Random Wanderings and Wonderings
Along the Finch hydro corridor, these signs warn cyclists of an 80% grade hill coming up:
That’s one steep hill!
Wait a second, that can’t be right. That’s looks like they’re warning you that path goes straight down the face of the Scarborough Bluffs. But I just rode up this hill and I’m sure I would have remembered if it had actually been that steep. Let’s try a little head tilt:
Yeah, that’s more like it. Toronto signs, the latest in a continuing series.
Miniature roadside sign
A small roadside sign gives visitors fair warning: there’s art happening somewhere up ahead. A number of these led to a garden art show just down the street from East Dodgeville last summer.
Can’t argue with that.
(Seen on Danforth.)
(Allegedly.)
Who am I to argue?
Or as we say in English, “Ripe avocados.”
Increasingly, supermarkets are ripening my fruit for me. Tomatoes are vine-ripened, peaches and nectarines are tree-ripened, and now avocados at Sobeys are, uh, pre-ripened, as if they’re doing me some kind of favour. It’s funny how only avocados get this odd notation. Mind you, I’m sure that the “pre-ripened” sign will result in more sales than the equivalent “50% reduced for quick sale” over at Loblaws. The wonders of marketing: convincing you that they’re doing something revolutionary while selling you the same thing you’ve always been buying. Of course, the downside to this wonderful new pre-ripening service is that I now have to go to separate bins to buy avocados for today and Sunday.
Meanwhile, I’m still ripening all of my pears and bananas on my own. I feel that Sobeys just isn’t doing enough to meet my pre-ripened fruit needs.
Bails of hay can be neutralized by pales of water.
Oh, Longo’s. I had such high hopes when you moved into my extended neighbourhood that you’d be less careless with your spelling than the local Sobeys and Loblaws. I guess I’ll have to settle for fresher produce if I can’t have better spelling.
Not only does this cyclist exhibit some seriously flawed technique, but he’s suffering a major mechanical malfunction too: those shattered rods flying in front of him must be the missing top tube and chainstays from his bike. The perils of crappy carbon frames.
Also, I notice that Mr. Stickman is carrying a few extra pounds:
Poor Mr. Stickman. He’s out for his first (and likely only) spin around the block this year, just trying to work off his winter fifteen and disaster strikes! I’m not even going to try to figure out what happened to his feet.
Where to go when you need to go.
The best thing about this sign tacked up to a post by one of my neighbours isn’t that it continues the local tradition of telling dogs where to go or that it’s bilingual (for French poodles, natch) or that it carries itself like an actual official notice. No, the best thing about this sign tacked up to a post by one of my neighbours is that it points to his neighbour’s driveway and away from his own garden. Release the hounds!
Markham sets down the rules about park befoulment.
Oh, Markham. I can’t even count the ways I love this sign. Start with the peculiar wording (“It is prohibited to allow”), work in an odd euphemism (“befoul”), continue with a parenthetical plea for cooperation, and wrap it up by citing a long-obsoleted by-law. And if that wasn’t enough, you top it all off with “Markham” written in that 3D typeface straight out of the ’80s. That’s a whole lot of awesome packed into a simple “stoop and scoop” sign.
It’s a pretty remarkable coincidence that just a few steps from Todmorden Road in Todmorden Mills in the Todmorden neighbourhood of East York—all of which were named after Todmorden, England—is a pumping station named after someone called Todd Morden:
Now you might think that this is just another careless spelling error, but Google tells me that there really is a Todd Morden, and he’s this guy:
Google can’t tell me why he has a pumping station named after him, but I’m sure he deserves it.
And just in case you still think it’s merely a spelling error, I can assure you that although there is a Todmorden Mills pumping station, it’s a completely separate facility. In yet another remarkable coincidence, the two pumping stations share a single cabinet:
Mind you, I’m just assuming that these are two separate facilities and that surely the City of Toronto wouldn’t misspell the name of one of its heritage properties on a prominent sign inside that property. And surely workers tacking up the sign would have sent it back to the sign shop with a note as soon as they noticed the error, instead of just blindly posting it. Right?