Dear i4i,

Awwwwww yeaaaah! You know what I’m talkin’ about!

Dang, I can’t believe the balls on you! A tiny little Toronto company — I walk by your office almost every day and I would never have noticed you if you weren’t in the news – and you took down Microsoft! And with XML on top of that! I mean, you and I know that’s basically like making a claim on the idea of the book. Not one specific book but the book format itself. The crazy Texan court actually granted you the ruling too! Man, that’s awesome.

Seriously, I can’t imagine what you could’ve told them was so special about your use of XML, but unless Microsoft actually stole your software, I’m having a lot of trouble understanding your claim. But I happen to think it’s great that you marched all that way south just to show them who’s boss. And now Microsoft is forced to call Texans ignorant hicks who wouldn’t know XML from their anus. Otherwise, your claim is valid. Heehaw!

Now, with a second ruling in your favour, you’ve shown everyone that it is possible. A little brain can hurt a lot. Bam! Your plot is so Machiavellian as to be evil. Love it. I also love that you’re using something that the public usually doesn’t come into direct contact with. (But it lurks darkly beneath almost every web page … even this one!) One newspaper describes it as programming “instructions”, another as a way of sticking data into a database. Mysterious XML. Hehe … who’s gonna know?

Luckily I know my XML from my anus. Flash developers must know XML intimately, on penalty of death. You and I both know that XML is a blank container, just an agreed-upon way of organizing data. Kind of like agreeing to put periods on the ends of a sentence. It’s the sentence that counts, unless you’re arguing that periods were your idea.

Brazen!

Oh, and may I just say bra-fucking-vo! Your December 2009 press release about support for Microsoft Word … priceless! I nearly shat myself when I saw it! You have a plugin for the software of the company you’ve just successfully sued for $290 mill. Haha! And I’m still not really sure what your company does. Doesn’t matter, you even managed to convince the courts to force Microsoft to stop selling Word in the US come the new year. Presumably, until Microsoft coughs up. Wow, grab the testes and twist; you guys are haaaaardcore.

I hope you use some of that money to throw one helluva New Year’s party, and pretty pretty please, send me an invite.

Your adoring fan,
Patrick

Attention: The Toronto Sun Editorial Staff

Facebook censorship? My ass. Anissa Holmes’ ass too, apparently. Who gives a flying buttock? You keep printing these stories — front page, for God’s sake! – like it’s news. Look, why don’t you just turn the Sun into wholly nude “newspaper”? I have absolutely nothing against nude women, really don’t. Seems you do, because you seem to be repressing your natural tendencies. Just do it already!

Do you know I actually counted the double-spaced, large-print “articles” (mostly reworded press releases), and compared them against the amount of advertising on a single page? I believe article average was around 20%, ads 80%. And yes, to answer your question, I was bored. So what?

It’s really hard to take the Sun seriously. Your covers are the very definition of tabloid. Again, my problem isn’t that you’re leaning that way, it’s that you’re not leaning that way far enough. One top of the nudity, toss in a few UFO sightings, MJ reincarnations, and a “Your Conspiracies” section, and I think you’d finally hit your stride.

I don’t wish you ill at all, I just feel like you’re suffering from an identity crisis and sometimes you have to be a bit brutal about that kind of thing, you know? Tough hide kinda business. Red cheeks kinda business.

Give Anissa that center spread and, suddenly, some bullshit Facebook story just won’t seem like worthy or even necessary news anymore. You have to do it … for integrity.

I believe in you,
Patrick

Dear Santa,

Am I too old for this? Ah, who cares, I’m sure you’re a cool guy. I’m not doing the sitting on the knee thing – sorry, not my bag, dig? But as for my wishes, well, I only have one, and I can easily divulge it. It’s about this blog thing. I wish, hope mostly, that TCL will one day blossom into a money-producing flower of some sort. Just enough to live on, I’m not greedy. Well, I guess some extra would be nice. But, you know, I owe a lot of people a lot of money, and I think I’d technically be on skid row if I earned any less than I do now. And, unfortunately, I earn a handsome amount. AdSense just won’t cut into that. Barely pays for my freshly imported Brazilian pine nuts. At about $40 per half a kilo (about a pound), I’d be crazy not to feed it to the pigeons. They love it. And me. :)

Anyhow, as you can see, I’m kind to animals and I rarely hit people. Except for that guy I ran into … correction, who ran into me. I mean, yes, I was already irked walking home … whole lotta shovin’ goin’ on. And not in an Elvisy way. I was walking through this narrow corridor of people who just decided to huddle together for warmth, I guess, and blocked almost the entire sidewalk. As I was leaving the passageway of shivering asses, this little guy came from directly around the corner and, without even a pause – oblivious to his surroundings — busted right into me. Except I was going at a good clip too, he came at me at a right angle and, I’m sad to say, bounced off of me. Sad now. At the time I said something to the effect of, “Oh for fuck’s sakes…”, and kept moving.

I had dazed the little guy pretty well. When I say little guy, I mean he was like, a fully grown man, just very little. A little guy. And I bowled him over. I think he even buried his nose in my ribs. He was walking upright, that’s just where his nose was. I thought I felt a crunch as we connected. Basically, I thumped him pretty good … not on purpose, mind you, and it was his fault. But I kinda took glee in it. Like, yeah, there you go, that’s what you get for not paying attention. But later I felt bad, it was just an accident and, well, yeah, he deserved a whack on the head, but probably not a full-on Patrick.

So I feel remorse. You see, so I’m essentially a good guy. And there you go, is that the justification you need? If it’s a promise you’re looking for, I can certainly promise not to punch anyone in the face for at least two or three weeks. Let’s say two. And I’ll lay off the expletives and instead use Mandarin ones like gan ni-a! Actually sounds kinda cute, don’t you think? And good and offensive to most Chinese people (I vaguely recall trying it at Chungking Mansions, generally to effect). People in China don’t do Christmas so I figured you’d like that. I know a few other zingers too, even the proper inflections.

So I’m valuable to you, Santa. Very valuable. And I need you to pull some strings for me, get TCL into full-time mode. I’m open to muddy money and I insist on looking the other way. Only one condition: final editorial decision stays with me! That’s a non-negotiable.

Looking forward to working with you,
Patrick

*shoomp* and there goes Monday.

I remember standing there in front of my laundry going, “what the hell?” I’d been folding clothes, literally, all night. I was mighty disappointed; I was supposed to have cleaned the living room on Monday, bedroom on Tuesday, hose down the fridge on Wednesday, sandblast the washroom on Friday afternoon, and irradiate the whole flat on Saturday before the folks visit. And fit in the occasional blog post too. Laundry was supposed to be the warmup.

Oh god, the folks visit. Now they’ll see the slum I’ve been inhabiting. I’ll have to explain why I’m paying over a thousand a month for this place. Nightmare. At least it would be clean when they dropped by! Unless I didn’t manage to keep to schedule at every step. Unfortunately, I’d already stumbled. Fuck, and on a Monday too.

Okay, so another problem emerged. Holy … frickin’ … cow … WHAT HAPPENED TO MY UNDERWEAR?! I’m freakin’ out, man! I swear, I had like twelve pairs. I spent the entire night gathering every scrap of clothing I could find … hence the lengthy folding session. But the result?! ONE PAIR!! (plus the pair on my ass). Now, c’mon, seriously. I could see two or three going wayward, and especially at my place. But now, with all the clothing on the shelf, there’s only ONE?! ONE?!?!

Think, think … Where were you? What were you doing? Who were you talking to? Who had a chance to manhandle your laundry? Something’s going on here, I can feel it. Something’s not right.

… Continue Reading

At the company party last week, a fairly new employee (a superfluous fourth nipple of a teenager, the son of the third nipple, my supervisor), asked me, “Why would anyone want to learn to program Flash?”,  or something to that effect. The “why would anyone” part stuck with me as a particularly brazen thing to say coming from a kid who doesn’t know an object from a pointer. That’s programmer lingo for he’s wet behind the ears, the little shit.

And as I told him, I grew tired of all the low-level nonsense that his pop still likes to muck around in. It’s unseemly. I mean, I’ve done it too – every good programmer should rip apart their computer in every which way. But I put aside childish things when I decided to actually get some work done. Seriously, it’s like going back to the frickin’ Stone Age.

I like Flash because there’s a big creative aspect to it – half of the software is geared specifically for drawing and animation. Programming is fun, don’t get me wrong, but staring at computer instructions all day kinda sucks. It’s nice to work in a  piece of software where I can also draw a doodle of the CTO, animate it in some obscene way, add programming to it for interactive fun, and email it to friendly coworkers. And it all looks like legitimate work.

But the reason I brought all of this up wasn’t to go over my portfolio. This situation jumped to mind while I was strolling home and listening to Spark, a CBC Radio podcast about technology. That Zune that you see in the TCL header has a number of ultra-geeked-out podcasts on regular rotation but Spark stands out from the crowd; it looks at the human implications of gadgets and websites rather than the gadgets and websites themselves.

The episode I was listening to, for example, was going into detail about how to operate the iPhone (curse Apple!), with gloved hands. The touch-screen requires human flesh (not my word), to maintain a certain level of conductivity – to operate the phone, in other words. Gloves act as insulators, so the iPhone’s a brick with winter gear on (Ha! I can operate my Windows Mobile phone with mitts and a toque!) In the episode they came up with the solution of sewing some conductive thread through the tips of the glove; not that it’ll affect me directly but it’s neat to see someone thinking about this. After all, in Canada it’s a genuine problem for half the year, and I don’t see Apple using their “genius” to solve the problem. I don’t like Apple.

Nora Young, Spark’s host, has that perfect mix of nerdy affinity and enthusiasm for what technology could be. In fact, all of the podcasts I listen to are done by folks why have genuine interest and enthusiasm in the subject matter, and the fact that some of them are learning as they go along makes the shows accessible. Plus, the topics are approached from an angle that most in the industry wouldn’t think to consider. The third and fourth nipples sure wouldn’t.

Obviously, creativity counts for a lot with me. So when I found the advertisement for Wind Mobile on King Street, I was impressed:

Yes, the ad is the statue. Already intriguing, no? I stooped over to read the plaque, took a few pictures, even had a brief conversation with a passing girl who happened to be editing a video for some Wind Mobile spot – talk about effective advertising! The thing that really struck me was that this particular campaign doesn’t rely on flashing lights and loud noises, it just stands politely to the side and invites your attention. Well.

Unfortunately, Wind needs a new copywriter – the statue idea is absolutely brilliant but the plaque makes an unkind insinuation:

It reads:

The statue commemorates Flippy, Mr Ideas, FlowerGal and the thousands of other Canadians who rose up against an unresponsive mobile industry. It was upon the immortal thoughts of this community – who made proclamations like, “No contracts… do this and I will be your customer forever,” and, “it would be nice to NOT have limits” – that a movement was born. Their brave ideas gave rise to the dialogue which gave rise to Wind Mobile – the first wireless company to be led by the people and a testament to the truth that conversations always make things better. WINDMobile.ca

WIND
the power of conversation

The insinuation is that I will be Wind’s bitch if only they would do away with contracts. Not likely. Plus, if I don’t like contracts, I’m probably not going to commit to “forever”. But their putting statues on street corners (there’s another at University and Richmond), if nothing else, indicates a level of creativity that’s lacking in the older carriers. Here’s how Rogers tries to snag my business:

Granted this is for the cable TV and internet packages that Rogers offers, but it’s still pretty pathetic. A sad kid and a teddy bear — “We miss you”; I can’t imagine giving less of a toss. And while it’s rare that I buy something without going deep into technical specs, I consider a company’s advertising campaign to be a part of that specification. It doesn’t necessarily mean that the company or its products are currently any good, but at least they’re thinking (or at least willing to think), differently. Many companies claim to do this but few actually do.

Asking why anyone would want to learn to program in Flash is basically the same as asking why anyone would want to broaden their horizons. It’s kinda sad to hear a student ask that question, and especially in a mocking way. He’ll end up at the Rogers of the world, hopelessly out-of-date  before he even graduates, and the real world doesn’t take kindly to inflexible youngsters. I know I won’t, the little shit.

So now that we’ve had our first, proper winter cold, I’m starting to feel a little better. It was getting close to minus ten (14 Fahr.) this evening, but I had a good pace going and my bits were all looking like they wouldn’t be falling off. It helped that it wasn’t windy – the body can maintain a pretty good micro-climate around the skin as long as it’s not constantly being ripped away. The micro-climate, I mean. Well, the skin too, I suppose. Winter storms can be a bit rippy. It’s mostly the millions of tiny, razor-sharp ice shards being blasted against your skin at high velocity that does the trick. They momentarily melt as they slide (you have to imagine this in slo-mo), tiny rivulets of water running across your exposed cheek and, just before being lifted aloft again by the incessant wind, freezing; microscopic icicles suddenly snapping and being borne aloft in the frenzy of the beastly rush.

Except that didn’t happen tonight. I was just saying it could (and at some point will) happen.

But as everyone around here seems to be so keen on saying, that’s what a Toronto winter is. Bam! And you take your licks whether you drive, bike (hahaha!), walk, ride the rails, or none of the above. Everyone gets equally abused during the dark months. And the current one’s still getting darker. Ouch.

So you’ll have to forgive me if I’m a bit less than enthusiastic about the Olympic torch passing through town. I mean, there are worse things to cheer for than people striving for physical limits, this I know, but I like watching televised events that take me to exotic locales, not another view of winter. Makes me feel like, you know, maybe I should be out there doing that too. A little cross-city skiing or something. There are many occasions when that’s actually not unreasonable, it all depends on the fickle snow. After all, it was ten years ago that MC Mayor Melly-Mel Noooooobody! Lastman (in hindsight, the most entertaining mayor of them all), called in the troops to help with the snow. That spring I shook my fist out the window as my plane took off for the east. Far east. For a while.

Now I have a new perspective :). But perspective doesn’t keep you warm. So standing around waiting for some dude with a flaming stick to run by … meh, I prefer to keep my fingers. But I did catch the rehearsals for the City Hall torch ceremony the day before. Ah, balmier times.

… Continue Reading

Wikkidi wikkidi wikkidi wack.

I’ma be blunt, if I may. Ashley and Madison are assholes. Nope, no link, and this is the only time I use their wretched name – from now on it’s AM, with spit on it. There, I’ve said it, it’s out in the open. The way it should be.

You know what this company does? They are a service that promotes marital infidelity. Cheating. No, not a dating service that happens to have a lot of married people, they exist specifically to help people cheat. Their slogan is “Life is short. Have an affair.”

And they’re assholes.

My idea of a relationship is pretty free-wheeling. Gay? Fine by me. Bi? A-okay. Swinger? Keep on swingin’! Miscellaneous? Please use my contact form. But an affair, that’s just simple lying. It’s deceptive, cowardly, and a big middle finger to the one you’re with. If you wanna fuck around, have the balls to say it. It won’t get easier with time, and you’re wasting the rest of your life if that’s what you really want. Maybe it’s just time to saddle up and ride off into the sunset, you know? ;)

And AM, they’re the assholes helping people to be cowardly liars. It don’ git no plainer ‘n that.

Okay, but I really wouldn’t give a shit about them except that lately they’ve been pushing the TTC to decal two of their streetcars with AM ads (the whole things – a full wrap), even getting cocky enough to begin offering discounted fares to anyone taking their streetcars — before the ad was even approved. The Commission wasn’t too sure about it (as well they shouldn’t), and turned it over to a committee who finally gave it the thumbs down. *applause*

Unfortunately, AM decided to kick back with threat of court saying that this is impinging on their freedom of speech. Cockswaddle. An affair is grounds for divorce – in the eyes of the law, it’s wrong. Therefore, to condone an affair (directly) is to condone something that the law states is wrong. Hence, if the TTC were to allow this, they would be challenging this rather embedded legal precedent. What, for getting to whore out two streetcars? Bitch, puh-leeze!

I’d slap AM’s ass to the curb faster than you can say Q.E.D. Where do they get off, pushing the Commission around? You know, I’m not always a fan of transit, and even though there’s a tonne wrong with it, I’d rather it showed some integrity and backbone rather than put it’s ass in the air and grease up. Once again, *applause*.

Joe Mihevc, second in command to the TTC chairman — who is ideally the most impartial and level-headed person in the room — responded to AM’s threat with “We’re ready to defend our right to determine what ads go onto our brand as the TTC.” Oh yeah – I almost forgot; the TTC is a business and they have a brand image to protect. Ding ding … and in this corner … the TTC’s gonna kick your ass!

Wow, our little Red Rocket’s balls grew two sizes today! I can’t tell you how proud I am.

And as regards lying, well, I do it all the time. Lots of different ways and, sometimes, quite enjoy it. But generally not at someone’s expense, and especially not at my own. Words of wisdom, biatch!

PEACE!!

I’m out.

Oh God, it’s that time again … gift season. I believe this adds a great deal of stress to anyone’s holiday schedule. You have to be both a creatively gifted person and have your finger on the pulse of commerce to both avoid getting the same presents year over year, and to know where / how /  when / for how much your idea may be fulfilled.

Add to that the challenge of crowded parking lots, shoppers wired on their kids’ Ritalin and ready to pounce on anyone who gets in their way, and the simple challenge of just getting around in the seasonal conditions – and you’ve got yourself some war planning to do. Old Man Winter’s pretty much made himself at home and he’s, well, he’s not always at his sexiest. Because he’s so ubiquitous, I couldn’t take a photo of him, so instead here’s a Titanic-style rendering:

I never feel like shopping after walking in on that.

Well, since most of my shopping will probably consist of gift cards and video games (nephews are the perfect age!), there really won’t be anything interesting to document this year. Unless the store at which I’m purchasing said gift card or video game is being held up, but I usually never get the camera out in time so I wouldn’t bank on it.

Due to this, I decided instead to compile some (hopefully) unique and original gift ideas – for you and your loved one. Of course, they may no suit everyone’s tastes, but that’s why there’s more than one thing on the list :)

The Toronto City Life 2009 Gift Guide

If you live with one of those snooty sonsabitches who wishes for world peace, you’re probably thinking what a miserable, selfish asshole! I mean, how the hell are you supposed to pull that one off in time for Christmas? You can either tell them to go to hell, or if they’re that important to you, you can do the next best thing and get them a world piece. Maybe lop a desk globe in half (or smaller), and gift wrap. Couldn’t be simpler, more affordable, and practically the same thing.

If your recipient just wants cold, hard cash like all normal people, you can exotify the gift by sticking it into a decorative red envelope and calling it a Han Bau. This is the traditional gift in China. Typically it’s given during the Lunar New Year and most often to kids, but I don’t know about you, but I ain’t Chinese so to hell with tradition. For the ultimate in authenticity, get the envelopes with some Chinese characters on them (do you really care what they say?), and hand the wad over with a gong-shi gong-shi ni-a! (that’s the traditional way of congratulating someone for surviving another year)

In the olden days, a lump of coal was seen as one of the worst things that anyone could receive. Of course, back in them ignorant times people had no clue how versatile coal really is. We now know that it’s the raw material for producing diamonds (this year, giver her a lump), and as energy prices continue to skyrocket, something to help heat the home is indeed a terrific gift!

And shit, if you’re giving coal, you may as well include a canary. If the coal decides to get any bad ideas, the canary will die (an old miner trick), saving you the embarrassment of having to drag the gassed-out carcass of your significant other onto the front lawn.

But I know that ladies aren’t always into practical things so something that appeals to their aesthetic sense is a great alternative. I thought about this one for a while and came to the conclusion that a pair of front teeth is a swell and inexpensive gift. I believe there was even a song written about it.

Ladies, in my experience, also just enjoy extensively hugging things – cuddling, I believe they call it. Doesn’t the Cuddle Fish sound like the perfect gift for the woman in your life? If you’re having trouble finding one, try the alternate spelling of Cuttlefish — the pronunciation is the same. Even sounds cute!

For your man, nothing says “I put effort into this bitch” more than a city sewer grate. To begin with, there’s gotta be at least five bucks’ worth of raw material in there so there’s that, and once he realizes the effort required to lift it (let alone gift wrap it), he’ll fall in love all over again. On top of all this, you’re out zilch and now have an amazing conversation piece in your living room! Not a world piece, mind you, but almost as good.

If you’re trying to avoid theft this Christmas, and you happen to be environmentally conscious, a year’s worth of natural gas can apparently be had entirely for free. I know, it’s practical, but for free you can make it a stocking stuffer! I’m not sure how the process works but it involves something called a Dutch oven and fine Egyptian cotton sheets.

A packet of farm-fresh Anthrax is, I’m told, also a well-received gift. It’s incumbent on you to ensure that the receiver knows it’s Anthrax. Of course, if they don’t believe you, they deserve what they get – untrusting louts. Otherwise, it’s theirs to dispense with as they please. The youth I’ve given it to in the past all assure me it was a “sick” gift. That means cool ;)

Finally, I was tossing around the possibility of getting someone an Ewok. You know, from the forest moon of Endor. They’re cute, anthropomorphic as all get out, and pretty damn rare in North America. Imagine the surprise when one pops out of a box with a ribbon on its head. I won’t recommend this one until I can figure out where to obtain a pet Ewok, but I thought I’d throw that out in case you happen to know of a reliable supplier. In which case, can you hook me up?

In previous years I experimented with food and standard pets, but they either start to mold pretty severely or their body begins decomposing well before the box is opened (even if you put them in alive). And I always seal the boxes really well, so air leaking in is not the cause. Guess they just don’t make good gifts. It doesn’t make for a nice Christmas eve (our family opens gifts on the 24th); kids cry, maggots get all over the carpet, smell ruins the hell out of the Carp dinner. Besides, why not do something different this time?

(this was the best I could come up with — St. Lawrence market is really distracting!)

Today, of course, I heard all the stories. In the back of a cab on the way to the club with the boss; that was a good one. Certain alcohol-fueled flirtations upon arrival at said club. Good, good. Keep it coming :)

Unfortunately, I bailed from the office Christmas party at close to two in the morning. Technically, the party was over, but it usually just disperses to another locale. Took me some time to convince my cubicle buddy that we didn’t split at midnight as he kept insisting we did. I may have been sloshed, but if I can stand, I’m usually pretty with it. The service stopped at midnight … ah, that’s why it seemed like we left at that time. Right, right.

I felt like it was a pretty full night. We closed the doors on The Academy of Spherical Arts, a bar and restaurant with swanky pool tables and plush couches. You put your beer down anywhere and they leap out from behind the counter with a machete and cut you down like the savage animal you are.

Despite the plethora of criticisms I have for the company, their ability to throw a good party is without reproach. In the summer we gather at the top boss’ house (top boss in our office, anyway), get shitfaced and play baseball and other wholesome sports until the sun goes down. Then the hot tub cover comes off, someone gets naked (never anyone you want to see naked), and someone does a face plant on the lawn (because it’s so dark, of course).

But the Christmas party is the king of office parties, in my opinion. It’s the one where you’re supposed to tux around and act all grown-up, but that usually goes out the window at the sixth pint. It’s when people tell each other what they really think of each other, and it’s sometimes … less than flattering.

That’s probably why they chose some place with pool tables, it gives us a chance to settle scores like civilized drunkards: a bracing game of billiards. Here I am crossing swords with K.K., the marketing design whiz. Note she’s doing the rock horns while I’m saluting our dark overlord. That’s how the argument always begins. The gentleman in the back is the one who will administer the final coup de grâce once one of us lies gasping for breath and begging for mercy. None shall be given, of course.

Jeans in a sea of dress pants and dresses. I could’ve come to work all dolled up in the morning but that’s no way to get through the day – I sit near the rads and in the winter, stuff melts. The alternative is to run home, throw the getup on, and get back before the buffet gets cold. Unless they schedule the party right after the office closes. Some people actually still work at the end of the day, you know?

… Continue Reading

Regarding the title, I simply came to the conclusion that, really, is there a better opportunity to use it than today? I mean, tomorrow the interweb could break and then I’d be kicking myself in the pants for weeks for having missed the golden moment. So there’s that explained.

Of course, this all has to do with my insistence on integrity. You see, I may resort to describing the glistening contours of the thing that emerged from my bowels this morning, but only if that thing actually took form, and I’m really hurting for a topic. So when I make a bowl of miso, I may freely incorporate it into the discussion, and title, and rest assured it’s better than just any old shit.

This particular bowl of miso also has a history.

I was walking near the lakeshore on Cherry Street pretending to be Rain Man and taking pictures of random stuff in the sky. Here’s one I call “Wapner’s on at three”:

The wind in that area is out to murder people; not hurt or maim, murder. I pulled my hands out for, maybe, three seconds to take that picture and I nearly lost them both to exposure. I need to get a glove fund started or pretty soon I’ll be the famous stumpy blogger who mashes out his photos like he mashes out his posts, poorly. I’m not good with stumps.

By keeping my hands in my pockets, I managed to defrost them long enough to take a few more pictures, but the closer I got to the lake the more it was looking like the wind would have its way with me before tossing my bedraggled corpse over the side of the bridge into the dark, choppy waters below.

And I gotta tell ya, that just didn’t sound like fun at all.

Huddled in my coat and hands stuffed as far away from danger as possible, I double-timed it out of there. The two surviving photos are entitled “I’m an excellent driver” and “Wapner’s on at three redux”, respectively:

Okay, so I’ve just escaped a savage death at the hands of the elements but I’m still not out of the woods; now the miso comes into play.

In that God-forsaken land where there is naught but wailing and gnashing of teeth, there stands a gaily lit T&T Supermarket. The T&T carries probably the most extensive assortment of Asian / Taiwanese goods outside of Asia / Taiwan, many of which I picked up a taste for during my expat years. The winters during that time were cold and damp and my rock-solid cure for them was hot miso and cold sushi. Well, mostly the miso. The sushi came around on one of those little conveyor belts — the fish was kinda secondary. Plus they had killer wasabi.

So I ducked into the T&T and, completely separated from the maelstrom outside, picked through green onions to the soothing sounds of Gordon Lightfoot. I wandered the aisles pretending to be shopping for chopsticks or … woks or … live squid or … tampons until I warmed up enough for the daunting journey back home. … Continue Reading

Dear reader, a moment of silence, if you will.

This is the sad news I mentioned on Wednesday; you have this weekend to drop in and pay your last respects, because The Carlton shuffles off this mortal coil on Sunday.

*sniff*

I spent more than one Ferris-Bueller’s-Day-Off-like day off here sipping up weird foreign and off-beat movies after a downtown traipse and a nice meal, a wonderful dénouement to a well-skipped afternoon of high school. The last movie to warp my susceptible mind was David Lynch’s “Lost Highway”. It was typical Lynchian fare, all dark corners and creepy music, and I remember the fuzzy dismemberment scene being particularly poignant on that tiny projection screen.

I think, ultimately, this is the theatre’s downfall. As I recall, the screens are slightly larger than modern big-screen LCD TVs, each screening room holds maybe twenty people, and the experience includes the standard sticky floors and a mandatory interaction with someone else’s discarded gum beneath the arm rest; still minty by the smell on the fingertips.

It’s dingy.

Was dingy.

:(

It was one of the most sophisticated things I could do as a newly carded teenager – sip an over-priced drink or two before a film. (you’re not allowed to call them “movies” there) The Carlton is one of the only theatres (or at least was the last time I was there), that has a bar.

Had a bar.

:(

Strangely, I wasn’t very popular at my high school. Not unpopular either. Just wallpaper. But my sideline clique observations taught me that all things are transient so, in some small way, I always knew this was coming.

At one time The Carlton was a desecration of whatever stood in its place before it, much in the same way that people are bitching about what will come in its place now. It probably won’t continue to be a theatre anymore but the history will be subsumed into something new and different. Its been happening pretty regularly around the city, just up the street is an excellent example:

(big!)

It is sad to see the theatre go but, in retrospect, its demise was was spelled out well in advance. The market for interesting movies is still out there but it’s hard to justify plunking down increasingly hard-earned cash for that kind of environment; I have plenty of grungy filth to sit in front of at home, thanks.

The Invisible Hand wipes away anything that doesn’t measure up – I don’t even think that’s economics, just Darwinism. If it can justify its own existence, a building can withstand a wholesale razing of the neighbourhood and still come out swinging. Here’s a great example:

The Bell Lightbox might be looming ominously in the background, but Champs is holding it’s own. What can I tell you, it’s a contender; the demand for street meat has never been higher.

I’ll miss The Carlton, no doubt, but the few history classes I did attend informed me that change is often painful. With just about everything available digitally, in high-def, at home, the time for mediocre theatres has passed. It’s no longer enough just to provide a way for your patrons to intoxicate themselves, the theatre also needs to not suck.

I have no idea how teens spend their time cutting class these days, but I’m fairly certain it’s not at The Carlton. I was a heck of a geek during my own teen years and I found that the theatre only seemed to attract people of my own nerdy ilk; not a sustainable business model. I doubt that the alternative film market will dry up in Toronto, it’ll just have to consolidate.

Unfortunately for The Carlton, it’s too late to join in.

Rest now, sweet, sticky prince.

Wednesday mornings are always a bit tenuous, aren’t they? Technically they’re at the foot of the hump, but you still have a few hours just to get there. Only then you can start the countdown, and the drinking really can’t even properly start until much later. Wednesday mornings are the stale farts of the week.

Luckily, there are always a few interesting things that I pass on my way to the next eight hours of numbing anguish – things that punctuate the doom as if to suggest that, maybe, there is hope. There’s the very real possibility that I’m simply reading too much into them, but I need all the straws I can grasp onto these days. Especially on Wednesday mornings.

On this particular mid-week sulk I trudged up behind Cam Woolley who, along with his CP24 cameraman, were making googly eyes at Maple Leaf Gardens across the street:

They were there to do a report on the deal that the Loblaw supermarket chain and Ryerson University made to finally do something with the Gardens. The place has been on ice for years, and aside from a TV show that was shot there, it really only served as cover for a late-night whiz. With a shot of cash from the feds, Ryerson’s going to make the place into an athletics building (the campus is made up mostly of acquired buildings downtown), and Loblaw’s going to stick a supermarket in there. Big shock on that one.

Despite being an atypically traitorous Canuck who couldn’t give a rat’s ass about hockey, I will once again go on record as saying that this is a travesty. As a Ryerson sports hall, the Gardens building is fine, but as a supermarket … jeez, eh? The thing was built in the style of a Depression era nuclear war bunker. It’s designed for large, rowdy crowds with boozy cognition. The building even had a bowling alley somewhere on the upper level when it was first built – during those days people loved to roll their great big balls around while watching the boys work their sticks below. Ahh, the thirties. So the building can withstand a beating, but it ain’t pretty:

That feeling of being entombed in concrete will certainly give the grocery store an ambiance. And the urine, the beery urine, that’s still embedded in the crevices of every darkened corner of the building. I wouldn’t like to have that nearby as I test melons.

But hey, maybe they’ll make it work somehow; beer carts and such. A tipple for the little ones and shopping’s a-okay again. And perhaps, once a thriftapenny always a sober jerk, as the old saying goes, so I think the idea has some merit. Why would they make up a saying like that if it was wrong or meaningless?

I kept mulling over the possibilities as I walked past the Gardens and down into Carlton Station. There was a notice bearing some bad news in the vicinity but this, dear reader, I’ll have to share another time because Wednesday’s just a little too incongruous already to toss that into the mix. There are better coping days.

I simply continued on to the ticket booth.

“Ten tokens please.”

“All out.”

“Really? I could buy less, I just need a few.”

“Really, all out. We have tickets though.”

“Paper tickets?”

“Paper tickets.”

Holy shit :D I hadn’t held a paper TTC ticket in my sweaty hand since I was in high school. They were smaller then and had a different motif, but the obvious ease with which they could be reproduced made them targets for amateur counterfeiters. Or aspiring amateur counterfeiters. And then I discovered these things’ll be valid until the beginning of next year — all the makings of a scheme! :)

Okay, Wednesday, it’s a good start. But we gotta do something about that hump, it’s just unsightly.