Double Blind

This is the most mundane post, but I really feel like getting it into print.

The local Superstore in Chilliwack has its own bakery. I believe others do as well. They make things like Croissants and related products (danishes, etc.), but they also make their own store-made breads. I like their croissants, but since they are so heavy on calories (especially when you eat them with jam), I can’t have them too often since you really have to buy them in bulk.

They also bake their own bread. The french bread is a steal at 97 cents and is wonderful for dinners and toast in the next morning. It loses its effective life after 2 days, however, so you have to eat it relatively quickly. I also notice the whole-loaf white bread (which they called Weston’s classic white bread), wrapped in a brown bag, and whole-loaf for $1.29, and this is also very good white bread – miles above Wonder Bread. It can be described as white bread with texture. I notice that this white bread is a new addition to the store. I do not think it will be too popular since you have to slice the bread yourself. If it already came pre-sliced, the bread would become stale and dry out a lot more quickly.

Finally, their sourdough loaf is also very good, although that I usually have straight up by dipping in with some olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

I wasn’t too much of a fan of their artisan breads. If they are trying to compete with Cobs (overpriced, but they serve good product) or the other artisan bread makers, they have a distance to go.

I wonder how profitable these products are for them. They are excellent for the economically minded. You just have to eat them relatively quickly. The products are very fresh, compared to the imported breads that are also sold at the location which usually have been on the shelf for a few days.

I warned you this was a mundane post.

I have decided to delete links on the right-hand side bar (nobody tends to look at it anyway) of sites that have not updated in 6 months. I figure that six months is a sufficient threshold of staleness.

I am also struggling to find “fresh content” links for the BC Politics category.

It appears that being able to consistently write articles is a talent only few people have – most of the people I personally know that write over the internet have given up eons ago. It’s nearly 7 years here since the first article here!

I am wondering whether this correlates to the relative age of the people involved – as you get older, your thoughts tend to be less and less “creative”, and thus that accounts for the staleness of posts. I notice myself self-referencing to previous posts a lot more often.

Canada is a very northern country. As such, we value warm weather when it comes (usually complaining how hot it is!) and when it is July and August, priorities lie elsewhere (i.e. enjoying life outside) than listening to the nuances of politicians jousting each other.

The real action will once again start on September 20, when the House of Commons comes back to session and the media has had time to do their own “recalibration” on what will be the big strategic argument for the country looking forward – what to do post-stimulus. The existing stimulus package will be shutting down March 31, 2011 and with this will come a question of “what next?”

The Conservatives will want to be able to post balanced budgets again and this will require cutting back spending (which the government has a historically poor record doing) and raising revenues (which is a little difficult when your pledge is to not raise taxes). Their only avenue is to grow the size of the economy – something that preliminary tea leaves suggest is working. On the social side, the Conservatives have been focusing on a crime legislation agenda.

The Liberals have wisely focused on misdirected spending that would resonate with the public (e.g. G8/G20 summit, new jets for the military, etc.), but they have also focused on one tax measure: the upcoming reduction in the federal corporate taxation rate. In 2010 the rate is 18%; in 2011 it will be 16.5%; and in 2012 it will be 15%. I very much believe that if they were to get into government, they would raise the GST to 6% and freeze the corporate tax rate as-is; both measures I would disagree with, but especially the latter one – the decreasing corporate tax rate is giving Canada a huge competitive advantage relative to the USA. On the social side, it is interesting to see them develop fiscal arguments against various pieces of crime legislation.

If the Liberals can get traction with their arguments – and if the polling numbers suggest the Liberals have a chance of obtaining a plurality of seats in the next House of Commons, we may see an election before the Spring 2011 budget. However, since such an election would be on fiscal responsibility, I do not think this would be a good campaign plank for the Liberals.

Finally, I do not think this administration has faced a true scandal that has shifted the perception that the Prime Minister is competent (although most certainly not a perception as a friendly “teddy bear”). The only scandals that would do Stephen Harper’s reputation would be ones related to sex or corruption – neither of which have happened so far this administration. The two that got somewhat close were Maxime Bernier (sex) and Helena Guergis (corruption), and they were both dealt with swiftly and were both clearly not directly related to Harper.

I notice Jordan has a whole bunch of stories, and I want to comment about them as well.

1. Canada Line at 100,000 riders… and rising: Their next problem is going to be how to cheaply expand capacity. I kept on saying this, but the decision not to double-track the last bit at Richmond Centre (Brighouse Station) is going to bite Translink and the City of Richmond in their rears – ideally you want peak trains in and out of there every 3-4 minutes during rush hour, and the most service you can get through the Richmond leg is 6 minutes because of some strange agreement with splitting the trains with YVR.

The Expo Line also has huge issues with capacity management, and they should get first priority, but the Canada Line is the next logical candidate for a capacity expansion – it has clearly been successful beyond planners’ projections. And I do not hear about the people complaining about the P3 that guaranteed minimum ridership – it’s clear this contract was well designed.

The next rapid transit priority in terms of laying down new track would be to extend the Millennium Line west to Granville or even Burrard. Once this is done, you can start looking at the Evergreen Line, and then finally out to Surrey/Langley. Some very long-range future thinking needs to be done with respect implementing a “Vancouver Express” Skytrain for Surrey/Langley commuters without having the train stop at every single station with the ideal that somebody can get from Langley City to Downtown Vancouver in 40 minutes.

2. Bikes: I am not a fan of dedicating too many capital expenditure dollars towards the promotion of sub-urban street cycling, simply for the reason that the weather in the Lower Mainland is absolutely miserable (rainy, windy) at least 7 months of the year, and you will only have the most dedicated cyclists making a 15km commute to work on a rainy and windy, 5 degree Celsius January morning. If there was any concept of “reversibility” where you can surrender cycling space to commuters for the late fall / winter / early spring (e.g. in the Burrard Street Bridge example, give the third southbound lane back in the inclement weather season) and then give it back to the cyclists when the warm season begins, that would make a lot more sense in terms of efficient utilization of street space.

Clearly if there is enough of a right-of-way on streets to incorporate a strip for cyclists (e.g. the newly paved No. 3 Road in Richmond) then I’m all for it – that is generally the way to doing it without breaking the bank account. But in the already developed areas where no such easements are available, it then becomes a zero-sum game of whether you preferentially treat drivers or cyclists with road space usage decisions – there is no getting away from that.

3. Mt. Lehman Road 600,000 square foot strip mall development: Despite what most people might instinctively think, it will not be a disaster. It will, however, be a disaster for the mall that is located on Fraser Way between Clearbrook and McAllum roads.

Locating a commercial mall next to a freeway exit is a very sound business decision. It will attract traffic since anybody living close to an interchange will find easy access to the area. The government is also performing a serious upgrade of Clearbrook and McCallum interchanges, which will also help ease of access to and from Highway 1. That said, the internet has made the era of big-box malls (note: MALLS, not stores!) obsolete and I very much doubt that this will be an efficient use of land. At least put some noise-proof residential units in the area.

Finally, the thesis that people from Harrison Hot Springs and Chilliwack will come all the way to Abbotsford to shop at Walmart Supercenter is a very wrong assumption, in consideration that apparently Walmart will be planting a Supercenter up at the Squiala First Nation area (North of Evans Road exit 118). This will cannibalize any Highway 1 traffic east of Abbotsford.

I am absolutely sure there is a marketing concept associated with this, but I forgot what the clean name of it was.

Last year, I noticed McDonalds started a promotion where they began advertising “Any sized soft drinks for $1″. At initial thought, I was thinking that they were trying to compete against a 7-11 or gasoline-type corner store. I am also very confident that even at that price, McDonald’s gross margins on a pop sale is well in excess of 70% once you begin to factor in the lost opportunity cost of labour and having customers coming in an ordering something more relevant. The actual cost of the liquid in the cup is probably less than 10 cents.

This year, McDonalds is having the same promotion. I had a different thought – why word it the way they did, specifically the phrase “any size”? Since it is clearly obvious that nobody is going to order a “small” with this option, why not phrase it as “Buy a large soft drink for $1″? Or in McDonalds lingo, “Buy a super-sized soft drink for $1″?

This wording was very intentionally created to give the consumer an impression that they probably have the “best of all options”, mainly that being able to buy “anything” is better than being able to buy just a “large”, even though at the very end you will be ending up with the same.