Photo: "27 Shopping Days Left..." by chewie2008~, member of the blogTO Flickr pool.

What's happening in the GTA (and sometimes beyond):

The strike that has kept students out of the classroom for a month (and counting) at York University is wearing their patience thin. Student protests at Queen's Park yesterday aimed to put pressure on the government to force union members back to work, and also resulted in a news article that started with a cute poem.

If you live in Toronto's east end Beach neighbourhood, do yourselves a favour and lock your windows and doors - at least until the serial burglar (who has entered over 40 homes in less than a month) is apprehended. He might be the one who in the middle of the night helped himself to your neighbour's honey almond muesli and he might also be the one who stuck a knife in someone's abdomen.

While it likely has come far too late, the residents on the now narrower Lansdowne Avenue finally had their chance to have a public meeting with city councillor Adam Giambrone, who apparently was subjected to a virtual group spank down. People are still not happy about how the road work has changed their street, and apparently Giambrone still needed a police escort to the meeting, as precaution.

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On Monday, tragedy struck a family in Woodstock, Ontario. A mother is clinging to her life, while the rest of her family have already succumb to the silent killer that is carbon monoxide. If you or your loved ones don't have a CO detector, perhaps one would make for a better Christmas present than anything else.

Research, student aid, and faculty posts took a hit at the University of Toronto. The message has now been delivered to its staff and students - the $62-million in endowment funds that were raised during good times are no longer available since bad times have now struck.

And it's official - plastic bags at retails store in Toronto will cost consumers 5 cents a pop come June 2009. I'm going to take the thousands of bags stored in the cupboard beneath my kitchen sink, and set up a shop on the street, selling them for 3 cents. Yeah, that'll show them! :P