This is part 4 in a series of profiles on places we visited during this past weekend's Doors Open Toronto.

Compare your sleek iPod with an old clunky yellow Sony walkman and you'll start to understand the importance of design in your life.

The Design Exchange, smack dab in the middle of our financial district, showcases the importance of design in everyday stuff and the Canadian design industry in particular. Created in 1988, the Exchange was created by designers in response to a lack of clear direction or support in the design community. In 1994, the Exchange opened in the former Toronto Stock Exchange building on Bay Street (just south of King), and it was this building that I visited as part of Doors Open Toronto this past weekend.

Deciding to skip the group tour, I wandered through the exchange and was impressed with the informality of the experience. The building that holds the Exchange also provides a lesson in the history of design itself - the former Toronto Stock Exchange building, a heritage property since 1978, gives you an example of Streamline Moderne before you even walk in the door.

After complaining about smog and auto-idling, I see a Toronto Star article on Mayor Miller's Plug-In Hybrid Vehicle Pilot Project which is based on an innovative approach to reducing our fuel consumption and maybe getting rid of some smog.

This is how the pilot project works. A bunch of hybrid cars will be converted into "plug-in" hybrid cars that can be recharged from the same outlet you put your toaster in. These converted cars, unlike regular hybrid vehicles, will rely mostly on electricity. They also get double the gas mileage of traditional hybrids (turns out regular hybrids can get much greener with a modified battery).

These converted hybrids, ten of which will be tested for a year in Toronto, will go 50 km around the city with one charge and only a little gas. 200 vehicles could be part of the project by 2008

Driving around a plug-in car is hopefully just the beginning. Having a vehicle operate off of the electricity grid opens up a bunch of other ideas for the future. You could use your car as a portable power source (in case of a power-outage) or plug your car back into the grid to sell surplus electricity back to the electricity supplier (an idea that California is presently studying and could be similar to British home-owners selling back superfluous electricity from rooftop solar panels and home wind turbines).

It may still be a while before a lot of us are driving anything like a mass-produced electric car - the batteries are still expensive, they are hard to find, and other reasons you may have heard of. Despite the wait and the lack of big changes like the greening of New York City cabs, it's promising to see us trying some greener ideas.

Photo: Image from room929 from the blogTO Flickr pool.

If you're ever in the mood to get really nauseas off of car fumes, try standing close to the parking area of almost any Toronto strip mall. The idea that we have anti-idling by-laws will seem laughable after a few minutes. You'll notice shopper after shopper leave cars running while purchases are made. After a few minutes, you'll start hating most drivers. If you last even longer, you'll eventually pass out.

To combat smog and other environmental nastiness, the Toronto Police are going on a four-day ticketing enforcement blitz. It's not much (what happens after four days?), but you can get the satisfaction of seeing SUV-owners idling in front of Starbucks get a ticket. Well, it isn't going to be that satisfying - the fine is only around $120 and, except during the blitz, is rarely enforced - the city only issued 66 tickets last year!

Yeah Baby - a triple-dose of good news:

First of all, Mike Myers is making his first live-action film in four years. Secondly, the movie will be filmed right here in Toronto this August. And finally, the movie is about a Canadian, played by Myers, who is left in India and turns into some sort of (probably hilarious) love guru.

Obviously, I'm a big fan of Myers and it's cool that he's still proudly Torontonian (well, from Scarborough, but close enough). It's also impressive how many popular characters he has created and how hugely successful his films have become (or how his not-so-successful films have become cult hits).

Normally an article about a law firm closing doesn't interest me that much. But a story on the closure of Goodman and Carr LLP in the Globe and Mail yesterday caught my attention for a couple of reasons.

First, this particular closure is a big deal in the legal profession - Goodman and Carr LLP was the largest law firm closing to date. Its decision to close last Tuesday is another sign of Canadian mid-size firms failing because of much larger foreign lawyer shops.

The second reason, which is even more interesting, comes at the end of the G&M article which mentions the previous largest law firm to collapse in Canada. Holden Day Wilson LLP, based in Toronto, was closed in 1996 to some extent because of an incident that has become part of Toronto lore and is a story that every Torontonian should know.

My criteria for best city in Canada has more to do with getting amazing Vietnamese food at 3 in the morning than health care, traffic and average income. But until I write that list of best cities (which we obviously top), we'll have to be content with 12th place.

We've been beaten out by Ottawa (yeah, sleepy Ottawa?) that placed first in a list of best places to live in Canada according to MoneySense magazine.

Despite not breaking the top ten, our ranking was pretty high for a city of our size. We lose out because of how big and populated we are - expensive housing and traffic just aren't major issues if you live in 7th place Moncton.