Every winter, you lie in bed dreaming about how great the summer will be; hot days, loosely-affixed beach towels, revealing outfits, sweaty sexual encounters, hot...smelly...feet? Ah! Wake up...that's disgusting. Summer is just like any other season, it's got its ups, and it's got its downs. And you can't expect to breeze into Torontoist's favourite time of year without a little bit of primping and prepping. After almost a year long hiatus, our He Said, She... [continue]

Nuff said.... [continue]

Not that any of you would care, but Stephen Lewis is the key note speaker at University of Toronto's Natural City Symposium tonight. Okay, maybe you do care, but you can't go because it's almost definitely sold out. Stephen Lewis, of course, is the U.N.'s departing Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa. He'll be teaching at Mac sometime soon, but that doesn't take away from the fact that the man was a Special Envoy ("I... [continue]

You've read the positive reviews in the weeklies. You've seen him busking on Queen Street. You've read about him on less cool blogs. He's More or Les, and here's his none too in-depth interview on Torontoist: What's the name of your album and when does it come out? Name: The Truth About Rap Comes out: May 31st. at Play De Record, Kops, Slinky Music and other currently undisclosed locations... Why should we buy it? a)... [continue]

Pants off, dance off. Indie exotic dancers (as opposed to exotic indie dancers) have probably been around for a while (didn't Nathalie Portman play one in Closer?), but it's still interesting to hear that dancers at the North Toronto boutique erotique Mystique Lounge are now entertaining to the sounds of Bloc Party, Arcade Fire and Franz Ferdinand. (Not all independent artists per se, but still falling under that catch-all phrase, "indie") And it's not Mystique... [continue]

If Oliers grinder Ryan Smyth and Nickelback singer Chad Kroeger are proof that all Albertans look alike, does that mean they both will eventually look like Ralph Klein? Speaking of Albertan meatheads, are they still throwing cuts of Alberta beef onto the ice in Edmonton? And what's with the drunken revellers brawling on Whyte Ave? (Note: At first, we imagined that one drunken reveller must be inviting all the rest of the drunken revellers for... [continue]

We'd like to call this new Sloan video a MySpace sensation, but we know we'll all regret using that phrase very soon. A YouTube sensation? Maybe. It was first posted there in early May. But, you know what, we're re-posting it. So now it's a Torontoist sensation. Also, just wondering: Besides us, who didn't know that Sloan's "The Other Man" was written about Feist?... [continue]

Taking a page out of the Walmart book, Shoppers Drug Mart wants to overtake independently-owned drug stores to expand stores and last year's $1.7-billion sales profits. Sound too evil to be true? Shoppers' CEO Glenn Murphy puts it this way: "When they're ready - and this is not being forced upon them by our business - independents are given the choice to either join us as a business or when they're ready to retire and... [continue]

The Scarborough Civic Centre Square - looking less Scarberia and more Scarsmopolitan everyday. Created by and taken from Photopia.... [continue]

In due time, you'll be able to fold a map of city in half, with Yonge Street as the crease, and witness the more or less symmetry in Starbucks locations on Queen Street. One Starbucks is on Queen West in Beaconsfield, site of the infamous "Drake you ho this is all your fault" tag of last year. The other is planned for Queen East in Leslieville, home of the infamous commenter Joe Clark. More... [continue]

Ban there, done that. In lieu of the City of Chicago's ban on foie gras, Toronto and our various bans seem a lot less authoritarian. In fact, we would venture to say our city is substantially lagging in the ban game. To make ourselves feel better about this, Torontoist has put together a list of memorable bans, almost bans and future bans for the city. Since there is no comprehensive list of banned items (that... [continue]

Briton Karl Pilkington - an unlikely cult figure even for Queen Street - is now available in pin-form at Pages Books & Magazines. For those out of the loop, Mr. Pilkington is the oddball star of a weekly, once-free Ricky Gervais pod-cast. Mr. Pilkington thinks gay people stay out too late on the weekends, and says Asian people don't age well. Despite these views, he's become something of a world-wide phenomenon. A mark of Mr.... [continue]

Mr. Speaker, can the Prime Minister please explain why the newly redesigned Government of Canada website very much resembles the Conservative Party of Canada website? Why does the new Government of Canada website also share press releases from the CPC site? And can the Prime Minister also explain why the colour blue - a very Conservative hue of blue - now appears on the publicly-funded site? And, finally, can the Prime Minister please admit... [continue]

It's Thursday evening, you have a few dollars in your pocket and your stomach is running on E. You're tired of eating grilled cheese sandwiches every night, and you're out of ketchup anyway. Next thing you know, the softwood lumber deal comes through. "Good for the provinces, good for Canada," you say to your roommate. Now it's time to celebrate. You grab your cardigan, lace up the Clark Wallabees and start combing your hair. Then... [continue]

Thus far, we're going to say Toronto MP and Liberal leadership candidate Carolyn Bennett wins for the best website design, with Joe Volpe coming in dead last and Iggs placing somewhere in the upper echelon.... [continue]

Toronto is the next Dubai like Maurizio Bevilacqua is the next Prime Minister. But this little artist's rendition of the imagined amalgamation of the Toronto and Dubai skylines was cute enough to post. If any Canadian city is to enjoy Dubai-like prosperity though, with the glass hotels and such everywhere, it'd probably be Calgary. And that isn't too much of a stretch: by 2025, statistics say Canada will be a leading oil-producing country and... [continue]

Rappers Royce Da 5' 9" and Choclair have recently been "jacked" in Toronto, according to a report last Friday. Assuming the jacking was of the car variety (Royce was "jacked" while "cruising"), it would be second high profile rapper carjacks this year. For those who believe the alleged jacking of the short-ish Detroit emcee did occur, this is a real bummer. But for the rest of us, the only troubling aspect is that the so-called... [continue]

All those in favour of Born Ruffians becoming the next medium-sized Toronto buzz band say, "Most Serene Republic"! Good, now that we're all in agreement, we can decide on who signs these Ruffians to a record deal. Rumour has Paper Bag arranging some sort of US/Europe deal and another rumour has an unnamed multinational signing them to a developmental contract. And unfortunately that's all gossip fit for print today. Unfounded rumours aside, they play tonight... [continue]

Sure, it's adding insult to injury and all that. But really...Buffalo? Making fun of us? When was the last time anyone in Buffalo could make fun of Toronto? Please! Buffalo - the city of nightly house fires and gas station robberies. Unbelievable. Americans are so arrogant.... [continue]

It's never been so easy to eat pastry in your underwear. The often surly Portuguese-Canadians at Nova Era Bakery & Pastry will now deliver fresh bread, baked goods, and that delicious coffee right to your doorstep. Plus a free birthday cake on your special day. Exciting, but what about temperatures, you say? Good question. Because this means adding delivery time to the normal 20 minutes it takes to get a bagel (that's half an hour... [continue]