JB's Warehouse & Curio Emporium

One lazy summer day, Sarah and I were taking a quick browse through the Value Village in Leslieville. At the front of the store, one item quickly caught Sarah's eye: a giant mug with the TTC logo on one side and a front end loader on the reverse. Naturally we bought it. I've tried to track down any information about the mug and come up with very little. The only hint on the mug itself is a 1982 copyright date under the logo. Our guesses: Part of a set available only to TTC employees (supported by a similar mug with a 1981 date found on Craigslist ), perhaps as part of a holiday gift box like the model cars I receive from my employer each year A retirement gift A commemorative item for those involved with the construction/opening of the Scarborough RT (opened 1985) If you have any background information about this mug, please leave a comment. - JB

On Sunday, along with two intrepid explorers, I headed down to Buffalo to check out Doors Open Niagara. A full post is coming ( Squiddity has a nifty take on the day ), but here's one of the weirdest moments of the trip. While walking towards Buffalo City Hall, we noticed an odd combination of items on the sidewalk: One empty bottle of booze, one partly-squeezed lime, one dead bird. Coincidence or connected? If the latter, the line of tragic events is easy to follow: 1) The bird had a rough day and finds solace in a flask left behind on the sidewalk. 2) The bird notices a barely-used lime slice and decides it would add a nice twist. 3) Either the bird realizes too late that booze, lime and birds don't mix, or decides in his alcoholic haze to end it all by slamming into the Statler building at MACH 3. The fatal wedge of lime? I apologize to Leonard Cohen for the last words on this tragedy... Like a bird on a bender Like a butterfly in a fender He felt pain On h...

On strolls near the Annex, I often wander by the back of Central Tech. The dumpsters often provide good photo opportunities, with a strange assortment of well-used instructional aids, worn-out furniture and the odd toilet. The most recent discovery: the Turbinator. Feel free to insert your own Terminator/Turbinator joke. As for what these chairs might have been used for, a quick Google search makes me suspect they were used for hairstyling, as eBay had a few 1950s-era salon model Turbinators up for grabs. A pair of Turbinators sat by the dumpsters. The idea of taking them home briefly crossed my mind, until I thought of the vermin that may have crawled in, the marks they might make on my living room floor and the practicality of trying to stuff them into the official Warehouse mobile transport unit. Besides, the classroom chair looked like it needed the company. Other odd item seen that night: a child-size Jeep, which appeared to be from the company's AMC days. Al...

One of the things I love about used items is finding traces of a previous owner. It gives a sense of history to the item. If you're lucky, you'll find out what that person was thinking while they used the item. Take my copy of Stevie Wonder's classic 1973 album, Innervisions , the one with Higher Ground and Living For The City . Picked it up in a $1 record bin in Detroit a few years ago. There are two spots on the jacket where an earlier owner wrote information on when they purchased it, each spot with the same information (symbols noted in square brackets): Jag 5. LP #440. [circle with a dot in the middle] in [Omega symbol] (30th of Omega; 21st of August, 1975). [crescent moon] in [one wavy line on top of another] (just minutes past full). [an "I" with an arrow pointing right through the middle] rising (when purchased, appox. 17:15 E.D.T.) What do the symbols mean? Was the owner heavily into astronomy, astrology or a faith? What were the 439 other ...