Car Modern 2011

The City of Toronto has introduced a new, sexy type of newspaper box - a community type of box with multiple newspapers living together in harmony, a sort of hippie newspaper commune or a condo-box for a condominium city. The grey structure I found at Queen Street West and Bay Street is branded with the City of Toronto Logo, holds eight different papers with up to four paid editions possible (yeah, like that will be necessary in the near future). Maybe they can remove the coin slot area and stick in more free editions as necessary. This design was actually released to the media in 2008 and shown in this Torontoist article but this is the first time that I have seen it in the wild.

This sleek new baby replaces the long line of multi-coloured newspaper boxes that fill many street-corners and which many people consider an eyesore. I didn't mind the old individual boxes because they were sometimes the most colourfull objects on a downtown street. You can see that they must have just taken the wrapping off the installation as the dull grey finish is yet untouched by stickers, graffiti or posters. I will check back later this week to see if the finish remains virgin.
The old boxes in front of the Starbucks wait for the transfer of the paying editions to the new box. They are remarkably clean with very little marks added by artistic citizens. Both the Star and the Sun boxes have small stickers which mention agendas and lies.

They might have lost well loved Mark Dailey but they are still everywhere. Here is a gorgeous CityNews reporter Cynthia Mulligan on Bay Street in the middle of doing a story.

There is a crisis in the square - there is stuff there. OMG, wtf! The Toronto Star has run out of crap to think about. "There are more garbages there than an army can use", "a ticket selling booth over there", "the main stage is fenced off"; what the hell is Christopher Hume talking about? He also claims that the Yonge-Dundas Square stage canopy is never used - well here are the hash protesters huddling, pictured above, under that mysterious canopy.
It's f*cking winter out and no one hangs in the square!

PS Another crisis: there is some snow on the sidewalk!

I was happy to see that I going into 2011 with over a million views of my YouTube videos. Speaking as a media giant I am eagerly awaiting a call from CNN as I slowly take over the internet. I figure if I hit the next Toronto World Naked Bike Ride and film it I will be on my way to two million YouTube views.

By the way the next Toronto World Naked Bike Ride is scheduled for Saturday, June 11, 2011 - join in at 12 noon and leave Coronation Park at 1pm. For the 2010 pictures just check out the link to the top right of this page.

An early morning fire on Monday, January 3rd closes down the Yonge and Dundas area as the Toronto Fire Department battled with a major fire in the empty heritage building at the intersection of Yonge and Gould streets. The building, across from the Ryerson University campus, has been sitting empty after a wall collapse in early 2010 which resulted in the partial closure of both the Yonge and Gould roadways adjacent to the heritage structure (http://torontogp.blogspot.com/2010/04/bricks-on-gould-impact-on-yonge-street.html). The Toronto Fire Services reported that today’s fire was a 6 alarm level with 61 units deployed with the initial dispatch at 4:05:19 am (http://www.toronto.ca/fire/cadinfo/livecad.htm).


Crews were still pouring water into the destroyed shell of a building, which is just one block north of Dundas and the Eaton Centre, during the lunch hour as clouds of steam and smoke continued to rise from the rubble. Reports were that two firefighters had fallen through the roof and were rescued later after suffering minor injuries. Ryerson remains empty of most students during the Christmas break. Over 100 firefighters were involved in trying to get the fire under control which was difficult as the roof of the structure collapsed.
Only streetcars on Dundas Street are being allowed to cross the area as the emergency crews and equipment continue to fill the streets. Luckily the vehicular and pedestrian traffic in Toronto is very light today as the bank and other holidays have a lot of stores and businesses closed and no injuries besides to the firefighters have been reported.

It is hard to believe that Mark Dailey's long fight against cancer has ended sadly today as he passed away at age 57. I ran into Mark several times as he raised awareness about prostate cancer which he also combined with his love of motorsports. He beat prostate cancer only to fall to kidney cancer which spread into his lungs.

He was always an extremely friendly gentleman that you feel you know so well as you grow up listening to his unique voice on CityTV. If he had survived I am sure he would have been out working harder to raise awareness and funds to continue the fight against cancer. Goodbye Mark Dailey.

Virgin Mobile brought the Big Kiss to Toronto today as couples were invited to kiss under a giant mistletoe hanging in Yonge-Dundas Square. Virgin is going to donate money for each kiss to WWF-Canada. "Join us on December 2nd at 6:00 PM by participating in a massive, simultaneous kiss under Dundas Square's new adornment. The countdown will be led by Degrassi's Charlotte Arnold (Holly) and Raymond Ablack (Sav)!

Boinkin on the train! The modern and luxurious GO Transit commuter train comes complete with bathrooms and apparently some of the passengers are getting to know each other quite personally with members joining the "Corridor Club". The practice has been coming up in conversations as people read (and write into) the free evening newspaper t.o.night in their "Shout Outs (email link to submit your own shout out)" column and which includes talk of banana and oreo cookie eating.
The shout outs are usually full of compliments (l laughed so hard, cute, beautiful) and verbal high fives, complaints of other passengers (loudly burping, boring old prude, complete moron, etc) and the occasional request for corridor club action, or boasting of having got some action. Here is a shout out from the October 18, 2010 edition "Looks like BB is looking for more that just initiation into the club, sorry BB I could not wait any longer, I received my initiation last night. Signed, previously Mile high member now Dual Club Membership." For the other side of the coin here is Concerned Observer saying "...there are a lot of weirdos out there, just look at the corridor club".
Now I see bumper stickers pasted over newspaper boxes on the streets of Toronto which state "The Corridor Club .com ....you know who we are". Their online tag is "the place where commuters come together".

I have heard of the Ride to Conquer Cancer but today I found out about Road Hockey to Conquer Cancer benefiting The Princess Margaret and presented by Boston Pizza. To promote the event there was a road hockey game at Yonge-Dundas Square with members of the media battling celebrities which came down to a shoot out between the two teams. The media was in black and celebrities were in red jerseys and Carlton the Bear was a goalie, oh yeah, the celebs kicked ass.
The Road Hockey fundraiser is scheduled for next year on October 1, 2011 and will be an all day tournament.  "This Dawn-to-Dusk fundraising event will feature an unprecedented number of spirited road hockey games, as well as musical acts, celebrity appearances, interactive activities, food and beverages, and so much more! If you enjoy a challenge, being part of a team and donating your time and effort to an amazing cause, this is the event for you."


See more pictures after the jump.

The CBC Live! in Yonge-Dundas Square continued with more celebrities as the newscasters had a meet and greet. Jacquie Perrin shares a laugh with Heather Hiscox, above, while Dianne Buckner talks to a fan below. News Anchor Dianne is also the host of the fabulous show Dragons' Den which is a tv program where people try to get the stars of the show to invest in their companies. The stars were going to show up later in the day, along with the casts of Being Erica, The Tudors, 22 Minutes and many others.

The CBC show Steven and Chris taped in Yonge-Dundas Square during the kick off to the Culture Days celebrations which run from September 24th  to the 26th. They definitely have a lot of fun taping the show and it was great to see Debbie Travis as their fist guest of the day. (Steven is on the left and Chris is on the right in the above photo).

With all the events going on around the Honda Indy Toronto there has been a lot of news people around. We found Michael Kuss who is the meteoroligist from CityTV. He is so cute and fuzzy that you don't feel bad if he says that a storm is coming.

Former police sergeant Cam Woolley from CP24 (pictured on the right) was found doing an interview with Andre Azzi at the square.
Overlooking the square on the new digs of CityTV was Gord Martineau, anchor of the CityTV News At 6, doing a live broadcast. You can see him beside the bright light to the right while his big mug is on the large screen to the left.
And speaking of celebrities here is Jessie Sulidis who was a Bachelorettes and is an ET Canada Correspondent - shown here signing autographs.