Category: Toronto

"I left my thimbles and socialist reading material at home."

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

.:.

Wow, three days without blogging. That’s probably a record. I can explain: busy Friday, busy Saturday and today I feel like ass.

Friday I was at work until about 7:30, and by the time I got home all I really had the energy to do was eat and watch Friday Night Lights and The Wire.

Yesterday we intended to see There Will Be Blood but when we got to the theatre we found that the new Eye Weekly film listings had lied to us. No wonder Torontoist hates them. No other showtimes worked so we had one last meal at the Biryani House in Roy’s Square. It’s closing in two weeks (moving just around the corner onto Hayden Street) to make room for 1Bloor. Mmmmm…samosas and pakoras and shrimp masala…tasty. After lunch we walked back down Church street, cleaned up a little and waited for CBGB to arrive. They joined us for dinner and a couple of tasty drinks at Smokeless Joe (hence the picture above), then back at ours for a bit.

All was going well until I woke up this morning stuffed up, with a sore throat and a pounding sinus headache. Last night I had nothing; by this morning I was deep in the throes of a cold. Shitty. I feel very unpleasant right now. As such we did next to nothing all day; I have no energy. My day has been limited to lots of basketball, football and movies.

.:.

The first movie we watched today was Stranger Than Fiction (imdb | rotten tomatoes) which, based on the ads, I’d all but dismissed as typical Will Ferrell clowning. It was, in fact, very funny, clever and sweet. Ferrell is so good at the subtle humour he showed here and in Winter Passing that it kills me to see the ads for crap like Semi-Pro. A few times in this movie I laughed out loud, and I rarely laugh at Will Ferrell movies.

We also watched Marie Antoinette (imdb | rotten tomatoes) this evening. The first half was interesting, but it completely lost steam in the second half. It was like watching a dessert cart being paraded around…it looks lovely and inspired at first, but after you stare at the same sweets for two hours it loses something. I didn’t think I’d enjoy it that much to begin with; Sofia Coppola had me in the first half, but lost me again in the second.

I forgot to blog last week about Italianetz (imdb | rotten tomatoes), yet another foreign entry at a past film festival that I wanted to see. The story was about a Russian boy set to be adopted from an orphanage by an Italian couple (hence the title) but who worries that he has a mother somewhere that, should he go to live with another couple, he’ll never see again. The plot takes him on his search for her, but the real star was Russia itself: a dirty, drunken, stormy, barren, corrupt plain of despair…that one little boy refuses to give up on. Worth watching, if you can tolerate the dodgy subtitle translations.

[tags]friday night lights, the wire, there will be blood, eye weekly, torontoist, biryani house, 1bloor, smokeless joe, stranger than fiction, marie antoinette, italianetz[/tags]

At least I still have the empty can

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

As I write this I’m trapped in the den, as Nellie’s wrapping gifts in the living room. Luckily I have a TV in here and there’s a Canadiens game on, but I think I might’ve had a little too much Diet Pepsi, so it could get messy in here.

.:.

Last Friday night at Smokeless Joe was so enjoyable we returned again last night, looking for more Great Lakes Winter Ale. Unfortunately they were out, but we had some very tasty alternatives (Hacker-Pschorr Dunkle Weiss for me and some kind of Belgian Tripel for Nellie which she loved). No fear about not getting another taste of the winter ale, though: we bought a few bottles today at the LCBO.

We also got some treats for ourselves (Nellie got some Tedeschi Amarone at the LCBO, and I picked up some truffles at JS Bonbons) and for the cats (especially Sonny; his favourite toy is a little red ball that his Auntie Jenny got him years ago, and we’ve had trouble finding more of…until today and we bought five. Oh, and catnip, so they’ve been trying to crawl into their stocking all day).

.:.

I’ve never been in Toronto this close to Christmas before; it’s interesting. We went to St. Lawrence Market today to pick up a few things, and it was about six different kinds of crazy in there. It wasn’t even 10:00 yet and the crowds were so thick you’d think you were at a concert. I can’t wait to go grocery shopping tomorrow.

It’ll be really weird going to work on the 24th.

[tags]smokeless joe, great lakes winter ale, dunkle weiss, tripel, st. lawrence market, toronto[/tags]

What say, fuzzy britches?

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From CityTV:

Drive-thrus have become a way of life in car conscious Toronto, as busy GTA residents find they don’t have the time to even get out of their vehicles for a coffee or a hamburger. But what are they doing to the environment and how would you feel if local politicians made a move to either curb them or eliminate them altogether?

I’d question the environmental impact of eliminating the drive-thru. It seems to me it wouldn’t reduce the demand for coffee (could also be hamburgers, etc., but I’ll use coffee as my example here), so you’d have three net effects:

  1. People parking their car at the curb and idling while they run in for coffee. If it’s true that drive-thru wait times are less than counter wait times (and I assume it is) then the result is more pollution.
  2. People circling the block to find parking before running in; this circling means needless driving time, resulting in more pollution.
  3. The above two effects causing more traffic congestion in the vicinity of coffee shops, again resulting in more pollution.

If you believe that removing a drive-thru will reduce the overall demand for coffee, then maybe this model works (for the environment, but certainly not for the business). If you think demand would stay the same, then the model only works if you believe customers will stop driving to Tim Horton’s and will walk there instead, and I’d bet pretty hard against that.

Anyone disagree? Are my assumptions off?

And just out of curiosity, what marketing jackass invented the word thru?

.:.

From CNN:

Two inmates escaped from a county jail, hiding the holes they made in the walls by putting up photos of bikini-clad women, officials said.

Attention, all jail wardens: you might want to WATCH THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION!!

[tags]toronto drive-thrus, jailbreak, bikini posters, shawshank redemption[/tags]

Return to Thundersnow

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At 3:30 last night we were awoken by a noise on our balcony. Not the howling wind; we were used to that by the time we went to sleep around 2:00. This time it was paint cans; we’d forgotten that we’d left a box of nearly-empty paint cans out on the balcony, and the wind had finally flipped the box and sent paint cans everywhere.

It’s been that kind of storm so far: violent winds and lots of snow. I can only see the occasional intrepid (“intrepid” means stupid, right?) soul walking or driving on the streets below us. The city’s pretty much shut down. Fine by us; as I said yesterday we used yesterday to finish everything that required a trip outside. I’ve used this morning to do a little work, read my feeds, finish off a bunch of small errands and even read a chapter of corporate finance. Nothing left to do today, really, except watch the Raptors game, pick off one more chapter of my textbook and watch some movies. It should be a very relaxing Sunday.

As I wrote this I saw a few lightning flashes and heard some thunder. Huh…two thundersnows in one year.

[tags]toronto storm, thundersnow[/tags]

Near-paralyzing, even

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

When Environment Canada issues warnings about “copious” and “near-crippling” amounts of snow in the next 24 hours, you know it’s about to get hairy. It’s already pretty ugly out there, but the real fun won’t start until tomorrow. As such, we’ve obtained enough provisions (read: snack food and a full PVR) for the remainder of the weekend.

C’mon, winter, do your worst. It’s fun to see Toronto brought to its knees by snow.

[tags]winter storm[/tags]

I'm a fine, fine fellow

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

In the summer I was struck by how much greener Toronto looked from our balcony than it does at street level. Now, with the leaves on vacation and the snow taking up residence, it just looks gray.

.:.

It’s not official yet — the paperwork still has to go through — but I heard back from our adviser today: we passed our final project. That effectively means that I am now a fellow of the Institute of Canadian Bankers. I’m now in the home stretch of finishing the MBA: 256 days left!

.:.

Poor Nellie’s not feeling well today. We had dinner at Fieramosca last night and were plied with a little too much Limoncello. It was supposed to be a quick meal, out by 8:30, but there’s really no such thing with us anymore. We kind of lost track of time somewhere around the sixth shot.

.:.

News from last week: Toronto councillor Giorgio Mammoliti asked for the army to be brought in. Not because of some snowdrifts, mind you. No, councillor Mammoliti wants the army to come in and crack down on gang violence.

Having had a few days to consider and weigh the councillor’s words, I have arrived at this conclusion: Giorgio Mammoliti is batshit crazy.

I’m all for curbing gang violence, councillor. I suggest you lobby for more police funding, or a special anti-gang task force. Perhaps you could move to ban handguns in the city, or increase funding to social programs that keep kids out of gangs. Any of those seem fairly reasonable, if not politically expedient. Maybe it’s my quaint inclination toward freedom, but I don’t think military occupation of a civilian area is something a democratically-elected politician should suggest.

Sigh…every time someone from this city mentions the army I just know the rest of the country’s going to make fun of us for the next three years.

[tags]toronto the gray, institute of canadian bankers, fieramosca, limoncello, giorgio mammoliti, gang violence[/tags]

Can I get a copy of that?

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

Here’s how my life is gonna go for the next couple of days. Tonight I have to work on my finance assignment. Tomorrow I have to go to work, of course. Tomorrow evening we’re having dinner at Canoe with CBGB; Saturday I’ll watch the PVR’d hockey game and then we have to run a pile of errands and pick up our new chairs. Saturday evening we have people coming over before we head out to a holiday party. Sunday will be spent recovering, watching another PVR’d hockey game and finishing — hopefully — the finance assignment. It is at that point that I will collapse onto the couch, read the newspaper and give the middle finger to the MBA for two weeks while I focus on Christmas shopping.

Weird to have the next 72 hours of my life planned out like that. Kind of depressing too.

.:.

Today’s episode of What The Duck distills the troubling conundrum of “entertainment news” down to a three-panel comic.

.:.

I will be going to this:

Whipper Snapper Gallery recently announced an exhibition of Toronto’s top four photo bloggers for the month of December. It’s called The Too-Explicit Injustice of Kind Population! and it runs from the 6th to the 29th. The exhibition title is an anagram of the different website names. Don’t worry… I don’t get it either!

More info.

[tags]canoe, what the duck, whipper snapper gallery, toronto photobloggers[/tags]

R.I.P., Richie

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There was a power outage in my neighbourhood today…except I don’t think the power went off in my building. I was just leaving work at 7 when the power came back on in the large area that had gone dark so I can’t say for sure, but nothing in my condo would appear to have suffered the ill effects of a blackout. Weird.

.:.

Sad news from back home today: my old neighbour Richie Pettigrew died. I’ve known Richie since I was born, as my father probably did. He worked for my grandfather, and his son worked for my dad. My childhood memories are filled with funny stories Richie would tell us, or of being at his (and his wife Margaret’s) house down the road, or of eating freshly-made maple cream off the tiny wooden spoons he’d carved by hand for my dad.

He was like a great-uncle. I’ll miss him.

[tags]toronto blackout, richie pettigrew[/tags]

I'm a real Torontonian now

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

I’m a little sore right now.

This morning I had to take a cab to a meeting north of the city. As we drove east on Adelaide, moving at a pretty good clip, we approached the light at Parliament. I could see that it was red, but we were driving like it was green. I don’t think the cabbie clued in; around the time that I started to say, “Hey, that light…” a dump truck came into view, heading south into the same intersection that we were about to cruise into. The cabbie jammed on the brakes and tried to curl left around the truck, but he didn’t quite make it. The cab slammed into the truck’s rear tires.

I had plenty of warning; I clearly figured out that the red-light situation before the driver did. I had lots of time to brace, and we were probably only doing 30km/h or so by the time we hit the truck, but I still went into the seat belt pretty hard. Fortunately I didn’t hit my head on anything, and didn’t feel whiplash-y at all. It didn’t even freak me out all that much; I just angrily told the cabbie (who was fine, but clearly a little disoriented) to call dispatch and send me another cab. The front end was pretty much trashed. I crossed the street to the south side and talked to the truck driver. He was fine, obviously, and so was his truck. He was just annoyed at being held up with the accident report. Anyway, I still had to get to my meeting, so I climbed in the replacement taxi and headed north.

Midway through the day some soreness started to set in. No muscular pain or pinched-nerve feeling (which is something that would worry me), just some soreness through my shoulder and chest muscles. Really, it just feels like I lifted a whole bunch of weight all at once, from tensing up and bracing like that. My boss sent me home from the meeting early; I decided against a sitting in the chairs at a walk-in clinic (or even Advil) and just laid down for a while to straighten out. Felt fine after an hour. My back hurts a little now, but I actually think that’s ’cause I don’t have my new chair adjusted properly yet.

Anyway, I guess being in a minor accident makes me just a little more Torontonian, even if I wasn’t driving. Thanks, Beck Taxi #725.

[tags]beck taxi, accident, adelaide, parliament, dump truck[/tags]

I wonder how it would handle DeSagana Diop?

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Closed captions are funny. Sometimes when I’m studying I mute the TV, and the captions come on automatically. A minute ago I saw a basketball highlight, Tony Parker passing the ball to Manu Ginobli under the net for a layup. However, the speech-to-text software (or maybe it’s still humans?) must’ve been confused by the Argentinian name ’cause the caption read “Parker to a monitor nobly.” Apparently Philip K. Dick was calling the game tonight.

.:.

Dylan Reid at Spacing Magazine published what must surely be the definitive guide to the rules governing pedestrians crossing mid-block in Toronto. I specifically avoided using the term “jaywalking” as it suggests an infraction and, as Mr. Reid points out, it’s simply not illegal to walk across the street in Toronto.

It is legal for pedestrians to cross the street mid-block anywhere in Toronto as long as:

a) they are not adjacent to a marked pedestrian crossing, and

b) they yield to traffic.

This legal situation is a combination of Ontario law, through the Highway Traffic Act, and City of Toronto by-laws.

I like this. I cross the street away from crosswalks all the time, and I occasionally even do it right in front of a police car, but I assume I’d never gotten a ticket because the police were too busy with more important matters. Turns out I’m not doing anything wrong. It’s not even very dangerous; I’m very careful about crossing mid-block, and any Toronto pedestrian knows that drivers in this city treat crosswalks as loose recommendations, so it’s not like crossing there offers safety.

.:.

Today Nellie did something that made my very happy. She booked the linchpin in our spring trip: two nights at Lake O’Hara Lodge, high up in the mountains of Yoho National Park. We hiked there last year (description | pictures), but we had to take a bus up the mountain at 10 and down at 4. This way we can get a full two or three days of hiking up there. Plus, just look at the view!! Whatever else comes of the trip I’m happy. I’d fly to Calgary just for that.

By the way, it might seem like we’re booking obsessively early (we’re not going until late June) but this place fills up fast. They started taking reservations yesterday and by today they were nearly sold out for all of next season.

[tags]closed captioning, manu ginobli, jaywalking in toronto, crossing midblock, spacing magazine, lake o’hara, yoho national park[/tags]