Category: Toronto

Do you WANT me to move to Montreal? Because I will.

Dan Dickinson

Reading the phrase “Rob Ford’s mayoral candidacy” just caused me to do that weird thing you see in movies, where someone starts out laughing and ends up crying, all in one breath. You know? You know that thing? ‘Cause I just did that.

The [road tolls] issue undoubtedly gives a big boost to Ford’s mayoral prospects, as it rolls his two pet peeves into a single, politically explosive package: taxes and the persecution of drivers. The unthinkable campaign—Rob Ford for Mayor!—has taken a giant leap toward reality.

From Toronto Life’s City State blog

[tags]rob ford, toronto, toronto life, city state, philip preville[/tags]

In which my vocabulary returns to the 80s. Rad.

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Awesome: Stephen Colbert’s plundering of the Hockey Night In Canada theme song.

Awesome: Bigger sidewalks on Bloor. (Less awesome: lack of bike lanes)

Awesome: watching Portugal play football. Since I cheer for no particular team I just like watching skill, so the game today was like watching a group of painters at work.

Awesome: the weather. Perfect. An ideal June day.

Awesome: being 95% done.

[tags]stephen colbert, bloor street, portugal, euro 2008, toronto weather[/tags]

A double rainbow at sunset

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Now there’s something you don’t see every day. Unfortunately I only had time to grab the little point-and-shoot, which didn’t handle the lighting well. By the time Nellie got to her SLR the rainbows were pretty much gone.

[tags]toronto, rainbow, sunset[/tags]

I realized two minutes later that it was "balcon"

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The warm (and by warm I mean screaming hot) weather has made for a very fun 18 hours. After leaving work yesterday I arrived home to a barbeque in progress with Nellie and CBGB. We made veggie burgers and drank (among others) Bavarian Weissbier and took solace in the cool breeze on our balcony. Sometimes that breeze was almost too much; at one point it blew some Tostitos out of the bowl and sent them skittering across the balcony. After our guests left we cleaned up (barely) and watched Battlestar Galactica. Getting! So! Good!

Nellie had to get up early for a hair appointment, so I used the morning to clean up (read: recycle the beer bottles), catch up on my news addiction, run some errands, buy more of that weissbier and take some pictures of all the puppies down the street at Woofstock.

Playing with dogs is good for the soul, even if my cats did look at me askance when I got home. Now I’ve finished off the list of little things that I need to get done before settling in for a long afternoon of MBA and Euro. Life could certainly be worse.

[tags]weihenstephaner hefeweissbier, battlestar galactica, woofstock, euro 2008[/tags]

Hey cool, they're doin' it ag…oh, no, wait, that's kosher

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I looked out my window this morning and noticed two things about the Gardiner Expressway: 1) there were no cars on it; 2) there were bicycles on it.

My first thought, following Friday’s guerrilla action was, “Another protest? Already?” But then I noticed the number of bikes and lack of police (and honking motorists) and figured it must be on the level. In fact, it is the annual Ride for Heart.

There’s something refreshing and absurd about seeing all those bikes meander down that paved monstrosity. It should be like this every Sunday.

[tags]gardiner expressway, ride for heart[/tags]

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]