geekent’s stuff’n things

Eye this week has an op-ed piece asking new Ontario premiere Dalton McGuinty to tax plastic shopping bags, citing the success such a tax had in greatly reducing that one particular waste/consumption problem in Ireland.
I’d say I’m all for it.
Back in Thunder Bay, it was hardly unusual to be walking down the street and see, one, two, or a half dozen white plastic bags with big red “S” on them (no, not the Superman emblem, but the Safeway logo ). These I coined back in ‘97 (if not before) the Thunder Bay tumbleweed.
With the introduction of the Real Canadian Superstore, there was a noticeable reduction in the TBtumbleweeds as more people started shopping there. Why was this? Well, aking to say, Price Chopper or No Frills, the Superstore also makes you pay 5cents for each plastic bag you may want. Sure it’s a nominal charge, but in considering a plastic bag costs less than 1/2 cent, it’s enough to make people balk unless they’re in genuine need of a plastic bag. More often than not, people would bring their own plastic bags, whether they were from the Superstore, A&P or Sears, no one really cares. The Superstore, in fact, tries to push other means of toting groceries, such as plastic crates that fit in the shopping cart or nylon bags. No Frills and Price Chopper go even further in providing empy shipping boxes for people to pack their groceries in.
For the record, I generally do my part, as when I shop at No Frills I usually take bags and a very large backpack with me. I also refuse bags at stores where possible (the people at the bakery next store still haven’t learned, though, that I never need a bag to carry my bread the 10 meters home). I try and say no thanks to bags for cds, dvds, comics, books, and anything else that will fit in my courier bag, spare the bag for someone who needs it.
The other thing I do is I use my grocery bags as garbage can liners. Why bother with paying for those white “kitchen catchers” when chances are you’ve already got a whole stash of bags wasting away in the closet (affectionately known as the “bag of bags”)… well I do at least. This is something my mother started doing ever since I can remeber, and eventually it caught on with the whole family, down to my grandma. I’m sure she didn’t “invent” doing this, and she definitely won’t take credit for doing so, but it could be another case of spontaneous independent innovation (that’s not the term I’m looking for, as I made it up, but there is a term for people who come up with an idea that already exists but have had no previous exposure to the idea… anyone? help?)
The bag of bags is also useful for packing material when moving, and unlike crumpled newspapers, you don’t have to flatten them out afterwards for recycling (do you actually have to flatten out the newspapers as well?).
One thing I find interesting about the on-line edition of the Eye op-ed piece is the featured sponsored links are all plastic bag printing and distribution companies. Oh, irony.
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Quick question to my friends in the US. Do you still get the option of paper or plastic? We don’t in Canada, which is too bad because paper fits nicely into composting and recycling… although I distinctly remember that paper had a bitch of a time with frozen foods (especially when the condensation started).

I had another one of those tete-a-tete’s today, akin to that previous row going on earlier this month.
One of my friends at work outed herself as one of these Can-con naysayers. Her exact words at one point was “I can’t stand to watch Canadian television, it makes me sick. I feel like throwing up just seeing it.”
We spent a good deal having a row about the merits of Canadian entertainment, with her saying essentially that a Canadian artist isn’t successful unless they are a *STAR* and they’re part of the US publicity machine.
Her point, in the end, was that you can’t be a *star* unless you go to the States.
I’d have to say she’s right.
It takes the money that the American entertainment system puts into marketing and promotion to make an international celebrity. Even the British aren’t capable of making huge international stars. They can make huge stars in their own country but they don’t have the money to push their stars internationally.
She was saying that Canada doesn’t even have a system that can create stars. She’s not completely correct. We have created some celebrated figures internally (people that aren’t really well known outside of Canada)… The Tragically Hip, Peter Mansbridge, Don Cherry, Wayne & Shuster, Polka Dot Door, Mr. Dressup (actually, Ernie Coombs was an American *gasp*).
We’ve also created sensations that are still quite prominent internationally… Glenn Gould, Margaret Atwood, William Gibson, SCTV, Celine, Alanis and Shania. All of them grew from Canada, not moved to the States and became celebs. But, let’s be serious, it’s not what we’re good at.
But who wants to be a *star* anyway?
“Stars” aren’t real people. They’re modern day freaks to be gawked and stared at.
The Canadian entertainment system is still growing, and, you have to agree, it’s grown a tremendous amount over the past 15 years. Watch an episode of the Littlest Hobo, the Beachcombers, or even Degrassi Jr. High and it looks, really, like shit. If you look at, say, Ready or Not, 11th Hour or Cold Squad… well, we’re not lacking production values anymore… not totally. But we’ve still got quite a way to go before we’ve developed a system that’s self supportive. Hollywood North (Vancouver/Toronto) is helping give our industry experience and putting money in (technically, shows like Andromeda, Stargate SGI, Monk etc are actually Canadian shows… in the same respect that Lord of the Rings is an Australian film) but with the dollar rising, will we lose Hollywood North?
People who insist on comparing the Canadian entertainment industry with the US basically are doing us a disservice. It’s comparing apples and pears. Yeah, they’re both fruits, and they both grow on trees, but they’re not the same. You’ll find apples in hundreds more products but they all become pretty generic after a while, with the odd tasty apple pie. You wont find pears around in much, but when you do, it’s still got it’s integrity.
What? Yeah, it’s a dumb analogy, but seriously, the Canadian industry is better compared to Australia or France. Things are generally kept internal, and on a typically small scale. Occasionally someone busts out and makes it big, like a John Candy, Gerard Depardieu or Hugh Jackman. The odd film will resonante on an international scale, but we’ve had nothing the success of Brotherhood of the Wolf, Amelie, or Ast