Around This Town: Slurpees, Surefoot, Speed limits and Stumbling

This is big news. HUGE news. 7-11 is now at the airport!!!!

See? Right there. 7-Eleven number 25.

I haven't seen it and I don't think it's actually in the airport terminal, but nevertheless it's conveniently located such that when you come back to Winnipeg from some inferior place that does not love Slurpees as much as us, the first thing you can do is buy a Slurpee!

Also, because of the strategic location, 7-11 has introduced a new 100 ml Super Small Gulp that you can take on the airplane.

Okay, I just made that last part up.

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This is big news. HUGE news. Especially if you're a frail old lady. That's right: www.surefoot.org is up and running again!

A full two weeks into November and a week after our first big snowfall of the year, the website had absolutely nothing to report.

Now, thanks to a team of IT professionals working around the clock to restore surefoot functionality, the online sidewalk safety tool now informs you that you should take precautions when using sidewalks.

This is tremendously important for those older folks and people with disabilities who would otherwise have danced down the sidewalk wearing rollerblades.

Now that surefoot.org is back up and running, we can rest easy knowing that Councillor Harvey Smith will not fall down this winter.

(Really, I like Harvey. He cares about the city and he's a very engaged person. I sent him an email one evening and he called me within half an hour and we had a good long chat. Usually the most you get is a one word reply.)

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This is big news! Speed limits are being reviewed, and this time we're not talking about making them lower, but actually increasing some of the ridiculously low limits that you see around town. I give a tip of the hat to Winnipeg Girl for pointing out the CJOB web site with the details.

That's a great summary by CJOB, with Google maps and a description of the proposed increase.

I've written about this before, but increasing speed limits has been proposed in the past only to be shot down by a city hall committee with little consideration. Hopefully the Manitoba Traffic Board's consultative approach this time will have more success.

You know people will come out and oppose this, saying things like "a person has a 30% better chance of surviving an accident with a car going 50 km/h than 60 km/h" and so on. That's a false argument though, because if you take that to it's logical conclusion all speed limits should be set to 0 km/h.

In reality, the safest speed to drive is the "natural" speed of the road ... the speed that people tend to drive. The "85th percentile" that traffic experts recommend speed limits be set at. If you set speed limits too low then there is more lane changing and shuffling of traffic, and more people will take short cuts down side roads endangering kids.

I'm usually not a big fan of obscure provincial boards, but GO Manitoba Traffic Board!

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In blog news, the blog Stumbling (A)Bordeaux is gone. Like a puff of smoke, it has vanished into the ether, posts and all. Patrick Oystryk went out with a strong final post "Winnipeg: a Recycled City" -- a sobre evaluation of Winnipeg's shortcomings from somebody who just spent a few years living in Europe. He has hinted at starting up something new now that's he's returned to the 'Peg, so stay tuned.

It's a personal decision, whether to delete it all when you hang up the blogging gloves, or keep things on-line for posterity. I selfishly prefer the latter, because there was a lot of good content that has disappeared from the likes of Patrick, David Watson of Waverly West and Beyond, Walk Krawec of One Man Committee, and others.

Speaking of One Man Committee, it popped up on my blog roll again today. There is only one post with nothing in it, and the author is now Kindra Cahya. What's up with that?

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Lastly, this Friday is the 16th annual LITE (local investment toward employment) Wild Blueberry Pancake Breakfast at the Indian and Métis Friendship Centre. 

I will be there flipping pancakes or washing dishes or, given the time of day, slumped in a chair drinking coffee. Maybe see you there!

Another independant coffee shop gone

The Gourmet Cup coffee shop in Portage Place mall is closing down this Friday. The coffee shop, located near the Edmonton Street entrance, used to have that corner of the mall to itself. Now, with Timmies to the left of it and Starbucks to the right, The Gourmet Cup is stuck in the middle of a corporate coffee juggernaut.

Although the competition certainly can't be helpful, the owner does not blame the competitors. His lease is coming up, and if he were to renew the lease he would be required to invest in capital improvements to the store, and it would simply take too long to make that money back. The customer base in the area is dwindling, and the mall isn't getting any busier. He is aware that IBM, which is attached to the mall via skywalk, is moving away, and apparently Manitoba Health workers are leaving the area as well. Regardless of what investments he makes in his store, "that doesn't change Portage Place" and it's grim future.

The owner is a friendly guy who jokes with the customers and adds a personal touch to the coffee buying experience. He thanked me for my support over the years, although I feel partly to blame. I used to go to his shop regularly prior to getting booted from my previous job, and though I am still a short walk away I find myself going to Starbucks far more often because that is where my new colleagues go. I guess that's my confession for the day. I kill small businesses.

The owner, being the nice guy that he is, doesn't blame me either. He just seems tired of grinding out a living in a declining market in a mall that has seen better days. He plans on taking a break for a while, but expects to start something up again somewhere else. "I have too much debt to retire", he joked.

Friday, September 28 will be his last day open. I encourage you readers to go down there and buy a coffee and a muffin or a bag of beans, and make his last day a good one.

Around this town: 92.9 FM, food, and other stuff

You know what's around this town? FOOD! Winnipeg has always been a food hotspot, but now we're starting to see more mobile food vendors setting up on streets, giving downtown office workers more options. Melissa Martin wrote about it in the Free Press this past long weekend. It looks like this might be a trend!

There's El Torrito, the taco truck. (twitter, facebook)

Baon Bistro "Fil-Asian" fusion. You can imagine my confusion as I misread the name as Bacon Bistro. (Twitter, Facebook)

Beaujena's French Table French/Mediterranean sandwiches, etc.. (Twitter, Facebook). The pork cutlet sandwich sounds amazing. I am definitely going to give that a try soon. But according to their facebook page they're launching an even better sandwich this week: Toasted bun, slice of brie cheese, 6-7 oz. filet mignon, trufle butter, two slices of crisp bacon topped with sauteed wild mushrooms and onions. "After you eat it, you will have to kill yourself because nothing will ever be so good again".

Drool.

Pimp My Rice Filipino food. (Twitter)

Little Bones Wingery Gourmet breaded chicken wings, including POUTINE WINGS. (Facebook)

And finally, So-Cal Smoothies hit the streets of Winnipeg two weeks ago (Twitter, Facebook)

I'll see you on the streets!
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UPDATE

A commenter pointed out Falafel Queen as another mobile vendor. FQ needs to expand their on-line presence. I could not find a web page or Twitter account, and their Facebook page is sparce.

Stuff-It Foods, by contrast, has a slick web page with a funked-out version of Wonder Wall playing while you browse the web site. (Twitter)

Sis & Me has typical summer food: burgers, smokies, etc.

J. T. Springrolls doesn't have much of a web presence either, although I found this picture ------------>

Lovey's BBQ also has a food truck .. or Kitchen On Wheels (KOW). (Twitter, Facebook)

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Speaking of mobile food, here is a picture of a slurpee in a shoe that I took a little while ago. An abandoned shoe and a slurpee ... what could be more Winnipeg than that?

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Another Winnipeg blog that you might not be aware of is The Daily Observer. It's author is Gabriel Hurley, the mastermind behind the Winnipeg Zoom forum, which has really taken off in it's half a year or so of existence. Gabriel's posts are not frequent, but you should keep an eye on it.

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Lastly, this is a major loss to Winnipeg radio:

THE FOLLOWING IS AN ANNOUNCEMENT FROM THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS OF CRE-COMM RADIO INC., OPERATOR OF 92.9 CKIC-FM:

As a result of recent changes to CRTC regulations regarding campus and community radio stations, and financial challenges, the Board of Cre-Comm Radio Inc. has decided to discontinue over the air broadcasting effective Wednesday, July 4, 2012 at 4:00pm, and will be returning the current broadcast licence to the CRTC.

I listen to 92.9 a great deal, simply because they play new and alternative music instead of the usual rock / classic rock / pop that you hear over and over again on most other stations. This is disappointing.

Hat tip to Marty Gold about that announcement.

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That's it for now. Next up: a new idea for leader of the Liberal Party!

Enjoy the rest of the week.

Another Swiss Chalet for Winnipeg

Manitobans love their Swiss Chalet. It's amazing we went so long without one. We love Swiss Chalet so much that a blog on the return of the restaurant was "by far" John Dobbin's top post last year.

If you're a fan of the tasty half chicken dinner, you'll be happy to know that there's another location opening up in Winnipeg. This one will be at the corner of St.Annes Rd and Bishop Grandin Blvd in St.Vital, in a small retail expansion off the Home Depot parking lot. It's not that far from the first location, so if you can't get into one, you can always try the other!

With the addition of the Swiss Chalet and some other yet-to-be-determined business, What used to be a simple shopping area has suddenly become a "Festival". St.Vital Festival. Look out Seasons of Tuxedo, here we come!

Okay .. now a couple of things about this location:

1) The location seems terrible to me. You can only get to it by driving through a Home Depot Parking lot. If you're heading west on Bishop Grandin you can get directly into the Home Depot parking lot, but otherwise you have to get in from St.Annes which forces you to drive past a Boston Pizza, Sobey's, and Michael's before traversing the entire width of the Home Deport parking lot.

2) The area highlighted in orange below is owned by (who else) Shindico. However, the majority of the parking will on Hydro property in the red area just above. This area needs to be rezoned to commercial. That almost happened this past Monday, before representatives of Bishop Grandin Greenway fought to have it put off by a month.



We've been here before. A few years ago a similar development was proposed before being fought off and killed by Bishop Grandin Greenway Inc, but this time Shindico got all their ducks in a row and it's unlikely anything will get in their way.

3) If you enjoy walking or biking along the Greenway, you may enjoy it a little less with this development going up very close to the trail. There is also, I am told, a leopard frog population that will get paved over by the Hydro parking lot.

Coincidentally, Swiss Chalet is adding Rotisserie Frog Legs to its menu. Okay, I just made that part up.

Update on Longboat development

The big downtown development announcement this summer was an impressive new 20-story hotel/office/retail building across from the MTS Centre at Portage & Donald. (OMC / Me) In the comments of my post on that, fellow blogger Bryan Scott wondered about the future of the Alabama Building and the tenants within. Well, now we know ...

I picked up some information today as I was ordering my clubhouse sandwich at the Wagon Wheel restaurant. The owners of the Wagon Wheel were informed yesterday that their building on Hargrave would be torn down. The Alabama Building containing Bryan's favorite Ethiopean restaurant on Ellice and Hargrave will disappear as well, to make way for a parkade.

But fear not my hungry friends. Arrangements are being made to revive at least the Wagon Wheel. I don't know about the other tenants, but I am sure they have all been made offers of some kind as well. The new location is up in the air at the moment. It could be in a storefront on Donald in the primary building, or in a retail location on the main floor of the parkade. In anycase, the lady at the Wagon Wheel seemed pretty confident that the diner would continue on, which is good news for anybody who likes clubhouse sandwiches. Perhaps they can add a few more booths and a washroom.

Shark fin soup

A post inspired by a picture I ran across on Deviant Art yesterday:

yuumei

You won't catch me doing this very often, but I'm going to get on a bit of a soap box for a second here. I saw a documentary about shark finning a while back and was honestly shocked by it.

Understand that I have no problem with killing animals. In fact, I even have a blog tag named "baby seals taste yummy" with 6 posts and counting. Killing and eating animals is how we as a species have survived for so long. These days there are alternatives, and if you choose to be a vegetarian then that's fine .. your call. But if you choose to eat meat, let it not be shark fin soup.

The fins are the only valuable part of the shark, so the sharks are caught, the fins are cut off, and the sharks are dropped back into the water. Having no fins, the sharks die a slow death from either starvation or bleeding to death. I don't know which and it doesn't really matter. The wastefulness of this is incomprehensible. If you kill an animal for food, you ought to eat the whole damned thing. All that protein that they're dropping back into the water could feed millions of people. Yes millions. Estimates are that 100 million sharks are killed every year so people can have this very specific soup, which leads into the next big problem: conservation. Some species of sharks are in danger of extinction as a result of finning.

I'll eat factory farmed chicken. I'll occasionally eat veal, which I understand involves raising a calf in conditions only slightly better than that of a bonzai kitten. I am sure I would eat baby seal too, if someone were to put it on a plate in front of me. But I can't support eating shark fin soup.

Thanks for listening. Getting off the soap box now.

fyi .. I just realized that I mentioned this issue once before, in the early days of this blog. fyi #2: there's also a picture of a hot chick standing on an ice flow at that link. Just thought you should know.

Oranges

When I bring an orange to work, it is invariably still sitting on my desk at 4:00. It's around that time when I start getting hungry again, and I look around and all I have left to eat is this damn orange. Ugg. Okay ... I guess I'll have the orange. Unless .... I go out and buy a chocolate bar! Yeah! That might hit the spot! No ... I'll eat the orange.

I actually like the taste of oranges. I like orange liqueur, orange candies, orange everything. But oranges are never the first thing I reach for. They're more like a food of last resort, and I think that's because they're just too much work.

Mandarin oranges are the exception. They still taste good -- especially the oxymoronic Japanese mandarins -- but they are easy to eat too. I know ... about this time you're thinking to yourself: is he really doing an entire post on oranges? There is some sort of backward reference to the NDP in here, right? Nope ... nope ... this here is a post about oranges. Anyhow, like I was saying before you interrupted me: mandarin oranges are my fave mainly because they're easy to peel. If you're careful, you can take off the whole peel off in one piece, and you can run around the house with it showing everybody how talented you are. I guarantee that your esteem will grow among all who witness your achievement.

But then there are the other oranges. I don't know if they're navel oranges or what, but you know the ones I'm talking about. They are about the size and weight of a shot put, but about half that is the 1cm thick peel that encases the actual edible part.* Getting that fibrous orange armour off is no small task: First you have to pick away at it for about five minutes with your finger nail to get it started. I recommend letting the nail on your index finger grow out for at least two weeks before attempting to do this. The other alternative is to make a cut in it with a pocket knife. Then as you continue to pick at it, it's a little bit like unearthing a dinosaur bone. The peel comes off only in small chunks, often with parts of the inside flesh attached to it. It's a painstaking process, but eventually you end up with a pile of peel chunks on the table and the actual inside orange that you were looking for.

Finally! I can eat! Alright, I'll just pull apart these orange wedges here and ... *SQUIRRRRT*. God damnit! I just washed that!

Sure, once you get to the inside it is indeed very tasty, but getting there is just too much of an ordeal for what it is. I mean, you shouldn't have to shower after eating a fruit. You would figure that with all our technology and experience with plant breeding and genetic engineering, the scientists could develop non-mandarin oranges that were easy to peel and pull apart.

*the whole orange is in fact edible. I know this because I used to work with somebody who actually liked eating the peel, and they never got sick and died, therefore it must be edible.

Frank for President! .. and other Friday stuff

It turns out that there's more than one election going on in these parts. On June 10 my half-blood buddies will be able to go out and vote for President! David Chartrand is running for re-election, as are two other folks: Frank Godon and Robert Nolin. I'm pulling for Frank, who's returning from a stint in Russia teaching English. If I'm not mistaken, Darcey of Dust My Broom fame is part of his campaign team. Also see his Facebook page.

Cybersmoke is calling for more fiscal responsibility from the MMF.

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I know many of you spend hours sitting around and wondering "why can't I find a blog about poutine?" Well, your wondering has been answered.

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I haven't done my Friday video in a while, but here's one for you from Winnipeg break-core musician Aaron Funk, a.k.a. Venetian Snares. Turn this up LOUD. Yes, especially if you're at the office.

Of his many albums, one is called Winnipeg is a Frozen Shithole, and features songs like "Die Winnipeg Die Die Die Fuckers Die".

I'm sure he means that in a nice way.

Opportunity for Selinger (and soup for me)

It would be easy to write off Selinger's leadership of the NDP as "more of the same". I know because I've done it. It was very easy. Took almost no effort at all. However, today I am in a good mood (see what a warm sunny weekend can do?) so I am going to give Selinger a chance, and some free advice:


The Manitoba PCs are weak, but the retirement of Gary Doer has opened a door for them and given them new hope. Still, the PCs need to differentiate themselves from the NDP and make an impression with the people of the province. If the average Manitoban has any impression at all, it's a vague notion that the PCs fancy themselves as being more fiscally responsible and pro-business than the NDP. There's that, but the unfortunate "bring back the Jets" campaign blunder has also put a big sticky "Gimmick" label on them. If they are to make a comeback, they really need to get back to basics, expose the economic, social and environmental ineptitude of the NDP, and propose real conservative policies to address those areas.

Selinger has an opportunity to simultaneously step out of Doer's shadow and put a bullet to the brain of the PCs by beating them to the punch. Suppose, if you will, that Selinger decides to reign in government spending, reopen the debate on the routing of Bipole III, cut corporate taxes, over-haul the administration of our health care system and index personal tax brackets. What would the PCs have left? Selinger could define himself as a pragmatic and responsible leader, leaving Hugh McFadyen with nothing but more cheesy gimmicks to win over voters.

Mayor Sam recently suggested that Selinger is open to re-evaluating the province's requirement that the city spend $350 million on nitrogen removal in their new sewage treatment plant -- a policy that, like Bipole III, actually wastes money while further damaging the environment. "He definitely has an open mind" says Sam. That's good news, if it's true. Perhaps he is willing to take a fresh look at all of the government's policies. Is it true though, or is he just faking it? Is he actually feigning open-mindedness, while secretly plotting new ways to spend money, destroy the environment, drive away private investment and sacrifice health care delivery for bloated health care bureaucracy?

I hope that Selinger really does have an open mind. An open mind and fresh perspective are mandatory if we hope to achieve anything close to our potential here in Manitoba. However, I feel that I am asking a leopard to turn himself into a zebra. Selinger is not a conservative. If he were, he'd be in the PC party, not the NDP party. Even still, many of the sort-comings of the previous administration were a result of laziness or political expediency rather than flawed ideology. Even as a moderate progressive, Premier Selinger could make a huge difference, should he choose to be a real leader instead of a Doer clone (without the grin), while at the same time making it all the more difficult for Hughy and the PCs to gain traction with voters.

Will it happen? I don't know. I'm not optimistic, but I'll give him a chance ...


bonus post: Siloam Mission gave me soup

I have given money to Siloam Mission because I am fortunate to have more than I need to get by. Imagine my surprise this afternoon to discover that Siloam Mission sent me soup!

It was a little foil packet of soup along with a letter asking me to sign the packet and mail it back along with a donation so they can feed it to their patrons. This is a silly idea. If you just bought the soup in bulk instead of individual foil packets, you could save enough money to buy a bunch of food right there. Plus, I looked at the ingredients and found this as the top three: maltodextrin, salt and flavor. High in sodium, low in energy and vitamins. This is not good food for a starving person.

Plus, I hate gimmicks, so I refuse to play their little "game" this time. I am sipping on the soup as I write this post, and I am disappointed but not surprised to inform you that it tastes like tin.

Pork roast

Hmmm.

• Bill 17

• 3 fires killing 15,000 hogs in just over a month; 22,000 this year in four fires? (1 2 3 4)

coincidence?

Turning the screws on an industry already hit by a high Canadian dollar....

update: I just realized I ripped off the title of this post from a NewWinnipeg thread (pretty much). Tip of the hat to StBPegger

update #2: much more on this over at PITT