You know, it’s almost that time when everyone and their dog will be revealing what they think will happen in 2010. I visited a few such lists on the internet and they ran the gamut from the total annihilation of the earth to Jesus returning from heaven heavily armed and pissed. Obviously the problem here is that the lists are being produced by people and their dogs. Everyone knows cats have spooky psychic abilities, they’re the choice for predicting the future.

I decided to make a title image for this because I paid four bucks for that sheet of Bristol board and I’ll be damned if I only use it once.

For tonight I decided to ask Oliver just one question after starving him for the evening. Figure I’d cut him some slack on the first time out. Here’s how the setup works: In round 1, a psychic motivator (in blue package below) is placed on each number to, well, motivate Oliver to make a selection, thus informing us of his psychic prediction. The numbers represent the number of letters in the answer, the letters are used to spell out the answer. Cat Ouija, basically.

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I like Christmas, I really do.

I’m always a little surprised to hear someone say that they don’t. To me, the dislike inevitably always boils down to poor management, doesn’t matter the back story.

What do you see when you look at the following picture?

Do you see a brightly decorated foyer with a festively blue wreath above the door, or is that a translucently hot sun about to go supernova and tear you and your family limb from limb? I’m going to suggest that both are possible depending on how you look at it. This can either be the prelude to an idyllic Christmas, or it can the foreshadowing of utter bloody terror. What’s the difference? I believe the answer is expectations.

In the first scenario, the only expectation is that you’ll be home, happy with your family, and hopefully you’ll get to enjoy some relaxing time off and a couple of good meals. Pretty simple, easy to fulfill. In the next scenario, well, I don’t have enough space here for the lists, recipes, schedules, budgets, planning, planning, and more planning that needs to takes place. And that show really needs to hit the road ASAP if it’s going to get some traction by December.

The first scenario has fairly low expectations. The second’s are in the stratosphere. So the trick is to simply bring those expectations down. Manage them.

Part of that is letting everyone know you want to keep it as simple as possible this year:

Take a page from the people in the business district, they didn’t dick around. “Throw a string of shit on that tree and let’s get the fuck outta here, we’ve got money to make”, is most probably how it went down. The essence of pragmatism.

But the idea is to take a page and not the whole book, because otherwise you start getting stuff like this:

Okay, it’s certainly better than barf on the windows, but it seems a little cold. Guess I’m more of a traditional Christmas kinda guy; gimme a fireplace, a mug full of booze, and a comely lass on the knee. Trees are also nice. I probably wouldn’t choose to put giant, blood-red impalement pyramids in the entrance to my place. I think it gives off the wrong message.

Bay Street sure likes it’s Christmas angular and abstract. But that’s okay, I don’t expect any more than that.

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In part 1 of this explosive exposé on the real Santa Claus Parade in Toronto, I went into detail on some of the hazards and ordeals that you are really subjecting your kids to by bringing them along to the event. You may not even be aware of this because, as an adult, you’ve had a good chunk of time to build up your comprehension and so your defences. It’s like understanding how lightning works; it’s still a nervous giggle of a WHAM! outside but you don’t hightail it under your couch like the cat. You know you’re safe.

Consider this, for example:

Awww. You see Santa’s Workshop, a few rosy-cheeked, satisfied elves sitting outside with the happy labours of the year past, some cute houses topped with fluffy snow and powdered sugar. Merry Christmas, kids!

From another angle, this is Santa’s Sweatshop, miserly and terribly underdressed children cast outside their warm shelters in the middle of a cold Siberian winter, no doubt for under-producing for the “jolly old elf” (who’s probably enjoying himself a back-alley rub-and-tug somewhere in Bangkok). Merry freakin’ Christmas, kids.

At this point, some parents may say, “But I’ve taught my kids well. They’ll make the right choices.” I’ve no reason to doubt anyone’s parenting skills, but upbringing is no match for military-style indoctrination. Pretty soon your kid’s goose-stepping down University Avenue with the rest of his comrades:

Still not willing to co-operate? Let’s see how he feels after this:

No? I see; junior likes to play hardball, huh?

That’s right. If they don’t get him one way, it’ll be another. Do you really want your kid playing a tuba? What kind of a horrible parent are you to even consider that question?

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After squeezing my way through my second annual procession on Sunday, I can say without hesitation that the Santa Claus Parade is no place to bring your kids. The dangers are many and very, very real.

To begin with, you have strange men winding their way through the audience snapping random pictures of children and posting them on only God-knows what website. That alone should be enough, but there’s much more to be wary of.

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This is starting to look bad, isn’t it? Second Friday post that didn’t make it out until the weekend. But this time, dear reader, I want to assure you it was an absolute necessity. You see, an event took place this weekend that marks TCL’s first technical anniversary and I didn’t want to waste a post on something more mundane.

I say technical because if you look at the archives, TCL only goes back to January. But it’s really been online since November of last year.

Luckily the WayBack Machine has, as yet, no record of it.

At that time TCL had a mostly-black theme with content that induced hemorrhaging from the eyeballs and projectile vomiting. Pretty awful stuff. Back then I didn’t have the experience or the sphincteric relaxation to do anything interesting, really. Had anyone suggested I run a shocking exposé on what really happens at the annual Santa Claus Parade, I would’ve balked!

But in mid-November I attended Illuminite, the annual Christmas lighting of Yonge-Dundas Square. It was a cold and rainy November night, but the show went on anyway. Try as I might, I wasn’t able to muscle my way up to the front of the crowd, and it was in that soggy moment of inspiration that I remembered it was Toronto City Life. Most of these people were alive, so they qualified. I was getting all bent out of shape for nothing!

That epiphany, and the attitudinal adjustment that came with it, carried me through all the way around to this year’s event. Good thing too because there were a lot more people this time around:

Most of the show, consisting of fire, sparks, trampolines, and dancing, took place at the far end of the square. There was a lot of loud music that, more often than not, descended into a raucous noise that in no way said season’s greetings to me. Eventually, the same spooky music I remember from last year came on as the fire dancers wound their way across the square toward the stage I’d plunked myself behind:

The dancers paraded around on stage in wintry white and silver, twirling fiery objects and having pyrotechnics go off behind them as if to say, “here’s the last blast of warmth you’re getting for the next six months”:

The audience were close enough that one slip and the girl in the red hood got a face full of fire. Now if that’s not a reason to go see something live, I don’t know what is. The fireworks were pretty scary too:

Behind the dancers was the reason for the whole display, the tree.

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Another movie shoot? I gotta be honest with you, I don’t get out of bed for anything less than a feature-length film these days. Made-for-TV is, frankly, below me. And Winona Ryder? Didn’t she steal something? *phft* No thanks.

I have my standards. It’s the finicky Canadian in me. Or maybe the obstinate Czech. If the Canadian government had higher standards, maybe they’d keep the likes of Winona Ryder out of Canada. They came out with a new guide for immigrants today, but I don’t see how it protects anyone from anything.

Here are the things I took away from this:

“Serving on a jury is a privilege”

I’m not sure that needs any comment.

“In the visual arts, Canada is historically perhaps best known for the Group of Seven…”

If that’s true then we really need to do something. Now!

“In our federal state, the federal government takes responsibility for…”

Whoa there! Who said anything about taking responsibility? The government takes no stand on this issue.

June 24 – Fête Nationale (Quebec)

Once again Quebecers get a perk that the rest of Canada doesn’t. On my tax money, no doubt!

“Saskatchewan, once known as the ‘breadbasket of the world’ and the ‘wheat province’…”

Yeah, Saskatchewan used to be something. What kind of message is that?

“’Whereas Canada is founded upon principles that recognize the supremacy of God and the rule of law.’ This phrase underlines the importance of religious traditions to Canadian society and the dignity and worth of the human person.”

Ooh, Zeus and the gang are not gonna be pleased about this one.

I think the problem with government publications is that they white-wash everything. The (we can safely assume) exorbitant budget probably had earmarked a proofreader for every individual sentence. Two for the God parts. What that guarantees is that, having used this booklet as preparation for citizenship, newcomers are not in any way prepared for the reality of Canadian life. This isn’t the land of milk and maple syrup they thought it was. Well, kind of. Good organic milk too. But it’s more expensive than they thought it was.

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I had the best topic for the post all planned out last night and today … I completely forgot! For the life of me I can’t remember what it’s supposed to be, which sucks because I remember it being really good. Damnit!

Instead I had to hurriedly run around looking for something to write about. I did find some ceremony happening in front of Old City Hall:

I thought maybe it was a wedding or something, but there were media there and a bunch of old people wearing medals. Didn’t look very joyous, actually. And the fact that they were setting up in front of the old war memorial seemed pretty morose.

But I was in a rush because my original plan had gone completely out the window, so I didn’t stop to ask what was going on. As a result, today’s post will unfortunately have to rely on some borrowed Toronto Archives material as filler. I apologize.

Hopefully you’ll find it interesting. I chose to include some pictures of Claire Wallace as she interviewed some veterans of the second World War for the CBC. I don’t know why I chose this subject but something about it jumped out at me the moment I saw it. Wish my memory would do the same!

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Okay, I can honestly say I gave him a chance, but I’m not really enjoying waking up to John Moore. The the thing about Bill Carroll (the former radio timeslot), I think, is that he’s a lot angrier. Bill’s got that righteous indignation thing down. John goes on a lot about stuff in a way that makes me not care about it. It’s blood-curdling rage emanating from the radio that helps me get up in the morning. Without it, I’m just too warm and snuggly in my bed.

Take the Toronto City Centre Airport story, for example. I’m not sure many people would care about the tussle going on there. It’s a three-way shoving match between the city, the Port Authority which controls the airport and I believe has it’s own squad of shadowy assassins, and Porter Airlines which managed to pull in record profits pretty much every year since it started flying. Oh, and the island residents who basically bitch 24-7, 365 about everything (“The city’s too loud! The lights are too bright! The planes are too scary! Wah! Wah!”)

(big!)

Bill would gnaw at this, getting angrier and angrier right up until the commercial break. I don’t remember his stance on the issue, but I clearly recall the outraged timbre of his voice. The current topic of contention is the proposed tunnel to the airport which no level of government wants to pay for.  It’s intended to replace the current ferry service which, at a full 20-second trip (maybe 30) from shore to shore, seems kind of inefficient:

But whatever. I’m sure Porter contributes to this inefficiency from its growing wallet so who cares? Bill does. Passionately. Desperately. I bet the fact that Toronto got the 2015 Pan Am Games probably caused his head to just explode. They probably had to drag his headless, blood-soaked corpse out of the studio live on the air. That would’ve been some show. If only it was still on at a time when I could listen.

I can just imagine his reaction at the $2.4 billion cost. He either would have been rejoicing that his beloved Etobicoke was getting a pool make-over, or cheesed that the athletes’ village will be in what is currently a large mud pit bisecting the east edge of town (ON TAXPAYERS’ MONEY, AND DOWNTOWN GETS ALL THE BENEFITS!!), or both.

He doesn’t care that he sometimes contradicts himself. Bill shoots from the hip and asks questions later. If there’s time. I don’t think John Moore even owns a gun.

Now I have at least three more days of waking up to do. Quite possibly a few decades on top of that. With Bill gone, I’m left sleeping in almost every day, but I don’t know where else to turn. The radio dial to. And with it staying dark outside later and later now, the problem is becoming more urgent. “Nature Sounds I” just won’t cut it, but what’s the alternative … the buzzer?!

Oh who am I kidding?! There’s no way that last Friday’s post will make it online now! Guess I’ll have to call that the lost Friday. It really did swirl all the way down the black hole, to be completely honest.

In my defence, I was somewhat preoccupied with a perplexing new development. I mulled it over all weekend, only popping my head outside on Sunday afternoon to catch the dying gasps of fall. It was one of those staggeringly beautiful weekends that, if you miss them, you’re required to commit suicide. You just missed something that nice. So I had to.

Anyhow, it was a stark contrast to the development I mentioned, which has to do with my ex-wife and my ex-car. Okay, I know, it sounds whiny already, but I promise to keep that to a minimum. And the story gets a little unusual.

I figured I wouldn’t need the car while living downtown, so I let the ex drive it until the lease expired. I’ve been described both as a nice guy and a sucker. I’d probably stick myself somewhere in between. Besides, it shouldn’t have been a problem; car’s in my name and my folks guaranteed the lease. Whatever I chose to do at the end of it (this month), would’ve been to my advantage. Karma returning a favour, I thought.

Yeah, no.

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Dear reader, I must apologize profusely. The posts this week are a bit, erm, delayed. I was wracking my brain for excuses to offer up, and I think that blaming my new morning posting schedule is the way to go. Yeah, that’s gotta be it.

But I want you to know that it wasn’t just TCL that suffered; my place is a total sty and Ollie’s growing dreadlocks. Curse you, mornings!

At least I did manage to get out of doors a bit, get some fresh air, smell the manure. Coming from my flat, the Agricultural Winter Fair wasn’t a big stretch; felt kinda comfortable.

I have to say that I’m not a big fan of animals in cages, even when the cages are nicer. But I figure the animals are there anyway so why not at least show them a few moments of kindness. Besides, not all the animals are destined for my stomach. The milk goats, for example, seemed quite happy to be in contact with humanity. And only one button chewed off my coat!

Other animals were just there for their dramatic looks:

This year the Fair opened with a visit from the British Royals (guess that’s why it’s called the Royal Fair), but gainful employment once again prevented me from attending. Although I have those fond public-school-days memories of coming to the Fair on field trips, I was reluctant to go for any other reason than to see Canada’s royalty (we’re still technically a monarchy!) But those search lights they have on the Ricoh Coliseum gun turrets proved to be irresistible.

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