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[PHOTO] "Go west!" the shoe points
Sep. 10th, 2009 12:07 pmI saw this solitary shoe one day on the southern fringe of the Dundonald Street Parkette, pointing southwesterly towards--what? A dollar store and Yonge Street?
Sep. 10th, 2009
This live performance by La Roux makes me interested in the group.
Some of the reviews I've read position the group as the next Eurythmics, as part of the revival of 1980s synthpop featuring a rather innovative-looking female lead singer. This may be the case, although I'd have to buy the album (yes, I still do that) and have an uninterrupted listen to judge.
La Roux saddens me, as this group constitutes practically the lone exception to my complete lack of awareness of contemporary popular music. While listening to my mp3s at work, a co-worker commented that I don't seem to have any tracks younger than five years. This is so true.
How do you stay in touch with what's going on musically? Blogs, newspapers, magazines, word-of-mouth? I'd like to think that I stay up to date with most things, and it rankles me that this one personally critical area is one that I'm not abreast of.
Some of the reviews I've read position the group as the next Eurythmics, as part of the revival of 1980s synthpop featuring a rather innovative-looking female lead singer. This may be the case, although I'd have to buy the album (yes, I still do that) and have an uninterrupted listen to judge.
La Roux saddens me, as this group constitutes practically the lone exception to my complete lack of awareness of contemporary popular music. While listening to my mp3s at work, a co-worker commented that I don't seem to have any tracks younger than five years. This is so true.
How do you stay in touch with what's going on musically? Blogs, newspapers, magazines, word-of-mouth? I'd like to think that I stay up to date with most things, and it rankles me that this one personally critical area is one that I'm not abreast of.
Over at Demography Matters, I've a post up examining the exceptional concentration of Québec's immigrants in Montréal and wonder about both the portents for the future of Québec and the likelihood of other societies in similar positions. Go, read.
blogTO's Tim has come up with awonderful feature: where are Toronto's best WiFi coffee shops? Tim is critical of how many don't support wireless Internet.
As some commenters note, it's unfair to expect all coffee shops to specialize in WiFi since, after all, coffee is their raison d'etre.
The list, though, the list and the commenters' suggestions are wonderful!
Free WiFi access in Toronto should be a lot more common than it is. But with the powers at City Hall uninterested in bridging the digital divide or otherwise undertaking initiatives to increase wireless internet penetration, it's up to individual business owners and non-profit groups like Wireless Toronto to make the internet accessible in more places outside the home.
In the downtown core, free WiFi is particularly spotty no thanks to the presence of Cogeco's $5 an hour OneZone and the lack of free WiFi at many of the major coffee chains. Even a number of popular independents (B Espresso and Manic Coffee to name two) decline to offer the service, instead choosing to focus on what a Manic staffer told me was "the enjoyment of loving coffee."
Then there are places like Zoots which could have been a haven for laptop-toting caffeine-seekers. Free WiFi is available but management limits the duration of their customers' stay by not permitting the use of their power outlets (the official explanation being that the building can't support the additional energy consumption from laptops).
As some commenters note, it's unfair to expect all coffee shops to specialize in WiFi since, after all, coffee is their raison d'etre.
The list, though, the list and the commenters' suggestions are wonderful!
This is a sad story.
Back in May, I posted a photo of 1 Spadina.
1 Spadina Crescent, a University of Toronto building that served as a theological college, a military hospital, and a pharmaceutical research centre, before serving as the home of the university's newspaper and Fine Arts department as well as the Ontario branch of the Eye Bank of Canada, is located directly north of this intersection.
1 Spadina Crescent--until now, ironically--wasn't considered to be a ghost haunt. Well, mostly.
It's a sad situation, as I said. Who doesn't want to have some illicit fun on a first date? Or, perhaps more appropriately, who doesn't want the first date to be interesting enough to snag the other's attention? My sympathy goes out to all people concerned.
A 29-year-old woman who fell three storeys to her death at a University of Toronto building early Thursday was on a first date with the man who was exploring the structure with her, police said.
Police arrived at 1 Spadina Cres. near College Street and Spadina Avenue at around 2 a.m. in response to reports of a man and woman trying to jump from one level of the building to another.
The man was able to make the jump, but a wire fence that the woman was leaning on gave way, police said. She fell into a courtyard in the centre of the building.
The woman was rushed to St. Michael's Hospital, where she was pronounced dead.
The two were walking home at the end of their first date when they decided to explore the building, said Staff Sgt. Deb Abbott.
[. . .]
Police said earlier in the day that the pair were hunting for ghosts in the 134-year-old building, which they believed was haunted. But they backtracked Thursday afternoon, saying they could not confirm that account.
Back in May, I posted a photo of 1 Spadina.
1 Spadina Crescent, a University of Toronto building that served as a theological college, a military hospital, and a pharmaceutical research centre, before serving as the home of the university's newspaper and Fine Arts department as well as the Ontario branch of the Eye Bank of Canada, is located directly north of this intersection.
1 Spadina Crescent--until now, ironically--wasn't considered to be a ghost haunt. Well, mostly.
In January 2001, 50-year-old artist and lecturer David Buller was found stabbed to death in his studio in the building at 1 Spadina Crescent.
The unsolved killing may have fed rumours that the building, erected in 1875, is visited by ghosts.
[. . .]
Ghost tours do take place at other university buildings but 1 Spadina Crescent is not among them, said Richard Fiennes-Clinton, a guide with Muddy York Walking Tours.
He said he had never been able to unearth ghost stories related to the structure but said he could understand why some might believe otherwise given the building's imposing style.
The ghost research society, which has had a website for almost 13 years, also said it had never had any reports or even queries related to paranormal activity at the building.
"Because it's kind of a Gothic looking building, maybe they were under the impression somehow it was haunted. It looks kind of eerie," Durroch said.
"You can enjoy ghosts and hauntings, you can do so safely without breaking any laws or trespassing. Thankfully, this is an isolated case in Canada but there have been several similar incidents in the United States where tragic circumstances were the outcome."
It's a sad situation, as I said. Who doesn't want to have some illicit fun on a first date? Or, perhaps more appropriately, who doesn't want the first date to be interesting enough to snag the other's attention? My sympathy goes out to all people concerned.
[LINK] "A view of Shanghai"
Sep. 10th, 2009 11:00 pmOver at his blog, Gideon Rachman starts a discussion about the health of the Chinese economy by looking at the state of things in Shanghai.
Thoughts?
I’m sure it is all too easy to be swept up by Shanghai fever. The view from the bar on the 87th floor of the Shanghai World Financial Centre – otherwise known as the “Mori building”, after the architect - is quite stunning. Around you are the soaring skyscrapers of the new Pudong district, which barely existed a decade ago. On the other side of the bend in the river is the Bund, the graceful stretch of buildings which defined pre-war Shanghai. The most famous landmark on the Bund is the old HQ of the HongKongShanghai Bank, with its graceful cupola. These days HSBC are in a new tower in Pudong – and they are about to move into an even bigger skyscraper later this year. Shanghai is in the midst of a building frenzy. The Mori building is currently the tallest in China, but will soon be eclipsed by a rival next door. The new airport – in which I am spending rather more time than I’d hoped – is vast. No fewer than eight subway lines are currently under construction, in preparation for next year’s Shanghai Expo. And the lines that are already running are clean, quick and efficient.
[. . .]
The new Mori building is splendid – but only about a third of it is said to be rented. The gyrations of the stock market are hardly reassuring. The run-up earlier this year may reflect all the excess cash sloshing around the system, after the government’s stimulus package. But it’s not clear that this will be enough to compensate for the hammer blows to export industries. That is why the report from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, claiming 40m job losses since the onset of the recession, is a useful corrective to euphoria induced by a view of Shanghai from a great height, with a beer in your hand.
Thoughts?