News this week spread of Ruby's final closure thanks to bankruptcy. The popular Chinese restaurant also made headlines earlier this month for shutting its doors after failing two consecutive health inspections.

But would Ruby's have been closed in the first place if Toronto's DineSafe program offered its guidelines in other languages?

The public should have access to publicly funded institutions. It's a novel idea, I know.

Too bad the University of Toronto is slow on the uptake. Instead of expanding who can use the third largest academic library in North America, the university went and shrunk the pool.

Toronto's bureaucracy is now easier to handle thanks to yesterday's 311 launch. In theory, I'll no longer feel like this guy looks after trying to get info from the City of Toronto.

Instead of navigating through the city's approximately 300 phone numbers, we now only need to remember one.

Fung Lee moved into her storefront home on Dundas West near Brock Avenue with her husband five years ago. "We liked the rawness of the neighbourhood," she told me. But Lee didn't realize just how raw the area could get.

"We'll be eating outside [in the backyard] and all of a sudden we'll see someone going in the corner on the other side of the fence. It's kind of gross... and the smell!" said Lee, whose yard is connected to a laneway near one of the local sports bars.

Whether it's the never-ending poop or running out of bags, every dog owner has a dog doo-doo story. My story could be called "The Turds That Almost Got Away" thanks to Toronto's new dog waste pilot project.

The program consists of green bins dedicated to dog waste in a few popular Toronto parks. The aim is to keep dog waste from landfills since about a quarter of park garbage is pooch poop.

My quest to find the Lambada ice cream truck started last week.

Waiting in line at a west end convenience store to pay for the cold banana popsicle in my hand was the first time I heard the Lambada song filtered through that music box sound.

"Was that an ice cream truck?" the guy next to me with the loaf of bread asks. I guess he saw my puzzled face and felt the same. Pop Goes the Weasel is the usual soft-serve ice cream vendors' tune of choice, but a truck playing the song of the forbidden dance?