Torontoist is ending the year by naming our Heroes and Villains of 2007––the people, places, and things that we've either fallen head over heels in love with or developed uncontrollable rage towards over the past twelve months. Get your dose, starting Boxing Day and running into the new year, three times a day––sunrise, noon, and sunset. A couple of months back, a chap named Simon “Pee-Pee” Harris lost his wallet. Luckily for us, the person... [continue]

Torontoist is ending the year by naming our Heroes and Villains of 2007––the people, places, and things that we've either fallen head over heels in love with or developed uncontrollable rage towards over the past twelve months. Get your dose, starting Boxing Day and running into the new year, three times a day––sunrise, noon, and sunset. Named Time’s Canadian Newsmaker of the Year for 2007, the loonie reached parity with the U.S. dollar this past... [continue]

It sounds pretty simple. There's one rule, right? Don't get so wasted that you a) spill the beans to your boss about i) the fact that you hate him/her or ii) the fact that someone is quitting, b) touch someone inappropriately, or c) throw up in your boss' lap. And yet come holiday season, we're bombarded by so much inane advice on how to not screw up at your office party that it's enough to... [continue]

Per a suggestion by chairman Adam Giambrone, The TTC has voted to provide free service after midnight this New Year's, along with extended subway hours until 4 a.m. The free service—an attempt to deter people from drunk driving—hasn't been offered by the TTC since the late 70s, and you'd think it might be a costly venture. But it's not exactly setting them back that much; the free admission offer will only cost the TTC an...... [continue]

Remember when you were like fifteen and it was a TOTAL BUMMER that you couldn't buy alcohol, because, you know, you weren't of age yet? And now that you've been legal for what seems like an eternity, and you're older and wiser, with many formative life experiences behind you, you realize that not being able to buy booze at the age of fifteen was probably a good thing, and likely prevented more than a few... [continue]

Toronto councillor Paula Fletcher wants Toronto Public Health to officially categorize bedbugs as a "health hazard," as opposed to their current status, "nuisance,"—that's not a joke; "nuisance" is apparently the official term—after our dear city has seen a recent upsurge in the pests. And for all you folks living in highrises, don't get too smug, because it seems "there is no community that hasn't been affected." Fletcher is also urging officials to implement a bedbug... [continue]

Meghan Provost at Queen's University has conducted a study testing correlations between women's fertility and the sexual signals that they give off by their walks. Surprisingly, women who were at the most fertile periods of their menstrual cycles had the least "sexy" walks (according to the male volunteers who rated them), with smaller hip movements and knees closer together. This would seem to contradict recent research that suggests men are more attracted to ovulating...... [continue]

Starting today and going until Sunday November 11 is the Royal Agricultural Winter Fair at The Direct Energy Centre at Exhibition Place. Tickets are $18, but $14 for seniors and youth (5-17) and free for kids under 5. It's a great place to take your kids to see horses and cows, and they can learn all about corporate sponsorship—I mean, agriculture!—with activities including the Toyota Dealers Royal Rodeo, the Toronto Star horse demonstrations, and the... [continue]

So, Molson Canada decided to do a "Twist and Score" promotion and offer the winner an iPhone. Cool, right? There's only one little problem. They said the phone would be available in January on the Rogers Wireless network, which Rogers is denying—they claim there was never a deal with Molson and they refuse to comment on whether Rogers will be the official carrier whenever the iPhone finally comes to Canada. Rogers spokeswoman Odette Coleman basically... [continue]

Did you know that Canada has a Sex Party? No, not a Sexy Party, Stewie-styles, but like an actual political party, for real. Yeah, neither did we. They're all about the need to "realize a sex-positive culture" and stuff like that. They're not exactly a political juggernaut, but they do their thing, and that's cool. But now the Sex Party's in a bit of a mess with Canada Post, which deemed their pamphlets "sexually explicit"... [continue]

We have a new hero. And it's whoever wrote this craigslist post. See, this person found a lost wallet belonging to one Simon "Pee-Pee" Harris (this name is apparently a convoluted code, which we don't understand—and if you do, that means you're probably Pee-Pee, and our readership is broader than we ever imagined). Anyway, the wallet-finder wasn't exactly thrilled with the evidence of Pee-Pee's sketchy professional life and questionable extracurricular activities. But it wasn't... [continue]

77-year-old fortune teller Sophie Evon was arrested in Calgary this week for conning—excuse us, allegedly conning—a Seattle woman out of $220,000 in 1999. Evon was arrested while working in Toronto last year, but fled to Calgary just before she was to be extradited. The Seattle woman had been seeking Evon's advice about a boyfriend that had dumped her for an old flame. Evon told her that the only way to get him back was to... [continue]

As we know, the bike lanes in Toronto leave something to be desired. Cyclists have been talking about it for a while, and now city officials have proposed a plan that would make Toronto more bike and pedestrian-friendly by creating special downtown "bikeways" (including one on the Bloor-Danforth corridor) as well as implementing pedestrian-friendly traffic signals. Daniel Egan, the city’s manager of pedestrian and cyclist infrastructure, said that they're looking at "creative solutions," such... [continue]

First the OPP, and now the Toronto Public Health department—everyone's getting Facebook! A few weeks ago, a woman went to the Toronto Wildlife Centre to drop off a bat that (unbeknownst to her) was infested with rabies. The health department wanted to warn her, so they tried all their top-secret official government methods of tracking people down (apparently consisting of the "telephone book" and "Google") but nothing panned out. So they did what any reasonable... [continue]

As we all know, the CN Tower has officially been surpassed as the world's tallest free-standing structure—a title it held for thirty years. Silly as it may be, that title gave us a lot of pride. Of course, we still don't really understand what's inside the tower, and obviously we're too cheap to actually pay to go up to 360 and make use of the (we hear) incredible view, but it just made us feel... [continue]

Warren Kinsella has a diatribe in today’s Post (that’s National, not Midtown) about trashy celeb magazines. Their circulation is up, Time’s circulation is down, more people care about P. Diddy than national politics, yada yada yada. At the end he encourages us to "pick up quite a few more copies of The Economist and U.S. News and World Report. And the National Post, naturally." Right. So since Kinsella seems to consider the Post totally... [continue]

So we were on the TTC yesterday afternoon, eating cold leftover pasta and leafing through the Globe, when we came across this conversation between Sarah Hampson, Beppi Crosariol and Sue Riedl about the etiquette of public eating. Read it yourself if you like, but we’ve gone to the trouble of summarizing the highlights. Apparently there are "unspoken rules" about eating in public (they’re unspoken, and yet, Hampson notes, "no one ever talks about them." Curious.)... [continue]

Been looking for a way to gain fame and fortune by exploiting your kid's intelligence? Here's your chance: this Friday is the Toronto casting call for kids to be on Are You Smarter Than a Canadian 5th Grader, the Canadian version of Fox's Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader (in case you couldn't tell). Registration begins at 8:00 a.m. at The Fairmont Royal York at 100 Front Street West. You can download the application... [continue]

Let's be real, folks. It might be a while until we host the actual Olympics. So clear your calendars August 24–26 and join an estimated 50,000 guests that will be attending the next best thing: the World Cyber Games Canada Championships being held right here in our very own Toronto. Two hundred professional gamers will compete for cash prizes and the chance to represent Team Canada in the WCG Grand Final in Seattle next... [continue]

By reducing the number of their non-French-speaking immigrants, Quebec thought they'd be getting more French-only-speaking immigrants. But it didn't exactly work out that way. As it turns out, most French-speaking immigrants also speak English! And we know Quebec's not exactly wild on English. The Star calls it "Linguistic serendipity[...]The law of unintended consequences has struck again." In other words, Quebec's all like "D'oh!" and we're all like "HA-ha!" Image from Arcane Gazebo.... [continue]