Toronto Skyline

The skyline view of Toronto from the Leslie Street Spit or Tommy Thompson Park.

Underwear Affair - beat cancer below the waist

Individuals and groups joined together to help fight cancers below the waist during North York General Hospital's Underwear Affair or underwear race. The 10k/5k race/walk started at Woodbine Park in the Beach and continued along the Lakeshore area.



Most participants were shy, placing frilly undies over other running wear, while some brave souls did manage to race in their underwear - including quite a few in sponsor Joe Boxer underwear. Their were some great team themes and some unusual costumes such as Leonardo the Ninja Turtle.

Buskerfest 2009

The sky cleared and the crowds came down to the St Lawrence Market area for the festival of street performance artists known as Buskerfest.

The festival is almost too successful as the crowds make it hard to walk through the streets and see any of the acts. They should really build a few elevated platforms at the intersections so more people could see the acts. The actually had one large platform this year so maybe next year there will be more. Daisy the cute dog supports the fight to cure epilepsy.







There was a strange fire breathing, smoke belching and bubble making machine rolling through the streets.

Fan Expo Canada

The crowds lined up for the 2009 Fan Expo Canada held at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre. The slow moving lineup scared me off from trying to get a ticket and get into the show but I had a great time taking pictures of some of the mas participants dressing up as their favourite characters.

I would have liked to have seen Lou Ferrigno and Linda Hamilton while Joe was dying to see the star wars characters and troopers.







Here is a slideshow on Youtube featuring more of the fans.

Classic card of the week

Tim Salmon, 1996 Topps Profiles by Kirby Puckett series

Some of you may recall that glorious time when Barry Larkin selected a handful of lucky players that he referred to as “Little Dawgs” because he did not know their actual names and who, as a result of being deemed Little Dawgs by shortstop Barry Larkin, became part of the unpopular Little Dawgs series of baseball cards. Those were great times, am I right? Of course I’m right.

In that vein, today I present to you a card from the “Profiles by Kirby Puckett” series. Personally, I find these cards to be even more enjoyable if you say, “Profiles by Kirby Puckett” in the same “Deep Thoughts by Jack Handy” voice used on SNL. But that’s just me.

Before we continue, I’d like to say rest in peace to the late Kirby Puckett, who was a great player and one of the brightest stars from my heyday of baseball card collecting.

The subject here is Tim Salmon. Let’s begin in the only way we know how: with “Kirby Puckett Insights:”




I like Salmon as a player…REALLY like him.

Whoa, Kirby Puckett. You better relax or this Kirby Puckett profile will lose its objectivity.

When he first came up, somebody told me he won a Triple Crown in the minors,

That somebody? Tim Salmon. I also have to be honest here –- going into this Kirby Puckett profile, I had mistakenly assumed that Kirby Puckett would have more background on Tim Salmon other than the fact that somebody told him about him. I almost don’t want to read the rest of this. Almost.

and I’m thinking, “well, that’s the minors.”

Gary Gaetti: Hey Kirby! How ‘bout that Tim Salmon, huh? He was pretty good in the minors…

Kirby Puckett: Pffttt. I hate Tim Salmon…REALLY hate him. Let’s see him do it in the bigs.

Then I saw him play, and I knew right away that he was the real deal.

Awesome. Fairy tale ending. Here is where we find out how Kirby Puckett’s skepticism re: Tim Salmon was instantly squashed. My guess? He hit 12 home runs in one inning.

One thing that sets Tim apart is that he plays hard and he plays every day.

Or that. To reiterate, what sets Tim Salmon apart from every other Major League Baseball player is that he plays hard, and plays everyday. The implication here being that every Major League Baseball player at the time not named Tim Salmon -- and including Kirby Puckett? -- was a loafer who only played on Tuesdays. I also enjoy the fact that what instantly struck Kirby Puckett the first time he saw Tim Salmon play, and what immediately cast aside any doubts he may have previously had regarding him, was that Tim Salmon was a) there, and b) not lollygagging it.

He’s gives you all he’s got.

I’s thinks that’s the tops! What else?

He’s a quiet guy

What kind of quiet guy?

who doesn’t say much,

Oh!

just goes about his business, getting in extra work with (California Angels hitting coach) Rod Carew.

That’s cool!

But as good a hitter as he is,

A subject we have covered here today ad nauseum.

I often think of his defense first. He flat knows how to play right field.

I’m going to assume that was supposed to read “flat out knows,” as everyone and their mother flat knows how to play right field. In conclusion, let’s summarize this Kirby Puckett profile on Tim Salmon, ballplayer:

works hard
plays in the games
gives you all he’s got
quiet, borderline unfriendly
takes batting practice
can field his position

With that type of resume, it’s amazing Tim Salmon was never considered a Little Dawg.

Did you know?
Rod Carew once said to Tim Salmon: "Let's go fishing. I'll be the rod, and you be the salmon." And then they laughed. But they never actually went fishing.

Good morning Arizona

Note: This column appears in the 8/27 issue of The Glendale Star and the 8/28 issue of the Peoria Times

I had an interesting morning a couple of weeks ago. Would you like to hear about it? No? Well too bad.

It was Wednesday morning and I was up at my usual time of whenever our seven-month old foster son decides to get up. So who knows…4:30am? I have not woken up with the sun in five months, so all I know is that it was dark.

I embarked on my daily morning routine of bringing our foster son downstairs with our dog Mac happily following in my footsteps. I put the little guy down on the carpet so I could feed the dog. Then I let Mac outside so he could do his thing. As I approached our foster son and got ready to pick him up, what did I see resting on the nearby tile floor trying not to be noticed? Yes. A scorpion.

So that was cool. A scorpion. In our house. Just feet away from a toddler. I celebrated this early morning surprise by smashing the scorpion to bits with my sandal. I smashed it so much that there was nothing to clean up, and I can only assume that the remaining particles of this particular scorpion are now embedded into the bottom of my sandal, along with the particles of other scorpions that have died similar deaths.

Now I’m all flustered. Few things in life make me feel as angry and yet helpless as seeing a scorpion. I’m still shaking as I turn our foster son over to change him. He attempts to take my mind off of things by diverting my attention towards the other surprise he has left in his diaper. But then my attention is diverted towards something else.

There is a golden rule in our house: whenever you don’t know where Mac is, and you can’t hear his chain jingling, he is getting into trouble.

I hadn’t heard Mac’s chain from outside this whole time.

I scooped up the little guy and rushed to the screen door that leads to our backyard. It was just now starting to get light out, which allowed me to see Mac lying happily on the ground with a dead bird in his mouth.

Now, it must be mentioned here that my wife hates birds. Despises them. Thinks they are all rats with wings. If scorpions could fly, she would still hate birds more. It’s irrational, but very real. We have tried to trace the roots of this loathing, and it may stem from a youthful and impressionable viewing of the Alfred Hitchcock movie. Or the time she was inadvertently left in a cage filled with birds while on a family trip to Italy as a child. Either way, she will literally turn around and go back from whence she came if there is a pigeon in her path. It's a miracle she graduated from NYU.

I’m not a huge fan of birds myself –- especially dead ones –- but I knew, for my wife’s sake, I had to resolve this issue before she awoke.

So I rushed outside with the little guy in my arms, with no plan of action. Mac, knowing this, simply ran away with the dead bird in his mouth, and into the house thanks to the fact that I had carelessly left the screen door open.

He ran upstairs towards our bedroom. “She is going to die,” I thought.

Luckily, Mac had dropped the dead bird on the stairs. At this point, my wife had walked out of the bedroom to see what the ruckus was. “DON'T LOOK!” I screamed. But her eyes had already witnessed the dead feathered creature on the stairs. She cupped her hands over her mouth as if to throw up and ran back into the bedroom on the verge of tears.

I had to get a small garden shovel to scoop the dead bird into a garbage bag. When I first touched it with the shovel, it fluttered a little bit, scaring the living crap out of me. One last dying breath.

Then I got stuck in traffic.


The circle of life

Toronto Alleys

You know there are a lot of alleys in Toronto, although some people call them laneways. Designed to keep the cars and garages behind the house and away from the main street many have become home to the ever present graffiti.

Lowriders on Yonge

Walking back along Yonge Street one fine Saturday night we came upon an older car driving on three wheels with one side of the car high up in the air. Then the hydraulics brought the car down to the ground. More lowrider cars followed with hydraulics raising parts of the vehicles up and down. The cars seem like they came right out of a Hollywood movie.

Toronto Moose

Toronto created a series of large plastic mooses (plural mice or meese?), sponsored by various parties and spread throughout the City during a popular art installation and marketing campaign. After the event the moose were sold by auction in 2001 and you can find the occasional moose here and there. Here are two of them on a balcony near the Italian District (or Little Italy) painted up in Toronto Maple Leafs and Toronto Blue Jays uniforms.

Kensington Market

I wandered through Kensington Market in awe of the area made famous by Al Waxman in the King of Kensington. Above, the Mona Lisa looks down on the street sign for Kensington Avenue.

The market is set amongst narrow one way streets, typical downtown houses converted to grocery and clothes stores, restaurants and interesting shops. An abandoned vehicle sits up on blocks full of vegetation including trees in this art installation from the Community Vehicular Reclamation Project.

Chinatown Festival

Half of Spadina was shut down for the 2009 Chinatown Festival from Noon to 8pm. There were plenty of booths and the crowds had plenty of chances to grab food and coconut drinks.

IndyCar at Sonoma - Free live streaming

Enjoy free live streaming of the IndyCar race at Sonoma on Sunday August 23 starting at 4pm ET.

It's Hugging Time once again

The original Hug Me Tree is back home on Queen Street West after a time spent at the Royal Ontario Museum hanging out with some superstars of the art world.

You may remember in my previous posts about the little tree that met it's demise and was almost destroyed by the City of Toronto. With quick citizen intervention the stump was saved and the tree went on to be displayed at the ROM while a replacement tree constructed of wood, chicken wire, paper mache and paint soon took over the spot and then it too disappeared.

The Hug Me Tree has new additions to it's rather simple character - tiny little homes perched at the top of the tree. So now that it's back take time to give it a hug.

Nathans Phillips Square Panorama

Nathan Phillips Square is home to many events including Fresh Wednesdays, Tasty Thursdays, Cavalcade of Lights, outdoor art exhibitions and the downtown Jazz Festival. You can even book the square for your event.

For a quick change of pace here is a picture taken under the Gardiner Expressway on ramps beside Yonge Street.

Classic card of the week

Heathcliff Slocumb, 1996 Topps Star Power series

If you know anything about star power -– and I think that you do -– then you know that not only did Heathcliff Slocumb have it, but he also encompassed the ideals of star power better than any other baseball player in the history of the game. I mean, hey -– just look at all those stars!

If you were a fan of the Philadelphia Phillies in the mid-90’s, then you went to the ballpark to see Heathcliff Slocumb, plain and simple. Sorry rest of the 1995 Phillies! Basically, you threw on your Heathcliff Slocumb jersey and went to the park hoping that he would be granted the opportunity to come out of the bullpen and save the game, so that you may bear witness to his star power and also his 1.51 WHIP. What’s that you say? For nostalgia’s sake you’d like to see a monthly breakdown of Heathcliff Slocumb’s 1995 season? Why sure:



Interesting that they included “October” in that breakdown, and doubly interesting that Heathcliff Slocumb’s star power did not advance the 1995 Phillies to the postseason. Nevertheless, I thoroughly enjoy the additional stars and being reminded of how high Heathcliff Slocumb’s hat sat on his head.

Wikipedia would like to chime in with regards to a nickname:

Heath “Heathcliff” Slocumb

Shouldn’t that be the other way around? I actually consulted several other sources and discovered that yes, his birth name is indeed “Heath,” which means that Heathcliff Slocumb is the only known player in MLB history to have a longer nickname than his birth name for the sole purpose of associating him with Dr. Huxtable. Talk about star power!

Besides being one of the brightest stars of mid-90’s baseball, Heathcliff Slocumb is also famous for being on the wrong end of one of the most lopsided trades in recent history, as he was traded from the Red Sox to the Mariners for Jason Varitek and Derek Lowe in 1997. Sure, Boston ended an 86-year drought with a 2004 title thanks in large part to the efforts of both Lowe and Varitek, but the star power they lost could never be fully recovered, and the franchise has struggled both professionally and financially ever since.

Heathcliff Slocumb would later pitch for the Orioles, Cardinals, and Padres. He finished his career pitching in his hometown of outer space.

Did you know?
Many have argued –- because of his propensity for annoying the local fish store owner and the fact that his best friend was named “Riff Raff” -– that Mr. Slocumb’s nickname is actually in reference to Heathcliff the Cat.

horse COPS - huhhh, whatchagoindo

The Toronto mounted police can be seen occasionally trotting around the downtown core always ready to poop or apprehend some perps. I think this guy is about to bust some bad boys - those double decker tourist buses - they must be here in the country illegally, smuggled in luggage from Britain.