AWOL

I don't go to a lot of weddings these days. I didn't go to one this weekend, either. I did, however, prepare five dishes for a couple of newlyweds and their friends for their day-after-the-wedding open house.

A consequence of this unwrapped wedding gift (which was delivered in Belleville) is that I'm putting this post up late.

In case you're curious about what I made, I prepared some cole slaw with a vinaigrette dressing, and some vietnamese-style spring rolls but without a recipe to share with you. 

With recipes I'm delighted to share, I made cranberry orange scones (I've blogged about these before); double-chocolate cheese cake and vegan macaroni and "cheese." These last three are among my favourite recipes of all time. Try them. You'll like them.

As the photo of my kid sister's flying fingers around the batter bowl (for the cheesecake) demonstrate, these are good.

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I know I have subscribers who enjoy reading news here about Toronto because they don't hear much about it where they are. But I think even my most remote readers have heard something about the newest allegations about our proud mayor. 

I find some solace in the fact that another mayor of another major metropolis was actually caught in the bona fide act of smoking crack, so allegations, rumours and unsubstantiated gossip about a video that may or may not exist makes me proud to be a Torontonian.

Have a great week!

Karen

What?!

Yesterday I found myself yearning to read a news article more than 140 words long, so I bought the Saturday edition of the Globe and Mail. The front cover promised several stories that appealed to me, including the feature by Elizabeth Renzetti blurbed as "No kids? No problem. Let's all lay off the child free."

This was interesting to me because first, I am child free and second, I didn't know that people without children were being laid on.

I got my consciousness raised. Evidently there are people out there with children who have the notion that people without children are selfish. The magic math the child-unfree have done in their heads is that because some of us have the temerity to not reproduce we are robbing the race of its future.

What?! Have they checked global population growth recently?

I'll speculate that this nonsense originates in a thin sliver of thinking that says, without young people to work and pay taxes, the burgeoning mass of old people won't get the services they need.

Here's the math in my head. Childless taxpayers pay for schools, health care for children, teenagers and young adults including pregnant women without a dime of that money benefitting them directly.

Here's more math. The greatest proportion of tax dollars in Canada are spent on two things: education, mostly for children and health care, again mostly for children.

This is as it should be. I can't think of better expenditures of public money. I can, however, think of a few things better to do with one's time than concoct complaints about people who don't have kids.

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I will assume that none of my readers have missed the media bombardment connected with the recently-released Gatsby movie by Baz Luhrmann. Nothing in that blitz made me want to see the movie, but it did make me want to read the book again, which I did, online, without having to claim my abandoned Kobo credit.

This reading I really noticed how much of the story has been added by the way the book is talked about. For example, everyone knows it was Daisy who was driving Gatsby's car when Myrtle Wilson is struck and killed. It's probably true. It's just not in the book. Everyone says Gatsby is a mysterious figure. But Nick gives Gatsby's entire backstory: his military career and how he ended up at Oxford, how he met the bootlegger who became his mentor. The only thing that's not completely drawn about Gatsby is how he came to be killed in his swimming pool. Finally, everyone says the book is a classic. Well, it's short so it's taught in schools and gets its generations of new readers that way. 

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The condo boom in Toronto has created another boom in street level retail. Every city block of towers supports a dentist, two coffee shops (a Starbucks and a Tim Horton's), an animal hospital, a dry cleaner, a convenience store or two and, as recently spotted, a new and likely growing service.

Have a great week!

Karen

One More Thing

Two weeks ago, I listed three things I'd done that week, and so far, I've provided details about two.

The third thing was, you may recall, an earnest conversation with a room full of strangers about an organization I know very little about.

This past week, I had a second conversation with the same not-quite-so-strangers about the organization I now know a teeny bit more about.

The organization under discussion is Samara, a non-profit group almost no one has ever heard of (but now you have) that has set itself the modest task of fixing democracy in Canada.

Right away you know this is a sign of how lucky we are here. Other citizens in other nations have to worry about being killed by their governments; or arbitrarily incarcerated; or tortured or systematically marginalized and worked to death. Or all of the above.

We, on the other hand, have to worry about why young people a) don't vote but b) do protest because, apparently, they think they have no other way to engage in civic discourses.

Here's the other great thing about Canadian democracy: a conversation about it at the Samara offices on Prince Arthur Avenue attracts the interest and consideration of, in no particular order: a producer for a pubic television broadcaster, the president of a corporate branding company, no less than three IT start-up entrepreneurs one of whom spent six years working in the office of the Premier and another who formerly headed up the marketing department at Tory's LLP, the head of fundraising for a major Canadian health charity, a former advisor to no less than three federal governments and a retired lawyer.

How I ended up at a table with this group of interesting people went like this:

I'd met the executive director of Samara, an impressive young woman named Alison Loat, as part of that conference I blogged about last year (the Polivery (ick) conference). I'm always looking for new avenues of endeavour, so I arranged to have coffee with her one morning and talk about her organization. To prepare for that meeting, I downloaded one of Samara's reports from their website to read and ... it was terrible.

By "terrible" I mean it was a bad piece of public policy research. The methodology, while fully described, was ridiculous; the conclusions drawn were out of proportion to the evidence and the report was hopelessly biased. 

I was in a quandary about what to do. Cancel the meeting. Go, but don't talk about the report. Go, and talk about the report.

I went with option three, and was heartened by Alison's response to my giving her paper an "F".  She was grateful for the feedback and genuinely concerned that the work of the organization be considered credible, well researched and relevant.

The next thing to happen after that was I was invited to attend two sessions to talk about the future of Samara with the remarkable people described above.

People who know me well (and know that I am more introverted than extroverted) understand what agony it is for me to do what I have just described: talk to strangers, jump headfirst into unknown waters, hang outside my comfort zone by a metre or two.

But it's been a lot of fun.

The other fun thing that's happened is I am a great aunt again and that's this week's picture:

Welcome to the planet Dylan William Scruton!

Have a great week!

Karen

Cave Kobo

The story you are about to read is true. All transcripts are verbatim, but may be edited for length. No names have been changed.

Subscribers recall that I mentioned in this blog my first purchase of an e-book - Fat Sugar Salt - and, although I didn't remark on it at the time, I was pretty happy with how the whole transaction went.

As things had gone smoothly, I didn't think twice about ordering from Kobo an interesting but hard to find book called Purity and Danger by Mary Douglas. If you are not familiar with this book, you should get your hands on a copy, but not, if you can help it at all, by way of Kobo.

This is what happened when I tried that: I searched Kobo, found Purity and Danger, paid with my credit card and hit the download button. The book, however, failed to download. Stumped, I sent the following e-mail to the fancifully-named "customer care" link:

Hi:

I just paid for "Purity and Danger" and it is not loading onto my iPad. I click on the ADOBE DRM PDF button (there is no "Download PDF" button) then I get a brief flash of a page that says I am buying a PDF and then the page changes to a 1KB file "PurityandDanger.acsm and a button that says "open in kobo". When I click on the button, I open kobo, but the book is not there.

You have my money. I would really like my book, please.

Many thanks

Karen Clark

This is the response I got:

Response Via Email (Maria E)	04/13/2013 10:34 AM
Hi Karen,

Thank You for contacting Kobo Customer Care. We are very sorry about this inconvenience, and we'd be glad to assist you. 

Based on the information that you have provided us, that the book that you have purchased is not compatible with Apple devices, since it is a PDF format book. 

We'd like to inform you that you can see if your device supports a certain book, by scrolling down to the bottom right at www.kobobooks.com when looking at a book's page, before clicking on "Buy Now". You will notice a section that says Book's information, where you see on what devices the book can be read on, and on what format it downloads. 

Also, on a side note please remember that you can always read on other devices the same book with Kobo, and to know more information on that please click on the following link:

http://www.kobobooks.com/apps

If you need further help with this issue, simply respond to this email. A member of our Customer Care team will be happy to help you.

Sincerely,
The Kobo Team

This is the message I sent back:

Thanks very much for your response. I have downloaded a PDF format book onto my iPad before, so I had no reason to believe this attempt would not work. 
This leaves me with the problem I originally brought to your attention. 
You have my money but I don't have a book. 
I would like my money refunded/the charge to my credit card cancelled. 
The receipt number for the transaction is 26968140. 


If you're interested in how I feel I have been treated as a Kobo customer, I would say: not well. It really doesn't do me any good to receive a response that basically suggests I was stupid for ordering the book and then simply refuses to acknowledge that Kobo took my money and gave me nothing in return. 

I would be very grateful if someone could get back to me and confirm the charge to my credit card has been cancelled. 


And, I'm done with Kobo. 


Karen Clark

This is the reply they sent me:

Response Via Email (Maria E)

04/13/2013 12:27 PM

Hi Karen, Thank You for contacting Kobo Customer Care. We are very sorry about this inconvenience, and we'd be glad to assist you. We understand how frustrating this is for you, and we deeply apologize for all the inconvenience. However, we'd like to inform you that in order to be able to read PDF files with your iPad you will need to use and you can gather more information on this next link http://www.overdrive.com/ As well, for future reference please remember that you can see if your device supports a certain book, by scrolling down to the bottom right at www.kobobooks.com when looking at a book's page, before clicking on "Buy Now". You will notice a section that says Book's information, where you see on what devices the book can be read on, and on what format it downloads. Now, a refund has been requested for you and if accepted, the billing department will contact you with more information within 48 hours. And you will receive an email confirmation upon completion. Again, thank you for contacting Kobo today and if you have any further issues, please contact us via email, phone, or chat. Sincerely, The Kobo Team A few days later, I got this final message: Response Via Email (Sanae T) 04/16/2013 04:40 PM Hi Karen, We have provided you with a Kobo store credit of $21.12 CAD. To verify that your Kobo account has been credited 1. Go to the www.kobo.com website and sign into your Kobo account. 2. Click MY ACCOUNT 3. Click on Payment information To use your store credit 1. When you’re ready to purchase an eBook, click BUY NOW 2. You’ll be taken to the secure checkout page and any Kobo store credit you have in your Kobo account will be automatically applied to your purchase. * Note that you will only be able to apply store credit while on the www.kobo.com website, the BlackBerry PlayBook app, the Kobo Desktop App or the Kobo Touch eReader web store. You will not have the ability to use store credit while using the BlackBerry mobile apps, Kobo Wireless eReader, or the Literati Reader We’ve provided you a working solution that we’re confident has resolved the issue you had been encountering. To reopen this ticket, simply respond to this email and a member of our Tier 2 Customer Care team will be happy to help you. Sincerely, The Kobo Team For the record, the alleged "compatibility with your device" information for Purity and Danger, the book I couldn't download, is exactly the same as the information for Fat Sugar Salt, the book I did download. This means, unless you like the idea of throwing $20 away every once in a while (and if that's true you should just buy a lottery ticket), beware Kobo. ********************************************************* I was on Yonge Street on April 27, looking for interesting juxtapositions of Toronto architecture. I found this: Have a great week! Karen