He's Like A Detuned Radio

I've had a pretty busy couple of weeks and I've got a grab bag full of good news to report. But I'm not going to talk about any of the personal news for now. For now, it's my new number one interest and number one timewaster. It's the TTC.

Part of it is the fact that it was an essential part of my life for eight years and it's something that I guess I didn't appreciate until I went to Windsor. Sweet merciful crap, taking the bus to get you anywhere in Windsor was not an option. So anyways since I've been back, I'm taken a very strong interest in:
a) Urban Development
b) Public Transit
c) Toronto History

all 3 of which tie nicely together with the TTC. So when the city announced last week their plans for "Transit City", I'm was pretty excited by the ideas presented. Especially after the boondoggle to York and Vaughan was announced the week prior that completely shafted the city. And finally some love for Scarborough.


If you're at all interested in these plans, there is an excellent breakdown by Steve Munro. In my mind, he is the authority on transit in the city having been involved with it from a public advocacy point of view for 35 years.

And in my mind that looks a lot better than this:
Yes, I'm still a huge nerd. (The CBC and Test the Nation think so as well.)

More personal news coming shortly...

EDIT: LRT Rendering via spacing.ca.

So I was looking on monster.ca for a job today and decided to search for "environmental engineer". I got 90 hits spread out across the country, 84 of which were for jobs as an officer in the Canadian Forces. And they were all the same job post and not all of which had different locations attached to them.

The other 6 were just as useless.

Attention monster.ca. Your tips on searching are bloody useless and don't tell me how to get any useful results out of your piece of shit search engine. Die in a fire and take that ugly-ass interface with you. Thanks.

On the other hand, Steve Don't Eat It is a delightful romp through the finer parts of cuisine. Just don't read it before eating or after eating or within 4 hours of eating.

Intersted in summer softball? No? Then stop reading. If you are let's get
going...

Some of you have expressed interest (and if you haven't I'm assuming you
might be interested) in creating a softball team for the summer. I've found
two leagues that fit the bill. Both leagues require a roster of 10 guys and
5 girls, but only a minimum of 5 guys and 3 girls are required for a game.
So we need to find some girls, I don't think we'll have a problem getting 10
guys out. These are both rec leagues so there's no pressure to be a
superstar like Kelly Gruber or Candy Maldonado.

I'm making this all up on the fly so if anyone knows of any other leagues,
I'm sure there's bound to be more out there that might work out better. Or
if you know anything at all that might be helpful.

1) http://www.sssl.ca/default.html
"We play on Monday nights. We are a co-ed league that requires you to feild
3 females at all times. Our fees are $1550 or $1350 if you have your own
jerseys. We play from mid-May to our play-off weekend at the end of August.

We play at Glamorgan (401 and Kennedy) and L'Am 4 (Kennedy and Steeles). Our
start times are 6:30. 8:00 and 9:30 p.m."

2) http://www.guildwoodslopitch.com/
Friday nights. $750 per team. Co-ed, 3 female min on the field.
First game: Friday May 2007
12 Regular season games
3 game minimum playoff tourney
No long weekend games
Games played at the diamonds at Churchill Heights (Homefield Advantage) and
some other park (Densgrove) just south of there. Easy access to McCoy's !!!

All I'm interested in now is whether you're in, out or unsure and what
league you'd like to play in. So pass this along to anyone who might be
interested, once the snow melts it's time to get going.

I found another fun timewaster on the web today and it's good. It's a little reminiscent of the mind maps from the JFK project and it looks to be fairly difficult for anyone to accomplish by themselves. Here's the link.

When you go to save game, you'll get a web address. Just like it says on the page, you can merge the work of two people together. So if anyone wants to help me out on this, here's my link so far. I'll update it as I get further.


Last update: 1:38 AM, Feb. 5.

All 4 meta-clues have now been found. It's funny how sometimes your mind takes you in completely the wrong direction and you completely miss the obvious answer.

There was a box in my closet. It had been there since August 2002 and hadn't been touched since. When I went away to Windsor, I had a number of odds and ends lying around my room that I didn't know what to do with so I threw them all in a box and stuck them in the back of my closet.

Partially egged on by my graduation, I decided to dig out the box and to sort through it, as part of an effort to clean up my room and to formally move from high school student to adult looking for a job. (My room sort of skipped the whole university phase since I was only here four months a year and I had more important things to do then be concerned with how the walls looked and how cluttered things were.)

Among the mess of the box, I found stickers and postcards from Edgefests (remember Joydrop and Copyright?), TTC Student Cards, report cards, Magic Cards (all land, unfortunately), my medal from the Pythagoras Contest in Grade 6 (still my crowning achievement in life), 2 unused tickets to see the Stereophonics and pictures from the OAC Formal that I never remember having taken. And Shaggy.
A box of forgotten objects can bring back a rush of memories very unexpectedly. These weren't things that were buried, for the most part, and they weren't things that I was trying to forget, as much as I wanted to try. They just slipped away as time went on.

Next stop, the pile of papers behind my desk which I knew is mostly stuff from the trip to California that I didn't want to throw away and the box I brought back from Windsor with me. Maybe I can stick that one in the back of the closet, only to dig it out when I move out.

I am one very lazy motherfucker. Now if I can just find my medal from the Science Olympics. Nerd...