It’s 8 degrees in Toronto today, freakishly warm considering it’s the middle of January. Hooray for global warming!

.:.
I agree with this post on Torontoist: people from Ontario are being hypocritical about the hate they have on for this upcoming film about Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka. Serial killer stories — many of them based on true stories, as this one is — air on TV or come to theatres all the time, but this one seems inappropriate because it happened here.

.:.
You need to go read this post on Peace, Order and Good Government, Eh?

To counter the Conservative attack ads, which have been running for several weeks now, the Liberals have launched some of their own. Some people are lamenting this advent of American-style politics north of the border, but anyone who thinks they’ve only just arrived obviously doesn’t remember the conservative ad that made fun of Jean Chretien’s speech.

.:.
A bit bruised today after basketball, but not sore. We had 14 16 (thanks T-Bone) people out so there was lots of time to rest. Others weren’t so lucky though; pacman might’ve broken his jaw, t-bone hurt her back, I think I hurt somebody’s arm wrestling for the ball…it was a war of attrition out there. Still fun though.

.:.
I really don’t know why I bother wearing a tie. It’s so warm in the office that I just rip it off the second I get here.

We made some Winterlicious reservations today: beerbistro, Noce, and The Strip House. We’re still working on Canoe, of course*. Put these together with our upcoming (non-Winterlicious) visits to The Strand and Luce, we’ll be eating pretty well for the next month.

* For those of you who don’t know, Canoe is like my white whale. We always try to make reservations and it’s always booked; the one time we managed to get a table I had this work thing come up and I had to bail at the last minute. I don’t actually believe that Canoe exists anymore; I think it’s just a phone number and a website, both created to taunt me.

Rogers finally managed to turn on the few digital specialty channels I’ve been asking for: BBC Canada, BBC World, the Independent Film Channel and the Documentary Channel. I couldn’t remember what the fifth channel was supposed to be; feeling the pressure, I got the NHL Network.

.:.
Last night’s debate was a bit of a snoozer. Nothing we didn’t already know (except maybe Martin’s promise to get rid of the federal not-withstanding clause…it’ll be interesting to see how that plays out). They were all their usual selves: Harper was vaguely creepy, Martin was bumbly, Layton was ineffective and Duceppe…well, one wonders why Duceppe is even on the stage for a national debate? Anyway. I have to applaud Paul Martin for demanding an intelligent debate as opposed to character assassination, but I suspect that was defensive posturing rather than genuine moral outrage since he’s the one being assassinated.

.:.
Basketball’s back on tonight. Good; I need to work off some of the holiday festivities.

The “‘Assoc. of Hard Working & Decent People of the Greater Toronto Area“? What fresh hell is this?

[via TOist]

The main headlines on the issue of Toronto Life that arrived in the mail today are “Lust”, “Food”, “Politics” and “Condos”. I want to marry this magazine.

I finally got my mark back for the last course (the one that finished in November). Yeesh; build tension much? Not that I was worried — it was the IT course — but it would’ve been nice to know.

.:.
Still on the MBA: As you can see by the counter over there on the right, I’m now officially 1/3 done.

For the last month or so I’ve been trying to decide which charity I should give money to. I decided against the humane society — both my wife and I give them money each month (though I urge anyone out there who loves animals to give what they can) — but that left me with the tough decision of where to put the money. I couldn’t decide between a local problem that doesn’t get enough attention or a global problem that…well, doesn’t get enough attention. In the end I settled on one of each.

Half of my money went to the Stephen Lewis Foundation, the other half to Autumn House, a shelter for abused women near where I grew up. I was able to make both donations at once — surprising, given how different in scope and resources they are — using CanadaHelps.org.

Rick Segal (via Scoble) shares a very cool story about digital life.

Vince Carter, wonderbitch.

.:.
Hooray for c|net for getting into the whole “is gif pronounced ‘gif’ or ‘jif'” thing. People seem to be on the ‘gif’ (hard g) side…good; the ‘jif’ people drive me nuts. Now, to work on the “irregardless” folks…