Author: Bill

I don’t remember how many Vices there are, let alone what Vice 9 might be. Maybe “Defacing public buildings” or something like that?
It’s so hard to keep track of these things… 7 Deadly Sins, 10 Commandments… and however many Vices. I doubt I can even get all Seven Dwarfs. Here, goes, without Google.

The first one I saw was this one on Lee Avenue, but today I paid my first visit to 100 Swanwick Avenue, pictured above.
Although a North America-wide phenomenon, Toronto’s East side dominates our town with 3 Little Free Libraries registered… 0 in the rest of the city. Does this mean we are more literate on this side of town? Yes, of course it does.
What are we reading? Well, the note in the window gives special mention to 5o Shades of Grey and and The Book of Awesome. Not sure what “missing” means… is it a request? Or did someone take those without returning them?

and Linux is pronounced lin-ucks, not line-ucks.

This WordPress post comes to you courtesy of Karen Bell, photographer of these palm trees on the beach at Port Dover, Ontario. I had NO idea! My brother Jack has a palm growing in front of his Vancouver Island summer cabin, but that’s British Columbia. Ontario, too? But why not, I guess… the southernmost tip of Ontario is as far south as northern California.
[UPDATE] Brother-in-law Paul reports that the Port Dover palms spend their winters in greenhoused comfort, emerging to plant their roots in the lakeshore sands on 24th of May weekends each year. Thanks, Paul.
This post is also coming to you via Ubuntu Linux [see previous item], which I am using to do the posting. I haven’t figured out how photo uploading works yet (did that from the Mac side), but I’m making progress.

Above is a screenshot, taken inside a virtual computer that is running in its own window on my iMac… completely independent of my Mac operating system. I am running MacOS X (Lion) at the same time. In fact, I even emailed the screenshot from the virtual computer to my “real” one.
Excuse me if I bore you with this, but I haven’t been so excited about a new computer experience for years!

Become a retronaut… you’ll be gone for a good while, probably. The curiosities pictured here are just a couple of examples of what you’ll find.
Here’s the low down on the sculpture. It’s in Serbia:

Best deal in town… a free tree of your choosing, planted by a city crew. Trees increase your property value, cool your house in summer, and enrich the city’s air. Hey, maybe they’ll let you have a couple.
We need new, young trees to replace old ones long before the city tags them with the Orange Spot of Death.
Plug those holes in our green canopy. Call 311 and say you want a nice new tree in your front yard. Here’s a form you can download and print [PDF]. You have a lot more choices of species than the Top Eleven pictured above. For more information, check out Toronto Urban Forestry.

Yesterday, Julianna, Ulli and Danica posed in front of the Art Gallery of Ontario before we all went in to introduce Julianna to our Frank Gehry-modified showpiece. Julianna is quite new to Toronto, now living here with her husband Brendan.
One of the most stunning aspects of architect Frank Gehry’s remake of the Dundas Street facade is the magnificent sweep of space he created with the addition of his Gallery Italia. You can see the shameful boo boo in my photo of the coffee stand clutter that sits smack-dab in the middle. How can art gallery officials be so blind, so tasteless?
Ulli and I lodged complaints by filling out AGO comment cards. Then we left to explore nearby Chinatown and and Kensington Market. A couple of snapshots follow.

Conclusion: the point at which one chooses to stop thinking about a subject.
Not an original idea, but one I like.

In a Carlton University speech, longtime Progressive Conservative pollster, researcher and commentator Alan Gregg sounded an alarm about the Harper Government’s “Assault on Reason”.
For an incisive, succinct summary of our Orwellian present, give it a read.