Most discerning travelers know that getting the full experience of a destination requires eschewing well-worn tourist routes.

And besides, who wants another boring guide about local eateries and “quirky” establishments? Haven’t you had your fill of “safe and friendly”? How about some real local flavour?

As you can see on the map above, Toronto is teeming with all sorts of engaging and exciting experiences, ranging from traditional holdups to fast drive-by snatches. You might even get to experience an authentic carjacking.

In fact, for the extreme adventure travel enthusiast there are really only 4 areas to avoid (5 if you include the Toronto Islands).

1. West Hill / Port Union

While the north-west portion of West Hill offers excellent opportunities for thrill seekers, its southern boundary with the Port Union neighbourhood is to be avoided.

2. The Bridle Path

Nothing here but the secluded mansions of rich and famous people. Skip.

3. Downsview Airport

Maybe it’s the area’s historical association with the Canadian military but very little happens on the grounds of this airport. Nearby neighbourhoods are worth a visit.

4. Etobicoke

This western chunk of the city is the traditional home of the Fords but now that the brothers have have either left or are in the process of leaving, it seems that the type of crime that they might attract is evaporating. Perhaps everyone got day jobs.

Luckily, if you take a short bus ride in almost any direction you’re bound to increase your chances of finding a compelling encounter!

I hope you’ve found this post informative and that when you’re next in Toronto you consider visiting one of our city’s many colourful, independent business people!

P.S. Too much data to include at the end as usual. Contact me if interested.

… in which Medic finds himself onboard an overnight train to Bangkok with The Handler and a new acquaintance. An unusual detail emerges.

Three months later and … it’s still very nice!

For the last two years the Canadian National Exhibition, a.k.a. The Ex, has been shut down due to the government’s benign love and concern for us all. So for a while there it was looking like The Ex was going to become The ex-Ex.

But it looks like management managed to turn it around and revive the moribund fair.

And we went.

Off the top I’d like to voice my disappointment at the entrance fees. Frankly, $25 for an adult with a measly $5 discount for junior or senior is a bit steep just to get you onto the grounds. And once you’re in, almost everything else costs extra.

By the time we got in it was starting to get dark and stormy and moody but in every other way it was the traditional ex-ex-Ex we remembered.

The same old (heavily weighted) games of chance line the main concourse. The games reluctantly release the same old ubiquitously crappy prizes into the stream of humanity as it flows by.

If I sound a bit snarky it’s only because I have some insight into those prizes beyond merely having them start to come apart a few weeks later. It’s not even that I remember the toys being of any better quality during my lifetime, it’s just that I got to look behind the curtain, as it were.

But I digress.

As you can see by the dearth of photos when compared to some past expeditions, we didn’t stick around too long. We’d gone out on a lark, not really expecting to be able to get in. I grabbed only the camera, and only “just in case”.

To our mild surprise we did find a way in but there would be no frozen ketchup or iced mustard, just mild paranoia followed by cops performing desperate CPR on a man with a cane and an artificial leg.

Should we manage to get in again, next time we’re coming prepared.

Almost immediately after finishing the last post I began to wonder if maybe there might be a correlation between reports of explosions and similar incidents. For example, if there are many reported gas leaks in an area is there also an increase in the number of reported explosions?

There’s a western stretch of the delicate, crumbly Gardiner Expressway called The Bentway. To be more accurate, The Bentway is below the Gardiner and it’s about as aesthetically pleasing as can reasonably be expected.

Every year at this time there’s an event called the Bentway Block Party and since we’d never been, me and Sarah decided to mosey on down to check it out.

I imagined the entire length of the walk being occupied by barbecues, boom boxes, and beverages. Instead, everything was crammed into a small area just off Strachan Avenue.

There was a small stage and square performance area which, when we arrived, was being used for some sort of lame strut exhibition involving what seemed like randos from the crowd. I still don’t quite understand the MC’s directions to, “OWN THE CATWALK! BE THE CATWALK! EAT THE CATWALK! STOMP THE CATWALK!”

It was just a little too fierce for me, I guess.

I honestly don’t know what was happening there but it came across as some sort of weird debutante diva show. No one seemed happy to be walking around. Some may not have been conscious.

But the “entertainment” aside, when combined with the apparent lack of food, dearth of drink options, and an overall lack of expected block party accoutrements, the whole thing was monotonous and thoroughly underwhelming. I’m genuinely surprised that it attracted as many people as it did.

Possibly the most interesting part of the Bentway Block Party was that they had a RSVP link on their website that invited you to add all sorts of information in order to confirm your “free ticket”. I’m not sure how the collected information was used because there wasn’t even a hint of anyone checking “tickets”.

Would we go again next year? There’d have to be a pretty compelling reason, that’s all I can say.

In the early days of TCL I pictured myself huddled over a keyboard late into the night, pounding out some shocking exposé for my audience as the rain outside my window made the flickering lights of downtown dance, fierce lightning illuminating the skyline’s silhouette during the particularly hard-hitting sections. With persistence I would become a gritty urban citizen journalist (coder by day).

And it kinda worked.

I mean, Sarah and me did break the Rob Ford coke story well before it ever made headlines but other than that I mostly just took pictures, ranted, and occasionally covered interesting local events. Turns out that getting good intel is tough.

But then a few weeks ago I remembered that I’ve been quietly tracking certain city services’ dispatch data. On September 7th it’ll be exactly two years since I started. Astute readers may have caught an experiment I was running in the sidebar with this data. ** Spoiler Alert ** I decided to pull the plug on that and use it for this project instead.

There are a few gaps in the timeline because some data feeds went into holding patterns while the associated city services tinkered with their sites. The data is mostly complete but it’s safe to say that in some cases the total numbers will almost certainly be under-reported.

Still, initial search results are surprising, the kind of information I imagined I’d be blogging about back in 2009. At the outset it’s not exactly gumshoe work but I imagine that an intrepid citizen journalist could do something more with it.

If you find the SPI series interesting I encourage you to share anything you find here on your own site, social media, etc. I ask only that you do me a solid and include an attribution (see bottom of the sidebar for details).

Finally, since it may not be obvious the acronym SPI stands for “Sarah Patrick Investigations”. Or “Salt Pepper Info”. Or whatever works for you. I don’t think we need to get too hung up on it.