JB's Warehouse & Curio Emporium

Day 365. Usually it's my first full day back in the city after spending a week with the family, a day to get reacquainted with Toronto. The last day of 2007 was no exception to the rule. I started off with a trip downtown to catch some lingering Boxing Week sales, causing damage to my pocketbook. Mirvish Village yielded several cookbooks and a half-dozen mangl..well-loved comics from the 50s through 70s. Kensington Market yielded a bag of poblano peppers and several on-the-go snacks. A clearance sale at The Bay at Queen and Yonge added to the new wardrobe I built up over the Christmas break. Discovery of the day: while passing by Honeydale Mall on a west-end grocery run, I noticed the bees over the doorway had vanished, replaced with non-descript lettering (mental note to take camera on next trip to that area for a future "before/after" post). The early evening was spent batch scanning photos from the early 1970s that lay in a box back home - more on those in the...

Sit back, relax and enjoy my first attempt at posting a video on YouTube, featuring friends going for a skate down at Dundas and Bathurst yesterday afternoon. I forgot if this was before or after I fell over a mound of snow on the side of the rink. In other words, welcome to my first experiments with the movie function on the official Warehouse camera. We're talking the type of moving picture that was popular around 1897. Filmed January 28, 2007, Toronto - JB

1) A recent Psychogeography walk, which circled the train tracks running alongside Dupont. Left: Nighthawks at the Vesta Lunch. This was my first visit to the venerable greasy spoon and I was happy to discover my stomach could handle it (mind you, I only had a roast beef sandwich, but the meat was thrown on the griddle). On the right, one of Toronto's darkest secrets - its quiet strain of anti-Wookieism. More photos from this trek on over here (Oct 20th pics). *** 2) Marche Jean-Talon in Montreal. I drove back from la belle province with a back seat full of produce, ranging from peppers to pattypan squash. Made a fantastic spaghetti sauce from a large $1 bag of baby eggplants. The orange samples on the right are typical for the market - they lived up to their "very, very sweet" billing. I could have made a light lunch out of all the chunks of apples, pears, pineapples and cucumbers that were up for grabs. I also blew a bundle on local ciders and preserves at...

Backstory: Michael is my longest-lasting friend - we met around grade 4 and stayed close through the end of high school. In elementary school, we'd play games for hours on his Commodore 64 hours. In high school, we were involved in Amherst's annual musical - me on stage, Mike on the tech side. If you ever need to know what my life was like pre-university, he's the expert. We lost touch for a few years after graduation. Around my second year in TO, Mom ran into his mother and discovered he was working at a Canadian Tire store down here. About a week or two later, I hopped into the elevator at work. Another guy was in the elevator and we noticed something familiar about each other. "Mike?" "Jamie?" We still laugh about our reunion. *** The wedding was the day before I flew to London. It was my first wedding outside of a non-denominational or Christian setting, so I was looking forward to seeing the differences. The program was very helpful in...

It was going to be a rare quiet Thursday night. Sitting at home, wasting time on the computer, debating when to pop a Harold Lloyd disc I rented into the DVD-o-matic. The phone rings. It's my friend Brad, who I haven't seen in awhile. He knows I'm game for most things, so asks if I'm interested in catching a movie. It takes a special movie to motivate one to drive from Guelph to Toronto to catch a flick on a weeknight. Hello, opening night for Snakes on a Plane . We drove down to the Paramount. For the first time ever, I ordered tickets online and was surprised how quick the pick-up process was. Brad joked that my reaction would have made a good commercial ("wow, I can't believe how simple that was!"). The theatre wasn't 100% packed, but the crowd was lively. When we walked in, teens were already yelling "SNAKES ON A PLANE!" and jeering the first of a 10-minute stream of commericals. Objects flew around the seats. Audience members...

Part 1 Part 2 Day 4 began with lunch near Euston station. Drummond St is lined with Indian eateries, which I'm surprised I didn't uncover while I lived in Camden Town. There was a now-closed restaurant I used to go to near the Camden Palace, but its food was mediocre at best. I tended to make my own, which led to Indian remaining a steady part of my diet. After flipping through the Cheap Eats guide, I settled on Diwana Bhel Poori House, a vegetarian restaurant with a buffet. The atmosphere was not what I expected - the stained-wood tables and seats made me think of cottage country. I filled my steel plate with various tasty salads - chick peas rich with bits of tomato and coriander was the highlight. Time Out review . Food over the next day tended to be quick snacks on the go, as I scurried to pack in as many planned destinations as possible. Sandwich shops and market stalls provided most of my fuel, as well as groceries I'd stuffed in the fridge at the residence....

Partly as a going-away party for Sheila before she heads to England for a month, partly as an idea she and Paul had at the back of their minds for awhile, spent Saturday night at a potluck at their apartment in the heart of Kensington Market. The opening spread. British tea sandwiches, dips, toasted corn tortillas, Guiness Cheddar cheese, etc. Missing: antijitos with guacamole sauce, squash-potato-coconut curry, salad, chocolate walnut cookies, greek pastries and chocolate cake.

Toronto-Niagara Falls-Syracuse - 474.7 km Lesson: if bringing a suitcase with you across the Canadian-U.S. border, such as checkpoints along the Niagara River, make sure you cut off all tags from your last trip, as the Amtrak tag from last year's visit to New York raised the guard's ire. Several questions were repeated, likely to try to catch me off guard. She also seemed ultra-curious about how much money I was bringing into the US. No sign of humanity whatsoever, furthering my theory that all guards along the Niagara border are partially cybernetic. What border guards along the Niagara River look like underneath. Limited myself to a quick stop at the outlet mall in Niagara Falls, where the trip's book blitz began. Walked out with a couple of cookbooks and a history of Our Gang/Little Rascals (yeah, I grew up with endless Sunday morning reruns of Mush and Milk and Our Gang Follies of 1938 on channel 4). Headed east on the NY Thruway, breezing along while burning ...

Looking for fun old photos to throw on the site, I dug back in the archive to my university daze. The wayback machine has been set to the fall of '95, with Mr. Buchanan (our dancing king from a few months back) proudly displaying two items. The red pepper came from a clown show we went to at either Tarragon or Passe Muraille as part of a script analysis class. The box in background still pops up in discussion among the gang - if you ever hear any ex-Arts Hausians refer to the Rent-a-Monkey Fund, this was the collection box. JD and Brad had the brilliant idea that if they could collect enough money, we could rent a monkey for a day. Who doesn't like monkeys? They pitched the fund at several house meetings, but alas, the fund never made much headway. It was a terrific idea, but its time hadn't arrived. Hmm, maybe I should start the 10th anniversary monkey fund... - JB

The parade of friends' birthdays continued this week when we caught Kung Fu Fridays at the Royal Theatre. The chop-socky fun began with a couple of trailers. Hero Among Heroes looked like a hoot fest, complete with actors wearing ridiculously false buck-toothed choppers. The evening's raffle came next. We loudly oohed when the first number was read off, but awwed when nobody came close to winning any prize (the British flick about sumo housewives sounded neat). The feature was presentation was The Golden Mask , which seems to be easier to find info about on the net under the name Golden Killah (here's a review from Kung Fu Cinema ). The copy shown had the most unintelligble subtitles I've ever seen. Syntax and spelling were clumsy at best. The audience hooted and hollered at the homoerotic subtext running through the titles. They also left many plot points up to the imagination - if you weren't paying close attention, you might have thought it was a tale of ...

Met up with the gang for our yearly ritual of watching/mocking the Santa Claus Parade. This year's viewing spot: Bloor and Bathurst. Went down to meet everyone, but didn't immediately see them. After a quick phone call, discovered they were around the corner, on the opposite side of the street. Cue horror movie scene trying to reach them. The crowd was thick, with little room to move. Right at the corner, movement came to a dead stop. I was squished in the crowd, more crowded than I'd ever been. Two people near me almost put up their dukes, because one guy refused to have his view obstructed for five seconds to let somebody through. Nobody got through, as more tried to push their way in both directions. If anybody had fallen, it would have been curtains. It was nearly enough to send me back onto the subway. Somebody finally pushed through and the crawl resume. Finally made it across the street and joined the others. It took awhile for the stress to wear off - when m...

It's interesting where offhand remarks will lead you. While driving Nile and Dee home after my last dinner bash, the subject of improving one's wardrobe came up. I guess Nile had been down about career prospects when Dee suggested that he might want to start with his wardrobe. After devouring several style books, he was born again, a man with a mission: to improve others like him. Guess who said they'd offer to be a guinea pig, in light of recent dating blunders... So it was with a mixture of bemusement and fear I hopped in the car with Nile and Dee the other weekend. Understand that I've been a conservative, relaxed dresser most of my life, happy with loose shirts and jeans. Sure, I owned a pink sweater during the height of Miami Vice, flannel during the grunge era, etc, but never dragged them out much. Fear of clothing shrink often led to buying clothes that didn't reduce in size, making me look bloated. We headed out to the scene of his conversion, Orfus ...

Another year, another PPP-organized campening (not camping - that would imply we're hard-core campers) trip down to Guelph Lake. It was the fifth one for the girls, and my second. You can look back on my maiden voyage here. The trip began by loading Dee and Tipper's stuff into the car. Tipper's a dog, the first time I'd ever carted one in the car, and she was well-behaved on the trip down to Guelph, with free reign over the backseat. We arrived at the campsite at sunset, leaving us to set up the tent in the dark (seeing how compact they are these days, I should pick one up next time CT has an employee sale). I took a notebook with me and scribbled a few words: 2:50 PM, Saturday, August 21st Rest time here at campsite 608. Tipper's just emerged from a quick dip in the water, in the lagoon next to the site. Dee's gradually turning red, Kiersten's taking a nap, Jeff's reading a book and Ken's flipping through today's Star. We're waiti...

Spent the day down at the Santa Claus parade, third year in a row. This year, a bunch of us helped out Jess and Dee by selling noses for Sunnybrook/Women's down at Queen and Yonge. All I hoped was that it wouldn't be as bone-chilling damp as it was last year. Did not get off to an great start. Took longer to get ready than expected, so I made a mad dash to the subway. Thought I'd make it down just in time, until a fire investigation at St. Patrick station brought the Yonge line to a crawl, then stop. I was stuck at St. Clair and nearly got off to search for a taxi, until it was announced all was good to go. Arrived 15 minutes late, but that didn't seem to matter too much. Picked up a bag of moses and headed south on Yonge with Kiersten and Dee's mom. Business was good - went through two bagfuls quickly. Was a little nervous at first, following behind the others, then gradually starting bellowing out like a baseball game program huckster. The parade to...

Busy weekend, the last one... Spent Friday night and most of Saturday cooking up a storm. The kitchen smelled heavenly from all the spices needed for the Indian feast. It was the first test of the cookbook series I've bought on the last few trips to Borders. They passed with flying colours, judging from the reactions of friends and the yummy, if scant, leftovers. The sole flop did not come from this series, a rosewater pudding devoid of taste that met its fate in the bathroom sink Saturday afternoon. The first dish out of the gate was a mixed success. Made some paneer, but when I tried to mix it in a mushroom curry, it fell apart (guess I needed to put a weight on it). Wasn't a loss - it added a nice flavour. The paneer itself had a taste and texture closer to ricotta than paneer I've eaten. Bet it would make a great lasagne. Everything else was easy and tasty. Tandoori chicken, dhal, channa (though this was made with a pre-bought spice mix), raita, chutneys...

We zig-zagged around the city for the next hour, going back and forth across Woodward. We covered areas like Ferry St, the New Center, Boston-Edison, ground zero for the 1967 riots, Hamtramck and so on. Almost missed the Motown Museum - I thought it was on the other side of the street and the view was blocked by several tour buses. It's one of those places you've always intended to visit, but never get around to. Should have marked that as a New Year's Resolution... One comment that kept cropping up as the others saw more of the city was how they now understood why musicians from the region like Eminem were so angry. The abandoned landscape led to thoughts about the decayed inner cores of American cities versus healthy ones like Toronto (some American exceptions were mentioned, like Boston, SF or NYC). The decay struck a nerve, especially when we crossed into the suburbs and saw the landscape change immediately. The lack of visible minorities in the burbs was duly ...

Brought a carload of friends back to my hometown this weekend, a chance to get out of the city for a few days. Covered a lot of ground, which will take a few entries to tell. FRIDAY Had an easy drive out of the city. Stopped in Woodstock at Dairy Queen, where we sat in the parking lot with the local teenage population. Drove through London, past several sketchy strip joints ("sketchy" was a term thrown around often during the weekend) and into a livelier-than-I-remember downtown London. Maybe the place is now dead by day, alive by night, like Windsor. Arrived in A'burg around midnight, watched an episode of the Muppet Show, then collapsed for the night. SATURDAY Things got off to a good start at the border, where the guard joked around with us, asking if the girls were dragging the guys along for shopping. More proof the guards are friendlier at Detroit than along the Niagara River. Once across, we swung around the Hotel Yorba, then grabbed lunch at Armando...