Category: faces

Maybe I’ve been watching too many movies lately, but I swear that my well-worn bike seat is beginning to resemble something you’d find hitching a ride on the Nostromo.

This figure emerges from the lower part of a dead tree inside the hyena enclosure at the Toronto Zoo. From my vantage point, it was impossible to tell for certain whether the figure—or the entire tree, for that matter—was natural or artificial. The resemblance to the nearby residents was so striking that I have to think it was constructed as something of a visual joke. If it’s a natural formation, it’s a remarkable coincidence.

This TTC schedule board (the same one that was put to different use on Torontoist yesterday) smiles at me every morning when I cycle past on my way to the office. Everyone else along the way looks pretty grumpy.

I don’t understand why the mounting bracket of my new Cateye Strada Cadence bike computer looks so sad. Cheer up pal, you’ll get to tag along on rides to many interesting places every week.

These houses quite literally look over the Gardiner Expressway from near The Queensway and Windermere. Just try to get a picture of them without being in a moving vehicle.

I rode my bike into this development a few weeks ago to get a picture and was surprised to find that only the houses that back onto the Gardiner have this particular arrangement of windows and rooflines; other similar houses that back into the interior of the development or onto The Queensway lack both the proper eye placement and distinctive eyebrows. These faces are mostly hidden from the view of passersby on Lake Shore Boulevard or the Martin Goodman Trail; you have to be on the Gardiner or a GO or VIA train to get the proper effect. When I first noticed these houses a couple of years ago, I was uncertain about whether the eye pattern was intentional or not, but now I’m fairly sure that it was a deliberate design choice.

I took this picture during last weekend’s Ride for Heart. One completely false rumour has it that I signed up for the 75 km course solely because the route took me to just the right spot on the Gardiner to pull over and snap off a couple of quick shots.

This is one of the steps in the Vale of Avoca coming out of the ravine up to David Balfour Park.

I almost felt guilty eating this watermelon last fall after noticing him staring up at me from the cutting board. Let this be a warning to vegetarians who say that they won’t eat food that had a face: by that measure, fruit isn’t necessarily safe.

I’ll add that this was by far the best watermelon I’d had in years: fresh, sweet, and dripping with juice the way I remember them being when I was a kid. It also had a zillion seeds and was grown right here in Ontario. After eating this beauty, I vowed never to buy another non-local, out-of-season watermelon again. I’ll even put up with all of the seeds if that’s what it takes to get a good, traditional melon instead of those bland, mealy-fleshed things that pass for melons in the supermarket.

I gave up on non-local strawberries years ago for the same reason: those enormous California berries look gorgeous and smell amazing, but taste like cardboard. What’s the point of having them year-round if they suck?