Month: November 2007

Yesterday I was looking at the recycling bin at work and noticed a Tim Horton’s cup which was there to collect pop can tabs.

I thought back to the concept of collecting pop can tabs. The aluminum from the tabs are used to make wheelchairs for the needy. So you need a lot of them. A LOT OF THEM.

Then I put my critical thinking cap on and thought about it. If the pop can tab can be used for the wheelchair, then why can’t the entire can be used for it? It’s all aluminum. Who collects these pop cans tabs? Who creates these wheelchairs from this aluminum?

I pondered this and remembered to research it (thanks to my handy dandy mental note reminder – the voice recorder). Here’s the scoop and it’s an interesting story.

The collection of pop can tabs which are transformed into a wheelchair is as mythical as the concept of alchemy – turning metal into gold. It’s an urban legend within North America (if not the world? Unsure.) It just wasn’t real.

This is what Ray Pearse and Jack Baumber of Elora, Ontario found out. They are members of the Royal Canadian Legion and heard about this rumour back in 1990 and began to collect pop tabs only to find out that there was no truth to the legend. So he sought to change put some truth into the legend.

Nowadays, he sells the pop tabs to Alcan. Here’s a quote (courtesy of an Ottawa Sun article here)

“I called Alcan here in Guelph and asked if I could bring in some aluminum tabs. The fellow told me no, not unless I had over a hundred pounds. I told him, `I got about a ton.’ So, he told me to come right down. We weighed it and it was 1930 pounds. I got about 47 cents a pound.'”

In 2002, this article indicates that “in the past four years they’ve collected enough aluminum from pull tabs to purchase wheelchairs for 24 people.”

Also, look at this stat from 1992. “Here’s the most amazing fact. Ray has collected about 80 million tabs over the past three years, and it’s getting bigger as more people find out about it. He tells us, “What used to take a year to collect now takes a month.”

That was fifteen years ago! I wonder what they are doing now?

So there you have it. The pop can tab legend. It’s a feel-good story. I’m proud of these gentlemen.

You can definitely find more on the subject on the Internet if you want to read about this fascinating tale.

iplaying: Headlights – Snow Patrol (Eyes Open)

A few days ago I was looking for something totally unrelated to the Shure SM58 microphone on Steve’s Music website and stumbled upon the deal of the century – a Shure SM58 microphone for $100! Also, a $10 gift card for Steve’s Music!

I contacted Troy to determine if this was in fact a good deal and he confirmed it and ordered me to pick it up right there and then.

The Shure SM58 is a high end microphone used for recording vocals. Troy has a couple of them and has raved about them.

So it usually goes for $150 so it was surprising to such a great deal on it. The unfortunate part about it is the fact that the sale was potentially ending by November 30 so I weighed the options of asking for it for Christmas vs. missing out on the great deal and bit the bullet.

Steve’s Music is pretty slick. I ordered it online, got free shipping, received a $10 gift card and they had attempted to deliver it by 11 the next day! Incredible! I was very impressed at how fast it got to my door.

So now all I have to do is pick up a cable for the mic and give it a try this weekend on the recording equipment. Kind of excited! I have all sorts of ideas running around my head in terms of recording…there’s too many to sift through which is hampering my productivity. It’s like I’m scared of recording right now because I foresee a very daunting task ahead. But I want to throw away those thoughts and just have fun with my equipment again…where I get a good riff and hit the record button.

I think it’s the environment I have set up right now. It’s in the basement. It’s not too conducive to musical inspiration. I think I shall move it up to my bedroom and see how that treats me. Maybe seeing some sunlight (who am I kidding? Sunlight is gone by the time I get home!) will bring everything into focus.

iplaying: You Oughta Know (Acoustic) – Alanis Morissette (Jagged Little Pill – Acoustic)

I loathe how they start airing these things a month before Christmas and then by the time I`m on holidays, they are nowhere to be found.

The Globe and Mail has provided you with a schedule of all your favourite specials here.

Here’s some of my faves:

Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer – We’re talking about the original claymation one, not those cheap animated knockoffs! Here we see the star of the show…Hermey the Elf who saves the day because of his dentist skills.

Frosty the Snowman – Hey, where’s Frosty Returns? That’s right…it’s not there for a reason (it was horrible). HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

How The Grinch Stole Christmas – If the Grinch came out nowadays, would anyone watch this insane story? A Grinch? Whoville? Wha??? Either way, you can’t get around that this is a classic holiday tale.

A Charlie Brown Christmas – While I prefer the Great Pumpkin over this one, I must admit that it has left some pop culture references in our household…especially how every year SOMEONE comments to Dad that he picked a Charlie Brown tree from the forest.

National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation – “Mele Kalikimaka is the thing to say, on a bright Hawaiian Christmas Day…”how I love this film. I can’t get enough. It pains me to wait until the Christmas season to watch it again. Let us not forget how at last year’s Christmas party I invited everyone to the basement to watch the film and ended up passed out in the chair while everyone told me that I never invited them in the first place.

A Christmas Story – “RALPHIE! You’re going to shoot your eye out with that BB Gun!“. How I love how TBS has 24 hours of A Christmas Story. That’s what Christmas specials are supposed to be like – airing on Christmas Day while Dad and I munch on peanuts and fight off slumber. My favourite memory of this film was last year when I was watching it on Christmas Day, fell asleep and when I awoke, I was at the same exact part I left at 2 hours earlier!

iplaying: So-Called Chaos – Alanis Morissette (So-Called Chaos)

Other than having Gary make me realize that I’m a walking contradiction judging from yesterday’s post about Future Shop (read the comments section), yesterday was a swell day. 🙂

First off, I had remembered that Matchbox Twenty were going on tour in Toronto and thought about checking out when the tickets were on sale. Lo and behold, it was 10:30 in the morning and they had a pre-sale which had started 30 minutes earlier! I had to scramble to figure out who wanted to go and I didn’t have time to wait for many people. In the end, Krista, Mike and I nabbed three tickets for Row 16 on the floor which is A-OK by us. I haven’t seen Matchbox Twenty in a few years and I can imagine that it will be a good concert in that they are promoting their greatest hits/EP of the day. This concert is in February.

Hey, before I forget, we also picked up Foo Fighters tickets for when they hit up the Nation’s capital. Rumour has it that it will be an acoustic show!

Krista and I headed over to the Ottawa side to have lunch with Maren as it was her birthday. I enjoyed the roast beef sandwich and pasta salad they had but Krista thought it was lacking of actual roast beef.

After glazing over some Critical Thinking class, I headed home and jammed with Mike for awhile. We are working on a few Trews tunes and also hammering out Stevie Wonder’s Superstition which I have always loved but never mastered until a month ago.

One of the cooler things I came across last night was Nine Inch Nails’ Remix website has gone live. Trent Reznor has created this behemoth which allows people to post their remixed NIN tracks onto a website and people can share, discuss, tear apart…whatever they want. He has done some wonderful work on this concept as he has offered up the master tracks of his Year Zero album to help with remixing.

The greatest thing about this site is the fact that Trent Reznor has posted all his remixes up there, or any remixes that have appeared commercially. What does that mean to us? Usually every album had a remix album, or singles. I had never picked them all up, but I had borrowed a few from Eric along the way but I still didn’t have them all (like the With Teeth Remix EP). Lo and behold, all these tracks are now available to download and use at will. Awww yeah! I’m pretty pumped that I got to pick up a few tracks that I’ve heard over the years but never had a copy of.

Trent Reznor is really starting to look at the distribution of music in a different light now that he is done with his record label. However, let’s not denounce the record label here. I wouldn’t be surprised if they had a part in letting Trent share remixes which are already commercially available. I have noticed that there are no remixes prior to the Broken album which may make sense as he was with a different label back then and they were a pain in the ass.

http://remix.nin.com

There has already been a great release of top rated Year Zero remixes called The Limitless Potential which is great (although there are WAY too many remixes of Survivalism).

That’s my awesome music update for you all today.

I saw this ad for Future Shop and had to smirk at the great savings on the iPod they are offering.

Congrats! Take advantage of our great savings of….FIVE WHOLE DOLLARS!

Wowza! It’s so worth making an actual ad for this kind of savings and put it on other sites! I can’t contain my excitement for saving $5. That’s the price…heck I don’t know…five boxes of Kraft Dinner!

All kidding aside, it does seem a little strange that they advertise this considering five dollars doesn’t go a whole of places nowadays. Especially if you are a coffee drinker. How much do coffee drinkers spend in a day? I’m going to randomly pull out a number out of the air and say the average coffee drinker spends $5 a day on coffee.

So for all you coffee drinkers out there thinking of buying an iPod this holiday season…if you miss out on this sale you can just stop drinking coffee for a day and you will still save.

Last night we had an impromptu dinner over at Eric and Annie’s. Mmm…stew. You can’t go wrong with stew. After chatting awhile about our top secret project for the Christmas season, I had headed out to nab some groceries, and headed to Canadian Tire.

I don’t know what I don’t go to C.Tire more often. I not only found a wreath at 50% off but I also found some windshield washer on a super sale. I’ll have enough windshield washer to last me until next Christmas!

I also picked up a snow brush. Now, when I first bought my car, I bought one of those deluxe ones with the padded handle and the long reach. Then the scraper part broke off it it last year. Well.

So when I was in the store last night I realized that I had the choice between the $2 wooden one or the $10 super-deluxe version. After realizing that this was capitalism at its best (or is that consumerism?), I opted for the wooden one thinking that I could always keep the old brush with the super long reach. It just doesn’t have the scraper part. Maybe I should duct tape the two together!

I also played around with the MIDI functionality on the MacBook. I’m starting to read up on MIDI as it sounds like a powerful tool in the home recording studio. Essentially, computer can emulate any sound so you can pull a Trumpet MIDI setting and a virtual piano pops up and you can hit a note and a horn will sound. There are MIDI keyboards out there so you don’t have to do this virtually so I’m going to do some research into buying one. Not before Christmas though! Ha, I say that because I stumbled upon this mega deal on a microphone I have wanted for a few years and I ended up buying it yesterday because the sale was going to end in a few days. In my defence, I don’t know if anyone would know picked this up for my Christmas gift but nevertheless, Vero was not impressed that I’m shopping for myself within a month to Christmas!

Vero and I also started up the brainstorming for the annual Christmas cards…we think we have a good idea and will run with it this year. I am now debating on whether or not I should send it out again to my mass list or prune it down to those who send a Christmas card back to me. Mom said that she realized over the years that people that she sent a card to every year just never bothered sending anything so she stopped sending it to them. There are arguments on both sides….one could argue that this is the season to be giving and not needing something in return. However the other side of the argument states that when your list starts breaking the 50 person barrier, you have to start thinking on the cost. I’ll put some more thought into it and decide when the cards get shipped to the printing press.

I was looking back in prior years for a posting I could just recycle concerning this subject but surprisingly, I have never written about it!

Six years ago, I found out about the White Ribbon Campaign through the Canadian rock act, The Tea Party (now defunct, sadly) and have supported their goals through participation within the campaign (by wearing a white ribbon from November 25 – December 6) and by offering some charitable donations.

Here is some information from their website:

What is the White Ribbon Campaign?
The White Ribbon Campaign (WRC) is the largest effort in the world of men working to end violence against women (VAW). In over fifty-five countries, campaigns are led by both men and women, even though the focus is on educating men and boys. In some countries it is a general public education effort focused on ending violence against women.

What does it mean to wear a white ribbon?
Wearing a white ribbon is a personal pledge to never commit, condone or remain silent about violence against women and girls. Wearing a white ribbon is a way of saying, “Our future has no violence against women.”

When is the focus of WRC?
WRC in Canada runs its campaign from from November 25 (the International Day for the Eradication of Violence Against Women) until December 6, Canada’s National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women. Other countries support 16 Days of Action from November 25th until December 10th but campaigns can occur at any time of the year.

Each year I encourage people at my place of work to wear a ribbon until December 6. I also encourage you to support this campaign if you choose to. If you within physical distance of me, I can provide you with a ribbon and pin as I have a supply.