Tag: toronto

TTC Trip Planner

The TTC Trip Planner seems to be live, after some digging by the Spacing folks.

It works with a bunch of small browsers I’ve thrown at it – w3m, mobile Safari, Blackberry – so I know I can use it from a handheld. Yay!

Only minor annoyance is that for subway journeys, it only shows the direction of travel in the summary (“YONGE-UNIVERSITY-SPADINA TOWARDS DOWNSVIEW” – and yes, in all-caps) and you have to click through to the details to find out which station you need to get off at.

It does seem to get deeply confused at Kennedy Station; I live just south of Kennedy, and it expects me to take the 43 Kennedy north to the junction to Eglinton, then walk south. Everyone here uses Transway Crescent …

Update: how could I have missed the prettier and much less capslockier MyTTC?

Update 2: The official TTC site appears to have moved here http://www3.ttc.ca/Trip_planner/index.jsp?useplanner=true. Let’s see if it still works with mobile devices.

embedded Old Man Luedecke

Old Man Luedecke plays The Rear Guard in Toronto a couple of nights ago:

So if that didn’t work, here’s the YouTube video:

I took this with my little PowerShot SD790 balanced on a sugar bowl. Cropped and recoded in Avidemux2, it’s not bad. To get the embedded video above, I used ffmpeg2theora (thanks, Daring Fireball!).

Whatever you do, don’t – on your first try of recording live video – try using a setting you’ve never investigated. For the second set, I used CHDK‘s default video. It looks like an attack of mosaic tiles. Oh well.

cheque bookmark

helie1

Found in a library book. Had it been a higher denomination or not so old, I would have found a way to return it.

Stuck at the Border / Unexpected Spector

So I was at The Dakota Tavern last night, expecting to see nana grizol with Colleen and Paul. I got there far too early, and notice that there was no sign of Theo Hilton or the rest of the band. I learned from Colleen (whom I’d met before) that they’d been stopped at the border, so Colleen and Paul were playing a longer set, and Colleen’s partner Ron Sexsmith would play later.

Immigration for musicians annoys me. The costs of visas, and the processing time required, basically means that most bands I’d want to see risk getting turned away at the border. Since touring is how these bands make their living, everybody loses.

Still, Colleen and Paul – assisted by a couple of Colleen’s friends – ended their set with a lovely version of Jeff Mangum’s arrangement of I Love How You Love Me [mp3, lo-fi phone recording].

The Drones of Scarborough Superstore

I’ve mentioned the beautiful drone in the Loblaw Superstore before, but only last night did I actually get around to recording it:

  1. meats, fish – 2009/10/24 19:24:36
  2. chill – 2009/10/24 19:34:38
  3. ice cream – 2009/10/24 19:36:56
  4. organic dairy – 2009/10/24 19:40:52
  5. frozen veg – 2009/10/24 19:45:38
  6. ice cream 2 – 2009/10/24 19:52:04

You should probably listen through headphones or decent speakers – there’s some bass in there. If you can, try to experience it for yourself. The store is at 1775 Brimley Road, just south of the 401.

CanWEA 2009

I’m probably supposed to be on my way to the opening do, but I thought I’d post before it got too busy.

CanWEA 2009: Infinite Possibilities opened last night. Though attendance is up from last year, I think more people are coming into town today. It’s going to be a big event.