Toronto Then and Now

alad1n's awesome Flickr set

Click here to Fly Greek

(Thanks Anna)

"WHITTIER, Calif. - The woman who gave birth to octuplets this week has six other children and never expected to have eight more when she took fertility treatment, her mother said".

... and she's a single mom living with her parents.

"...singing O Canada is no longer a daily morning event at Belleisle Elementary. The school's principal has dropped it in response to concerns from other parents."

...I get why people are enraged.

It's the whole tail "wagging the dog" syndrome.
Why should a few parents dictate?
...and where are children supposed to learn the National Anthem anyway, if it's not going to be at school?

This is one of my pet peeves.
This country deserves some respect from it's residents.
Can we not stand up for the National Anthem?

Apparently, we can't stand up collectively for anything anymore.

It didn't take long...

UNITED FRONT: The controversy surrounding Michelle Obama’s decision not to wear any clothing by an African-American designer during last week’s inaugural festivities continued to swirl Monday, after such media personalities as CNN’s Wolf Blitzer and Matt Drudge picked up the story.

"We live in an amazing, amazing world, and it's wasted on the crappiest generation of spoiled idiots."



Found at Usually Barefoot Meg

"If someone can't keep up his payments on a $100,000 debt and then buys a package tour to Thailand ... that's not just illegal, it's immoral," he told a briefing in Moscow.

You're not keeping up on your debts in Russia?
Don't think you're going to take a vacation....

Bush's LOL Letter to Obama:



Thank you Blame it on the Voices.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali with Avi Lewis


(found at Cynical-C)

I loved Ali's parting comment to Avi:

"I have lived in countries with no democracy, I don't find myself with the same luxuries as you. You grew up in freedom and you can spit on freedom because you don't know what it is not to have freedom. I haven't. I know there are many things wrong with America, and many things wrong with Americans, but I still think it's the best nation in the world."

Worth 1000's "You are what you eat photo contest"

(found at J-Walk Blog)

Stacerella reminded me that it's the 36th anniversary of Wade vs Roe.

It has been since 1973 (in the states) and 1969 in Canada (thanks to Trudeau) that women could get off the kitchen table and into a clean clinic run by professional Doctors to terminate an unwanted pregnancy.

...I accidentally saw this video on YouTube of someone asking ProLifers if abortion should be illegal again, and if the women getting the abortions should be punished.

I was surprised how many of them answered..or rather, didn't really answer...you'd think that people who believe something with such conviction would think about that.

Interesting.

Watch the video:



(video found at Blame it on the Voices)

Visual Poetry from:

The Drifter and the Gypsy

David Douglas Duncan's
Picasso Photo Essay

(From Uncertain Times)

Hendrik Kerstens

These photos using household objects make the subjects look a little like paintings from a century ago.

Repost and Comparison

A couple of years ago, I posted this video called Skinny by lo-rider...



...and someone led me to the original idea from Benny Benassi - Satisfaction



I always meant to post them next to each other, but then forgot about it.
But I saw Satisfaction on One more time, with feeling! and remembered.

Gigapixel Inauguration

A gigapixel panorama of the inauguration that you can zoom in and control like it’s a google map....click here...it really is amazing.

Found at Cynical-C

John Cleese's fake 27 year old girlfriend.

"The Daily Mail has learned that, despite Miss Orr's claims that she is only 27, she has been more than a touch economical with the truth.

Records obtained in the US suggest that she has knocked an impressive 18 years off her age and is in fact 45.

Nor would it seem that Barbie is her real name. Until she set her cap at Hollywood fame, she was known by the decidedly less showbizzy moniker of Kristine Reinhard.

Records show she was born in New York in 1964 - although she gives her birth date as 1981 on her official website.

A friend of Cleese said: 'It's all very embarrassing for John. He's a proud man, but he is also a sucker for a pretty face. I think a few of his braver friends have warned him to be careful, because nobody wants to see him being made to look silly.'"

You know, I can't decide whether 27 in the new 45 or 45 is the new 27.

"Barbie" in no way looks believably 27 to me...but to be honest, lots of 27 year olds look 45 these days.

*shrug*

Plastic Hell

Click here for more Russian plastic surgery hell from English Russia.

NSFW



I posted this about 8 years ago...but, it never fails to make me laugh.

From BlogTO

31 celebrity
drunks of the day

(Click on image for more "sleevefaces".

I know I've posted these before, but...I never get tired of them.

(Link via List of the Day)

Emo Phillips has a daughter...who knew?

U.S. Inauguration "Burek Obema" from Yankee in Belgrade

Farewell...



WASHINGTON -- About 20 people have protested the war in Iraq by tossing shoes at a fellow demonstrator wearing a prison uniform and mask of President George W. Bush outside the White House.

The group yelled, "This is a goodbye kiss from the people of America!" They also arranged along a curb about 120 pairs of shoes tagged with the names of Iraqis who have died as a result of the war.

T-Mobile Dance in Liverpool Station



(Found at YesButNoButYes)

Vintage House for Sale

"This awesome 50's bungalow, located on a quiet, cul-de-sac street on the Hill, has seriously never been lived in... at least on the main level. This ONE-OWNER home was resided only in the lower level during their stay here, so the main level has been frozen in time and perfectly preserved."

Click on image for a virtual tour.

I'll bet the owners are European.
Decorate a whole house and live in the basement.
Classic.

(found at J-Walk Blog)

Are you kidding me?

A town in Mississippi still has segregated proms?

"Just one more reason to love the great Morgan Freeman: the actor donated $17,000 to his local high school in Charleston, Mississippi, so that the high school students could finally hold their first integrated prom."



(Found at Jezebel)

John Moore: Good riddance to Bye-Bye

I listen to John Moore most nights on my drive home, and heard him speak about the article he wrote on Quebec's New Year's traditional television celebrations.

John Moore is an ex-Quebecor and shares my distaste for Quebec humour.

I remember a friend and I going to Montreal for the first "Juste pour rire" (Just for Laughs) Festival. Back then, the festival was quite different. Not so much about stand up comedy, more of the street/mime/tricks/jackass type of comedy that I can't stand.
The Just for Laughs Festival has evolved quite nicely after it was invaded, and taken over by non-Quebecors in it's content.

Quebec comedy, for me has that distasteful European racist/sexist edge.
That laughing at you rather than with you feel, ridiculing and often an unfunny, unclever opportunity to reveal aversion to women and foreigners...I don't care for that kind of comedy.

A lot of European comedy is like this, and sometimes even when I watch Serbian comedy, I cringe at some of the things that are considered funny. It's a cultural difference I suppose, and one of the things that solidifies my "Canadian-ness".

But, that's only marginally what his article is about.

I think the article really reveals the small-mindedness, and freedom to say and do inappropriate things in a society that separates itself from the rest of a country.

But the evening’s most noxious moment came in a parody of former pop idol Nathalie Simard. The show mocked her for giving interviews in spite of having quit Quebec some time ago, insisting that she was seeking anonymity. The concept might have been funny had not Simard left the province after she finally broke her silence about the man who serially raped her when she was a teenager. It gets worse. That man is Guy Cloutier: the father of Véronique Cloutier, who produced the TV show.

and then...

Cloutier and her husband, the nominally funny Louis Morissette, declined to take any questions at the press conference. Their mea culpa amounted to the standard-issue apology people offer these days. Something like: If anyone was offended, then I guess we’re sorry. Now f--k off.

Indeed, it’s a setback for the population as a whole. In its unabashed racism, vindictiveness and infantile tone, the show laid bare a cultural fault line that should bring shame to any of us who call ourselves Quebecers.

A wide swath of the population has vigourously denounced the broadcast.

Quebec attitudes seem to be changing...Bye Bye is right.

Maybe there will be a flurry of posts today.

...I'm home because of the blackout today.

Virtual Tour of Air Force One

(found at A Welsh View)

One more....Like_youknow...

The Impotence of of Proofreading




...and that's posted by someone who is guilty of not proofreading a lot of stuff on this blog...

(Found at Grow a Brain)

First Day Baby Expressions



Click on image for more

(found at J-Walk Blog)

Whorette's Syndrome.

If you're a woman...Don't ask.
Just go and read it.

You know her...if you don't know her, you are her.

Click on photo for Kevin Steele's Flickr set of Queen West in Toronto.

Obama's Press person shows us that she/he is a genius (again).

"Next Tuesday, Barack Obama will be sworn in as our 44th President. On this historic occasion, PARADE asked the President-elect, who is also a devoted family man, to get personal and tell us what he wants for his children. Here, he shares his letter to them".

Honestly.
Next to Michelle wearing J. Crew on election night, this shit is sheer brilliance.

Inauguration of President-Elect Obama : White people, stay home.

I'm hoping that the above entry is meant to be funny, and witty (even though it's neither).

We have friends going (they're black, so apparently..it's ok)...which, given the historical nature of this election gives them a pass for insisting on being present for the swearing in of an American President.
Even though our friends are Canadian...and even though Obama has already stated that his first foreign visit will probably be to Ottawa.

One thing is for sure though, Obama's election has done nothing for the state of affairs where racism is concerned.

25 Classic Monologues in Film

Goodwill Hunting:
Sean: So if I asked you about art you’d probably give me the skinny on every art book ever written...Michelangelo? You know a lot about him. Life's work, political aspirations, him and the pope, sexual orientation, the whole works, right? But I bet you can't tell me what it smells like in the Sistine Chapel. You've never actually stood there and looked up at that beautiful ceiling. Seen that.....If I asked you about women you'd probably give me a syllabus of your personal favorites. You may have even been laid a few times. But you can't tell me what it feels like to wake up next to a woman and feel truly happy. You're a tough kid. I ask you about war, and you'd probably--uh--throw Shakespeare at me, right? "Once more into the breach, dear friends." But you've never been near one. You've never held your best friend's head in your lap and watched him gasp his last breath, looking to you for help. And if I asked you about love y'probably quote me a sonnet. But you've never looked at a woman and been totally vulnerable. Known someone could level you with her eyes. Feeling like! God put an angel on earth just for you...who could rescue you from the depths of hell. And you wouldn't know what it’s like to be her angel and to have that love for her to be there forever. Through anything. Through cancer. You wouldn't know about sleeping sittin’ up in a hospital room for two months holding her hand because the doctors could see in your eyes that the term visiting hours don't apply to you. You don't know about real loss, because that only occurs when you love something more than you love yourself. I doubt you've ever dared to love anybody that much. I look at you; I don't see an intelligent, confident man; I see a cocky, scared shitless kid. But you're a genius, Will. No one denies that. No one could possibly understand the depths of you. But you presume to know everything about me because you saw a painting of mine and you ripped my fuckin' life apart. You're an orphan right? Do you think I'd know the first thing about how hard ! your life has been, how you feel, who you are because I read Oliver Twist? Does that encapsulate you? Personally, I don't give a shit about all that, because you know what? I can't learn anything from you I can't read in some fuckin' book. Unless you wanna talk about you, who you are. And I'm fascinated. I'm in. But you don't wanna do that, do you, sport? You're terrified of what you might say. Your move, chief.

There are obviously quite a few missing.

From Mystery Man on Film via Cynical-C

Yusuf Karsh



I love Karsh's photography...I love his face.
He had kind and sympathetic eyes...

(Click on the self-portrait of Karsh for more of his photos.)

...and speaking of famous Canadian Immigrant Photographers...let's look at Boris Spremo

Serbian Canadian Photographer.

I love A Yankee in Belgrade's photos.
There's a sentimental and lovely quality to her observational photography.

She had me at her tag:

"I'm an American woman married to a Serb, who's lived and worked in Belgrade for over 30 years. I've come to love the people along with all their idiosyncracies, and hope that you'll learn something more about Belgrade and Serbia other than what the media would always like you to believe."

The Problem with Hotel Soap.

Click on the photo to read letters about an incident at a
London hotel and one of it’s guests.

The hotel ended up submitting the letters to the London Sunday Times!

I couldn't help but laugh when I found this...

Matrioshka Russian dolls created for Vogue Russia's 10th anniversary

Very nice...

People who deserve it:

A punch, that is....

For example:

The Loser Who Laments About Turning 25

With all the bills, disease, and global warming floating around, life can be tough. But for “Loser Who Laments About Turning 25” all is trumped by the impending halfway to fifty mark.
Even as he thumbs through the wads of disposable income that accompanies a full time job and no dependents, he grieves for his lost youth.
Should you catch “Loser Who Laments About Turning 25” crying over his candles, politely remind him that some people have real problems, one face punch at a time.

(Found at J-Walk Blog)

One Love - International Version (Playing for Change)



and...

Stand by Me (same idea)

I've never heard of Portishead...but, this video and song are hypnotizing....in a retro way.

Kids Who Smoke: A Pictorial

Found at Squandrous

Is it really 2009?

Roissy in DC helps men identify sluts.

I don't know where to start on this festival of misogyny.

See?
This is what happens when girls go to clubs and pathetically vie for male attention...or behave like men do when it comes to sex.

A percentage of women do it, and next thing you know...dudes like this think that most women are whores...(the comments are just as bad).

Some of the "tips" have a grain of merit, but taken to the ridiculous...most are outrageous...and finally, racist.

I think this guy's mom must have really effed him up.

Either way, I don't want this jackass on the jury of a rape case.

(Found at Jezebel)

Far Side Reenactments on Flickr

10 Optical Illusions in 2 Minutes

Classy



More dumb ass tattoos here.


Found at Asylum

Techno Baba!

I didn't immediately get this...I'm surprised Fox News screeners allowed the racist message to make it through on New Year's Eve.

(Found via Cynical-C)

I've been waiting for this to happen.

If you ask me, it's about time.

Hilarious and crazy signage from Dark Roasted Blend.

(Click on image for more)

Stunning Photos of Belgrade, Serbia.



Click on image for Katarina's Flickr set.

(Found at A Welsh View)

Stef Kardos uses an app on her iPhone to make quick 5-10 minute sketches.

Click on the image for more.

P.S.:Happy New Year!