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You are here: Home / Archives for Culture / Canada

The “Do Not Call list” doesn’t work!

March 14, 2009 by Tricia

Sometime last Fall our Canadian Government finally got around to creating an official “Do Not Call” website where Canadian residents could go and add their home or even their cell phone numbers to a list that would supposedly be checked by telemarketers and keep you off their call lists.

Sounds great right? Finally a way to get those pesky telemarketers to stop calling our home at all ours of the day and evening.

Uh huh …

Guess what? Just about anyone can register as a “telemarketing firm” by paying a $50 fee. Once they’re registered they can access the list and copy it. That’s fine if it’s a legitimate telemarketing business in Canada who’s trying to abide by the Do not Call laws. However, since just about anyone can register as a telemarketer and it’s not checked an unscrupulous person could sign up, download the list and then sell it to marketers in other countries who don’t have to obey our Canadian telemarketing laws and regulations.

If you live in Canada you’ve probably seen new stories from January onward talking about how the Do Not Call list is being abused.

Chris and I added our number to the list in either late November or early December. By the end of January we started to get even more calls from telemarketers than we normally do! I’ve always been hesitant to pick up the phone when I don’t recognize the number, so what I’ve been doing is checking out all the 1-800 numbers that are calling on the internet.

Some of the calls we are getting are from companies that just call to see if anyone answers the phone and if someone does they know the number is live and they turn around and sell the phone number to other marketers! Other calls are from scam companies stating they can lower your credit card interest rates or provide an extended warranty for your car (even though they don’t even know if you have a car or if it’s a 25 year old clunker!), others are calls stating that “you’ve won a free trip” or membership cards to gyms or membership stores.

It’s a pain in the butt! I don’t sleep well at night so I sometimes sleep late into the morning. I can’t even do that anymore because the calls start as early at 8 am and go on until almost 10 pm! These days we try to remember to unplug the phone late at night before we go to bed and then I plug it back in once I’m up.

There’s a number on the Canadian Do Not Call list website that you can call and have your phone number removed. I already had our number removed about two weeks ago, but the calls are still coming. I shouldn’t have added our home phone number to the list in the first place … God only knows how many illegal telemarketing lists our number has been listed on in the three or so months that we were on the list.

If you’re in Canada were you silly enough to add your home number to the do not call list? And if you are elsewhere do you also have a do not call list that telemarketers in your Country are supposed to abide by?

Don’t you just hate telemarketing and survey calls?





Filed Under: Canada, Home and Lifestyle, Items to Try, Toronto Tagged With: calls, Canada, canadian, Do_Not_call_list, illegal, list, phone, phone_calls, remove, ringing, scams, telemarketer, telemarketers

What a beautiful day in Toronto

March 6, 2009 by Tricia

It was just lovely today here in Toronto. Warmer than most early to mid-Spring days! By 3 pm it had reached 18 Celsius (64 F)! We’re supposed to have above zero weather up until next Wednesday or so, but it looks like today will have been the warmest – unless something changes over the next few days forecast wise.

It was far too nice a day to stay inside. Earlier in the day I looked outside at the garden, there were still a few small patches of snow in the shady areas, but it was melting fast. For a few minutes I even contemplated doing a little yard work – tidying up the garden, but it’s far too early. I’m sure we’ll have some freezing weather before the end of March.

So … Midnight our young Labrador Retriever got the most benefit from the nice day. She got a nice long walk with me in the afternoon and then when Chris came home from work we all went out for a very long walk. All in all, Midnight probably got two hours worth of walks today.

In the winter when there’s lots of snow Midnight likes to roll in the snow. We’ll be walking along and she’ll jump on someone’s lawn or in a snow bank and either roll around in the snow or do a faceplant and slide her body along the snow as I walk along side her. I try to make sure the snow is clean where ever she does this. It’s pretty funny to see the faceplant slide. I’ve seen her push her body like that through the snow for 10 feet or more. I’m sure anyone watching must wonder what the crazy dog is doing.

There’s very little snow now – only in really shady areas. That didn’t stop Midnight though … she tried to roll in the wet and sometimes muddy grassy areas and even attempted her faceplant slide. Of course I stopped her each time as I didn’t want to bring a dirty muddy dog back into the house. LOL

She tried to roll in the wet grass a few times when Chris and I took our evening walk, but it was just too wet and muddy.

We did something different for our evening walk with Midnight. When Chris came home he told me that our hospital was finally getting two new Restaurants. Al we’d had before was the hospital cafeteria and a coffee/ quick food area in the lobby that was run by the cafeteria staff. The new restaurants or food places are Subway and a Panzerotto Pizza. The Subway shop isn’t open yet but the Panzerotto Pizza had opened today.

So we walked to the hospital and while I stood outside with Midnight Chris went inside and ordered us two Panzerotto’s (They are like folded fried pizza’s, yummy, some might call them Calazones?) and some chicken wings. The place was really busy and I ended up standing outside with Midnight for over 45 minutes! It was probably busy because it was just after 7:30 so a lot of staff were getting off work and visiting hours were about to end so maybe some of the visitors were getting food before going home too.

Since there were a lot of staff getting off work I wasn’t too bored waiting for Chris to get our food. I talked to a few nurses and other hospital staff that I knew. One ER nurse that I used to work with had just received a new Bedat watch for her birthday. Man was that a nice watch!

After walking home Chris and I sat down to eat our food. I’m soooooo full now. That Panzerotti was filling! I don’t think I’ve had one for several years and now I know why … they make you feel so stuffed! In fact the panzerottis were so filling Chris and I only had two wings each so there’s still 10 left for us to have with tomorrows dinner.

How was the weather in your area today? I’m pretty sure most of the Northern States and Canadian provinces had fairly nice weather today.

Filed Under: Canada, Items to Try, Our Puppy, The Neighborhood, Toronto, Walking Tagged With: calazone, dog, faceplant, friends, fun, melting, panzerotti, rolling, snow, spring, takeout, Toronto, walk, warm, wings, yummy

A lovely day for a walk

February 26, 2009 by Tricia

Midnight, my Labrador Retriever, and I took advantage of the nice weather earlier today and took a long long walk.

We were supposed to have a warmer than normal day that was filled with snow, rain and then showers, but to my surprise we didn’t get the bad weather – only the nice warmer than average temperatures. Not that 6 Celsius (42 F) is all that warm, but for February, especially after a very cold January, it sure felt nice … Spring-like even.

Midnight in kitchen

I haven’t been walking Midnight as often as I should since I haven’t been feeling all that well the last several months. Oh, Chris walks her – usually twice a day, but if I can walk her at least once a day as well all the better for her. It makes our evenings much more peaceful if we have a well exercised and tired dog!

For my own sake I should be out walking her every day as well! It’s good exercise and Midnight tends to pull on the leash (although she’s getting a little better and not dragging us around as much lately) so it’s a fast paced walk if I want to keep up with her!

We walked for 45 minutes this afternoon and then when Chris came home from work we all took another 35 minute walk.

Midnights still up and begging for a rawhide chew, but I expect that she’ll be tired out and want to sleep soon …

don't bug me I'm sleeping

I took this photo a few weeks ago when Midnight was napping on her favorite chair … I don’t think she liked being woken up to a camera in her face.

So … fellow dog owners, do you walk your dog several times a day or have a yard that your dog can get burn some of it’s excess energy off in?

Filed Under: Canada, Health Fitness and Beauty, Our Puppy, The Neighborhood, Toronto, Walking Tagged With: dog, Lab, Labrador_Retriever, long_walk, Midnight, Neighborhood, nice, spring_like, walk, walking_dog, warm, weather

Where’s the off button for the snow?

January 28, 2009 by Tricia

Well … we’re in the midst of another big snowstorm here in Toronto. Man I’m getting sick of snow!

It wouldn’t be so bad if I only had to look at it, but of course it’s coming down so heavily that I had to shovel a couple of times today. One poor man that lives on the corner across from me has been out shoveling most of the day … that’s one of the things about having a corner property – more to shovel! Plus he did some shoveling for the older lady on the corner across from him too.

Chris was up at 5:30 am for a 7:30 shift but he too did a little shoveling before he went to work, then our new neighbors (the renters) beside us must have shoveled the beginning of the driveway that we share. So by the time I got out I still had a lot of shoveling to do as it snowed heavily in the morning, but not as much as I would have if Chris and our neighbor hadn’t helped out a bit. I shoveled some of our corner neighbors sidewalk – in part to be nice and also because when I take Midnight out for a quick outing to do her business we walk up and down that section of the sidewalk as she finds a place on the snowbank to do her thing.

Still, my back went out after only about five minutes of shoveling. Darn back! it seems I can’t do much of anything that requires me to bend slightly forward (let alone lifting heavy snow) like sweeping, vacuuming, doing the dishes, sitting on the couch and leaning forward to read something or leaning forward as I watch tv … all of those things throw my back out or well, put it into spasms. I want to have my back xrayed to see if something is wrong. It’s been bad like this for about a year now and I suspect that my Vitamin D deficiency has something to do with it.

With my back aching I wasn’t able to do too much today. I had been planning to do at least 30 minutes on the Wii Fit balance board, but that didn’t happen. At least I can add my shoveling activities to the calender! For those of you with Wii Fit – don’t forget that you can add light, medium and heavy activities by going to the calender – it helps build up those fitness credits for the fitness bank and you might as well count your none Wii activities too. I’ve counted some of my time playing Wii Sports as “light” activities (even though they feel at least moderate to me!).

Luckily with my back I find that if I lie down on my side or flat on my back for a while the muscle spasms tend to stop. That’s not the case today as my back is still spasming as I type, but it sometimes takes the ache away.

As I waited for my back to feel better I watched some TV. I like watching old sitcom reruns like All in the Family, Fresh Prince and so on. One of the channels that I watch these old shows on bugs me though … well I mean the commercials it plays! They always have these commercials for “schools” that will teach you how to be a CSI, parole officer or that teach you how to get healthcare jobs. It drives me nuts because every single commercial break has one of these ads and if it doesn’t it’s that AGI commercial offering funeral insurance! Bleh! Luckily with the PVR I can put the show on pause for a few minutes and then fast forward through the commercials – when I remember to do it!

So how’s the weather in your area? I’m thankful that we didn’t get an ice storm! Our snow storm is apparently part of that big ice storm that hit the States earlier in the week, but without the ice. Thank God!

Filed Under: Canada, Health Fitness and Beauty, Home and Lifestyle, Items to Try, Television, Toronto Tagged With: aching, back, balance_board, commercials, fittness_bank, icestorm, shoveling, shows, snow, snowstorm, TV, wii_fit

I’d love to get away for some sun

January 23, 2009 by Tricia

Every year around this time I start to long for a holiday in the sun. I think this year more than ever!

One reason why I’d love to get away for a week or two of sun is because of my Vitamin D deficiency. It’s really bad and as I’ve said before it’s made my muscles extremely weak. Living in Canada we don’t get any health benefits from the sun (like the ability to natural make Vitamin D in our skin from sun exposure) from Mid October until about Mid March.

So you can see where I’m going here right? If I went off to some sunny location and spent some time getting “sun therapy” it might help my Vitamin D deficiency right? Pretty smart huh?

Ok well I am taking Vitamin D supplements but considering I have Crohn’s which causes digestion and malabsorption problems it’s going to take a LONG time for those supplements to work.

It’s a pipe dream at any rate. Chris and I can’t afford a holiday right now – even if was just for me … no matter how much I’d love to pack my luggage tonight and catch a flight tomorrow.

Hmmm maybe I should do some research on Tanning beds and see if they can help with Vitamin D deficiency … that might be more affordable.

Filed Under: Canada, Chronic Pain, Health Fitness and Beauty, Inflammatory bowel disease, Items to Try Tagged With: crohns, digestion, holiday, sick, sun, Sun_therapy, supplements, vacation, vitamin_d

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