Sweetening the Obesity Debate

Everyone knows that too much television is not healthy for developing minds, but did you know that commercials are also making your kids fat?

A study released this week by Yale University’s Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity revealed the least nutritious breakfast cereals. Lucky Charms, Cinnamon Toast Crunch, and Honey Nut Cheerios were among the worst offenders. These, and other children’s cereals, have 85% more sugar, 65% less fibre and 60% more sodium. Massive television, internet, and supermarket advertising campaigns, specifically aimed at children, associate these cereals with positive emotions, having fun (toy in the bottom of the box), being happy and apparently being cool. The result of this, the study concludes, is increased levels of childhood obesity.

Oh please! While the advertising budgets are shocking (a combined $229 million in 2006), the results are not. It is hardly news that cereals marketed with cartoon characters aren’t the best nutritional choice. Neither is the idea that marketing makes people of any age want things.

The obesity research asserts that “children have no cognitive abilities to defend against advertising messages; therefore, advertising to them is inherently unfair and potentially harmful given the nutritional quality of the products promoted.” This sounds like a very good argument against allowing marketing to children, but it doesn’t show me that there is any direct connection between polluting children’s minds with advertising and childhood obesity.

Children are bombarded with images of Barbies, laughing Elmo toys, and video games constantly. Not to mention the kid on the playground who brings a new toy to school and suddenly, all the other kids have to have it. I was recently watching TV with a friend’s five year old daughter when a toy commercial came on. She had little experience with commercials as her TV exposure was mostly limited to ad-free channels such as TVO or Treehouse.
“What is that?” she asked me.
“A doll,” I replied.
“I want it.”
It didn’t matter that she rarely plays with dolls or that it wasn’t even a particularly special one. She wanted it. I laughed at her reaction, but I was also shocked. I couldn’t believe how quickly the message was transformed from images to desire in her sponge-like, naïve mind.

She didn’t get the doll, though. Because what the researchers fail to address is in this study is the role of parents as decision makers. Children don’t have any direct buying power, only whining power. Parents ultimately get to decide what their children eat, what toys they play with and how much exercise they get, at least while children are young. Some parents will have tougher battles than others, and surely advertising will add to that battle. But the last time I checked, parents were still the boss.

Eating junk-food in place of a proper breakfast probably is a contributing factor in childhood obesity. In fact, the study found that children were likely to eat twice as much sugar cereal than healthier options, but they would eat better cereal if they were given the chance. With that knowledge, it is clear that advertising does not make children fat, choices make children fat. So until parents are willing to take responsibility for their children, trimming the ad budgets of Kellogg’s and Post isn’t likely to have much of an effect on kids’ health.

The Horror of Halloween Costumes

I’ve always loved that Halloween is an opportunity to be someone you are not. So when I ventured out to the vintage clothing shops of Toronto’s Kensington Market to find a Halloween costume I didn’t have a specific one in mind, but I was excited by the opportunity to reinvent myself for just one night. But I quickly discovered that when it comes to women’s costumes, designers have opted for as little coverage as possible – and women are buying it.

After struggling to find anything inspiring in the first few stores, I made my way to Exile, a quirky shop that proudly displayed puffy skirts and skeletons in the front window, and where wigs and packaged costumes lined the inside walls. The woman who greeted us at the door was in full costume, a Little Red Riding Hood ensemble, which, judging from the fit, appeared to have been tailored for a child.

A quick scan of the store reminded me what modern Halloween is truly about: sex. From the section devoted to the “Naughty Nurse” and “Dirty Doctor” (note that the Dirty Doctor costume involves surgical scrubs while the nurse costume is a sleeveless mini dress), to Wonder Woman and French maids, there was nothing modest about these costumes.Since I was unwilling to wear a napkin with a zipper, I didn’t find a costume that day. So I turned to the internet.

The online costume store BuyCostumes.com has 61 pages of “sexy costumes” for women. The typical “sexy” costumes are all there: Burlesque Babe, Wonder Woman, Naughty Nurse and Vixen Pirate Wench. Other options include the more racially insensitive “Indian Princess” and “Eskimo Cutie,” and things I hadn’t realized were sexy like “Ms Krueger” (as in Freddy Krueger), “Racy Robin Hood” and the “Queen Bumblebee.”

When did this happen? When did outfits that once would have been sold exclusively at sex shops for private use become the standard for otherwise sensible women?

Somewhere along the way we seem to have gotten confused. Author and columnist Ariel Levy puts it likes this in her 2006 book Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture: “Only thirty years (my lifetime) ago, our mothers were "burning their bras" and picketing Playboy, and suddenly we were getting implants and wearing the bunny logo as supposed symbols of our liberation.”

Women are deriving power from the tease of these costumes and calling it equality. Wearing provocative Halloween costumes as a means of female empowerment is like watching porn for the dialogue.

It’s been called Sex and City feminism, or as The New York Times’ Judith Warner more accurately called it “girls-gone-wild feminism.” This is the world where girls grow up wanting to be characters on The Hills instead of Prime Minister, where appearing in a sex video replaces the need for talent, and where girls can do and be almost anything, but don’t have the desire. Mainstream media presents women as sexy and liberated but the female pop culture icons many young women aspire to be are just under dressed and superficial.

Part of me feels conflicted because Halloween really is the only time I could get away with wearing a mini-dress and stilettos without being labelled a slut. But inserting “sexy” in front of any profession, animal, or ethnic group isn’t providing new options, it’s just a single option wrapped in more attractive adjectives.

So mostly I just feel sad. Sad that many women wouldn’t even consider a clever, scary, or ugly costume, and sad that somehow this holiday has become the day that women exploit themselves without giving it a second thought.

Like Levy says, “It is worth asking ourselves if this bawdy world of boobs and gams we have resurrected reflects how far we’ve come, or how far we have left to go?”

Blog Sharing: Snips And Snails And The Unbearable Heaviness Of Roman Polanski

This pretty much covers all the points I've been trying to make. More importantly, it covers the points that I wasn't getting across - the feeling. That feeling that only women can really understand. The feeling of fear that you learn so young that you are supposed to have, whether you have experience or not, and the feeling that, at some point in their lives, all women encounter through experience.

Fuck you, Roman Polanski.

Snips And Snails And The Unbearable Heaviness Of Roman Polanski

Social Media at Work

Here's a blog I wrote somewhere else. It is a little too pro-twitter for me to post here considering my previous posts on the subject!

Love,

Lizz

What Next?

I met David Miller once. He's a very large, imposing man. Nice looking too. And now he is quitting as mayor and Toronto has lost any real hope of getting better.

Toronto is an important city, as far as Canadian cities go. I know, the rest of the country hates us because the rest of the world doesn't know where Regina is, and no one wants to go to Edmonton on vacation. But that's their problem. It shouldn't be ours. Toronto contributes heavily to the Canadian economy, and yet, it is seriously underfunded. So seriously that we can't afford to fix our water mains before they explode, maintain a proper public transit system, or properly pave half of the roads in the city.

Toronto's tax dollars support the rest of the province. People commute to work in Toronto, use out public services for the day, and then go back to the town to which they pay their property taxes.

Canada is too big. Canada has tons of land and too few people to really support all the towns in it properly. Federal dollars go to the 30,000 residents of the Yukon so that they may have fancy rec centres and beautifully paved roads, and to fund cross-Canada trips for students. Am I saying that the people of the Yukon don't deserve these things? Maybe. I don't mean to suggest that we should leave them to rot in a cesspool, but in a country this big, it is just not feasible to give small populations everything that they could possibly dream of, and let the home of 10% of the population fall to pieces.

Now David Miller isn't perfect. The garbage strike went on too long, and he nearly blew the streetcar deal, but are those things really the end of the world?

Here are some good things David Miller did:

1) Constantly fought for Toronto. From the island airport (whether you agree with it or not) to the One Cent campaign, Miller wanted Toronto to be better. Yes, he made mistakes, and yes, people disagree with him, but he worked really hard.

2) Did the best he could with what he had. Miller raised property taxes, introduced a land transfer tax, and introduced a car tax. You're right, guys on the right, he's trying to rob your babies of food, not work with a non-existent budget.

3) He chaired the C40 - a group to fight climate change in Canada. He set high goals for diverting Toronto's garbage (yes, with some miscalculated garbage bins) that encourage people to recycle and compost more by making them financially responsible for how much garbage they produce. (I'm pretty sure the people who hate this the most are the ones who can't figure out how to put out less than a jumbo bin every 2 weeks).

Remember Mike Harris? Harris was voted in, just like Stephen Harper, as a knee-jerk response to some screw ups from the guy before. All politicians fuck up, some of them worse than others, and need to be replaced. Some of them fuck up and need another chance. What we don't need is all these idiot voters who try to pick the exact opposite of the current guy as a response to those mistakes.

Joe Fiorito of the Toronto Star writes this column suggesting that the next mayor needs to be 9 parts Miller (and surprisingly one part Lastman). Have a read. He's right. Because what voters need to do is honestly weigh out the pros and cons of a leader's term. The next "guy" should be more like the pros, and not just the most opposite you can get.

So for the next guy, please feel free to fuck up on small things, as long as you constantly try to do better. Please, don't listen to the guys who think every effort to make Toronto's roads accessible for everyone (not just cars) is somehow a war being waged on society as we know it. Keep trying to make Toronto a cleaner place despite people's complaints. Fight the bigger government guys harder and harder until the social service, infrastructure and transit costs that were downloaded on the city years ago get paid for by the appropriate levels of government. Make Toronto a city that people are jealous of - we like it that way

It's the end of the world as we know it....

And the award for the most useless product on the planet goes to:

The Dog Tag Silencer

We're all going to hell!

How to choose? (An Admiral Road Blog)

There are many reasons babies get the names they do. My first name, Mary, is from my Grandmother, and my middle name, Elizabeth, seems to be inspired by a variety of sources - my favourite being the street I was born on (though my father denies it). At Admiral Road, we see all sorts of unique names and name trends. This gives rise to one of my favourite things to do: Guess the trend.

While I can never be sure why anyone has chosen a name for their child, it seems reasonable that a sudden rise in a previously almost non-existent name has probably been inspired by some outside source – like a TV show. Case in point – Addison. Surely this girls’ name gained its massive popularity from the character on Grey’s Anatomy/Private Practice. And Cohen, a traditional Jewish last name, shows up almost weekly. I’m convinced this is after the character on the now off-the-air TV show, The O.C.

And then there are the perfectly nice names that you think would catch on, but don’t. Take Meredith from Grey’s Anatomy, or Marissa from The O.C. Who is to say why some things enter the collective sub-conscious while others remain on the sidelines?

Other celeb inspired trends: Lexie and George (Grey’s Anatomy), Ainsley (The West Wing), Sawyer (Lost), Blake (actress from Gossip Girl), Dexter (Dexter), and Danica (Indy driver/pin-up girl Danica Patrick). But my absolute favourites are twins Max and Ruby, and Will and Grace.

This blog also appears on Blanket Statements by Admiral Road.

Ooh Baby! I Love Your Way!

It came. The Cuisinart 12-cup programmable coffee maker that I have been coveting for no fewer than 5 years has arrived. It is sitting on my table and I just can't believe it is mine. For free!

I've been avoiding actually buying it all these years because, let's face it, I don't actually need a $100+ coffee maker. But I wanted it. Bad. Remember this blog? CSN Stores e-mailed me and offered me anything from their 220 stores if I'd link to them on this blog.

I was totally skeptical because I couldn't figure out why my little space in the Internet world was worth anything to them when there are so many review sites out there. I asked many questions, was perhaps a bit snarkier than was necessary (sorry Tyler!) and checked the website constantly to see if my package had shipped. Until I actually received the package today I still wasn't sure it was true.

Now this blog being what it is, I had to decide if I was really willing to sacrifice its journalistic integrity for some free swag. It was a pretty easy decision. So for those of you (ahem Amy? Dan?) that mock me for selling out, I have one word for you: Mattress!

You'll be the death of me....

Those of you who know me know that I've never met a rule I didn't like. I think rules are awesome, structure makes the world go 'round, and laws are there for a reason. And I hate people who like to pretend they're such anarchists by purposefully disobeying rules because The Man is infringeing on their rights to do whatever the hell they want. Why? Because you f**kers are going to kill me!

I've been riding a bike for 2 weeks and I've already developed some pretty serious cyclist road-rage. But not at drivers.

Yes, the guy who parked in the bike lane today (and every other day for that matter) infuriates me (I really don't care if you're just going to be a minute, drive your lazy butt around the corner because that lane is mine!), and yes, the guy who drove into oncoming traffic to get around me because I had to use the road (because the aforementioned asshole was in the bike lane) needs a good kick in the head, but I'm not going to write an angry blog about how much Toronto driver's suck (they do) or that there aren't enough bike lanes and the ones that are there are full of pot holes (there aren't, and they are), because it's been done. And everyone knows that and there is little I can do about it anyway besides write my city councillor a letter (which I am considering as soon as I find out who it is). I'm angry with all the bad cyclists out there.

A few things:

1) Use your bell. It is not just there to look pretty. Bikes are quiet. If you're passing someone and don't let them know then you're a) just going to freak newbie-people like me out or b) potentially crash when they move within the bike lane (or possibly out without signalling - which is wrong but is still going to hurt when you collide)

2) Stop at red lights and stop signs. When you don't, you're just fueling the fire of those anti- bike-lane assholes and making the situation worse. Not to mention, you're going to either hit someone, or get hit. And if that someone is me then I'm going to be really pissed off.

3) Wear a helmet. Please. I'm not angry at you for this one, I'm concerned. I know a helmet won't always help save you when terrible accidents happen, but if there is even a chance it could save your life, won't you try? A more skeptical person would point out that you'll be a burden on the healthcare system once you're a vegetable (and therefore your need to assert your rights infringes on my rights), but I really just don't want to see any more people die this summer. Please?

A little experiment with the internet...

I'm trying an internet experiment today.

I was approached by CSN stores to do a review of anything I wanted. I was surprised, since I don't typically do product reviews (although I am quite familiar with sending products out for review).

They'd like me to link to one of their 200 stores: CSN Mattresses.

Now I will hold my breath and wait for my coffee maker so I can write an actual review.

Wish me luck.

The Bicycle Blog

Today I bought a bicycle. And then I cried.

About 8 years ago I was riding with some friends in the Yukon for the first time in several years. I was going down a lightly gravelled hill when I overreacted and hit the front breaks. Hard. As you'd expect, I flew over the handle bars, landed on some rocks, broke a tooth, and cut my hands, knees and face. Needless to say, I haven't been on a bike since. But this summer was going to be my comeback.

I recently moved much closer to work (not to mention moved in with an avid cyclist) and while I can walk to work in 25 minutes, riding to work will take about 10. I had been thinking about trying biking for most of the summer, but never actually took a bike out on the road. Because I am terrified!

Finally yesterday we went to look at bikes. My plan to get an inexpensive used bike faded quickly when I realized that a rusty, faded, elderly bike cost $150. My plan to get a retro comfort bike also disappeared when I discovered that they don't actually make them tall enough for me (at least in the lower price range). So I picked out a "traditional frame" (read: ugly boy bike) and attempted to feminize it with a pretty bell and snazzy helmet.

As the sales girl helped me collect the accessories I'd need, I realized I was feeling more and more anxious. I had already test ridden several bikes without any problem, but actually making the purchase was a whole new ballgame.

By the time I started filling in the warranty form my hand was shaking. The amazing sales girl kept telling me "this is so exciting" and "this will change your life". I gave her my credit card. All of a sudden this plan (I have a lot of plans) turned into reality. Buying a bike and riding it on the bike-un-friendly streets of Toronto was no longer an ambitious thought, but rather a commitment I was making once she swiped my card. I finished paying quickly, walked out the door with my new bike, and burst into tears. And not just tears. Panic. I was pretty sure I was going to throw up.

I had no idea I was going to have that reaction to something so normal.

A few hours later (after I hid the bike in the other room to pretend it didn't exist) I put my helmet on and told Ryan I was ready to try. And I did it! I f**king did it!

So that's that. I'm still completely terrified, and will need an escort to get me to work for the first time tomorrow, but I survived. And despite it being an everyday task for millions of people, I am so proud of myself.

Sometimes a Little Accuracy Would Be Helpful

I hate the term sexual assault, but maybe not for the reason you’d think. It is not because the thought of it makes me cringe (though it does) and it is not because I think it is inherently a bad term for some circumstances. I hate the term “sexual assault” because it is an all-encompassing umbrella term.

Now let me say right away that I in complete favour of the criminal code considering all forms of unwanted sexual behaviour as assault. I am in favour of people in general thinking of all forms of unwanted behaviour as assault. I also understand the motivation to create a term that is intended to protect women (or children or people) based on a past of cruel and unjust laws. The trouble is, the intended impact of this all-encompassing term seems to have been lost – particularly in the media.

I recently read a story in the newspaper about a child being “sexually assaulted” in B.C. I immediately felt the knot in my stomach tighten and the strong urge to vomit. After the initial impact I thought I don’t know what that means. I knew the possibilities of what it meant, but I wasn’t sure. I hoped, of course, that it might have meant one of the less horrific possibilities – maybe this child could recover from this trauma with not too much life disturbance if he or she had the right help.

Another recent story reported that a man had “sexually assaulted” a woman on the subway near my house. Anytime something violent happens in my neighbourhood, or anywhere I realistically could have been, I feel nervous. So reading this story invoked some uncomfortable emotions. As I continued to read, I discovered that this event happened at 5:30p.m. Hmm I thought to myself. 5:30? That’s rush hour. I take the train at rush hour and the train is packed full of people. How could someone have been sexually assaulted on a crowded subway train at rush hour? Then I stopped. I realized that my immediate understanding of the term as the worst case scenario was actually not what had occurred in this case. That is not to suggest that whatever happened (and of course I will never know) was not unpleasant, or even traumatic for the woman it happened to. But without meaning to undermine her experiences, whatever happened to her was not of the same calibre as rape and rape couldn’t possibly have been what happened on that train.

The truth is that most of the time I take the ambiguity in the media and hope that it means the lesser evil occurred because it makes me less afraid of the world. I wish terrible things didn’t happen to people and I can’t even begin to imagine how people cope with severe trauma. But while I never want to hear the gory details of the story, the ambiguity can be even more disconcerting because it allows for panic. Also, if other people think like I do (and I assume at least a few of them must), then they begin to think that either the world is horribly dangerous, or the media is creating a panic by basically misrepresenting facts through ambiguity.

If the point of reporting these events in the first place is to keep the public informed (and possibly safer because they have the knowledge) then using an umbrella term doesn’t accomplish the goal. Without the facts, I can’t actually make any sort of informed assessment of my, or others’, safety in the world.

And just to lighten the tension a little:

The Runners' Club

Once I was a runner. For two non-consecutive summers I went out on 3 weekly runs- short runs, long runs, beach runs. Most of the time I had to force myself (or more often someone else had to force me) to go out, and most of the time I didn’t even like the actual running, but once I was a runner.

I’ve never been particularly athletic. I am uncoordinated, I’m awkward, and certainly don’t have the natural build of an athlete. And while I dislike the fact that I make an ass of myself in any organized event (memories of missing the ball entirely in junior high games of soccer spring to mind), mostly I just don’t enjoy the feeling that sports gives me. So why then did I run? I realized recently that I liked the feeling of being part of the “runners’ club”.

The runners’ club is unlike any other thing I’ve been a part of. The membership is simple: You have to run. You don’t have to be a particularly good runner, you just have to run. Obviously there is a difference between marathon runners and 5k runners, but there is a sense of camaraderie with runners that encompasses compassion, understanding and encouragement unlike any other sport I’ve been a part of. It is as if you have an instant bond with complete strangers. Runners wave to other runners as they pass on the street and they give words of encouragement when they pass you in a race.

One’s status as a runner often provides conversation at a party (because there is inevitably at least one other runner anywhere you go) in circumstances where you may have nothing else to talk about. Last summer I went to the beach with 2 friends and several other people whom I had met but didn’t really know. When I had to turn down an invitation to a dinner party because “I do my long runs on Wednesdays”, it was if the magnetic force of the “runners club” was turned on and I had instant friends: “You do your long runs on Wednesday? I never have the energy after work”, “You should try eating x or drinking x”. I was training for a 10k, they were training for a 10k, half marathon, or a marathon. It didn’t actually matter that they had been runners for years, or that they were faster or better at it than I was. It was the first time that I had felt that I could enter a club without having to fulfill all sorts of criteria and it was the first time in my life that I felt like I could be an athlete.

Shortly before completing my first (and likely only) 10k run last year I injured my knee. Even though I know that so many people injure their knees running, I was furious that it had happened to me. I had worked so hard to get to this goal. And it was an enormous goal for me - I was the kid who played organized soccer for 7 seasons and only got worse. I managed to complete my run, but then stopped running completely for nearly 8 months.

This past spring, I started to run again. My knee no longer hurt, it was warm enough at times in March to start running outside without special gear, and I felt motivated (and maybe even excited). This year I was going to run a half marathon! But a month and a half into training, the pain came back. At first it was only occasional, but it quickly turned into constant pain bad enough to make me limp. My time as a runner was over.

There are all sorts of feelings that surface when you lose control of making the decision, but mostly I am angry. I’m angry because it was the one sport that didn’t require me to have special skills – to catch a ball or score a ball. I could just go out and do it. But I’m also sad because just as it was easy to join the runners’ club, it was easy to get kicked out.

So now I’m looking into buying a bike. But the bike club isn’t as inclusive as the runners’ club. People who ride comfort bikes to school or work aren’t the same kind of “cyclists” as those who spend their weekends on the lakeshore, or who ride in races. It is not the same, but at least it will make me feel a little less guilty for ice cream cones that keep making it into my hands this summer.

Pretend Mommy

I spend a lot of time with kids. I worked through university as a part-time nanny and babysitter so I have had plenty of experience with feeding and entertaining, playdates and playgrounds, school pick-ups and drop-offs, and time-outs and bedtimes. I can discuss, with a reasonable amount of accuracy, Toopy, Max and Ruby, Bob the Builder, the Backyardigans and more. So I guess it is only fitting that I am a key employee of a company run by mom-entrepreneurs that specializes in baby gifts!

This is a mom company. Throughout the day we talk about babies, families, and life. Sometimes my work day is interrupted by a 4 year old who needs help with her computer game or a sick kid home from school that brings me pictures she has drawn. Sometimes there are babies at business meetings.

I started reading “mommy blogs” and keeping up to date on the world of celebrity babies – all work related I’m quick to tell anyone who will listen. But somewhere along the way I realized I was enjoying them….and occasionally related to them. I guess I am far more entrenched in their world than I thought.

I used to think I ended up at Admiral Road by accidental networking (I babysat their kids), but the more time I spend here, I realize that there is probably a good reason that I fit in so well. In school I thought I was working towards a degree to get a job. As it turns out, sometimes knowledge of diapers and Dora can be a lot more useful if you’ve got the right audience.

(This blog also appears on the Admiral Road Blog. Have a look)

Wesley the Cat: A Plagiarized Blog

This is Wesley. He was a nice cat. I'm allergic to cats. Thus, sadly, Wesley has moved out. So read this blog of Ryan's. It's absolutely lovely.

What city do THEY live in?

The garbage men are on strike. 12 hours into the strike people started illegally dumping garbage when they couldn't possibly have had time to be inconvenienced yet. All the media reports are outrageously dramatic and the anti-union rhetoric exploded, demonstrating the people of Toronto's continued hatred of any attempts to stand up to their employers.

Because of this I was purposefully avoiding reading anything newspaper stories in order to keep my anger (at the anti-unionists and garbage-dumping morons) in check. But somehow I stumbled upon two articles. One is from the Globe and Mail and one is from the Toronto Star. Two papers, one city.... or is it? The extreme differences astonish me.

In the Land of the Midnight Sun....

This is a blog that I wrote for my company blog but I thought I'd share here for the rest of the world to see.


I grew up in the Yukon. The land of the midnight sun, prospectors and gold. Through the stories of Jack London and the poems of Robert Service, the Yukon has been immortalized as a land of rugged adventure. It was there I went to summer camp.

Camp. The place a child from the city learns to paddle a canoe, swim, hike through the wilderness and tie a really great knot. That is, unless you went to camp in the Yukon.

Most people expect that I have an acute knowledge of hunting, fishing, or perhaps wrestling a bear with my bare hands. Instead, I remember being expected to fall asleep in a hot, old cabin at 9pm, more than two hours before the sun dropped below the horizon for a few hours of twilight. I also remember the morning cabin cleanliness inspections that were used to determine the breakfast line-up order at one camp, and peeling potatoes behind the kitchen building as part of our daily chores at another.

But I do have fond memories of camp. It was there that I got to spend a week with my friends, both new and old, riding horses, playing capture the flag, jumping on trampolines, and in particular, making up songs and skits for nightly gatherings in the main hall.

While I might not have left camp with many - ok, any - wilderness skills, I did leave with lasting friendships and fond memories of summers well spent.

If you're sending your young ones off for a summer camp experience, save $5 off an Admiral Road personalized camp blanket with coupon code CAMP09 until June 30th.

Commenting commenters

I HATE the comments that people post on newspaper articles. HATE! HATE! HATE! While there may be a few okay points made, they are always over shadowed by blatant grammatical errors, and other far more illogical points that negate the good ones.

Here are a few of my favourites in response to Joe Fiorito's article about the need to lend out unused Sky Dome corporate boxes to "the needy":

"And piss off every paying customer. Why should I pay good money I worked hard to earn for a ticket when a homeless guy gets in for free? Fiorito preaches communism." - Love the American GOP and Stephen Harper

"I cannot afford to go to games, but I'd sure like to go." Ok, I'm making fun of the poor, pro-communist, Joe-The-Plumber here, but tickets cost $11, buddy. Too poor to go to the games? I practically live in a cardboard box and still manage to see 10 games a year.

Sure, I could have shared comments on a more serious article, but those generally infuriate me more and are not as fun as this:

"AS IF that will ever happen.!! I am not too sure people would like to sit next to a homeless person who hasnt bathed in weeks. " I don't think Joe is suggesting YOU share the box with the stinky, homeless man. But just in case, bring a noseplug.

So I have to ask myself: why do newspapers let people comment on their stories? Perhaps it is because they want the reader to feel more engaged with the content? Are they trying to be more at one with the people? Down with the newspaper elite? Who knows. Maybe it is really just to add some free content to the page.

In any respect, it ruins my reading experience. I choose my newspaper based on the general political stance it takes on issues. For instance, I think the National Post is run by fascists. Do I read their right-wing columnists and then complain that it is too right-wing? No. That would be ridiculous. Just as ridiculous as calling Joe Fiorito of the Toronto Star a communist.

I'm all for people getting up on their soap box. That is why I have a blog. Get your own blog, morons, so you can whine to your heart's content.

P.S. To all you guys who think that it would be terrible for big business to do as Joe suggests, consider the amazing PR opportunities. During a recession is the best time for corporations to get some good press with very little spending. Even by paying for food for these people, the company would be spending a lot less than the cost of an advertisement. The public's impression of a company's goodwill goes a long way.

Admiral Road Camp Blanket Coupon

Check out the coupon to save $5 off an Admiral Road personalized camp blanket. Valid through June.

twtQpon :: $5 off Admiral Road CAMP BLANKETS (via @AdmiralRoad)

'Tis the Season

Let me start this post with a disclaimer (specifically for you, dad): I am NOT getting married for a long, long time. I did, however, open (via the internet) the Life section of the Globe and Mail this morning to discover two different articles/essays on weddings (not to mention 3 other links to other wedding articles from the day before). This some how led me down the path of imagination-land wedding planning all before finishing my cup of coffee or taking a shower.

How exactly did I get suckered into dreaming about weddings? I'm 23 and not even remotely interested in naming my wedding day as the most important day of my life. But I guess I am a sucker for pretty things and even bigger sucker for an opportunity to plan the hell out of something (my not-so-secret hobby).

So as the girl that doesn't believe in engagement rings and would much rather put a down payment on a house than buy a fancy dinner for 150 of my not-so-closest friends and relatives, I enjoyed this article - because so many things in life clash when you are trying to tell the world you're a feminist but have a lifetime of subliminal, and overt, messages about the things you should want.

I also thought this article was pretty fun too. After attending a wedding last fall that felt completely suited to the Bride and Groom rather than to a traditional wedding magazine, I realized that weddings don't have to be as bad as tv makes them out to me... just as bad/good as you make them out to be.

Rosie Dimanno can take it like a man so I don’t have to!

In response to this column in Today's Toronto Star.

Congratulations, Rosie, on your new set of testicles! If women like you weren’t out there taking it like a man, we would never know the standard to which we must we live up. Sure, taking away all responsibility of men by being careful to never act like a “woman” is not an original way to live your life and subvert feminism, but it was good of you to remind me of the importance of being ashamed of my femininity so as not to be thought a pathetic fool.

I am sure that this column has inspired many angry e-mails from raging feminists determined to drag you to a bra burning. I’d like to offer you a few words of advice, friend to friend, for future columns so you might potentially avoid that issue.

While I certainly do my best to convince people of my point of view by offering up unrelated “evidence”, it is sure to cause you trouble. It appears that your argument is that women should never speak publically about their cheating husbands because it makes them look like fools, and demeans women everywhere. While asserting that women are raised to be tattlers and whingers seems like it would be an effective way to shut these women up, some of your more savvy readers might try to poke holes in your arguments.

One example might be “Hey Rosie, why not trying offering up some reasons why going public is a bad idea instead of resorting to name calling – particularly because girls “are nurtured in the culture of tattle and tell-all grievance from the time they're subjected to their first schoolyard name-calling”. Or something of the sort. Unless of course your point was that women should never talk about their feelings (men learn that that makes them “pussies” while women are busy tattling), in which case name calling seems like the only reasonable route to take.

Even then, though, you might consider explaining to us why never expressing feelings is actually better than expressing them some or all of the time. Clearly acting like a real man is better (and men acting like “women” is disgraceful), but I need some reassurance. Explain it to me like I’m a woman.

Another thing to keep in mind is choose your target appropriately. Picking quasi-celebrity women who live their lives in the public eye in this new era of celebrity politics seems like a mistaken choice for an argument against living your life in the public eye. Surely if your neighbour wrote a book about her husband’s affair and went on Oprah as a representative of women everywhere she’d make much better example. But I guess Oprah wouldn’t care much about listening to her.

And finally, be careful not to slip into any womanly talk. For a moment you had me worried. Surely only a feminist would take issue with Elizabeth Edwards blaming the other “bimbo” rather than her husband. Luckily you save yourself when you point out she knows little about men (they cheat so get over yourself) and suggest she is from another planet. Nice touch mentioning that this is extra stupid behaviour for a “trained lawyer”.

I hope that this helps.

Sincerely (or maybe not),

Lizz

A world without plastic?

I'm surprisingly perky for a Sunday morning - well any morning really. I've made french toast and I'm ready to complain about people's stupidity before the first sip of coffee has touched my lips.

While reading the morning {digital} papers, I came across this story of a woman trying to live without plastic for a week. I knew from the beginning that it was going to be a standard "Oh my goodness I never realized how much X existed in the world and now I'm forever changed" stories, but when it comes to the environment, I generally appreciate efforts made.

Now I'm surely not the biggest environmentalist out there but I really do try to do better. Sure, I recycle, rarely drink bottled water and get a knot in my stomach when I have to take a plastic grocery bag at a store. But the fact that I eat red meat, buy commercial flowers, and flew in an airplane 25 times last year means that I'm still going to environmentalist hell. That being said, it always amazes me how stupid people can be.

It is very easy to jump on the no-plastic-grocery-bags band wagon, and I'm glad people have. But why the hell can't they stop using produce bags?! At least shopping bags made sense. You purchased products so you need some thing to carry them home in. I don't expect everyone to be as doofussy as me (right away at least) and walk down the street carrying a tub of yogurt because I forgot my bags. I do, however, expect them to stop being jack-asses.

Produce bags have absolutly no place in the world. People walk around putting a bunch of bananas, apples, oranges, etc in a plastic bag to then go into their new "I'm an environmentalist" public bag. The woman in the article put one single apple in a bag, yet she had to conduct an anti-plastic experiment to realize that was a moronic idea!

Here's how it works, people: Enter grocery store. Pick up basket (or basket to put in cart if you like). Walk to produce section. Put produce directly into basket. Do not pass Go, do not put your apples in a plastic bag. Easy as that. You don't need to go out and buy a fancy "reusable produce bag" from an Eco store. It is an unnecessary product that is getting an even more unnecessary replacement.

Yes, you will have to put in a little bit more effort to unload your basket. And yes, the cashier (who hates her life anyway) will have to go to a little bit more effort to put them on the scale, but you'll both live. I was a cashier for 8 years and weighing un-bagged fruit didn't kill me.

Other things that are stupid? Individually packaged anything. Things like juice boxes or those ridiculous portion-controlled snacks (Newsflash: Just eat less!) are ruining the earth.

I guess my point is this: some things that are bad for the environment are really hard to change. I'm not sure I'm ready to give up cows and flowers, I can't afford to buy milk in cartons or glass jars, and I think exploring the world is important and airplanes are neat. But some things are so easy to change: bringing your own coffee cup, drinking tap water, walking instead of driving short distances, and for God's sake skipping the produce bags.

Gimme Gimme Gimme the FINAL Challenge

THE LAST CHALLENGE! Finally, I have completed the last of the online challenge for CBC's Canada Writes. This one was a lot harder for me. I'm not sure I'm destined to be a song writer - at least not one for ABBA. So here is my submission. Please CLICK HERE, search my name and rate my "Song2" submission before Friday April 17th.

My lyrics are below.

Winter's done
And I''m watching the sunset get later every day
Oh I can't wait for swimsuits and sand and waves
SPF
I know it's to protect me but it keeps me ghostly
And the greasy formula scares away boys
Is there a God up there?
One who can hear my prayer?

Gimme Gimme Gimme a tan in the summer
My alabaster skin reflects the light away
Gimme gimme gimme a tan in the summer
I can't stand how people point and stare every day

Sun to me
It's a natural enemy, I'm pigmentless you see
But a base tan is all I need to be free
Skin will burn
But the end result will be some colour over me
Oh I hope that they'll stop calling me white-y
Is there a God up there?
One who can hear my prayer?

Gimme Gimme Gimme a tan in the summer
My alabaster skin reflects the light away
Gimme gimme gimme a tan in the summer
I can't stand how people point and stare every day

(in case you missed the point, this is to the tune of GIMME GIMME GIMME (A Man After Midnight) by Abba)

The Day That CBC Broke My Heart

It has been just over a week since the finale of Being Erica. It has taken me this long to calm down enough to be able to compose some "intelligent" thoughts about how I feel about it.

"Feel? Really Lizz? But it is just a TV show!" Sure. But if TV shows had no effect on your emotions then they're wouldn't really be doing their jobs. Even reality TV makes you think about something - albeit maybe just how much you don't want to eat cow brains.

But back to Erica.

It wasn't just the bad acting, indulgent story lines, or overall bad writing - all of which is true and I will get to - but mostly I was just so completely offended by the plot that it actually drove me to tears of anger. This was the big story, the one we'd all been waiting for: Leo's death. The preview for this episode had been scrolling on the website for many weeks before, and Dr. Tom told us in the very first episode that Erica couldn't go back and save Leo. And yet, they went there anyway.

What I was so incredibly offended by is that this episode was written like all the other episodes - as if saving or not saving her brother was the same as telling the truth about her party at Casa Loma or being bold enough to fire a bad writer at work. Leo's death, which is hyped up as a pivotal moment in Erica's life - was reduced to a lesson about .... well actually, I'm not sure. Either way, the trauma of sending Erica back to watch her brother die was never given the power it so obviously deserved.

Let's back-track a bit.

Summary: It is the anniversary of Erica's brother Leo's death. We sit through 15 minutes of superfluous indulgence where Erica and Ethan gush about how happy they are, how stressed Erica is about the anniversary, and how her parents react every year. Next, in an odd attempt at curing her family's collective guilt for Leo's fiery death, Erica suggests they rebuild the barn he died in. Blah, blah, blah, her mother finds Leo's cigarette case and falls apart in a tremendous display of bad acting. Enter Dr. Tom.

Ordinarily Dr. Tom is entertaining enough. He spouts out quotations that you know some eager writer has been scouring the Internet for daily, tells Erica what she is doing wrong and what the lesson is she should have learned. In this case, Dr Tom gets hyper and gloomy (if those can really happen at the same time) and tells Erica she can go back to the time of Leo's death if she PROMISES not to try and save his life. She promises. She just wants to help her family get over it.

So let's stop right here. If the point of this was that Dr Tom actually knows that she will fuck up and save Leo - as any human on the planet would do if they knew their brother (or anyone I'd hope) was about to die- and the lesson was that her years of guilt were unfounded because shit happens, then great. The trouble is that apparently Dr. Tom was turned into an idiot, sent her back to do something he knew she couldn't do, then got ANGRY with her for doing that thing she couldn't have done. Setting aside all the reasons it is inaccurate, and offensive to have her therapist be angry at her for sending her to complete an impossible task, it was all just an awkward set up for a new, higher-up "therapist". If you write the end of the story before the beginning then there is no natural flow.

Then it turns out that Erica is actually a bad person if Leo doesn't die when he's 21 - which I guess means the whole show about fixing her unambitious, aimless life is useless since the whole reason she didn't "go anywhere" was just because Leo died. The show also falls into the butterfly effect category that it has managed to avoid all season. This show was special because Erica's time traveling actions were about self-discovery and improvement, rather than being a typical change the past/future show where everything inevitably falls apart because you have messed with the space-time continuum. The beauty of this show was always that it wasn't about the time traveling itself, it was about the lessons learned in it. Apparently some over-zealous writer forgot that, or maybe didn't know that to begin with. But this is still not what really bothered me.

Leo dies again in the butterfly effect life. So then Erica must go back to the original time to let him die how he was supposed to (I guess so that she could stop being the bad person she is in the new life). She goes back, encourages Leo to write a letter (which magically solves her family's guilt problems despite having nothing to do with the fact that they couldn't get him out of the fire) and then stands in front of the burning barn with a tear running down her face as her brother burns alive.

Is no one else disturbed by this?! She watches her brother burn alive! BURN ALIVE! Then in real time she gets back up on the horse, delivers Leo's letter, and tells Ethan about how good the weekend is.

There were all sorts of poorly-acted emotions from the entire cast, but none that reflected the trauma of watching your brother die. Not even to mention the trauma that follows when her therapist, with whom she had spent months building up a relationship of trust with, abandons her because she failed. What were they thinking?

Someone over there at CBC better clean up their act and decide what kind of show they are trying to make before they even think about writing a second season. If not, I hope they set Erin Karpluk free to pursue well written shows where her acting ability isn't the only thing holding it together.

And that's the ball game,

April 6, 2009. Blue Jays home (and season) opener.

I was so incredibly excited for this game. After a brief baseball teaser last month at the World Baseball Classic, it was finally time for opening day. If you'd asked me two days ago what i thought about opening days, I would have told you that I LOVED them. 50 000 screaming fans jam-packed in, cheering for my team, and a level of excitement that won't be seen again for the rest of the season (unless we head to the world series - because Jays fans favour the fair weather).

But today I am almost wishing that I hadn't gone.

Yes, they destroyed the Tigers and that makes me happy. And yes, there was a lot of really good baseball - home runs, good fielding and nice hits. And yes, people were excited and it started out as a good show of fan spirit. But then, like other times before, some genius decides that it would be HILARIOUS if he could get a paper airplane on the field. He throws, it flies, the surrounding morons cheer, and it lands on the field. Then, another genius thinks he should do that too. After a few minutes, there are a pile of airplanes in the corner of the right field, and one way out by the second base.

So as I stare at the field, I can't help but think:
a) why is that fun?
b) what if a player slips and either misses the catch and ruins the game, or breaks his leg and ruins his career. Hilarious, I know.
c) why bother going to the game? Is it because $10 shit-tastic beer is totally worth leaving your house for and throwing airplanes is the only thing you can do to make it through the game?

Then they stopped the game, cleared the field, and had stadium guys run around and pick up the crap. Of course that only encouraged the geniuses. So they threw more.

Finally the announcer had to point out that the Blue Jays, who were up by nearly 10 runs, would have to forfeit the game if people kept throwing things on the field.

All of this was also accompanied by numerous drunken fights. But I don't care much about that.

What I really don't get is why people enjoy ruining things so much. I never had the urge to break windows or spray paint things. To steal things from smaller kids, or wreck things just because I can.

So what has happened to people that they just don't care? Is life so disappointing that we can only garner pleasure by hurting someone else?