is for the short, stout girl I passed this morning whose gait and cocky plummage taught me why the British call them “birds”.

is for the dual undulating artery blockages that obstructed the mid-section of the streetcar I thankfully missed.

is for the foppish dandy whose unseemly insertion into the lunch line was set aright by his  roti during its inaugural cut as it tossed a healthy amount of curry and karma onto his fancy threads.

is for unsullied spring.

I know, technically I’m a couple of weeks late, but when the buds on the trees and the sprouting Crocii eclipse such an unique day, isn’t that worth noting?

It’s innocuous and mostly ignored. It just stands there performing its function as best it can, providing a vital service to thousands of Torontonians each day without so much as a mumble, and lately it’s been spitting up gold.

Here is my accumulated trove from the past few days, complete with a likely reconstruction of the sequence in which they came out →

Aren’t they great? Each one a unique fuck up; some mis-cut, some mis-printed, and most that didn’t fully make it through the rollers. Then there’s Blue Mountain of messed up transfers, the double-print. Super gracias, TTC!

These will find a home somewhere on my shelf, lovingly enshrined in my homage to the quirks that make the city great. MiCkie Dick’s and towers don’t a shelf make nah more.

Should you care to brighten your own morning, visit the right-hand machine at the Dundas southbound subway platform, when it’s “fixed”. I’d be just chuffed to share your own sunny treasures here (comment or email, whatever floats your boat).

A few days ago I received a heartwarming email correspondence from a guy I’d never heard of. It brought unintentionally good tidings regarding employment in Toronto (at least in my field of work), as well as reaffirming my disdain for that barnacle of the professional world, the head hunter.

First the employment.

I don’t want to paint an unnecessarily rosy picture; there are certain sectors out there that are getting beat up left right and center. These seem to be mostly in old, established manufacturing jobs with most of them tied to car makers. However, many emerging and newer fields are on a broad upswing. Consider the letter I mentioned above. What makes that email uplifting is that it’s for the job in which I’m currently employed; I know because I helped to write the job description. We could chalk this mistake up to ignorance (more on that later), but le’s say for a moment that this was for a job that I wasn’t already in; what does the email say about the job market in my field (Flash developer, if you didn’t bother)?

First of all, the employment agency went to the trouble of describing my employer as a “Medium Sized Trendy Company”. In a brief discussion about this, my fellow developer and I came to the conclusion that we most certainly are the heppest things since hep became a word.

Going to the bother of adding trendy words indicates that a little bit of extra oomph is needed to attract candidates, something to which I can definitely attest. We’ve been trying to fill this position for about a year now. There have been a lot of dismal, head-shake-inducing entries and unfortunately, those that have been good were poached by competitors.

I don’t think that this job situation requires any heavy analysis (like this helped any “experts” forecasting our current monetary troubles); it’s a simple matter of supply and demand. Most high-tech skills, especially really nerdy ones like programming have large gaps between what employers need and what they can get. Sure, the learning curve is pretty steep but I think that an intensive six month course in your technology of choice should be enough to get you in on the $60K/year gigs. More often than not, there will be good room for negotiation.

Most developers I know are aware of the current global economic fiasco by name only. If you’re looking for a job, Toronto is probably faring a bit better than most places, but it’s hurting just as bad in those areas where people are getting axed globally. Despite this, it seems to be smooth sailing for all the fields that are opening up either because of changes in technology, ageing of the population, or recognition of global problems like the environment. By new, I mean somewhere in the neighbourhood of five to six years. I’m considered senior for God’s sake!

Don’t poopoo jobs because they’re different. Work environments are bound to change; if you’re freelancing now you probably have a better idea of what the workplace of tomorrow will look like than the standard nine-to-five guy. Keep your mind open when looking for a new job; the opportunity may seem unlike anything you’ve ever tried, and that’s usually what makes it the one to go for. There is an element of uncertainty, but as a general risk-averting pussy, I can honestly say that it’s a lot smaller than you think (mostly just an excuse).

In closing, I wanted to just touch on head hunters in the employment maelstrom. You can do without them! After all, their modus operendi is to make money off of you in exchange for providing a job seeking service as well as backing you up when you’re on the clock.

At least, that’s the theory.

In my experience with about seven different agencies, most fucked off after my first day on the job. In most cases I had to hunt down my rep who, more often than not, would be generally unavailable because of “meetings”, and that didn’t go down well on payday when the cheque didn’t show up. For the forty-odd bucks they were charging on top of my hourly, you’d think they’d be able to actually do what they say they’d do. Besides this, I had better luck finding good jobs myself ; they exist and agencies usually don’t have exclusive dibs. My delicate feet never hit pavement either.

And do keep in mind the level of competence exemplified by some of these chuckleheads; like the one who sent me a job offer for my own job. I wonder if he has opposable thumbs.

You!

Stop right where you are. Yes, you. Put that ass crack on the pavement or so help me.

Good.

All settled?

The voice of Bill Carrol came on. You know, the CFRB 1010 morning guy and his cadre of over-drole associates. “Did you see this on CNN?”, I paraphrase. “Now they’re using my idea to try and put a positive spin on the news. Using ‘Road to Rescue‘. I’ve been doing that for months! That was my idea!” … Continue Reading

To use a bovine analogy, there are few things that allow me to stomach the sheer, brutal cud of incompetence that seems so prevalent these days.

A few days ago, for example, I was calling the credit company to declare that I was making my last payment on the card (and the horse it rode in on), and to ask if I “should expect a final interest charge between the time the payment is made and the time it’s actually processed.”

Doesn’t that seem like a common question? Of all the possible, even improbable answers I was expecting,  “how should we know what activities take place on your account?”, was just about the only one that didn’t cross my mind.  It’s hard to know how to reply to such insult-bordering statements without resorting to violence, but I managed to take in a breath and yield to a cool, curt, “because it’s your card”, while silently mouthing the word “jackass”.

Such tension releasers, however, often don’t come in the moment and are usually insufficient to make you feel better. Abusing your pets/family just isn’t practical these days, and sweet sweet vengeance usually ends up being a George Costanza-type affair that leaves you even more bitter. That dead horse has been beaten enough. Instead, solace must be taken where and when it can.

I take mine in the form of anonymous social commentary, usually spray-painted on walls or sidewalks. No, these are not the usual tags; those are just evidence of perennial self-indulgence. No one cares that you were here, “SnuR<hb 2K9 dash-swirl”! — if that is your real name.

I like the stuff that shows some thought other than “oh shit I’m so wasted, dude!” Stencils are great for this sort of thing. They’re physical evidence that someone planned the affair — going to the trouble of finding the appropriate image(s), contrasting the living bejeezus out of them, cutting them out, etc.  Their Holstein pattern, for me, always alludes to greener pastures where bullshit is actually nourishing, and the knowledge that someone out there really just wants to give me a chuckle. Here’s a taste.

index fingers out-apart-down-together-snap-sville. Dig?

I feel like I’ve discovered a bewitching new world right where my TV monitor used to be. In the same sense as car crashes or deformed kittens are so damn compelling, local access cable offers a dizzying variety of shows that make looking away impossible.

I just want to point out, right up front, that this is neither moaning, bitching, nor complaining. I watch enough dreck that tries to pass itself off as entertainment that, production values aside, local cable is a comparative gleaming jewel.

I mean, there’s absolutely no pretense here.  These folks know that their audience is extremely limited so their shows have a real laissez-faire atmosphere. During weekdays, some of these shows must skim dangerously low over the ratings plains. The effort matches the budget, matches the content, [unfairly] matches audience numbers.

Yet, despite these seeming obstacles, we find encapsulated in each frozen frame a vast, endless realm of entertainment. Kind of like a heavy acid trip.

… Continue Reading

My best laid plans had all the chances of snow in hell.

I had been depending on the bitter cold to stay in place; I needed liquids to be able to flash-freeze on contact with surfaces. Unfortunately, a major thaw settled over the city and I ended up with nothing more than slush and puddles, and my originally planned topic ran down the storm drain along with everything else.

I was moping along until, my eye being drawn by a reflected glint of sunlight, I spotted something just as worthy of an in-depth article: a filthy snowbank, slowly disintegrating in the gentle afternoon sun, dislodging it’s treasures onto the sidewalk.

It occurred to me that the layers of the grimy snow (and more importantly their contents) were, in a sense, a sort of stratified time capsule much like the earth embankments of traditional archeological digs. Each line represented a period in which it snowed sufficiently to engulf any lost or discarded articles.

We could (more or less) correlate these layers’ contents to actual calendar days and trace the history of the pile.  A whole two months’ worth of history just lay there in the dirty ice waiting to be uncovered! … Continue Reading

I’m veering away from my regular existential indulgences for a bit to wax oracular about a highly visible trend around the sprawl: the influx of permanent influences that will change, and are changing, the face of city.

None of this will even begin to approach news for most Torontonians.

The slow and stealthy creep of Metro stores over the past few years as the company gobbled up A&P/Dominion, Loeb, and other grocery stores, was clearly visible even as it came as a bit of a surprise to locals (that was my impression anyway). The re-branding was simply a facelift on a done deal, but it threw light on a trend which is continued by extra-Torontonian projects such as the Ritz-Carlton Group’s Ritz Residences, the Maned One’s Trump Tower, and even the sweet and matronly franchise of Chez Cora’s.

… Continue Reading

Basking in the summer sun and hosting merry, undulating rivulets of sweat betwixt my rosy ass cheeks, I often found myself thinking of the future.

The imagined timeline floated in the haze of somewhere around mid-January.

Yes. Chilled drinks did factor into that vision, as did various activities combining snow and nudity.

Despite this, my pragmatism allowed me to recognize that winter would also suck in many ways. I knew that, for example, snow would feel great on my ruddy bits for only a few minutes at most. After that, the joy would be gone.

I make sure I don’t look forward with too much adoration. That way on my daily travels, when I expect the destination to suck, it’s kind of nice to arrive and find that it sucks less. A shitty day can so often be transformed into a less shitty day by the expectation (but clear lack) of an even shittier day.

In between sweat, I paused to gaze forward in time again.

The year was 2009. It was a cold, bitter January. Much to everyone’s horror, Bush had proclaimed himself president for a third term. The Clintons were forming an insurgent militia and Barack Obama, having won the election proper, was being held “for questioning” by Homeland Security.

Looting and pillaging were daily occurrences. Police and even the army stood back, trying merely to contain the borders of the swelling uprising growing from within. Almost all major city cores exploded with a shockwaves of violence that rippled outward, ripping up any vestiges of civility, kindness, and humanity.

Savage survival was all that remained.

… Continue Reading

My journey around old city hall has consisted of about five meters, four of which have thus far been spent in regrettable company.

Not more than a step further, I find myself with a raised eyebrow, arched in the direction of an encircled, chanting muddle of the local Krishna chapter . They’ve positioned themselves in an awkwardly dark and inaccessible point just a bit further along the embankment.

I’ve only basked in the live Krishna experience in what seemed to be ad hoc processions around Dundas Square or Bloor and Yonge. Today, donning coats that resemble puffed-up pigeons, they’ve festively interjected “Happy New Year” with every other “Hare Krishna”. They seem like a nice, warm little community. Don’t you think?

Wrong, commie!

… Continue Reading