Room to Breathe

Bring your own wine? I personally would feel silly walking into a restaurant carrying a bottle of wine! (no problems taking it out though!) And is corkage a word? Apparently it is. I’ve just never had an opportunity to use it in a sentence.

I live only 20 minutes away from Ontario’s Wine Region, and have always wanted to go on a wine tour to broaden my knowledge and taste for wines. Perhaps I could convince my bf to do a day trip, if only to visit just one vineyard, or winery.

About a dozen establishments in all have applied for licences, according to a provincial government official.

Under legislation passed in December, the restaurants must open the bottles at the customer’s table and serve the wine, and can charge “corkage fees” for doing so.

Those fees are not specified in the legislation, so restaurants can charge whatever they want for the service.

Patrons can have half-empty bottles recorked and take them home if they wish, even if it’s a bottle they bought in the restaurant.

Restaurants won’t be allowed to open and serve bottles of homemade wine, however.

CBC News

Inserting a microchip into my pet is one thing, but strapping a some bulky GPS/cell phone to their neck? I just don’t know.

But that’s what PetsMobility™ Network, Inc. is going to be selling, and their calling it PetsCell™. Pet’s Mobility

I don’t know about your pet, but I know the dog we used to have would freak if her neck started to ring. I believe dogs are quite visual. It’s not just their smell and hearing senses that are strong. If they heard their name being called, they’d hear your voice, and go insane running though the house trying to find you! It’s almost cruel!

“Hi Fifi! It’s mommy! I’m calling to let you know what I’m caught in traffic, and will be a little late filling your dish tonight. Who’s a good girl? Fifi’s a good girl! Good girl!”

The positives are that if your pet is lost, with a push of the button you can be called and informed that your pet’s been found. That’s great, but I could just see the people in my neighbourhood. They’d see the “phone” wrapped around the dogs neck, pick it up, exclaim “Ah cool!” and through the dog away to keep the phone.

Still, it could be helpful for the elderly. If their poodle or fluffy cat would even wear it. Sort of a long the lines of, “help I’ve fallen and I can’t get up!”

Alright. I know I’m cynical. I love gadgets, but I think this one is too clunky for purpose.

A new traffic exchange program for blogs has been added. This one is so new that you can’t even begin surfing yet! But you can get in early and get “setup”.

I’m not against trying new things, and I love finding new blogs to read!

OK. So that’s 3 I have now. When will it stop? I’m addicted to clicking!

I’m registering for a 12-step program. We meet Thursdays.

That’s it. I’m doing it. No questions asked. No turning back, full speed ahead. I am determined this time to stick it out. WeightWatchers online. No meetings, just the online tools.

I’ve got to do something! My weight seems to be climbing exponentially, and I haven’t done anything different (except be on crutches for 1 1/2 months, and now using a cane, and no longer being active - Ok. That’ll do it!). So ya, I’m moving really slow, and with the 2 feet of snow on the ground, I’m not even doing that!

So I figure, if I can make the effort to be a little more conscious of what’s going into my mouth, I might be able to not eat it. Because the more I eat (and that means variety too), the more I have to record. But it also makes me aware.

The way WeightWatchers (the program I’m on, which is Flex Points) works, is you are allowed so many points per day. Everything you eat has a point value. If you eat all your points before noon, well, your fucked! . No, seriously. The idea is to eat a lot of vegetables, which have a “0″ point value. Your daily POINTS Allowance is determined (I think), by how much you weigh. But when you exercise (and the POINTS for each exercise vary depending on duration and specific activity) those points earned are deducted. So essentially, you could eat more! As you lose weight, your daily POINTS limit goes down as well, so you’re eating less. You’re also allowed 35 FLEX POINTS for the whole week. This gives you a little leeway for the days your family says, “we’re going to this all you can eat Chinese Buffet for your brother’s birthday.”

What else, hmm. Well, most restaurants/fast food are listed as food items. So you can eat out, but still know what you are eating! you can also build your own recipes, and it will break it down, and let you know how many POINTS per serving. You can create shopping lists, meal plans, and even calculate for individual items that aren’t listed (based on Calories, Fat and Fibre). There are progress charts as well that have you log your weight each week, and set your goals.

Here are some examples of food items, and their POINTS:

McDonald’s Big Mac - 17 POINTS
6 inch Roast Beef Sub from Subway - 5 POINTS

So on a diet that allows 24 points, you can see how things can add up quickly if you eat crap!

I’m trying to eat more “0 point value foods“, but I’m not too fond of vegetables. However, there is Salsa on the list. Can’t ever get enough of that!

So the question to you 51% that are arriving here using Internet Explorer, why haven’t you made the switch?

I admit, there are some sites out there that haven’t caught on to the fact that FireFox’s share in the browser market is growing, and they haven’t made their site(s) work yet. VERY FRUSTERATING. So I too must keep IE on hand for those sites.

I’m not preaching to you 29% FireFox users, because you’ve already seen the light! (I’m also omiting from this lecture the other Google, Mozilla, Netscape and Safari users.)

I can’t even begin to tell you why I can’t live without FireFox. But 1 word: tabbed browsing! Ok. Maybe a couple others like: extensions, and the drop-down Search that offers: Google, Yahoo, Ebay, IMDB, Amazon, dictionary.com, Wikipedia and more!

So what’s stopping you? Go get it, and learn what 20 Million People already know!

I’m in! I just called my bf, who’s driving home from work, and asked him if he’d like to go out for dinner. It’s actually been a long time since we’re eaten out, so I thought it was a great idea!

He tells me that he was planning on going over to a friend’s tonight, but says, “well, ok. I have a coupon for Swiss Chalet - 2 can dine for $11.99.”.

Good enough for me!

We’ve been eating in a lot lately. Saving money, and trying to eat better. But it’s roasted chicken and salad for cheap, so I think we can splurge .

By the way Deni, I did win. Was there any doubt .

I’m playing checkers online with my cousin right now (via MSN messenger - New 7.0 BETA available). The same cousin I painfully tried to explain the difference between FTP and HTTP last night to. I’m kickin’ his ass! He’s taking so long to make his move(s). I’m waiting 3 minutes each time, and going crazy! I try hard to be patient with him, I know he struggles mentally, but it’s so difficult to retain my composure and not scream, “why are you so fucking dense?”.

I got up and went to get ready for bed, because I can’t wait forever. I have to work in the morning after all. I came back after washing my face and brushing my teeth; he’s still thinking.

There is so much pressure on me right now, because if I let him beat me, what does that say?

I know I’m mean, but if you only knew him, you too would understand how frustrating he can be. Because he’s not dumb, he’s just lazy. He doesn’t listen, and feigns ignorance. Bah!

Recently I went into Wendy’s for lunch. I’ve been trying to avoid fast-food. For the obvious health conscious reasons, but also because it costs so damn much to eat out!

I noticed the sign hanging from the ceiling over the order line, and on the sandwich boards behind the counter. “Good for you Wendy’s!”, I thought.

I mentioned this to my cousin, who’s been working at Wendy’s for about 2 years now after school and on weekends. I said, “I’m so glad I no longer have to feel obligated to eat the fries! They’re not even that good!”

He said, “They’ve always had that available. People have been substituting the fries for a salad or a baked potato for as long as I’ve worked there. I thought everyone knew that! Wendy’s just started marketing it. That’s all.” He told me he thinks it’s funny when people come up to the counter to order and ask, “So how do these new combos work?”.

Interesting.

I like that most fast-food restaurants are making their entire menu available with the nutritional values:

http://www.wendys.com/food/CA_Nutrition_2003.pdf

If you ask, most will provide a pamphlet, or already have it on the counter to take.

I can’t count. Rather, I can’t keep score. I hate it!

Tonight I had to ref 2 games for my volleyball league. Even though I’m “on the disabled list”, I still attend games, and have to hold up my commitment to ref 2 games for the season. Fair enough.

My ears are ringing from the continuous tooting on my Fox40, and my lips are now really chapped.

There is so much pressure. Thankfully, my league is really cool, and we’re all relatively honest. As in, calling ourselves on the net, calling balls in/out etc. Helps, but I’d still rather be playing. Every time I would see the ball from another court roll in, I would yell “ball”, as though I were playing, and forget to blow the whistle to stop the play. Dammit. I’d get so involved that I would forget how many serves, until someone from the other team say, “isn’t that 5?”. Then I have to make it look like I was counting, and say, “nope. 1 more. That was only 4.” I get too much into the game that I say things like, “nice play”. It’s hard to be objective. I called an obvious lift on a guy, and got questioned. I have to hold my position though, otherwise you loose their respect. What respect? I already messed up and gave the other team a point accidentally and was caught!

You have to respect a referee. Even if you don’t respect their call(s), it takes a special person to be able to do the job.

I, like many other bloggers, have flocked to BlogClicker. A similar service to BlogExplosion, but much simpler and there’s no wait to be approved.

There’s no countdown, so you’re more likely to stay longer and actually read, before noticing the image has appeared, allowing you to move on to the next blog. At least that’s what I’ve found, since I actually do read what people have written. It’s only polite after all.

Question: Why are there so many BlogExplosion banners on BlogClicker?