Proper Communication

In this age of hyper connectivity plus the fact that the exchange of information is often limited to 140 characters, proper grammar has suffered.

I once read a joke that goes like this: A school teacher went to visit a student's parents to talk to them. A 6-year-old boy answered the door. "Are your parents in?" asked the teacher. "They was in, but they is out now," the boy said. The teacher was shocked. "Was in? Is out? Where is your grammar?" The boy said, "In the kitchen making cookies."

I read an online article a few years ago, about a man who had caught his 18-year-old girlfriend with her 48-year-old math teacher; there was a fight and the teacher was stabbed to death. It took several readings before I could ascertain this, because the article was written in a very confusing manner. The way the first paragraph was written, it appeared that the 18-year-old girl had been stabbed. However the second paragraph said that the boyfriend had killed the teacher. Further down, the article stated that the girl had been both a math student and a math teacher at two different schools. How is such a thing possible?

What was clear to me was that whoever wrote that article should have been sent to grammar school. Or at the very least, read the book Eats, Shoots and Leaves by Lynne Truss, which is a rant against poor grammar and diction. Unfortunately schools are not doing their job of teaching the fundamentals, and the number of failures and dropouts is increasing. How can we be expected to understand each other and the world if people can't communicate properly?

The parody song "Word Crimes" by Weird Al Yankovic mocks online commenters and their poor grammatical usage.  Have a listen.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Gv0H-vPoDc

Waste Not, Want Not

I wrote a post along similar lines five years ago but it seems that nothing has changed.  It might even have become worse.

One thing that I cannot stand is to see things wasted, whether it be food, objects, or money.  There are so many people out there who live with practically nothing, and yet every day reusable or recyclable items are thrown into the garbage.  Restaurants serve huge portions that are not eaten and discarded.  Supermarkets overstock produce that has been shipped thousands of miles only to spoil on the shelf when it isn't purchased.

During the financial crisis of 2008, a bank in California received over $1 billion in bailout money, then turned around and laid off 450 employees, and treated its senior staff and clients to a series of luxury dinners and rock concerts. How can these folks be allowed to get away with stuff like this? The bank claimed that no taxpayer money was used and they could do as they pleased with their assets.  But that's not the point.

Really, it's downright insulting to ordinary folk for corporate bigwigs to go out and throw their money around when everyone else is having difficulties.

Where is the regulation?  The banks got in trouble in the first place because nobody was really keeping tabs on what they were doing. There were no clear instructions put in place as to how and where the bailout money was to be used.  As a result the CEOs and their upper management lined their pockets while the little people got shafted.

The wastrels out there need to stop and look at the short-term and long-term consequences of their actions. Otherwise they might one day find themselves out of luck.

Best Hot Chocolate in Montreal

Chocolate is one of the ultimate comfort foods during the cold months, or any time of the year for that matter.  Given the city's French history, it's clear that Montreal takes the confection seriously.  Chain coffee shops aside, there are places that make a cup of hot chocolate into an adventure for the taste buds.  Here are some of Montrealers' favourite places for a chocolat-chaud.

Juliette & Chocolat

1626 Ste-Catherine St West

This prime hot spot in the downtown core boasts a menu of carefully-chosen chocolate from Madagascar to South America.  The owner's continual quest for a concoction "like our grandmothers used to make" has resulted in a place that is dedicated to chocolate in all its forms.

http://www.julietteetchocolat.com/

Suite 88

1225 De Maisonneuve Blvd West

The space is modern and intimate, but guests can easily forget where they are and travel the world via the selection of chocolates that this chocolatier offers.  As soon as one enters, the rich aroma tantalizes the imagination.

http://suite88.com/en/?lounge

Café Humble Lion

904 Sherbrooke St West

Wooden shelves bearing classic knick-knacks decorate this comforting spot in a dreary stretch of Sherbrooke Street.  Its menu isn't as varied as some other places on this list but it more than makes up for that with a relaxing atmosphere and delicious selection of coffees, chocolates, and desserts.

https://www.facebook.com/CafeHumbleLion

Aux Vivres

4631 St Laurent Blvd

For the health-conscious, this restaurant specializes in fresh vegan meals using high-quality ingredients.  Their mission to debunk the myths surrounding vegan food extends to their delicious soy hot chocolate, which is lovingly made for anyone to enjoy.

https://auxvivres.com/en/

Cacao 70

2087 Ste-Catherine St West

Dessert pizza with chocolate topping.  That is one of the most popular dishes at this trendy café with a sweet-tooth overload menu of crepes, waffles, and of course chocolate in many forms.  With a selection of cocoa from 15 countries there's certain to be something to please even the most cynical person's palate.

http://cacao70.ca/en/

Chocolats Geneviève Grandbois

162 St Viateur Rd West

Here is a place where small is better.  Tucked in a corner of the Outremont district, this shop is a "neighbourhood secret" known for decadent espresso-sized hot chocolate creations that are enough to keep any connoisseur satisfied.

http://www.chocolatsgg.com/

Not an Auspicious Start

For all of us who had high hopes for 2015, sadly it has not started out well.

The mass murder of journalists at a satirical newspaper in Paris and a bombing at a chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People in Colorado Springs has shown that we have a long way to go as far as tolerance and cultural sensitivity are concerned.

We are blessed to live in a place where we are allowed to say what we think and practice our beliefs freely.  Unfortunately there are countries where this is not the case: where women are persecuted just for being women, where speaking out of turn can put you in prison, where practicing your religion puts you in danger of death.

High-placed officials and clerics from these regions continually try to subvert others through the Internet which provides the perfect medium for their madness.  Therefore we must look at why many of our own young people are becoming influenced by them and then go on to perform heinous deeds in the name of their new "beliefs".

Perhaps they feel disillusioned with the world and their place in it.  They might have difficulty getting a decent job within a system that appears to be stacked against them.  A traumatic event in their lives could have propelled them to seek something greater than what they currently have.

Whatever the reason, it's clear that some aspects of today's society are at the root of the problem.  If you don't have money or connections you need to work at least twice as hard as everyone else to get ahead.  If you don't educate yourself in the "right" way you're woefully unprepared for a job market that's biased toward certain fields.  You can't get a job without experience but at the same time you can't get experience without a job.  Young people, particularly those of colour, are at a disadvantage.

This needs to be fixed.  However it probably won't be as long as those in power retain the Daffy Duck mentality of "Consequences, schmonsequences, as long as I'm rich."

New Year Exhaustion

A mere week into 2015 and I'm already tired.  Not so much the physical fatigue that comes with the hectic events of the holidays, but a mental and emotional fuzziness that doesn't want to dissipate.  Ordinarily I'd laugh it off and attribute it to the cold snap that we're enduring at the moment but the reality is that I'm just disillusioned.

We're not starting the new year off well from a personal standpoint.  My husband has not been employed for over ten months.  He's had scores of interviews but no firm offers.  I have been looking for work for over two years and only had a handful of nibbles in all that time.  Scouring job sites and other resources has become a daily mind-numbing routine.  I've even gone old-school and hand-delivered applications to local businesses, to no avail.

I rage against a system that's purposely designed to route job applications into a computerized black hole, and against recruiters who don't have the courtesy to respond to inquiries.

Nothing changes.  And I'm fed up.

When I see friends of mine crow about how successful their self-built businesses are, I wonder if I could have done the same.  Unfortunately it's far too late for that; the market for hand-made merchandise is glutted, and writers of most stripes get little attention unless they're heavily controversial or they get extraordinarily lucky.  Had I been serious about pursuing that I should have started ten years ago.

More recently my husband has been luckier in terms of interviews, but the jobs he's looking at are in a place that I do not wish to live in.  I've visited that particular city a number of times but never liked it.  Logically I know that one must go where the opportunities are.  Many of my high-school and university classmates now live in another province.  Call me romantic but I don't want to leave home.

My great-grandfather took a job out west and sent money for the rest of his family to join him.  His wife refused to leave their home and ended up raising her family on her own.  My grandfather subsequently felt abandoned by his father and refused to speak about him for the rest of his life.  It makes for an interesting story but I would prefer that history not repeat itself.