Ottawa's Dandelion Festival

Funny piece from Larry Moran's Sandwalk blog, about Ottawa's annual Dandelion Festival:Every year in May there's a famous dandelion festival in Ottawa (Canada). People come from all over the world to see the millions of dandelions along the parkways and walkways throughout the city... The various governments in Ottawa take advantage of the dandelion festival to promote other festivals that are

Ottawa Tulips: 5,850 flickr photos and counting

We just added this great pic by local photographer Ray Pilon as our "Featured Photo" section on OttawaStart. It got us thinking: what are the most photographed events or locations in Ottawa?Here's what we found in a totally random sample of Flickr photos:ottawa maman - 493ottawa war memorial - 1,249ottawa war museum - 2,165ottawa byward market - 2,166 ottawa museum civilization - 2356 ottawa

OttawaStart's new Ottawa Golf Guide

Some housekeeping notes:Yesterday we introduced a new Ottawa Golf Guide on OttawaStart.We also renamed a couple of guides. The Traffic Guide becomes the Ottawa Driving Guide, and the Transit Guide becomes the OC Transpo Guide.As always, you can suggest great local web sites, blogs, etc. by visiting our Suggest A Site page.Related: Ottawa Sports Guide

Photos from the Police show

Check out these amazing photos of the Police show last night -- amazing because they were taken on a cell phone. Alec Saunders put his 5-megapixel Nokia N95 phone to the test, with great results.Related: Ottawa Music Guide

Cool Graffiti on Somerset

Check out some great photos today of graffiti on a wall on Somerset Street, from the Watawa life blog. Photographer Robin Kelsey shows us what happened after some old graffiti was painted over with beige...Related: Ottawa Photography Guide

Ask OttawaStart: How much tax do I pay when I fill up my tank?

We received this email from Tim, a visitor to OttawaGasPrices.com:"What is breakdown of the price per litre we pay at the pump? Specifically, how much is Provincial & Federal Tax?"That's a pretty common question these days as prices hover around the $1.20 per litre mark. The best answer we can find comes Fuel Focus, a web site created by Natural Resources Canada. The amount of tax varies from

It's snowing

The winter that never ends: the flurries are falling today, on April 30th.Related: Ottawa Weather Guide

Rant of the Day: 10 Things I Hate About Sparks Street

Here's a fun post from the Elgin Street Irregulars blog: Ten Things I Hate About You -- all about the Sparks Street Mall. Highlights:4. Wanna ride your relatively unobtrusive eco-friendly bicycle down Sparks? Pay a hefty fine.8. Remote regions of Antarctica have more exciting nightlife.9. Sadly, most distinctive Canadian feature is Tim Hortons.10. All street, no sparks.Read more... Related:

The 2008 Ottawa Bluesfest line-up so far

Here are the confirmed performers for the 2008 Ottawa Bluesfest so far:Alice SmithAngelique KidjoBalkan Beat BoxBrian WilsonCorb LundDonna SummerFeistFergieGina SicilliaGreat Big SeaHarperHiLoTronsInfected MushroomJakob DylanJames TaylorJully BlackJW Jones BandLes BreastfeedersMichael BurksNikki YanofskySecret MachinesSharon Riley & Faith ChoraleSoiréeSteely DanThe Black CrowesThe Cooper

Ottawa's $1000 ham

From Ottawa Citizen food columnist Ron Eade's blog, the tale of the $1,000 ham at La Bottega Nicastro:About six kilos of prized Iberico Spanish ham that arrived Friday at La Bottega Nicastro in the ByWard Market has all but sold out in less than 48 hours, despite its eye-popping price of $20 for 100 grams, owner Pat Nicastro tells me today. In fact, that single ham had a retail value of more

Rideau River water pics & video

Check out these great photos and videos from Alec Saunders, of high water levels on the Rideau River. In particular -- check out the videos of the falls at Hog's Back and Watson's Mill in Manotick.Related: Ottawa Nature Guide

Bob LeDrew dissects the mayor's media skills

Interesting reading today on Bob LeDrew's FlakLife blog: "Ottawa's mayor offers a clinic in how NOT to do media"Bob recaps all of the mayor's blunders since being elected in 2006, including his latest mix-up with the media over some comments his son made on a local blog. Says Bob: "With all of that, I have to shake my head in disbelief at the utter hash that Ottawa Mayor Larry O'Brien has made

The New Nepean?

We're hearing rumours today about a splinter group on Ottawa City Council that wants to de-amalgamate Nepean from the City of Ottawa. The group says growing displeasure from Barrhaven residents is fuelling the movement -- they've even drafted plans for a new Nepean City Hall, to be located off Jockvale Road. (Pictured above.) More details coming soon...Related: Ottawa Politics Guide

Reader mail: water pressure

Reader Derek Hayes writes: "My neighbor and I somehow got on the topic of residential water pressure. He maintains that it is considered "high pressure" coming out of the tap. My take on it is that although it is indeed pressurized, it cannot be called "high pressure". Could you tell me what the average household water pressure in Ottawa is?"We sent to the question to the Ottawa Library's "Ask A

Rant of the Day: The Snow Tax

Zoom has a post on knitnut.net titled "Mayor Larry's Snow Job":A snow tax! Can you believe it? As if we haven’t suffered enough this winter. Talk about adding insult to injury. I only heard about it a few minutes ago, but right off the top of my head, I have three problems with Mayor Larry’s proposed $50 per household snow tax. Read on...Related: Ottawa Politics Guide

Lots and lots of photos and videos of snow

Ottawa must have set a record today -- if not for the 51 56 cm snow over the weekend, then certainly for the huge number of videos and photos taken of the snow.Check out all the pics at flickr, and all the vids on YouTube.We also saw this note on the Ottawa Citizen's web site: "The Citizen's Digital Edition is available free to all readers today (Sunday, March 9, 2008) in light of difficulties

Ottawa's snow by the numbers

There's a great list of Ottawa snow stats on Forestdragon's Weblog. Keep in mind, these were all compiled before the apocalyptic snowfall this weekend. Some highlights:Number of days without snow: 25 Amount of salt used: 220,000-plus tonnes Amount of snow moved: 2.4 million cubic metres Latest recorded snowfall in Ottawa: June 27, 1950 Latest measurable snowfall: May 25, 1961, 2.3 cm Latest and

Guerilla Magazine: unordinary territories

There's a great collection of photos in the latest issue of Guerilla Magazine, featuring "ten outstanding photos of reimagined local territories" by students from the School of Photographic Arts Ottawa.Related: Ottawa Photography Guide

Rant of the Day: Dear Winter: I'm sorry. It's over...

Alison on the Party of 3 blog has a gentle rant about winter:Dear Winter, Although it hurts me to do this, I have to tell you that it's over between us. This relationship has gone on for too long now and I just don't feel the same way about you that I used to. Don't be sad, we had fun. Remember how it started off so romantically in December -- the long walks in the snow, the snowball fights, the

Rant of the Day: Richard Akerman on Ottawa's new transit plan

Check out Richard Akerman's take on Ottawa's new light rail plan. (Warning: swear words!)

Honestly, just call the train a tram, which is more accurate, and build the f*****g thing. Everyone's all "billions of dollars blah blah blah". We're the capital of a rich country, this is ridiculous.

So far we can't build:
* a new central library
* a new central concert hall
* a new tram-based rapid

Weather warning RSS feed?

Does anybody know of a Weather warning RSS feed?I know there are lot of weather forecast RSS feeds out there, but I've never been able to find something specifically for warnings/watches.If you know of one, please post in the comments!

Radio wars: Hot 89.9 spoofs Majic 100's tv ads

More vids here.Related: Ottawa Radio Guide

Lament for the 6th Round Pick

The Ottawa Senators made one trade today, acquiring Martin Lapointe from the Chicago Blackhawks in exchange for a 6th round pick.The fans over on HFBoards.com have a really funny thread going titled "6th Round Pick Appreciation Thread", lamenting the pick that the Sens will ever know."While it's true that we never saw the best of what you had to offer, let me be the first to give you a pat on the

Rant of the Day: PC Blue Menu Two-Bite Brownies

Megan rants about President's Choice Blue Menu Two-Bite Brownies. A sample:"Our great tasting PC Blue Menu products offer healthier options without sacrificing the flavours you love. The big blue menu on the front of each package shouts out why the product is a better choice so that making better choices is simple!"Yeah, if your choice is other Two-Bite Brownies, for sure. The Blue Menu version

CTV Ottawa relaunches web site

We're a few days late on this one, but if you haven't seen it yet, go check out CTV Ottawa's new web site. A big improvement over the old page, this one features local news updates and lots more.Related: Ottawa Television Guide

New baseball team: The Ottawa Rapids / Les Rapides

Ottawa's new baseball team will be known as the "Rapids" -- or "Les Rapides" in french. The unofficial Ottawa Rapids blog has lots of videos and photos from the big announcement earlier today.Steve Warne offers his thoughts on the new name here.Related: Ottawa Sports Guide

Valentine's in Ottawa: Romantic things to do & cheap food

Here are two quick Valentine's blog links for you:

First, David Scrimshaw offers his picks for the most romantic things to do in Ottawa.

Second, Lex offers lots of tips for eating out inexpensively.

Related: Ottawa Singles Guide

Rant of the Day: "Drowning in The Current"

Today's great rant comes from the Independent Observer on the ELgiN StreEt iRReguLars blog. It's a complaint about The Current, a daily program on CBC Radio. Here's a sample:I realize the men and women of the fourth estate must dutifully skulk among the dregs of our ailing global village, overturning slimy stones in an effort to expose the charlatans and evildoers of the age. But enough is

Map of all of Ottawa's outdoor skating rinks

Check out this great map showing the locations of all of Ottawa's outdoor skating rinks.Chris Taggart created the map, and says: "I just thought I'd point you to this Google Map of all the outdoor rinks in Ottawa. The list on the City site was pretty hard to figure out which rink was closest to my house, so I dropped them into a map. I thought it could also be helpful to your readers."Related:

Ottawa firefighter featured on "The Onion"

CBC had an interesting story today about Capt. Rudy Lindia, an Ottawa firefighter whose photo was used to accompany a fake news story on "The Onion".Lindia agreed to have his photo taken a few years ago, believing it would be used by the City of Ottawa (his employer) for publicity purposes. It ended up in the hands of a stock photo agency, which is where the Onion probably got a hold of it.Then

Recommended reading: King John of Canada

Just finished reading Scott Gardiner's King John of Canada. Set in the not-too-distant future, Gardiner tells the story about how Canada chooses a home-grown monarch to fix the country. It's a really fun read.King John solves all of the country's big problems -- Quebec separatists, Aboriginal issues, Canada-U.S. relations, and the Canadian Football League. He even mentions the future of

A brief history of Throop Photographic

Reader Ken Waplington writes:Re: Late local CTV Ottawa news(Jan 17/08). It was noted the closing of Throop Photo on Merivale Rd., sad! But in it's evolution, Throop Photo had an earlier life.When Westgate Shopping Center was opened on Carling Avenue, the shopping centre was touted as one of the largest & most modern in North Americal!Long before "Shopper's Drug Mart" was a concept or in existance

James Duthie: Ottawa could be Hockeytown

From James Duthie's blog:Recently, Sports Illustrated declared St. Paul Minnesota the new Hockeytown U.S.A, replacing Detroit. That angered folks in the 313 (which probably is not a good idea…I’m just sayin’). Throw Canada into the mix and you have an argument that will lead to either: a. A lively debate b. Canadian Civil War ...With puck passion so equally spread across Canada (and a couple

Nominate a local blog for the Canadian Blog Awards

Dani from Postcards from the Mothership asked me to highlight the Canadian Blog Awards (CBAs). They're accepting nominations until January 11th for Canada's best blogs in a number of categories.Some Ottawa blogs that I'll nominate:Best Photo Blog: Watawa Life. Photographer Robin Kelsey posts great photos almost every day. Most of them capture details from from around his neighbourhood in the

Remembering the 1998 ice storm

It was ten years ago this week that a massive ice storm crippled our region. Several web sites are looking back on the events with some great photos and stories. Here are some links:Ottawa CitizenHydro OttawaCBC Ottawa: photos, storiesCBC ArchivesEnvironment CanadaRelated: Ottawa Weather Guide

The Ottawa Flapjacks? New baseball team searches for a new name

Too bad we didn't hear about this until after the contest was finished: Ottawa's new Can-Am League baseball team -- the one that will replace the Lynx as the main tenant at Ottawa's baseball stadium -- held a contest last month to name the team. They had 500 entries, including the ones listed below on the league's web site:Alliteration is one of the favored themes and such names as the Ottawa

Loopholes in the idling bylaw

Miss Vicky has an interesting look at Ottawa's new no-idling bylaw on her blog, pointing out at least twelve exceptions that allow vehicles to idle without penalty.I thought I heard that idling at drive-throughs was also permissible. Does anyone know which one of the exceptions covers that?Related: Ottawa Traffic Guide

New Year's Eve fireworks

Ottawa had a big fireworks show downtown on New Year's Eve for the first time since New Year's Eve 1999. It was two fireworks shows, in fact - one just before 7:00pm and one at midnight.Ottawa photographers were out in full force. Here are some pics:Watawa LifeThrough the Broken ViewfinderFlickr: cynnerzFlickr: mintyfreshFlickr: LuciaBFlickr: ToriaURUFlickr: Klattu01Flickr: A2.Flickr: