The Verve View: South By Southeast

Here's the view from our commodious 17th floor balcony. The view is not quite as riveting as the view of the skyline, but it's interesting nonetheless. The mid-ground buildings are lower which affords us a better view (a better view of less interesting buildings, I might add).

When Wendy works at the COC, she takes the road in the centre of this image (Homewood Avenue), walks south through Allan Gardens, then continues south and then a bit to the east. Pleasant walk through some dodgy neighbourhoods, about 25 minutes.

Niagara Falls, on a clear day, can be seen...sort of. What you see (not in this image, though) is the mist rising from the falls, creating a small cloud overhead. We can see the buildings that surround the falls. There's one that looks like a space needle. Somewhere down below, at street level, are scores of Elvis impersonators, trinket shops, casinos, tourists, people like the Beers, and likely a Ripley's Believe It Or Not museum.

St.Catherines is mostly visible in the evening and at night. It shows up as a concentration of lights along the far shore of Lake Ontario. All in all, the view is very pleasing and mostly unobstructed. Over time we'll lose more and more of the lake view as more condos are built. Damn condos, and those who dwell in them, scourge of the Earth.

Nespresso: All That Glitters Is Gold

I've have done the thinkably unthinkable, I've gone to the new Nespresso café in Yorkville. Twice!! Forgive me, Scottish Mother, for I have muckily sinned...almost.

Fair Yorkville...ye of breast augmentation, fashion yetis, and a seemingly endless parade of daddy's BMWs. Yorkville...where pedicured toes, that smell of twisted peppermint, walk on cashmere infused sidewalks. Yorkville dysons dumb money. Hear that sucking sound? Yup, that's your money....whirled and gone!

Spending money in Yorkville is like having a Boeing 727 for a private jet. You either have to be extremely rich, extremely stupid, or Donald Trump (see points 1 and 2). Of course this isn't true (but it is!). Let me make my point by discussing my two recent trips to the Nespresso café; a coffee shop inspired by Cornelius (the *D-FOP) Vanderbilt's parlour and bigger than the Beaverbrook Art Gallery, I think.

* D-FOP: dog-faced old prick (reference: Bill Bryson, The Lost Continent)

Before you think me stupid, let me just say that both visits included the redemption of a free drink voucher that Wendy and I were given, on the street, about three weeks prior.

Visit one: sometimes when you see something for the first time, you're unable to absorb the details. This was the case for my first visit. I ordered a $7 latte macchiato (I think that's a gay Italian mob coffee, in the witness protection program, trying to look like a French parfait). I surveyed the scene superficially, drank my CLB (coffee-like bevvie), and departed hoping no one would see me.

I felt like I had just scratched the surface, but enough to grow a scab. I had to return for more redemption.

Visit two: this time I came prepared. I was smugly relaxed, observant, but anticipating incredulity. I walked through the double glass doors (I actually opened them, then walked through). I was greeted by Greeter #1. She did her best to appear upscale and concerned for my well being. Greeter #2 wished me well as I made my way to the expansive café bar where Barista #1 did, what else, greeted me. For my first visit I ordered one of the most expensive coffees. This time I ordered the least expensive coffee, an Americano, on purpose. I wanted to know if their bare bone coffee was worthy of my palatal patronage.

Rather than sitting down on the abundant and trendy leather settees and chairs, I decided to walk around the café to see what they were hawking. Though I'm still not certain what they're selling, it looked to me like they've taken our efficient Tassimo/Keurig concept of coffee in a capsule, put some cosmetics on it, then sold it back to us. They sell the delightful capsules (now available in designer colours, and in limited-time-only designer prints...yippee!) and the Nespresso machines here, I think. I swear that I don't know exactly what they do there...it's not obviously retail, therefore I suspect a subterfuge (see 'sucking sound').

Oh, yes, Greeter #3 smothered me with affection as I perused the various hardware being sold(?) that allows mucky mucks to brew their own Nespresso at home, or in their private 727s. I sat down on a lovely leather couch. Oh, my apologies, it wasn't a couch...it was a settee. Couches are for potatoes and other low-flying New Brunswick vegetables. Stop the turnip truck...I want back on!

Barista #2 delivered my Americano after a fashionably long wait (think Tim Horton's Monday morning drive-thru wait in a military town). Did I get a coffee? Yes, and then some. Here's a tally of what it took to get me a coffee: three greeters, two baristas, one coffee cup with Americano, one pot of hot water, one pitcher of cream, one glass of water (with lemon!), one spoon, one stick of sugar, one napkin, one chocolate.

All of this so I could have a coffee that was no better than a Keurig. I felt like a criminal. 

Mr.Varty, we find you guilty of crimes against humanity. For your abuse of natural resources and utter lack of respect for anything that really matters, you will be sentenced to twenty years of wearing cashmere and enjoying the indecency of valet parking.

Kill me now.

Give Me Your Breast Offer

I'm not sure what my problem is, but when I saw this advertisement on the streets of Yorkville my first reaction was not 'nice t_ts'. It wasn't even 'auch, the pooer lass tarned harself into a Heelann coo', but it definitely had a Scottish bent to it.

In fact, my first reaction was '$6000 to make your boobs bigger, you've got to be out of your melon-picking mind'. I meant that literally. Why would anyone pay $6000 to have their boobs 'augmented' (and for that matter, why call it 'augmented' and not the more apt 'double-doubled'?).

Boob super-sizing can only be justified* in three ways:

1) to enhance the perceived lack of self-esteem or inadequacy of 'the victim'.
2) to increase the perceived attractiveness of 'the victim' to the opposite sex.
3) putting $6000 in your pocket, if you're the mountebank who's selling this service, because it costs a lot of money to drive a Porsche.

*Note: I am wholly unqualified to speak on this topic with authority**, though I'm pretty sure I'm right.

**Note: this is true for all of my blogs.

I can think of real benefits from augmentation. For example, no one will ask you to do push-ups anymore because your arms will no longer reach the floor when laying face down. You'll also be very popular as a human umbrella/bus shelter during rain storms, etc. Let's face it though, if your self-esteem is tied up in your boobs then you might better spend your money on a therapist. Or, if the kind of man you're trying to attract at the bars prefers the Himalayas to the Appalachians, or the Appalachians to the Prairies for that matter, then perhaps you should avoid social climbers. There's always a higher mountain somewhere else, as a Matterhorn of fact.

Maybe you're just plain dumb, or perhaps you're a genius and you simply don't care for string theory, global poverty or climate change. Maybe you just want big boobs, end of story. You know you can't run with those things, eh? In Darwin's survival of the fittest, the saber tooth tigers eat the cumbersome big-boobed girls. You're battling genetics when you augment, you know. Just sayin'.

Another point worthy of noting, when you see 'them' on Cumberland Avenue, you know they're fake because they look fake! And if the boobs are fake, chances are that their host unit is pretty shallow too. So, and I direct this to the men who comprise 66% of my readership, if you're shopping for a petri-dish princess, look no further than Yorkville. Everything there is fake, false and veneered. That's why it's a bellwether for the collapse of a logical society, and a gold mine for those who write about its demise.

One parting thought....when I was shopping for a new sofa for our condo, I fell in love with a tan leather sofa that was both plump and firm, yet pleasing to the eye. It was beautifully constructed using a blend of raw, natural fabrics with some man-made adornments. It was far more alluring than all the others that I saw. It was $6000.

Our Toronto Goatscape

I thought it only fair to include an example of a goatscape. It also happens to be the view from our new condo.

Most buildings that I've noted are well known. I've included the Shangri-la Hotel only to put the new opera house in context as it sits on the other side of the (streetcar) tracks from Shangri-la, so to speak.

The Radio City condos have been noted because they were in the running for a while as a potential crib for the missus and me. Ultimately we preferred the Verve condo, and this view is one of the reasons why. If we were to turn our collective heads to the left, my faithful readership of three, we would see the eastern third of Toronto Island, Lake Ontario, and the mist rising from Niagara Falls in the background.

Oh, yes, I should mention that somewhere in this image is a goat. Like Waldo, see if you can find him.

Ossum Ossington

I like to categorize my photographs as it makes them easier to angle down the road. I should mention that I have an ocean of over one hundred thousand images into which I regularly jig.

In the grand scheme of things I have three categories for my images: landscapes, portraits, and things you'll never see in Oromocto. The landscape images are broken down into three categories: countryscapes, cityscapes and goatscapes (cities or towns which unfairly receive the brunt of criticism and loathing...i.e. Toronto, Oromocto. Note: these images must also contain a non-portraitized goat in the image).

My portrait category contains people that are clearly the focus of the image, and ideally in focus. Today's image contains an image of a person, in focus, but not necessarily the focus. Clearly it's an image taken in the city (Toronto's Ossington bus/subway station), but I wouldn't categorize this as one of my cityscape images. It is, somewhat obviously, an image that belongs in my third category of 'things you'll never see in Oromocto'.

Oromocto is a town of cavalier military personnel driving Chevrolet Cavaliers (the unofficial car of Oromocto men). Cavalier (definition): a courtly gentleman, especially one acting as a lady's escort. In my image, the woman is walking alone, therefore it is incomprehensible that she might be in cavalier Oromocto. There would most certainly be a courtly or portly gentleman escorting her. Doubtless both, as men outnumber women in Oromocto by a ratio of 542:1.

And then there's the mural. Oromocto is a town more or less devoid of art, unless you consider the architecture of the Oromocto Mall as art. Oromocto has no murals of which I can remember. It has little or no sculpture (that isn't used as military target practice). I don't even think it has any graffiti! I wish someone would prove me wrong, but I think of Oromocto as a more-or-less artless town. Picasso once checked into the Oromocto Hotel for a week-long vacation but left after one day in a fury.

A Plymouth Fury, Ian??

Gawd no! He left in a Cavalier. Like, duh...

Canadian and American Graffiti/Murals, Lear Jets, Anarchy and Luggage (from the random thoughts series)

I've hatched a plan, and let's hope I'm a good egg! All over Toronto I've been seeing graffiti/murals and I love them. I've decided that I want to include graffiti into our new condo, but not directly on the walls. My plan is to put some art on canvas, then hang it.

Originally I thought about buying graffiti-based art but it's not easy to find. I did find some that I liked but it had a New York City slant to it, and IDV don't like NYC.

I've decided to create my own. Yes...I'm going back into the painting business! I've got a rough idea of what I'm going to do, but I won't sell out and spill the beans just yet. I need to think it through just a bit more. It won't be quite as wild as the image that I posted today. This mural was found on the front of Lee's Palace, a nightclub at Bloor and Bathurst Streets. It's a breath of fresh air to walk past such a colourful facade. You'd never see anything like this in tony Yorkville. No, I think the mucky mucks associate graffiti, and to a lesser extent murals, with anarchy, plus it would clash with their Louis Vuitton luggage.

This single piece of Vuitton luggage sells for $4450. It's called the Cotteville 45. Cotteville, a town in central France, is the sister city to Cootieville, Mississippi, just two towns west of Bugtussle. The mucky mucks don't need to know that, plus I made it up.

No one in their right mind would entrust their Vuitton luggage to the tender and loving hands of Air Canada, which means that you can only own such luggage if you drive a fur-lined Bentley or if your Daddy (sugar or otherwise) owns a Gulfstream jet.

I started wondering if anyone had ever commissioned a graffiti artist to paint their private jet. All I could find was an article where a 2.3 million dollar Lear Jet was spray painted by some L.A. based hoodlums. The estimated cost of repair: $100 000. You could buy a seven piece luggage set for that kind of cheddar!

Can you see the clash of two worlds in this picture? Street level anarchy versus high-flying privilege. The two don't mix very well. Given that I intend to incorporate graffiti into my condo, it's a statement that I straddle the two worlds. Living on the 17th floor of a very nice 39 storey condo, I'm neither high-flying nor at street level. If I had to choose only one world, I know where I'd choose....

Hint: pass me my spray can.

Do you know where you'd choose?

T.G.I.D....Thank Gawd It's December

It's a well known fact that I'm not a fan of Christmas, at least not the commercial Christmas. That might lead you to believe that I'm deeply religious and that I'd like to put 'Christ back in Christmas'. Not so. Remind me again, for whom was he shopping?

To: God
From: Jesus
Message: I hope you like these new slippers I bought you, Daddy.

So why T.G.I.D. then, Ian?

I'm simply elated that.......wait! What's that noise?? Listen. Keep listening....listen still....

Whirrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr, bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

All across Toronto, and hopefully the rest of Canada, you can hear the whirring and buzzing sounds of electric razors removing the gawd-awful moustaches that men, and a few chicks, have subjected us to during the month of Movember. In the early hours of December 1, people are getting up and shaving off their dirt squirrels. I couldn't be happier.

I've spent the better part of mauve November seeing men who look more-or-less ridiculous, über dandy, or frighteningly reminiscent of the 1970s Pittsburgh Steelers.

Need I say more?

At this point I'd like to skip Christmas altogether and find this handsome man a dentist. Yikes! Great picture, though.

Back to Movember for a whisker of a moment, I'd like to commend all those who grew crumb catchers for this fundraiser. My good friend David K raised $5000. The men of the COC raised a few thousand as well. All in all, I'm sure millions were raised (sounds like we're campaigning successfully against male impotency, eh?).

Have you noticed that I've been avoiding the word 'prostate'? I'm always terrified that I'm going to accidentally say 'prostrate'. A lot of people make this mistake. Being perspicacious, my readers are unlikely to make this error again, if ever.

So, in closing, I say 'good-bye' to Movember, and 'hello' to December and Christmas. Christmas? Yes, Christmas! Christmas is that joyous season when we give gifts that are unnecessary and we receive gifts that are unwanted....

Oh, wow(!), you shouldn't have (emphasis on 'shouldn't'). I don't currently own a chartreuse apron. This will look awesome in my collection!!

Perhaps December isn't all that different from Movember after all? One way or the other, we're all fuskered!