Blogging schadenfreude

Slate had a story on the collapsing housing market in Orange County, California recently, noting the ties between Irvine as corporate headquarters to some major mortgage lenders and the rapid decline in house prices. The story linked to the Irvine Housing Blog, which I’m finding oddly gripping, despite the highly repetitive nature of its posts.continue reading

Me and Misha

Over time, the spam filter on my e-mail account has become smarter, shielding me from random Biblical quotes and letters from the many bankers of the victims of that 2000 Concorde crash. So I was pleased to see that the filter is so sensitive that it knew to let in an e-mail plea for helpcontinue reading

I see the difference. Can you see the difference?

The Star polishes up yesterday’s Ontario Auditor General report on the immigration year-end grants: Auditor General Jim McCarter found that Liberal connections played no role in which groups received money, but that the money was doled out without proper controls. What the Auditor General actually said (emphasis added): We found no evidence that any organizationcontinue reading

Diamonds for cash

The Toronto Sun, in its paranoid wisdom, has an entertaining article linking a one-off, one-week traffic enforcement blitz , acknowledged and publicized by the police, as a desperate cash grab by Mayor Miller. The anonymous officers quoted in the story lend some credence to the rumour that the Toronto force is less-than-enthralled by enforcing existingcontinue reading

Even GPS can’t help

An OPP officer in Grand Bend explains the meaning of “lost” in today’s Globe: “I don’t think we can say where he is, and that’s very problematic in trying to track him down,” said Detective Inspector Dave Cardwell of the OPP Criminal Investigation Branch.

It’s just a ghetto thing

This is an appalling story: “Ghetto dude” e-mail sent by mistake, province says But taking it a step beyond the obvious racist, classist slur meant to describe, it seems certain, the job applicant is the pathetic bureaucratic reaction of the supervisor of the woman who sent the e-mail: Reached on vacation in the Maritimes, Craigcontinue reading

A bit of infrastructure cleverness

Clever public garbage can with shelf for returnable bottles Originally uploaded by morecoffeeplease. Vancouver’s garbage cans now have a little shelf on the front, in which you can leave return-for-deposit bottles (the vast majority of drink containers in BC are deposit-return). People used to just leave return-for-deposit bottles on the ground next to the garbagecontinue reading

15 minutes of fame, sort of

Sassafraz is planning to reopen in time for the TIFF, and in preparation they are posting on the hoardings and on their website comments from blogosphere circa the time of their fire. Was surprised to walk by the site and find myself quoted (yes it’s from the law-related one).

What’s your walk score?

How walkable is your neighbourhood? Plug in an address and a googly algorhythm will tell you. Take it with a small grain of salt — our score came it at 60, which is only somewhat walkable, when I’d say where we live is extremely walkable. Apparently my old haunt of St. Patrick St. is muchcontinue reading