I spend a lot of time at High Park. Every year, at about this time, the cherry blossoms at High Park bloom. Cherry blossoms are nature's fireworks, so beautiful but oh so brief. Before the know it, the blossoms have blown away.

From Wikipedia:

High Park in Toronto, ON features many Somei-Yoshino cherry trees (the earliest species to bloom and much loved by the Japanese for their fluffy white flowers) that were given to Toronto by Japan in 1959. Through the Sakura Project, the Japanese Embassy donated a further 34 cherry trees to High Park in 2001, plus cherry trees to various other locations like Exhibition Place, McMaster University and the University of Toronto's main and Scarborough campuses.

James and I took a trip to High Park today to soak it all in and snap some pictures. If you live in Toronto and have never seen the cherry blossoms in High Park, get over there now because this won't last much longer.

Here's a photoset I just created with the many photos I just took.

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When my mom told me at about 10am this morning that the TTC was on strike, I didn't believe her. Firstly, it seemed like a pretty good deal, so why would the union reject the offer on the table? Secondly, the TTC union promised 48 hours notice before striking, and when I turned of the laptop last night, there was nothing about a strike on the wire.

There's something rotten in the state of Denmark. How many Friday night clubbers and bar hoppers staggered onto the streets after midnight only to discover the TTC was closed for buisiness? As I type, there's a sold-out crowd at the ACC for the Raptors game and at BMO Field for Toronto FC. The Better Way wasn't an option, which meant more cars clogging the streets. Thousands of Torontonians are actively working on contingency plans, figuring out how they're getting to work Monday morning. It just doesn't seem right, does it?

The Ontario legislature will meet tomorrow to debate legislation to force 9,000 striking Toronto transit workers back on the job as soon as possible. To his credit, John Tory has said the Progressive Conservatives will back the Liberal bill, but Howard Hampton isn't tipping his hand. Without NDP support, the bill could be delayed up to five days. Oh joy.

I've got a complaint, so I'm going to use this handy TTC complaint form. You should do the same. Let 'em have it, Toronto.

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Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) is a respiratory disease in humans which is caused by the SARS coronavirus (SARS-CoV). Five years ago yesterday, while we were in Toronto were in the clutches of a near pandemic, I wrote this entry about SARS.

SARS Update: From the eye of the storm

The World Health Organization has just issued a warning against travelling to Toronto. Don't travel to Toronto unless it's essential, they say. Major League Baseball is issuing warnings to teams visiting Toronto. They're asking that contact with fans at SkyDome be kept to a minimum. Headlines all over the world are painting Toronto as a dangerous place to be right now. A global pariah!

I live in Toronto. I spend every day in Toronto. I've never put on a mask and my day-to-day living hasn't changed a bit. The only thing that's even slightly different, as far as I can tell, is that we're all sanitizing our hands throughout the day at work.

Last time I checked the stats, 16 people in Canada had died of SARS. All 16 people had a pre-existing diabetic condition or heart disease. If SARS kills, it gets plenty of help.

Life goes on in the big T.O. The Leafs are out of the playoffs, the Jays have slipped to last in the AL East and the Raptors haven't been seen in weeks. Sounds like a typical spring to me.

I just hope I don't accidentally cough. They'll have me locked up for 10 days without human contact. On the other hand, I am feeling a little warm...

Five years later, and I'm still not wearing a mask.

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The TTC has agreed to study the feasibility of selling corporate naming rights to subway stations as a way to raise money.

The controversial request for a study of practices in other cities came from commissioner Peter Milczyn, who cited an ad from the Middle East city of Dubai inviting corporations to "Turn your brand into a destination" by buying rights to two new transit lines and 23 stations being built there.

"If one of the wealthiest jurisdictions in the world is looking at doing this, we should at least look at it," he said.

Saying "beggers can't be choosers," Milczyn noted the TTC is embarking on an ambitious expansion while struggling to raise operating funds.

Boy, do I hate this idea. Does absolutely everything have to be corporatized? I don't want to take the subway to Home Depot station or McDonald's station.

Here's hoping this idea dies a quick death. Better it than me.

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Torontonians, it's officially complain-about-the-heat season. After a lengthy complain-about-the-cold-and-snow season, it's nice to completely skip the comfy season and dive right into our annual complain-about-the-heat season.

How hot has it been this weekend? It's only April 20th and I've already taken the ice scraper out of the car and thrown it into the trunk until November. That's right folks, you won't even find a snow shovel on my veranda.

The funny thing is, I already miss complain-about-the-cold-and-snow season.

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YouTube user WNED17 recently uploaded some fantastic retro-Toronto-centric gems. These clips have brought back a tonne of memories for me, so I'm going to feature them one by one over the next few weeks.

Dar Robinson was a film stuntman who enjoyed breaking world records. In 1980, he set a world record cable jump from our very own CN Tower. He jumped 366 metres tied to only a 3mm steel cable.

You've got to see this stunt to believe it, and because Mr. WNED17 recorded the made-for-tv documentary The World's Most Spectacular Stuntman, it's embedded below.

Dar Robinson aced this stunt, but six years later he rode his stunt motorcycle off a cliff to his death. Live by the sword, die by the sword...

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Our city is heavily promoting the fifth annual 20-Minute Toronto Makeover. Mayor David Miller is asking all Torontonians at work, school or at home to stop what you’re doing on Friday, April 18, 2008, come outside at 2:00pm and do a 20-minute clean-up blitz around our office, school or neighbourhood.

As you might have guessed, I'm a sucker for stunts like this. I love a community joining together to better our city. Yes, we should be keeping this city clean 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year, but this 20-minute stunt will get the press and raise awareness, like our recent Earth Hour did.

I wanted to promote this 20-Minute Toronto Makeover 2008 by posting the ad they've released, but the city's website didn't make an image of the ad available. There is a PDF to download, which makes it easy to print and post (precisely the actions that result in litter), but the blogosphere is completely overlooked.

A blog entry only produces cyber litter, and although it'll take more than 20-minutes to rid the blogosphere of all this crap, you don't have to see it while you're walking our streets.

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I'm just checking my RSS feeds now, so I only just learnt that I'm emblematic of what’s wrong with Toronto. In fact, according to this entry from my pal Freddie P., I'm why Toronto has no chance. Here's a sample of what you'll find at FreddieP.ca this morning...

I truly admire my friend Mike Boon, but Boon is so emblematic of what’s wrong with the Toronto. Just go to his website and search Rob Ford and you'll see what I mean.

While the mayor and his NDP council systematically ruin the city, Boon prefers to put his focus on Rob Ford and criticize his so called political incorrectness and his personality.

Mike is like so many other bleeding heart Liberals and socialists in Toronto. They like to jump all over the Ford for his brash personality and some of his outrageous statements, while ignoring the real problems.

If it wasn’t for Rob Ford, so much of the incompetent, inept and wasteful policies at Toronto city hall would go unchecked. If it wasn’t for Rob Ford, the city of Toronto might find itself in worse shape than it already is.

While David Miller and his band of yahoos enact policies that push the city in reverse, Mike Boon and his like prefer to worry about whether someone is called an Oriental instead of an Asian.

While the David Miller regime mismanages tax dollars, and wastes money on free lunches, free trips and golf memberships, people like Boon prefer to focus on the fact that Rob Ford was overheard using profanity at a hockey game.

I'm guessing Fred has just read my Rob Ford Video Hits entry from earlier this week. That same entry caught Humble Howard's attention as well, and prompted him to write this entry which could have been titled "Why Toronto Has A Chance". Here's a taste of what my pal Humble wrote...

Years ago when I used to host a little radio show, Rob Ford was an amusing guest from time to time. I mean both he was amusing and a guest, from time to time.

Anyway, he was the aforementioned simply because he was a "loose" cannon. He would say outrageous things and it was fun to hear him slam the other nitwits on City Council.

Well I guess that act has worn a little thin. The Asian-non apology thing, the threatening to kill your wife thing and now this nasty little clip.

I got this off of the Mighty Boon's site and it's sickening. It is Rob Fords' true colors and the reason he will never be Mayor of Toronto. It is the type of thing that will be run over and over again should he even think of trying for office.

The people in his ward might be cool with good old Rob's antics but his schtick has gotten old and it certainly won't play outside of his inner circle.

As the only one of the three of us residing in the 416, I'm glad Rob Ford will never be mayor of my city. It's not just that he uses the wrong words, it's that he's an obnoxious, lying bully with little respect for the diversity of this city. He's somehow found his niche as the expense policeman who brags about his refusal to spend city money to run his office, but he's a one-trick pony. He hits that one note over and over again, and even if there's credence in his single point, it's drowned out by his homophobic, close-minded, dinosaur antics.

It's not about his words, it's about his character, and Toronto deserves far better.

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Stop the presses. There's late-breaking news from Toronto's City Hall. Rob Ford took offence to something he thought Globe & Mail reporter John Barber said. Apparently, and it's hard to tell from this video, not that it justifies another embarrassing Ford outburst, John Barber called Rob Ford a "fat f*ck".

Here's the video that will go totally viral today in the 416.

I'm not a Rob Ford fan, and I've said as much in this space on numerous occasions, but I totally gave the guy a free pass when he was arrested by Toronto police last week and charged with assault and threatening death. I think I'll just leave the last word to Toronto Life's Philip Preville.

Schadenford: The arrest of Rob Ford, city hall hoserPoor Rob Ford. If only he’d slept beside a machine all his life like those Orientals from the Orient, he probably wouldn’t be in this pickle. As you surely know by now, Ford was arrested Wednesday on charges of assault and threatening death in a domestic dispute involving his wife. When you heard the news, did you have that weird paradoxical reaction of being simultaneously surprised and not surprised? Shocked and blasé? You know, the kind of vaguely self-aware reaction that would make for a passable media studies paper or maybe, if you’re Lynn Crosbie, another tortured column in the Globe? Because when you think about it, didn’t the latest circus seem inevitable?

I mean, just look at him, right? Here’s a guy who is as unenlightened a hoser as you’ll ever find. Once, at a Leafs game (typical), he got drunk (typical) and belligerent (same), and then made fun of the Green Party (predictable) and Iranians (predictable, and also crass). He opposes speed bumps, and he once said that when cyclists get killed “it’s their own fault.” He has called Councillor Giorgio Mammoliti “Gino-boy,” made some comments about gays and AIDS that were so 1989, and said that “Oriental people work like dogs” and “are slowly taking over.” (He apologized to both Mammoliti and his Asian overlords. The LGBT crowd is still waiting.)

Perhaps, in a meta-analysis kind of way, you considered it some form of poetic justice that someone who has so frequently made recourse to ethnic and cultural stereotypes should himself come to symbolize the worst clichés of his own type—that the fat, white, insensitive, car-commuting suburban conservative WASP should end up being arrested for allegedly abusing his wife. And there’s the rub: if that’s what you’re thinking, then you are engaging in some pretty offensive ethnic caricature, which means you are no better than Rob Ford. Schadenfreude is such a guilty pleasure.

Meanwhile, if you can see past the prejudice, it’s clear that Rob Ford should not resign from council. Ford’s lawyer, Dennis Morris, points out that Ford was given custody of the kids despite the charges. Yesterday morning, AM640 broke the news that Ford had called the police the day before his arrest, to complain about his wife’s irrational behaviour. In other words, the known details of the case don’t conform to type at all. It’s messy and could get messier still. For the moment, the only conclusion to be drawn is that some serious marital difficulties are unfolding in the Ford household—not something to ever wish upon anyone.

Here's more schadenfreude.

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Here are a few shots of Toronto during Earth Hour last night. Just before 9pm, the meter at the Toronto Hydro control centre hit a low of 2,738 megawatts - 5 per cent below the demand an hour earlier and about 8.7 per cent less than a typical late March Saturday night.

The first two pictures are from the Associated Press and the third, our skyline as seen at 8:27 p.m. on March 29, 2008 compared with how it was seen at 8:19 p.m. on March 26, 2008, is from The Toronto Star.

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Ajax Mike tipped me off that the new Incredible Hulk trailer prominently features Yonge Street during the fight sequences. You can't miss that Sam the Record Man sign.

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Go figure, Toronto is merely #26 on a list of the 100 most dangerous cities in Canada. To assemble the rankings of the most dangerous and safest cities, Maclean's magazine used 2006 crime data from the Canadian Centre of Justice Statistics. The magazine then calculated the percentage difference from the national rate for six crimes - homicide, sexual assault, aggravated assault, vehicle theft, robbery plus breaking and entering - to determine the overall scores.

Here's the top twenty dangerous communities in Canada.

1. Regina
2. Saskatoon
3. Winnipeg
4. Prince George
5. Edmonton
6. New Westminster
7. Chilliwack
8. Victoria
9. Vancouver
10. Halifax
11. Brantford
12. Kamloops
13. Burnaby
14. Surrey
15. Thunder Bay
16. Kelowna
17. Fort McMurray
18. Nanaimo
19. Montreal
20. Abbotsford

I find it intriguing that the most dangerous city in Ontario is home to the hockey player least likely to drop the gloves.

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We've been warned. With 7° temps Thursday and Friday, all this snow is going to melt and that could mean flooding in the streets of Toronto.

I need this big melt. Raging Storm, my champion slo-pitch team, has registered to play a tournament on March 22nd. That gives Mother Nature 11 days to clear this white crap off of the field. A little warmth to thaw the ground might be nice too.

Of course, with the strong possibility Diamond Beach could be one massive pool of water, I might be better off with the snow.

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This 1954 footage from the CBC is making the rounds. If you know the TTC subway system, you'll get a kick out of this.

Toronto's got itself a subway!

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I've been exchanging emails with Quincy from Allied Advertising. Quincy is promoting the grand opening of AMC Yonge & Dundas 24 in the Toronto Life Square. This new state-of-the-art theatre is the first all-digital theatre in the area and it will be open to the public on March 28. All guests will receive one free small popcorn through April 24 to celebrate the grand opening.

Quincy's job is to raise awareness about this local event and he seems to get it. Sure, he issued the standard press release and is reaching out to the mainstream press, but he's also reaching out to guys like me who help fuel the new media, web 2.0 style. Quincy invited me to an exclusive press-only event to showcase the new theatre and its digital projection capabilities and he even even met my demands in exchange for a reference in this space.

Quincy, this entry's for you, a man who appreciates the value of viral buzz.

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The record snowfall for a Toronto winter, since we started measuring such things, was 1938-39 when 207.3 centimetres fell. You remember the winter of 1938-39, don't ya?

69 years later, we're going to smash that record. As of 8pm last night we were sitting at 195.2 centimetres. I can almost taste the record.

Another record has already been set. This is my sixth winter of blogging and I've never written more snow entries than I have this winter. Here are my snow-related entries from the snowiest winter in Toronto history.

• November 23, 2007
• December 15, 2007
• December 16, 2007
• December 17, 2007
• January 31, 2008
• March 6, 2008
• March 8, 2008

12 centimetres to go. We can do this.

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Throughout the day, I made four trips outdoors to shovel this snow. It's coming down so hard right now, I'm just going to leave it for the night and get it all tomorrow morning. I'm not complaining about all this snow, I actually don't mind shovelling, I'm just impressed by how quickly it accumulates and how it hasn't let up all friggin day.

Speaking of snow, "Superb Notorious Outrageous Whiteboy" was born and raised in Toronto, and this is his biggest hit.

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Rob Ford is simply too easy a target, and posting his dumb-ass quotes just isn't as much fun as it should be.

If you Google rob ford quotes, this entry I posted about two years ago is #2. Then, a year ago this week, I posted his fantastic quote about bike lanes. That sucker is the gold standard.

This will be the last Rob Ford quote I post. It's like shooting fish in a barrel.

Go to the Orient, go to Hong Kong. You want to see workaholics? Those Oriental people work like dogs... they sleep beside their machines. The Oriental people, they're slowly taking over... they're hard, hard workers.

It's not as good as the bike lane quote, but it ain't bad.

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Uncle!

I give up. It's relentless. Since my shovel broke from being abused all winter long, Mother Nature hammered us again and I almost broke my back trying to clear all that snow without a damn handle on my shovel. The crack in the base I can manage, but you don't realize the importance of the handle until it's gone.

The forecast for the weekend promises another 1-3 cm tomorrow and 10-15 cm on Saturday. I give up. I need a new shovel.

I'm scheduled to play a slo-pitch tournament on Easter weekend. This one is outside in Etobicoke, and I'm thinking we're going to need snow shoes. Al Gore teased me with the promise of warm Canadian winters and now I feel cheated.

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There's nothing I like better then waking up at 7am on my Saturday so I can press the F5 key on my laptop hundreds and hundreds of times. Today is the Toronto Parks, Forestry & Recreation registration day for spring and summer 2008, so hundreds of parents like myself had to log on at 7am to secure a spot for swimming lessons, day camps or whatever.

My wife thinks I'm better at this because I work on computers. The fact is, all I do is visit http://efun.toronto.ca/torontofun/ and reload the page until I get in, but apparently I'm good at it. She carefully put together instructions as to which swimming lesson to get James in and which camps to get Michelle in and so forth, and at 7am I was online and F5ing away.

My mom tells me she used to have to physically go to the swimming pool to secure a spot and that I'm lucky I can do this from my own bed. She might be right, but when the clock hit 7:15am and still hadn't made contact, I was pretty ticked off at the whole process.

By 7:20am I was in and our kids' summers were successfully planned. You should expect nothing less from a professional reloader.

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I rarely write about ad campaigns but this Obay marketing effort has me intrigued. Ads have popped up all over Toronto promoting an obviously fictional drug called Obay. They're everywhere and I have no idea what they're for.

One ad shows a father and son with the caption "My son had ideas of his own. Obay put a stop to that". Another reads "My son used to have his own hopes and aspirations. Now he has mine. Thanks, Obay!" A third features a mother and daughter and reads "When Amy started thinking for herself, we had to nip it in the bud with Obay".

Some suggest it might be a campaign for Ontario colleges. Others thought it might be for Scientology. I like the colleges angle, as it would be a great campaign for institutes of higher learning, but I also think it could be a psa reminding parents it's okay to encourage independent thought.

It's like the "Lisa the Vegetarian" episode of The Simpsons when Lisa objects to dissecting a frog and then asks Lunchlady Doris when she lost her passion.

Skinner: Oh oh. Two independent thought alarms in one day. The students are overstimulated. Willie! Remove all the coloured chalk from the classrooms.
Willie: I warned ya! Didn't I warn ya?! That coloured chalk was forged by Lucifer himself!

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YouTube user WNED17 recently uploaded some fantastic retro-Toronto-centric gems. These clips have brought back a tonne of memories for me, so I'm going to feature them one by one over the next few weeks.

If you grew up in Toronto, you were told CityTV is Everywhere. I don't know if they're everywhere, but for a period in the 80s they were the cooler place to get your news. Moses created an environment at Queen and John that shook things up nicely.

This clip, from 1984, is an introduction to the nightly CityPulse Tonight newscast. There's Gord Martineau, Anne Mroczkowski, David Onley, Jim McKenny and a guy I don't remember at all.

Here's a Labatt's Newsflash, likely from that very same 1984 day, with extra smiley Anne Mroczkowski.

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YouTube user WNED17 recently uploaded some fantastic retro-Toronto-centric gems. These clips have brought back a tonne of memories for me, so I'm going to feature them one by one over the next few weeks.

This is an ad for the TTC from 1984. I remember this song well. Does the TTC advertise at all anymore?

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I had a pretty good idea, but no time to execute. I wanted to create Toronto-centric Valentine's Day cards featuring local prominent figures, past and present.

Here are a few quickies I threw together. If anyone else wants to take this torch and run with it, we still have 7.5 hours left in the day.

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If you're reading this from the GTA, you know how damn cold it's been these past few days. How cold is it? They actually cancelled Beavers toboggan night. When it's too cold to toboggan, it's too cold.

It looks like this chill is about to subside. We're supposed to hit a toasty -4° C later day. I can't wait.

I searched my MP3 collection for songs with "chill" in the title, and here's what I got in return.

• Just Chillin' - Crash Test Dummies
• Chill - EPMD
• You Have Placed A Chill In My Heart - Eurythmics
• Eat 'em Up L Chill - L. L. Cool J.
• We Like To Chill - The 2 Live Crew
• Boogie Chillin' - John Lee Hooker

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In addition to a $105 towing charge, I recently got a $60 parking ticket. I thought I'd go down to 55 John Street and put up a bit of a fuss. As I waited in line at Metro Hall I realized I'd have gladly paid $60 to be anywhere else, but the damn principle of it all wouldn't let me cough up the coin.

My primary beef with this process is that you have to physically visit 55 John Street and wait in line to challenge a parking ticket. You can't request a trial over the phone or online, and that just seems wrong. It's as if they're purposely making it a real pain in the ass so you'll just pay the fee. Most sensible people just wouldn't be bothered.

My other issue is with the overwhelming sense there's no incentive for the civil servants to move the line along. There are four service windows at 55 John Street but for most of the time I was there only two were open and for a while only one. With an hour left in their work day, one of the two working clerks went on her 15 minute break. Us poor stupid folk in line just got angrier and angrier as we waited and waited.

Forced to visit Metro Hall between 8:30am and 4:30pm and then forced to wait in line for an hour, I'm getting my trial date. One of the questions on the request form asks if you're going to bring evidence that contradicts the stated offence. I said no. The clerk asked me why I was requesting a trial date if I couldn't argue against the charge. I told her the truth. My plan is to look really sweet and innocent, reference the $105 I've already coughed up and beg for mercy.

If nothing else, it should give me some interesting blogging material.

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Here we go again. The snow watch frenzy is in high gear as we anticipate 25-30cm of snow between midnight and tomorrow evening.

The Weather Network page for Toronto has a "Winter storm warning" in full effect. Here it is:

SNOW HEAVY AT TIMES IS EXPECTED ACROSS ALL OF SOUTHERN AND EASTERN ONTARIO WITH A POSSIBILITY OF FREEZING RAIN AND ICE PELLETS ALONG LAKES ERIE AND ONTARIO ON FRIDAY. THIS IS A WARNING THAT DANGEROUS WINTER WEATHER CONDITIONS ARE IMMINENT OR OCCURRING IN THESE REGIONS. MONITOR WEATHER CONDITIONS..LISTEN FOR UPDATED STATEMENTS.

How exactly do we "listen for updated statements"? It's a textual warning on a website.

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Jon Stewart has a great line about Canada. "What do we think of Canada ... we don't". With apologies to Jon Stewart, I don't call Scarborough Scarlem. I don't call it at all.

You've likely read the Star article about Scarborough politicians' frustration with being disrespected by their Toronto cousins who live west of Victoria Park Ave. Personally, I don't draw the line at Victoria Park. I use Yonge street to divvy up the city.

Five years ago I wrote about EoY and I. EoY stands for East of Yonge, and I wrote about how whenever possible, I avoid EoY completely. This has been the case my entire life. Whether it's going to school, a movie theatre, out to dinner, shopping, for a bike ride or even to a concert or sporting event, I am least comfortable when I'm EoY.

I've always lived in the 416, West of Yonge Street. My entire life is based West of Yonge. It's got nothing to do with crime rates or anything like that, it's just how the cards have fallen. It's my parents fault for raising me West of Yonge and it snowballed from there because everything I enjoyed and pursued seemed to be located West of Yonge.

I avoid Scarborough, but I have never, ever called it Scarlem.

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When there are extreme swings in the temperature, it's time to blog about the weather.

Today's high is 14°. It reminds me of this January 2007 day when we hit double digit temps. We didn't hit 14°, though.

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In 2007, I got a Facebook account. I wasn't alone. Toronto became the first city in North America to break 1 million subscribers.

Last I checked Toronto proper had 2,503,281 residents. There's no way these grandiose claims that 1,000,000 of us have Facebook accounts is true. Metro Toronto's population is 5,555,912. I still don't buy that 20% have Facebook accounts, but I will make this observation. Facebook is awfully popular.

You read it here first.

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Don't forget Torontonians, the TTC is completely free tonight from midnight to 4 am. Go ahead, get drunk and stupid as you ring in the new year, then leave your car and TTC it home.

The free ride tonight is thanks to Capital One. That's the second time this year a credit card company has stepped up for this city. MasterCard coughed up $160,000 to make sure city ice rinks open in December.

By the way, it's not just the TTC that's free tonight. Transit systems in Mississauga and York Region are also offering free rides starting at 7 pm and running until the systems close in the wee hours of the morning. GO Transit will also be offering free rides starting 7 pm New Year's Eve until service ends.

Have fun tonight, kids. Daddy's staying home and watching more "Arrested Development".

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The New York Daily News has quite the interview with that pest Sean Avery. Asked after practice yesterday whether he was looking forward to visiting Toronto tonight, Avery, who grew up in neighbouring Pickering, Ontario, replied:

No. I never enjoy going to Toronto, really. So all that'll do is motivate me to play better, probably.

Why? Let's see. ... Because I don't enjoy hockey-obsessed Canadians. The exchange is not very good right now. And it's going to cost me a lot of money in tickets for people I don't even like.

How's that for an answer? Would you like me to go on? Nah, I think that's probably enough.

I was at Avery's last game in Toronto when he jawed at Darcy Tucker during the pre-game skate. He's a grade-A jerk. It's probably not worth responding because he gets off on being hated. Obviously, we "hockey-obsessed Canadians" prop up this league and ensure he makes such a fantastic salary. As far as him not liking Toronto, I'm okay with a Pickering boy spouting off against Toronto, in fact, when it's Avery doing the yakking, I take it as a compliment. We don't like him either.

Damn... That asshole threw down the lure and I bit.

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Toronto got about 26 centimetres of snow yesterday, which was close to our single-day record for December. The record was set on Dec. 11, 1944, when 28 centimetres fell on the city in 24 hours.

It seemed like more than 26 centimetres, didn't it? The rest of Canada will likely point and laugh when they read and hear what a big deal we made out of this blizzard. I can hear the snide comments from Winnipeg, Moose Jaw, Ottawa and our American friends in Buffalo now. In defense of Toronto, I would like to raise two points.

It's Still Autumn
Winter doesn't begin until Saturday. In my lifetime, there has never been an autumn storm as snowy as this one. By the fourth round of shovelling yesterday, I was running out of places to put snow. With months of cold weather ahead, what the heck will we do during the next snow storm? Should I go outside and start melting the stuff with a hair dryer? We aren't supposed to get 26cm of snow in the fall!

We Don't Get Much Snow
This point is aimed directly at those who live in places like Winnipeg, Moose Jaw, Ottawa and Buffalo. Toronto simply doesn't get that much snow. 26 cm may be just another snow storm in Winnipeg, but it's not just another snow storm here. There's something about our geographic location that shields us from mega snow storms. Nearby locales, like Barrie, Keswick and Buffalo, get buried, but we typically only get a few centimetres. We're not used to this, so it's a bigger deal for us than it would be for you.

This is it for snow-related entries today. I just wanted to get that off my chest. We now return to our regularly scheduled content.

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Last night I tried to watch Saturday Night Live's Best of Chris Farley on Buffalo's WGRZ-TV but they were stealing a good chunk of my 27 inch screen to tell me about all the church functions that were closed due to the imminent snow storm. I wondered to myself, wouldn't it be easier to just make one statement, "Everything in Buffalo is Closed on Sunday"? If you were planning to attend a religious education class this morning, would you really go to WGRZ-TV and watch the scroll until you saw your class was cancelled? If you didn't see it, would you assume it was still a go? I found it awfully distracting during the Matt Foley bit.

Here in the T.Dot we're just entering the heavy phase of this storm. My mom reports that in the next four hours we we'll get another 15cm.

As usual, I had my camera handy and just snapped this shot outside my home. I'm officially declaring a snow day.

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Torontonians, consider yourselves warned. A near-crippling snow storm with very heavy snow and blowing snow as well as some ice pellets is imminent. I know this because I visited the Weather Network page for Toronto Weather Watches & Warnings.

Cue the Storm Centre Guy, this one could be a lot of fun. I'm standing at the door holding my shovel in anticipation of the great dig. If you aren't prepared yet, read this:

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If you Google the name Rob Ford, my collection of Rob Ford quotes is on the first page of results. Rob Ford, for those of you who don't follow the exciting world of Toronto municipal politics, is a city councillor who represents Ward 2 in Etobicoke North.

I'm not a Rob Ford fan, as you might have gathered from that entry, but I dislike the optics of what's happening to him at City Hall. Ford makes a lot of noise about not spending a penny of his allotted $53,000 office budget. That's his schtick. He pays his office expenses out of his own pocket and that goes against the city's ethics rules. "You don't spend private money, or developers' money, or anybody else's money on things like your newsletters. You spend the public money because there's an audit trail, it's accountable," said Mayor David Miller.

Ford was formally reprimanded by the city's executive committee and they'll decide on his punishment December 12. I totally get why Ford is in the wrong here, and as a human being, I'm not eager to defend him, but the optics here stink. It just makes Miller and his cronies appear petty and brings more attention to Ford and his hot air.

They're playing into Ford's hands and he's loving every minute of it. Of all the battles that need to be fought, this is one Miller should have taken a pass on.

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It snowed yesterday. Yes, I'm a little late on this one. I saw the snow, and I was almost happy to see it. Last year it took a great deal longer before we had our first snowfall.

On December 15, 2006, I wrote an entry I titled "Remember Snow?". We went over a year without a decent snowfall in this city. That was one messed up winter. I wrote this on January 4, 2007, when it was 11° outside. I don't recall a decent snowfall before January 26.

This is your Toronto Mike snow report: a day late and a dollar short.

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Earlier today, I took the kids to the 2007 Santa Claus Parade. We got there two hours early and secured a nice spot on the South side of Bloor Street just East of Christie. For those who don't know, the 5.5k parade route begins at Bloor and Christie, so we were one of the first to see Santa and I was able to get home in time for my 17k run.

The day was perfect. The kids were so well behaved and watching Michelle's face as the Island Princess Barbie float went by made it all worth while. James' favourite float was the animals playing hockey. On a pop culture mental note, there was a Yahoo! float this year that featured a young girl surfing the web. They didn't have that float when I was a kid.

I took 79 photos you'll find here. We'll be back next year when I expect an iPhone and Facebook float in the mix.

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Stephen Brunt has a great column in today's Globe & Mail entitled "A Higher Calling". It's about Michael "Pinball" Clemons, easily the most likable athlete to play in this city. Pinball is asked daily when he's going to run for Mayor of Toronto. I decided long ago this was both inevitable and a very good thing for my city.

In September 2000, Pinball was set to play his final game of professional football. His last run would take place at SkyDome against the Saskatchewan Roughriders, and I knew I had to be there. I bought two tickets and took my wife to say farewell to a player who didn't just excite you with a big play, but inspired you with character. Pinball was never just a running back or kick and punt returner, he was a motivator, a leader and a hero, on and off the field. After the game he addressed the crowd with a wonderful speech drenched in class and sincerity. I'm glad I was there.

On Sunday he coaches in the conference final, and hopefully he'll be coaching in this year's Grey Cup. Then, I hope he steps down as Argonaut head coach. It's time he enters the political arena and takes the first step toward being our next mayor. He does have a higher calling, and we're the beneficiaries.

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This year's Santa Claus Parade will be hitting out streets on Sunday. I'll be there, for the fourth year in a row.

I just hit up the official parade site to see if they updated it. Even though they added an iPhone to the home page to give it a 2007 flavour, it's still a laughably bad site with one of the worst designed FAQ pages in the history of the World Wide Web.

At least they got rid of that scary elf. It always gave me the creeps.

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I don't know how I missed this news, but Toronto was voted the official Spice City. It's true, read this from The Return of the Spice Girls Wikipedia page.

Toronto was voted the official Spice City. Toronto received more votes than Rio de Janeiro - which came close in second place, Baghdad, and the Australian city of Alice Springs. The Toronto date was set for February 3 and 4, 2008. Tickets sold out in under a minute.

I am one proud Torontonian.

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In this city, there's a market for just about everything. Let's take coffee, as an example. There's your Starbucks crowd, your Second Cup crowd, your Tim Hortons crowd and your $15 a cup crowd.

Manic Coffee on College Street West brews Esmerelda Especial and sells it for $15 per cup. They sold 30 cups in less than 3 hours on Saturday. Apparently this Esmerelda Especial is rare stuff and it's got to be pretty darn tasty if people are willing to fork over $15 for a taste.

For $15 that coffee would have to do a hell of a lot more for me than taste good.

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This is really the only time of year you can justify sharing a good ghost story, so for the second year in a row I'm going to share my favourite ghost story of them all. This one is about a ghost named Reznikoff who haunts University College at the University of Toronto. Here's the tale as told over here.

According to accounts, the ghost, "a heavy, thickset figure, with black curly hair and a beard," typically appears on the road in front of UC's main entrance or near the Roundhouse on the western side of the building. His appearances are said to indicate approaching disaster, such as a Fenian raid in 1866, and the death of two faculty members in 1892. The so-called phantom was often "seen" flitting about around Valentine's Day and Halloween.

Ivan Reznikoff and Paul Diabolos were sculptors who worked on the construction of UC. Reznikoff, a muscle-bound Russian from Poland, had been saving his money and planned to marry his long-time girlfriend, but then discovered that she had been conducting a secret affair with Diabolos. A good-looking Greek from Corinth, Diabolos had somehow convinced her to steal Reznikoff's hard-earned cash and run away with him out West.

Furious, Reznikoff confronted and attacked his co-worker on the UC construction site. But Diabolos, armed with a knife, killed him and dumped his body down a well. Denied a proper burial and ticked off about the whole betrayal/murder episode, Reznikoff began a long career of haunting the historic college.

As legend has it, a gash in the door that leads to University College was the result of an axe swung by Reznikoff as he pursued Diabolos. Last year I revisited my old "haunting" grounds and took a couple of photos.

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Earlier in the week I complained about house prices in Toronto. I've just discovered that you can in fact still buy a house in Toronto for under $200,000. In fact, a charming little home near St. Clair and Dufferin is going for only $179,900.

It's the smallest house in the city, built on a driveway. For many young families, this is the only affordable piece of real estate in the city.

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The Buffalo Bills are seeking approval to play a preseason and at least one regular season game in Toronto. When I followed the NFL, the Bills were my favourite team. If anything can bring me back to the NFL, it's the relocation of the Bills to Toronto.

Yes, this is only one preseason game and a single regular season game, and it has to get both county and state approval, but this could be the beginning. Ralph Wilson is 89 years old and won't live forever, and I have no doubt a Toronto NFL franchise would be wildly successful, and I don't believe such an occurrence would kill the Argonauts. The Toronto Bills would be fantastic.

And it all starts with a regular season game in 2009.

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At this rate, Toronto will soon be a playground for the very rich. Home prices in the 416 area code continue to rise and now Torontonians like myself are experiencing a very interesting phenomenon. We can't afford to buy our own homes.

When I originally bought my house, I was able to afford it. This may seem like a redundant statement, because if I was able to buy I must have been able to buy it, but I can no longer afford to buy it. The value of my home right now is more than I can afford at this point in my life.

I wonder how many Torontonians are in this same position? Some see this as a good thing, because it means you've made money on your house should you decide to sell it. But what next? I would want a home in the same neighbourhood, and I'd want something a little bigger, so I can't afford to sell, even if the value has increased 25% in the past three years. I'm just lucky I got in when I did because I don't know where I'd end up if I were just now entering the housing market for the first time.

At some point in the not too distant future, a modest earner will be forced to buy in the 905. Toronto will be for multi-millionaire's only, and that's bad news for poor bastards like me.

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Toronto Mayor David Miller recently initiated a series of cuts to city services, including delaying the opening of outdoor rinks until January. That meant our outdoor public skating rinks would be closed during the Christmas season. MasterCard has fixed that.

MasterCard is donating $160,000 to make sure city ice rinks open in December. They're not advertising at the rinks or anything like that, but they know they'll get their $160,000 worth and more. Every Toronto newspaper, radio station, television news show and blogger is telling this story today and it's custom made to give you the warm fuzzies for MasterCard just ahead of the busiest shopping period of the year.

Good on MasterCard. Hopefully more corporations will secure similar good vibes in the coming months while we wrestle with a $575-million shortfall at City Hall.

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It's October 8th and I'm sitting on the porch coming to the realization that's it's just too damn hot to be outside right now. What is it, 30°? It's stifling.

It hasn't been warmer on Thanksgiving Day since I hit the earth. Don't tell Suzuki, but I'm thinking of throwing on the air conditioner for a bit. It'll be our little secret. I doubt he reads this blog.

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Are you happy? Do you love the city you live in? Are you proud to be a Torontonian?

If you answered yes to any of the questions above, you might want to disable the AM band on your radio. I caught ten minutes of John Oakley this morning on AM640 and I wanted to move as far away from Toronto as possible. It's all doom and gloom with a horrible mayor, an incompetent council, no hope, no chance for a bright future, the city of Toronto is going downhill, getting too expensive and becoming a violent pit of despair where only the evil rich can wallow in this cesspool of greed and corruption. It's bad people, and if you live in the 416, you're not only an idiot but you're going to die very unhappy.

A pal of mine listens to CFRB 1010 and he hears pretty much the same thing over there. I think most talk radio on the AM dial thrives on bashing this city and getting listeners all riled up about how much better things used to be and how bleak the future of Toronto is with fools at the helm.

After ten minutes I started to wonder what's wrong with me that I'm actually happy, love my city and am proud to be a Torontonian. And if I disable the AM band on my radio, how the hell will I ever hear Leaf games when I'm stuck in my car?

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I heard someone mention The Barracuda on CFNY this morning. In the mid-90s I used to frequent The Barracuda at 21 Scollard Street near Yonge and Bloor, usually on Thursday nights. As I recall, Monday nights were Phoenix nights and Thursday nights were Barracuda nights.

The allure was the fact they sold beer for 98¢ before 10pm. We'd buy a bunch at about 9:45pm and hoard them at our table. On one such toasty Thursday night in 1995, I met my future wife for the first time.

The best part of this story is the fact I actually ended up with her best friend's phone number. A few dates and weeks later, I successfully pulled off "The Switch" in glorious and brilliant Seinfeld fashion, and a few months after that I was married.

The Barracuda closed down in 1996, no doubt a result of those 98¢ beer nights, but it will forever be a part of my personal history. What would my life be like today without the 'Cuda?

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We all saw it coming. If it wasn't Dubai it would have been Chicago, Tokyo or Guangzhou. For 31 years, just about my entire life on this planet, the CN Tower was the world's tallest free standing structure at 553 metres. The Burj Dubai hotel passed 553 metres overnight, bumping our tower to #2.

Say it loud Toronto and say it proud. We're #2! We're #2! We're #2! We're #2!

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The Taste of the Kingsway festival has been around for ten years but I don't think I ever went until today. Sure, I made fun of it, but I never made the stroll to that part of Bloor Street to check it out.

It's okay. The kids got on a few rides and we watched a neat magic show by a pirate named Merlin, but after about 90 minutes I had my taste of the Kingsway. I hear The Taste of the Danforth tastes great. I can vouch for the fact The Taste of the Kingsway is less filling.

Here's a photographic taste of my taste of the Kingsway this afternoon.

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Today is the city of Toronto's recreation and cultural program registration day for Etobicoke and York districts. That means Daddy has to wake up early to battle other mommies and daddies for a valuable spot in desired courses.

James needs swimming lessons and Michelle is dying to take ballet, so at 6:59am I'm locked and loaded and hammering away at the F5 button. There was a time I would do the same thing for concert tix, but now I do it so Michelle can take ballet. Argh.

The first few minutes are always anxious as I hit that "maximum sessions exceeded" message and can't break through, but eventually I score and grab one of the last remaining spots. Success!

Don't cry for me. I'm already dead.

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Now that I've finally got used to calling the O'Keefe Centre the Hummingbird Centre, they're changing the name to the Sony Centre for the Performing Arts.

Hummingbird Centre, we had some good times together. I'll never forget that Hip concert with Sam Roberts opening or Edward Scissorhands. Memories...

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In the past, playoff games in our slo-pitch league have always taken place in September. Tonight's playoff game, on August 20, is by far the earliest date on record. It just seems too early to potentially play our last games, but there's a reason we're already this far in the schedule. There's been no rain.

In a typical season, you're in for two or three rain outs. It's actually not the rain that cancels the game, unless the field is flooded in a torrential downpour, it's the lightning. Aluminum bats and lightning don't mix. This season, for the first time in history, we didn't lose a single game due to rain, thus there was no games to make up at the end of the regular season. The same is true for my other league. Toronto has had a rain-less summer.

A little Googling confirms my suspicions. This summer has been the driest in Toronto in almost 50 years. It's also been exceptionally sunny. Of course, as I type this, light rain is falling.

Damn Murphy.

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I love to walk and sometimes I'll just walk the streets of Toronto. There's so much character to this place, the buildings, the people, the parks and the sounds all add texture to the fabric of our city.

I discovered Damon Schreiber's most recent photo project here and I'm so glad I did. Damon found a collection of Toronto photos online originally taken by Shige Sakamoto, a Japanese man who spent a week in the city in June of 1977, and set out to take the exact same photos today. The result is a wonderful trip back in time for those of us who remember Toronto in the late 70s.

You start here and click "Next Photo" to advance. The series is still going, so I'll be back again tomorrow. It's right up my alley.

Update: The site is currently down - no doubt choking under the strain of this MetaFilter mention. It'll be back...

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I love this city. They don't call me Toronto Mike for nothing. I was born in the 416, I've lived every second of my life in the 416 and I very well may die in the 416, although I'm hoping not for a very long time.

The City of Toronto has announced a series of cost-cutting measures to save $34 million by the end of the year. City Manager Shirley Hoy outlined the measures today as part of a package she says will save the city $83 million in a full year. Here are some of the low-lights.

• City Community centres close Mondays from mid-September until the end of the year
• Reduced library hours
• Delayed opening of outdoor artificial ice rinks
• Reduced pickup of yard waste and leaves
• Cancellation of door-to-door waste pickup at townhouses
• Less snow removal and litter pickup
• Reduced maintenance of parks and trees
• Less bylaw enforcement and fewer building inspections
• Early closure of municipal golf courses

From a selfish perspective, nothing there will really change my life. Hopefully the reduction in snow removal won't effect my running. Still, they're cutting a bunch of services in this city and that's a slippery slope.

Toronto deserves better.

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I didn't have to go into the office today because it's Simcoe Day. At least that's what we call this holiday here in Toronto. The question is, who the hell is this Simcoe guy?

In a nutshell, and shamelessly copied and pasted from Wikipedia, John Graves Simcoe (February 25, 1752 – October 26, 1806) was the first lieutenant governor of Upper Canada (modern-day southern Ontario plus the watersheds of Georgian Bay and Lake Superior) from 1791-1796. He founded York (now Toronto) and was instrumental in introducing institutions such as the courts, trial by jury, English common law, freehold land tenure, and for abolishing slavery in Upper Canada long before it was abolished in the British Empire as a whole (it had disappeared from Upper Canada by 1810, but wasn't abolished throughout the Empire until 1834).

He sounds like a grand fellow, and worthy of a holiday. Simcoe named the T.Dot York after Frederick, Duke of York, George III's second son.

I think almost all Canadians get today off, but it's only Simcoe day in Toronto. Depending on where you live it's got a different name, with the default being Civic Day. I suggest we unify the country, make it a stat day and call it "Too Hot To Work Day".

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In his entry We Need More Toronto Blogs, Accordion Guy calls out popular local blogs that focus too heavily on the local Toronto hipster crowd. Accordion Guy writes that this demo is mostly white, under 30, and only attend events that take place in an area bounded by…

• Dupont on the north
• The Distillery District on the east
• The lake on the south
• Roncesvalles on the west

In response to this suggestion, I present to Accordion Guy a little blog called Toronto Mike which is a hodge podge of thoughts, rants, observations, bits and bytes from a 416er who...

• Is over 30
• Eats meat
• Plays slo-pitch
• Openly admits to listening to The Tragically Hip, watching The Simpsons and rooting for the Leafs
• Has kids
• Has never kissed a member of the same sex
• Has never used the phrase “post-modern”
• Owns a pair of Crocs
• Doesn't drink
• Spends time in Etobicoke and (gasp!) Mississauga
• Has never been mistaken for a hipster, for all the reasons above

Accordion Guy closes his plea with a modest proposal.

We need blogs that cover events in areas outside the hipster core, whether they’re in the near-burbs like Etobicoke, North York and Scarborough, or out in the 905 area code. Blogs for people who work in offices, drop their kids off at hockey practice and have Costco memberships. Blogs for people who don’t look as if they were descended from the Family Compact. Blogs for people who both buy fair trade coffee and Harry Rosen shirts. Blogs for people who work the night shift.

Accordion Guy, I've been all over it for five years and 6307 entries.

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I was just starting to wonder where the wasps are this summer. Until this past weekend, I don't think I saw a single one in our backyard, and now I'm seeing them all over the place.

Did they arrive late this year or is this their usual pattern?

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680 Traffic and Weather - This is actually pretty handy to have around. It's the most recent 680 News traffic as an MP3. This one is for locals only.

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The Toronto area has the second-lowest crime rate of all large urban regions in Canada, behind Quebec City, according to figures released Wednesday by Statistics Canada.

One of the great myths about Toronto is that it's a dangerous, crime-ridden place. Per capita, it doesn't get much safer. Greater Toronto had 5,020 criminal code offences in 2006 for every 100,000 people. Winnipeg, Vancouver and Edmonton recorded more than twice as many.

Our history as a bastion of 19th century Victorian morality earned us the nickname Toronto the Good. I think it's still appropriate.

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I once wrote that I like progress but dislike change. I'm wondering if this isn't true of most Torontonians. Over the past few months, three of our city's distinct signs have been threatened, garnering a great deal of press in the process.

First there was the Sam the Record Man sign on Yonge Street. When I learnt Sam's was closing, my first thought was of this great sign that gives Yonge Street such character. Thankfully, this sign is now safe.

Next there was that exploding truck sign on the Chum City Building at Queen and John. It has since been removed as not enough people cared enough to make enough noise to save it. That was probably the way it should have unfolded for as much

Now, there's the Honest Ed's sign at Bathurst and Bloor. With Ed Mirvish's passing, the big question is what his son will do with this property. An article I read on the weekend suggests the sign will eventually go as the property is re-purposed. When this comes closer to fruition, expect an uproar from Torontonians who see the cheesy Honest Ed's sign as part of the fabric of our city. They might be right.

We love our signs, particularly the loud and proud ones that bring a smile to our face on a daily basis. Sometimes you can get away with taking them down, but sometimes, if the sign means enough to enough of us, you'll have a better chance of ripping out our collective hearts. In a sense, that's exactly what you'd be doing.

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Honest Ed Mirvish passed away earlier today, and that's got me thinking about the man and what he meant to this city. His annual Christmas turkey giveaway is legendary and Mirvish Productions has brought a great deal of theatre to Toronto, but I'm going to focus on more personal memories of Ed.

My mom often told me stories about going to Honest Eds with her mother. It was always a big event and these trips were highlights of my mom's childhood, as money was tight and bargains were to be had. My grandmother, who was born the same year as Ed, led these Honest Eds expeditions and she would glow when she spoke of Ed Mirvish.

If there was a big event to celebrate, my grandmother would invite the entire family to Old Ed's Warehouse at King Street West and Duncan Street. Old Ed's Warehouse, in her opinion, was the place to go. It's since closed, but I have memories of getting dressed up to go to Old Ed's Warehouse for an English cut of roast beef, rolls, kosher dill pickles, mashed potatoes, Yorkshire pudding and canned peas, not exactly a kid's ideal meal.

For years I attended a school near Bathurst and Bloor for one day a week. We'd take the subway to Bathurst and I'd see those lights and signs which always brought a smile to my face. I didn't personally shop at Honest Eds, but I liked knowing I could go there and score a 99¢ tee shirt if I needed one.

Honest Ed was a Toronto institution who gave us Honest Ed's and Mirvish Productions, but I'll always remember him for the stories he gave my grandmother and mom. He will be missed.

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According to this National Post blog entry, Zanta is leaving Toronto for Brampton. Zanta is a rather polarizing local figure. Some love him and many despise him. I never minded the dude or his persona.

Farewell, Zanta. I'm sure you'll be back one day.

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It ain't the Sam's Yonge Street facade, but it's noteworthy. They're taking down the Citytv today, or maybe tomorrow. You know that truck that appears to be bursting out of the side of the building on Queen and John.

We saw this coming when Rogers announced Citytv was leaving the CHUM-City building. It was neat seeing that truck up there, but it doesn't ignite the passion in the belly that would cause you to scream and shout until Rogers promised to leave it be. It's their truck, they can remove it if they like.

The more things change...

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Running in Etienne Brule Park this morning, I saw a number of inukshuk on the Humber River.

I'm not sure who built them, but it was quite the sight on this Canada Day. From good ol' Wikipedia, here's what they symbolize.

An inuksuk is a stone landmark used as a milestone or directional marker by the Inuit of the Canadian Arctic. Inuksuit differ from some cairns in significance. The Arctic Circle, dominated by permafrost, has few natural landmarks and thus the inuksuk was central to navigation across the barren tundra.

Inuksuit vary in shape and size, and perform a diverse array of tasks. It is a symbol with deep roots in the Inuit culture, a directional marker that signifies safety, hope and friendship.

I'm all about safety, hope and friendship, so I returned with my camera and created this photoset of inukshuk on the Humber River.

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On Monday night, I was out sort of late. It coulda been the Willie Nelson, coulda been the wine... all I know is I saw something I had never seen in this city. It was the size of a big cat, and it looked like a hairy aardvark.

A little Googling tells me I probably saw my first possum. It was a rather surreal moment, actually. I hope I see the little dude again.

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Someone once told me they disliked people, but loved crowds. I always thought that was quite the paradox, but I have a better one. I like progress, but I don't really like change.

The Star reports that if Rogers Media Inc. gets approval to buy five Citytv television stations from CTVglobemedia Inc., they'll move the flagship Citytv station out of the storied CHUM-City building at Queen and John streets. On first glance, this is precisely the kind of change I dislike. Citytv has been at Queen and John for as long as I can remember and it's a part of our city's fabric, like the Sam the Record Man sign on Yonge. There are some things I'd like