A little bit of this, a little bit of that

So first things first: my entries have been a little short lately, but I haven’t had one of those oomph moments where I can write and write and write about something. Hopefully soon though, one will come. Or maybe not, if it’s about a bad thing.

I don’t have anything in particular to discuss this week, but I can at least touch on a few things.

First off, it was revealed this morning that Trinity-Bellwoods has been dropped as the official location for protesters during the G20 meeting next month. This makes my entire previous post irrelevant, but that’s OK; the important thing is that someone somewhere came to their senses. The new location? Probably Queen’s Park. Wait, you mean that giant park in the middle of downtown, surrounded by non-residential buildings, and somewhat close to but not directly by the location of the G20 meetings? Why yes! That park! I honestly don’t get why they didn’t consider it in the first place. Oddly enough, I forgot about it too, since I didn’t mention it at all in my last entry. Whoops!

In other news, there’s been a lot of Toronto Mayoral Race happenings in the past few weeks. I honestly don’t know who I’m going to vote for; it’s like they’re all in a mayoral race edition of “Hey Arnold”, where their platforms all seem to have a quirk to them that makes me uneasy to choose them.

• I don’t really know what big ideas George Smitherman has, or if he has any at all. He’d probably be the safest choice, though.
• Joe Pantalone is basically the next version of David Miller, and while he’s the most adamant about keeping Transit City alive, he seems a little bit wishy-washy.
• Rob Ford is the most brash political politician Toronto has right now, and electing him would be like electing Mel Lastman on steroids. This is something Toronto doesn’t need, and who knows what he would cut out with his obsessive penny-pinching.
• Rocco Rossi seems to be very car-centric, to the point where he wants to remove bike lanes from major streets and completely stop Transit City. His alternative is to build subways at a glacial pace… no thanks.
• Sarah Thompson has a big subway plan herself, and a concrete way of funding it; by road tolls. It’s a feisty plan, but I don’t see how anyone will agree to pay $5 as they drive to fund subways they aren’t using (and perhaps won’t be using when built).
• Then there’s Georgio Mammoliti, who wants to set up a red light district and a casino… yeah.

As much as I want subways to be built in the city, there has to be enough demand for them, and building them is an urban pain in the ass. Plus, these are all election promises, just like the promise to cut GST made before the federal election many many years ago. Did that happen? Nope, and now it’s being combined with PST to make an even bigger tax burden… but I digress. Maybe next week I’ll write about HST.

Moving on, one thing I’ve been thinking about a lot lately, believe it or not, is hockey. Toronto has ended up in this awkward position of not being in the playoffs while other Canadian teams are, such as Montreal and Vancouver this year. It’s been this way since the hockey strike that one year, and, frankly, it sucks. It’s odd how a team such as the Blue Jays (or is it just the Jays now?) can perform somewhat decently and have low turnout, while a team that continues to suck royally always sells out. It’s actually somewhat sad. I think the best thing for the Jays would be if the Leafs won a Stanley Cup, since that would probably dilute the city’s absurd obsession with them. That obsession, though, is weird, since even I’m a little bit obsessed with it; I want them to win, but I won’t stop supporting them even if they lose. Are all sports teams like that? Also, a sad confession; I secretly don’t want another Canadian team to win the Stanley Cup because then they would get a chance to shove it in Toronto’s face. Is that bad? It’s at the least very Torontonian.

But then after that there’s the World Cup, where it’s not where you live, it’s where you’re from. It’s a lot more fun in my opinion.