SteveN

My parents' 50th wedding anniversary is coming up next May, and I am having trouble thinking of what to get them. My current plan is to arrange to have them go on a week long cruise.

But here's my dilemna... My mom hates to fly. She's done it only once and refuses to go again. So I have to look at cruises that start and end near where I live, namely Canada and New England.

And with a cruise, my dad is not the type to use the pool, or go to the spa, or stuff like that. His outings are mainly shopping and food.

So here's my two questions:

1) Do you think that a cruise for two seniors would be enjoyable and they would have enough things to do on and off the ship? I'm reluctant to spend $3K-5K on the cruise if they may get bored and not enjoy after 2-3 days. Are there other retirees that have taken the Holland America cruises between Montreal and Boston who can give some insight?

2) If not a cruise, what else? What are some things you might consider doing for your parents on such a significant anniversary?

According to a recent ranking that will put CapitalGentleman more at ease, the Yukon is the safest place in Canada to survive a zombie apocalypse.

https://ca.news.yahoo.com/alberta-survive-zombie-a...

Many organizations use "zombie outbreak" as a hypothetical event to see how ready people are to survive more realistic disasters, and could easily be replaced with "flood", " tsunami", "wildfire", and others.

So in the event that a zombie outbreak were possible, what are your thoughts regarding surviving such an event in your part of the country?

My golf buddies and I are looking at heading down to Myrtle Beach (SC) for a golf getway at the end of our regular golfing season, which will be around October. With over 90 golf courses to choose from in the Myrtle Beach area, it makes for a challenge to select a few that we should consider playing.

What I would like to know are two things:

We are a foursome with most of us playing in the 95-105 range on a par 72 course. We want something that does not try to cram in loads of golfers and keep telling you to hurry up. We are not necessarily slow, but if the course has mainly scratch golfers and we have 20+ handicaps, we don't want to annoy and upset them.

The other thing is if there are recommendations for a hotel or condo in the area that is clean and not too expensive.

If you have any personal experiences with these places (good or bad), that would be appreciated.

I've tried various different restaurants in the Montreal area, but I have not really found a good place that serves British-style fish and chips. What I mean is a healthy chunk of fish in a beer batter, with french fries or thick-cut homestyle fries.

If anyone can make some suggestions for the Montreal area, I'd appreciate it. Thanks.

Unless you've been living under a rock somewhere, you've probably heard or seen the pictures about the Deep Horizon oil rig that exploded and sank, resulting in millions of gallons of crude oil leaking out and polluting the Gulf of Mexico. The latest news was that the top kill failed, then they cut the pipe, then they capped it, but it appears to still be leaking crude as much as ever.

As most people I'm sure, I have grown more and more frustrated at the ecological disaster and the damage to people's livelihood.

Knowing that Yahoo! readers are from all walks of life and have all sorts of careers, what would YOU do to try and stop this leak?

Here is my proposal. There are companies in the world that make huge industrial valves. When the valve is fully open, it lets anything flowing go through unihibited. Why can't BP get one of these valves, put that on instead of a cap. Once it is positioned, the oil will flow through it while underwater robots weld the valve in place. Then they can shut the valve much like shutting off a tap at home. If the see a leak, they open the valve again, complete additional welds or repairs, then start to shut the valve again.

The only question mark for me is the existing pipes that BP used. If we installed a valve and closed it, would the pressure of the oil inside be such that it would rupture the pipe or blow the valve off the end?

What would be your ideas?

After hearing about the massive iceberg (twice the size of Manhattan) that is being observed off the coast of Australia this week, it started me thinking again about water shortages in parts of the world, and what might be done about it.

Several years ago (circa 1977) Time magazine published a report by several scientists that were looking at the idea of roping icebergs and "pulling them" by boat to certain areas that need them, where they could then be carved up and shipped to areas that need the water.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,9...

More recently, in the North Atlantic, the oil & gas industry have started roping icebergs and pulling them out of harms way, so they do not come dangerously close to oil platforms and shipping lanes.

http://www.athropolis.com/arctic-facts/fact-berg-t...

The Australia and the southern tip of Africa are both not too far from the Antarctic coast, where icebergs are often breaking off. Icebergs from Greenland or the North Atlantic could be roped and dropped off next to Morocco or Western Sahara, starting a new industry that divides the iceberg and transports chunks of it inland. If ground transport is too costly, perhaps an African pipeline carrying freshwater from melted icebergs could be achieved, similar to oil & gas pipelines across Canada and Europe. The iceberg is dropped off the coast, an industry grinds up the iceberg and drops the ice into the pipeline in Morocco, and it melts and comes out the other end as fresh water at reservoirs in Algeria, Niger, Chad, and the Sudan.

Australia could set up an iceberg crusher near Perth or Melbourne, and pump the resulting slush water inland to places that could use it.

These are just thoughts, and probably still out of a sci-fi novel or movie. But what do you think of this? And do you know any industries that may already be trying something like this?

I have a little science experiment that I am curious to know if it is possible and how it might be accomplished. No, this is not for school, I'm just thinking of ways thing work. Too much exposure to "How It's Made" and "Mythbusters" shows I guess.

Here's my issue. Let's say I have metal plate (Plate A) that is ferromagnetic. On another plate (Plate B), I have a normal earth magnet that is "normally" attracted to Plate A.

What I would like to do is pass an eletric charge through Plate A which would reverse the magnetic charge and force Plate B to jump away from Plate A...much like when you have two magnets that will be attracted to each other when they face a certain way, but are repelled by each other if you flip the magnet over.

What would you need to do to Plate A to cause that reaction?

Forbes recently released a new survey of the most "well-liked" countries in the world, and Americans will be happy to know that USA moved up six spots to the top of the list. Congratulations to our neighbours to the south!

Unfortunately, as a result of USA's success (and in part our own failures), Canada has dropped three spots out of the top five to #7.

My questions are:

- Do you think this will affect Canada's tourist trade in any way?

- What are some ways you think we could improve our identity and make ourselves better known internationally?

http://ca.travel.yahoo.com/guides/Other/776/worlds...

In past elections, the party leaders were usually focused on telling you what they could do better than the other guy if they were elected. The smear campaigns would come out when the parties got desperate and wanted to paint the other candidate in a negative light. But this election, it seemed to start right from the beginning, with the Conservatives, NDP, and Liberals attacking each other.

I think that this type of campaigning is actually harmful to the group that condones it, and it causes me to lose respect for the party leaders that do it. It is especially shameful of the Conservatives for constantly bashing the Liberals just because they are the next closest in the polls, and I think it may come back to haunt them.

So I ask you, do these types of ads affect your decisions in any way?

Here is one from that I found that gives an example:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12UBBAgASis&feature...

We all know how infamous spam emails are in today's internet age. It is estimated that 40% of all emails sent each day is spam (over 12 billion!) and that about 8% of people actually buy something from a website advertised in spam emails.

There are many reasons why someone would send spam, including trying to sell reputable products, trying to sell non-reputable products, for phishing or fraudulent purposes, and even just to see how many mailboxes that they can reach.

However, my question is why would anyone buy from someone who uses spam tactics to sell a product? At the very best, you are helping to contribute to the reason spam exists and works. At the worst, you could be ripped off, or sold fake or dangerous products!

Have you or someone you know ever purchased from a spam email? And if so, what made you decide to do so? And what is your normal policy toward spam? Do you have an anti-spam filter and use it? Do you ever reply to spam emails?

As a person that works in computers all day, I would like to here other people's thoughts on this.I get almost 300 spam emails a day, 99.9% of which are immediately filtered out and discarded so I never even see them.

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/reuters/071110/tecnolog...

According to Reuters, Toyota recently announced it would be looking at customer demand for an all-electric version of the Prius. The question they are asking is whether the North American public would buy such a car. We are so used to cars that can go really fast or we drive around in a SUV because we think bigger is always better.

So if you could get an electric vehicle that was capable of the following:

1) Can reach speeds of 55mph (100km/h)

2) Can go 300 miles (500km) before needing to be recharged

3) Costs between $24K-36K

Would you buy one and why?

Also, keep in mind that GM actually already had an all-electric vehicle in 1996 when they brought out the EV1 by Saturn. But for "various" reasons they scrapped it (literally crushed brand new cars).

Check out "Who Killed the Electric Car?" at your local video stores for more info.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0489037/

A Quebec separatist has criticized Montreal Canadiens captain Saku Koivu for not speaking French during a recent introduction he did of his teammates.

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/montreal/story/2007/10/31...

Do you feel that a player on a sports team should be required to speak the language spoken in that city? In Montreal, language is always a hot topic. I think understanding and using the language is probably favorable, but should it be mandatory?

Would that not lead to some players being unable (due to laws) or unwilling to play for certain teams because they will be felt unwelcome?

Does M. Bertrand want the best players on Quebec teams so we have an equal chance at the Stanley Cup, or does he just want the best francophone players and who cares if we compete or not?

If we can choose Evgeni Malkin or Alexandre Picard in the NHL Draft, do we pick Picard because he speaks French even though the Russian has more potential?

I will be heading to Bathurst, New Brunswick in two weeks and it will be my first trip to the Maritimes. I'd like to know a few suggestions for things to see while I am there. Do you have a restaurant in the area to recommend? Any local foods I should sample? I'm coming from Montreal, so I'm thinking along the lines of local maritime foods. Also anyone know if there is any construction on the highway along the way that I should worry about.

Currently, my only side trip will be to pop up to Gaspe to visit Perce Rock.

Montreal has some of the best international cuisine in the world, and I occasionally go to Lebanese and Iranian restaurants in the area. These restaurants serve two things that are delicious that I would love to get for my home.

First, on the basmati rice, they offer Sumak (or Sumac), which is a brown spice with a lemony taste to it.

Likewise, at the end of the meal, they offer you this really smooth and mellow tea that has no bitter aftertaste. I was told it was "chai" tea, but the only chai tea I have ever tasted was overpowering with the taste of cloves.

Does anyone know a good place to purchase either the Sumak or the tea in the Montreal area?

Or if not, is there a company that offers regional spices like this on a website that delivers to Canada? Thx.

Nepotism is where a company hires a person because they are a relative of an existing employee. In other words, if you and I were competing for a job and we were equally skilled, I would get the job because my father works at the company.

A recent story in the news at Yahoo! has a man complaining of nepotism at a mine in Newfoundland:

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/16062007/3/canada-fathe...

My question to you is whether you feel it should be illegal. If so, how would you enforce that?

If two candidates were equally skilled, would it not make sense to choose the relative of an existing reliable employee, since you already know them and are hoping that this honesty and reliabilty is true of their whole family?

I thought this is how most businesses work, so I am not sure what recourse this fellow has. What are your thoughts on this?

Four years after he was tortured in a Syrian prison, a Canadian resident (Maher Arar) has finally received an official apology and $10.5 million in compensation from the Canadian government for its role in the affair that caused him to be deported by US Immigration to Syria. He was detained and tortured there based on false information supplied to US officials by the Canadian government.

Regardless of right or wrong in the Arar case, here is my question:

If you knew you might be deported to a middle-eastern country to face torture for one year, but there was a high probability that you would get a $10M settlement for injustice upon returning, would you still go to?

Further to that, what would you do with the money afterwards? Would it be used for personal gain, helping to make a better community, or for revenge?

Does anyone know the regulations concerning telemarketing in Canada? I received an automated call this morning (at 9AM Saturday) from a home cleaning service waking me up after working until 3AM.

I have checked the CMA website, Better Business Bureau, and Quebec government websites and here is what I understand.They are not supposed to call you before 9AM on weekdays, 10AM on weekends. However I think the rules apply to CMA members and they are voluntary - guidelines but not actual laws.

I'd like to know if the automated dialing services are legal, and if anyone knows of more information on direct marketing and telemarketing rules in Canada.

I put myself on the Do-Not-Call list last year and it did not help, even though it is supposed to reduce calls for 3 years. I just did it again today - suspect that is not really a helpful tool and we need actual legislation to enforce it.

I have a 2001 Saturn that just started to have an interesting problem. It is really cold out (-10 celsius or more) as of yesterday, and when I was on my way home from work, I went to clean the salt from my windshield, and the wipers went up and started to work, but were only inching up a bit at a time. They stopped halfway up and would not move further. I thought something may be frozen, so brought it into my heated garage overnight. This morning, they moved fine in the garage and for few minutes after, then after 10min on the highway, they started acting up again. The fluid is not frozen, squirts fine and is -45 rated. The motor sounds like it is trying to move the wipers and I see minor pressure on them, they just dont go smooth. Any ideas?

I'm taking it in to my dealer tomorrow to have them check it, but wanted to see if anyone else heard of this behavior or had to have their GM car fixed for same issue. I'll let everyone know the solution when I hear from the garage.

My mother is afraid to fly, so to let her see what happens, I recently took a short video with my Canon Powershot during takeoff from LAX.

Unfortunately, I took the video from the side window over the wing and I rotated my camera sideways. When I got home and tried to upload and show the video on my PC, I found that it was recorded sideways (as expected) and that I could not rotate it like I had done with my still images (not expected).

Are there any software packages that come with Windows or shareware that will do this? I could not find the option in Windows Movie Maker.

We have a forced-air furnace that we use year round to either heat or cool the house. In the summer months, it pumps cool air from a central air system. In the winter, it switches to heat by oil.

This year when we started the heating cycle, we noticed that we now get a hissing sound from our computer speakers, snow on one of the two TV screens, and noise on the home phone line. This only happens as the furnace fan cyles off (ie. as it is coming to the end of its blowing cycle).

Weird thing is the PC speakers are plugged into an isolated and protected circuit, so I am pretty sure it is not a surge or drain issue within the power lines. My first guess was some cabling is passing too close to the furnace and receiving electromagnetic interference.

Just wondering if anyone has had something similar and what they may have had to do to correct it. Thx.