It's an important week for the Ford brothers, and I'm not even referring to the upcoming council debate. This morning Rob Ford will hit the scale in launch of the new weight-loss initiative, Cut The Waist Challenge, in which they're encouraging other Torontonians and other cities across the country to join them in a friendly competition to shed extra poundage, sort of like the Biggest Loser & mdash; except instead of winning a car for our efforts, we lose city services. But we'll look good. Yay.

Speaking of cutting services, the Globe reports that the Ford team is in scramble mode leading up to the three-day city council meeting regarding the 2012 Toronto budget. The fear is that so-called mushy middle on council may thwart a number of the cuts still on the table. We'll see...

Given that "Toronto is like New York but without all the stuff," the Post suggests we should take a page out of New York's tour guide and start promoting our city like the Big Apple. For starters: drop the corny slogans, enlist our local celebs, and be proud of Toronto, goddamnit!

What's a standard restaurant tip in Toronto? 15 per cent? According to a recent article in the Star, some establishments are nudging diners to consider 20 per cent the new norm. Should there even be a norm or should tipping necessarily be done only on a case by case basis?

If you ever wondered what it would be like to play one of those knights at Medieval Times, OpenFile gets the low-down on the knighting - er, hiring - process. With first proving your worth as a squire, it seems like it's pretty close to the real thing. Except for the WWE-like jousting, of course.

From the weekend:

• Derek talked with photographer Patrick Cummins who's been documenting Toronto's vernacular architecture for 30 years
• Kevin and Michael rounded up what's trending right now in theatre and comedy
• And our music writers took in shows by Rich Aucoin and Elk.

Photo by Marcandadian in the blogTO Flickr pool