We usually talk about the weather to fill uncomfortable voids in conversation with people we barely know, but everyone is now abuzz about the weirdness of it all. It's shaping up to be another record-breaking scorcher of a day. The forecast for Toronto this late-May day is pretty much the same as it is in Hawaii, with meteorologists calling for a high of 32oC before the Humidex. The record to beat is 30.6oC, which was set back in 1944.

Did you know that if you close your gas barbecue lid too soon after using it, you up the risk of having a propane explosion? Apparently a fire in the Bathurst and St. Clair area was caused by this very practice just last night. With the warmer weather upon us, perhaps it's time for a refresher on barbecue safety.

A pilot and passenger are dead after a small plane crash-landed on top of a small office building in Markham, not far from Buttonville Airport. Witnesses observed the four-seater Cessna smoking and rolling before it plummeted onto the roof and burst into a ball of fire.

An ongoing political/semantics battle between Queers Against Israeli Apartheid (QuAIA) and Pride organizers seems to be creating a rift in the community and may also be putting a damper on sign-ups for this year's festival. QuAIA has been officially told by Pride that in order to march in the annual Pride parade this summer, they'll have to drop their controversial name, but QuAIA insists that they'll be there and be there by no other name. This whole fiasco is hard to easily sort out, because while the festival aims to embrace inclusiveness, it isn't really supposed to be about protesting international ethnic and religious conflict. Or is it?

Security costs for the upcoming G8 and G20 summits in Ontario are going to cost taxpayers close to $1-billion when it's all said and done. To put things into perspective and allow us to assess the value in this spending decision, here's what $1B can buy:
- 25% of the delayed funds for Transit City (i.e. much of an entire LRT line)
- 1.3 months' worth of all operating costs for all services for the entire City of Toronto
- 200 street vendor hot dogs for every Torontonian
I don't know about you, but I'd rather have the street meat, paid out in a lump sum.

Photo: "the little red book is a helluva read" by Johanna Hoffmann, member of the blogTO Flickr pool.