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Posts Tagged ‘ yorkville ’

A bunch of stuff I found on the sidewalk

Posted on March 20th, 2010 – 6 Comments

If, during the next few days, you come at just the right time of the evening, dear reader, you may notice that TCL suddenly looks completely different. Perhaps considerably worse. Perhaps better. Perhaps exactly the same. That’s because I’m playing around with new themes. Sure, they look nice in their boxes, but I have to take ‘em out for a spin – and I only have one blog. I’d like to add a TwitPic feed in there too.

If you look at the top of the sidebar you’ll notice the flipping Twitter feed and, occasionally, some of those updates link to TwitPic photos. These are taken by a spunky Samsung BlackJack the Second in the battlefield. Or the mall. Wherever the phone happens to be. Unfortunately, the quality could be better. Much better. But it’s a camera phone so all I can do is my best.

Besides, the TwitPic feed is meant as filler for, and sometimes preview of, the next post; not as a replacement. Something to look at while the blog takes a nap. I mean, if I don’t have that, I end up with posts bearing titles like, “A bunch of stuff I found on the sidewalk”, on a Saturday on which it’s obvious I’m just trying to fill up the hole in the pavement that is my blog.

Poor metaphors as well.

Oh, and I know it’s impossible to read the map (subpar photography too), but it has Church Street at it’s center with Yonge to the left and Jarvis the right. The northern city limit in 1858 was Bloor Street. It’s definitely not anymore.

Yorkville just seems like it’s been around forever. It’s probably that whole set-in-stone thing. It makes anything seem dignified.

Filed under: B Sides, Pictures

“The Three Easy Steps to Ultimate Success” (abridged version), pt.6

Posted on February 18th, 2010 – 4 Comments

…continued from previous part.

I would like to thank you for hanging in there, dear reader. I know that you’ve sat through quite enough self-indulgent tripe in this series and, thankfully, we’ve come to the end of it. There’s not much more left to achieving Ultimate Success® except this last bit:

Step 7 – [INSERT TITLE HERE]

As we finally leave the University of Toronto (I’m sure I mentioned it’s a big place), I’m reminded of my first impression of Canada. A little immigrant kid, no English, fresh off the plane at Pearson, stepping out into Toronto daylight for the first time. I’m not sure if I vocalized it, and I’m not certain if I used the word “shit”, but I recall gasping, “Holy shit! Look at the size of those cars! How big are these people?”

I won’t hesitate to call that wonder. Toronto was huge. And you know, I think it still is. If I recall correctly, by doing the speed limit on the 401 from the eastern border (“Welcome to the City of Toronto!”) to the western border (“Same to You, Jerkwad!”), you could drive across the city in about forty minutes. That’s about sixty-seven kilometers (forty-two miles). On the night of my high school graduation, drunk off my tits, I decided to walk home to Scarborough from Yonge and Bloor. I could be wrong, but I think it took me just a little over six hours. Possibly less if I hadn’t been wearing formal footwear.

I would probably add another two to three hours of walking to get to the eastern city limit, where it touches cootie-ridden Durham county. And I believe the city extends just as far west of Yonge too.

Filed under: B Sides, Pictures

Drinking with money-grubbing bankers

Posted on October 29th, 2009 – 4 Comments

Let me start by laying it all out on the table.

The Macallan Scotch tasting that I was invited to yesterday was put on by word-of-mouth advertising agency Matchstick. The idea behind hosting the event was obviously to provide some publicity for the whisky through blogging / social media / etc., but I want to assure you that it fell well within my guidelines for ethical and responsible shilling. The agency, insists that anyone attending their events is honest and upfront about it, and I wouldn’t have gone otherwise.

TCL isn’t about confessions or selling stuff, but it’s important that you know who was involved, and for what purpose. And that I’ve killed people.

There, clean conscience, ready to imbibe — just the way God wants it. :D

So, instead of just yammering on about booze, I thought that the best way to get into the evening would be to take you along.

I knew bupkis about Whisky when I arrived at the swanky Yorkville hotel. I mean, I’d drank whisky before but had more experience with the sticky tape version of Scotch than with the liquid one. So the first thing that Mark, our host, did was to explain that whisky is Scotch, Scotch is whisky. Only Scotch proper comes from Scotland.

Next, he went on a jovial story in a heavy Quebecois about how thrilled that he, as an avid whisky drinker, was to land this job with Macallan. He really seemed quite pleased about it.

Mark looks a bit of a greedy money-grubbing banker in the photo above, doesn’t he? But no, he’s just genuinely pleased at the prospect of sipping on expensive whisky all evening; it’s glee.

Filed under: B Sides, Pictures