Categories
It Happened to Me

A Different Loft

Continuing the loft photos from the previous post, here are two shots of the loft in which Cory Doctorow lived, taken in May 2000 in celebration of our landing the first round of venture capitalist funding for OpenCola.

This loft is at the bottom of Fraser Street, a stone’s throw away from
Tucows. It’s split-level, with the upper floor being an open platform.

This first photo shows two OpenCola founders making an annoucement from
the stairs. Grad Conn is seated at the top of stairs; as an homage to
computer programmers everywhere, he is wearing socks and sandals.
That’s Cory standing with one of the gift lunchboxes to be given to
investors. The investors are watching from below; this would probably
be the last time they looked up at us.

The area to the left below the pennants is Cory’s tiki bar. Behind Grad, you can see the bedroom area.

Here’s a closer shot. Yes, that’s a “Tigger” costume hanging on the
clothes rack. That’s the kind of thing you shoudl expect in the home of
a Disneyland-obsessed guy like Cory. Note the cool bric-a-brac mounted
on just about every wal surface.

Categories
It Happened to Me Toronto (a.k.a. Accordion City)

Lofts

Gideon Strauss recently attended a concert held at a friend’s house. He writes:

The concert
happened in an unexpected place – an old industrial building converted
to loft suites, in a semi-rundown, slowly gentrifying part of Toronto.
(While we were walking down the street some time before the concert I
pointed out the building to the Strausslings, and Summer [one of his daughters] asked in a surprised voice, “People live
in these buildings?” A passerby covered his cellphone with a free hand,
smiled, said “Oh yes they do!” and walked on.)

I wrote in the comments that if I could get whomever it was who
borrowed my book on loft culture to return it to me, I’d be happy to
lend it to Summer. I also mentioned that I’d taken a number of pictures inside lofts and that I’d post a few.

It turns out that I can’t even remember who borrowed the book. I get
the sinking feeling that it’s in the clutches of my second-most-evil
ex-girlfriend, who now lives on the other side of the San Andreas
Fault. If this is the case, getting it back is a very unlikely
proposition. I’ll phone around and make sure; it might be in someone
else’s possession, in which case I can get it back.

In the meantime, I’ll post some photos that I’ve taken over the years at various parties that took place in people’s home-lofts.

This first series was taken at Etric Lyons’ place back in December 1999
when he threw a wine and cheese party to exhibit some photos he’d taken
that summer. This loft is a little more posh than most, but it should
still show off enough architectural and sociocultural characteristics
of the “typical” loft.

So here you go, Summer, the first series of loft photos. You can view either the photo album or the slideshow.

Categories
Uncategorized

The enbalming starts in five minutes

I’m quite surprised that I got a couple of email requests to comment on
the death of former president Ronald Wilson Reagan, as there are a
number of better qualified commenters from all parts of the political
spectrum, many of whom have already posted their thoughts. I suspect
that there are two reasons they think I might want to comment:

  • He was a supporter and admirer of President Ferdinand Marcos. Marcos’
    strong anti-communist stance was a good thing, but staving off
    communism by suspending the Philippine constitution and turning the
    country into a dictatorship is completely missing the point. When
    Corazon Aquino led the “People Power” revolution in 1986,
    he tried to get her to compromise with Marcos — not very likely, as he
    had ordered the assassination of her husband (who said “the commies did
    it”).

  • I saved his ass time and time again in the video game Bad Dudes vs. Dragon Ninja, a martial arts/platform jumper game in which you must save “President Ronnie”:


    I fought through 7 levels of Ninja, defeated Karnov,
    saved your sorry ass and all I get is a burger?!
    Damn, this Reaganomics sucks.

Categories
It Happened to Me Toronto (a.k.a. Accordion City)

Crazy Go Nuts University Party at Lava Lounge This Thursday

If you live in Accordion City (that’s Toronto, folks) and are a Crazy Go Nuts University
(that’s Queen’s University, folks) almnus (that’s a male graduate,
folks) or alumna (that’s a female graduate, folks), you might be
interested in an alumni (that’s plural for alumnus/alumna, folks)
social at the Lava Lounge
this Thursday. It starts at 9:00 p.m. and runs through the night. Be
sure to arrive reasonably early since Lava, being one of the more
popular destinations on a street that is itself a popular destination, tends to fill early.

I’ll be the guy with the accordion, the beer and the Queen’s Applied Science ’91 jacket.

Categories
Toronto (a.k.a. Accordion City)

“Give Me Liberty” Party This THURSDAY [Updated]

Update: I mistakenly reported the party as being on Friday, but Jeff Kahl points out that June 10th is a Thursday. I just assumed that one throws street parties on Friday.

The neighbourhood in which Tucows is located [PDF
link] is called Liberty Village, named after the east-west Liberty
Street, which runs right through it. It is an industrial area that’s
largely been turned into an office area for the high-tech, design and
entertainment industries, some offbeat places to go (The Academy of Spherical Arts, Joe Rockhead’s, Liberty Cafe, and home to a number of Toronto’s quirkier citizens (including Cory Doctorow,
who used to live in a large
Disney-meets-tiki-lounge-meets-bookworm-themed warehouse
space near the bottom of Fraser Street).

This Thursday, the L:iberty Village BIA (Business Improvement
Association) is hosting a street party called Give Me Liberty. There
are posters for this event all over the neighbourhood promising three
of the things I like most: “Cold Beer. Hot Food. Cool Music.” The fun
starts at 3:00 p.m. and runs until 9:00.

Here’s what the poster looks like — click it to see their site:

I’ll see if I can’t find out more — I’ll bet that Matt and Brenda from down the street know something about this.

Categories
It Happened to Me

Weekend Update

The weather has started to behave a little more like it’s supposed to
today, so I’m running out to do some errands and play. I’ll try and get
some follow-up (especially for the entry on standardized testing) written this weekend.

Speaking of the entry on standardized testing, may I direct your attention to this Colby Cosh entry, written in response to my entry and your comments? (Thanks for the response, Colby!)

Categories
In the News

“My party’s leader came to talk about tax cuts, but all I got was this embarrassing photo”

One job I’d hate to have right now: the PR wonk for the Conservative party who has to spin the photo below:


  It’s as if Quentin Tarantino directed “Grumpy Old Men”! “Uh…we’re great! Um…and..we’re straight! And…uh…ah, screw it, rhyming slogans are for homos…” ** POW **

It appears on the front page of today’s National Post and shows an unidentified (and unbalanced) Conservative supporter punching Bob Smyth, an activist from Canadians for Equal Marriage. Apparently Smyth was heckling Conservative party leader Stephen Harper during a speech and the supporter decided some smiting was in order.

The Toronto Star reports:

As
Laurie Arron, 41, and Bob Smyth, 58, heckled the Tory leader during his
speech, an unidentified senior citizen punched Smyth and attempted to
hit him with a small wooden signpost.
Police ejected both Arron
and Smyth and Harper said afterward that he regretted the tussle and
wished that people would “treat each other respectfully.”

Strangely enough, there’s no mention of the police ejecting the guy who actually threw the punch. Good call, jackasses.