Category: Toronto

Now then…can I use a lightsaber while I snowboard?

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The Queen (our home station) decal
Our home station

Four days since I last blogged. The hell is wrong with me lately?

A good four days it’s been though. Thursday night was spent partaking in one of my favourite pastimes: watching the Habs beat up on the Leafs. Friday we had dinner at Fieramosca, and came home to find our Wii Fit waiting for us. We considered setting it up that night, but the wine and limoncello we’d just consumed made us think twice. Ironically.

Yesterday was our get-crap-done day (capped off by an excellent meal and very nice 2004 Cab Sauv from New Zealand), freeing up today for brunch with our friend Cyndy and entertaining CBGBLB, who I think were just using us for our Wii. But they brought us chocolates* and convinced us to order pizza, so we didn’t mind. We also finally put up our TTC wall decals, courtesy of Walloper, which we think look pretty sharp.

I’ll be honest with you: the idea of staying home tomorrow to play Wii Fit and lightsaber duel kind of appeals to me more than the idea of going to work tomorrow.

* The chocolates were from Eat My Words. Very cool idea in support of the Steven Lewis Foundation, and a great gift idea. Check it out.

You guys hate animals, is that it?

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Those of you who got our Christmas ‘card’ this year knows that we did something a little different. Last year we opted not to send out a card, and donated the money we’d have spent on cards, stamps, etc. to a charity. This year we once again decided to make a donation, but we let the card recipients (it was a URL sent out by email) choose the charity. We left the poll open until a few days ago, and the results are in. You’ll have to imagine the drum roll for yourselves.

Christmas charity donation

As you can see, the Daily Bread food bank won with 35% of the vote, so they’ll be getting another donation from us to go along with the one we made for hohoto. Thanks to everyone who voted, and thanks to PollDaddy for the awesome free poll software.

Vacation = us

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Storm clouds acomin
Storm clouds a'comin

It was easy not to become part of yesterday’s mass hysteria, as “Snowmageddon” didn’t really affect me at all. It started snowing pretty much after I got to work, and ended before I left so I didn’t get snowed on. My commute home on the subway was the same as it always is, if a little more crowded. We spent our night indoors, eating filet mignon from Cumbrae’s, drinking a bottle of of 2003 Paolo Conterno Barolo and having chocolate from three different shops (Teuscher, Eitelbach andMoRoCo) for dessert.

Today we got up late and ran a couple of errands outside. It’s really quite nice out…bright, and pretty with all the snow, but a little windy. It was -23 with the windchill earlier but didn’t really feel it.

The only question now is how bad tonight’s snowstorm will be, and whether it’ll cancel our flight. We can see it coming up across the lake right now (see picture above) and it looks ugly. We’re not too fussed either way…if we have to wait until Monday to fly home it’s no big deal, we have lots of time and nothin’ to do.

Attention Toronto: brace yourself for more army jokes

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I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: this is why the rest of the country makes fun of us.

Now’s the time to call your boss and ask if you can either work from home or just take the day off tomorrow — anything to avoid driving through the storm that Environment Canada predicts is going to drop upwards of 20 centimetres of snow on Toronto and surrounding area.

Fer chrissakes, people. It’s winter. It’s Canada. It’s 8 inches of snow. Montreal doesn’t even send out the snowplows for that much. Hell, no one in Saskatchewan even bothers looking for a shovel if it’s less than a foot.

Find yourselves some (snow)balls.

Spicy chicken = biggie sized. If you know what I mean.

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The Distillery District

Today was very busy, and yet somehow very relaxing. I got a metric whack of Christmas shopping done, ate a Wendy’s spicy chicken sandwich (ohh…missed you SO HARD), bumped into my buddy Brad, met my new doctor (who is surprisingly young and alarmingly attractive), tried some yummy Costa Rican chocolate with roasted hazelnuts from Soma, bought some shirts at my new store crush Lileo, and generally enjoyed walking around the city, even if it was a little busy with shoppers. Even late on a Monday morning, I guess I have to expect that with less than three weeks ’til the big day.

A couple of observations:

  • I love my new winter coat. I am never cold outside (even venturing out on days like yesterday, which Tom Purves compared to a Shackleton expedition), but I don’t get warm when wearing it indoors. Note to Canadians: a winter coat is the wrong thing to skimp on.
  • There is a special layer of hell reserved for a) people who look one way and walk another in crowded environments; b) people who stop dead at the top or bottom of an escalator; and c) cashiers who cough violently into their hand just before they reach into the till to hand me my change. When I am king PayWave and PayPass will work everygoddamnwhere.
  • The Distillery District (see above) is a really lovely place, especially in the winter, especiallyespecially when they’re decked out for Christmas, and superespecially in the middle of a weekday when no one else is around.
  • Overheard in the PATH: Lady #1: “I have nothing in my wallet but I’m still going shopping.” Lady #2: “I have nothing in my wallet but I’m still buying a car.” Downturn? Quel downturn?

Tomorrow it’s back to work, but right now the most stressful thing I feel like doing is putting my undefeated Wii Tennis streak on the line.

But I like it bright when I do my dog-walking…

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Every night when we turn off the lights, it feels like there’s still a lamp on somewhere in our condo. The lights at Moss Park, nearly a kilometre away, are so bright that I wouldn’t be able to sleep in any room facing them without drawing the blinds. They stay on all night, whether or not anyone’s on the field. This seems like a colossal waste of energy.

I understand that maybe it’s a safety issue, to keep the park lit, but wouldn’t one stand of lights be enough?

Solferinoooooooooooooooo!!!

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Via BlogTo: Solferino enters the deadpool.

Solferino, rated by many as having the best gelato in Toronto slipped into the deadpool earlier this month. According to sources close to the owner, the gelateria couldn’t cope with rising food prices and increased rents in the St. Lawrence Market area. And with the always sluggish winter season approaching it was simply the right time to throw in the towel.

I have four words to say about this:

  1. Son
  2. of
  3. a
  4. bitch.

Yes, we use maple syrup like most people use ketchup

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This is one of the reasons I like living up so high.

.:.

Some people don’t seem to believe that I could get as stuffed as I claimed to be last night without having any turkey. Let’s just recap what I consumed:

  • Great Lakes Pumpkin Ale
  • mixed greens with apple, pear, candied pecans, goat cheese and a maple vinaigrette
  • mashed potatoes
  • maple-glazed carrots
  • peas
  • half an acorn squash stuffed with…well, stuffing
  • fresh rolls
  • 2004 Tatone Montepulciano
  • pumpkin pie

Quantities of food consumed: let’s just assume “copious” to be safe. Nellie outdid herself, and I paid for it with a distended (more than usual) belly.

This had better not be some terrible Stephen King movie

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Weird fog bank rolling into Toronto off of Lake Ontario in the middle of a bright, sunny day

That shot you see up there is of a weird fog bank rolling (very slowly) off of Lake Ontario, in the middle of a bright, warm, sunny day. You can see that it’s virtually covered the Toronto Islands. It stretches to the east up to the Scarborough bluffs; not sure how far westward down the lake it goes. Weird.

Anyway, it’s been another sweet day. I got a lot done this morning while Nellie slept. Hunger finally got the best of us and we tried a new neighbourhood place for the lunch: That Corner Spot at Front & Jarvis. It’s the fourth or fifth tenant in that location since we moved in, but we really hope it sticks. They have good beer (Amsterdam, Mill Street, KLB and others), good food (my veggie burger was excellent, Nellie’s breakfast was good and and they even got her eggs right…that never happens), good ingredients (everything’s purchased from St. Lawrence Market across the street) and good music (I heard Mogwai, The New Pornographers and Death Cab For Cutie among others). Oh, and a large sunny patio ideal for either people-watching or people-ignoring.

[UPDATE: we just heard a foghorn. That doesn’t happen on many days when there’s a blue sky.]

Final thoughts on Nuit Blanche

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  • David Topping at Torontoist has an excellent list of recommendations for how to improve next year’s event, including my favourite “Somehow Ban Trashed, Annoying People from Participating.” Also, you can tell by the article’s permalink that the original title was “The Nights Who Say Nuit” but I’m guessing the editor pulled that for excessive levels of nerd. 🙂
  • Another of Topping’s suggestions — Ban Non-Pedestrian Traffic — was echoed by Toronto Star columnist Christopher Hume. Pretty hard to argue with that, having seen a few people almost hit by cars and Queen Street ground to a halt anyway. Even leaving Richmond, Adelaide & Front open for cross-town traffic while closing off Wellington, Queen & King would help.
  • My Flickr traffic has gone through the roof in the last 24 hours, partly from native Flickr searches, and partly because Spacing Wire used one of my pictures.
  • Finally, while we could hear the rehearsals all week leading up to Nuit Blanche in the nearby park, and could also hear the early performances Saturday evening before we went out, we missed seeing Quixotic ourselves in St. James Park. It looked impressive too: how this performance at 5AM didn’t wake us up I’ll never know.