Sarah and I did some casual, Sunday afternoon, stroll-y type shopping at the Cherry Street T&T yesterday. It was my intention to give her a taste (yes, pun included), of my years in Taiwan — at least in terms of product selection. We were missing the traditionally oppressive humidity and funky odours known as “authentic street cuisine”, but with its hordes of English-less products, mystery ingredients (on the labels we could read), and unintentionally hilarious packaging, I feel pretty satisfied with the authenticity of the store. And to top off a fully immersive experience, you should always walk out feeling a little more ignorant than when you came in — mission accomplished! Well, maybe ignorant isn’t the exact word, but I’m sure you get the gist.

…the wide open boulevards of our fair city this pleasant afternoon with my girl.

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I’ve been sitting in front of this computer for almost three days straight, working my blogging mojo to maximum capacity and barely moving an inch. Were I able to effectively aim the same soda I drank not long ago back into it’s original bottle, I would. The weather helped a bit – not May-like at all, cold and damp and overcast. But once the sore ass begins there’s little else to do but throw on a jacket and and take that ass out for some fresh air.

The moment my foot hit the ground outside the flat, the skies parted like some miraculous scripture moment and the sun beamed down on my swollen buttocks, urging them on. I can’t say I believe in the supernatural unless I personally experience it myself, but damn if that didn’t feel like a sign.

So with the sun shining happily on my perambulating backside, I chose somewhat arbitrarily to head down Queen Street East again. I did The Beach not too long ago, but the stretch between there and the Don Valley I kinda glossed over, and that’s a shame because it’s also a terrific area, very picturesque and Bohemian in its own way. The stretch encompasses the former villages of Riverdale and Leslieville, one of the first few towns to be gobbled up by a growing Toronto (you’re next, Peel, Markham, Vaughan, and Pickering!). So not unsurprisingly the main Queen Street strip has a really nice, old town feel to it, but it’s well maintained. Well, most of it anyway.

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When the gentle snow begins to fall outside my icy window, dear reader, my thoughts turn to a snifter of some fine, aromatic liqueur, and to your delightful company by the side of a crackling fire. I do so love this season. :)

The urban sphere is no less magical at this time of year; festively festooned store windows hold visions of the wonders to come, with children looking on clinging to their mothers, promising all manner of rehabilitated behaviour if only they could get exactly that. And luckily, toys are a relatively inexpensive way to motivate them toward adopting good manners. It’s a terrible shame that the same can’t be said of the adult populace at large. It would certainly make shopping for gifts much more enjoyable, don’t you think?

Insolence at this time of year is most un-Christmas-like, yet during any average shopping expedition one may expect to encounter it at regular intervals. While previous installments of The Guide have dealt with successfully navigating crowds or dealing with queue jumpers, we have thus far not discussed the techniques for ensuring that the last item on the shelf ends up in your possession instead of the aggressive gentleman’s who just pushed you aside for it. The natural inclination may be to bare one’s knuckles and prepare for fisticuffs, but there are many variables to this approach that simply cannot be accounted for. Besides this, it is ungentlemanly. The timeless question must once again be raised; what’s the practical gentleman to do?

Luckily, dear reader, we have a few avenues open to us that ensure that we escape both unscathed, and with the gift we had wanted under our arm. And as my special gift to you, I have taken great pains to research two excellent approaches that are both entirely preemptive and self-maintaining. The gifts that you select will be ready for you when you’re ready to make your purchase; you won’t need to fend anyone off, thus entirely preventing insolence, as it were.

A great deal of wisdom has been scribbled hastily within convenience store greeting cards on the way to the relatives’ as regards these matters, but please allow me to at least get the ball rolling.

The Mark

Chocolate, who doesn’t love it? The insolent, that’s who. But not me, dear reader, and I believe you will love it too once this scenario unfolds in its entirety.

Clearly, for this technique we will be needing chocolate. I prefer dark, but melted milk chocolate also has a certain appeal. The idea is to use something that approaches the colour and consistency of feces, and cocoa is a wonderful medium to work in anyway.

Enjoy a corner of your favourite chocolate treat, allowing it to melt in your mouth until soft. Then, simply rub it onto a visibly obvious section of the gift you have selected, replacing it on the shelf from whence it came. Anyone who encounters it will see the “fecal” smear and will steer well clear. You hear? :)

The nice aspect of this strategy is that it allows you to shop with hands free while marking, and reserving, potential gifts you may want to return to later. Clearly there wouldn’t be much advantage to marking gifts weeks in advance, unless you’re short of cash at that time, so the approach is a day-of sort of thing.

It would be remiss not to complete the thought and ask what happens when the besmeared gift is unwrapped. “I was eating chocolate, as I am wont to do when wrapping gifts, and some of it dripped there. I had the receipt but they wouldn’t let me return it and mall security chased me out. I have no idea why. But it’s what’s on the inside of the box that counts anyway, right?”

Bingo bango, you’re done.

The Markup

When something absolutely must be reserved, the idea here is to make the object simply unattainable … except for yourself ;) As with the previous option, this may also be a day-of sort of thing or an advanced-planning sort of thing. But you must prepare.

The essence of the thing is to create our own price tags, of varying degrees of outrageousness, that we will apply to reserved items. Access to a printer is great, but if you write carefully (paying attention to size and spacing), you can produce credible tags by hand. A fine felt tip marker and some self-adhesive envelope labels – the kind that come on sheets – should serve you well. We’ll be cutting these into price-tag-sized pieces, so we really don’t need many.

It’s a good idea to produce them in incremental values of ten dollars. And ninety-nine cents, of course (that adds to the authenticity). Start at $10.99, then $20.99, $30.99, and so on. These are good psychological thresholds, hurdles for their penny-pinching minds. How high are they willing to jump?

Of course, you’ll know something they don’t; that the real price is just beneath the reserved tag.

To absolutely ensure that a certain item is held until your return, consider marking up a number of the same items in increasing sums. This adds to the confusion should someone decide to double-check the price. As the items leave the shelf, the price will most certainly climb – that $150.99 (what?!) Transformer is sure to be yours. Teehee … can you hear their outraged outbursts at the toy store’s audacity? Maybe if they weren’t so rude.

The Marquis

During the holidays it’s nice to clean up a bit. Get that haircut, brush those teeth, put on the top hat, pop on the monocle, strike the cane and get out there! As the Marquis, or Duke, or V.I.P.of one sort or another, you are to be afforded various privileges, and if your wealthy industrialist father taught you anything it was that any problem can be bought.

“Sir? Sir? I wonder if you’d be willing to part with that game for a profit. Name your price.  Well, now, that’s  quite a tidy sum. Luckily for you, I made that while standing here. Hang on, I’ll write you a cheque; I don’t carry that much cash on me.”

Fancy duds, presumptuous, quick to pay you off – yeah, thanks for the money, Mister Sucker. Yoink! Didn’t really want the game anyway.

A well-dressed lady interacting with members of the opposite sex is more likely to accomplish this without any complications. Ladies will have an advantage over the gentlemen here, I’m afraid. Sorry fellas, we can’t win ‘em all.

At this point, you contact your bank to put a block on the cheque. You can also use expired cheques such as result from switching accounts to avoid possible fraud — “Oh no! My bank card is missing!” (But not really :) )

We must absolutely not reward insolent behaviour, and moochiness is no exception. By using this method, the gift is given by someone truly deserving, and contrary to ending in raised fists, the situation results in a handshake. Is that not in the spirit of Christmas? I happen to think so.

Well, dear reader, this is the final edition of 2009. It’s been a tumultuous year, to be sure, but it is my most sincere wish that The Guide has thus far provided a modicum of guidance through it. I will continue to work hard to bring you real, practical solutions to modern urban insolence.

Wishing you and your loved ones the ho-ho-ho-iest Christmas and Auld-Lang-Syne-iest new year. Until next time!

Oh God, it’s that time again … gift season. I believe this adds a great deal of stress to anyone’s holiday schedule. You have to be both a creatively gifted person and have your finger on the pulse of commerce to both avoid getting the same presents year over year, and to know where / how /  when / for how much your idea may be fulfilled.

Add to that the challenge of crowded parking lots, shoppers wired on their kids’ Ritalin and ready to pounce on anyone who gets in their way, and the simple challenge of just getting around in the seasonal conditions – and you’ve got yourself some war planning to do. Old Man Winter’s pretty much made himself at home and he’s, well, he’s not always at his sexiest. Because he’s so ubiquitous, I couldn’t take a photo of him, so instead here’s a Titanic-style rendering:

I never feel like shopping after walking in on that.

Well, since most of my shopping will probably consist of gift cards and video games (nephews are the perfect age!), there really won’t be anything interesting to document this year. Unless the store at which I’m purchasing said gift card or video game is being held up, but I usually never get the camera out in time so I wouldn’t bank on it.

Due to this, I decided instead to compile some (hopefully) unique and original gift ideas – for you and your loved one. Of course, they may no suit everyone’s tastes, but that’s why there’s more than one thing on the list :)

The Toronto City Life 2009 Gift Guide

If you live with one of those snooty sonsabitches who wishes for world peace, you’re probably thinking what a miserable, selfish asshole! I mean, how the hell are you supposed to pull that one off in time for Christmas? You can either tell them to go to hell, or if they’re that important to you, you can do the next best thing and get them a world piece. Maybe lop a desk globe in half (or smaller), and gift wrap. Couldn’t be simpler, more affordable, and practically the same thing.

If your recipient just wants cold, hard cash like all normal people, you can exotify the gift by sticking it into a decorative red envelope and calling it a Han Bau. This is the traditional gift in China. Typically it’s given during the Lunar New Year and most often to kids, but I don’t know about you, but I ain’t Chinese so to hell with tradition. For the ultimate in authenticity, get the envelopes with some Chinese characters on them (do you really care what they say?), and hand the wad over with a gong-shi gong-shi ni-a! (that’s the traditional way of congratulating someone for surviving another year)

In the olden days, a lump of coal was seen as one of the worst things that anyone could receive. Of course, back in them ignorant times people had no clue how versatile coal really is. We now know that it’s the raw material for producing diamonds (this year, giver her a lump), and as energy prices continue to skyrocket, something to help heat the home is indeed a terrific gift!

And shit, if you’re giving coal, you may as well include a canary. If the coal decides to get any bad ideas, the canary will die (an old miner trick), saving you the embarrassment of having to drag the gassed-out carcass of your significant other onto the front lawn.

But I know that ladies aren’t always into practical things so something that appeals to their aesthetic sense is a great alternative. I thought about this one for a while and came to the conclusion that a pair of front teeth is a swell and inexpensive gift. I believe there was even a song written about it.

Ladies, in my experience, also just enjoy extensively hugging things – cuddling, I believe they call it. Doesn’t the Cuddle Fish sound like the perfect gift for the woman in your life? If you’re having trouble finding one, try the alternate spelling of Cuttlefish — the pronunciation is the same. Even sounds cute!

For your man, nothing says “I put effort into this bitch” more than a city sewer grate. To begin with, there’s gotta be at least five bucks’ worth of raw material in there so there’s that, and once he realizes the effort required to lift it (let alone gift wrap it), he’ll fall in love all over again. On top of all this, you’re out zilch and now have an amazing conversation piece in your living room! Not a world piece, mind you, but almost as good.

If you’re trying to avoid theft this Christmas, and you happen to be environmentally conscious, a year’s worth of natural gas can apparently be had entirely for free. I know, it’s practical, but for free you can make it a stocking stuffer! I’m not sure how the process works but it involves something called a Dutch oven and fine Egyptian cotton sheets.

A packet of farm-fresh Anthrax is, I’m told, also a well-received gift. It’s incumbent on you to ensure that the receiver knows it’s Anthrax. Of course, if they don’t believe you, they deserve what they get – untrusting louts. Otherwise, it’s theirs to dispense with as they please. The youth I’ve given it to in the past all assure me it was a “sick” gift. That means cool ;)

Finally, I was tossing around the possibility of getting someone an Ewok. You know, from the forest moon of Endor. They’re cute, anthropomorphic as all get out, and pretty damn rare in North America. Imagine the surprise when one pops out of a box with a ribbon on its head. I won’t recommend this one until I can figure out where to obtain a pet Ewok, but I thought I’d throw that out in case you happen to know of a reliable supplier. In which case, can you hook me up?

In previous years I experimented with food and standard pets, but they either start to mold pretty severely or their body begins decomposing well before the box is opened (even if you put them in alive). And I always seal the boxes really well, so air leaking in is not the cause. Guess they just don’t make good gifts. It doesn’t make for a nice Christmas eve (our family opens gifts on the 24th); kids cry, maggots get all over the carpet, smell ruins the hell out of the Carp dinner. Besides, why not do something different this time?

(this was the best I could come up with — St. Lawrence market is really distracting!)