An interesting week for we and Canada Post. One day a package that hardly registered for weight within province was taken for posting and the clerk said "eight bucks." "Eight bucks! Forget it. Give it to her next time we visit." On another day, two packages with identical size and identical content were taken to Canada Post, one going to Philadelphia (ten hours drive, in another country) and one to Toronto (two hours drive, in my province.) The Toronto package cost a buck more. My world has turned upside-down.
- Via John, I learned about Yorkshire forced indoor rhubarb. There used to be a show on PBS called The Victorian Garden and there was an entire episode about forcing houses where vegetables and fruits were grown and kept through the winter. I always wanted to live on pale homegrown foods.
- Check out footnote nine on page six of this .pdf copy of a Canadian Senate Committee Report on border security. They want to allow us to bring back up to $2,000 bucks a day from the US including hooch, booze and other sippables. This is new information to me and changes my otherwise dim view of the legislative body. Imagine the right to pop over to Alex Bay for a 2-4 of Thousand Island Pale Ale. Imagine.
- What has the Internet really done for us? I think it is fair to say that the idle magazine reader question is a valid concern. It has been a long time since I bought thirty bucks worth of magazines to go through on a Saturday morning. In fact, I cut back all magazine buying to just Sports Illustrated. I like pictures.
- This is as important a transitional weekend as Labour Day. By the next one of these bullet points comes into being, there will be an NCAA champion crowned and the baseball season will be in full swing. The bulbs are popping up in the garden and if there is any drying out I may stick a shovel in the ground. I need to thing about seeds and which tomato to grown. Think Stokes and Vesey's.
Comments
cm - March 30, 2007 9:01 AM
I still have four magazine subscriptions, but I'm beginning to think a weekly one was a bad idea as I can't quite keep up.
gr - March 30, 2007 9:19 AM
DRAT! :^)
gorthos - March 30, 2007 10:00 AM
I am a magazine publishers nightmare. I always subscribe to two and buy a third (and sometimes a fourth) each month..
I get National Geographic Adventure and The Skeptical Inquirer yet every year or two a cancel my subscription for a year.. be teh time the next year rolls around tehy are again offering me 50% off deals and I sign up again.. I alternate this with another two random mags.. this year I am cancelling NGA and getting Outdoor mag.. Skep Inq is next to go and I will get the planetary Society mag for a year..
I WISH I could get a deal with Wired.. in the US you can get it for 1-2$ an issue by subscription yet only save a mere $1 off of the cover price by doing so in canada.. its a fricking $6.99 mag!!!!
And Canada post.. ugh.. I used to sell a lot on ebay and would weigh parcels at my office in the lab.. I woudl use the online system to determine cost of postage by size and accurate weight and just slap on postage.. if however I took it in to the depot, they woudl always insist it cost more... argh
gorthos - March 30, 2007 10:02 AM
Excuse typos folks.. in a huge hurry today
Chris Taylor - March 30, 2007 12:44 PM
I maintain a couple of subscriptions, but they are to military publications that don't publish to civilians electronically.
Paul of Kingston - March 30, 2007 1:00 PM
$2K per day!!! Oh yes! Now that damned passport doesn't seem so expensive at all.
Temujin - March 30, 2007 1:22 PM
It seems that to ship anything south is cheaper that to ship it north or west or east. Ever compared the cost of a flight from Toronto to Philadelphia against the cost of Toronto to Quebec City? $292 (one way) to the city of Brotherly Love... and anywhere from $155 to $327 to La Belle Province, depending of course on the time you leave.
If this NBP scheme is ever going to take off, we need to find a way to keep the costs consistent!
Jay Currie - March 30, 2007 3:42 PM
The post office is slowly pricing itself out of business. And with little rhyme or reason to the tariff. All it does is make people think twice about using the post office for anything. If it is really important you use Fed-Ex. otherwise you just don't bother.
Hans - March 30, 2007 4:02 PM
I have always hated magazines. I don't hate the internet. Is there a connection?
gorthos - March 30, 2007 4:41 PM
re: Hans [4:02 PM March 30, 2007]
I have always hated magazines. I don't hate the internet. Is there a connection?
I've always hated spider monkeys but I don't hate spray cheese. I think all items are disconnected or as connected as we like them to be.
Gordo - March 30, 2007 6:49 PM
I like magazines, the internet, spider monkeys AND spray cheese. That probably just confirms my weirdo status, though.
cm - March 31, 2007 10:00 AM
Courier deliveries are difficult when you live in an apartment and your parents live in the middle of nowhere. So we use Canada Post (for the pretty stamps - have you seen the new lilac ones?) and Greyhound (for large parcels).
I like magazines and the internet, have no opinion on spider monkeys or spray cheese, and think a flight to Moncton should not cost more than one to Paris.