August 8, 2007
McGuinty Sings the Down and Out Blues, Baby Einstein Actually Stupid, Sassafraz To Make TIFF Comeback
Taking a page from David Miller's Big Book of Intergovernmental Panhandling, Dalton McGuinty is complaining that Ontario is going to need a hot cash injection from the Feds if we're going to get those manufacturing jobs back from Bangladesh. Q: What do you get when you have an NDP mayor, a Liberal Premier, and a Tory Prime Minister? A: If you pay taxes in Toronto, pretty much nothing!
In related "news," New York Governor Eliot Spitzer apparently owes the Premier some chicken wings to settle a bet from Buffalo's loss to Ottawa in the Stanley Cup playoffs last year. Sources say that McGuinty has asked if he can get his winnings in cash.
A study has found that babies between the ages of 8 and 16 months who watch videos targeted at infants actually learn 10% fewer words than tots who don't. Interestingly, babies in the same age range exposed to programming aimed at older children or adults actually had larger vocabularies than average, especially if they watched The Osbournes or Deadwood.
Starstalkers will breathe a sigh of relief at the news that Yorkville hotspot Sassafraz is expected to rise from its ashes in time for the Toronto International Film Festival. Fans of the restaurant will once again be able to enjoy over-priced hors d'oeuvres while waiting to hook up with Lindsay Lohan.
The Yankees beat the Jays 9–2 last night. Also, the NFL pre-season kicked off this week, signifying the start of five months of televised beer and truck commercials framing three-second clips of huge padded thugs running into each other.
Photo by the food pornographer from the Torontoist Flickr Pool.
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RE: Baby Einstein: It's not about the learning, although that was a part of it. It's about the entertainment. Sometimes Mommy & Daddy need a break.
I swear though, there has to be something subliminal in Einstein and shows like Dora. Einstein I get, there's nice colours and interesting images, and classical music, and even I'm a little hypnotized.
But Dora? That show is DOGHSIT, and the kids LOVE it. When my 1 yr old was 7 months, he was transfixed. So, on the plus, hopefully he's picked up a smattering of Spanish, but on the minus, he'll also think it's a good idea to "rescue" a bear cub if he sees one in the wild.
Robert Smeigel's (spelling), "Saturday TV Funhouse" did a hilarious cartoon short for SNL on Dora.
Oh, I remember that hahaha
My 6 months old is transfixed by Entertainment Tonight... so the TV is almost always off. Try a jolly jumper or an exer-saucer thingy.
re: Dora, I think it's "stickiness"/popularity is well explained in The Tipping Point. (a really really good read in general)
Hmm, I wonder what the Baby TV station will say about this study?
Q: What do you get when you have an NDP mayor, a Liberal Premier, and a Tory Prime Minister? A: If you pay taxes in Toronto, pretty much nothing!
That's also what we got with a Tory Mayor, Tory Premier, and Liberal Prime Minister.
The rest of the province and country hates Toronto, so the only way we're going to get cash out of them is to separate and become an aid-eligible poor third-world country.