JB's Warehouse & Curio Emporium

Before reading this post, check out the related article on Torontoist. And now, for your eager eyes, the seafood platter at Danakas Palace that Pierre Trudeau (pictured on the left) liked so much the owners renamed it in honour of his position. Whether the story is true or not, it's not surprising a seafood platter would receive such an honour, as restaurants in the vicinity of Danakas Palace loved showing off their ensembles of lobster, shrimp and other sea creatures in full-colour ads targeted to business executives and tourists—a show of hands from anyone who's ever actually eaten the "award winning" seafood platter showcased in every Toronto visitors guide by Fisherman's Wharf since the dawn of man? It often seems like a seafood platter is designed to look attractive and draw as much money out of a customer as possible. I won't deny having succumbed to the allure of a broad sampling of delights from the deep. During my university days at Guelph, t...

6:30 p.m. last night. Dithering time. 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 basketba...

The Warehouse scanner will have a busy weekend. Over the next few days, various pictures from the past decade will make their way onto Flickr . Digging through old discs and preparing old pictures from London for a "then and now" feature I intend to do after my vacation are the driving force behind this. As a teaser, here are a couple of pages from my university residence's zine, The Arts House Forum ...mostly because these were already on disc. Usually put out once a year, it was an excuse for a bunch of us to sit around the hall and cut up magazines and photos. This spread from 1996 features a little-known corner of Guelph musical history. The band members wrote their bios, though I added a detail or two ("appalling stage presence" derives from a heavy-listening-of-late-60s-Mothers-of-Invention-albums phase I went through at the time). Sadly, that is my chicken-scratch handwriting. - JB

( full size version ) A selection of photos taken around Arts House circa 1995.