There’s been a lot of news coverage lately about the elimination of the long-form census, and railing from different corners of Ottawa’s bureaucracy about the legal threats made against those who don’t fill out the form.  Frankly, I don’t get the big deal.

First of all, there have been no reports of anyone EVER having been jailed or fined for not filling out the census, and you would think stats would have come out if it was heavily enforced.  I can only assume that those threats are pretty empty; just an attempt to get some traction on gaining information that is vital to programs Canadians need.

That need is what drives the long-form census, and as Canadians (or people living here) we have a civic responsibility to provide information that can ensure those programs get the funding they need.

We don’t live in an absolutely free society; that is, you can’t do anything you want.  Everyone in Canada is required to live within the laws of the land, and if they choose not to, there are ramifications of that decision.  As subjects of the Dominion of Canada, we are given a lot of freedom in exchange for an expectation that we take on a small amount of responsibility.  We have to pay taxes to maintain services, for example.  How is the census any different than filing taxes?  The government needs something in order to make the lives of Canadians better, so we provide it.

Yes, you can grumble about having to take the time to fill out the forms (as you do when you fork over your hard-earned tax money), but don’t let that take your eyes off the benefits.  No one grumbles about their tax burden while they’re getting medical treatment or holding their new passport in their hand, do they?

I plan on spending my weekend doing my civic duty, namely partaking in the tradition of ditching the city on a long weekend and heading to the cottage.  It’s the least I can do.

As scheduled, our new bedroom set was delivered last night around 8pm.  A huge truck rolled up to our house and two guys unloaded two new dressers, a bedframe, two bedside tables and a new living room chair we ordered.  After a lot of unwrapping (and some minor construction) we had a brand new bedroom.

All the furniture arrived without a scratch, and that’s because of the amount of packaging they came in.  We spent most of the evening breaking down corrugated cardboard boxes to get them out in last nights recycling pick-up.  That is hard, tiring work.  We had to tear all the cardboard down into 1 foot squares to get it into our recylcing bin.  Remember the good old days when you could just pile the boxes by the curb and they were the city’s problem?

If I could send all those huge boxes back to my 6 year-old self, I would have built a gigantic fort in the backyard. Maybe we should’ve saved them to make a doghouse for Mojo.

Now all that remains is to move all our stuff from the old bedroom set to the new, which is a lot more work than it sounds like, especially considering we had to move all the old furniture out of the room to make room for the unwrapping and construction.  I can hardly wait to have a dresser that will actually hold all the clothes I need it to.  It makes me feel a bit more like a grown-up.  Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a cardboard fort to build.

A three day-long heat alert (with smog and humidity, no less) means that I’m pretty excited to see the calendar flip one more page closer to frost and falling leaves.  If you enjoy summer, you’d better get out there and enjoy it because its days are numbered.  We’re heading to the cottage this weekend, and my dreams of fall weather might come true by then if the weathermen are right, which they only are about 33.33% of the time.

How is that even possible?  The weather reporter stat, I mean.  How can someone keep their job with an accuracy percentage like that?  Would you go to the doctor whose diagnoses were only right 1/3 of the time?  I say we begin to demand more from our weather forecasters.

Sorry for rambling, I’ve had two days of insanely early mornings in a row, and I think that seeing the sun rise is killing brain cells at an alarming rate in the section of my brain that deals with staying on topic.  Where was I?  Oh, right.  It’s hot outside.

We capped off yet another gorgeous weekend in Toronto with a busy Sunday afternoon.  We finally got around to buying a badly needed bedroom set, so I can finally kiss the dresser my parents rescued from a neighbour’s garbage pile in the 80s goodbye.  Not soon enough, if  you ask me.

We took the tour of ‘Furniture Store Alley’ on Kennedy Road, just south of the 401 and while there was lots of choice in stores, what they contained was a lesson in the broad and varied tastes of the East Toronto furniture-buyer.  Leopard-print felt headboards were surprisingly bountiful, but sadly I couldn’t talk Danielle into a bedroom motif of an African dictator.

We both fell in love with our set the moment we saw it on the display floor, and it’ll arrive by truck on Wednesday.

After our grand shopping tour, we headed down to Buskerfest to check out the last few hours of the festival with Kristie and Karim.  We caught a bit of a trapeze show, performed from the underside of a huge helium balloon, and then watched an entire fire show by some very talented artists, mostly from Australia.  We also treated ourselves to some pepperettes sold at a roadside stand and a few glasses of ice cold refreshment on a nearby patio.

All in all, it was a perfect summer weekend.  How was yours?

Once again, the weekend is upon us; a weekend ripe with opportunity for fun, frivolity and good times.  We are just scant hours away from what is reportedly going to be one of the nicest weather weekends in August, so just stop working now and get out there and embrace it.

The Ex is still going full strength and Buskerfest is in full swing, patios will be open until the wee hours and parks will be filled with picnickers and their dogs.  Summer will be coming to an end soon, but not in the next 72 hours, so make the most of it.

As you can tell, I’m in a pretty good mood today (more on that another day), but you should be too.  I hereby delcare this workday over [Dave sips his Scotch] and order you to get out and have some fun.

So I’m starting to recover from our trip to the CNE on Saturday.  Sadly, I didn’t get to try the deep-fried butter (but the season is still young) as the line was too long and my stomach was already feeling pretty rough.

During the TFC match, I ate two foot-long hot dogs (after having skipped breakfast) and then at the CNE, I had a large (and disappointing) Poutine from Bouchards in the food building.  I would not recommend getting their poutine at all.  Barely any curd, the gravy was gross and the fries were grossly undercooked.  For dessert, Danielle and I split a dozen Tiny Tom donuts with icing sugar.  After that, I was well on my way to a Rolaids moment.

The saddest part of all, most of the good rides were either shut down or closed while we stood in line.  The Zipper, probably my favourite ride of all time, looked to be out of action for the long term with two slack-jawed carnies working it over from a cherry picker.

Will I make it back to the EX this year?  Only time will tell, but I’m going to make more informed food choices and I’ll be damned if I’m going to let routine maintenance or outright dysfunction keep me from riding The Zipper.

I’m sure you’ve heard all about deep-fried butter and the splash it’s going to make at this year’s CNE (which opens today), and if all goes well, you should be hearing a first-hand account of it next week.  Our tickets to tomorrow’s Toronto FC match are also good for free entry into the EX (since the stadium is right in the thick of it), so we’re going to check it out.

I love the EX.  I love the scary rides (scary because they’re assembled by carnies with a grade 4 education and they shake while bolts fly off), especially the Zipper, and I’m really looking forward to strolling through the midway on a later summer’s eve with my favourite girl on my arm.  It’s how people have been enjoying the CNE for over a century.

Danielle is especially gifted in the games where you gamble your hard earned money on coloured squares while a carny spins a wheel to pick the coloured square that wins.  She’s a natural.

Aside from long lineups and exorbitant ride ticket prices, the CNE is one of the most fun activities that comes to Toronto, and that it comes with deep-fried food, roasted corn and some most EXCELLENT people-watching opportunities just adds to the fun.

This is our starter fair experience for 2010, as we’ll be spending nearly an entire weekend soaking in the Shawville Fair up at the cottage over Labour Day weekend.  My dad is singing in a choir there, and unlike the EX, the super cheap admission includes all rides.  Boo yah.  As if that wasn’t enough, the shows are free too, which means I can watch April Wine AND Paul Brandt… at no cost.  Not that I will, or even want to, but I can.  And fairs are all about choice.

See you at the EX.

We enjoyed a fine meal of salmon fillets last night for dinner, which meant that Mojo spent most of the meal drooling all over our dining room floor and putting on his best dinner-time behaviour (no formal begging) in the hopes he’d get a taste.  The little maniac is crazy for seafood.

However, seafood is not crazy about him, and each time we have it, we ask ourselves “Is this going to make him sick?”.  About half the time, it does.

Last night I caved and gave him some of the skin and a bit of meat, which he didn’t even take the time to chew. Slurp, gulp and gone.  He was supremely happy and spent a good hour licking his chops and relicking his bowl.

Fast forward to this morning.  I had to leave the house on some errands and opened our door to a terrible smell.  A great big messy brown puddle was waiting for me in a rarely used corner of the house (thank goodness for that, at least), and a very sheepish little hound greeted me.

I didn’t curse or yell at the poor guy, I mean I’m the master… I should know better.  I dutifully cleaned up and let him outside to rid himself of whatever curse remained in his belly, but that’s it for seafood.  I have learned my lesson, even if he won’t learn his and the drooling will always come hand-in-hand with a salmon dinner.