If you are in Ottawa, the best place for Apple Fritters is Carmello's. THere is one in Clarica Place (Bank and Albert) and another one in L'Esplanade Laurier (Bank and Slater) They are like almost the size of a frizbee and covered in glaze. Mmmm glaze:)
That is the one thing I hate about Canada in general. That we have to force something by law rather than by letting the talent of the person (don't bring Britney Spears up, that's a whole other story).
However lately though there has been a good number of talent that has been successful and getting more exposure. Some people would say it was due to the CRTC imposing the 20% Canadian content, but that doesn't explain their success in the US.
However I liked Big Sugar and thought they were going places but they broke up because of the Canadian Bullshit that the music industry has put on them. Supposedly "All hell for a Basement" was not played in some Ontario as well as Quebec radio stations because they mentioned Alberta but not the other provinces. Listen to the lyrics it makes sense why not!!
Also if you have never heard Big Sugar and like good guitar rock hunt down their stuff (www.bigsugar.ca) There is always a chance they will come back though.
I have lived in Ottawa a good portion of my years so it's not like I don't see a lot of Quebec (I look out my window and look there it is!), I have spent numerous times in Quebec for weeks on end.
I don't disagree with your second to last statement regarding the rest of Canada as I did spend a 5 of my teenage years in the States and it wasn't a culture shock at all (other than a lot less hockey)
I just see it that in general Quebec culture has disappeared and is more or less like the rest of us; American culture just translated. Watch Musique Plus and see how much of it is Quebec based compared to the US. I would say that would be a good example of what the future lies for Quebec culture.
Course when you look at it there is no way to retain culture as society has a tendency to move on to other things. As I said in another posting, Quebec has been known for excellent artists (i.e Mordechai Richler but I wouldn't put Mitsou in there:) ) From that point I would say yes but I am looking more in how society in whole there is not just the arts.
I once heard that the Byward Market in Ottawa had the highest crime rate per capita in Canada. This isn't really surprising since it is an area where the number of people who live there is continuously dwarved by people who work, tour, come down to get completely drunk (it is a bar area so every weekend the amount of people there skyrockets)
Sorry, I thought so too but was extremely surprised. I looked in several stores in Colorado Springs and Scotches were the same price in American as they were in Canadian. A bottle of Johnny Walker Blue Label which is $214Cdn in Ontario was $240US in Colorado.
Unless you are buying cheap stuff like Capt Morgan rum or a 24 of Bud in cans, in general, suprisingly, prices were no better.
I decided to wait until I went to Alberta on a future trip.
So when I went to Edmonton Alberta I picked up a bottle of Oban ($92 in Ontario, 59 there) and a 1000ml bottle of Dalwhinnie 15 year (64 in Ontario for the 750ml while I paid 60).
If you are in Edmonton, go to the Liquor store behind the Chateau Louis. Excellent selection of premium liquors
I spent two weeks in Colorado a month ago and I found a lot of the typical companies that are in Canada as well as the US (i.e Gap, Starbucks etc) price their products identically $10US=$10Cdn on both sides of the border. I was going to buy some liquor there but comparing the difference in rates most of the time the prices were identical after exchange and sometimes prices were more expensive than Canada.
I never looked at Quebec as having that distinct of a culture unless you include redubbing most American shows into French as being a culture. I would recommend skipping Quebec and just going to Europe. Once you get into the deep dark depths of Quebec you just have rednecks that speak French.
Montreal and Southern Quebec is more or less exempt from the above.
I wouldn't say it is always really cold. Right now it is around 25 degrees C here. Plus the southern most tip of Canada is more south than the northern most tip of California.
GST is great if you are your own company. Using the quick method you bill your client 7% but only give 5% to the Government. With regards to my taxes, I got an accountant and owed the government 15%.
Have to do the standard Toronto Jab. What is the best view of Toronto? In your rearview mirror:)
For those outside Canada, Toronto has been known to think they are the center of Canada (the fact they have a larger population than most Provinces and Territories doesn't help) but still Toronto is a very friendly city compared to most of our southern cousins.
I have to agree. I went down to Colorado Springs for work and had a hot glazed donut and my god look out Timmy's! However all the rest of their donuts were not any better than what you get at Tim Hortons.
This is especially true since TH started centralizing their manufacturing process.
I always called it Back Bacon. (Living in Ottawa) My take on Corporate life: Probably the same but good luck finding a job here. Only place hiring is the government but if you speak English and little or no French you are out of luck. Speak French and little or no English and you are in like Flynn.
My big question is who needs that much music while running, Are you planning on running an UltraMarathon? For me, a couple hundred megs will more than adequately do for a good long run. Plus they are a tad heavy. Mind you if I was a person who needed to have background music in my life I would get an iPod.
Its all about aesthetics... Not always. For me personally, the only time I use an MP3 player is when I go out for a run.
For me portability is key. The iPod and most mp3 players are either too heavy or not portable enough (i.e they don't attach to your body in a way that is conducive (sp?) for running or in the case of the iPod way too expensive for the abuse I put an mp3 player through.
Plus there is absolutely no chance that I would need 20G of music on a run. I don't run that long!!
For people who like to have background music I can understand why they like the iPod and the big storage kind of mp3 players. I admit it is pretty and has a really nice interface.
It was called Canadian Bacon. I loved it as it sterotyped us (Canadians) to a tee especially the common American belief that there is snow year round and is always cold.
I do agree that it has it's benefits. With such a huge entertainment powerhouse next door, a lot of Canadian entertainment would never be heard of if CanCon didn't exist.
It may make programming a bit better in that we don't have 24 hours of Roseanne on CTV or CBC but with improving the quality of shows, only within the last couple of years has anything of the US level in craftmanship appeared. Although with all the Reality shows in the states maybe the bar was lowered?
I do find French channels here are not that good either as most are just clones of American or English Canadian shows or just American shows/movies redubbed into French.
I spent 10 days in Chicoutimi in the heart of Quebec and all (yes ALL) of the movies in the movie theater were American movies redubbed into French. Nothing like watching Vin Diesel in XXX speaking in French!
The loyalty to French channels in Quebec may be due to the fact that there were a lot of people who barely could or could not speak a word of English (which I found amazing) so they had no interest in the English channels.
According to StatsCanada the population of both New Brunswick and Quebec together in 2001 was 7.7 million out of 30 million people total. That works out to 25%. Tad shy of 50% as you quoted. Now assuming every single person in both Quebec and New Brunswick were French and watched only the French channels enough to make them relevant (key here is enough, an hour a day isn't enough) plus including all the people outside of the two provinces than maybe it would be about 35%.
The thing is that Quebec has had a huge influx of other cultures moving in especially into Montreal which has changed the language make up in it and I suspect New Brunswick may be the same.
Again according to Stats Canada 19.7 million people speak English at home while only 6.4 million speak French (5.7 Million in Quebec by itself spoke French and 500K spoke english.In New Brunswick 400K spoke English and 200K spoke French).
Now your numbers are even less (the rest were neither or both official languages)
For once I was able to use my tax dollars for something.:)
Check out www.statcan.ca. All of the above info came from there. It is probably the most accurate portrayal of the country you can get.
TV and cable companies have not yet moved to a pure subscription model allowing you to pay for the TV that you watch or letting you even pay for the individual channels you want to watch
It will never happen in Canada though (unfortunately), we have these content Nazis who will not allow a certain percentage of local cultural product to be played.
Canadians may think I am talking about the language police in Quebec but I am talking about CRTC which stated that there had to be at least (I think) 25% of content on the radio and tv has to be Canadian content (Canadian actors, producers, etc).
What this leads to is that I would like to not pay for channels I don't use (specifically the French ones) but then there would probably be no French channels as I would guess that 90% of people probably don't watch them enough to keep them viable. Thus the amount of Canadian content on the airwaves would plummet.
Mind you there have been some well done shows and music that have blossomed lately from Canada.
I never understood the people who thought because they do the network or backbone work that they were "above" working on user's machines. Granted if a network connection goes down it will affect multiple people but try standing in front of a user and tell them that the document they were working on for hours is gone since they hadn't saved and the machine's hard drive pooched.
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If you are in Ottawa, the best place for Apple Fritters is Carmello's. THere is one in Clarica Place (Bank and Albert) and another one in L'Esplanade Laurier (Bank and Slater) They are like almost the size of a frizbee and covered in glaze. Mmmm glaze :)
That is the one thing I hate about Canada in general. That we have to force something by law rather than by letting the talent of the person (don't bring Britney Spears up, that's a whole other story).
However lately though there has been a good number of talent that has been successful and getting more exposure. Some people would say it was due to the CRTC imposing the 20% Canadian content, but that doesn't explain their success in the US.
However I liked Big Sugar and thought they were going places but they broke up because of the Canadian Bullshit that the music industry has put on them. Supposedly "All hell for a Basement" was not played in some Ontario as well as Quebec radio stations because they mentioned Alberta but not the other provinces. Listen to the lyrics it makes sense why not!!
Also if you have never heard Big Sugar and like good guitar rock hunt down their stuff (www.bigsugar.ca) There is always a chance they will come back though.
Actually I would say is that it is Sad. This shows what many people believe of Quebec from the outside.
It may be true that les Quebecois feel that they do but obviously others do not.
I have lived in Ottawa a good portion of my years so it's not like I don't see a lot of Quebec (I look out my window and look there it is!), I have spent numerous times in Quebec for weeks on end.
:) )
I don't disagree with your second to last statement regarding the rest of Canada as I did spend a 5 of my teenage years in the States and it wasn't a culture shock at all (other than a lot less hockey)
I just see it that in general Quebec culture has disappeared and is more or less like the rest of us; American culture just translated. Watch Musique Plus and see how much of it is Quebec based compared to the US. I would say that would be a good example of what the future lies for Quebec culture.
Course when you look at it there is no way to retain culture as society has a tendency to move on to other things. As I said in another posting, Quebec has been known for excellent artists (i.e Mordechai Richler but I wouldn't put Mitsou in there
From that point I would say yes but I am looking more in how society in whole there is not just the arts.
I once heard that the Byward Market in Ottawa had the highest crime rate per capita in Canada. This isn't really surprising since it is an area where the number of people who live there is continuously dwarved by people who work, tour, come down to get completely drunk (it is a bar area so every weekend the amount of people there skyrockets)
Sorry, I thought so too but was extremely surprised. I looked in several stores in Colorado Springs and Scotches were the same price in American as they were in Canadian. A bottle of Johnny Walker Blue Label which is $214Cdn in Ontario was $240US in Colorado.
Unless you are buying cheap stuff like Capt Morgan rum or a 24 of Bud in cans, in general, suprisingly, prices were no better.
I decided to wait until I went to Alberta on a future trip.
So when I went to Edmonton Alberta I picked up a bottle of Oban ($92 in Ontario, 59 there) and a 1000ml bottle of Dalwhinnie 15 year (64 in Ontario for the 750ml while I paid 60).
If you are in Edmonton, go to the Liquor store behind the Chateau Louis. Excellent selection of premium liquors
This is true there have been many famous people who have come out of "la Belle Province" especially in the arts area.
I wouldn't say "anti-gun" more like we really don't need them to protect us with (except for those evil deer) :)
I spent two weeks in Colorado a month ago and I found a lot of the typical companies that are in Canada as well as the US (i.e Gap, Starbucks etc) price their products identically $10US=$10Cdn on both sides of the border. I was going to buy some liquor there but comparing the difference in rates most of the time the prices were identical after exchange and sometimes prices were more expensive than Canada.
I never looked at Quebec as having that distinct of a culture unless you include redubbing most American shows into French as being a culture. I would recommend skipping Quebec and just going to Europe. Once you get into the deep dark depths of Quebec you just have rednecks that speak French.
Montreal and Southern Quebec is more or less exempt from the above.
I wouldn't say it is always really cold. Right now it is around 25 degrees C here. Plus the southern most tip of Canada is more south than the northern most tip of California.
However come January it gets pretty cold.
GST is great if you are your own company. Using the quick method you bill your client 7% but only give 5% to the Government.
With regards to my taxes, I got an accountant and owed the government 15%.
Have to do the standard Toronto Jab. :)
What is the best view of Toronto?
In your rearview mirror
For those outside Canada, Toronto has been known to think they are the center of Canada (the fact they have a larger population than most Provinces and Territories doesn't help) but still Toronto is a very friendly city compared to most of our southern cousins.
I have to agree. I went down to Colorado Springs for work and had a hot glazed donut and my god look out Timmy's! However all the rest of their donuts were not any better than what you get at Tim Hortons.
This is especially true since TH started centralizing their manufacturing process.
I always called it Back Bacon.
(Living in Ottawa)
My take on Corporate life: Probably the same but good luck finding a job here. Only place hiring is the government but if you speak English and little or no French you are out of luck. Speak French and little or no English and you are in like Flynn.
My big question is who needs that much music while running, Are you planning on running an UltraMarathon? For me, a couple hundred megs will more than adequately do for a good long run. Plus they are a tad heavy. Mind you if I was a person who needed to have background music in my life I would get an iPod.
I saw the first one in the theatres multiple times
:)
It took you multiple times to realize the first one sucked?
Its all about aesthetics... Not always.
For me personally, the only time I use an MP3 player is when I go out for a run.
For me portability is key. The iPod and most mp3 players are either too heavy or not portable enough (i.e they don't attach to your body in a way that is conducive (sp?) for running or in the case of the iPod way too expensive for the abuse I put an mp3 player through.
Plus there is absolutely no chance that I would need 20G of music on a run. I don't run that long!!
For people who like to have background music I can understand why they like the iPod and the big storage kind of mp3 players. I admit it is pretty and has a really nice interface.
It was called Canadian Bacon. I loved it as it sterotyped us (Canadians) to a tee especially the common American belief that there is snow year round and is always cold.
Course since puretracks came out I am buying more mp3s than downloading them.
I do agree that it has it's benefits. With such a huge entertainment powerhouse next door, a lot of Canadian entertainment would never be heard of if CanCon didn't exist.
It may make programming a bit better in that we don't have 24 hours of Roseanne on CTV or CBC but with improving the quality of shows, only within the last couple of years has anything of the US level in craftmanship appeared. Although with all the Reality shows in the states maybe the bar was lowered?
I do find French channels here are not that good either as most are just clones of American or English Canadian shows or just American shows/movies redubbed into French.
I spent 10 days in Chicoutimi in the heart of Quebec and all (yes ALL) of the movies in the movie theater were American movies redubbed into French. Nothing like watching Vin Diesel in XXX speaking in French!
The loyalty to French channels in Quebec may be due to the fact that there were a lot of people who barely could or could not speak a word of English (which I found amazing) so they had no interest in the English channels.
Quite an eyeopener.
According to StatsCanada the population of both New Brunswick and Quebec together in 2001 was 7.7 million out of 30 million people total. That works out to 25%. Tad shy of 50% as you quoted. Now assuming every single person in both Quebec and New Brunswick were French and watched only the French channels enough to make them relevant (key here is enough, an hour a day isn't enough) plus including all the people outside of the two provinces than maybe it would be about 35%.
:)
The thing is that Quebec has had a huge influx of other cultures moving in especially into Montreal which has changed the language make up in it and I suspect New Brunswick may be the same.
Again according to Stats Canada 19.7 million people speak English at home while only 6.4 million speak French (5.7 Million in Quebec by itself spoke French and 500K spoke english.In New Brunswick 400K spoke English and 200K spoke French).
Now your numbers are even less (the rest were neither or both official languages)
For once I was able to use my tax dollars for something.
Check out www.statcan.ca. All of the above info came from there. It is probably the most accurate portrayal of the country you can get.
TV and cable companies have not yet moved to a pure subscription model allowing you to pay for the TV that you watch or letting you even pay for the individual channels you want to watch
It will never happen in Canada though (unfortunately), we have these content Nazis who will not allow a certain percentage of local cultural product to be played.
Canadians may think I am talking about the language police in Quebec but I am talking about CRTC which stated that there had to be at least (I think) 25% of content on the radio and tv has to be Canadian content (Canadian actors, producers, etc).
What this leads to is that I would like to not pay for channels I don't use (specifically the French ones) but then there would probably be no French channels as I would guess that 90% of people probably don't watch them enough to keep them viable. Thus the amount of Canadian content on the airwaves would plummet.
Mind you there have been some well done shows and music that have blossomed lately from Canada.
I never understood the people who thought because they do the network or backbone work that they were "above" working on user's machines. Granted if a network connection goes down it will affect multiple people but try standing in front of a user and tell them that the document they were working on for hours is gone since they hadn't saved and the machine's hard drive pooched.
Sucks to be you all. I got a $3 an hour raise last time which I think is about $6000 a year