Excerpt from the first genuine piece of Prince Edward Island spam, received this morning:

FINALLY a site dedicated to PEI from people living on PEI.

Finally!

Remember when the plans were being drawn up for the so-called “Entertainment Centre” at the Charlottetown Driving Park? Provincial officials, and those from the Atlantic Lottery Corporation (ALC) bent themselves over backwards to avoid using either “casino” or “slot machine” when speaking of the project; it was always “entertainment centre” and “video lottery terminal” (or the ALC’s preferred term: “electronic gaming device”).

Well today the rubicon was crossed: the CBC is reporting that ‘Slots riding to rescue racino’ and Robert Bourgeois of the ALC actually uttered the words:

“They wanted slot machines that they were more familiar with and they were more comfortable with,” says Bourgeois.

“So we will be introducing 30 slot machines that are similar to the different slot machines that are found in other similar facilities such as ours.”

What hell? “Other similar facilities such as ours?” You mean casinos, right?

Of course all this reticence hasn’t kept the Entertainment Centre itself from calling them as they see them (emphasis mine):

This new state-of-the-art facility features a gaming room with 225 slot machines, a Player’s Club and dining at the Top of the Park which showcases an all you can eat buffet, à la carte menu plus screens on most of the tables so you don’t miss a minute of the action!

Surely the time when “Entertainment Centre” gives way “Casino” can’t be too far away? One can even imagine Mr. Bourgeois being interviewed: “We’re calling it a Casino because our customers are more familiar with and they were more comfortable with…”.

See also Government Announces Plans for Crack Cocaine Sales.

Okay, this one takes the cake. Here’s a screen snip from the Air Canada website showing the fare breakdown for a return flight from Charlottetown to Copenhagen:

This flight may fly over Greenland (and I’m pretty sure that it doesn’t even do that), but I can’t conceive how Air Canada can levy a “Greenland Dom. Psgr. Service Charge” here. Is it a mistake?

What’s next: Srchrg. bcas. we cn.?

The CBC is reporting that “Aliant expands into central Canada” — a bit of corporate doublespeak that really means that Bell Canada is rearranging its financial deck chairs.

On days like this, it helps to remember that only a few years ago we had a locally-based telephone company that actually marketed itself on its local-ness. Take a look at this old Island Tel commercial to jog your memory.

Four years ago this February, Catherine, Oliver and I went out to dinner in Bangkok with my friend Harold Stephens and his wife Michelle. This morning Harold sent me a photo he took midway through the meal:

Man was it ever hot. And boy was Oliver ever tiny. It was a great meal.

As I was out and about with the car today, I decided to swing by the new “natural foods store” on Burns Ave. in Charlottetown called A Fresh Start. Since the demise of the Uncommon Grocer and the Cool Dog Deli and the “we sell powders and pills to make you healthy” conversion of The Root Cellar, I’m always on the lookout for small independent grocery stores selling healthy food.

Unfortunately, at least from first appearances, A Fresh Start falls firmly into the “powders and pills” category, with pre-packaged “health food” of the sort you would find at Nature’s Harvest filling out the inventory.

It’s sad that the “natural foods” industry has become a sort of parallel “manufactured foods” industry to that offered by the large grocery stores. Sure it’s nice to be able to by crackers made from kamut, but if those crackers are made in California, shipped here by truck, and packaged just like Ritz, is this really a step forward?

The closest you can come to truly natural foods in Charlottetown is the weekly farmer’s market: what could be more natural than real farmers selling things themselves that they grew on their own farms?

Our friends at The Old Farmer’s Almanac have started podcasting their daily radio report.

We received bittersweet news from the Noodle House this weekend: in April owners Tommy and Lina Ko are moving to Toronto. The news is only bittersweet because they’re remaining partners in the business, and they’ll be back every summer.

The new day-to-day partners will be arriving from Toronto in April, and they’ll be a three or four week crossover period while they learn the ropes. Seems as though they might have some exciting new developments planned, including the possibility of dim sum on the weekends.

There’s no doubt that Tommy and Lina deserve a break — they’ve been at the restaurant six days a week since we moved here 13 years ago (to say nothing of the regrettable events of last year) — but we’ll miss them dearly nonethless.

If you’ve grown used to Lina remembering your order by heart, you’ve got another month or so to drop in and say thanks.

Back in the summer of 2003, my friend Oliver Baker made a comment here where he wrote, in part (emphasis mine):

I’d be interested to hear your philosophy of tipping, Peter. Tipping is just paying again for what you already paid for, and letting the corporation snooker you into paying the workers’ salaries, and yet I imagine you are a regular or even generous tipper.

The thing is, until that point I had been an irregular and not particularly generous tipper. That Oliver would imagine I was forced me to immediately change my behaviour, and since that time I’ve probably paid out 50-100% more in restaurant tips.

Earlier in the winter I ran into my friend Ann Thurlow at Timothy’s — it was one of those crazy post-Eurotravel mornings when I was getting up at 7:00 a.m. Ann sat down, we had a pleasant chat, and then when we stood up to leave Ann took her dishes to the back counter rather than leaving them on the table; I asked her why, and she said “oh, I always clean up my dishes at Timothy’s.” So, since that day I have always cleaned up my dishes at Timothy’s too.

On Friday afternoon my friend Cynthia Dunsford and I made a pilgrimage out to the Ellen’s Creek Plaza location of the Formosa Tea House for lunch. On the way out there in Cynthia’s car we had to stop at my house so I could run inside for a second. When I got back to the car I noticed that Cynthia had turned it off; when commented on this, she simply said “I don’t idle.”

So last night, waiting in the driveway to drive our babysitter home, I didn’t idle. It was a little chilly, but I made do.

We think it’s so hard to change the world, but, at least in my case, often a few well-placed words will do.

I’ve spent a very pleasant half hour browsing the rich Cinema Treasures website. They claim listings for over 13,000 theatres around the world. Some of my favourites:

• Capitol Theatre in Port Hope, Ontario. I visited Rod Stewart of Furby House Books in Port Hope in the last 1980s when there was a gleam in his eye about restoring the theatre; the effort has since been taken over by a foundation, and the theatre is in business.
• Clappison Drive-In in Waterdown, Ontario - the drive-in theatre of my youth.
• Highlands Cinemas in Kinmount, Ontario - the most amazing cinema you will ever visit.
• Elgin Theatre in Ottawa, Ontario - I saw War Games there the summer I worked as a summer camp counsellor.