Prairie Post

Prairie Daily

Mouse in Saskatoon guy’s naan bread bag, Calgary’s Bow tower and Peace Bridge make top 10, Winnipeg museums brace for cuts, Regina guys behind ski-bike, and Edmonton artist crashes Schwarzenegger premiere.

First off: Good morning, albeit just. It’s been a while since I’ve written the Prairie Daily. It’s a real pleasure.

Screen shot 2013-01-16 at 10.43.23 AM

“There is a live rat in there”

Rizwan Qureshi, a Saskatoon man, bought some Tandoori naan bread (the news story says it was crispy, traditional style) from the Swadesh Super Market on Tuesday, and, after arriving at his home with said grocery item, allegedly found a live mouse squeezed between the bread and the packaging.

He taped what is quite visibly a live mouse in a naan bread bag on his iPhone, but there’s some debate over the science behind what Qureshi’s claim. A source more familiar with heat-seal packaging than most told investigating news source, CTV Saskatoon, that there’s no way a mouse could survive the process.

It’t not clear what Qureshi wanted out of the allegation: Free bread? Money?

If there’s an interesting update, we’ll be on it.

Calgary buildings get top 10 nod

Calgary’s The Bow skyscraper and Peace Bridge made the cut for two spots in Azure Magazine’s top 10 most interesting building projects of 2012. Calgary was the only Canadian city to make the list.

The Peace Bridge opened in March 2012 to accomodate foot and biped traffic over the Bow River. I’ve never been, but the bridge does, indeed, look architecturally interesting, especially for a public space.

Click here for some stats on bridge.

peace-bridge

The Bow skyscraper, besides being home to energy companies large enough to crush most people reading this, was completed in 2012, is 1.7-million square feet, and is the tallest tower in Calgary. It was fashionably designed with energy sustainability in mind. Most notable is its curved design, which allegedly best utilizes available sunlight for heating its insides.

6084276992_2365eb5698_z

 Edmonton’s Colleen Brown asks for money at Los Angeles film premiere

Edmonton artist Colleen Brown allegedly crashed the Los Angeles premiere of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s latest “film,” The Last Stand, on Tuesday asking guests to give her money through crowd-funding website Indiegogo. She is hoping to raise $15,000 for her new album, Major Love. Few details were released about the event Edmonton Journal says she disturbed, but it was reported that she is short of her goal. So, if you’re a fan and want to help out, click here.

 The ski-bike

The ski-bike. If you can read and have an imagination vivid enough to picture a set of skis on a bike frame, then I think writing any more on this awesome invention would be redundant. But, alas.

9ecb486a44039556ece85f1e1ee4

Regina’s Andreas Moser came up with the ski-bike idea about two years ago and has since been honing the hybrid with fellow inventor Zach Shattenkirk. Both maintain the activity of replacing your bike tires with short skis and sliding down a mountain is “exhilarating.” We agree that it must be exhilarating, and hope the product and activity catches on.

 Winnipeg museums brace for funding shortage

Winnipeg-based Children’s Museum, Manitoba Museum, and St. Boniface Museum are, with baited breath, waiting for the City’s decision on a proposed operating budget that would see their funding cut. The proposed changes focuses available money towards “core” municipal areas, and Coun. Russ Wyatt told Canadian Press that the museums don’t make the cut.

manitoba-childrens-museum-winnipeg-mb614

If the museums are forced to survive with less grant money, some will have no choice but to discontinue some now free programming and access.

Coun. Paula Havixbeck opposes the changes, suggesting some of the $40,000 added to each ward budget could be funneled towards topping up available grants.

_____

Toban Dyck is a writer/editor/farmer. Follow him @tobandyck.

For more follow us @spectatortib.