Chill The F@*K Out

This seems so silly. Blame British Columbia for this cheekiness: Coors Light declares the beer is "Colder Than Most People From Toronto." Making fun of Toronto is a unity issue that ties together everyone who doesn't live here, apparently a strategy that has been used for years. Weirdly it's not Molson(although they do own Coors) or Wellington poking fun while having a bit of fun playing up regional differences. Geez- C'mon Canadians... this is the battle you pick to fight? You bunch of beer babies can't even drink a decent microbrew, choosing instead to cry into your swilly American branded, Canadian owned beer...Eeew..Boohoo. Get over it.

Weirdly as a Bay Area transplant I find Torontonians amazingly friendly, and polite. What I like the best? I am finding the flirty, funny, and down right friendliness of my new hood' deelicious and I can't even imagine anyone taking offense to something sooo pedestrian. So that Canadian Complacency quip I tossed around a week or so ago needs an amendment of sorts.

Complacency with all things political, economic, and legal ( See this story?)

Pint of Stella anyone? Cheers!

Ohh The Places You'll Go

We all have favorite travel stories. Mine typically have to do with the irritating way travel styles go array. Traveling through Guatemala with someone who found it impossible to lift their nose from the lonely planet book, or Yelp! website addicts who can't decide where to eat breakfast without a democratically elected opinion. Life on the road to adventure can get gritty when one travelers' idea of camping is the Hotel Arts Barcelona but the other partner in crime is free wheeling- get off the plane -train- bus and walk into the world content to sleep where ever, but that too makes for great travel fodder.

A good friend of mine came back from a whirl wind trip that covered a zillion miles and a gaggle of gorgeous locales. I couldn't help but post his work, as he is about the funniest, well read person on the planet. In the spirit of all things summer, Enjoy life in the moment!
What better way than with pictures and captions to sum up the tasty kernel depicting moments on the road.
For me this is the best of an experience distilled down to a tasty snippet- enjoy... This is what summer is all about.
Thank-you to my good friend Dave Benson, Radio Programming maestro and photographer /writer, world traveler. Nice Work. Now get back to work slacker boy.


Caption: i don't even want to know what they cook in here.

everybody needs a place to call their own

even the inside of my hat gives me advice.

view from the rooftop bar/restaurant in Istanbul. it's all well and good until tomorrow morning when some guy decides to put the boom box on 11 and give a shout out on Mohammed's behalf.

To Dance Or Not 2 Dance

The old saying that excitement is infectious doesn't seem to hold true for concert goers here in T.O.

I was listening to an interview on the New Yorker Podcast with John Seabrook who was discussing the history of rock concerts. The mystic of venue, sound quality and overall experience has changed for concert goers as the music-concert genre has morphed into big stadium shows that lack sound quality and control. Depersonalized.

A handful of sweet little concert venues still exist here in Toronto (The Mod Theater comes to mind with Matt Nathanson putting on an awesome show) The swanky n sweet Drake Hotel is a gem that serves marvelous martinis during music shows. A big exciting part of seeing a live show is experiencing this lost art of showmanship, of course acoustics add to the overall small venue experience of an energized crowd. No small part of this experience is the energy of a crowd turned on by the performer.

My thread of niceness concerning my Canadian hosts has run it's course. Sad to say, but sometimes an edge to ones' personality is a necessary evil. Or maybe just a pulse would be fine here under the red and white flag waving it's friendly maple leaf everywhere.. The concert experience in Canada is about as energy filled as watching paint dry. Okay, perhaps that analogy is a bit harsh. Think airport lounge television experience: the Canadian sport of Curling on every monitor and they've announced a delay for your flight. So after a month here, I can say the experience is pretty similar whether the band is rock, jazz or pop... snore. The scene looks like this: no pushing or shoving, no dancing, not much physical mosh pit like crunch/crush. Sound like fun? Sure, if this describes waiting for the subway but a live music show deserves a better return of our creative investment.

To solve this dilemma? I thought I might ask for feedback, as buying drinks for the entire venue could get spendy.

Is Canada The New China

No, Not due to the recent typhoon. This comparison is purely censorship driven. What does censorship have to due with living in Canada you might wonder. The lock on the telcom/internet world is an arm wrestle between a couple of players here in the great northern enclave of Canada. The carrier that hosts the service in the apartment has a devilish way of blocking out or redirecting DNS searches. I can't access google at the oddest of time. No, I don't have a online porn habit that needs to be curtailed by the Rogers Telephone control freaks, but in the last week (notice my lack of posts??) Weird re directs occur on my machine when I have attempted to google ANYTHING... be it a search, a gmail account, or my urbanfirefly account. In what appears to be a violation of Net Neutrality by Rogers Cable, Digital Home readers ( me included) are reporting that Rogers High Speed Internet service has begun redirecting customers "Server not found pages" to webpages laden with Rogers advertising.

The hijacking of the webpage appears to be attempt by Rogers to use its Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) technology to cash in on the mistakes of its users.

Pissed off is really an understatement. So who do I rant to? Well the first stop was the customer assistance line at Rogers. Of course after feigning ignorance on any re-direct from any where, it was deemed that perhaps I needed a refresher course or how-to- surf the Internet. Even recommended where to find the classes. As if.

My very Canadian service rep soon heard a stream of expletives come pouring from my mouth, I vow to take the censorship to the ether and have it reign down upon f#$K face Rogers Internet for redirecting and basically controlling where I surf. China has this in spades, but Canada...

He Shoots He Scores

I think we have a new nick name for Bill Clinton. Catnip. Catnip Clinton was on a "private humanitarian mission" to see his little friend Kim Jong-il and discuss the release of Laura Ling and Euna Lee, of San Francisco-based Current TV. Both women had been taken into custody in March near the border with China while reporting on refugees fleeing North Korea. They were sentenced to hard labor for illegal entry and "hostile acts." Bill Clinton had "expressed a deep apology that the [two female reporters] entered the country illegally and committed hostile acts against the republic." I feel your pain.. but we have cocktails awaiting and a plane to catch.
I wonder if Catnip brought along boot leg DVDs of current Hollywood blockbusters to break the ice and put a smiley face on a situation his wife Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton merely described as petulant and childish (referring to Kim Jong-il and those pesky nuclear tests from a few weeks ago.)

I would have loved to have had the fly on the wall experience of eavesdropping on what I imagine: the scene of Kim and Bill, enjoying a bowl of Kim Chee while watching Hangover, laughing about frat boy antics and comparing notes on the best lap dance in Vegas.

Who else is ecstatic? H.E. Mr. Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann, President of the 63rd session of the United Nations General Assembly has gotta be doing the happy dance. This Catnip Clinton gesture places a band-aid of sorts upon the recent North Korea United Nations resolutions defiance of nuclear arms.

What about that inconvenient tie between Clinton inner circle stiff guy: past VP of The United States of America/past CEO of Current TV Al Gore? Why not invite him along for a few cocktails flying first class. Clinton's spokesman said the former president had left Pyongyang with the two reporters and they were en route to Los Angeles.

Mr. Clinton has gotta be thinking "it's good to be me" today. I couldn't agree more. Especially if this could pave the way to direct nuclear disarmament talks. He shoots He scores- Pure Catnip.

Complacency: A Canadian Cultural Trait

After a month here in Canada, I have an opinion about the overall lack of initiative on the part of environmental groups. The recent strike could have -should have -would have been the catalyst for change. Except no groups stepped forward to seize the moment.
Excuses, excuses. These ranged from :not enough time to organize (37 days) to summer vacation.

The people who consider themselves "environmentalist" must have been up at the cottage. For those not familiar with the cottage concept, picture in your mind a season of three months and a crazed urgency people exhibit for getting away to visit the land of the black fly and mosquito. Seems like a lot of work to me, but then I am used to having a longer runway of nice weather to enjoy. Talk to me in the spring, and perhaps I will be singing a different tune. But really- each and every free moment of the so called summer season for many here in Canada is time spent lakeside.
It's much like the Tahoe phenomenon in California with a highly evolved myopic view of venue.

With the Canadian love of nature, and sustainability worn on the cuff of everyone who weathered this strike for the past month, a few observations came to mind. This could be considered a rant by Canadian terms, so avert your eyes as the following paragraph o' vitriol.

The media places the blame for environmental complacency to: summer vacation. Yes, here in Canada the environmentalist rabble rouses, pot stirrers and soap box fans all take a break from their pot stirring. Hard to believe, but the local press blames this summer vacation phenomenon for the lack of any activist messages aimed at enticing people to make smarter choices when shopping. Puchasing goods with less packaging, being a vocal forefront for changing consumer habits-but instead of seizing the opportunity to make politically charged socially important messages framed by a backdrop of garbage bags we got..... nada.

Sometimes marketing opportunities just don't get any better than the recent visual of football field sized waste holding areas, too bad none of the environmental groups here capitalized.

Complacency accompanied with a fine set of rationalization runs deep here. Of course I'm just a pushy American (suppose that's redundant too.) but at least I know an opportunity when I see one, and that too is very American .

Evoke change? There's always next time.

The Staycation

Sloth. Couch Potato. Slacker. Today it's an easy fit for any of the three adjectives. Despite the beautiful weather the most productive thing accomplished today: reading the paper. Weirdly enough the Sunday paper here in Canada is pretty thin. I suppose the assumption is that an August Sunday should be spent doing more arduous tasks than reading the paper.

The city is looking it's spit polished self again with the city municipal workers back on the clock. Garbage collection has taken place around the clock, along with ferry service to the Islands that loom just beyond a quick sail across the lake. Even that fabulous view couldn't unseat me today.

I've noticed the media and marketing wizards of the world have coined a term for this sort of no plan, rudderless agenda at least when it coincides with a three day holiday weekend: Staycation.

Unlike a vacation with posh hotel room service, and delicious over priced mini bar delights my staycation culinary highlight of the day was an online pizza order/delivery.

Yes, it is an oxymoron to actually post a blog about sloth like behavior, but hey- it's a cathartic reason of sharing my guilt of missing a beautiful day. Especially when beautiful days are considered a scarce commodity in this part of the world. Maybe a few evening hours left of sultry summer weather can tug me from my ivory tower life here in T.O

Cocktails & Croquet anyone?