JB's Warehouse & Curio Emporium

For awhile, it's been in the back of my mind to take the digital beast out on the town to snap shots of all of the former Coffee Time locations that haven't done much to mask their former identity. Coffee Lime, Coffee Tim, Coffee Tip...the city's full of them, ripe with humourous possibilities. Alas, I've been beaten to the punch. Here's the result , now merged into the Not Fooling Anybody site of buildings with thinly-concealed former lives a(mostly as fast-food outlets). There are a few spots on the site from Toronto and Detroit I'm familiar with - here's some comments (go to the index page to find them): La-Shish (Wayne, MI - formerly Taco Bell) - never been to this branch of the popular Metro Detroit middle-eastern family restaurant chain, but it would be an improvement over a run for the border. Amy and I usually go to the location on the Dearborn/Detroit border along Michigan Ave, where fresh smoothies and monster salads make our stomachs ha...

I was flipping through the business section of the Star a few weeks ago when I came across a story about the Indigo bookstore chain shifting its focus more into gifts, "healing" items and other oddball accessories, reducing the number of books to about 60% of a store's inventory. Plans were also mentioned for converting the remaining Coles bookstores into the "IndigoLite" chain, with a greater emphasis on accessories. All this in a quest to make the company the "book lover's cultural department store". I wanted to throw up. While I admit I spend many lunch hours in the Indigo a block from the office, I can't say I'm in love with the place. It's been easy to see the number of books decline, as more of the first floor is taken up with items like expensive marinades/drink mixes and new age products. This is more pronounced at the chain's downtown locations, where floors that used to hold tomes now feature more and more of the ot...

Back in early August, I spent a week at the family compound sifting through the tons of old sports mags kicking around. It has taken awhile to go through them, but the light is at the end of the tunnel. There's only a couple of boxes to go through before they have all been prepared for eBay or hacked up for clipart. For a few years in the mid-late 80s, little sports junkie Jamie subscribed to Baseball Digest and Hockey Digest . These mags were as old as the hills - my father had a couple of crumbling issues from the 50s kicking around. Not deep, analytical reading, but enough to kill off the afternoon they arrived in the mail. Even then, I sensed these digests were in a time warp. The ads were the giveaway - into the early 90s, you could still order Fleetwood 7" records of late 60s sports highlights, posters of NHL stars circa 1973 and hats with slots to display your favourite player's sports card. The NHL poster offer was especially funny, given that no team posters...

They keep trying...and it's getting more pathetic. Got my first phone message from Athletic/Best Price movers in awhile, featuring the debut (on my phone) of Johnny, which is the same dude either (a) holding his nose as he speaks or (b) attempting the world's worst W.C. Fields imitation. If you get this message, you be the judge. Some suggestions for next time, Boris/Johnny/Reggie/Tugboat Bill/whatever your real name is: 1) Carmine, who attempts to pitch the moving company as if he failed the audition for Taxi Driver or any other Scorsese picture. 2) Joost, using a dutch or swedish accent, the type last used by Jamie Lee Curtis in Trading Places . 3) Fritz, with even less plausibility as a German than Kevin McDonald's accent teacher on Kids In The Hall . 4) Roxy, attempting to sell moving services like Al Jolson, but stumbling in his attempts to sing. 5) Shecky, attempting to sound like Shrek, hoping somebody's confused (unlikely, given those unexplained lapses...

I'm finally starting a long overdue task around here - sorting through my cassette collection to see what stays, what goes. While going through the first rack, found a tape of the "house band" in my residence during my third year of university, BMX. They were essentially a joke band, but managed to play a few fun gigs before petering out. Consider this a lost chunk of the rich musical history of Guelph in the past two decades. The core members of the group were Beastmaster X (vocals), DJ JD Masta Snack Cracka (guitar), Doctor Renfrew Boney Row-Row (bass), Punk Bitch (cello, vocals), Gary (drums) and Bonhomme Carnival (interpretive dancing). Slam dancers were often on hand to liven the crowd up. Their repertoire was mostly covers, such as the two songs featured today (in their original forms - the only BMX material I have is on tape, and let's just say CRMW central doesn't have the transfer technology yet). Beastmaster X belted out the Martian tune, while ...