Parking Meter Planter in Chinatown

There's an old parking meter in Chinatown that has been converted into a planter.

I suppose it would cost too much to have done it with all of the old meters.

Grape bags

So here’s the thing. There are all sorts of big things going on - tsunamis, earth quakes, nuclear disasters, wars, revolutions, elections - but the top item on my “blog about this” list for the past month has been something that bothers me about the bags they put the grapes in at the grocery store. All those other things are more important, but anything I would say has been said and if I don’t get this out of my system, I may never blog again.

It used to be you’d pull a plastic bag off the roller and bag your own grapes. Now they’re bagged for you. I suspect that if I ask Loblaws or one of the other grocers why, they’ll tell me it is for my convenience.

However, I suspect it is so that they can sell more of the grapes that have fallen off the stems. As an experienced grape eater I can tell you that these are the first grapes to go rotten. Back when we bagged our own, the loose grapes would stay in the produce bin and Loblaws would have to throw them out. Now they go home with any customer who isn’t obsessive about choosing a bag without loose grapes.

This is not what bothers me. I see pre-bagged grapes as just another tactic in the retail industry program to sell us things we don’t want. I don’t like taking home bad grapes, but saving a few seconds bagging is almost worth the trade-off.

What bothers me is this: Given that the bags have many holes (for air flow? draining moisture?) do they really need airtight Ziploc seals?

And if they do need airtight Ziploc seals, shouldn’t they be seals that actually work and not ones that won’t stay closed no matter how hard you try to line up the grooves and press on them?