‘Cause everybody wants a dream

This entry will be short and sweet since I have midterms on the horizon for the next, oh, month. But it is Thursday and gosh darn it I’m committed! This is the third week straight! Holy wow!

I want to touch on a subject that really came to light shortly after my last entry. It’s died down slightly, but heck, I still want to express my ever-important opinion on it. And so I shall.

So! The sleeping TTC collector dude. If by any chance you live in Toronto yet haven’t seen the picture (somehow), here it is: http://twitpic.com/z2nrp

The picture has gotten 43,000 views since it was posted last week… not a lot by internet standards, but considering this is localized to one major city I suppose that’s a pretty big deal. Plus, all the major news outlets showed the picture in their reports (and that doesn’t get added to the view count), so really, it’s 43,000 Twitter users that looked at the photo. Slightly bigger deal.

Anyway, I’m kinda in the middle on this. Yes, it’s really bad that the man fell asleep on the job. Not cool. Especially since there was just a fare hike, which is indirectly going to pay his salary. That’s the obvious argument, and that’s pretty much the sentiment shared by just about everyone.

Now, there’s the more realistic, less angry argument. First of all, the picture was taken at McCowan SRT station at 10 PM. Have you ever been to McCowan? It’s not exactly Grand Central Station or anything. If he was falling asleep at, say Yonge-Bloor, or if he was falling asleep during rush hour, that would be a much bigger issue, at least with me. The guy had a medical condition, and the medication he was taking makes him drowsy (that fact was revealed later on, in an interview), and really, if you’re in a union, there’s no way you’re going to get fired for having a medical condition. So, I’m thinking the TTC made the best of it by putting him at a station with low traffic so, hey, if he dozes off, so be it. It’s not like the area around McCowan is pedestrian central, so how many people would go by while he was catching a few Zs?

Well, apparently at least one, who had a camera and a Twitter account. He posts it some time later, and it goes viral… on Toronto’s terms at least (it’s not the new Surprised Kitty, that’s for sure). And, as people tend to do, they blame everything and everyone possible. And that’s fine, because at first it really did look like the guy was just a lazy bum. But then the story unfolds a little and there’s more to chew on. Kinda like the Mike Bryant case (except far, far less serious.)

I certainly hope that’s what the TTC had in mind by having him work there, anyway. What I didn’t like was the union’s response to the incident, which was the equivalent of pouring nitroglycerine onto a car fire. Allow me to insert it here for your reading pleasure:

…it is very discouraging that the picture taker and, apparently, other customers, made no attempt to determine if there was anything wrong with this TTC employee. A simple knock on the glass might have determined if the Collector was, in fact, asleep, or whether he was unconscious as a result of some medical problem. The reports that passengers were laughing at him as they passed by the booth makes this even more disturbing.

One look at the picture… the PICTURE, and you can tell this man is not unconscious. No-one faints with their hands clasped on their lap. If he had fainted (or worse, was dead) he’d either be dangling off the chair haphazardly or he’d be in a crumpled heap on the ground. Also, I’m sure the photographer could see him breathing. I’m sorry, my dear union chief Mr. Kinnear, but the worst way to deflect blame from yourselves is to blame passengers, since they’re the ones who give your union members jobs. The tone was slightly condescending and the entire statement was ridiculous.

The TTC and the union are doing investigations. I don’t think anything will happen, although the TTC is (in a totally unrelated endeavor) trying to improve customer service. The man has said he’s sorry and I’m sure collectors will think twice before they start dozing off in their collector booths. Can we move on?

So I counted to ten, then I counted to ten again

It’s Thursday! And, true to my word, I’m writing my Thursday entry, even though I have a whole lot of other schoolwork to do. It’s literally staring at me since I have a digital post-it on my desktop with all the things I have to do this weekend. But first – blog!

About a month ago, the St. Clair streetcar came back. Mostly.  As I explained before, I wanted to write an entry about it but it didn’t work out. In the end I’m glad it didn’t, since now I’ve had the chance to ride it for a month, and can put everything in perspective of a rider who went through the whole thing, from way back in, what was it, 2005?

Where to start? Before construction started, the 512 St. Clair streetcar used to be like every other streetcar in Toronto (minus Spadina and Harbourfront) in that it shared the tracks with traffic. The streetcar tracks were in the middle of the road, and cars could use them just like any other lane of traffic. One important note was that at major intersections, they became left turn lanes. Left turns were usually illegal during rush hour, but I remember getting caught behind turning cars all the time. Also, St. Clair was different from most other lines since it had shelters stuck in the middle of the road, whereas in most cases getting off a streetcar means getting on the street where cars are (hopefully) stopped.

As far as I remember, things worked. Not extremely well, but they worked. Traffic wasn’t a huge deal on St. Clair, and the streetcar would have its delays but it would eventually get you there. There was some room for improvement, but it wasn’t completely horrendous.

My use of the streetcar is usually only 3 stops. I live the at the third stop away from St. Clair West station (Wychwood). It’s a distance that isn’t very far to walk, but if you catch the streetcar you’ll almost certainly get there faster, plus it’s harder to walk there in inclement weather. I can remember taking the streetcar when I was maybe 4 or 5, and eventually I would take it to get to school downtown.

When I was in grade 11, I remember going up to the streetcar platform at St. Clair station one day and seeing these pamphlets for passengers to take, sitting in these little plastic holder things glued to the wall (I think they’re still there, actually). At this point the streetcar tracks were at the end of their life, and you could tell. There would always be spot fixes and stretches where the streetcar could only go 10 km/h. The pamphlet was about fixing the streetcar line. I remember reading something along the lines of “The streetcar tracks on St. Clair Ave. are at the end of their lifespan and are in need of replacing. The TTC has decided to use this opportunity to explore other configurations for the route while the tracks are replaced.” Something like that. The next page had a whole bunch of different options; keep it as it is, make the tracks only for streetcars, take out the tracks and replace them with buses, and I think there was one that said to put it underground (that may be a figment of my imagination, but I could swear there was one option about digging into the ground).

That was either 2004, or possibly 2003. I remember thinking, sitting on the streetcar headed west, “It’s going to be a long time before this is done”. I had no idea.

So now it’s 2010, and what happened? First of all, they went with the streetcar only lanes, which would be dubbed the ROW (right of way). They start building. Then there was a court injunction which stopped construction. Then they start building and get all the way to *gasp* St. Clair West station. About a fifth is complete. The year is now 2007 and I’m in my first year of university.

I remember this well because, from when they started construction (I think in late 2005/early 2006 but I’m probably wrong) the line was divided into buses where construction was happening, and streetcars for the old part. At that point the line was a chimeric mix of shiny new track and shitty old track, and for a short period in 2007 (I think it was from February to June) the line ran completely with streetcars… and we’re still not back to that yet.

The rest of the story is complicated and annoying. They decided to do hydro work at the same time, but since hydro didn’t want to replace their stuff until they had the staffing to do it, to they took their time. During work at St. Clair West, the crews drilled right through a power line that wasn’t on the blueprints for the station. Then winter came, and work of course stopped.

This kind of thing continued, but it seemed to me, though, that the process got more and more efficient as time went on. The remaining track, though there was much more of it, took way less long. The only part they didn’t get finished before this past winter (and still haven’t finished) is the loop at the end of the line at Keele… meaning that the streetcars can only go to the nearest loop, Landsowne, and buses have to run the rest of the way.

This story is dragging a bit, but in any case, streetcar service returned to the majority of the street on Dec. 20th 2009. In my mind, I was sort of expecting it to be something like this:

It wasn’t. Judy Garland was nowhere to be found. The only thing that’s a little similar was that, the day before, the TTC celebrated by running a couple of vintage streetcars for free rides along the line. Apparently they took forever to come though.

So it’s been a month, and how much more amazing is the streetcar?

For what I can tell, it’s almost the same as before.

The biggest and most annoying thing is the bunching. I’ll wait at my stop for 10 minutes, and then four cars come. The first one is full and the last three are empty. It’s really annoying. Also, there are so many lights, and now they take so long to change, that I think it’s faster to walk sometimes. Apparently biking is faster. And the buses that run parallel to cover for the last, incomplete bit, go faster since, well, they can pass each other.

According to Steve Munro, a great transit activist, the reason is because the line is mismanaged. It runs on a fixed schedule instead of using headways (which basically means to screw the schedule, and make sure streetcars leave a certain time apart from each other). He’s doing analysis on the line and it will be interesting to read the results. And apparently they’re working on fixing the traffic signals so that transit gets more priority and less waiting.

I’m a little skeptical though. And I think a lot of people are. A recent address of the issue put the blame on how there were too many small contractors, and not one general manager to get everything organized. The problem is that this line was supposed to be the model for the entire Transit City network that’s going to be built here, and they completely botched it.  Now everyone wonders if the same thing will happen, and a mayoral candidate just came out and said he’s going to put the project on hold and restudy it if he gets elected. Not very good for progress. Will the TTC learn from its mistakes? Does it ever?

I can find comfort, though, in the fact that the line is pretty much done. Almost. Hopefully people living near future Transit City lines won’t have to go through the same issues that the people on St. Clair did.

It’s all for the best? Of course it is.

So it’s a new year again. I’d love to write how I’m going to write a music journal (which would eventually fail) or how I’m going to go on a swashbuckling two-and-a-half month tour of Europe (which would eventually happen). It’s interesting how some things are so possible, and others so aren’t, isn’t it?

Anywho, I didn’t really come up with any New Year’s resolutions this year. I’m trying to go to the gym more, because THAT’S such a novel idea, right? One goal I’ve set for my self, sort of, is to do better in school. Or maybe not to do better, but just start wrapping things up. The year 2009, I came to realize, was a horrible year academically for me. The strike made grading lenient, which helped me in some of my courses, but for the ones it didn’t help, I basically had to drop them as if I never took them. Then I schlepped around Europe, skipping out on a whole semester. I couldn’t really do summer school when I got back since the options were limited due to the strike. Last semester was supposed to be the “get back on track” semester, but one of my courses got cancelled, and I dropped another one because it was horrible and I did horrible on the midterm (It was quite literally the lowest mark I’ve ever gotten in my life, before and after the grade adjustments). That left me with barely no progress in terms of my degree. What I did manage to get credit for, I did OK at least, but I didn’t get anywhere.

Well, now it’s 2010 at least, and I’m working hard to get back on track. I still want to blog more, though. I decided on the streetcar that I want to blog every Thursday, and I should start today! Except when I got home I realized that today was Wednesday. It’s been one of those weeks where I’m always a day ahead. You know the ones. In any case, I decided to blog anyway while I still felt like it, and I will hopefully continue next Thursday. No, note hopefully, I will blog next Thursday! RIGHT! It’s going to happen, people!

Also, I was talking a few weeks back with a very, very good friend, about blogs. I explained to him a sort of half fantasy, half possible-reality-if-I-get-off-my-ass-and-do-it-thing, which is to write for a major blog such as Torontoist, BlogTO, etc (those are the only two that really come to mind). The only issue is, what would I write about? My friend asked me for something that I was interested in, and I said, well, blogs! So he suggested that I write a blog about blogs… I thought it was a weird idea at first, but the more I thought about it, the more I liked it.

He suggested I use the name blogblog, but a quick Google search shows that’s already taken.  I was a little saddened, but when I peeked around I saw that they don’t update all that frequently, plus it seems to have broadened its horizons and now seems to cover stuff from its host city, Seattle. Not that I’m going to use the name blogblog, but at least I know the niche isn’t totally filled. My idea is to do quick write-ups of blogs all over the net, from the big (Gawker, Perez Hilton) to the interesting (The White House Blog, Regret the Error) to the completely mundane (Hamburger!, Three Frames). I don’t think there is a point, but when is there ever a point to things like this? I think in the very least it would be a fun experiment. Or maybe it’s another resolution… no, I definitely shouldn’t think of it like that.

I’m hoping to start it soon, once I can think of a name and find some time. But I now will set out Thursday nights as bloggin’ time! If all goes well, I’ll sit here (or somewhere) and blog. Hopefully I can plan ahead and think of topics, or else I could end up just sitting at my laptop and stare at it blankly for a few minutes on a blank WordPress page, and then going to sleep. It’s happened before, believe me.

Next week: I’m planning to write about the 512 St. Clair streetcar, which is now much more complete than it has been for the past few years, but (somehow) still isn’t actually done yet. I had been meaning to write an entry when the larger part of it reopened. That lovely date happened to be right before I had two consecutive days of exams, so that didn’t happen and by the time I had some free time the magic was gone.

But I’ll save the explaining for next week. There will be a lot to say.

It’s Probably Hard to Plan Ahead

I’ve been meaning to write a new blog for a while now. I know, I think I put that in every post. But this time, I mean it. I was ready to write a blog, and then my MacBook died. Now that I have a refurbished (and superior) replacement, I’m ready to return to blogging! The only thing that kept me since then was that there was nothing pressing to write about, at least not that I could think of. That is, until the past few days, when it was handed to me on a silver platter. Let’s talk about the TTC!

I actually don’t think I’ve really gone into the TTC on this blog, which is a surprise, since there’s so much to talk about. There’s always an issue that bubbles up every now and then, usually about once a month. This month is special, though – the Commission has gone from slightly hated to downright loathed in the past week. Did somebody say fare increase? Naturally, it’s been a whole 2 years since the last one!

But before I get into that, let me first start by something positive: the York University Busway finally opened on Friday! I had been seriously awaiting this since I first heard about it, oh, 3 years ago maybe? I think I was in my first year, and now I’m in my fourth. I cannot stress enough how badly this needed to be built; the old 196 bus route was OK when there was no traffic, but failed horribly during rush hour. In September, it literally took me 1 hour 13 minutes to get from the back of the bus line  to my job at Yorkdale, when normally it shouldn’t take more than 20-25 minutes.

The route is now almost totally on bus-only lanes, although I’m a little skeptical that cars will stay out of them on Dufferin. Another trivial thing is the railroad crossing that goes right through the actual busway part; I really hope trains don’t use those tracks too frequently, or else there will be lines of buses waiting for a slow moving train, thereby defeating the entire purpose. Also, buses legally have to make a full stop at them and wait for 3 seconds, which is kind of annoying, but, well, beggars can’t be choosers. I’m taking it tomorrow morning during rush hour, so I’ll hopefully be able to tell the difference. I did go by the line at York at 4:30, which is the time when the line would weave all over the place beside the student centre. There wasn’t nearly that many people waiting in line – perhaps a lull in traffic, or the busway is working… time will tell.

Now that we have the good out of the way, it’s time for the bad. The TTC approved a fare increase last week, so that fares go up about 25 cents and metropass prices go up about $12. The TTC had an upcoming deficit of about $100 million, so it was basically the only choice without cutting service. At the same time they announced changes to student metropasses; in September they will also be valid for postsecondary students. They cut token purchases to 5 per person so that people wouldn’t hoard them, which they argued could make them lose $5 million in revenue. In an unrelated incident, a construction mistake caused the busiest corridors of the subway to be shut down during afternoon rush hour on Thursday, the day after the fare hike was approved. Finally, in a surprise move yesterday, they announced that, starting today, you would be able to buy special adult tickets, as many as you wanted, but you would need to add 25 cents when using it after the fares go up, plus they won’t be valid after January.

Where do I begin? I think I’ll work backwards with this one. There have all sorts of viewpoints on this whole token/ticket business and some of them are quite interesting. I actually think the tickets were a good idea; the only problem is they didn’t give anyone any warning. People were going crazy all last week just trying to get tokens and they didn’t really need to. The other issue is that they didn’t estimate nearly enough tickets – Twitter was rampant with reports of major stations running out of both tickets and tokens by the evening of the first day. Huge lines everywhere, only augmented by the fact that the automatic turnstiles won’t accept tickets. With a little bit of planning this whole debacle would have been at least a little less horrendous, but the whole thing ended up looking like it was half baked at the last minute. Which, for all we know, it was.

Moving on, the issue of the fare hike itself. People will argue that, the TTC, as a business, is complete crapola. It seems that in terms of budgeting, someone isn’t doing the math right, because it can’t sustain itself. Businesses that can’t sustain themselves go bankrupt, but the TTC is less of a business and more of a government entity, so it can’t. I’ve heard an argument that transit systems aren’t really designed to make money, and normally they don’t, so the government subsidizes a certain amount to them so that they can keep operating. Apparently the TTC’s subsidy is pretty small compared to other major cities, and that fares play a much bigger role than they do in other cities.

I find this argument interesting, and I think it’s importance shouldn’t be ignored. But at the same time I think that the TTC should really look at trimming the fat instead of making service cuts look like the eighth deadly sin. I can give you a perfect example; a recent boost to service promised that every bus route would operate at least every 30 minutes up to 1:30 AM. At my station, St. Clair West, one of the routes is 33 Forest Hill, and I can tell you that every time I see that bus go by later on at night it’s almost totally empty. Yet the TTC pays the driver, and pays for gas for that bus, just so it can go up and down Forest Hill practically empty. And I’m sure that’s not the only route that operates like that.

I’m not saying that we should abolish these routes altogether, but thought should be given into where the TTC’s money is going if they’re going to raise fares like this. It’s great that they can boast about having 30 minutes or better bus service up to 1:30 in the morning for almost every route, but if I had to choose that or averting a fare hike I would obviously want to avert a fare hike. It’s almost like the TTC is being frivolous – cut service to routes like that and see how many people will complain.

The student metropass deal is great, except that I’ll have to go a whole 8 months paying the (soon to be even higher) adult rate. Why they didn’t choose to implement it starting in January is beyond me – did they want to soften the blow of losing more money? It was also peculiar that they would introduce that at the same time as a fare hike… but that’s the TTC in a nutshell, I guess.

So, to wrap this up, I think we have a two way street going on here – we need governments to step up, but at the same time the TTC could probably make some cuts that aren’t to tough to make. And in the mean time, I’ll enjoy the new busway.

Oh, and also as a side note; the timing of that huge subway closure was horrendous, and it wasn’t the TTC’s fault apparently, but I’m sure most of the people caught in it thought otherwise. The thing I don’t get is why people actually bother trying to take shuttle buses. People! Walk to St. George, go north, use Wilson to get back across and take your bus from there! Even if it takes long, at least you’ll feel like you’re going somewhere instead of standing in a giant mess of people at Yonge and Bloor listening to Adam Giambrone apologize.

I’m going to write about something

I don’t know what to write about though.

How about Glee? Should I watch Glee? Everyone else is watching Glee! Glee is apparently amazing! Why am I not watching Glee? Am I missing out in life by not watching Glee? I’ve watched 10 minutes of Glee and I wasn’t really feeling it, but should I just watch it anyways? Just because? Glee?

How about… the Olympics? Chicago lost! You could almost say Chicago lost badly! The Summer Olympics are going to South America, meaning that there would be (at the least) a 24 year gap before they came back to North America. What I’m getting at, obviously, is that Toronto should run, either for 2020 or for 2024 (depending on who gets 2020, I guess). The way I see it, we were in second place before, and “the bulk of the money that government committed to us for the waterfront is still there and almost nothing has happened since the last bid.” Did you hear that? That was John Bitove Jr., the leader of the 2008 bid.

I tweeted about it and got an aggressive response by a newly formed @Toronto_2020, asking me “what would [I] contribute to the effort?”. I wanted to tweet a response but then I realized I didn’t actually have an answer. What could I contribute, anyway? Telling all my friends? Handing out buttons? Inviting everyone to a Facebook group? It really stumped me, but at the same time I wanted to do something, and I still do. The concept of running again hasn’t really caught a whole lot of media attention (except for a few articles here and there), but hopefully it will pick up steam when the time is right… and then maybe I can do something.

In some other news, Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize. I feel like this was one of those things where even his supporters were like “Wait… what?“. I actually thought that myself; it wasn’t till I read a little bit more into the rationale for him winning that I understood it better. It’s all about his speeches, people! You know how he’s really good at public speaking? Well, he’s so good, and his subject matter is so in line with promoting peace, that he won the Nobel Peace Prize! See? Now if only I could give that explanation to the many, many people who aren’t too thrilled about this. Also, is it common for a current president to win one? I did a 5 minute Google of the topic and came up with this article, showing that the last President to win one was Jimmy Carter back in 2002, quite a few years after his presidency. Before that? That means going back to before 1920, so its clear that this is kind of a big deal. And while I’m not the one to argue about the factors that decide Nobel Prize winners, apparently others are.

Another interesting little tidbit that happened recently: did somebody say David Letterman? I watched the confession the next day on YouTube (as did many others) and I also managed to catch his next live show, the Monday of the next week. I have to give the man credit- he knows what he’s doing. The confession itself was meant to be serious, and I took it seriously, but what I found bizarre was that the audience didn’t. Did they think he was kidding? Did they care? Dave even acknowledged that on Monday, and he also issued a more formal apology. But his whole opening monologue? He totally made it comical without being tasteless. It’s one of those talents that probably isn’t recognized as well as it should be.

I’d hate to make this blog a complete jumbled mess about twenty different things, so I’m cutting this one a bit short. I’ll be back again when I have something big to write about, and I’m sure it will be sooner or later.

Bicycle Judgement

About a year ago I wrote one of my first blog entries. It was about bicycles in Toronto. An earnest, sort of eager type of entry, that wasn’t really triggered by anything, except for maybe parking troubles on College.

Well, that was a little bit over a year ago, and now I’m writing about bicycles in Toronto again. This time, however, things are different.

Let’s start from the very beginning: on Monday night, a driver of a convertible and a cyclist get in a confrontation on Bloor St. between Bay St. and Avenue Rd. The cyclist ends up hanging on to the side of the car, while the driver veers left and right, eventually ending up on the other side of the road. The cyclist hits a mail box and falls off, ending up under the car and being run over. The driver of the car goes around the corner and calls 911. The cyclist is taken to hospital and dies from head trauma. The driver is taken to police custody, and is eventually charged with criminal negligence causing death and dangerous driving causing death.

Now the kicker: the driver of the car was Michael Bryant, who up until May was a provincial cabinet minister, serving as the Attorney General for Ontario. He also happened to be the MPP for my riding (St. Paul’s). The cyclist was Darcy Allen Sheppard, a bicycle courier who was coming home from seeing his girlfriend. Sort of.

Oh, where do I begin with this one? How do I go about this without looking like an asshole?

The first thing that should be obvious is that I’m probably a great source of bias in this, since a) I drive far more than I bike; b) I was a constituent of Mike Bryant; and c) I actually liked him as a politician. So this isn’t the end all and be all truth, not by a long shot. But I’m writing this because I’m frustrated with how this whole thing is playing out, and I want to at least express my point of view. So I’ll continue.

The way this tragedy was reported was, in a way, tragic. It was perfect for the morning news: “BRYANT KILLS A CYCLIST”, when none of the crucial details were in place. Well, OK, the media wouldn’t actually admit that he was driving the car until he was formally charged, but it was fairly obvious. Much gossip and jabber ensued. People either lashed out against Bryant or tiptoed their way around the issue. Crown lawyers can’t work on the case since Bryant was at one point their boss. The entire Liberal party is not saying much. Eventually that day ended. On to day two.

Now the gritty details can trickle their way out. Bryant hadn’t been drinking, that had been stated from the beginning. In fact, statements from police noted “alcohol wasn’t a factor”. Then we find out, on day two, that “Al” was an alcoholic, and he had been sober for 9 days but relapsed that night. Oh.

How about how he went to his girlfriend’s apartment and she didn’t let him in, and then called the cops, and they gave him a good talking to in the back of a police cruiser. Oh. That part wasn’t there at the beginning. This might actually change things a little bit.

Too bad most of Toronto’s fervent biking community had already made up their minds on who’s at fault here.

Let’s be realistic for a minute: I’m not stupid. Obviously when you put a car against a bike, the bike always loses. Period. So as a car driver, I know that, when it comes to bikes, if I’m not fucking careful, I’m going to either severely hurt or kill someone if I hit them while their on their bike. I’m aware of that.

Continuing with realism: your a hardcore bike courier who’s been drinking. You just had a small run in with the cops, who give you a stern talking to and then send you on your way. You bike home, and since you’re a bike courier, you don’t really like how the guy in the black Saab convertible just bumped into you.

I suppose the rest is history. And since this story has a way of slowly developing, the newest reports say that Al may have grabbed the steering wheel, or may have had Bryant in a headlock.

Now, all I can say is if I got into an argument with a guy on a bike, and then he’s suddenly running up to me, I don’t think I would stay there. Especially if I’m in an open convertible. I would drive off. Would I expect the guy to grab the side of the car and hang on? No.

But at that point I would be in such a panic I wouldn’t know what to do. Do I stop and try to control this guy who wants to beat me up right beside me? Or do I continue driving and try to make him fall off?

For some reason I feel like I can imagine the panic. Almost like a fight or flight response, which is a dangerous thing when you’re in a car. Was Bryant trying to be aggressive? Or was he panicking? That’s up for the courts to decide at this point. The police investigation continues.

Anyway, now we’re on to day three. A “memorial ride” was scheduled today at 5 PM. I happened to be at the gym nearby, so afterward I figured I might as well check it out.

I wasn’t sure how to feel while I was standing there. I did feel bad for the guy, it was an untimely death, that’s for sure. But one of the first things that came to my mind when I got there was “Would this be like this if the driver wasn’t Mike Bryant?”

There had to be hundreds of cyclists there. In unison, they rung their bells. They slowly closed Bloor St. They cheered (I’m not sure why). One guy even played the bugle. It was like remembrance day in September. This incident, with all its complications and strange details and bits that hadn’t been worked out yet, was converted into a sort of grandstand for cyclist rights and safety. It was almost like Bryant had simply ran over the guy ruthlessly, leaving him to die. That’s not how it happened.

The atmosphere there felt almost like “fuck cars”. I can understand that, for someone who cycles every day, cars are a danger and are probably highly maligned. But to take an incident that involved someone of high profile, spin it a certain way without all the details in place, and blow it to epic proportions? I didn’t think it was appropriate. It’s not like this is the first guy that died on bike when he got hit by a car, so why the giant memorial? Because the driver was a former politician? Is that fair? Even though the cyclist himself was confronting the driver?

I wrote about it a year ago, when things weren’t as complicated. Drivers of cars need to change their ways. Cyclists also need to change their ways. Confrontations between cyclists and motorists have to stop. Better solutions have to be produced.

And the sad part is, it’s going to happen now. Only now. Someone died, and it got a lot of media coverage. Now it’s really, really important. Now, something can finally change. I wrote about that concept too, remember? Sooner or later, Miller is going to come up with a bunch of new bike lanes.

It will be interesting to see what happens with this case. And meanwhile, the “war” between cyclists and drivers continues.

Let the Summer Begin

Alright, where do I begin with this? The strike is over! Hooray! The garbage is slowly disappearing before us! Life is good! Right?

As weird as it is, the end of the strike (along with the end of July) really felt like the turning of a new page. It’s weird. It’s a new month, the weather is nice today, there’s no more garbage strike… to me it was like the summer actually started, finally. My friend even told me that the recession (in Canada) is officially over now, because there have been two periods with substantial growth, translating technically to no recession. Finally, I noticed that there seems to be a bit more room in the part time job market! Maybe  it’s worth looking for a job!

Then again, maybe not. I’m enjoying my summer too much. Why on earth would I want to spoil it with work? The only thing is, I think the summer blahs are setting in. I’ve been doing a random bunch of stuff since I got back; camping last weekend being the biggest excursion, and the odd trips to Woodbine Racetrack to blow $10 on slots, but that’s pretty much it. I don’t mind, but sometimes I feel like I should be doing something more productive.

And then, other times, like today, I get in weird moods where I feel like I need to find a significant other, ASAP. I don’t know why though. I get this urge to really put myself out there, but I have no idea how to go about doing it. Go to a bar? Join an online dating site? The latter might be the most appropriate (everyone and their brother is talking about plentyoffish.com, from two of my best friends to my aunt).

But then I remember that the way my life seems to work is through fate; trying to do something doesn’t necessarily mean it’s going to happen – sometimes you just have to let nature run its course and see what the result is.

—

I did want to shed some light on the whole strike thing, and then I got off on a weird tangent. I’m obviously happy that the strike is now over. I thought that a lot of people would be relieved that they actually reached a settlement by using the, you know, real way. Not like the York strike, where we waited three months only to have them get pulled back to work by the province.

I hope I’m not alone in realizing there’s a shitload of spineless people out there. Seriously. I wish there was a word to describe the kind of people they are… something like a Swingboat, I suppose. In any case, these people are never happy. It doesn’t matter what anyone does, it’s not right for them. They want everything to be perfect (at least, according to how they think it should be).

So the city works out this deal that isn’t quite the end of banking sick days, but makes their days numbered. “Grandparenting”, as it’s called, was what I wrote about in my last entry; old employees get to keep them, but new ones don’t. Does it make any sense to just obliterate sick days? Maybe to some people, but I thought that this was a good compromise. Not to mention that they only got a 2% raise when they asked for 3. A lot of people made it sound like the mayor was giving them a truckload of pure gold or something.

I noticed these types of comments the most (the ones from normal civilians) when I was trying to follow a live feed The Star had on its web page yesterday. What was supposed to be a sort of easy way to see what the latest progress was during the debate turned out to be a giant bitchfest from people who probably didn’t know a lot of what they were talking about. Eventually the feed got so overloaded that most of the comments stopped (thankfully). Still, what I saw was mostly the same thing: the deal is too much, now taxes are going to go up, he’s in cahoots with the union, etc. etc. These types of comments also littered the bottom of most online newspaper articles – so much so, that Torontoist published a long (but worthy) collection of the best (read: worst) ones.

I can understand that the union seemed really greedy before the offer was made public (and I agreed). However, I think a lot of people like to make uneducated assumptions and spread them all over the internet for everyone else to see. Just because the words “they still get to bank sick days” is in the text, does it really mean that they didn’t get rid of that benefit? Sometimes I wish people would read between the lines a little bit.

Also, in my humble opinion, anyone who says David Miller handled this badly is wrong. I think he handled it perfectly; between the greedy union, certain dipwads on city council, the city managers, and of course, the raging public, he managed to pull off something that actually worked. And he updated his Twitter the whole time. What a guy.

Now to enjoy the rest of summer… there’s still a month of it left!

Anything Dirty or Dingy or Dusty

Allow me to start by posting a whimsical video:

I actually had no idea this song existed until I was rumaging through some records at Value Village and I came across “Sesame Street’s Greatest Hits” or something like that. I thought it was fitting; in case you weren’t aware (and that’s a possibility), Toronto’s unionized city workers are currently on strike, meaning that most of the city doesn’t have any garbage collection, among other things.

As with any strike, lots of names are being thrown around from all sides. I personally think the union is being a bit greedy – banking sick days? My parents, who were both teachers, could bank their sick days, but according to my mom newly hired teachers don’t even get to do that anymore. At the same time, there’s ye olde “you’re lucky to at least have a job” argument, which I think is true but it’s also a bit of a convenient cheap shot at the same time.

Either way, it’s not exactly horrendous, just a little bit annoying. Yes, garbage is starting to pile up. It’s really stinky and gross. Yes, parks are being used to store it (for now). There was a whole stink (no pun intended) about Christie Pits, a park not too too far from my house, since the local residents didn’t want pesticides being used on the pile of garbage across the road from their houses. What’s better: toxic chemicals, or shitloads upon shitloads of flies? To me it seems about the same.

In any case, hopefully it will be resolved sooner or later (I think we’re on day 25 or something) so that the garbage will get cleared up, kids can go back to daycare, and we can all complain about something else. Sound good?

—

In other news, I need a coffee, and I was thinking about going two blocks to my local Tim Horton’s to grab one. If anyone from the States hasn’t heard about Tim Hortons (probably not, unless they live in the northeast), now they might have, since they opened up about 12 in Manhattan! As a Canadian, I can tell you that most of us never would have thought this would ever happen. Then again, Timmie’s is like the McDonalds of coffee for us, so maybe it will fare well. I still don’t know if I would go get some while I was in Manhattan – I can get it at home, yes, but the bizarre factor is appealing to me… eating Timbits in Times Square? Sign me up!

A Backyard Blog

I decided to do something I usually don’t do and move my laptop from my room (where it sits most of the time when I’m not in school) and take it with me to the backyard! Are those collective gasps I hear? I usually don’t associate technology with outdoors (cell phones are an exception), but the weather is so nice today yet I don’t have very much to do. So here I sit on my patio furniture on my back deck, with my laptop plugged in behind me. I’m debating running into the kitchen to grab a beer. I suppose life is good.

On a blog-related side note, a friend I met in Madrid took her photos from Europe and made a beautiful album out of it in Shutterfly, a site I didn’t know existed until 20 minutes ago. I’m totally tempted now, mainly because I don’t really have a tangible means of displaying my pictures and this would be perfect. I’m two-thirds through the trip’s photos on Facebook, but I think that only goes so far.

In any case, yesterday I said there was a lot to talk about and today there still is. Where do I begin?

How about we start big today: Michael Jackson. Gone forever at 50 years old. When I heard the news I was shocked, but unfortunately I’m just a bit to young to have had that connection that a lot (and I mean a lot) of other people had for him and his music. I did like his music though, and I’m sure many, many people were looking forward to seeing him on stage again in London.

What I thought was funny, though, was the fact that because he died, every negative aspect of his life was completely forgotten. It washed out all the bad press. The most obvious event that comes to mind is the child molestation charges; it was almost like the big purple elephant in the room that no-one (media included) wanted to address. And of course there was the baby over the balcony, the weird masks he wore, the weird masks he made his children wear, and a whole slew of other things. It didn’t bother me that much, but I did find it strange. It did seem to bother John Niven, a music executive who writes for the UK’s Independent. The article isn’t for the MJ fan, that’s for sure:

What has stunned me and truly floored me in the past week or so has been the complete sidelining by the entire media of Jackson’s later life. Across the board, from every news channel to all the quality papers, there has been wholesale collusion in the notion that “he was a great artist and, yes, there was some, umm, troubling stuff later on, but let’s forget all that right now and just celebrate the music”.

While I don’t believe that the bad parts of his life should have overshadowed the good after his untimely death, I still think the media could have given it a bit more attention. The only major thing I saw that referred to it was on an entertainment show (I don’t know which one, there are so many) that aired a tape of him being questioned. It wasn’t exactly earth-shattering either, it was just something that wasn’t aired publicly before.

Finally, for the memorial service, I think the weirdest part for me was seeing a part of the relationship with his kids that really wasn’t out in the open before. There the were in the front row.

Then there was Rev. Al Sharpton:

I want to say to Michael’s children, there wasn’t nothing strange about your daddy, it was strange what your daddy had to deal with.

That’s an interesting way to put it. I guess he had a very peculiar way of dealing with it. Also, I think a lot of people don’t consider how he was basically in showbusiness since he was 5. I find it hard to think of child stars who turned out “normal”; the only few that come to mind are the Harry Potter crew.

And finally, Michael’s daughter came on stage at the end to let us know that her father really was a father figure after all:

Ever since I was born, Daddy has been the best father you could ever imagine. And I just wanted to say I love him — so much.

So if you ever doubted his fathering capabilities, that moment was the time to feel bad about it. Finally, there’s a quote I love from Obama himself, who seems to keep everything nicely in perspective:

There are certain people in our popular culture that just capture people’s imaginations. And in death, they become even larger. Now, I have to admit that it’s also fed by a 24/7 media that is insatiable.

That just about sums the whole thing up. Thank goodness.

The Half-Year Checkup

I should start out by saying that my blog entries are so sporadic. I mean, yes, I know I was in Europe for a while, but while I’m here I don’t post as often as I should. I need to work on that.

The subject of this entry is to look at what I wrote in my New Year’s blog and see how I’m doing. Let’s take a look, shall we?

I’m going to Europe. Screw the recession.

Check!

…I’m bailing ship till everything returns to normal. [in terms of York]

Check! Sort of. I debated summerschool but the schedule is weird due to the strike, so I decided against it. Apparently things won’t actually be normal till September. I can wait.

…wouldn’t it be neat if every day, I randomly chose a song off my iPod and wrote a short paragraph about it?

Fail. I didn’t actually bring the notebook to Europe, so I lost about two and a half months right there. In fact, I’m not sure where the folder actually is. Whoops! I’ll find it and maybe continue from where I left off. But, I did keep a little book in Europe where I wrote about songs I liked (I even wrote out the lyrics to kill time).

2009 is going to be different.

Check! At least so far anyway.

So what am I doing now? I’ve been in a sort of limbo since June 12th when I got back. I’m looking everywhere for a job, but this summer is tough. (Screw the recession and it will screw you back, I guess). I’ve been trying to enjoy my free time without spending too much of the money I have left over from the trip (which isn’t that much). I suppose in a way I’m enjoying myself.

I’m also (slowly) uploading pictures. I like to go the whole nine yards and put captions for all of them, which means for 100+ photos an album it takes a long time. I’m getting there though.

Also, I should mention that there’s a lot to write about right now. There’s the big stuff, like the death of Michael Jackson or Toronto’s lovely garbage strike. There’s also the small stuff, like Stephen Harper’s Communion fiasco or the Rogers/Bell advertisement war. So much to cover! Not enough time!

Time to caption some photos. I’ll be done in about an hour.