to be real cows.

Overall, I would go back to Burger Bar.  Still thinking about that burger, so that’s gotta be a good thing.  By 7:30 the dining room was about half full on a Monday night.  Service was perfectly relaxed and friendly, and gladly so since there were 3 tables when we got there.  My only (not going to say beef) hesitation is that the meal was not worth the price tag, regardless of its greatness.  Burger + cheese + bacon + big arugula salad = $20.  $35 with beers/tax/tip.  Not insanely steep by any stretch, but if I wanted economy I should have gone down the street to Caplansky’s (and gotten the fatty instead of the medium).

and a show.

[photo via blueskyandclear]

I saw Bristol’s own Fuck Buttons last night at the El Mocambo with electrofriend Eric.  You don’t like their name, and there’s just too many tiger and wolf shirts.  So in an effort to freshen up the adjective onslaught similar to most aloof music bloggers, it’s fair to say that their music is a geographic compromise between the rock sounds of Brooklyn and Paris, falling fortunately right around Bristol.  Noise, repetition, hypnosis, acoustic drumless, analog thru MIDI, fuzz, Gameboy music and assorted childhood musical toys.  Song “Olympians” is a reasonable look at their more structured songs.  8 minutes of repetition and minimal dynamic can be trying, but I like the message. Good show.

Ewe weekly.

Toronto

• Toronto – a new carbon market hub? – Banks are urging Ottawa to create the financial infrastructure to lead on carbon trading

• Toronto – the city that nobody loves – A great Torontoist article on the unifying quality that all Canadians share – hating Toronto.

• Whodunit? – OCAD hosted their annual Whodunit event – $75 gets you an original piece, but you never know what you’re gonna get.

• New book – Toronto’s “Edible City” – A new book looking at Toronto’s food from farm to fork.

 

Science

• LHC is back ! – Large Hadron Collider is back up and running.  More high acceleration particle collisions!

• Hundreds of new deep sea species found – I feel we know so much more about space than deep earth because of religion.  Fascinated by the heavens, scared of the depths.

• Biological clocks – Why do we wake up at the end of a car ride?  What makes us tick, and other circadian circumstances.

• More proof of alcohol’s benefits… for men – Ha Heeeeeeeh.  1 drink every day reduces risk of heart disease by a third for men.  No more late night scotch guilt.

• Who makes the longest lasting laptop? – Ever get irked that your laptop has a 2 year life span?  Find out which models last longest.

 

Politics / News

• California bans power-bleeding TVs – now sheeplike Ontario government looking at the same initiative after Arnold passes the bill.

• Dollar Store consciousness – I thought Dollar Stores were mostly showcases for cheap, often unnecessary Chinese goods and novelties.  Evidently 48% of their goods are Canadian sourced.

• Michael Moore on how Americans view Canadian healthcare – The US is very close to passing historic healthcare legislation.  Watch a Globe and Mail video of him speaking in Toronto.

• The Malawi Miracle – read about how farm subsidies have helped a very poor and very densely populated country progress.

• Kindleocracy – an indepth look at the newly arrived Canadian Kindle, Amazon’s electronic reader.

• Local TV Matters vs. TV Tax debate – read a side by side comparison of the issues, and see where you stand.

• Tories storm out of Queen’s Park – to reject McGuinty`s liberals from holding public consultation on the HST.  Overly political, partially fair.

• In Pursuit of a Smarter Grid – championed by everyone, this initiative is clearly the lowest hanging fruit.  It will just take 20 years to pick it off the tree.

• The prospect of high speed rail in the US – $45 billion will be spent on just an Los Angeles – San Diego high speed rail connection, with possibilities for a San Fran connection.  Worth it for other high density areas (New England, Southern Ontario) but definitely not everywhere.

 

Miscellaniacs

 

• In Treatment – The secret life of psychiatrists.

• The Fake War on Restaurant Etiquette – The New York Times has been having a funny back and forth on restaurant etiquette. First read the 100 things restaurant staffers should never do, and read the article rebuttal on 700 things restaurant customers should never do.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/technology/science/researchers-discover-hundreds-of-unknown-marine-species/article1373131/

I have a new post on rQ Magazine.

Click here for a post I wrote on Waterloo’s employment levels for Waterloo-based rQ Magazine.

[photo via clarephotography]

Harbord Room.

I just got a job, working as an Environmental Scientist consultant for an engineering firm.  It will be solid.  So C and I went to celebrate at Harbord Room last night for their second seating.  This place has been riding the wave of buzz for the past year plus.  EnRoute Magazine calls it one of Canada’s best restaurants, Toronto Life loves it, gets a lot of praise from the foodie community, and is hipster and restaurant-industry-folk central.  Unlike many places in the city, it can chameleonize from a restaurant to a lounge, especially when those cooler-than-you front of house staff get off their shift.  Was surprised to see how small the room is – about 30 covers inside, and supposedly 30 more outside when the weather is nice.

The breakdown:

Cocktails – I had an original cocktail to start, hilariously called “Autumn Whisper”.  Granny smith apple, vodka, lime, maple syrup.  Delicious.  C keeps the Bombay patronage alive, and was happy with the generous 3 lime wedge provisions.

Appetizers – I ordered the chestnut and chorizo soup, C got diver scallops w crispy pig’s ear, pear, and bacon vinaigrette.  I had the pig portion of Cara’s meal too.  A great start.  My soup was complex, smoky and spicy from the chorizo, nice hearty hits.  Cara’s app was great too.  Scallops were perfectly cooked, pig’s ear was a bit disappointing (just salty slightly porky fried pork rinds) but still tasty. And good to have some crunch, especially if they were going to waste anyway.

Mains – Whenever I see lamb on a menu, I am automatically drawn.  I want to know how the chef prepares a hearty, somewhat forgiving protein.  Lamb can also be seasoned and spiced a million different ways, and this can tell you a ton about a chef’s personality – traditional (mint or goat cheese), slightly exotic (Moroccan spiced with dried fruit, cinnamon or cloves), experimental (earwax), whatever.   They presented lamb three ways (another common way to present an ingredient) : a loin, lamb sausage, and a cool shepherd’s pie-like derivative with al dente scalloped potatoes on top.  Mixed in with some wilted spiced kale for some greenery.  Rich, forgiving, well-executed staples.

Cara had my favourite dish of the evening – the comfort food elegy.  Duck confit gnocchi with pumpkin, pine nuts, soft cheese, and fried sage.  Talk about November cold night comfort food caressing your cheeks… right in the face !  So rich, so umami, so satisfying, and the gnocchi were perfect – big and pillowy, heavy but light tasting. My main criticism throughout the meal was that the chefs have a very heavy hand with salt.  Too much salt makes a dish feel too much like imminent cardiac arrest.  When I reach for a few extra glasses of water that night and many more the next day, you really know it was oversalted.

All in all, the Harbord Room is worth the trip and a 9:30 second seating and the cash.  The service was a bit too aloof and pretentious, but still courteous enough.  I do not think it’s worth all of the hype – some classic and well done dishes, but nothing avant garde.   For me, nowhere near as eventful as Nota Bene (nor should it be given the price tag), but much more soul and heart than corporate-class places like Jump.  I feel like the chefs at Harbord Room think they own this city – its food culture, its fellow food groupies and colleagues.  It’s great to be good at what you do, but it’s still food.  Food is as much everything as it is nothing, don’t take yourself too seriously boys.  Thanks for a fun night.

No stopping, for now.

“If God had not intended for us to eat animals, how come He made them out of meat?”

I’m not going to to go too insane over the Palintology, but wow.  What a reasoned rebuttal to vegetarianism.   I have never seen the media more obsessed about anyone, save Obama.  And is it just because she’s a tall drink of water and you want her to make some moose jerky for you?  FYI, that statement is 100% chauvinism free, mainly because she had the ova to write the above sentence.  In a book.  She told her ghostwriter to write that just to get people like me to write stupid blog posts about her.   She wins, I can’t ignore a sentence like that.

I admit it, I watched some of the Walters and the Winfrey interviews.  She’s hard to dislike when she talks about her family and gets nostalgic about cutting wood for her childhood fires and stuffing cheese in moose hot dogs for her kids and her “up and at dem” fitness regimen.  And I do agree that women in politics have had a really shitty deal.  Double standards do abound.

Just admit you totally quit your job of public service because you want to make more money, and don’t tell me you’re doing this for the people of Alaska.  You sound like a dope and I like you much less.  I get it, everyone needs to put food on their family. I just don’t want to talk policy with someone like that, because as Rep. Barney Frank says, “Ma’am, having a conversation with you is like having an argument with a dining room table, and I have no interest in doing it”.  That’s actually not true, I’d love to debate Sarah Palin, but I’m guessing it would at least feel that frustrating.

Oh yes, one more thing.  I find it so fascinating that your breed of neo-con politics has no time or sympathy for “bleeding heart liberals”, especially when people play the victim.   Everything you said in those interviews begged for sympathy! It was a Palin pity party!!   Anyone  in your conservative clan would traditionally say “Get over it” but will they with you?  Of course not.   Admittedly, you weren’t treated 100% fairly, but guess f’ing what!  These bleeding hearted liberal “victims”  that you despise weren’t treated 100% fairly either.   And you still are as partisan as ever.  One more complete contradiction found in Palin’s brain, I should not be surprised.  We hate your hate, and we hate your false pride.  Dones.

The funniest thing you will see this month.

I knooow.  It would be so sad.  But if you had a sense of humour this would be the bees trees knees.  I laughcried big time, with a few extra special Mike cackles.  Calling it now – there are currently 49,000 views.  Any bets on what it will be within a week?  This is pure viral. I’m guessing 250,000 by tomorrow.

Update: it’s been 12 hours and it’s already at 450,000.  HA!  Turns out it’s fake – possibly a drink responsibly ad from Heineken.  Kudos.

An open letter to Canadian reality TV apologists.

Dear Canadian reality TV apologists,

How are you?  Are you working hard?  You must be working hard.  Thanks for working so hard during the sunlight hours of the day.  You help the world!  When you get home you must be exhausted.  I would be.  Maybe you want to flop into your favourite fancy chair that doesn’t look like a La-Z-Boy but actually is a La-Z-Boy.  Maybe you can’t wait to have that beer, that wine, that whiskey when you get home.  Right on, you deserve it.

So now I gather you would subsequently turn on your 100″  flat panel LCD plasma laser ecobamboo ultra pixel television.  Those look really nice.  And that Sunday football looks amazing on it.  It’s like you’re in the 300 section or something!  Really you’re saving money by not ever having to go outside and be with people and go to a game.  Bonus.  Convenient.

I was just curious about something.  When you turn on that lovely television, why do you turn to the most unfortunate, sad, derivative, no-merit, ultra formaggi heartless programming?  I know what you’re thinking – some artsy pretentious snob is judging me.  Someone who doesn’t appreciate unabashed innocent fun.  A bohemian tightass, perhaps.  You’re right, who am I to judge?  I try not to, but it always ends up happening.  And you’re judging me too, so bygones.  I know all you want to do is watch something you don’t have to think about.  Tune out, turn off, auto pilot, fake drama.  No harm no foul.

But there is harm – millions agree with you.  The masses will be heard!  And so you should.  Your pens and your swords and your sitting bums are mighty.  But what I want you to know is that this fully brings out worst in Canadian creativity and culture.  For me, for better or for worse, our television programming is a direct reflection of our culture.  I can qualify this.   Picture if you will, an easily concluded sentence in the CBC executive office in Toronto:  “Let’s copy something America does but make it with iiiiice.  Ice is so Canadian!  It’ll be exactly like Dancing with the Stars but much more derivative and much worse!  Or better yet, a direct copy of an awful movie made in 1992!” You know it, I know it.  The best we can come up with is America… with ice.  And you just made me cry.

We can do better than this, Canadian reality TV apologists.  This is exactly the same as when America thought Paul Blart : Mall Cop was the best movie in North America for many weeks.  You guys are nice people, and you have great heads and thirsty brains.  Don’t be afraid to quench with something meaningful, dare I say important.  It won’t hurt, I promise.  I know that when times are tough, bacon sales go up, beer sales go up, High School Musical DVDs and buddy bandz go up, and so do shitty television ratings.  We want campy comfort ingestables.  But babies and boomers – please don’t run away.  We need you to care about non-entertainment things. We also need you to have an educated view on these non-entertainment things.  We all need a release, just make sure you think about what it does.

Lots of love.

m

p.s. See you in the car.

YouTube Direct.

YouTube’s effort to streamline citizen journalism and breaking news videos to media outlets.  A pretty cool idea to allow failing news media organizations to add content at no cost.  Curious to see how this turns out.  Globe article about YouTube Direct here.

The decade – in 7 minutes.

Newsweek brings you ultrasynthesis in the form of a decade of news in 7 minutes.  Interesting what they decided to incude.  Ooooh end of decade reviews, you will flood my Google Reader soon enough.  Pitchfork has already done the best 200 records of the decade.  Damn right.

The battle for corporate blue.

Click above for how company logos in the ROYGBIV spectrum dominate the blues.  For you crazy marketing people.