Courtesy of Ryland and Miss Fipi Lele: the poster shown below, which was apparently designed and approved before Mad Mel’s arrest and rant.
Photo by Hamish Grant.
Billboards like the one shown above have appeared downtown. It’s generated amusement and derision from the usual sources, with BlogTO giving it the thumbs-up and Kathy over at Relapsed Catholic giving it the opposite in her entry Why I really need a Green Card, part XVII:
Do you ignoramuses realize that, every morning when you’re still asleep, George Bush reads a daily briefing book that’s the size of the GTA phone directory?
Counterpoint: remember the exchange between Kevin Kline and Jamie Lee Curtis in A Fish Called Wanda, in which dumb old Otto is trying to show how smart he is when Wnda calls him an ape:
Otto (Kevin Kline): Apes don’t read philosophy.
Wanda (Jamie Lee Curtis): Yes they do, Otto, they just don’t understand it!
Here’s the audio of that exchange [210K WAV file].
Yesterday, we took Dave, who’s visiting from Chicago, to his favourite restaurant in our neighbourhood: The Yellow Griffin (2202 Bloor Street West, just east of Runnymede). It looks like a typical High Park/Bloor West Village/Swansea faux-Brit pub, but it distinguishes itself with its menu of burgers. They offer 35 sets of toppings, from the traditional cheddar cheese to Stilton and walnuts to mango chutney and tandoori yogurt sauce to scallions, peanuts and kung pao sauce to peanut butter. If you don’t want beef, you can ask to change your burger to ground lamb or turkey, a chicken burger, pork escalope or veggie. I’ve only had the beef burgers, but they cook them just right. There’s also a good choice of sides, from the expected fries and onion rings to my favourite, the breaded green beans, served with a choice of mayonnaise-based dipping sauces, such as curry, garlic and mango-pineapple.
The Yellow Griffin’s major problem is that the service is erratic. When it’s good, it’s passable, and when it’s bad, it’s rather like restaurants in the “before” state on Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares. Last night, it was closer to the latter, with the waitstaff in a state of mild confusion and the kitchen slow to crank out the food (the place doesn’t have more than a dozen tables). When we first took our table, we saw the credit card receipt of the previous patrons, who’d put “0” on the tip line, and based on last night’s service, I understand completely. It’s a shame the service is so bad when the burgers are quite good.
It also has the minor problem of not quite feeling like a local place. I can’t put my finger on it, but the “feel” of the place just doesn’t make any sort of concession to the neighbourhood surrounding it: it might as well be a ground floor pub in an office building downtown or in an industrial park in the ‘burbs. Even the Timothy’s coffee chain just down the street has a more local feel (for starters, they display works by local artists on their walls).
The wide array of burgers, sides and dips are the place’s saving grace; if it weren’t for them, the Griffin would’ve been trounced by the places across the street — Sharkey’s, The Swan and Firkin and especially Dr. Generosity, who in my opinion make a better burger and have great food, great service and feel like they’re part of the neighbourhood. If they could get the place renovated — perhaps an appearance on Restaurant Makeover — and retrain or replace the waitstaff, they’d have a winner on their hands.
For more about the Yellow Griffin, here’s the Toronto Life writeup, and here’s a Now magazine blurb.
Categories
Welcome, Dave!
Dave at Kensington Market during his first visit here in November 2004.
This weekend, Dave, an old friend of Wendy’s and one of the “bridesmaids” at our wedding will be here for a visit. Welcome, Dave!
We’ll be catching Spamalot with Maria on Friday night, doing something fun and social on Saturday (drop me a line if you want to come along) and hitting a special Kickass Karaoke on Sunday — it’s a farewell party for Postmodern Sass, who’s off to a new job in San Jose.
The Geek Hierarchy
As a reader of this blog, it’s likely that you tend to visit a number of nerd-oriented sites and have seen the Geek Hierarchy chart created by Lore Sjöberg on the Brunching Shuttlecocks site. Pictured below is the abridged version:
(Don’t know what a furry is? What, didn’t you see the CSI episode, Fur and Loathing in Las Vegas? Here’s the Wikipedia entry for “furry”.)
Star Trek-Based Furries
You might snicker at the concept of Star Trek furries, but believe me, they do exist. In fact, there’s a site devoted to stories that take place in a universe where furry versions of both Star Trek and Star Wars mileus co-exist called TrekWars: The Furry Conflict. Here’s a quick sampling of the Trek-based characters:
Lieutenant Commander Cyber Tiberius Hare (really!).
The Programming Language Hierarchy
Luke Welling has crafted his own hierarchy chart, The Programmer Hierarchy, which seems to pretty accurately display the opinions of the language pundits these days:
Here’s a good way to catch up on all your blog reading and still look like a dedicated employee: read your blogs using Workfriendly! Simply visit the Workfriendly page, enter the URL of the blog or web page you want to read and a pop-up window will appear. It’ll contain the text of the blog or web page you wanted to read, disguised to make it seem as if you’re editing a Microsoft Word document.
For instance, here’s this blog as it would normally appear:
And here it is, as shown by Workfriendly:
If you’ve got really nosy people reading over your shoulder, Workfriendly has the “boss key”: move the mouse cursor over this button, and the web page you’re reading will be replace by what looks like a Word document with hints on how to overcome procrastination.
Right now, Workfriendly has two themes: Windows XP Blue and Windows XP Silver. I’m sure if you nag them enough (there’s an email link on the Workfriendly page), they’ll make Mac- and Linux-themed ones.
Special Note to the Boss, the CEO and Tucows Investors
I am blogging this purely for entertainment value of Joe Middle Manager and Jane Office Worker and all whose purpose is to merely crank out TPS Reports. Unlike those mindless drones, I am working hard on all my current projects to maximize customer and shareholder value!
For those of you looking for a domain name for your Mel Gibson-lampooning site needs, sugartits.org is still available. Get it now before someone else does!