Yes, it’s cold. On the way to the TTC, my thermometer said -25°C. It was so cold the other day that, in the five minute walk back from the coffee shop, my colleague Derek’s pastry froze solid.
Tag: toronto
going postal
I got two packages yesterday. Both were posted on 16th December.
The first package was sent by my friend Jeff from Bedfordshire in the UK. That’s about 5600 km away.
The second was send (by Canada Post Xpresspost) from a store in Toronto. It’s about 9 km from here.
Assuming the same pickup and drop-off times, the package from the UK averaged a useful 77 km/h. The Canadian package did a woeful 0.125 km/h.
It also doesn’t help that Canada Post flat-out lied about their delivery time of the local package. If you go to their tracking site, they claim it was delivered on 17th December. It really got here on the 19th.
the little turbine that …
Seems that a little turbine from my old hometown is causing quite a
stir. The WindSave looks like it plans to be a distributed project of 1000s of micro-turbines, each “phoning home” to report its production to a central site.
Contentious article in The Guardian, which I already know that Paul Gipe has had a good grouse about.
I don’t see what this does that a Marlec doesn’t. I’ve sent for more info.
I’d hate to have to consign this to my “Wind Energy Annoyances” folder,
but it may be heading that way. And I’m very, very suspicious of any
wind turbine that’s backed by Country Guardian, the UK’s anti-wind energy, pro-nuclear group.
car free in canada
It’s fairly easy to do without one if you make your housing and
working arrangements around it. I’ve been car-free since 1996, but
we’re mostly urbanites, so this may not work for everyone.
Most of my ideas come from a great UK magazine called AtoB.
- We live very near a TTC subway station
- I cycle during the summer, take transit at other times. A TTC
pass for $90/month for an annual subscription just can’t be
beat. - I have a Brompton folding bike (amongst far too many others, to
Catherine’s eternal dismay) which rides well, and plays well with
others on crowded transit. - Catherine can use rental cars (I don’t have my Canadian licence
yet, for various annoying bureaucratic reasons). They’re cheaper
than running a car if you only need them now and again. - Taxis work for getting big stuff from stores. (Unless you’re
buying an eMac computer, which comes in a box too big to fit in a
taxi …) - All of our furniture was delivered, at less cost per trip than
even hiring a U-Haul. - We get most of our groceries delivered from Grocery Gateway
- We’ve considered signing up for AutoShare, a car sharing service in Toronto. A few of our friends use it, and find it convenient and
reasonable.
pathologically polite
It’s 9am, TTC subway southbound at St George. The train is packed (the crowd roared like a lion… no, wait, that was Wesley Willis). It’s the usual crowd — UofT students, Queen’s Park parliament types, downtown suits — not an elderly, infirm or pregnant person in sight. Everyone’s muffled in their winter gear, and there’s no room to move.
And there are two empty seats. No-one will sit in them, ‘cos they’re too polite, or too passive-aggressive to let anyone sit in them.
To compound this, they are window seats, and there’s someone in the aisle seats. AAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaargh!
Am I a really bad person for wanting to sit down?
The Remarkable Bob Levitt
Bob Levitt — on a budget of $0 — has built one of the most remarkable and useful websites I’ve ever seen: Toronto Tenants. If you’re a tenant in Toronto (as more than half of the city’s residents are), Bob’s site is a gold mine.
He’s taken the time to build a comprehensive site, with no concessions to commerciality. He’s even researched Google’s linking algorithm to make sure that his site ranks way up there. His attention to detail — including providing common typos, such as tennant, as search keywords — goes far beyond that of most sites.
In short, it’s a labour of love. Talking to Bob, it’s clear that he wants tenants in the Megacity (and beyond) to be safely and happily housed, and to know their rights.
Just as I thought that the web was turning into a global electronic Wal*Mart, Bob restores my faith in humanity. Keep up the good work, Bob!
everyone else is voting, why can’t I?
It’s municipal election day here in Toronto. I’m a Toronto resident, homeowner, and taxpayer. Yet I can’t vote, because I’m not a Canadian citizen.
I can understand not being able to vote in federal or provincial elections, but I’m as much of a citizen as anyone else living in Toronto. Toronto has such a vast immigrant population that many people are disenfranchised. Perhaps that’s why the city is failing to provide for its citizens.
a great place to be *from* …
[Bit of background here. I’m Scottish, but I live in Toronto. Canada is big, Scotland isn’t.]
There’s this thing I like to call The East Dunbartonshire Conspiracy. I used to live in Kirkintilloch in East Dunbartonshire. It’s a small central Scotland town, rapidly becoming another suburb of Glasgow.
Since coming to Canada, most of the expat Scots I have met are from East Dunbartonshire:
- The LCBO guy in Toronto Union Station is from Kirkintilloch, about 100m from where we used to live.
- Another LCBO guy on the Danforth is from Bishopbriggs, where I used to work.
- The GO Train customer relations person who called me about the new proposed train station at the end of our street (yay!) grew up in Bishopbriggs, and has relatives I think I worked with when I was at Collins, the publishers.
So what’s this all about? Why are so many people leaving East Dunbartonshire for Toronto? Is it the horror of living at 56°N, with dark, windy wet winters? Who can say?