My librarian, it was, that brought the issue to my attention: Your driver’s license needs renewal. This occurs every 5 years, so not very top of mind. But hey, it is 5 years later, and there is a Government of Ontario, Canada, web site that I can use to renew my drivers license, print a temporary one, and the valid license will be mailed to me in 4 to 6 weeks. Unfortunately for me all did not go so well. The Service Ontario server seemed to have some problem, leaving me with no temporary drivers license, and unsure if my credit card transaction actually went through. In the end I had to personally go to the local Service Ontario office in order to get my temporary drivers license. Service Ontario’s web service really does not work.
Subway Canada’s chicken, raised without antibiotics, also found to contain only 53% chicken DNA. The rest is soy DNA. Our family will not be eating there again.
Loved their cold cut subs, I do, but this is not the first but the second time that I have seen deceit from Subway. It is time for our family to no longer eat at this fast food chain. This time the CBC researched various fast food chains for their chicken sandwiches. Even accounting for additives such as spices, most chicken came out at 88% chicken DNA. Subway’s oven roasted chicken came out at 53% and their chicken fingers came out at 43%. The remaining DNA was soy. Soy. Really? That is just fraudulent.
Burnbrae 30 large egg flatpack does not provide support for the top of the egg, resulting in breakage. The flimsy outer cardboard shell is not thick or sturdy enough for sufficient protection. Toronto, Canada. Photo4 by Don Tai
Eat we do, eggs, all the time, especially Little Weed. He likes the one a day first thing. Eggs are a really concentrated burst of energy that I gladly provide him. Thusly, we go through a lot of eggs each week. NoFrills had a 30 flat pack on sale, but after checking the eggs for damage found that most of them had at least 1 cracked egg. The packaging is not a good design. I prefer the old style. Who wishes to buy cracked or crushed eggs? Not I.
Rare, is my visits to Rona Home and Garden Store, here in Scarborough, Toronto, Canada, at Midland near Steeles. While they are pretty clean and almost all the sales associates speak Mandarin, close by there is also the Home Depot Head Office store, as well as Lowes.
Starfrit Spriralizer cuts veg into long and thin spaghetti, on sale at Cantire for $20, Walmart regular price $26, Rona regular price $23. Rona grudgingly price matched Cantire and then beat them by an additional 10 percent. Yay, but laborious to remind Rona staff of their online policy.
LGL leather shoes, model 369-3, oxblood leather and elastic. Right view. Toronto, Canada Photo 1 by Don Tai
Bought these shoes used, I did, because they are really funky and fun. After I bought them home I tried to identify them and, even with the power of the internet, could not. The logo on the inside bottom of the shoes looks like “LGL”, “or a wierd “IGI”. They are oxblood coloured with multi-coloured elastic in between the strips of leather. Distinctive they are, but still I cannot identify them. If you know the maker of these shoes please leave me a message. Thanks.
Spare time, I had, and wanted to see where someone was physically located in China. The place is a small town on the border of Shanxi and Inner Mongolia, on the Yellow River. What were the odds that I could find her exact location and get a satellite photo of her building?
I started using Google Maps, which was pretty helpful. Considering that Google is not allowed in China, they still had maps of the small city and specifically the 1km section of road that interested me. The sat photo showed great detail, as you can see, but the roads from the diagram did not coordinate very well with the sat map. In fact they were really so far off that some roads went underwater, like tunnels.
Not possible, I thought, to royally screw up sardines. There is really not much to them. Remove the head and tail, put into container, add oil, seal, right? Wrong. You also need to remove the scales. These S&F Food Importer sardines are simply terrible. They were so bad that I went back to the grocery store here in Toronto, Canada, and asked for a refund, which I rarely do, and they refused.
Old it is, but made of metal and therefore still serviceable. Our Presto 6 quart pressure cooker model 126002 is over 20 years old and works well for cutting cooking time down for tough cuts of meat. We needed a new gasket, or what they call a “sealing ring”. Tried as I might, no stores in Toronto, Canada carry it that I could find, so I had to order online at…Home Hardware, a store I rarely even consider.
Presto pressure cooker, model 126002, still good after 20+ years. Photo by Don Tai
Authentic they do look, and my neighbour got suckered in. He found a roofer on their recommendation than may be less than legit. As with all things internet, it is buyer beware.
Even a cursory search for “homestars scam” on Google search shows a lot of mixed comments. it seems like contractors pay $150/month to Homestars and they get favourable reviews. When I say “favourable” I mean really stupendous reviews. This is what tweaked my curiosity. When reviews are gushing over a roofer’s services, I am a little suspicious. Site over site on Google have complaints about Homestars. If you are looking for a contractor in Canada, please use other means than Homestars. You may be scammed by their fake reviews.
Sometimes you just want to shop in person for certain items. For me, recently, it was for a down duvet for the Big Weed. I did recall seeing down duvets at Sears Canada, here in Toronto, Canada, so we made the trip to our local Sears at Scarborough Town Centre. Not only did they not have down duvets, but they did not even have any staff on the floor to help us out. Yes, there was much more help online at Sears.ca, but this is true for a lot of other bricks and mortar and online stores as well. I called around the local Sears, asking for duvets made of down, and there were none to even be displayed. Their solution: order online. What a total failure of a retail experience. Why set up and maintain a retail bricks and mortar chain, and then tell your customers to shop online? Overall I can see why Sears Canada has had trouble in the recent past, and why they will continue to struggle in the future. Will the chain still be around in 5 years, I am unsure.
