Random Wanderings and Wonderings
…I still think that my transportation-related carbon footprint is slightly lower than yours, even though my bike is at least partially meat-powered. Also, it’s bad enough that I have to compete for space on the road with two-tonne metal and glass beasts, but now I have to compete with them for food too? Go back to (non-vegetable) oil and stop kidding yourself that you’re doing something noble.
Sculpture of Robert Holmes—the “Foremost Painter of Canadian Wild Flowers”—by John Byers in the Guild Inn Gardens and Jack Layton. Can you tell the difference?
It seems that people have always named their kids after the celebrities of the day. The impulse is represented by thousands of young Britneys and Lindsays today, but celebrity was a different beast in the past. Take, for example, the list of candidates in the riding of York North for 1921, each named after a famous predecessor. But instead of teenybopper celebrities, their namesakes were a rebel (and grandfather), a prime minister, and a philosopher.
Unrelated: Speaking of Britneys, if you search for ‘spears’ while assembling information for a quick post about a mostly-unrelated topic (because you know that you’d never search for it otherwise), Google is a little too helpful.
Must’ve been a wild night.
The people in suite 536 occasionally leave notes to the cleaning crew, usually sticking to a consistent theme. But every once in a while, for reasons yet unknown, they change their minds.
Hmm. It’s been a week and a half since the federal election was called and just five days remain before nominations close, and so far no candidates in Toronto-Danforth (including NDP leader Jack Layton) have managed to scrape together the 100 signatures required to submit their nomination papers. Who will be the first? It could be you.
Update: The Green Party’s Sharon Howarth just became the first to crack the list. The rest of you were a little too slow on the draw.
What kind of person do you suppose drives this car: gardener, l33t h4X0r, or Australian lothario? You be the judge.
With the new Batman movie, The Dark Knight, opening today, and traffic to my own Dark Knight page skyrocketing over the last week, now would be a good time to ponder a question that’s vexed my curious mind for some 30 years now: would The Girdler be a better name for a superhero or supervillain? And in either case, what would his superpower be? And who would be his nemesis?
According to the Girdler Family web site, the Girdler name—like Cooper, Miller, and Smith—originates with a profession: a girdle maker, in this case. The girdles in question more resemble belts than the modern Playtex variety, though.
If you look closely at the advisory signs when you enter Mount Pleasant Cemetery, you may notice something peculiar: a reasonable speed limit of 30 km/h for cars and just 10 km/h for bicycles. Not only that, but while drivers are helpfully advised to lock their unattended cars, cyclists are warned—twice!—that their speed limit is “strictly enforced,” and that it is to “ensure the safety and respect of those visiting the cemetery.” Apparently, a bike at 15 km/h is more disturbing and dangerous than a car travelling twice that speed.
What makes this a silly restriction is not so much the different speed limits or the extra warnings for cyclists, but the ludicrously slow speed cyclists are supposed to maintain. I did try riding at 10km/h through the cemetery one day; it’s a very difficult speed to maintain. I was passed by several non-Roger-Bannister-like joggers who were bouncing along at, by rough estimate, about 12 km/h. My more typical leisurely pace through these paths is around 20 km/h.
As for being strictly enforced, none of the cemetery employees I encounter (including security) on my daily commutes ever do more than wave and smile as I fly recklessly past them at twice the limit. Either no one knows how slow 10 km/h really is or they think it’s as silly as I do.
Still, cyclists have it better than inline skaters; they’re not allowed in the cemetery at all.
As you can see by the long lineups at each photo area, the vastly different vistas at each were quite popular with both photographers and spectators.
These were set up near the rest area at the end of today’s Ride for Heart (more about that shortly). No, I don’t know why. I think I’ll file this one in my photo archives under “telling people what to do for no good reason.”