I’ve picked up a number of new readers in the past couple of months, so I thought I’d showcase this little seasonal blast from the past. It’s an entry from 2002 titled The Best Christmas Present Ever, a tale of Christmas, crablice, friendship and the true spirit of Christmas. Be advised that the story has swearing and — as you might expect — crablice.
John Bowker of the Roncesvalles Village branch of the indie record store She Said Boom! informed me about this unfair development in Roncesvalles Village:
Today, the Toronto Star spent hours interviewing staff and customers at Karl’s Butchers and Grocery (105 Roncesvalles), which has sold fresh sausages on our street for 46 years. Karl’s has been forced out of business by the province.
In October, the provincial government decided to enforce a harsh, literal interpretation of the 2001 Food and Safety Quality Act. The Province took Karl’s out of the Yellow/Green inspection system operated by the City (where they passed every inspection), and placed it under provincial regulations. According to these regulations, Karl’s is now considered a “manufacturing plant,” because it makes its own sausages. These sausages, which have helped make Roncesvalles famous, are prepared fresh in the store, unlike most sausages which are packaged and shipped from centralized plants.
Under the regulations, Karl’s is forced to pretend it is like some mass-production facility, forced to conform to a massive list of regulations that make little sense for a small, local business – even one dealing with raw meat. The province must even test the water every week, as if they were some rural factory taking water in from a local well. The province is simply incapable of distinguishing between a local butcher and a factory slaughterhouse, and a part of Roncesvalles is being destroyed as a result.
According to Walter Jarzabek of Karl’s, they decided they could not fight the province, and so they decided to close just before Christmas. A lot of local residents are upset. We should be too.
Unless the province can show how a local butcher like Karl’s poses a threat to public health, they should find a way to distinguish a business like Karl’s from the large factory slaughterhouses that are the Act’s intended target. Just because a sausage comes from a box out of a truck does not make it healthier, and it certainly doesn’t make it tastier. The public should have the choice to buy fresh sausages from a trusted and responsible butcher like Karl’s.
[This was cross-posted to Global Nerdy.]
Here Comes Another Bubble, which my fellow TSOT developer Adam showed me, is a song about the current “Web 2.0” bubble set to the tune of Billy Joel’s “laundry list” song about world events that took place during his lifetime, We Didn’t Start the Fire. Here’s the video for the song — I like the infographic that shows that Facebook’s valuation ($15 billion) is really close to that of the Ford Motor Company ($16.8 billion):
Cat, meet Crawfish:
Photo courtesy of Miss Fipi Lele.
If you need more “Cat meets Crawfish” action, this YouTube video should help:
Miss Fipi Lele sent me a couple of scans from a 1974 book titled Understanding Human Behavior: An Illustrated Guide to Successful Human Relationships, whose cover clearly marks it as a book from that era…
The book should come with an explanation titled “Understanding this book’s cover”.
Here’s a painting in the book depicting the many ways a businessman is perceived, depending on the circumstances and who’s doing the perceiving (I added annotations):
When I first saw this painting, I thought of the version in the upper left-hand corner as sober and all the others as varying degrees of drunk.
Here’s the text that accompanies the painting:
These five characters are studies of human personality, portraits of the many kinds of people we can be in a variety of situations. At the bottom is a man as he really is, but the other four figures circling around him show him in entirely different lights. Beginning at the lower left is the way his secretary sees him with a lecherous grin. That noble manly visage is how he imagines himself and the bland, unprepossessing creature is his wife’s perception. Last, downtrodden and ineffectual, is how he feels after confronting his boss.
Another set of paintings depict the different ways a husband a wife are perceived. Here’s the wife:
Desperate Housewives, summed in four paintings.
Here’s the husband:
Mid-life crisis in 3…2…1…
The best and most succinct review of the book comes from one “Bob” who says: “It’s more like a handbook on how to live a life of quiet desperation. With a few pictures of boobs in it.” Based on that, I might pick up this book if I ever stumble across it at a used bookstore.
I recently received an email from my friend Michael O’Connor Clarke who informed me that our mutual friend Jeneane Sessum was doing PR for a web company named MizPee, which has just launched here in Accordion City.
Here’s a quick description of MizPee, taken straight from their own site:
Do you ever find yourself desperately looking for a clean toilet in the city?
MizPee finds the closest, cleanest toilets in your area. You can add and review toilets, get some cool deals in your area and challenge your knowledge of toilet trivia.
(It has been a while since my knowledge of toilet trivia has been challenged…)
Here’s a sample of MizPee’s results when I asked for toilets near TSOT, where I work — 151 Bloor Street West:
Someone out there needs to rate the women’s washrooms at the nearby Four Seasons Hotel. It seems closer than the Second Cup, and I’m sure its washrooms are pretty good.