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So I was finally able to sign up for Canada's brand new 'Do Not Call List'. The list is administered by Bell, and takes nothing really to sign up. You simply enter your phone number and click submit. Not too much to do really.

The reporting on the potential $700 billion US bailout is driving me crazy. I suppose I can understand why people are upset when they think that there will be a direct federal transfer of money from the Treasury to banks, but really, that's not what should happen.

Just found out that Daylight Savings Time begins this Saturday night/Sunday morning. Wow, it seems so much earlier than I remember, but I guess it's really only one month early. Oh well, it'll be nice to have sunlight til 7pm and later again! :)

I used to be an Ottawa Renegades season ticket holder. Well, at least I was in their last two seasons and had put down my deposit for the season they folded. I love football, there are few better sports in my opinion, it's more of a betting/strategy game than any other sport out there in my opinion. It was also the first organized sport I played, and in many ways engendered my love of sports (A love which my mother just doesn't understand ;)

Recently, the debate around whether or not to remove the penny from circulation seems to be escalating. Personally, I'm all for removing it. When I went to Australia in 2003, I had a chance to see how their policy works, and I must say, it works well.

As some of you may know, Meg, my lovely girlfriend is devoted to development work. She wants to help increase clean water and sanitation capacities for those less fortunate than us in the developed world.

Anyway, I find this stuff interesting and came across this talk given by Hans Rosling from a conference called TED. The talk is about world statistics and how people view them. Rosling uses technology that was recently sold to Google (March 2007) to visually show the changes in the world.

Will MySpace 's Virtual Presidential Primary Result in Greater Voter Turn Out?
... and ... Will Canadian politicians step up their social networking push in the next election campaign?

These are the questions I'm wondering about. I mean, when you can create virtual events in the virtual world that younger folks are taking part in, can you drive their feeling of importance for the real event? Will people see the importance of voting? Can we reduce apathy that way? It will certainly be an interesting trial, but won't be until January 2008.

My, oh my... Toronto is going to become even more expensive to live in. This article talks about the new taxes that the city is thinking of bringing using the "City of Toronto Act" brought in by the provincial government.

The taxes (some listed below from the Star) include sin taxes like an additional 5% on alcohol and cigarettes, an increase in the land transfer tax (0.5%) and a vehicle registration fee of $40. Not only that, but they want to put a tax on entertainment such as live events and movies. And finally they'll really nail drivers with fees for parking spaces (paid by the owner, but of course passed on to the consumer) and possibly a toll or congestion charge for using the DVP or Gardiner.

You know, I find the whole lottery scandal absolutely deplorable, but I'm not at all surprised it happened. I don't know exactly what changes the OLGC has made since finally admitting to the problem of retailers cashing in prizes that they scammed from people. "Doo doo doo dooo doooooo" - 'Oh,' says Mr. Retailer, 'You just won a free ticket.' all the while thinking - 'Egads, this is the easiest million I'll ever make ' while pocketing the winning ticket to redeem himself.

Anyway, I heard that they were looking at self-scan machines that you could check your ticket with, which is a good idea. But heck, couldn't you just write your name on the back of all the tickets you buy... how does the retailer steal it from you in that case?

A story in today's Toronto Star, talks about Toronto discussing the banning of plastic bags, or in the very least, recycling them.

I'm personally all for banning them. In the past, most of my bags came from the grocery store, but now I use bins instead of bags for the most part.
Way better than paper or plastic bags are the biodegradable corn starch bags that MEC uses. They say they're more expensive, but I'm willing to pay 1-2% more for that sort of thing. They come from BioBag.