With much gracious thanks to new income via new clients (one of whom may be reading this very post – Hi, S!), I’ve once again been able to get into the habit of a leisurely Saturday morning breakfast at the local greasy spoon; sunny, bacon, brown with an orange juice starter. The staff had that shit memorized a year ago, that’s how regular I am. And regular I once again am, the grease sees to that. Yeah, you know what that not-so-subtle word play is getting at.

So I’m terribly pleased to be back to be back to my regular Saturday routine, breakfast, coffee, and extracted sections of the voluminous Saturday Star: the news section, Insight, Weekend Living, and the stalwart comics. If someone were to finally remove the creator of the Family Circus blight, I’d be tempted to call it perfection.

Well, that and a few other unsightly blemishes I’ve noted inside the main news section, namely the condo ads.

Now, to be fair, I’m on record as saying that all the new development around Toronto is a good thing, and I stand by that. Even if some of the architecture is a little uninspired, the corollary benefits are great: lots of competition means lower prices, denser population means less destruction of green space, and being closer to where the action is can effectively remove the need for a car. I gave mine up two years ago and haven’t looked back – surprisingly hard to do without a rear-view mirror.

But the ads for these new condos, they’re just a bit on the weak side. Maybe it’s because I’m such an instantly critical jerkhole, but I immediately read between the lines, often without reading the lines themselves.

Take this ad for FIVE Condos, located at 5 Saint Joseph Street, not terribly far from my own groovy pad:

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Photos from my walk the other day.

I thought these people were meditating but no, they were reading books in the
shade on the grassy hill overlooking the boardwalk / lake ontario at balmy beach.

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With the advent of products like the Magic Bullet and the Slap Chop, it would seem impossible for a new machine to revolutionize the way people eat. Developed over the last ten years, a home-grown inventor genius has achieved the impossible and created the next step in food preparation. Empty your stomachs and open wide for the newest and most scientific way to cook. Have your credit cards ready as this is a limited time offer and a deal like this won’t be around forever. I would love to explain more but I feel its best said from the man himself, so without further ado, meat Sam Hammich!

- Tom Conway, The Raisin Gang

Honestly, I preferred this year’s streetfest in the Beaches – it had a lively more exciting vibe for me. The energy just didn’t seem to be there in the people I walked amongst the day I attended the Taste of the Danforth. To be fair, it was the last day of the event, the weather had been all over the place — I’ll give it another chance next year.

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With the weather being so hot lately, I’m sure almost every Torontonian has though, at least for a moment, of daring a dip in Lake Ontario. Okay, yeah, at times it might smell like rotting corpses, but it might be refreshing.

Unfortunately for me, getting anywhere near the water either meant a slog out west to the man-made beach near Bathurst and Queen’s Quay, or east to Cherry Beach, home of the sandy syringe.

For a while there were rumours of a new faux beach being constructed near my neck of the woods at the foot of Lower Jarvis –  Sugar Beach — but this was, after all, a government project and the expected summer 2010 completion date couldn’t be trusted.

And then, in a sure sign that the universe is soon to end, I heard on my morning radio show that Sugar Beach was open for business. So I put on my most elegant thong, grabbed a towel, and headed down.

On the way there I couldn’t help but hearken back to Toronto’s past — how people used to refresh themselves in the waters of Lake Ontario, in style, and with class.

Prior to the forties it was considered improper to wade out into the lake, clothed or otherwise. The practice referred to as “wetting Willy” (William being a common name), being heavily frowned upon.

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If you happened to be an insomniac somewhere in the neighbourhood of 26 years ago or, like me, just happened to be awake for whatever nefarious purposes, you may have flipped over to local channel Global TV and been treated to their late night (early morning?) test pattern fill-in, a gentle program named “Night Walk”.

As the name implies, the show is nothing more than one long, continuous, first-person steadicam shot of downtown Toronto streets set to dreamy jazz. I’m not sure if the purpose of the show was ever made clear — Was it simply filler for that lonely 4 a.m. time slot? Was it a form of video sleep aid? Was it interwoven with subliminal suggestions intended to keep you enthralled? (I could never peel my eyes away!)

Apparently only one episode of “Night Walk” was ever shot, but follow-up programs such as “Night Ride” continued the tradition in the same vain.

Unfortunately, Global stopped broadcasting these programs some time ago, but I’m of the opinion that it’s about time they were brought back. Perhaps on this very blog.

(How many now-absent Toronto landmarks can you spot?)

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