The close of the Labour Day weekend is always a sad time. It means the end of The Ex, marks the beginning of school for so many, and acts as a reminder that Fall is on the way. Glad I made it back to The Ex this year though. It’s been quite awhile.

Rain or shine, nostalgia and good entertainment won me over again. While my dentist is probably cautiously cheering my love for cotton candy there were other treats abound. A wide variety of music from Silverstein to Blood Sweat & Tears front man David Clayton-Thomas had fans of all ages (and tastes) in good spirits. The carnival games are fun to play and watch too. My personal MVP was the dude rocking freestyle rhymes over drum and bass pictured here. You were definitely repping the EX large!

Fun fur fedoras and freestyle rhymes. A serious crowd pleaser at work at The EX.

Well if your life is seriously lacking in oversized stuffed animals you must be in the depths of depression. The Ex doesn’t return until August 2009. No, no…it’s OK to start counting down the days.

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Moody Motorcycle - new CD on Secret City Records.

Human Highway’s CD came out about a week ago. Happy to see that iTunes has already featured one of their singles for free this week. I’ve always liked Jim Gutherie’s projects and Human Highway doesn’t dissapoint.

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Thursday evening there will be a memorial ride to honour Charlie Prinsep, a Toronto cyclist killed while on a cross-country tour. All cyclists are welcome to ride in solidarity. The ride will be through Cabbagetown, down to the lake and West to the memorial tree for fallen cyclists. Cyclists are encouraged to participate, even if you didn’t know Charlie. This is not a protest ride but a ride for the love of cycling and in memory of all of the cyclists we’ve lost in careless accidents.

Ride For Charlie
(organized by friends of Charlie Prinsep)
Thursday August 28th
Riders are encouraged to meet at Jet Fuel Coffee at 7pm
519 Parliament Street, Toronto, ON, M4X1P3

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WoW! Don Cabellero were in town last night at Lee’s Palace promoting their new CD, Punkgasm. Baltimore’s Ponytail got things off to punchy start.

This was the first I’ve heard of Ponytail but I’m sure to look for more. To say that they were experimental or math rock wouldn’t do them justice. Their vocals and sound are hard to place. They played a heated set that even Don Cab fanned out on but soon the headliners hit the stage.

Don Cab brought out a couple of teddy bears but this was only a small peace offering. They proceeded to onslaught Toronto with their form of mathrock and banter. Mel Gibson, Freedom, Secrets… Damon Che’s rants can be just as humourous as the SCTV character the band is named after. Weighing more on the last two CD’s (Punkgasm and World Class Listening Problem) Don Cab more than reproduced their albums on stage. So glad I was able to see them play again.

Both Ponytail and Don Cabellero play again in Hamilton at the Casbah tonight if you missed out on the fun last night…

Don Cabellero delivers a Punkgasm at Lee's Palace Aug 26th.

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Yes, Toronto made it into the Monopoly World edition though Montreal is the top Canadian city (actually the TOP CITY WORLDWIDE on the Monopoly board). Good to see that makers of Monopoly have “updated” the utilities to renewables, Solar and Wind. Well to “celebrate” our induction to the middle of the Monopoly board Mr. Monopoly will be at Ontario Place along with Mayor Miller from noon till 2pm today.

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The University of Toronto is joining forces with IBM. They hope to build a supercomputer among the top 20 in the world and the fastest in Canada. The computer has been optimized with respect to energy use and will have a dedicated building to house it at a projected cost of C$50 million over 5 years.

Not the first time that a major university has set their sights on a supercomputer. Good to see U of T stepping up to the likes of Virginia Tech and Indiana University who have long enjoyed the use of and prestige of managing such a system.

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In the early morning, a propane fire started at Sunrise Propane, a propane depot. The site is along Murray Road. The power has been cut in the local area to avoid additional issues as the fires are still raging and have been since about 4am. The 401 has been closed from the DVP to the 400 and the TTC has closed Downsview, Yorkdale and Wilson subway stations. The following TTC bus routes are also being diverted: 29 Dufferin, 84 Sheppard, 96 Wilson, 107 Keele North, 108 Downsview, and the 165 Weston.

At least 5 houses in the area have been damaged and a perimeter (Keele to Dufferin north of the 401 to Sheppard) have been evacuated. The situation has improved but burning tires and smoke from the fire still force a no fly zone in the area. Major airlines are NOT effected and flights continue to move in and out of Toronto Pearson Airport. Although one person is still unaccounted for the city has been lucky this didn’t happen on a work day. About 12,000 people live in the area. Kudos to the Toronto Fire department,
Toronto Police, the OPP and the TTC. Your co-ordinated efforts have many saved lives.

Youtube footage posted by bcochrane14

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Whoa, are the stars in perfect alignment or something. Tonight brings together an interesting collection of indie, post-punk, and jazz at Teranga. Teranga is a Senegalese restaurant, if you don’t already know, and just one of many interesting spots to catch a bite and great music in the Kensington Market.

Aug 8, 2008 8:00 PM
Teranga African Bar and Restaurant
159 Augusta Avenue
Cost : $5
With Feuermusik, Metz, A History Of, and Place Hands

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This is what I’m doing as of tomorrow — watching the Olympics religiously. See you at the end of the Games! (If I’ve recovered; you just never know what each Games will reveal about our Canadian athletes or has in store for us, politically.)

BTW did you know Canada is currently No. 1 in the standings? Savour the moment our Canadian women’s soccer team gave us while you can.

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Facebook has a Toronto Argonauts group page (or two or a few) which I, as any self-respecting Torontonian would, belong to. Today, I received a Facebook message about a protest next week against sneaking an NFL franchise into the city that belongs to the oldest football club on the continent. Yes, that’s right, the Argos are the oldest club in North America! Why any old, geezer wannabe-American Canadian would want to bring in some boring NFL franchise into Argos territory is beyond me. But then so is how Rogers managed to get around the name-in-perpetuity-rule and rename the Skydome after themselves.

Without further ado, here is a copy of the Facebook message, with Chris’s blessing:

HELLO EVERYONE!

The first of eight Buffalo Bills games in Toronto is to be played 1 week from today.

Ticket sales for the Bills in Toronto are selling, by comparison, as poorly as the Toronto Phantoms of the Arena Football League did in Toronto.

With the sky high ticket prices for the Bills in Toronto it’s hard to say if they can sell the last 20,000 seats and if they do…GREAT…but that’s only because of the change in regulations to purchase these tickets. If the game doesn’t sell out, Rogers will give away the rest of the tickets to fill the stadium and then claim a sell out.

The Toronto Argonauts are the oldest professional football team in North America and part of the most exiting football league in the WORLD. Why would anyone want to replace the Argos with either the Bills or a Toronto NFL franchise? These NFL games in Toronto are guaranteed to be boring just the same as 90% of NFL games.

As Canadians, not only football fans but all Canadians need to be patriotic at this time and realize the CFL is just about the only All Canadian institution left in this wonderful country.

With the threat of losing the CFL to the NFL or the Argos and Ti-Cats to the Bills is like losing Much Music to MTV or CBC to CNN, I’m sure we can all agree we don’t want to turn on channel 6 or 26 and see CNN. We need to stand together to protect the CFL, one of the few institutions in Canada we can call our own and still be proud of. The Canadian football league has such a strong and lengthy history (Football in Canada is as old as Canada itself) that we can not lose to the power of the dollar, the Rogers dollar. Losing the CFL will go down in the most regretted Canadian decisions right next to the cancellation of the AVRO ARROW.

I am calling on all CFL fans, Argo fans, Canadians, Patriotic Canadians, NFL fans or not CFL fans or not, No to the Bills in Toronto supporters, absolutely EVERYONE to help Protest the Buffalo Bills in Toronto next Thursday at 6:00pm (meeting time)

If you do not already have a shirt please contact me and provide me with how many people you are coming with and I will supply the shirts for the protest.

PLEASE REPLY: e-mail me at chris-fischer [at] live [dot] com if you are interested in attending this historic Protest. Please leave me the number of people you wish to bring and if you are willing to car pool.

The meeting place will be sent to you after you have e-mailed me.

LET’S GO CANADA!
SUPPORT YOUR LEAGUE!
LET’S KEEP THE CFL ALIVE!
THIS IS OUR LEAGUE!

If you need further inspiration or convincing please watch this video, if this video makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up…it means you should be protesting with us!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BS1jCfg7Qxc

BE A PART OF SOMETHING!

Signed,
Chris Fischer

-If you think what you did yesterday is still great, then you haven’t done much today-
Michael “Pinball” Clemons

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It’s Friday, the sun is shining, the roads are clear (!), the hotels are booked, and the long weekend beckons. There’s so much to do, starting tonight at 7:00 pm, one could party all weekend long and then blame the rain Tuesday morning for being unable to make it to work on time.

Simcoe Day holiday begins tonight with Caribana Festival’s Pan Alive at Lamport Stadium. Listen and dance to steelpan bands as they compete for best band. That’ll be your dancing feet warm up for tomorrow, for tomorrow is the all-day-long Caribana Parade where even police officers smile and chat and maybe even do a move or two — or they did in the years I went. Television news was singularly unhelpful in showing the parade route, and even the Caribana site isn’t very specific. So here it is: It starts at the west end of Exhibition Place, fairly close to the Dufferin street gates, and it ends at Sunnyside at approximately 6:00 pm. The old route down University Avenue was better as it was equidistant for those from both the east and the west, but I guess Lakeshore is bigger and less disruptive to downtown traffic. Oh well. Caribana festivities continue on Sunday on Olympic Island. For all the details, visit the CBC site.

Now if all that dancing has you hot and breathing hard, and you just want some peace for a bit, check out the Chinese Lantern Festival at Ontario Place. It runs nightly from 7:00 pm to 11:00 pm; it features acts, food, stuff, and movies; and of course it’s the largest lantern presentation in North America.

Then on Simcoe Day — the holiday Monday — as you’re chilling down, learn why we call it Simcoe Day at Fort York. Watch musketry, men and women drilling in period military costume, and the 1:00 pm parade. Fort York is an under-rated jewel of Toronto history, a haven from modern Toronto — if you can just ignore the Gardiner looming over to the south, which actually once you’re fully into what’s going on isn’t too hard to do.

So there you have it, a full weekend of being entertained and joining in the entertainment. Or you could just turn on the barbie, kick back, and put your feet up. This is the best of Toronto! Happy Simcoe Day!

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Looks as though the infamous Yonge and Dundas intersection will become a “Pedestrian Scramble” next month. One’s sense of bewilderment in the valley of enormous billboards will be somewhat elevated when that arrives.

This would be a fairly large “cultural shift” but it may be a good thing for people. The main issue is regular traffic. Obeying a red light should be easy enough but streetcars and other traffic may have longer waits as pedestrians can cross from all directions at once. More delays and “rage” but not a huge inconvenience. Of course pedestrians CAN already cross mid block with restrictions legally. As many cyclists and pedestrians can attest, having the right of way doesn’t preclude you from getting hit by a car.

The rethinking of people and vehicle traffic is a good thing. We could use better coordination of our traffic lights in the city. This is already done on some routes for the TTC but keeping as much traffic, travelling at the legal limit, moving should be a priority. It makes getting from A to B that much easier and reduces smog. More than enough reason to try to improve the situation.

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If Metblogs is a city, hub.metblogs is the playground. We kept hearing from people that one of their favorite parts of Metblogs was meeting and interacting with readers and writers from other parts of the world, as well as getting requests for more ways that readers could be involved besides just posting comments. We thought about this for a while and decided that with a network like this, a giant community area where folks from all over the world could hang out, post photos and videos, talk with each other, form groups, play games, send messages, and do about a million other things was probably a pretty fun idea. The Hub is that.

If you have any tech ideas or suggestions join this group and speak up. See you on hub.metblogs!

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   Toronto Island’s weather turned ugly Saturday.  What originally appeared to be a cooler sunny day soon changed.  Much of the qualifying runs were laid out on the skateboard and wakeboard courses and then it happened.  A fierce afternoon thunderstorm started and many took shelter. The quick and the lucky scattered to pavilions around Toronto Island, others bolted straight to the ferry docks.  Some however were not so lucky.

Not everyone had the piece of mind not to hide under trees or lucky enough to be away from some of the metal fences.  At least two people were struck by lightening, one right across from the booth where Silverstein were signing autographs.  Thanks to the Emergency staff on hand as well as the Police and Fire boats dispatched to the island everyone was OK and the event was able to continue.

A few hours later you could hardly image how bad the weather had been moments before.  Barring the drenched pavement and grass of course.  Everyone had to make the most of it.

Classified dusted off the crowd and kicked things off on the main stage once the rain subsided.  Silverstein were awesome and powered through a shortened but intense set.  Hot Water Music were also a treat to see live.  The good weather whether held out into the early evening and RZA and GZA gave the masses a long awaited and stacked set, just fashionably late.

So glad that the sun came back, even if the puddles were far from gone.  Wasn’t keen on mud sliding/diving, just thankful no puddles or muddy sinkholes claimed my footwear.  Tomorrow is another day.  Hoping WETstock ended Saturday and Wakestock continues where it left off…

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The “Island of the Ams” skateboard competition was quite impressive at Wakestock Friday.  Things are sure to heat up for the finals Saturday as $5,000 is on the line.  A lot of Toronto locals have a shot at the top spot which is nice to see.  Lee Yankou, Chris Gibbons, and Brandon Del Bianco.  Of course Bajcar simply rips his own way contest or no contest.  He was killing it during the competition and alongside the Zoo York team during the demo.  Both Zoo York and Globe riders are in town and will also be doing a demos between Am contest heats this weekend.

Matt Bajcar blasting over the flat bank at Wakestock 2008

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