This is the infamous roasted corn from Cafe Habana in NoLita. The ridiculously good looking server warned us that it would go “straight to the butt.” She was dreamy in that Lisa Bonet way. And so was this corn.

This is what happens when you take your dog to yoga class too often.

My camera takes grainy photos and Otis moves around quite a bit, so this is how the photo ended up.

If you don’t know what to ask for, just point at it and they will cook it for you. Although in hindsight we could have learned to say what we were asking to eat.

My friend Michelle was having issues transferring a document with footnotes from OpenOffice to Word. The issue was this: when a OpenOffice document is saved as a Word document, then opened in Word, the formatting of the footnotes is altered. This can be a really big problem if you are working on an academic paper.

Here is a workaround we found:

1. If possible, install the font you are using in Word in OpenOffice. Then use the same font in both programs (note: I haven’t found a simple solution for this yet)
2. Save the document in OpenOffice as a “rich-text” format (.rtf).
3. Open the “rich-text” format file in Word.
4. Re-save the file as a Word document (.doc). Then close the file.
5. Re-open the Word document.
   So, a quick re-cap:
   
   OpenOffice.rtf (rich-text format) >
   Word .rtf (rich-text format) >
   Word .doc (Word document) >
   Close document >
   Re-open document

6. By now, the footnotes should look pretty much the way they did in OpenOffice. If you need to do further formatting, go to Format> Reveal Formatting (Shift+F1)
7. Starting with the first footnote at the top, shift-select all of the footnotes.
8. In the “Reveal Formatting” panel on the right-hand side, click on whatever you need to change (this will probably be the “Indentation” link).
9. Review your results.

I was shocked to find the price of gas last night was $1.15 (I only drive about once a week).  However, now gas prices are at $1.17!

For everyone out there that drives in the GTA, you can gas up your vehicle based on MP Dan McTeague’s predictions.

Last month, before the Tokyo trip, I think I spent about three weeks straight making Pad Thai based on the advice of chez pim. Rice sticks, bean sprouts, fish sauce, and tamarind - yum.

This is the new addition to the revolving door of pets at casa Andres. This new addition disguises itself as a downy soft cockapoo puppy, but in actual fact is a pee soaked rug with teeth. It has yet to stop nipping and gnawing at everything in sight. I’m hoping to channel some Cesar Milan –exercise, discipline, then affection–but it all depends on how consistent the inhabitants are with enforcing their alpha maleness on the designer mutt.

This is a sign at the Uneo Zoo in Tokyo.

I love the bicycles in Tokyo. They’re a lot like the beater bikes you see in Toronto, except that they’re not twenty years old and rusting - instead they are shiny new bikes that only require flimsy locks in the bike-theft free world of Japan.

It’s kind of a cruiser-style shape without the bulkiness and weight.

Here is a detail of the locks that are most often seen on bicycles in Tokyo. They are rings that are attached to the back wheel and they “lock” the back wheel with a turn of the key.

Many bikes however, are totally not locked up at all.