Going through some old photo albums I found some of my old report cards from Grade’s 1 through 3.

Grade 2

Steven enjoys the various class activities and is always eager to participate in oral discussions. He must try to however curb his inclination to chat during work periods.

Grade 3

He enjoys his classmates and works well in group activities, always eager to share ideas and information. Steven spends much of his working time chatting to his neighbours and being concerned with what others are doing. He is being encouraged to concentrate on his own work and not to disturb others.

I think they were implying that I talked a lot and liked to gossip. Were they ever wrong!

So here I sit. I’m hiking through the bowels of Ontario trying to find a lookout over pen lake. Nothing says nature like walking through the forest, Rihanna and TI blaring live your life for inspiration on the iphone and having the ability to check my email and blog about the hike at the same time.

I find in nature my sense of hearing is sharpened and I hear all nature sounds. Or maybe I’ve been in the city for too long.

Alas, the lookout. Now to take some pics.

Animal count: 1 deer, 1 chipmunk and a lot of deer poo.

And here we go, some pictures from my new camera. Playing around with the settings and trying to figure this thing out!

This past weekend there were nine of us in Montreal. In Toronto, if all of us were dining out we would have encountered payment mayhem as the bill arrived. All nine orders, drinks mixed in, would have arrived on one bill and without fail someone would have paid too much. Or we would have short changed the wait staff on their tip.

Something that happened at every meal here in Montreal and is common also in Vancouver, is individual bills. If you ask your server in any restaurant in Toronto for separate bills you will get a snarky look and a big fat no.

The thing that is so ridiculous is that probably all of the restaurants have the capability in their POS sytems so why the hell don’t they do it? I think it is pure laziness because they don’t want to ring through 9 credit cards. But so what. Make it easier on the customer!

We were at Au Pied De Cochon, one of the best restaurants around and the waiter put 6 of us on one bill and two separately like we needed. And the great thing about it is that we never had to ask, the server always asked us if we wanted separate bills.

So those eating out in Toronto need to start asking for separate bills and it shouldn’t be something that we need to ask before the meal!

Bell rolled out there new but strangely old looking logo during the Olympics along with that ER campaign that was just annoying. Now Fido has followed suit with a rebrand of their logo and look.

I liked the old Fido, I liked the dark web site, and I liked the use of the dogs. Now the site makes me feel like I'm walking down an aisle of No Frills or Extra Foods. Yellow yellow yellow. I am expecting to stumble upon the bulk food department at any time.

I know Fido is supposed to be the "low cost" alternative to Rogers, owned by Rogers, but I think they have made it feel cheap, but not in a classy cheap way. Thoughts?

Has anyone seen the middle of my wheel?

Sitting at Fran’s eating brunch. Strange situation next to us.

Old lady only having a shake and coffee.

Middle ages guy eating regular meal.

Young girl on the phone, her cell rang about 10 minutes ago and she is telling the person her life story. She keeps on looking in the mirror at herself. The strangest thing. Her boyfriend is in commercials… On and off again. Michelin and McDonalds commercials.

I have know idea the relationship between the three. They sort of talk like they don’t know eachother very well. It is somewhat awkward.

They are just watching her on the phone now… And I turn she is watchig herself at the same time.

She just hung up and she is now making another call.

My usual Thursday routine is to go to Starbucks to work. Today I decided to go to the King and Yonge Starbucks so I could pass through the newly changed Yonge and Dundas intersection. What am I talking about? Well they have changed it so there is a period of time that cars are stopped in all directions and people can walk through the intersection. This is common in some other big cities, most notibly Japan where you see these everywhere. I am no scramble virgin, I have walked diagonally before in Tokyo, so even though I heard many people say "cool" or "that is neat", I knew what to expect.

I passed through around 1:15 (skipping my planned lunch at Chipotle cause the lineup was too long) and was surprised to see cars and people moving through the intersection at the same time. God forbid! I thought it was people or cars, not both. Well as it turns out Toronto has done a half ass job at installing this new traffic pattern. There are always people in the intersection! Either walking with the traffic on Dundas or Yonge. I thought, and maybe a full Japanese person can correct me if I’m wrong, but I thought it was all pedestrian or all traffic. And the point of this was to actually help the traffic move through the intersection faster because they didn’t have to worry about people. Well this is not so here in Toronto.

I was expecting them to allow right turns now at the intersection because there would be no pedestrians to watch for when making a right turn. But nope. Instead this configuration may slow down traffic because you have to wait longer for your next light because there is that third step where all traffic is stopped.

So we’ll see how this goes, I think I read that they were planning it for the Bay and Dundas intersection too. Yonge and Dundas is really busy (in the summer) but with Dundas Square pretty much useless in the winter, I don’t know if it will be busy enough to warrant it then. It will be nice in the freezing cold when I can run diagonally from Dundas Square into Forever XXI to buy that last miniskirt in the window.

See how a scramble is supposed to work!!!

P.S. After I made the walk, I was interviewed by 640AM and asked my opinion and if it was my first diagonal walk. I told him all of the above.

P.P.S. When I got to Starbucks the Bell Hotspot was down. So I am now at home again. At least I got to walk diagonally on the first day that I could. It’s the small things in life.

Don’t listen at work, or with the kiddies sitting on your lap. This will be a great gift for Nana at Christmas.

We headed down to the IKEA store that they set up on King St and what a bloody waste of time. It is only open for three days as a promotion of the 2009 catalogue launch. It was a floor and a half of nothing really. We walked in and were greeted by an annoying IKEA employee who when asked if it was only this weekend apologized for the short opening. What is he apologizing for? You can’t buy anything there, we aren’t going to come back even if it was open for the next three months.

Don’t waste your time. Read the catalogue that apparently everyone got in the mail in the comfort of your own home.

Where: Yonge and College

What:

• Employees have to cover up tattoos. I think this is a new thing since I have definitely seen tattooed people working in the past with them showing. There is a girl that has a neck tattoo (small behind her ear) and she was saying it everyone has to cover them so they don’t offend anyone. Silly. Good for the Band-Aid company though. I guess one person ruined it for everyone. Damn F-You tattoo on someone’s forehead.
• The drink I got in error, that I didn’t ask for, the blended Lemonade Green Tea is fantastic. And unlike other frosty drinks that melt, the melted stuff tastes great so it is perfect when drinking slow. If only they added Vodka.
• They really don’t like bums in the bathroom. They are on high alert. Every one that I saw barrel in here directly for the bathroom was successfully stopped. Thank god, cause they are out of toilet paper so who knows what they are wiping with!