Odds n Ends

#1. As Stephen Colbert occasionally says, I called it. It appears the Toronto Sun's Joe Warmington reads my blog. This column ran in Saturday's edition.

#2. I bought this parka today. I think I'll be ready for winter now. The thing's like wearing a huge down blanket. With a hood. And on sale. Score!

#3. Song of the week: And It Rained All Night, from the Eraser, by Thom Yorke. A beautiful nugget that captures one night in Manhattan. Can't stop playing it.

#4. Basement apartments are the devil. Every homeowner in the GTA (that's Greater Toronto Area, for those who don't live here, which is everyone) rents out their basement to make a little cash. That'd be fine if the average basement were taller than 6'2". But it's not, and it's not OK. 96% of all the apartments listed on any given day are basements. Exactly 96%, if you were wondering. Due to historical/ architectural/ geographical phenomena, 80% of all the houses in Toronto look like this one. They're narrow, brick (if painted, usually red. "What color should we paint our brick house? How about brick red?") And they have the pointed gable in the front, and their basements are very short. My theory, that I worked out with Capella as we were walking away from another place where we'd have to duck to walk into the kitchen, is that it's because Toronto has no natural boundries. Cities like Boston and Montreal are built on islands, or close to it, and so people building houses had to stack them up & make duelpxes and triplexes, and larger apartment buildings. In Toronto there is no such pressure to be in the city because the city just keeps going. It's become hard to tell Toronto from Oakville from Hamilton from St Catherines (and long, long ago stopped being possible to tell Toronto from York or Missisagua). Thus, there's no reason to build a triplex when you can just build the house. So, the basements which people rent out were never meant to actually be lived in at all. They were just basements. And now they're apartments that people feel justified renting out for $900 per month.