Tag Archives: Canada

Top ten fast food items we miss!

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Those old containers less missed

Some of my posts I like to push for interesting narrative ideas or use of poetic imagery.   Yeah, this isn’t one of those.  But i have though about doing this one for a bit as I was born in the seventies so I’ve seen lots of products come and go. 
Much of this is locally based and as a former employee of Tim’s I naturally tend towards that but I will try my best to think outside the snack pack.
Here’s a countdown of those cheap treats too soon gone..

10 Tim Hortons Stew in a Bread Bowl
Oh there is lots of things to say beyond here since the in house baking stopped but it remember this little idea they had.  The stew was decent and the sourdough bowl was good too.  The leftovers did look really icky though.

9 As show above the Mcdlt by McDonald’s.
It was the fancier one, more an attempt at a proper burger that I remember my parents liked.

8 McDonald’s Pizza

There was preset ones like vegy, meat and Hawaiian but you could custom it and they came in personal and family sized.

7 Subway Horseradish melt.

Sounds like a crazy idea too but it was actually really good.

6 7-11 The Turkey Croissant

I use to live on these back in the early ninties when I looked for work.  Actual croissant with light turkey, lettuce and cheese and it was really light and nice.

5 Sobe drinks

Just that…again, ninties.  They tasted amazing and had a humorous little under the cap saying to do with lizards.  You could get them at (and I’m going locally here…)

4 The Entertainer Victoria, BC

This store was a mix of video store and snacks just behind the TV station across from Wendy’s.  Great spot to load up for a movie at home kind of evening.  It had a drop box in the back of the building that is now covered over.

4 Tim Hortons Chocolate Sour Cream

This one I really liked which also came in timbit form.  Bought freshly baked these and the walnut crunch were especially amazing.

3 KFC downtown location Victoria

Ok, this is another locally spun one.  This use to be on Douglas and Yates and was perfect for when you had to change buses but wanted a bite half way.  Ok it’s KFC but back there I was fine with it.  A popular location but the changing landscape of downtown and the families of Victoria preferring to be outside the downtown core pretty much killed this off.

2 Tim Hortons Party Pack

Ok, I worked there back in the day so that helps with me knowing the details but this one surprised me that it went (very possibly to do with the new…um…baking)  this was a huge box, held together partially with tape, that held either fifty donuts or three hundred timbits.  Large functions would actually buy multiples of this but my fondest memory was creating one of these, by myself, with the person choosing them a single donut at a time.  Slow going…

1 Tim Hortons the Cakes

Couldn’t help it.  Not only were these made in house with full baking equipment from scratch (blenders, wood tables and rolling pins…we had it all) but our cake decorators actually were made to take a local cake decorating course to learn to do the roses that garnished the top.  There are rumours as to the reason for there demise but with the upcoming baking methods it is likely that these were eased out.  Rumour is that they were more trouble than they were worth due to the onslaught of complaints about things gone wrong so the company pulled them.

Anyone have any that I missed?  I know there was a burger joint that use to be at Pandora and Blanshard and another out by the Admirals bridge but anything you want to add would be awesome!

Keep your eyes on your fries and have a good one!

Can I take your order?

Tom

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Anything for love

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Valentine’s day is long past but the prompt was discussing the idea of the essence of love across all forms so I also ask what do they share?  You have the obvious romantic love, obvious because it has the greatest story potential and mystique.  There is brotherly love and parental love.  Then there is more simple loves of places and things that can go all the way down to “I love these new socks”.  What is shared across the board here?

There is the simple existence of joy which is shared or perhaps not in the case of the socks.  I feel a little like early Depeche with this song…

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The Meaning of Love

There is the treasuring side of love where you keep something close to you and by that young Martin Gore’s lyric “like wanting a scar” is somewhat poinant.  I think that within that is possibly one part of the heart of love.  We risk our own tragic presence of heartbreak and put our emotions on the line with how we cherish.  It’s the one thing that made the idea of getting a pet to me for the longest time something I wouldn’t do.  As you open your heart to a being, especially in the case of a pet that can not last much past fifteen years, you are inevitably opening yourself to the potential of hurt.  You are willing to take the hurt for the being you love.  That could also come all the way up to the grander forms.  Again you are willing to suffer yourself to be connected.  Being alone is safe and secure but it is cold and removed.  Being connected to that other person has warmth but that potential for all kinds of damage.  Not only do you open yourself up to them, trading your heart for theirs but you also put your needs behind their’s.

Powerful stuff indeed!  With the title I fell to thinking of two songs.  Gordon Lightfoot’s and Meatloaf’s.  You know Mr. Loaf’s so here is a link to a great song by Gord backed by David Foster.
Anything for love

Have a lovely week!

Tom

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Jack’s World

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     “Shh!  Get in here!” came a voice from inside the unlit room.

It was not the sort of thing Gary expected to hear as he doubled back with his scribbled note in his hand.  He had been walking around level one west for fifteen minutes far too long and he when he first heard the boy’s voice he thought maybe he was losing it.  Or maybe those rumors of the hospital having ghosts were true.  He stopped and peered into the shadows of the small office.

“Hello?”

“Just come in before they see you!”

Gary stepped in and instinctively felt inside the door frame for the plastic of a light switch.

“No!  Don’t turn the light on!” He commanded “Either come in or go!”

Gary was a little taken aback by this.  What was this kind even doing in someone’s office?

“Where are your parents?  Should you even be in here?” Gary said trying to bring in some adult authority.

“Parents dead, it’s my time off and this is Brian Hendricks office and he’s never here until late.  Just hold on a sec!”

Gary saw where the voice was coming from.  From the glow of the window that was ground level with the grassy back garden of the hospital was young Jack.  He sat on a the wide windowsill opposite the books above Dr. Hendricks softly glowing fish tank.  He had a book in his hands, open to nothing but typed print.  Just as Gary noticed him the sprinkler system kicked on.   The view became a fog of jet streams of cascading water and the rainbow of the light mist that brushed the glass.  Jack lifted a hand proudly as if he caused a magic trick to occur.

“One of my favorite places in the joint,” he explained “you’re very lucky to see this moment and definitely lucky to know me.  I’m Jack.  I am your guide to anything and everything.”

“Right,” Gary tried to understand “well, it’s good to meet you Jack but you probably shouldn’t be in here and I’m late to appointment so both of us should get going.”

“Who’s the appointment with?”

“Well that’s not really any of your…”

Jack jumped down from the window onto the chair and then flopped down   like he had practiced the move for a performing circus.   The young boy in the baseball hat, t shirt and jeans flicked on the desk lamp and picked up the phone.  He turned to Gary like a Medical Office Assistant.

“Well?” He asked.

“Come on kid,” Gary laughed “this is silly and you should get outta here before security nabs you.”

“Just give me a name,” Jack said without blinking.

Gary looked at him and then down at the book he was reading.  It was on arrhythmia, specialising in elder care.  He was already twenty minutes late now.  He surrendered and looked at his paper.  From the outside hall light.

“Dr Novak.  I’m his nine thirty.”

“Right…Gary Allenson.  Nine thirty…of course you are.  Yeah you’re one floor down.  Not your fault…he moved two months ago and Sheila hasn’t gotten round to changing his email template.  I’ll call him and say your late.  He can probably still take you.”

Gary could barely make a thought.  His mouth just gaped.

“If you get going, anyways,” Jack said after he dialed the number “Hi Leslie…”

Gary couldn’t believe it. 

Jack looked up from the phone and gave him a look.

“He’s not coming to you!”

Gary made an agreeing expression and headed for the elevator.  In the elevator he still tried to get what just happened.

—-

Preceeding was a story idea I’ve had for a while which this is just an introduction to Jack and his strange life.  Hope you liked this one!

Cheers,
Tom

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The Moment

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" capture in my heart, just to hide away" John Martyn

“It’s her” Sean thought as he walked in.
She was at the same conference that day, flanked by friends on both sides like a diamond set in a cheap gold ring.  She shone out then as she did now, sitting alone at one of the small sets of cream colored chairs by the glass windows.  He needed someone like Mike for this.  Mike would know how to get her talking in his no bullshit way.  Sean just paused for a second and went up to the bartender and ordered a domestic pint.

“That’s five bucks, pal,” the old guy said and he paid and looked around.

The place had a few people in it, mostly from the same conference, mostly mostly on their phones.  She wasn’t.  Sitting at the bar he managed to look and she was just looking out the window of the hotels bar over the pond towards the towering pines the formed the border onto Quebec St.

Her face glowed bright soft under the slight orange light with her large blue  eyes gazing out like someone stargazing.  He looked away quickly when he realized that if she looked in the reflection of the window, she’d probably see him looking at her like some stupid horndog.

He knew that Mike would have smacked him upside the head in a friendly way for what he was doing.  He could almost vision Mike, The Bike Mike Attack like he called himself, and got others to call him too, right next to him on the next stool.

“Sean, buddy, honestly,” he said right up to his ear so Sean could almost feel the breath on his ear “this is a piece of cake!  You’re both at the same conference.  There’s your material…perfect opening line…”

“Weren’t you at the conference?” Sean breathed softly, drowned out by the sound of Stevie Ray Vaughan.

“Yeah, or how about that Keynote, huh?” Mike continued.

“Total meltdown,” Sean chuckled only to look up and see the bartender looking at him.  He looked into his pint and sipped.  The bartender went back to wiping down.

He looked back again.  Her left hand was on the other side which gave him no chance of doing a ring check like he had found himself doing before.  But if there was someone wouldn’t she be like everyone else?  Wouldn’t she be glued to her phone?  Maybe she was waiting for him.  Maybe he’d come down from the room any moment.  The scenario played out in Sean’s head like it was directed by Woody Allen himself.  He would finally start talking and suddenly this wall of 6 foot, fresh from the weight room boyfriend would be towering over him like a bear in a business suit.  He looked away as he suddenly broke out in a sweat.  She’s so beautiful you moron.  Of course she has a boyfriend or someone.  Girls like that always have the guy which shoulders so broad they could carry a jet copter.  And forget being over there, Sean continued in his head, he might be protective as he’d have to be with a gorgeous creature like that and if he walked in from the lobby to the bar and there’s you leering like a perverted puma about to pounce he would be straight over to assert his alpha dominant role.  That role would have you flung to the other end of the bar like a balsa wood airplane.  The bartender probably wouldn’t mind.  He probably coaches touch football.  Probably cheer and high-five the guy since he looks at you weird anyways.  I should just give up and look at my phone.  I could do a tweet or something about the conference and maybe put some notes down so people in here don’t think I’m some wild eyed lunatic.

“Hey,” came a soft voice next to him.

Sean turned around to come face to face with her.  He looked at her stunned for a second.

“Weren’t you at the conference?” She smiled.

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Postaday – Online me versus me…me

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Diy U2...think Lemon. ..

How much different our we than our online persona?  One thing I’ve been trying to do more is just have fun with these mediums as opposed to be in sales mode because naturally there is that side to this which is about presenting a sellable something.  In the same way as a pop star of the eighties the whole mystique becomes a different mask than you actually are and feels like it lives a different and very interesting life.  As a musician I’ve yet to be on a hilltop with the long flowing hair I don’t have, playing a screaming bluesy solo through a amplifier that’s never seen but is somehow there.  There’s no patch cord either but it just works.  And the tone is fantastic up there!

The real me is very driven but fairly shy and not super assertive.  I’m probably the hardest on myself and I’m right now waiting for allergy season to kick which it has since I can remember.  For work it’s like Wayne’s World…i have the extensive collection of nametags and hair nets.

Online me is definitely more confident.  I’ve learned to be more prudent with what I say but somehow I’m less afraid to try silly ideas out and I use that to seek ideas throughout the day for things like this.  But yeah there is always that feeling that online me is way more cool that I am.  I find I’m more on here and Twitter than Facebook these days.  Facebook seems more like clutter whereas Twitter gives me the ability to find our about my hometown and other things I wouldn’t have known of.  As Ricky Gervais said though…online me does have more of a swagger.

Cheers,
Tom

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So much time spent…

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Life long joy.

     This favorite little thing in life goes back so far that I’ve forgotten when.  Somewhere in the 80’s, back before I noticed girls or had my first 8-bit Nintendo game I found this in the house.  There was no planning or plan with borrowing it from dad’s office and using a blank tape.  I remember using the q – tip to try and clean the tape heads with alcohol.  I remember my fascination with its mechanism and the fact that I could record myself doing little skits and singing songs.  Like any child with a favorite toy it was me, cross-legged in front of the recorder, holding down play and reverse to make that screeching sound that everyone hates while I scanned for the intro.  Eventually there was a second machine which had the high speed feature.  Novelty of making myself into one of the Chipmunks lasted for a bit.

The use of the machine lasted to today.  There is something about the solid reliability of tape that digital can’t match.  I’ve used multitrack digital but it always feels like I get lost in the engineering role.   I’ve used tape 4 track of course, and had so many Type 2 tapes for this but what I remember is doing a really lofi song recording with two machines recording over and over until the first track was like a distant echo.  Every detail of that magic machine was a curiosity.  The smell of its speaker, the buttons I never understood to use.  Something about the recording process was so interesting as well, which I still find in the recording process.  When it’s recorded it’s like the songs enter their own universe with strange phantom sounds and foibles.  Mix tapes of songs are like a musical diary. 

Oh and with the band…yeah I’ve got a couple tapes of them (switched to digital more recently out of convenience but am considering returning)

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The library.

And as a kid who also liked things like Robotech and Tron there was this idea when creating any kind of battle.  It’s supposed to be a gun thing from Star Wars.  It just looks like…well…two pencils and a tape.

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You may fire when ready...

Those days are past but the use of my tape recorder still remains as the primary songwriting platform to this day.  The tapes of songs are great as they can’t get lost somewhere in the bowls of a hard drive, just somewhere in my desk.  I still have the Walkman that after recording a multitrack song would take it for a “test drive” walking through Cook Street Village with headphones to see if the song felt right outside of the home recording environment and see what I could change or add.  And of course, for anyone who knows about my band Cookeilidh or the blog post on being a celtic bassist, yes…i still have where it all started…with an extra whimsical ” o ” 🙂

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Still plays

Cheers,
Tom

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Skyline photo project

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Victoria Harbour

Funny how this shot was taken on a day that I initially didn’t want to go out.  I have one of those lingering coughs that won’t go away and it was high thee to the drug store.  I think that’s how that’s spelled anyways.

Once I was outside I didn’t really notice the cough and I had just read one of those lists of blog challenges that asked for a skyline.  I had only heard that the top of Yates St. Parkade was good for that.  I had never actually been up there before.

Something about places like that take things away.  I feel a bit silly saying that because it’s also rumored to be a rough spot at night.  It’s the reality of our town like I want to explore with the Quiet City project.  We have the oldest street in Western Canada just below where the photos were taken.  That street was once lined with Saloons and peopled by newcomers from all over the world seeking riches in the gold fields along with the local Native communities who were already in residence.  We may believe in multiculturalism but getting everyone to understand that is another thing.  We also have a financial mix right across the board.  It is not cheap to live here and we have the wealthiest, street people and everyone in between still in the same mix as they were over a hundred years ago

You only way out is inside.  You can go outside and find some secluded place but it may not stay that way.  You pay off one bill and another one looms.  You add more work but it just loads more complications that drop your immunity through the floor. I don’t want to come off as negative but there are challenges for working class writers here. I just got a text threatening my phone to be cut off after bills already finished off my pay yesterday except for what i had for cold meds and juice. As i was outside uploading this (writing this in post) I just had to stop a street person from walking off with my bag. He apologized for that and it was awkward but still scary as it shakes you up because I know the desperation and therefore the unpredictability. It’s there under the same sunny skies as Beacon Hill Parks amphitheater. All you can do is roll with it. We’re a beautiful small city but a city nonetheless.

Find peace in the moment and live simply.  That’s what’s there for each of us city folk. Enjoy those little spots and good friends under the sun and blue horizon.

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City of Clay

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No birds flew in this place.  With not even the smallest sign of life the deafening silence discouraged travellers.  Rumours told in Mountain town of Bothra also kept the wagon trails to a minimum.  Travellers were especially warned of the towering red clay walls.  From this place the quiet ones came.  The closer to the walls you came, the more the madness seeped into the skin.

The singular movement was a light wind brushing the clay hills, it’s cool sweet breath running down from the snow of the Great Easterns that divided the Tarshan Peninsula like a grey knife forty leagues down to the clanging harbours of Tell.

From this direction she came.  Like a single snowflake against the soft orange packed waves of clay her shape grew to the sight of those who waited.  They were two of the quiet ones, one a young Seeker Vakkal with only eighty summers to his credit and the other was Baki-ku.  He was far older, his eyes having seen the dawning of the Age of Light when the Tiki Tree of the By Forest first grew in Shal’than’s Northwest garden of the Bly Forest.  He held the Weapons of Truce between the Jeekas of the Bly and the Lothran people of the canyons.

She came closer.  Baki-ku and Natku-sa waited as she came into shouting distance, he blonde hair shaking in the sun, her white dress rippling satin around the black blade of Otheria.

“Baki-ku of Tercichio” she said “thank you for agreeing to this.”

She stopped just out of striking distance.  She had much acquaintance with the Vakkal.  She knew full well of the spinner weapon that rested at their sides.

“Tari-sa has left us, witch,” he said with no malice in his voice, a sound than vibrated beneath her shoes “he is among the lost ones.  I know not if the Fourthlings have claimed him.  He is not amongst our number and at his years I am sure the cracks in his Si are beginning.”

She stood motionless.  She waited for more.

“I suppose your Lord’s gifts don’t grant every wish,” he said finally.

She glared at him.  Natku-sa put his hand to the roof of his spinner.  Just then came a screeching piercing sound.  From the sound came three shadows through the clouds.  The first one had bright red markings on its beak and down its scorpion like tail.

From Natku-sa’s side the spinner whirred to life, it’s blades a rush of razors beneath the Vakkal’s palm.

“You need not trouble our people any longer Eleatha, traitor of the Otherian throne,” Baki-ku said with a hand outstretched to keep his young warrior-seeker in checked “I believe you’re taxi has arrived.”

—
This is a short teaser to The White Jeeka story.

Tom

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Welcome to Adhd

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imageFull speed ahead

Full speed ahead

This is the sort of post I usually wouldn’t make. I guess that means I should in a way. It is, I promise, not about complaining. It is also, I equally promise, not a new-fangled thing that I was diagnosed with recently as I was diagnosed back in the early 80’s.

My Adhd is very real and has been my entire experience of life as lack of sight is to a blind person or confusion of events is to someone with schizophrenia.

It is naturally not as debilitating as these previous ailments as unlike them it has its positive and negative attributes. Adhd people would have been the best watchmen (or watch persons) as we are always switched on
There is no down time. There is no relaxing. We won’t do it later and we are always hyper-aware of the…ooh what’s that? Just kidding but funny enough I’m getting what I call “the shakes” as I write this. Or maybe I just need another smoke. It makes smoking really hard to quit, well for me anyways, as it is perfectly meditative.

Coffee which I’ve talked about before has different effects and I know for some of us Adhders (it’s a word…well…ah, smile and nod) coffee can actually work wonders in strangely balancing the rush. And I think the reason is like I’ve experienced. Coffee slows us down. You didn’t misread that. I’ve had a double espresso and passed out shortly after. And no, you didn’t…well…you get the idea.

Because we are so much in our high gear coffee is a paradox that speeds things up even more which, unlike the Seinfeld episode with Kramer and the multiple espressos, it goes into an overdrive that’s exhausting. Down we go. Moderated we can use it to just slow it down gently instead of a sugar-like crash.

This brings me to the downsides. Not only is reading something that is hard to focus on, as is a formal lecture situation (we’re great strangely at self directed study) where information is being fired at us but in the same way that coffee can overwhelm so can over stimulation. Much as we are great at seeing lots a high speed situation can go all the way over and like with my espresso crash things go into overwhelm. When that happens I swear I couldn’t spell the short version of my name.

It’s Tom. Now that’s pretty easy. But seriously those situations are like a Japanese train being derailed. Our being fast only makes it worse. I’ve learned to breath when I feel those jitters that spell the overwhelm sign. You can pause and stop because much as the situation may ask you not to its going to be lots worse if you don’t.

I don’t know if these experiences resonate with others. I know Ritalin and such have never worked and only made me feel dopey but then I’m looking through my camera view of the world. Please share your views on this if you like.

Cheers,
Tom
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The art versus the artist

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Joy Division by Anton Corbijn

I could have just as easily put up a image of Robin Williams, Charles Dickens or Vincent Van Gogh.  Creativity doesn’t necessarily have to come from a dark place to be worthy of exposure.  Sometimes artists are in their best place when they create their best work.  An easy example of this would be A Kind of Blue by Miles Davis.  Miles and a group of incredible players went into the studio with only a few basic sketches of ideas and improvised what would soon be a classic.  I know for myself that being in a miserable intoxicated space doesn’t usually produce my best work (naturally I’m not going to place myself alongside these artists.  After watching Jaco Pastorius – Modern Electric Bass I always feel like the tribes least talented and clumsy Neanderthal.)  It is very likely that some of these struggling iconic figures were in their most lucid when they created their work. 

I don’t know if forms of mental illness create artistic genius.  I have known many extremely talented people who don’t have any visually crippling ailments (though not all ailments are as easily seen).  However there are plenty of examples you can find of genius residing in people with mental illnesses. 

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Winston Churchill

Winston Churchill, Prime Minister of Great Britain during World War 2 struggled with depression, coining the phrase of the “Black Dog” that would visit him.  This image immediately brings forth the sound of another great Englishman (me and U.K culture again, I know…)
Strange version of Nick Drake’s Black Eyed Dog
Maybe it boils down to what Anthony Robbins said that the two things that move people are either inspiration or desperation.  Some success stories come from things fallen in place from a love of something and some come from the push of pain.  I personally believe that the main source of talent is a love for what you do that makes you pursue it daily, vigorously with your full mind and spirit.  People who suffer from mental illness often have grown up with the concept of struggle being inherent to existence and so perhaps their persistence is only amplified.  Perhaps the pleasure from the what they do (which doesn’t have to be necessarily in the arts) helps these people escape from their black eyed dogs.

But in response to the postaday prompt which I read today, I personally don’t look for the struggle or think that it means the art is better or worse.  To me the art and the artist are separate things.  The art is the body of work like any job done by a master’s hand.  The artist is the fragile master behind it, the craftsman with calluses.  The work lives on in the stars.

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