Arts
Pumpkin Envy
The Pumpkin Parade in Parkdale's Sorauren Park started 3 years ago with 30 carved pumpkins people brought from around the neighbourhood. This year the park was filled with 1300 orange orbs, doubling last year's record, and creating a bit of a carving competition.
I was surprised when friends had asked me over the day before Hallowe'en to help carve their pumpkin. Three hours, three knives and two power tools later we had our masterpiece. When the day came for the "parade" we lit up our large pumpkin among the others, feeling full of pride, but by the time we'd toured the park, pumpkin envy took over. All we kept saying were things like: "Next year we'll get an even bigger one!" and "If we spent some more time on it we could have the best one here!".
To illustrate to you how amazing the designs were I've pulled nine of my top picks for a flickr slideshow after the jump.
City
Hallowe'en Hangover
Last night, after all the kids had gone to bed, my friends and I strolled around Parkdale checking to see the decorations we'd missed during the sugar blitz. Some homes still seemed invaded by ghosts and others crawled with corpses, but for the most part the pumpkins had called it quits and lost their ghoulish glow.
I'd suspect those pumpkins might be feeling the Hallowe'en hangover today. Perhaps they're a little sad, even a little lonely. Chances are they yearn to be back in the field with other like-headed pumpkins, hoping for their chance to shine once more.
Well, Hallowe'en's not over yet, at least not in Sorauren Park.
City
Spook in the City: Grenadier Pond
Spook in the City takes viewers on a tour of the scary side of Toronto, to the scene of high-profile hauntings. In this short episode, John and I bring you to the haunted shores of High Park's Grenadier Pond and tell you a tale over a hundred years in the making.
City
Spook in the City: Colborne Lodge
Spook in the City takes viewers on a tour of the dark side of Toronto, to the scene of a high-profile haunting. In this episode, John and I explore a couple of well-known ghost stories surrounding High Park's Colborne Lodge, once the home of John and Jemima Howard.
City
Unearthed on Adelaide
Just a few oil drips below idle cars in Toronto's prime parking spots lay the covered-up stories of some of Toronto's early beginnings. Before the poorly-designed Porsche dealership made tracks on Parliament, the grounds were home to Upper Canada's first parliament buildings, partially burned to the ground in the War of 1812 then buried under a car wash in later years. Under what will soon be a condo tower at the foot of Bathurst was the former industrial centre of York, marked by a massive wood pier, Queen's Wharf, which dates back to the late 1700's. Even the Don Jail unearthed remains under an adjacent parking lot just this week. Now, it's Bishop's Block on the butcher's block.
City
No Future For BlogTV
It wasn't long ago blogTV.ca (no relation) announced its TV portal of the future by cruising the city in obnoxious Hummers screaming out for attention, and 'viewers'. Initially business was good for the social networking slash video site, owned and operated by Alliance Atlantis. However, since the launch in March, traffic had dropped steadily and sales never really accelerated. Today, a memo circulated to employees in the interactive department explaining the site's lacklustre performance and pointing to a dead end. Playback speculates several execs may go down in the crash too. Once a road warrior blasting through the fast lane, blogTV's now sputtered and run out of gas.
