Your morning news roundup for Friday, November 3, 2006:

Thursday afternoon, Mayor David Miller said that Toronto will not be submitting a bid for the 2015 World Expo.

Maybe it's a lack of pride that stops Toronto from being a world class city.

Or maybe our streets are making sure that Toronto isn't "on road to a better future".

Sounds about right considering that recent construction on St. George St. has actually removed wheelchair accessibility.

But look on the bright side: there's going to be a new musical in town... a Queen-based rock musical!

Atlantis will be holding a preview of Nintendo's new Wii console on November 14th. Registration is required.

And there's a rumour going around that Vince wants to come back to the Raptors.

Your morning news roundup for Wednesday, October 27, 2006

Now Magazine's annual Best of Toronto awards came out yesterday. Guess who won best blog!

The Toronto Maple Leafs will screen seven games in 25 movie theatres across Ontario starting this Thursday. Not that we need to see a 5-0 loss on any bigger of a screen.

The TTC has decided to finally join the party and show wait times at bus and streetcar stops.

Another day, another drug bust. This time, at a church.

The Toronto Coalition for Active Transportation (TCAT for short) has released their survey of Mayor and City Council candidates. See how your ward is stacking up.

Today is also Bike Friday.

photo from BlogTO flickr pool by dave_in_t_o

Your morning news roundup for Wednesday, October 26, 2006

A shipment of pumpkins and yams was tracked closely by Toronto Police into the GTA, after 600 kilograms of hashish was found as it entered Halifax from Jamaica.

The Guardian Angels are now saying they are "in Toronto to stay" after getting an anonymous donation. The group had planned to announce that they were shutting down Wednesday.

A polar bear has been killed by a Mosquito at the Toronto Zoo. Beloved Kunik may be the first case of a polar bear contracting the deadly West Nile virus.

The dream for a World Expo in Toronto also died today when Ottawa and Queen's Park decided not to support the bid.

David Miller has announced his plan for expanding transit across Toronto if he is elected. Unlike Pitfield's plan, Miller will do it without subways.

photo by flickr user ckaiserca

It seems that Mayoral candidate Jane Pitfield has been caught borrowing ideas, without any credit, from the Spacing Votes web page. On her "blog" she "reports" that:

David Miller made a thin promise yesterday -- $28 million to Toronto's 13 distressed neighbourhoods, spread over four years. That works out to be just over $500,000 per neighbourhood per year -- a bit less than what the city's works department requested last winter to hire six new enforcement officers. In fact, the annual cost of Miller's new program adds up to just 0.1% of the city's total spending. This amounts to very little for at-risk youth. Municipal spending alone won't solve the problems for young people growing up in distressed neighbourhoods. These steps won't do much other than generate a few more summer jobs.

But wait a minute, that sounds a lot like what John Lorinc wrote for Spacing on Oct 6. See for yourself:

What have you done to clean up the streets lately?
I saw this man on Queen yesterday and had to stop him for a photo. He tells me that I'm not the first one to do so and I'm not surprised. It says a lot for the public mindset that when we see someone on the street actually doing some good, that we find it so shocking and so out of the ordinary that it deserves a photo.

Apparently though, he's been getting great reactions. "It's so much nicer. You just pick up a bag and some gloves and go," he tells me. "People appreciate it more than someone with their hand out." And I think it shows thought, appealing to a widely perceived need to clean up our streets. More importantly -- and why it works in getting him money -- it demands respect from fellow citizens.

A big problem facing the homeless today is a general lack of respect shown towards them. People often ignore the ones asking them for spare change, as if no one had said anything at all. Being thousands of dollars in debt, I can't spare money as often as I would like, but I always respond. By the "take cares" and "have a nice days" that I get, I can tell that my response -- a response -- isn't what they usually hear.

Being able to drop a buck-twenty on lunch is a debt-encrusted student's wet dream. So it's really nice when said lunch is actually something you would have eaten anyway. Enter the Chinese pastery shops.

When I discovered Yung Sing Pastery Shop, I thought I had hit the jackpot. It had history, it was family owned, cheap as hell, and most important to me, busy. Reviews from the likes of Joanne Kates (and now me) line the wall and date back decades. Life was good.

Then I discovered the trashier Furama Cake & Desserts Garden, right on Spadina. If Yung Sing was the authentic greasy spoon of the Chinese bun world, this was it's McDonalds. Buns with ham, chedder and mayo were McTastic compared to the more traditional offerings from Yung Sing. This was my pick only when I was in the area though, as the $.20 difference in price was clearly not worth the drop in quality. But there's a new contender in the love-(and sometimes meat)-filled Chinese bun game in Toronto: Dong Dong Pastries and Cafe.