What a bargain

Free offer from Direct Energy

I’m used to receiving “free” offers in the mail, but rarely is a company—especially one as large as Direct Energy—as upfront about just how much free is going to cost me. I’m not even sure why they bothered putting the asterisk there; it seems pretty clear even from the large print that I’d have to be pretty daft to take advantage of this offer.

Bonus: I have no idea what Bucknuts are or how they allow Direct Energy to offer “competitive energy solutions.” They really don’t sound like something I’d want to burn for heat in the winter.

Ininflammable, llama-resistant gloves

welding-gloves-ininflammable

It’s bad enough that in English, flammable and inflammable mean the same thing, but I didn’t realize that the same is also true in French. I always hear that English is such a flexible language, so I’d like to begin a campaign to borrow the French term for something that won’t burn, the wonderfully elegant ininflammable, as seen on the tag for these welding gloves. Furthermore, I think we should encourage more constructions like this: ininvaluable, ininhabitable, inintense, the possibilities are ininnumerable.

welding-gloves-llama-resistant

If I could only read the Spanish text for these welding gloves, I’d come away thinking that Kevlar makes them good for handling llamas. I suppose I’ll have to look elsewhere to satisfy my steer-wrangling welding glove requirements.

The death of logos #2

The Humphrey monument just outside the Mount Pleasant Mausoleum is instantly recognizable to anyone who travels past the Humphrey Funeral Home on Bayview just outside Mount Pleasant Cemetery.

Humphrey family monument in Mount Pleasant Cemetery

The Humphrey Funeral Home

The Humphrey monument is just a few steps away from the Weston monument previously featured in this space, and only about 2 km away from the funeral home.

The death of logos is an occasional series that looks at logos or wordmarks of organizations that appear on cemetery monuments.

Do you wanna go faster?

Polar Express, CNE 2009

It’s really hard to take a picture while the Polar Express cranks up to top speed and whips you backwards around the track. Holding your arm out in the universal self-portrait position, you can only hope to capture atmosphere; to hell with niceties like focus, exposure, and composition.

A day at the Ex capped with a nighttime ride on the Polar Express marks the unofficial end to summer. It just wouldn’t be the same without it.

Do I want to go faster? Damn right. Crank it.

Who knew?

Ontario Sawdust

From the Who Knew? files comes Ontario Sawdust, distributors of quality sawdust from a variety of wood-based products, according to their web site. I always thought that sawdust was a waste material that, while useful for many things, didn’t require any kind of specialized distribution. After all, you can pretty much make your own for free.

Ontario Sawdust says that they pick up (and pay for!) raw material, but I wonder if they’d come all the way down to Toronto for occasional donations from a home workshop. It would nicely solve the problem of what to do with the waste from my shop. The City of Toronto won’t collect sawdust as garbage, and some kinds of wood (like Walnut) will kill everything if you use them as mulch.

Overspecializing?

Winks Eyelash Boutique

As a man, it’s pretty difficult for me to imagine anyone needing to go to an eyelash boutique. I think of salons as being fairly specialized businesses already, with further specialization being unnecessary. But the Winks Boutique web site claims—and I have no reason to disagree—that it is the city’s “first salon specializing in semi-permanent eyelash extensions” applied by “experienced lash stylists.” The price list includes fake eyelash installations ranging from “Natural” to “Fabulous,” with flares (lash clusters, as opposed to individual lashes) available by the quarter-set or as refills. Do people really take their eyelashes (fake or otherwise) this seriously? I think I’ll just file this away under “things I don’t understand.”