Category: Toronto

Crit!

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Last night the Toronto Criterium was held near our place. I had no idea it was planned until my friend Duarte told me on Wednesday. I didn’t even know what a criterium was. It sounds like the name of a Tool album.

Scheduling didn’t allow for much viewing time — I worked later than I’d planned, we had to get some dinner and then Nellie went to see Sex And The City with her friend Cyndy — but we did catch the first few laps of the pro/elite race. I thought it was cool how they just shut down a couple of city blocks like that on a Friday night and held a race. Granted, the people trying to get to the shops (and their homes!) on Front Street didn’t seem too pleased, but for the most part everyone seemed to enjoy it.

I threw a few more pictures up in a Flickr set if you want to see them. We didn’t have Nellie’s SLR with us, just my little point-and-shoot, so I apologize for the dodgy quality. Those riders were less blurry in real life, honest.

Anyway…I still think criterium sounds like a part of the human brain that sits between the hippocampus and the cerebellum.

[tags]toronto criterium, sex and the city movie[/tags]

Sunny! Breezy! Pleasant!

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Nice day so far. We slept in until about 10:00 (following yet another delicious, spur-of-the-moment dinner at Fieramosca last night), had a bit of breakfast and watched last night’s episode of Battlestar Galactica (gripping! exciting! sing-songy!) on the couch. The morning’s rain cleared off shortly after that, and off we went.

And whooooooeee, is it ever nice out there. Sunny and warm, but with a nice breeze too. We had lunch on the patio at the Jason George (well; I had lunch; Nellie’d already eaten her leftover pasta) and it almost got a little too warm. Also: when is smoking going to be banned on patios in Toronto? Whenever it is, it can’t come soon enough.

After lunch we walked along Front Street to Staples to pick up a filing cabinet (the one we ordered earlier in the week having been canceled for lack of stock). We checked out the eee PC laptop (tiny! adorable! sufficient!) that I want to get, but didn’t buy one, just getting a small desk/cabinet combo for Nellie. We brought that home and went back out to enjoy the day a bit more. Now Nellie’s happily putting together her new furniture and looking forward to dinner. See, I made the mistake of reading out the new beers on tap at C’est What (courtesy of Bartowel news) and once she heard “Church-Key Cranberry Wheat” her mind was made up.

[tags]fieramosca, battlestar galactica, jason george, staples, eee pc, c’est what, bartowel, church key cranberry wheat[/tags]

"Give me a Scotch. I'm starving."

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Nine hours of sleep was just what the doctor ordered, even if it did mean going to bed like lame old people around 11:00. Still, after the week that was and stuffing ourselves with beer and pasta at Smokeless Joe, we didn’t have a lot of energy.

This morning, though, I was well awake. After catching up on email & feeds I grabbed some bagels from St. Urbain, some pretzels from the farmer’s market and a cappuccino for Nellie in the hopes of luring her out of the bed. Not long after that we quit the condo in search of goods & services. We struck out on the household stuff (we need a filing cabinet, a humidifier and an air purifier, but the selection at Staples/Canadian Tire was lacking) but picked up some other stuff…hiking shoes for Nellie, sunglasses & jeans for me. Dropping those off at home, and loving the weather, we set out to find a patio.

The Jason George was packed, so we tried the Flatiron & Firkin instead. We sat down on the warm, sunny patio and ordered a beer. It did not suck (to wit: I actually said “This does not suck.”) to sit in the sunshine and drink a Rickard’s white. Then things started to go wrong: the sun went behind the clouds, which cooled things off. Then the wind came up, which made it downright chilly. Then our food arrived, but not the calamari appetizer we’d ordered. We ate our meal quickly; it got so cold Nellie actually had to switch seats and hide behind the wall to stay out of the wind. After we finished our meals (my veggie burger was awful, by the way…it was like a giant piece of carrot pressed into a hockey puck) the calamari showed up. I would have been more annoyed except that it was piping hot, and I was cold, so you do the math. I scarfed it and we got the bill…then waited around forever for the server to bring us our change. I wanted to leave a crap tip; Nellie would not allow it. No balls, that girl.

However, we would not let a little cold or bad service ruin our day. Stopping back at the apartment to get changed, we found a showtime for Iron Man (imdb | rotten tomatoes) at the new theatre at Yonge & Dundas and took off. First of all, the theatre: it was our first time (it only opened a month or so ago) and…wow. Seats: comfy, reclining and plentiful. Screens: fracking ginormous. Dizzying combination of screaming teenagers and spinning lights making the Paramount Scotiabank theatre so nauseating: absent. I think we have a winner. Iron Man was, as promised, very good. Certainly one of the best superhero movies to date, if not the best. Go see. Fun for the whole family.

After that we just had a little time for a walk, then back home to relax a bit, make dinner and watch another movie. More on that tomorrow. For now…more sleep.

[tags]iron man, flatiron and firkin[/tags]

Look at all the people running! How inspiri-zzzzzzz…

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The Sporting Life 10k route ran past my building today. Around 8:30 I heard the Chariots of Fire theme song (seriously…on loudspeakers) and looked down to see all these runners streaming down Adelaide. I took a few pictures, which were awful; thankfully Nellie got out of bed and took some proper ones.

The shot below was taken straight down from the corner of our balcony, to the intersection of Church & Adelaide.

More pics at my flickr account.

[tags]sporting life 10k[/tags]

Stupid Denmark

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Well, that was a fun day. Once again, with no TTC, we left early to get to the Bloor Theatre for our documentary. It was another beautiful day so we were happy to stroll and take a couple of pictures along the way, like this one of a billboard desperately in need of grammar checker…

…and this one of a very cheeky sign on St. George, on the U of T campus.

We were hungry and thirsty by the time we reached Bloor, so we stopped in at the Brunswick Avenue Pump for some food and a cold beer. Nellie got a Hoegaarden, which is always awesome, ’cause she has to hold the giant glass like a sippy cup.

After finishing up there we still had a few minutes to spare, so we backtracked to COBS Bread to pick up some tasties for the evening. Nellie got a cinnamon bun to eat in the line, and I got some kind of giant apple thing for after dinner. It was in a big box, so I asked them to hold it there for me. Off we went to get in line, and a few minutes later we were in and watching the doc.

Hold Me Tight, Let Me Go (hot docs) was our last doc, on the last day of the festival. It was a very interesting topic — troubled, violent British kids (and I mean violent…kicking, punching, spitting, stabbing, using words that would make sailors blush, etc.) at a special school — but the film itself wasn’t that impressive…I saw no arc, no narrative, no depth. The teachers, which probably isn’t even the right word for them, must surely be the most patient and calm people in the world; it would have been very interesting to see how they cope when they’re alone for a few minutes after dealing with those kids all day. So not a bad documentary by any means, but I wanted more than I got. It was a BBC doc; I suspect it was turned into a series at some point.

We left the theatre and went back to COBS. As soon as we got there the girl who’d sold me the apple thingy gasped and covered her mouth…she’d given away my dessert. Or sold it. Or gave it to the staff. I’m not sure what happened exactly, but it wasn’t there. No big deal; it’s not like I was dying for the apple dealie, but she apologized profusely, refunded my money and offered to give me anything I wanted, so I took a couple of croissants. I figure that’s what the pastry gods intended; who am I to question divine will?

We began walking home, but around Harbord and Queen’s Park it got a bit cold so we flagged a cab. Actually, we only half flagged it; it was too bright to see if the sign was on or off, and from a distance there appeared to be someone in the back. However, he pulled over and we jumped in. What we saw in the back window turned out to be a pillow, in the shape and design of a globe. Here’s how the conversation went from there:

  • Driver: I have a proposal for you.
  • Us: [dubious] Okay.
  • Driver: I’ll ask you one question, and if you get it right, your ride is free.
  • Us: [laughing] Shoot!
  • Driver: You have thirty seconds to answer. Ready? OK. What’s the capital of Nigeria?

I struggled with the answer, getting close to Lagos but not quite reaching it. As it turned out, Lagos is the biggest city but not the capital, so it didn’t matter. He gave us another chance, asking us for all 13 Canadian provinces and territories in alphabetical order, in 30 seconds. I think we could’ve gotten it, but he sped up the clock a little. The he told me to ask him a question, and we went back and forth. I got close to guessing a few (all the states bordering Canada, but forgot about stupid Minnesota; languages spoken in Singapore but I couldn’t think of Tamil; countries bordering Germany but only got 8 of 9) but this guy answered everything…African countries bordering Lake Victoria, north-to-south order of former Soviet breakaway republics, states with coasts on the Gulf of Mexico, the island between Baffin Island and Ellesmere Island, and piles of others. He even knew the names of the island chains between Tiera del Fuego and the Ross Ice Shelf; I had no idea some of the islands there are called the South Orkneys.

I asked him if he was a geography major or something; he told me he’s famous and began handing me laminated copies of press clippings about him. He actually calls himself Mr. Geography and his offer was for real…if you answer his question, your ride is free. He gave me his card and let us take his picture. I got out of the car laughing and smiling and smarter, and don’t even remember the ride home (I had my nose buried in an atlas trying to stump him). Best cab ride ever.

Quite a day. And the capital of Nigeria, in case you’re curious, is Abuja.

[tags]ttc strike, hoodia, brunswick avenue pump, cobs bread, hold me tight let me go, mr. geography, abuja[/tags]

A little transit strike with your coffee?

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There were some last-minute warnings last night from news outlets about a surprise TTC strike; this morning, lo and behold, the operators walked off the job at midnight. The mayor is royally pissed, as he should be; he’d asked for 48 hours of notice before any strike, but the union made up some bullshit story about fearing for the drivers’ safety in the face of angry commuters. ‘Cause, you know, a snap strike will have us feeling all kumbaya when the Premier forces you back to work (as he’s expected to do) in the next couple of days.

Transit expert Steve Munro has a lot more to say on his site, but the general feeling right now seems to be that the union has played this one very poorly indeed.

On a personal note, given that we live downtown it shouldn’t really be a big deal for us to get around anywhere, including up to the Bloor Theatre later for a documentary (looming thunderstorms notwithstanding) so it’s only a mild inconvenience for us. Not like the thousands of club kids who came downtown last night with no warning that their ride home would throw a hissy at midnight.

[tags]ttc strike[/tags]

Things I realized today

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment
  • Quickest way to make friends with the neighbourhood homeless guys: take pictures outside at night. Like moths to a flame.
  • I can write a 4-page marketing assignment in one day if I need to, even if I couldn’t possibly care any less about it.
  • Enough people listen to the request show on my old home town’s community access radio show via the web that the server was choppy. Also: requesting Nicole Atkins and The Thermals will probably confuse the locals; they did come hot on the heels of a request for “Every Rose Has Its Thorn” by Poison. Thanks for playing them anyway, Andrew.
  • Seeing the Canadiens finish first in their conference is surreal. The last time this happened was 1989, and I wasn’t even that into hockey yet (it hit me two years later), so it didn’t mean that much. Now, after watching them struggle for so long, it’s just…weird. Nice, but weird. Come Wednesday (or Thursday?) I’ll be so amped up I won’t care about my next marketing assignment.
  • I’d pay somebody $100 if I didn’t have to go to work tomorrow.
  • It may have been 11 degrees somewhere in the city, but down here by the waterfront, t’wasn’t.

[tags]parrsboro, nicole atkins, thermals, canadiens, toronto weather[/tags]

[Journey] "When the lights…go out…in the city…" [/Journey]

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

OK, it wasn’t quite that dramatic — this is a camera effect, not reality — but Earth Hour was at least noticeable from our balcony. We had CBGB over to observe the darkening, and while the effects from here weren’t as dramatic as if we’d be airborne, we could see the difference. Toronto even exceeded their 5% power reduction target.

Nellie was struggling to get good night shots — she still needs a decent tripod — but a few turned out. You can see them over at my flickr account.

[tags]earth hour, toronto[/tags]