Monthly Archives: April 2009

Buying a new digi

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I recently decided that I’d like a digital camera of my own, after “sharing” one with my boyfriend for the last couple of years, but man, it isn’t the simple decision it used to be. At one time, the average person just considered MPs, price, size of the LCD, lithium vs. regular batteries, that kind of thing. Now there are like a million on the market, they are offered in up to 12 MPs and many are now offered HD video. Not that this isn’t awesome, but it makes finding the right one tough. I know that the best way to buy the right one is decide how you would most like to use it and work back, but you don’t want to overbuy and you don’t want to underbuy. So it’s a toughie. Right now, the two vastly different cameras at the top of my list are the Canon G10 and the Panasonic  DMCTS1D Lumix. Both are pretty spendy (as non-SLR digis go) but they’re both pretty rad too. If you have any recommendations, let me know. 09-04_g1009-04_dmc-ts1d

NY Times: After deadline

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nytimesEven for people who write professionally, it’s hard not to let cliches and bad grammar occasionally invade your writing. For instance, I just added “from time to time” to the end of that sentence and it totally did not need to be there. But there are very few good resources on the internet describing what is right in words and what should be avoided. That’s why I love the NY Times After Deadline, a weekly summary of “questions of grammar, usage and style encountered by writers and editors of The Times.”

It’s a really good reminder of the common mistakes we all make in writing and it’s comforting to know these mistakes come from the pages of the Times itself. But moreso, it’s nice to be reminded that grammar, usage and style still matter. I find that all I hear about lately is how people want “writing for the web,” forgetting that while there is most certainly an art and format to it, good writing is good writing and bad cliches will always be bad cliches, not matter where they are written.

This week: “These kind of errors” (wrong: it’s either “this kind of error” or “these kinds of errors”). Man, I think I make that kind of error all the time!

Photo: Flickr

Calories: The real costs

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A group of doctors is advising the Ontario government to enact regulation that would force  restaurants post the caloric content of their food alongside the price — giving consumers the full cost of their meal, if you will. I know that most restaurants would shudder at this — and I grew up in a family that owned a restaurant, so I empathize  — but I don’t entirely disagree with it. Here’s the thing: there are SO many more calories in restaurant food (in general) than you think. One day I decided to check out a major-chain-pub’s website for their nutritional information, on a whim, really. It was pretty mind blowing. As it turns out,  the burger I had was probably the most reasonable thing on the menu. The chicken sandwich I’d normally have — to be “good” — had a whopping 80 grams of fat and like 900 calories. For a 5’2 person like me, that’s a catastrophic amount of calories and fat for one meal. (And yes, I know that red meat isn’t the best substitute either.)

People often genuinely wonder why they gain weight (and that includes me), thinking they are being okay even when eating out and making what they think are good choices. There’s really no way to know what goes into food someone else prepares, like the globs of butter, oil and cheese that pack on all those pounds. Maybe it is time that we post the full price of the meal on a fast-food menu board so that people can understand the true cost of what they are purchasing. Would it change their behaviour? Maybe. Would it make them choose to not buy anything at all? Maybe. But at least they would know.