Snapped under the Eglinton Avenue bridge over the Humber River, May 4, 2008. This was one of the sites on the Mount Dennis Jane's Walk - more pictures over on Flickr. - JB
From the makers of Malk, now loaded with extra vitamin R!
Shouldn't Mil-Ko be the name of a scary clown? This may explain the reaction of the disembodied facial features as much as the deep savings on the grocery bill and the shock of being detached from the rest of her face.
With the trend towards single-serving instant drinks (a la Crystal Light Singles) perhaps it's time for Mil-Ko to be resurrected for use with modern water bottles. Think pouches for 500mL and 1.5L bottles in regular, chocolate, strawberry, rooibos, pomegranate, soy and rice flavours.
Today being this site's fifth anniversary, we present a couple of classic clips from Sesame Street about the number five. The first comes from the "Jazzy Spies" series of numeral cartoons produced for the show's first season, featuring the vocal stylings of Grace Slick of Jefferson Airplane (insert your own joke about drugs and early Sesame Street).
As for clip two, remember this piece of wisdom: carrying five large baked goods down a staircase can be hazardous to your health.
I had indicated that I would show up for a pickup soccer game over in Riverdale friends had organized, as long as it wasn't pouring rain out. I listened to the number of drops hitting the air conditioner. After contemplation, What would it hurt to drive down to the game site in Riverdale and see if anyone was there? At worst, what would be a week's delay for the first time I would kick a soccer ball in a decade?
***
After discovering I was hopeless at baseball, my parents signed me up for soccer when I was 9. The teams I played for varied in ability - the only incident I remember was a game where I was on defence and wound up being the only one to chase after an opponent on a breakaway, while my fellow defenders carried on a conversation.
The game lost its appeal when Dad forgot that he was supposed to sit on the sidelines, not attempt to coach me in the middle of the action. It may have come unconsciously, since he coached basketball and football. He didn't bark out orders as much in those sports as he did towards me on the soccer field, though he was quieter when my coaches were competent. Three years proved my fill and marked the end of my participation in community sports.
Rarely played soccer in high school, apart from a week of phys. ed. every year. I was odd in that after the mandatory gym class in grade 9 I kept signing up for courses even though I was lousy at most sports (volleyball was the closest I came to mediocrity). I had always liked gym, preferring to play sports over watching them and work in exercise that my couch potato-self rarely undertook outside of that setting. As time wore on paperwork crept into the courses and by grade 12 my marks were higher than several jocks.
I would have continued into OAC but timetables didn't leave space for gym. My weight ballooned that year. Coincidence? Count me in among those who think slashing phys. ed. classes during educational budget cuts is a lousy idea.
***
Arriving around 7:15, I saw a few souls mulling about downhill from my parking spot on Broadview. Seven showed up, with levels of playing experience all over the map. Side-kicking the ball in a circle came back quickly. We played 4-on-3 or 3-on-3 (depending on how one counted the youngest player, who shifted between play and "officiating") and I managed to score the first goal.
I also quickly discovered my stamina level had not improved over the years, due to running too hard off the bat. Slowly my body began to adjust but I suspect I won't be so worn when more players show up and can stay at one end of the field. It was painful at first but ultimately felt refreshing.
***
Along came university and Team Bob. One of the many reasons Guelph proved a wise choice was its extensive intramural sports program. Offering a wide variety of games at varying skill levels, it allowed
Arts House dove in, fielding volleyball, innertube water polo, basketball, broomball and soccer squads at the "fun" level. We'd never win in the athletic sweepstakes, so we aimed to be the silliest team on the field. In soccer, this meant taking the field with black stripes under our eyes and indulging in antics that would have made the Harlem Globetrotters proud.
Team Bob in full finery, Fall 1996
Much of the time this was fine with other teams, but there were a few squads who did not belong at our level. Taking the game too seriously when faced with competition like us, these teams ran up the scoreboard. Trying to find pleasure in such situations, we used tactics like huddling around the ball en masse while kicking it up the field or scoring on ourselves. The more humourless the opposition, the goofier our tactics. This led one team to declare "YOU DO NOT RESPECT THE SOCCER! YOU DO NOT RESPECT THE SOCCER!"
Isn't that the reaction a satirist loves?
Later I switched affiliations to the Ontarion's team, who were more competitive but equally as fun. It also helped that our season was before staff relations broke down, which would have made for ugly scenes (teammates spiking each other wouldn't have been farfetched). The staff pics in the frosh issue were shot in soccer gear, though you won't see me as I was hired after the shoot.
***
The rain faded and a misty sunset emerged over the Don Valley Parkway. The Bloor Viaduct had an eerie beauty, from an angle that some of us rarely view. Play continued until dusk, 2-on-2 with a rotating sub, which helped those of us with diminishing energy levels. After packing away the ball, we refueled at a nearby diner.
There will be plenty of gasping and sluggish running over the next few months...which I look forward to. - JB
1,370: WOKE UP IT WAS A SWANSEA EVENING AND THE FIRST THING THAT I SAW
Was a melting city hockey rink, too wet for any skates A net sat there waiting, for the next puck to come through
Oh, won't you stay Walk around or play There are benches to examine (apologies to Joni Mitchell)
Swansea was one of the smallest of the municipalities folded into Metropolitan Toronto back in 1954 and was annexed with Forest Hill into the old city of Toronto in 1967. Bounded by Bloor, the Humber River, Lake Ontario and High Park, Swansea is primarily residential with most retail lying along its northern edge (the Bloor West Village strip). Cue a late March stroll through the former village.
On the way out of Rennie Park rink, we noticed a high treehouse. We meandered around the neighbourhood, walking up dead-end courts with views of the homes and Humber River below.
Over in nearly-abandoned Swansea Plaza we discovered the loneliest novelty vending machine on this side of town in a former Shoppers Drug Mart, (which I wrote about on Torontoist. Located on a side street north of The Queensway, Swansea Plaza is one of the city's hidden shopping centres and is on its way to becoming a condo site. Shoppers, Valu-Mart and CIBC have pulled out of the plaza, leaving a restaurant and convenience store.
Though this candidate didn't win a seat on city council on 2006, his sign was not a wasted investment as it still stands above the homey campaign office.
From the plaza we headed up Riverside Drive, which rises high above the Humber. Around its peak was a parkette with a plaque dedicated to one-time resident Lucy Maud Montgomery. No pig-tailed redheads were observed that night.
American supermarkets tend to fascinate those I introduce them do. Whether it's a stock-up on cans of spray cheese or searching for sodas, most travelling companions are transfixed by the selection of products.
When was the last time you saw a full shelf devoted to ferret care products in your Loblaws, Dominion or Sobeys?
Remember: nobody likes to see a ferret cry after a shampooing.
Photo taken in Wegmans, Amherst, NY, March 29, 2008 - JB
One of the benefits of a site like YouTube is discovering old music clips from around the world. Look for one thing and you stumble upon a cache of covers of popular 1960s tunes sumg in English but originating in Finland. These covers are much more sedate and middle-of-the-road than the better-known versions, which makes them fascinating. Hard to say how much is due to singing in a second tongue or public taste.
First up, from 1968 a version of Cat Stevens' Matthew and Son by Jukka Kuoppamäki.
Videos loaded on YouTube by Sirri2 A 1966 rendition of These Boots Are Made For Walkin' by Ann-Christine Nyströmin. There's a hint of a growl in her voice towards the end of chorus, but I'm guessing that this clip was shown during family hour. The keyboards remind me of the Mrs. Miller version. - JB
Fetish gear, 1916? Also, does the "before" picture suggest to anyone else the shape of most ghoul noses? It's all in the positioning of the nostril!
If anything, "Trados" looks like the first stage in the evolution of the goalie mask - compare the nose-shaper with the guard used by Montreal Maroons goalie Clint Benedict (left) 14 years later. Improvised after an incident during a game with crosstown rivals Les Canadiens, Benedict wore his guard for two games before determining it hindered his vision, leaving NHL goalies bare-faced until Jacques Plante slid on a mask in 1959.
Source: The Toronto Daily Star, April 22, 1916 - JB
Friday was a quiet night for me, a chance to recover from the week and recharge my batteries for a busy Saturday. I was so lethargic that I did something I rarely do, take a nap.
Waking up around 11:30 p.m., I shuffled over to the computer and starting websurfing. I soon discovered that it was a good night to have planned nothing, as the TTC was suddenly poised to shut down within half-an-hour.
The city was primed for a strike a week ago, when the Amalgamated Transit Union gave 48 hours notice for a walkout effective at the start of morning rush hour last Monday. Thanks to a tentative deal on Sunday, the work week got off to a normal start. Once the ballots were in on Friday, the offer was rejected by 65% of those voting. Citing potential harm to TTC workers from an angry public, union officials cast aside previous promises to provide 48 hours notice and gave the signal for workers to shut the system down.
Bad, bad move...
Let me get this straight Bob Kinnear. You give the signal to walk away (a) a couple of hours before all but blue night runs wind down for the day, (b) on very short notice on a Friday night when those using your service are more likely getting plastered downtown, and (c) at a time and day when the effects of certain substances may provoke an even angrier backlash from the public than if 48 hours notice was provided.
Curious to see what was happening, I drove over to Yonge Street to see the initial effects of the walkout. Car horns filled the air as panicky pedestrians dashed out into the road to stop any cab that passed by, many of which performed sudden u-turns. Scouting out Davisville around 12:15 revealed no indication on the station doors that anything was amiss. Many tried to enter the station only to find the doors locked. Obscenities flew freely, with no TTC workers in sight to hear them (no pickets were part of the walkout strategy).
The only sign posted was on TTC headquarters, but this may be the norm.
Walking up to Eglinton almost every passer-by was glued to a cell phone, trying to figure out their way home. In between obscenities directed at the TTC several commented that they were glad they weren't Scarborough natives stuck downtown. When I reached Eglinton an out of service passed by and was greeting with a chorus of "F**k you TTC!"
Like Davisville, no signs were posted at Eglinton to warn commuters that they would need to make alternative arrangements for the trip home. One guy took it upon himself to pace around the main Canada Square entrance like a modern Paul Revere. The most obvious sign was at the northeast entrance, where the metal doors had slid into place. There was a white van with a TTC logo near the Canada Square entrance that tables were being unloaded from but no taunts appeared to be hurled in its direction.
The timing of the news meant that anyone who had gone to sleep early or had not accessed any media outlets would have woken up yesterday morning unaware of a strike. When I picked up some friends to head out to the Good Food show, it was news to them. Along Pape we noticed bus stops full of people waiting for buses who would see Godot sooner than a Red Rocket. On the way back we passed by the deserted Hillcrest Yards, to which my passengers flipped the bird.
This afternoon I walked north along Yonge from Eglinton. Both entrances to Lawrence were marked with broken glass (the northeast entrance is pictured). At the same time, the provincial government had reconvened to pass emergency legislation to send TTC staff back to work, which means I won't be setting up my camera in my cubicle tomorrow morning to survey the commuter chaos on the street below (though I wonder how grumpy commuters will be towards operators).
Service is being restored but this story is far from over. One thing is certain: ATU union popularity among the public ranks somewhere below George Bush, lawyers and bubonic plague.
Hey faithful readers, no need to be alarmed by the new black-dominated colour scheme. Unlike times in the past when I've darkened the to site to honour a passing, this change was spurred by last weekend's "green" edition of The New York Times Magazine. One of the items mentioned was Blackle, a search engine based on the idea that screens which display a predominantly black colour scheme use less energy than sites that are mostly white, such as Google. Instead of making me think about benefits to the environment, the Blackle example opened up the possibility of what this site might look like in black. The fine folks in the Warehouse Research & Design Department are currently tinkered away and the screen you are looking at is the result of their dedicated low-wage labour.
(It should be noted that I spent Earth Hour in a well-lit Target in Buffalo and spent Earth Day pondering the state of things on Neptune. One-day commitments to causes aren't quite my style - the small cartoon representation of my cynical side tells me it's better to commit to such things on a daily basis rather than symbolically for an hour/day and then go back to normal routines. I admit there are many things I do that aren't doing Mother Nature a favour for which I should be more thoughtful about.)
1,363: VINTAGE NATIONAL HOME MONTHLY AD OF THE DAY
If you can eat sun-dried tomatoes, why not sun-fried bacon? Mr. Sun should be happy, since he doesn't have to worry about a coronary attack for a few billion years.
Note the careful instructions on how to fry bacon. Too many Canadians forget the crucial step of adding the pineapple slices, which elevates the subtleties of crispy pork strips to the next level of gourmet delight.
Or An Annoying Autobiographical Look at the Television of My Childhood, Chapter 37
Launched in 1975, WGPR-TV was the first black-owned television station in the US. It operated as a sister station to WGPR-FM, whose playlist over the years has varied from gospel to urban hits and was graced for several stints by The Electrifyin' Mojo. It was the second television station to occupy channel 62 on the Detroit dial - the first, WXON, had moved to channel 20 three years earlier.
WGPR was fascinating to watch, as it was the closest thing we had to local access cable stations...except this wasn't on cable. Even as a kid I could sense that its production values were low.
Shows shot in health food stores? Check. Budweiser commercials dubbed into Arabic? Check. Low-tier college basketball packages? Check. Ads touting nightclub dancers who are barely conscious? Check.
Movies? Any low-priced package they could get. Lots of old British movies, especially the early Carry On flicks (usually Carry On Spying or Carry On Screaming). The piece-de-resistance was the Auction Movie,with host Fred Merle. Like a flashback to the 1950s, local businesses put items up for bid during the breaks in the movie.
Music? Channel 62 was home to one of the last local dance shows in Detroit, The New Dance Show, which carried on from The Scene. It was the butt of jokes among schoolmates that tended to have mildly racist overtones, though I suspect this reaction was a mix of how alien it was compared to our lives and the usual 62 high-tech production values. The show provided a television showcase for emerging dance music scenes in Detroit, including techno.
Here are two commercial breaks, which provide a good idea of the station's style. Depending on how prudish your computer firewall is, there's a chance these aren't safe for work, especially if there are blocks against high-energy credit pitchmen.
Reruns? Not many. The only shows I recall with any frequency were Dark Shadows and The Streets of San Francisco. My memory may be off, but I dimly recall seeing Jon Pertwee episodes of Doctor Who and wondering why it wasn't the same version on TVO (I figure it was a late run of the earliest Time-Life Television package of episodes). The station can't be faulted for not having the cream of the syndicated rerun crop, given it had to battle the major network affiliates, two better-financed independent stations and a CBC channel in Windsor that had to fill airtime reserved for American shows on the rest of the network.
Late night programming? Channel 62 ran parts of the CBS Late Night lineup, which featured mystery/cop show reruns (usually Kolchak: The Night Stalker whenever I flipped by) and Canadian imports (Night Heat).
On Saturday nights The Arab Voice of Detroit filled the airwaves, mixing news and music in English and Arabic. Ask and I'll hum a few bars of the news theme for you. I loved to watch the ads, especially those where certain terms did not translate. Three Brothers sticks in my mind, an auto body shop whose proprietor sang about their services in Arabic, including "transmission" and "radio wire".
***
All good things must come to an end. For WGPR, the writing was on the wall when Detroit's long-standing CBS affiliate, WJBK (channel 2) switched to Fox in the early 90s. Needing a station, CBS bought 62 and booted off all the old programming, even changing the call letters to WWJ (the call letters of CBS's local radio news station, which had also been used by NBC's Detroit TV affiliate until the late 70s).
1,361: ONCE UPON A TIME IT WAS AN AMAZING PART OF YOUR LIFE
While dodging back alley drunks in downtown Kitchener a month ago, I noticed that the back door to a Shoppers Drug Mart bore the mark of its previous identity as part of the Big V pharmacy chain.
Years of hearing their slogan "an amazing part of your life" have burned it into my brain, along with images of their comical crusading knight mascot, 25 cent cans of Coca-Cola and the free lunch cooler bags sometimes offered up with the latter.
Big V was started in the mid-1960s by a group of Windsor pharmacists who joined together to pool their purchasing and marketing. Most locations were pharmacist-operated, with names reflecting the owners (DeRe, Pond's, Cornett), the neighbourhood (Seminole in Windsor) or town. The chain grew to 135 stores by the time it was purchased by Shoppers in 1995.
Amherstburg's store was originally Haslehurst's Big V, then switched to the more generic "Amherstburg" by the time I started shopping there with my parents. Located on the main street through town, the store's tiny parking lot was responsible for numerous traffic jams and fender benders. Mom liked to browse the gift section, one of the things she missed and grumbled about after the Shoppers deal.
Many former Big V locations have been rebuilt or vacated as part of Shoppers' current building/retrofitting boom. The Amherstburg store was levelled and replaced a few years ago, having long outgrown its small quarters.
The store in the picture above was also on the move, setting up shop in a larger space across King Street that weekend. I suspect this is one of the last signs bearing the Big V logo and it's a matter of time before it fades away, making physical reminders of the chain as hard to as find as any references beyond the Shoppers deal on the internet.
While driving near Buffalo Central Terminal a few weeks ago, I stumbled upon this odd ice cream stand. Given the general state of the neighbourhood, it was hard to say if Gran Gran's was closed for the season or if Granny had discovered business was better elsewhere.
The other passengers in the car were slightly freaked out by the girl on the sign. Is it her expression of devilish delight? Her strange eyes? her off-kilter pigtails? Her obliviousness to the giant cone about to fall onto her head?
People who have contributed to this site at one point or another...
AP - A.S. Pryncesse
AT - Amy Taverner
CQ - Chris Quarrie
DM - Deirdre Madden
EC - Elizabeth Cockle
FM - Fin Madden
GT - Gavin Taverner
JB - Jamie Bradburn
JC - Jessica Carn
KE - Kiersten Eyes
KT - Ken Trueman
MB - Mark Bondyra
MC - Meagan Crichton
NS - Nile Seguin
PI - Paul Isaacs
RA - Raquel Aurini
SD - Steve Davidchuk
SH - Sheila Hanlon
If anything, "Trados" looks like the first stage in the evolution of the goalie mask - compare the nose-shaper with the guard used by Montreal Maroons goalie Clint Benedict (left) 14 years later. Improvised after an incident during a game with crosstown rivals Les Canadiens, Benedict wore his guard for two games before determining it hindered his vision, leaving NHL goalies bare-faced until Jacques Plante slid on a mask in 1959.
Friday was a quiet night for me, a chance to recover from the week and recharge my batteries for a busy Saturday. I was so lethargic that I did something I rarely do, take a nap. 
