• Red Rocket for the iPhone - Only as Good as the TTC is at Staying on Schedule - Some tips on using the Red Rocket iPhone application (I love this app). I really wish that BlogTO would publish full feeds; I was reading this on a plane last night via offline Google Reader, and couldn't read the entire article but had to wait until today to get home, find the bookmark again, and click through to it online. This inconvenience does not make me want to do anything with BlogTO's advertisers, so not sure the justification for this.
• Which Tax-Free Savings Account (TFSA)? - Information on the new tax-free savings accounts that are coming to Canada in January.

Doug is doing a reading from the book on Sunday, November 30th at 12:30pm at the Metropolitan United Church at Queen and Church.

In addition to being my neighbour, Doug — through some weird cosmic coincidence — taught history at my high school, although a few years before I was a student there.

• CanLII - Canadian Legal Information Institute - Search publicly-available Canadian court documents online.

Joining the Canadian Navy at 17 during wartime, he was on Corvettes doing convoy escort duty in the North Atlantic, landed troops in Normandy during the invasion, circumnavigated Africa to enter the Mediterranean via the Suez Canal, landed troops in Sicily for that invasion, and covered a lot of other territory during his time in uniform.

At 11am, if you don’t have your own veteran to think about, think of him on parade, his medals proudly displayed, his knees undoubtedly hurting in the chilly air, and his thoughts likely on those who fell beside him.

I have to say, this is one kick-butt device. On the down side, it comes with 24 separate parts, one of which I managed to lose within the first hour (not essential, only a bowl scraper, probably went out with the packing material), but it does pretty much everything. Not just a blender and food processor, also a citrus juicer and a fruit/vegetable juicer, all using the same base motor with different attachments.

• The blender works extremely well, and hasn’t choked on anything that I’ve given it yet. I put bananas, soy milk and a tray full of ice in it, and it yields a perfectly smooth banana smoothie, all of the ice completely crushed. Although it looks smaller than the old KitchenAid, the capacity is actually more: the T-Fal has a plastic blender container, whereas the KitchenAid’s is glass, making it look bigger. The only flaw that I’ve found so far is that it leaked a bit out of the bottom when I left it in the fridge for a few hours with liquid in it; in the future, I’ll blend and move the contents to another container if they’re going to wait for a while before consuming. The blender does not come apart at the bottom, so I was surprised by the leak — it must leak around the blade shaft somewhere. Even though it’s all one piece, the blender is easy to clean, since the inside of the bottom is rounded so that food doesn’t get stuck beneath the blade.
• The food processor is huge compared to the old ShortCut: easily twice the capacity, which is nice because I often overfilled the ShortCut and ended up with the contents leaking over the top as it processed. You have to watch the order of loading the container when you’re using the chopping blade, however, since there’s a significant gap between the blade and the bottom of the bowl, and dry food can get stuck there if it’s added first. Adding wet first, then dry, seems to solve the problem. I’ve used the shredding disk on carrots, celery and onions and it does a good job, although like all other food processors that I’ve used, it does leave some larger chunks between the blade and the lid. I haven’t yet used the emulsifying disk (and I’m not even sure what to use it for) or the dough hook.
• The citrus juicer is a bonus; I’ve never had one of these before, and it makes two glasses of fresh OJ from 3-4 oranges in a couple of minutes, with only a couple parts to rinse for cleanup. This will definitely prevent scurvy around our household this winter.
• I haven’t yet tried the fruit and veggie juicer. I used to have an industrial strength juicer that worked well but was a huge pain to clean up afterwards; I rarely used it so it moved from the counter to a cupboard before I eventually gave it away. I’ll try this one out when I get the urge for some carrot juice.

I’m using the Vitacompact almost every day; in fact, yesterday, I used it four times: banana smoothie in the blender for breakfast, hummus in the food processor, orange juice from the citrus juicer, then blended the ingredients for a cranberry sorbet in the blender (that’s what leaked when I left it in the fridge for too long). I love the little suction cup feet on the bottom, which keep it from dancing around on the counter while running.

I’m still looking for the right place for it, however: since I’m using it so much, I prefer to leave it out on the counter even though the base takes up quite a bit of space, but there are so many attachments that I need to pack them away somewhere to keep them out of the way and keep them clean.

The usual price is about $C160, but I just found it on the Sears Canada site for $130. Or go ahead and use up those Air Miles that you’ve been saving.

• selfmassage.jpg (image) - Do-it-yourself mini Shiatsu massage

• » iPhone meets Red Rocket • Spacing Toronto • understanding the urban landscape - Hawt! A Red Rocket iPhone app for all your TTC schedules, including things like using the GPS capability to tell you when the next vehicle is due at your stop. Of course, it's based on schedules rather than the actual vehicle location, but that's the fault of TTC, not the app developers. After using it for a few minutes (and not even while in Toronto), the only suggestion I have is to incorporate the subway station maps from www.ttcrider.ca.

• Globe and Mail’s Discount Broker Rankings - G&M puts Qtrade at #1, but Canadian Capitalist favors TD Waterhouse. I really have to consider moving away from CIBC's price-gouging discount brokerage.

• The 12 Most Likely Rat-Free Restaurants in Chinatown - Not what you'd call the most encouraging title for a blog post. Sorry to see that Bright Pearl and Pho Hung are on the rat list, but I still have Rol San and Furama.

• BBC NEWS | Americas | Colin Powell backs Barack Obama - Wow.