The best spas in Toronto can make everything better. Feeling toxic? Disjointed? Old? Lumpy? Un-vedic?

Well, from Hungarian treatments to melt cellulite to lots of luscious sounding food that you put on your body instead of in it, Toronto spa "menus" have it all.

(Women officially don't eat at all any more. We just get by on chocolate body wraps, wine facials, and papaya scrubs. We ingest all our nutrition by osmosis now.)

With a bit of extra economic heat, many of us were workin' through this past summer. And fall. But man cannot live on workdays alone. So a couple of weeks ago we made with the "staycationing" and spent a night at Toronto's Pantages Hotel.

Find out more about the experience in my review of the Pantages Hotel in the hotels section.

When I was a kid there was Chickadee magazine and then Owl, and then the thinking girl was unceremoniously dumped off the science train of the Mighty Mites, and into the world of Tiger Beat.

"Maybe you can think big thoughts again when you're older," the magazine rack seemed to say. "But the teen and pre-teen magazines that tide you over until then will be wholly populated by doe-eyed boys, glossy ads for lip gloss, and vanilla-flavoured sex tips. Be prepared for a solid decade where your interests are presumed limited to bangles and boyfriends."

Then 2004 rolled around, and a Canadian upstart broke through these piles and piles of flippant frou frou and frizz -- Shameless, a magazine "for girls who get it."

Shameless is also written particularly for teen and pre-teen girls. But with politics in place of pop idols, queer positive instead of quizzes that only care if "he" likes you, and sexuality that's invited along for the whole messy and complicated ride that is growing up.

If you geek out on movies, you get to be a film buff. If you geek out on music, you get to get laid. If you geek out on games, you get... to be a geek.

But earlier this month in Toronto, if you geek out on games, you got to make your very own. So long as you could do it in three days - at TOJam #4: a (free) three-day homegrown videogame bonanza.

It's giving the three-day novel contest a run for its money. Three days to write a novel? Pfft. Child's play. How about write a story, illustrate it, animate it, add controls, and make sure it's all running bug-free... in three days? Snap. Yeah, that's what I thought.

Anyone who reads Boing Boing (or, y'know, the news) heard about the atheist bus-ad campaign that rolled through London early this year with an (un)holy fervour.

The UK campaign took out ads on public transit featuring quotes from famous atheists, with the chaser slogan of "There's Probably No God. Now Stop Worrying And Enjoy Your Life."

When fundraising for their ads, the UK campaign raised 2400% of their target (*cough*miracle*cough*). So instead of 30 buses spreading the word, they had enough for 800. Would you like a loaf with that fish?

Now a group has formed to spread the hellfire-free word to Canadian cities, comme Toronto.

Like too many fish in a tank, it looks like three was overcapacity for the mani+pedi cluster at Queen and Tecumseth.

In the past few years the intersection has gone from no options to too many. Within 20 paces of each other was Aliviar, The Ten Spot, and Flow (that's not even counting B.Skin, Elixir and Pure+Simple down at King). The pressure to attend to your cuticles was a bit intense.

Shortly after they all opened a few years ago, I wondered how long and who would last. It seems that Flow, formerly of 753 Queen Street West, is the first casualty. Which is not that surprising. While the window and entry displays were always clean and crisp, I could probably count on one hand the number of people I ever saw going in. It was far, far too quiet.

Their windows are papered over and there is a 'For Rent' sign on the glass. There is no notice posted that they're relocating elsewhere.