Thanks to the TTC strike, I didn't get very far from home this weekend. With High Park being situated just across the street, Kate and I used this break from our usual weekend shopping sprees to take in a little hanami. We weren't expecting to see much as the cherry trees didn't bloom until May 6th last year. Instead, we were pleasantly surprised to find them in full bloom as you can see in this photo:

Of course under the trees were lots of people sitting on tarps having picnics. Perhaps some of them were even having Sushi Picnics!

Ceder Fair, owner of roller coaster Mecca Cedar Point, bought my town's local theme park (and my former employer) Canada's Wonderland from the notoriously stingy Paramount Parks a couple of years ago. Ever since, roller coaster fans have been waiting with bated breath to see what big new rides the company would put in. The park has always had a nice assortment of rides and roller coasters, however the penny-pinchers at Paramount never would drop the kind of dough it takes to build a really big, marque ride. Well the wait is almost over now as Wonderland has just completed construction and testing of the park's first hypercoaster, the awkwardly named "Behemoth". The press were invited to the park the other day for the big unveiling.

Videos:
Tom Brown Takes a Ride - CTVToronto.ca
A Blazing Roller Coaster - Toronto Star

Wonderland is pretty much the only place you can go in Toronto to ride roller coasters these days. The C.N.E. used to have The Flyer and Doppel Looping (or Double Looper as most people mistakenly called it) however they've been gone now for years. Since Wonderland is actually in the suburb of Maple, technically speaking Toronto no longer has any roller coasters today. As my dad likes to point out to me, there was a time when the Toronto lake shore was a lot more interesting than it is now. Before the Gardiner Expressway was built in the 50's, Sunnyside Beach Park sat just two blocks from the house I'm now living in. All that is left today is Sunnyside Pool and the Palais Royale. Thanks to the highway, roads, trains and streetcars, the spot the park once stood now has the distinction of being "The noisiest location in Ontario" according to Wikipedia.

In researching this story, I can't seem to find a definitive answer as to what the roller coaster at the Sunnyside amusement park was called, or what happened to it. Some articles indicate that it was called "The Flyer" and was moved to the C.N.E. after the park was closed down. The Toronto Star seems to think that it was called "The Rocket" and was simply torn down. They also claim that the C.N.E.'s Flyer was "built at the CNE for $200,000 in 1953 by Patty Conklin", which seems to imply it was not related to the Sunnyside Flyer in any way. This article provides the most detailed explanation of the history of Sunnyside's coaster, however it still left me confused as to how many "Flyer" coasters there were exactly. I get the impression that there may have in fact been three completely different Flyers built in the first half of the last century in Toronto. It seems like amusement park operators had just as hard a time coming up with decent names for their roller coasters back then as they do today.

So for several months now I've been hard at work building new local news websites for CTV affiliates across Canada. Our small team at CTV.ca has released in quick succession CTVBC.ca, CTVEdmonton.ca, CTVOttawa.ca and CTVWinnipeg.ca. To promote its new site, CTV BC is running a crazy ad campaign which you can see here, here and here. Today, finally, we re-launched CTV Toronto's website at CTVToronto.ca (formerly toronto.ctv.ca) using the new design. Please come by and check it out! I don't think CTV Toronto has any plans to make ads like the ones for BC, but they'll probably at least mention the new site on the news tomorrow night.

Link: http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/sport/wrestling/article808724.ece

This could be interesting. The Hulkster is apparently planning to start his own wrestling promotion to compete with the increasingly irrelevant WWE. The intriguing part is that he seems to want to move wrestling back to its glory days of larger-than-life caricatures and colorful costumes. I pretty much stopped watching WWE shows right around the time it lost its WWF name in 2002. Around that time they also lost most of their best starts including The Rock, Steve Austin and Mick Foley. All that's left now is a roster of indistinguishable 'roided-up muscle-heads in black tights lacking any discernable gimmicks or personality, and equally dull bimbos called "Divas" that do nothing but stand around in their underwear.

Still, even during these dark days, you can always count on occasional short moments of greatness. Now with the passing of the Fabulous Moulah, these moments are becoming few and far between. There is however a bizarre story line going on right now that only Vince McMahon himself could have crafted. It involves a magical leprechaun named Hornswaggle who also happens to be Vince's illegitimate child. You can read all about it at Wrestlecrap.com. For me, Hornswaggle illustrates well the biggest hurdle Hulk Hogan has to overcome with his new wrestling show. Even in the WWE's darkest hour, you can still count on Vince McMahon to come up with something crazy and unpredictable. While I welcome the Hulkster's call for a return to gimmicks and colorful characters, I fear that Hogan just doesn't have what it takes to think-up the kind of strange and irreverent stuff that Vince loves to do. Anyway, I look forward to finding out just what Hulk has in store.

Kate and I just got ourselves this lovely house, and with it a whole lot of debt.

One thing I miss about my job in Japan is the omiyage table. Whenever Japanese workers go away on a trip somewhere they are expected to return to the office with snacks for their co-workers. Train stations in Japan always have omiyage boxes for sale, packed with individually wrapped snacks specific to that region. In Tokyo, the snack of choice is Tokyo Banana... a kind of banana flavored Twinkie. In Hokkaido its usually Shiroi Koibito cookies or mellon flavored something or other.

Anyway... a few weeks ago the grocery stores here in Toronto started to put bags of Halloween candy on sale. I realized that this was my chance to finally break out the internationalization skillz I learned on JET and put them to use. I went across the street to No-Frills and bought a ton of candy and dumped it on an unused desk. The CTV.ca Candy Corner was born. Maybe Halloween candy and omiyage aren't exactly identical, however the end results are... namely more tasty candy in my belly and happier, sugar loaded co-workers. I wasn't sure if the idea would fly or not, however I'm happy to report that folks have really taken to it. I soon became worried that our candy supplies would dry up in no time, however people have been good to contribute as much as they take. When The Verdict returned from hiatus last week I became somewhat concerned that our beloved candy corner would be pillaged by the show's staff. To my pleasant surprise they have instead contributed more than their fair share of candy, and host Paula Todd has been particularily generous. Thanks Verdict crew, and long live the Candy Corner!

Link: http://www.gtv.com/

I just noticed today that the domain GTV.com is being auctioned off. Starting bid: $55,000. Highest bid so far: $0. Get bidding folks! This offer expires August 31st.

As many of you know, I spent a good chunk of time in the first half of this decade trying to make a go of a little company known as GTV.com. GTV was kind of a YouTube/Instant Messaging start-up company I was involved with that had a lot of promise, but just never quite managed to get off the ground. Take a look at one of our classy pamphlets circa 2001:

Click for the full GTV Communicator PDF.

GTV.com had a lot of ups and downs over the years, but ultimately went nowhere for a variety of reasons I don't want to get into. I basically ended ties with GTV back in 2003 when I ran off to Japan in lieu of moving to Paraguay (long story). I'm not even sure who owns the company anymore or what became of my stake in it. Anyway, looks like the current owner is trying to cut his losses and dump the domain once and for all. Who will take it now? Google perhaps? One thing's for sure it won't be me.

To be honest, I wouldn't mind owning the GTV.com domain just for old time sake. From what I can tell $55,000 actually seems like a pretty good price for a three letter domain these days, but I think I'm done being burned by GTV so I won't be placing a bid. Besides, my loyalty now lies with another three letter domain... CTV.ca!

Not long ago I started a new job as a web producer with CTV, Canada's largest private TV network. My job is primarily to look after the toronto.ctv.ca website, but I also do lots of other stuff for them as well. While I have of course enjoyed "avoiding life" for the last few years, I'm affraid the time had to come for me to get back to work. Fortunately, I've found that this job actually suits my lifestyle quite well. The only real downside to the gig so far is the 1hr+ commute on the subway and RT each day to work. There is hope however... With CTV's recent acquisition of MuchMusic and the Chum/City building downtown there's a chance that my long commute out east to Scarberia each day will soon be replaced by a short commute to Queen and John. All I can do now is sit back and hope that the powers that be make the right decision. Wish me luck!

Link: http://torrentfreak.com/rogers-fighting-bittorrent-by-throttling-all-encrypted-transfers/

Sucks.

When I left for Japan 3 years ago Rogers seemed to be the best choice for Internet access in Canada. It was cheap, fast and unlike Bell there were no caps on how much bandwidth you could use each month. Now sadly the tables have turned and Rogers is the service that sucks. Not only are there silly bandwidth caps, but since 2005 Rogers has been secretly throttling down all BitTorrent traffic. Starting a few weeks ago they even began slowing all encryped data as well after BitTorrent users began encrypting data to get around the blockade. Apparently this move my Rogers was not done to punish movie pirates, but because the bandwidth being gobbled up by BitTorrent was interfering with Rogers new VOIP home phone service.

Last month I foolishly signed up for Rogers home phone and "Hi-Speed" internet service. I guess I should have done a little more research before signing up, but I never expected Rogers' quality of service to drop off so much over my short absence from this country. Like most people I presumed the use of the word "Hi" instead of "High" was just Rogers trying to sound hip, and not a sneaky attempt to get around its obligation to provide fast connection speeds. Now I'm stuck with near dial-up internet connection speeds, and I can't change ISPs without also changing my home phone service as well. As the bandwidth needs of consumers continues to grow every year I don't see how Rogers will be able to keep up if they are already at their capacity today. Unless cable internet ISPs like Rogers find a way to increase the bandwidth on their wires then it almost seems like the cable internet business is doomed in the long run. Anyway, my advice to any of you out there reading this: Boycot Rogers, and find a new ISP.