There are party crashers, and then there are protesters who show up to the city's New Year's Levee to rally against funding cuts in front of the host, Rob Ford. A small group of protesters showed up to the Monday afternoon event with balloons tied to a banner reading, "Stop the cuts," which was also, coincidentally, their chant. The banner was taken away, the chanting stopped, and one man was taken into a nearby security office. No one was arrested or charged.

Although we're already a few days into 2012, being the first official day of work, it's probably worth revisiting this article from the The National Post in which local personalities suggest new year's resolutions they'd like to see the city adopt. Not surprisingly, Gary Taxali, an artist, wants to see more art, and Cory Freedman, founder of Toronto Women's Run, wants the city to have better infrastructure to support those who lead an active lifestyle. Local musician Damian Abraham's wish? "To make it mandatory for the mayor to take public transit to and from work every day."

In the Toronto Standard's recent "Made in Toronto" series, we meet Don Taylor, a bookbinder. With e-books now all the rage and libraries facing an cutbacks, bookbinding would seem like a dying art, but that's just not the case. In fact, it's very much in demand with Taylor playing the good doctor who stitches up texts with some TLC.

No surprises here: the City's issued an extreme cold weather alert for today. So how cold is it out there? How about -27 C frickin'-cold-temperatures (factoring in that pesky and controversial wind chill)? It's the coldest day we've had so far this season, so you know it's going to feel even extra colder than it is (though that's pretty darn cold). And please, feel free to complain about the cold weather and winter. We Torontonians never tire of that, right?

And as someone who seems always to report that one of our beloved sports teams lost their game (literally, though maybe figuratively too), it's refreshing to report that the Raptors actually won against the New York Knicks last night.

From the weekend:

• Scott headed to Woodbine Beach to capture the bravery of those doing the annual Polar Bear Dip
• Libby checked out the Miller Tavern (ambience good, prices/portions not so much)
• We revealed our 20 most-read posts from 2011 (almost 35 million page views last year!)
• Keith put together a preview of the Next Stage Theatre Festival
• Dust off those skates! Here's where to play shiny this winter
• And lastly, Michael gave us the lowdown on comedy shows worth checking out this week

Photo by Jonathan Castellino in the blogTO Flickr pool