I went to some Korean BBQ with John and the parents yesterday. I usually try to go at least once every time I come back home, a little ritual I’ve had since first year. Korean BBQ is a unique eating experience; the food one orders is brought for you in little trays, uncooked and marinated, and one cooks it on a round, embedded flame grill in the centre of the table. There are vents all the way around the grill to suck the smoke away from the food. We got the all you can eat deal, where they bring you as many beef strips, spare ribs, salmon strips, pork strips, chicken breasts, cow tongues, cod strips and cow liver as you want for $10.95. Even the all you can drink deal was only $1. I realized that they make their money by bringing smaller portions of the food to slow down one’s eating, letting the food sit in one’s stomach to get fuller faster, along with the fact that they don’t have to pay anyone to cook.
John kept opining on all of his eccentric political ideas, and it was only in the middle of dinner that I really felt I understood Julia’s attraction to him. One of the more interesting ideas was taking cigarettes out of the small business market and selling them exclusively in the LCBO. That eliminates the problem of underage smoking, since the LCBO is much more stringent in asking for identification than the local corner store. The problem would be that people would start going to Quebec for cigarettes, in the same fashion as alcohol, along with the fact that lottery tickets and cigarettes are the main staple of many convenience stores while almost all the other products are there for impulse shopping. If this were to happen, the LCBO would generate an even more income for the government, while reducing the number of kids addicted to smoking.
I also enjoyed his idea of having no summers for school, so that people could graduate from high school years earlier, since North Americans have fallen into the unneccessary habit of having a summer vacation over 150 years ago when the archaic act of harvesting crops was done. Of course, I didn’t completely agree since most people don’t have their brains developed enough for the concepts introduced university until at least their late teens, and such a curriculum would leave many people behind. So he brought up the idea of specialized, instead of standardized, schooling. That way each school would meet the needs of the students attending it, such as schools in farming areas having the flexibility of a summer vacation where it’s actually needed. In my opinion, something like this wouldn’t work too well for the credibility of the Ontario school system, since nothing is being too controlled, but there’s always the independent school “option” if parents can afford it. If the school system of Ontario is effective, however, then it should be able to prove itself and improve it’s own credibility, but an idea as theoretical as this would be extremely risky.
I never thought I’d say this, but John was a born politician, and I’ve never been more proud to be his friend.
