Category: Toronto

Water, water everywhere, but trust me, you do not want to drink it

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On sunny & windy days, this is a pretty typical view: beaucoup de sailboats. More pics over at flickr.

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Enough already with the whining about gas prices. Seriously. It’s cheaper than milk. It’s cheaper than orange juice, Coke or cough syrup. It’s cheaper than bottled water. And yet, there are people like this:

“It’s always like this,” Harris said as she filled her SUV at the Esso station at Lake Shore Blvd. E. and Leslie St. “They spike it up on weekends. They spike it up on the long weekend. They always have an excuse. It’s refinery problems, or it’s terrorism in the Middle East, or hurricanes. Oil is down, so there’s no reason for high prices.”

First of all, you drive an SUV, there’s no reason for you to complain about high gas prices either. If you can afford a gas guzzler, you can’t be strapped for cash.

Second…the same free market economy that made you wealthy enough to buy an SUV is what makes gas prices go up and down according to demand. Of course they’re out to charge you as much as they can; why wouldn’t they? YOU KEEP PAYING IT!!

And please, no excuses about “I need my car to get to work.” Buy a smaller car. Take public transit. Bike. Walk. Car pool. Choose to live closer to work in the first place. If you can’t (or won’t) do any of those things, then by all means, produce the contract you signed when you bought your car stating that gas prices would never, ever go up. Don’t have one? Then buy some oil company stock to offset the losses that you’ve chosen to inflict on yourself.

Side note: it’s interesting to watch the Toronto Star cover stories like this. On one hand, the Star wants to stick to big business and take the side of the poor consumer, but on the other hand they want to be the environmental advocate (ironic, considering they’re a newspaper) so they come across as conflicted in these cases.

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As much as I despised Jerry Falwell, and as cold an emotionless as I can be sometimes, and as much as I think it’s hilarious, I simply cannot bring myself to buy this shirt.

[note: if you don’t get the punchline, read this.]

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A week-old post on Torontoist that I didn’t look at until just now has some great concert footage of the Arcade Fire. The scene in the middle of the clip is the best one; my favourite part is how Richard Reed Parry replicates a snare drum sound.

[tags]toronto, lake ontario, sailboats, spire condominium, gas prices, toronto star, jerry falwell, torontoist, arcade fire[/tags]

Lather. Snort. Repeat.

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

My shampoo is tingly. Really, really tingly, almost to the point of burning or poison ivy or something. Anyway, I’m sure it’s meant to be good for my scalp or my hair or both, so I don’t mind the tingliness. However, today, I somehow took breath in just as a big blob of it was running down my face and happened to be just in front of my left nostril, so a bunch of this tingly-ass shampoo shot up my nose.

This, I don’t mind telling you, was not how I planned to spend my nice hot relaxing shower. Now I had to do something, but I also had a bunch more frothing shampoo about to run in to my eyes, so even as my sinuses were disintegrating in the face of this new terror I had to calmly rinse the rest of it from my hair, all while blowing all the air out my nose that I could manage. I wasn’t really thinking about how stupid I must have sounded; instead, all I could think was that maybe I should give baths another try.

Anyway, I didn’t care what the bottle said, I was not going to repeat.

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Last night was the first chance we’ve had in ages to just sit and watch some TV. Actually, to be clear, we didn’t watch TV, but rather watched a few episodes of The Sopranos on the laptop. We’re trying to catch up for the final episode; there’s no way we’ll be able to avoid hearing about the series finale.

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So, we knew it was inevitable that we’d eventually lose some of our view, but we didn’t think it would happen so soon. I suppose those buildings — at the foot of Yonge Street, just west of the Redpath sugar factory — won’t be built for a while, and it’s only a small chunk of our view, but it’s one of the best views we have of the islands. Perhaps, both for the sake of our view and the good of the waterfront, city council will find a way to stop the development and put a park there.

[tags]shampoo, sopranos, toronto condos, yonge street[/tags]

PeanutAllergy Inc.

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If the Globe and Mail weren’t such dicks about their online content, you could read this interesting article by Russell Smith about the recent spate of anti-religion books, Christopher Hitchens’ (which I talked about here) being the latest. Smith made the point that, even if it’s not dressed up as a cult/religion, slavish devotion is still hard to take. He even comments about how allergies that never used to exist suddenly afflict half the population: his example was half the population of Toronto’s Annex neighbourhood claiming to be allergic to wheat gluten; I’d suggest that the current generation of children all seemingly being allergic to peanuts is another good one.

Update from the comments: Joe dropped this great quote from the recent Lou Dobbs interview with Hitchens: “Religion ends and philosophy begins, just as alchemy ends and chemistry begins and astrology ends, and astronomy begins.”

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Google Analytics has revamped their reporting engine. Holy crap. Magnifique. I’ll never use StatCounter again.

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Walking home from the grocery store tonight we noticed that a bakery is going in on the ground floor. Sweet. Dangerous, but sweet.

[tags]globe and mail, russell smith, christopher hitchens, google analytics, bakery[/tags]

Down swingin'

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It was a great game last night, but the Raptors lost to the Nets, and fell out of the playoffs. The Raptors played about as well as they could, on the road in an arena they haven’t won in all year, with two busted-up point guards, but in the end came up just short. And I mean that literally; if Jose Calderon had gotten his entry pass to Bosh just six inches higher, Bosh would’ve had an uncontested dunk to win the game. Alas, ’twas not to be. At least there was no sense than Vince Carter knocked the Raptors out of the playoffs; apart from a few hard drives to the rack in the 4th quarter, Carter was pretty much an empty shirt.

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I woke up early this morning (or rather, was woken up by furry beasties) so I saw the sunrise. I’m still getting used to how amazing it looks in the morning; we have an unobstructed view (for now) to the east, so it’s a pretty pleasant way to wake up.

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We’re gonna go have some breakfast, run a few errands before coming home to do some more unpacking & setting up. It’s nice to be able to do that stuff, after a pretty crazy month.

Aaaaaand Sonny almost knocked the TV over just now when he attacked an in-flight golf ball that he saw on Sportscentre. I guess that could be an advertisement for Sharp.

[tags]raptors, nba playoffs, toronto sunrise[/tags]

Kinda-stranger in a slightly strange land

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Forgot to mention: just after I printed my exam (I was one of the few people who typed it, which I think led me to type twice as much as anyone else wrote) I walked back to the computer and closed MS Word…which promptly crashed the computer. Like, Blue Screen Of Death crash. Good thing I printed first. That would have been a suck.

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It feels good to be home. As soon as I got home I went and grabbed some lunch, and I realized it’s the first time since we moved that I had to chance to actually look at any of the new neighbourhood. I know it well enough so it’s not like things are a mystery,  but I like the idea of discovering all the shortcuts and back alleys and hidden spots. Now I’ve just gotta find some time…

[tags]blue screen of death, st. lawrence market, toronto neighbourhoods[/tags]

56.465%

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The Raptors barely held on last night, sending the series back to New Jersey. After watching the first quarter, after which Toronto had a 20-point lead, I figured it would be walk. Instead, Toronto’s two point guards got injured and the Nets clawed back into it, missing their final shot of the game to let the Raps sneak out of the building with the win.

The problem now will be playing in New Jersey with, potentially, your two best point guards in street clothes.

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Nothing brings out the histrionics of Toronto city councillors and merchants like a proposed streetcar right-of-way. “Restaurant could go bankrupt”, Adam Vaughan? It’s a two month test! Drop the inflammatory statements and find some statistics.

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Christopher Hitchens and I have not always gotten along, but I think I need to buy his new book called God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything.

[tags]raptors, king street streetcar, toronto city council, christopher hitchens, god is not great[/tags]

16.181%

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

No sooner do we move away from Hayden Street than a woman is found murdered (presumably) in a TTC stairway there. We walked by that stairwell every time we took the subway, as the exit’s just a few steps from our old place, but never actually took the stairs as homeless people camped out in there and it was usually pretty foul-smelling.

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Time Canada has an article about Porter, the airlines flying out of the Toronto Island airport. It doesn’t seem to be the best-researched article, but it caught my eye because we’re starting to consider Porter as an option. If we want to fly to Montreal, the prospect of a quick trip from our condo to the island airport is more attractive than the $50 cab ride and 90 minute wait involved in flying out of Pearson. And if Porter starts flying to Halifax (which they plan to do) and New York (which they’re applying to do), the idea gets even more attractive.

[via Spacing]

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OK, must brush teeth and head off to class. I think today we’re talking about teh internetz. I believe it is a series of tubes.

[tags]murder, hayden street, porter air, toronto island, city centre airport[/tags]

Let's all personally groom in a public place

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Tonight we saw the world premiere of Let’s All Hate Toronto (hot docs), a funny & quirky little documentary about Torontonians confusion as to why the rest of the country dislikes them. I read the blog kept by Rob Spence (aka Captain Canada) when he was travelling across the country holding Toronto Appreciation Days, much to the anger and dismay of Canadians everywhere. There was nothing groundbreaking or insightful about the documentary; it was just good fun.

Except for the really loud lady sitting behind us who, unless I’m mistaken, was cutting her fingernails during the film. Awesome.

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Why, why does our environment minister look just like Lester from Mississippi Burning? And why does he spout alarmist rhetoric like “meeting our Kyoto targets will put us in a recession”?

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All Quiet On The Western Front might be remade. It’s one of the few movies I’d look forward to a remake of…if it’s done right. All this talk about making it into a “big budget, sweeping Hollywood epic” smacks of Pearl Harbor, and nobody wants that.

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On the eve of the Toronto Raptor’s playoff series against New Jersey, I feel nervous. While confident that Toronto is the better team, should New Jersey pull off an upset, the psychological scarring that would result from losing to Vince Carter in the playoffs would be deep and long-lasting. Here’s hoping Bosh hangs a triple-double on them tomorrow, and that Kris Humphries or Joey Graham put sissyboy on his ass once or twice.

[tags]let’s all hate toronto, john baird, kyoto, recession, all quiet on the western front, toronto raptors, vince carter[/tags]

We have no room to stand, but we have a plan

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

The apartment is now a disaster zone. It’s pretty small to begin with, so with all our possesions get crammed into piles of boxes — empty, unsorted, ready to go — it doesn’t leave much room for moving around. Duarte came by to get the printer tonight and I think he felt he’d stepped into early-90s Sarajevo. I’ve taken half the desk apart, all the bookcases have been emptied, the bathroom is all but cleaned out and the storage locker is bare, save for the electronics boxes. Tomorrow is the kitchen, Friday is clothing, Saturday is everything else, and Sunday is the electronics.

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Torontoist says: Happy Birthday, Camros (the organic food place across the street from me). If you live in the neighbourhood and vegan/organic is your cup of tea, you should give it a try. If it’s not but you like sweets, you should stop in and grab a brownie or a piece of carrot cake, courtesy of Sweets From The Earth. So good it hurts (eventually).

[tags]packing, moving, camros, sweets from the earth[/tags]