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.

Okay, yeah, she made it big. But on dubious credentials. Two dubious credentials.

There are a few other names strewn about the place too.

Having things stuck into sidewalks always struck me as somewhat ironic. On the one hand, yes, you are honouring that person by devoting this lasting memorial to them. On the other hand, you’re inviting people to walk all over it, spit on it, etc. Maybe there is no irony there at all. Maybe that’s exactly what’s intended. Cool.

But I won’t keep you staring at the pavement, dear reader. I’ve got a date with some themes and some prodding to do on TwitPic. No promises here, but I won’t be using the sidewalk as my subject for at least two posts after this. It would be too obvious.

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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.

So it’ll be a while before I can say I’ve seen most of it. Plus, every day I feel like an idiot with all the new stuff I learn. For example, did you know Toronto has a flag? And I finally discovered that Ollie and I are slumming it in a genuine, old-Toronto bay-and-gable flat. Bay-and-gable, sounds like a gritty police drama. Or perhaps a comedy duo.

When bay-and-gable starts to get stale-and-laboured, I usually don’t need to walk more than a block or two for a change.

What I’m getting at, really, is that something unexpected usually lies just around the corner. Ultimate Success® is incredibly subjective, so it’s difficult to get any more precise than that (in only three easy steps). But if you strike out for it, whatever it means to you, you’ll more than likely hit it. Even stupid people get successful so you sure can!

Just follow some basic rules: be sure to keep your eyes peeled…

…stay cool, baby, stay cool…

…and have fun! If it’s not fun, it probably won’t be worth doing. And for all those fun things that require elusive inspiration, I find that it tends to strike moving targets much more frequently. Sometimes you just need to  take a walk.

Congratulations! You are now at the gate of Ultimate Success®!

I would like to thank the publisher(s) of this autobiographical Tour de Force in advance for his / her / their support. Without believing in me the way she / he / they will have, this whole crazy thing never would’ve come together.

In closing, I’d like to add that if “The Three Easy Steps to Ultimate Success” has helped even just one person, it will make the royalty cheques I’ll be receiving well worth it. May you find your happiness.

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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.

The presentation went into the history of Macallan and the unholy alliances they make with the Spanish to buy wood for their whisky. Mark described the process of making the beverage in which only about 13% of the raw product ends up in the bottle, and with the small equipment they use at the distillery, that’s not so much to begin with.

Then with blissfully brief instructions came the tasting. The first guideline was that dipping your nose into the glass for a deep breath like you do with wine is not how to do it. I pulled my schnoz out of the glass and wafted the whisky gently under my nose as suggested. Much more pleasant!

The glasses were arranged from youngest to oldest, with the ten-year-old Scotch at the left and the eighteen-year-old at the right:

We were assured that the variation in colour were entirely due to the casks in which the whisky was aged, the red coming from the Sherry that had previously permeated the oak.

But ultimately, who cares? I was there to taste the stuff!

The only suggestion there was to add a couple of drops of water to break up the alcohol’s surface tension and “open up” the drink. So I did.

The first whisky tasted like … whisky. “Inoffensive”, would be the word I’d use — but still with enough of that alcoholic bite to remind you that it’s hard liquor.

We moved on to the second one. Definitely lighter and I detected some vanilla in there. Hmmn, not bad. Mark invited us to follow up with a sip of the first one to see if we could detect the toffee flavour now that it had mellowed out a bit. It wasn’t so much a detection of toffee as it was like having a hunk of toffee shoved up my nose. I could not, in good conscience, describe the liquor as having mellow hints of anything at this point.

As the whisky got older, the bite mellowed out so that by the time we hit the 18 year-old, it was very kind to the throat. And it wasn’t one of those more-drinkable-as-you-drink-more deals either; there wasn’t enough in the glasses for that :)

Nope, a genuinely pleasant experience. The differences in the whiskies were pronounced enough to justify the cost (the stuff ain’t cheap). Other than the samples in the parting gift box, I’m not sure if I’ll have a bottle of Macallan on top of my fridge any time soon, but I’m thinking it’d make a good Christmas gift; the 12-year-old one great for in-your-face flavours, and the 18+ crowd for a more mellow drink. Or as a novelty, I’m considering the ice-ball maker that Mark busted out in the middle of the demonstration. The point was simply to demonstrate that spherical ice melts more slowy than cube ice, but the audience were more fixated on the almost magical speed with which the demo cube turned into a ball (in the glass):

Cheers!

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