SevenSeasJim

Nothing beats reality...

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Out 4-6 weeks (apparently)

I'm just curious of how many of you have your own Blog's? Are they personal? Are they just work related? Or are they information that you don't want anybody you know to read? :wink:

I find it disturbing that I've seen that before.

remember to toss your salad :wink:

ya, cause we know lazlo intends no harm....unlike others....

he's a good guy, and i'm sure he'll be back on his feet in no time.....

and yes, he does like music.....i EVEN thought i saw him dancing one time.

I'm not disputing that he's a good guy. I've met him several times and agree. I'm just saying that their are different standards.

The funny thing about Lazlo is that he can get away with saying anything. If other people on the board do something offensive people are all over them.

Is that Uncle Bobby?

I've got hockey at 8:30 so i'll be missing much of the game (at least i'll sleep well knowing the Leafs beat the Sens.

I get this one some times....

Well the only time anyone tells me I look like anyone is when I'm teaching....the kids either tell me I look like;

A)

or

or

C)

Oh, and a lot of the kids would call me "Mom" when I taught kindergarten.

THey all made me laugh

Sean Michaels....ahahahaha

I don't know what the best city in the world is. And I've never been to Vancouver. I can say, however, with a high degree of certainty that Cleveland is nowhere near the top of the list...

SfC

I think Cleveland is like Hamilton :grin:

That would be perfect for just surfing the net (maybe even too much unless she downloading live music :wink:).

Press release from www.eiu.com

03 Oct 2005

Vancouver tops liveability ranking according to a new survey by the Economist Intelligence Unit

A new survey by the Economist Intelligence Unit assessing the "liveability" of 127 cities worldwide has found Vancouver to be the most attractive destination. The survey shows cities in Canada, Australia, Austria and Switzerland as the most ideal destinations thanks to a widespread availability of goods and services, low personal risk and an effective infrastructure.

Jon Copestake, editor of the report, comments: "In the current global political climate, it is no surprise that the most desirable destinations are those with a lower perceived threat of terrorism."

The Economist Intelligence Unit's LIVEABILITY RANKING, part of the Worldwide Cost of Living Survey, assesses living conditions in 127 cities around the world by looking at nearly 40 individual indicators grouped into five categories: stability; healthcare; culture and environment; education; and infrastructure. The survey gives a rating of 0%-100% and judges a city with a lower score to be the more attractive destination. A rating of 20% is where real problems are seen to begin - anything over 50% places severe restrictions on lifestyle.

Is west the best?

* Sixty-three cities - almost half of those surveyed in total - fall into the top liveability bracket. This reflects the fact that many global business centres have a developed infrastructure and widespread availability. Still, the overwhelming majority of cities in the top liveability range are based in western Europe and North America.

* Only three cities in eastern Europe fall into this bracket along with 13 cities from Asia. All cities in North America and western Europe have ratings below 20%. In contrast all cities in Latin America, Africa and the Middle East exceed this.

* The worst destinations in the survey are those of Algiers and Port Moresby in Papua New Guinea - where many aspects of daily life present challenges. All ten cities where the liveability index exceeds 50% are in Asia, Africa or the Middle East.

Regional Liveability Averages

Europe: A closing gap?

Despite the clear difference in living standards between eastern and western Europe, the expansion of the EU and the strong economic development experienced in eastern Europe since the break-up of the Soviet Union is helping the east catching up with the west.

The three cities in eastern Europe with the best liveability indices (Budapest, Bratislava and Prague) are found in EU accession countries. Factors such as improved transport and communications infrastructure along with greater availability of goods, services and recreational activities have played a part in slowly bringing these cities into line with the west. Much less desirable are states beset by corruption and instability further to the east. Tashkent and Baku in the former Soviet republics of Uzbekistan and Azerbaijan score among the worst in the region with ratings of 42% and 38% respectively. Both countries are prone to corruption and civil unrest, with the threat of petty crime, terror and a lack of general amenities also playing a part. Istanbul, in EU accession-hopeful Turkey, has an unenviable liveability rating of 39% - in part due to recent terror attacks including the 2003 attacks which specifically targeted expatriates.

Conversely, Austria's capital Vienna shares joint second spot with Geneva, Switzerland. Both cities have a rating of 2%, with their climates, a factor beyond human control, as the main pitfall to living there. Athens, the least liveable destination in Western Europe, also suffers from climate issues, although its infrastructure also serves to bring its ranking down. Despite this Athens still occupies the top tier of the Economist Intelligence Unit's liveability scale.

Canada betters neighbour

With low crime, little threat from instability or terrorism and a highly developed infrastructure, Canada has the most liveable destinations in the world. With a rating of just 1% (as a result of a small threat from petty crime) Vancouver is the highest ranked city of all 127 surveyed. A further two Canadian cities (Montreal and Toronto) feature in the top five with ratings of just 3%. All 4 cities surveyed score well in all respects.

Although higher crime rates and a greater threat of terror puts US cities below those of Canada, US cities are still among the world's most liveable. Cleveland and Pittsburgh are the joint best scoring cities in the United States (7%), in joint 26th place in the global ranking. A lack of availability of recreational activities and certain infrastructural shortfalls put Lexington as the least liveable US city surveyed, in 56th place-although its rating of 13% is still low.

Latin America dogged by instability

Although no Latin American city surveyed manages to present ideal living conditions, neither do any fall into the category where extreme difficulties are faced - although Bogota in Colombia (117th) comes close with a rating of 49%. Bogota, like Caracas, Venezuela, has been subject to high profile levels of instability, unrest and violence. The two cities score 90% and 75% respectively in terms of stability due to widespread guerrilla warfare in Colombia and violent civil unrest in opposition to Venezuela's President, Hugo Chavez.

With scores of 20%, Montevideo in Uruguay, Santiago in Chile and Buenos Aires in Argentina (joint 64th) offer the best living conditions in Latin America. This is largely thanks to relatively efficient infrastructure and the availability of goods and services. These are closely followed by US commonwealth territory San Juan in Puerto Rico (23%), ranked 68th and Latin America's longest serving unbroken democracy, San Jose in Costa Rica (24%) ranked 70th.

Asia : The best and worst of both worlds

Alongside Canada, Australia is has some of the most liveable places in the world. Melbourne is ranked joint second overall with a rating of just 2%. Perth, Adelaide and Sydney join Zurich, Toronto and Calgary in joint 5th place with ratings of 3%. Just below this is Brisbane in joint 11th place. Elsewhere in the region cities in Japan, New Zealand, Hong Kong, South Korea, Singapore and Taiwan all offer a good standard of living, with a humid climate bringing scores down slightly.

Just North of Australia, however, a very different picture emerges, with Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, returning the joint worst score of all 127 cities surveyed. With a rating of 66%, Port Moresby suffers from high crime rates, corruption, instability, low availability of entertainment, goods or services and a dilapidated infrastructure. The proximity of Port Moresby to Australia highlights the two-tiered nature of liveability in Asian countries, with a number of well developed urban centres next door to countries where less favorable conditions apply.

The influx of investment in China alongside the increased availability of goods following WTO entry has helped all six Chinese cities surveyed perform relatively well, scoring between 24% and 30%. Alongside them are other emerging business centres such as Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur. Less developed cities, especially those where unrest or terrorism is an issue, fare much worse - with Phnom Penh (55%), Karachi (60%) and Dhaka (61%) all falling into the worst liveability category.

Africa and the Middle East: A long way to go

Africa and the Middle East, where cities have an average rating of 40%, fares worst of any region. Recent instability in the Middle East has made the threat of terror a key issue - although in Israel this is offset by a generally high level of development making Tel Aviv (23%) the best destination surveyed in the region.

Strong anti-crime measures in many Arab states are also a stabilising factor, although a low crime rate can be outweighed by the many cultural restrictions in place. As a result, only Dubai (25%) and Abu Dhabi (26%) in the United Arab Emirates and Manama in Bahrain (27%) have similar liveability ratings to Israel.

Cities perform much more poorly overall in Africa. The civil unrest and volatile nature of many countries, and the current political and economic climate mean cities such as Harare (53%), Lagos (59%), Abidjan (54%) and Douala (53%) prop up the ranking as some of the worst destinations. Alongside these are Tehran in Iran (52%), where the threat of war has been enhanced by concerns over the country's nuclear programme. With a rating of 66% Algiers, in Algeria, comes joint bottom of the liveability scale with Port Moresby. Although the threat of civil war has diminished slightly, the country has a ravaged infrastructure and has very little available by way of entertainment or goods and services to ease the cultural restrictions in place.

For further information please contact:

Economist Intelligence Unit

Jon Copestake: +44 (0)20 7830 1175 or joncopestake@eiu.com

or see our website at wcol.eiu.com. Editor's notes:

About the survey

The Economist Intelligence Unit's liveability ranking is an expansion on the methodology of previous "Hardship" surveys that have been published. In addition to the factors that were previously attributed to specifically causing hardship a number of other factors have been included to give a more rounded impression of how liveable a city is.

The survey takes over 40 factors into consideration which are weighted across five different categories: Stability; Healthcare; Culture & Environment; Education; and Infrastructure. Across the survey a mixture of quantitative and qualitative data are used, which are combined to give an overall Quality of Life Index rating. Each indicator is given a rating of between one and five, where one means there is no impact and five means the factor is extremely challenging. These are then weighted to produce an index, where 0% means the a city is exceptional and 100% means it is intolerable.

About the Economist Intelligence Unit

The Economist Intelligence Unit, the business information arm of The Economist Group, publisher of The Economist, is the world's leading provider of country intelligence, with over 500,000 customers in corporations, banks, universities and government institutions. Our mission is to help companies do better business by providing timely, reliable and impartial analysis on market trends and business strategies. More information about the Economist Intelligence Unit can be found on the Web at www.eiu.com.

I enjoyed living in Thunder Bay. If you like the outdoors it's a great place.

Vancouver named 'world's best city'

CTV.ca News Staff

For the fourth year in a row, Vancouver has claimed the top spot on an international ranking of the world's most livable cities.

In its annual survey of world cities, the think-tank division of London-based Economist magazine ranks the British Columbia metropolis first among 127.

To create its list, the Economist Intelligence Unit surveyed the cities, assigning each one a 'hardship rating' based on such factors as infrastructure, health care, public safety and access to goods and services.

Vancouver scored a mere one per cent.

With three Canadian cities in the Top 10, residents of Toronto and Calgary also have reason to cheer, as their cities are ranked ninth and tenth respectively.

The EIU's top 10 cities are as follows:

* Vancouver

* Melbourne

* Vienna

* Geneva

* Perth

* Adelaide

* Sydney

* Zurich

* Toronto

* Calgary

According to the report's editor, cities in Canada, Australia and Western Europe topped the list, largely because they are not perceived as targets for terror attacks.

At the other end of the scale, Algiers in Algeria, and Port Moresby in Papua New Guinea ranked last. The reason, the EIU said, is that "many aspects of daily life present challenges."

The EIU's bottom 10 cities:

* Tehran

* Douala

* Harare

* Abidjan

* Phnom Penh

* Lagos

* Karachi

* Dhaka

* Algiers

* Port Moresby

He looks familiar

I've always been a big Sony fan and in fact I own a PS2, X-Box and a GameCube. That being said GameCube gives you more bang for your buck and the Mario Games are awesome.

So what do you do in your spare time? :wink:

Is Rancho Relaxo smoke-free now?

isn't everywhere smoke free now ?

Unfortunately not yet.

I watch a bit of TV to pass the time - standard Simpsons, Seinfeld and OLN fare. I find it funny though, when certain people (and I'm not referencing anyone who has posted on this thread, as I don't know any of you well enough to comment) boast about "Oh man, I NEVER watch TV", as if they're some wicked counter-cultural intellectual, but then spend hours at a time watching movies/downloaded videos of farting monkeys/midget porn and stuff like that on PC. A good call on the "TV for people who think they're too smart for TV."

I also know a lot of people who claim to "not" watch TV, but still work in a couple of hours a day.

Meh. End rant.

It's funny because it's true!

I watch some TV, but try to read at least an hour per night. By the way, the internet has passed TV as the "king of time wasting" in Canada.

From CBC

Young Canadians spend more time on the internet than TV: study

Last Updated Mon, 15 Aug 2005 00:47:50 EDT

CBC News

A study released last week by Canadian polling company Ipsos Reid suggests young Canadians are spending more time on the internet than watching TV. The study says Canadians use the internet almost 50% more per week than they did just three years ago.

The study, Online News and Information Seeking: What the Future Holds, suggests internet use among Canadians is up about 46 per cent to 12.7 hours a week from 8.7 hours in 2002. That increase comes while radio listening has dropped an average of five hours to 11 hours per week.

Television still remained at the top of the list of most-used media sources, according to the poll, with Canadians watching an average of 14.3 hours of TV per week. But younger internet users spent 14.7 hours online a week, about three hours more than they did on radio and television. Teens spent only 2.5 hours a week reading newspapers.

The poll indicated that Canadians turned to the internet for specific or "niche-like" news -- such as health or travel information -- but still relied mostly on television for general news. More than a quarter of internet users said they didn't have a favourite online news source, while no specific website had a major lead ahead of its competitors, the poll found.

The study was based on two surveys of 1,000 people -- one conducted online and one by phone -- conducted March 30 through April 27. The results are considered accurate within 3.1 percentage points, 95 per cent of the time.

with what?

With one of these..

peipunk: indeed we are the proud owners & overly-frequent viewres of said DVD.

I also have a button -- B & W photo of Nigel with his trademark perplexed-sneer-grin -- which is a prized possession.

Your last 3 words are so funny because that's the only sounds in the movie :wink:

you fukker!! I HATE the fact people enjoy this reference at my continual expense. :blush:

While this may be true it is the first time that I have used it in reference to you. Consider it my 2nd to last reference. :grin:

I think it is a typical human reaction of "What Have You Done For Me Lately"?

So lets see the lists of the teams so i can pick who i will vicariously live through... maybe take some wagers as well...

Look here. Teams