Café Ontario

[xzmattzx]

Originally Posted by Steeltown

Yep, pretty much for Hamilton. We used to have a Regional Chair (the last one was Terry Cooke), he would oversee the whole Region of Hamilton-Wentworth. The Regional Chair would work at Hamilton's City Hall. Stoney Creek, Ancaster, Dundas all had there own Town Hall. In 2000 everything got merged to Hamilton's City Hall and the Regional Chair disappeared, it's now Mayor of Hamilton. Halton Region still functions like this to this day.

So does Hamilton's city hall function as the county courthouse then, since they are one and the same?

[Steeltown]

Our courthouse got a massive renovation at the corner of Main and John St (former post office made into a courthouse), not far from City Hall. They deal with cases from all over Hamilton, Haldimand and Niagara Region as well.

[xzmattzx]

Another thing:

I had Alexander Keith IPA for the first time. My granddad got it at the duty-free shop. It's good but I'll take an IPA from Dogfish Head (A Delaware brewery) any day.

I'm getting the impression that each province has their own major beer. Labatt is for Ontario, Molson is for Quebec, Alexander Keith is for Nova Scotia. Is this kind of true? What are the beers for the other provinces?

[Steeltown]

Lakeport is from Hamilton and only serves Ontario.

I used to live in Nova Scotia and Keiths is very popular in my family haha.

[Jaybird]

Speaking of IPA's, I just sampled the Dogfish Head IPA 90 you gave me, xzmattzx, and I was impressed with the taste for an India Pale Ale. Although it would be tough to compare it to Alexander Keith's, which makes a good IPA, too. I will say I like both equally right now, although I have tasted Keith's a lot more. Thanks for the beers, btw, Matt. I'm having them this weekend at my cottage down in Erieau, near Chatham.

[will.exe]

I'm pretty sure Waterloo has the highest concentration of breweries in Canada (there are at least four within a few blocks of me).

[Steeltown]

I'm sure you've all heard the song already so tell me what you think this means....

"I'm bluffin with my muffin"

So far I've heard three different ideas what it could mean but I'm pretty sure I know what it means. But I'll let you guess first.

[Jaybird]

My guess would be Marvellous Muffins, I've seen those in malls before. But likely, it's not right.

[Steeltown]

How did you guys handle this snowstorm?

[vid]

I handled it by living 1,000 miles away.

[Jaybird]

By staying in the house all day.

[Steeltown]

More snow is to come! 10 to 15 cm, urgh. Looks like we'll need the American National Guards to help us dig out.

[vid]

Thunder Bay has these things called "snow plows", and they work pretty good.

[ssiguy2]

Well we are getting just as much out here but the difference is that we have almost no snowplows, people can't drive in it, and we have no sidewalk clearers.

I'd rather have a snowstorm in Ontario than BC any day of the week.

[vid]

Thunder Bay has enough snowplows to actually remove almost all of the snow from the city's roads and sidewalks in a week. Not just push it off to the side, but actually load it into dump trucks and dump it into an abandoned quarry outside of town to get it right out of the way. In a week.

If they didn't do that, though, eventually we'd have 10 foot snowbanks between sidewalks and roads and that really sucks for drivers, when you can't see around corners.

[Devil_Dice]

Yeah we don't really use snow plows in Toronto. Usually we just call in the Army as well. the rest of the country respects us for it!

[Steeltown]

We used to have those snow plows that suck up the snow and shoot it over to your front lawn. I liked those more than the snow plow, since it just moves the snow to block your driveway.

[vid]

You mean snow blowers? They're a lot slower than snow plows which is why they only use them in heavy snow falls.

Usually, our graters will use the extendable arm to clear off driveways they block, or at least set it so that it doesn't pile too much snow there. The truck plows that dispense sand and salt can't do that though, but they only use those when they really need to.

[ssiguy2]

Are there any snow blowers/collectors that actually have heaters at the base to help melt some of the snow collected so more can be put in the trucks?

[vid]

That would just make ice.

How they do it is:

Small front end loaders push the snow into the street (at 2am)
A few minutes later, a giant snow blower and a dump truck driving side by side go by, the snow is blown into the dump truck
When the dump truck is full it goes to the dumping area, and the truck behind it takes its place. Then it drives back to the end of the line.

They can clear my street (a mile long) in about and hour. It's really loud but fun to watch, especially when they're approaching my place and you can see the blades spinning. They probably won't do that for a while though, the banks aren't too big yet.