March 2015

Three things.  Every month.

Book.

If you’re in Vancouver, BC, or the surrounding area, Charles Montgomery’s Happy City should be mandatory reading before voting on measure to increase taxes for an ambitious and massive transportation plan for the entire region. Sadly, this little book will not make it to the book shelves of the Canadian Taxpayer’s Association library. Which is too bad.  I’m not sure if Happy City argument would fully endorse this transportation plan, but a little thoughtful nuance would be a welcome break to the Yes and No sides yelling at eachother.

The Canadian Taxpayer’s Association (read: all government is bad, all taxes are bad, unless it’s personally enriching to corporate interests) is hell bent on derailing any attempt by the Greater Vancouver Area’s regional transportation authority from building more transit, bike lanes, and yes, even roads.  Strangely, I don’t remember the CTA mounting a campaign against the new Port Mann Bridge.  Of course, I don’t remember the new Port Mann bridge becoming ballot issue, either. Thanks Christy Clark.

But let that old Port Mann bridge crumbling in disrepair bring comfort.  Remember, a road can be torn up. A Bridge’s life ends.  And when we’re living here with 1 million more people and we’re all of a sudden feeling more L.A. than we ought to, someone might come along and remember that we once had a plan to get ourselves out of this mess.

Track

Sometimes you just need a thoughtful little pop jem to make it through the day. And maybe a 10k run. This track is called Detriot, by Gaz Coombes.  It sure is nice.  Also, I've always wanted to start a movement to get everyone, I mean even the mayor of Detriot to pronounce it as a the original French colonialists would have called it, something more like "Deh-twah".  

Thing

This is the toaster my parents bought when we moved to Canada, and almost 40 years later it still works. It’s got a classic 70’s modern pallet - black, white, silver, wood (er . . . remind you of any amplifiers?) The enamel has worn off. The sound of the mechanical arm and lock used to drop and hold the bread into the cavity is straight up horror-flick-rusty-bolt-unshackling. 

But despite these superficial deficiencies, it works very well. It consistently toasts perfectly. The slots are too small for bagels, you have no choice but to heat up all four slots every time you use it regardless of your slice count, and it cannot fit a small cornish hen. Do not attempt to slice a cornish hen to fit into the toaster.  Because it’s for bread. Regular sliced bread.

It does one thing really well: toasts between 1 and 4 slices of bread.  It will not connect to the internet, you will never toast bread from your iphone. Certainly not from your connected watch.

Sometimes when the peanut butter is a little cold, I put the jar really close to the toaster, and that little side warms up a bit. So there’s that.

But otherwise, it’s a device for making bread just a little crispy, but not yet cracker like. And it is perfect.