This photograph is a pretty accurate depiction of what I actually looked like when Canada won the gold. This is saying a lot since, I don’t normally get into sports, nor even like hockey for that matter – I find it too chaotic, and rushed. Soccer (football) is more calculated, I feel like its more of a strategical game than ‘lets throw our bodies, sticks, arms, legs in the path of the puck, and hope it goes into the net’.

In the end, I got pretty into the whole Olympic spirit. I watched way too much sports, and even a couple times, watched it online at the office. I only regret missing the biathlon – something about skiing and shooting rifles just seems right to me

In the end, Canada beat the record for “Most gold medals at any winter Olympics” with 14. The crowning achievement was the hockey game between Canada/USA. When we finally won – lets just say the American players didn’t look too happy. After that – there were some pretty funny comments on Twitter & Facebook – but the one I loved the most was last night. I was watching TV and my housemate had Entertainment Tonight on. They did a quick segment on the olympics, and finished it off by saying “USA wanted to win the gold, but Canada had to” – *insert sarcastic crybaby emoticon here*

On Sunday afternoon I had just gotten off the bus at Queen and Carlaw. I had waited for the light to change so that I would have the proper signal to walk, and cross the street safely. The bus I just got off was waiting there at the corner as well.

About half way across the street, just about in the middle of the road, all of a sudden to my left, a cyclist came speeding out of nowhere, nearly missing me, about 1 foot in front of me. He turned right (heading west) along queen. He basically crossed over the cross walk for pedestrians (there were about 4 people there crossing), nearly missing at least 2 of us and continued on his way. I was a little more than annoyed that he almost ran into me (I was carrying some expensive music gear) and yelled “What the fuck!” – expecting he was probably going to ignore me, I kept walking east.

Then about 10 feet after I had crossed the road, he came up beside me and started grilling me about yelling at him. I told him that he almost hit me and the other people that were crossing the sidewalk (who had the right of way). He replied with “well, I actually only almost hit you”. I asked him if he knew the rules for cyclists, and he just said yes I know the laws. So I told him that he’s a vehicle, pointing out the fact that he crossed the cross walk at a dangerous speed, and nearly drove into me. He asked me if I knew the rules.

My point is, his ignorance really pissed me off. I have a great respect for cyclists, its dangerous riding on the roads, and they seem to do a pretty good job about it, despite in most cases, not having proper cycling lanes. I also respect them for taking a lot of flack lately, and fighting back about not being given proper consideration on the road. However, I believe that the inconsistant number of cyclists on the road who follow the rules, and don’t follow the rules will be the downfall of the whole ‘Cyclists are equal’ movement in Toronto. These people who don’t follow the rules are making it dangerous for themselves, and pedestrians – who probably aren’t wearing safety gear.

Protesters stop traffic at Younge and Dundas in Toronto, in front of the Eaton Centre

I was downtown last night about go to see my bandmate Ben Keith go play a show not too far from the Eaton Centre. It was a pretty nice night, so I decided to walk from my apartment at Bloor and Spadina down to the area he was playing at.

Coming down Younge St, there was a huge ruckus – More Tamil protests.

If you’re reading this, you’ve probably already seen the video, and pictures of their group of people running up the Spadina rd, Gardener exit, and then right into oncoming traffic on the Gardner Freeway – all during rush hour in downtown Toronto.

I believe that these people have a right to be protesting, and in fact are doing a great job at it. They’ve reached the point of causing the regular joe a bit of a headache, enough to make them stop and think, and maybe go onto the ‘internets’ and research a bit about what they’re complaining about.

citynews.ca

Nearly 4,000 civilians (in Sri Lanka) have been forced to flee over the past few days as the fighting moves closer. It’s estimated some 200,000 people are waiting out the war in crowded displacement camps.

Please do yourself a favor, and before you start complaining about minor inconveniences that these protesters are causing, do a quick google search, and learn something about their cause.