Torontoist » villains http://torontoist.com Torontoist is about Toronto and everything that happens in it Mon, 20 May 2013 23:47:30 +0000 en-US hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.5.1 Heroes and Villains 2009: Villains http://torontoist.com/2009/12/heroes_and_villains_2009_villains/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=heroes_and_villains_2009_villains http://torontoist.com/2009/12/heroes_and_villains_2009_villains/#comments Thu, 17 Dec 2009 15:00:00 +0000 Torontoist http://torontoist.com/2009/12/heroes_and_villains_2009_villains/ Torontoist is ending the year by naming our Heroes and Villains of 2009—the very best and the very worst people, places, and things in and of Toronto over the past twelve months. This week, Torontoist unmasks our picks, complete with original art by our illustrators; starting next week, and continuing until the end of the year, you can vote for your favourite Heroes and Villains as they face off in a single-elimination tournament which, at its end, will leave one Superhero and one Supervillain standing.

]]> http://torontoist.com/2009/12/heroes_and_villains_2009_villains/feed/ 59 Villain: The ROM Crystal (Interior) http://torontoist.com/2008/01/villain_the_rom/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=villain_the_rom http://torontoist.com/2008/01/villain_the_rom/#comments Wed, 02 Jan 2008 20:45:00 +0000 Johnnie Walker http://torontoist.com/2008/01/villain_the_rom/ 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 [...]

]]> 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.
villain_romcrystal.jpg
From price hikes to bomb hoaxes, the ROM has been a constant news item this year. But while Thorarinn Jonsson’s silliness left us unburdened with tangible consequences, the same cannot be said for Daniel Libeskind’s Michael Lee-Chin Crystal, which is a mess our museum will be cleaning up for years. The exterior has divided the critics. Some praise its bold fusion of a modern structure with the existing edifice. Others compare it to a giant metal spider from space. But in focusing on whether the exterior of the building is a masterpiece or a disasterpiece, very little time has been spent discussing the interior. From the looks of things, very little money or planning went into that part of the Crystal. A confusing, artless layout and an abundance of cheap building materials make the Crystal’s insides slightly less appealing than an IKEA. The second you step inside the new entrance, you’re immediately shoved into a dimly lit coat check with a claustrophobically low ceiling. Things slightly improve after you enter the main atrium, although the juxtaposition of the new building’s starkness with the richly decorated older wings creates a comparison from which the Crystal does not profit.
For years, the ROM has complained about insufficient space, claiming the collection on display was the tip of an iceberg whose main body lay hidden in storage. Yet this new addition to the building adds little in terms of gallery space. Half of it has been used to house the new gift shop and restaurant, not to mention dubiously educational features such as the “Spirit House” or the “J.P. Driscoll Family Stair of Wonders,” which is a real missed opportunity. What could have been a jam-packed treasure trove of eclectic curiosities in the spirit of Oxford’s Pitt Rivers Museum is instead just a big, white stairwell with a few toy soldiers and seashells shoved in the walls. While the Crystal’s interior windows and skylights are sometimes visually interesting, many of them provide unimpressive views and are already coated in an inch of dust. Does no one at the ROM have a Swiffer? The choice of white as the colour for everything means dirt, scuff marks and cracks in the walls are embarrassingly obvious. There is no reason “modern architecture” has to be synonymous with “crappily made.” Just look at the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts with its gorgeous auditorium and lobby. Hopefully some of the kinks will be ironed out next year when the new galleries will all be fully up and running. Even so, too much of the inside of the Crystal renovation looks in need of, well, a renovation.
Photo by Marc Lostracco.

]]> http://torontoist.com/2008/01/villain_the_rom/feed/ 9 Villain: Stephen Harper, Jim Flaherty, et al. http://torontoist.com/2008/01/villain_stephen/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=villain_stephen http://torontoist.com/2008/01/villain_stephen/#comments Wed, 02 Jan 2008 16:00:00 +0000 Jonathan Goldsbie http://torontoist.com/2008/01/villain_stephen/ 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 [...]

]]> 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.
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Probably the most stirring piece of art displayed in Toronto this year, Scott Sørli’s “Common Sense Revolution” [PDF] juxtaposed the rise and fall of welfare rates in Ontario with totemically-stacked lists of the names of the homeless men and women who died in this city each year from 1985-2006. The relationship between social-assistance rates and the well-being of society’s most vulnerable isn’t in itself surprising; what’s revelatory is the confirmation of the suspicion that Mike Harris and the Progressive Conservatives who ran this province from 1995-2003 are responsible, directly or indirectly, for more deaths and the ruination of more lives than any of the most notorious killers in this country’s history. Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka murdered three, maybe four, people; Mike Harris and his buddies took out seven in Walkerton alone.
And entrusting those buddies (such as Jim Flaherty, formerly Ontario’s Finance Minister, now the federal government’s) with the whole damn country has led to predictable results, as they continue to gleefully starve the social programs and urban centres that they first decimated a decade ago, while applying the same tough love on a nationwide scale. When Harris’s spiritual successor, Stephen Harper, came with Flaherty to Toronto in September to announce that their government had even more money than expected and, guess what, it’s all going to tax cuts, it was as though Bazis International had held a press conference at Seaton House to proclaim the addition of another dozen storeys to 1 Bloor East.
Those who give the Conservatives the benefit of the doubt attribute their attitude to an evangelical faith in the redemptive power of the free market––but there comes a certain point at which it’s more comforting to think of our leaders as selfish and cruel rather than intractably deluded.
Photo from the Darryl Wolk Blog.

]]> http://torontoist.com/2008/01/villain_stephen/feed/ 5 Villain: Peter Gatien http://torontoist.com/2008/01/villain_peter_g/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=villain_peter_g http://torontoist.com/2008/01/villain_peter_g/#comments Wed, 02 Jan 2008 11:45:00 +0000 Sarah Nicole Prickett http://torontoist.com/2008/01/villain_peter_g/ 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 [...]

]]> 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.
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When New York club king (read: mafioso) Peter Gatien got banned from his city, he decided to come to ours to rebuild his empire. Because apparently what downtown Toronto really, really needed was a hottt new destination for SUVs full of trashy, faux-trendy suburbanites with pockets full of their parents’ money to burn. That, and a home for robots.
Yes, robots. ‘Cause see, according to Gatien, CiRCA isn’t just another one of those Clubland clubs. It’s artsy! And avant-garde! And, like, crazy diverse! There are nine-oh-fivers and nu-ravers! They totally share cocaine in the ballroom booths!
In a word: ugh.
Housed at the intersection of all that is unfortunate about our city—Richmond and John Streets—this day-glo nightmare of a scene is revolting on so many levels (pun intended). There are the bouncers, all hopped up on ‘roids and ego, barking at inebriated clubgoers and innocent passersby alike to GET OFF THE SIDEWALK (a sidewalk that, last we checked, was still property of the city and its citizens, not a nightclub and its NYC-reject “impresario”). There are the tacky, gratuitous displays of what we’ll call fetish art, for lack of a worse term. There’s the labyrinthian layout and the inexplicable lack of cell phone service, combining to give you the eerie feeling that you’re on the set of a straight-to-DVD horror flick. (Have you really lost your friends? Or are they just all waiting for you in a secret torture room at the top of the next staircase? The fluorescent chamber of death awaits!) Oh, and then there’s a migraine-inducing sound system from which there is no escape. Seriously. At most dance-y places, when the beats are beating you down, you can flee to the bathroom to rest your aching heels and pulse points. At CiRCA, THERE ARE DJS IN THE BATHROOM. The whole place revels in being too much, too loud, too big, too too.
And all that would be totally fine… anywhere but here. Toronto is a place for arts, culture, multi-culture, a city of patchworked neighborhoods jostling for a place in the modern pantheon of important cities. CiRCA, meanwhile, is better suited to the Vegas strip than any remotely sophisticated New World cosmopolis. Wait, no. We hear Vegas is classing it up these days. Atlantic City? Yeah, sounds about right. Pack up the circus and move ‘er to Jersey, dude.
Peter Gatien dummy from Skelecore.

CORRECTION: JANUARY 3, 2008
This article originally claimed that Gatien was banned from New York “for drug trafficking”––that is untrue; while Gatien was arrested in 1998 on federal drug-conspiracy charges, he was acquitted. It was his guilty plea in 1999 for state sales-tax evasion that eventually led to his being ordered out of the country. New York Magazine has an excellent article about Gatien that provides a lot of interesting breadth to that aspect (among many others) of his story. Torontoist sincerely apologizes for the error.
]]> http://torontoist.com/2008/01/villain_peter_g/feed/ 15 Villain: Restaurant Makeover http://torontoist.com/2008/01/villain_restaur/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=villain_restaur http://torontoist.com/2008/01/villain_restaur/#comments Tue, 01 Jan 2008 20:45:00 +0000 Ashley Carter http://torontoist.com/2008/01/villain_restaur/ 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 [...]

]]> 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.
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Now in its fourth season, Food Network Canada’s Restaurant Makeover—wherein both established and struggling restaurants are overhauled with a prohibitively limited budget and time—is still riding strong on their adopted mandate of putting Toronto restaurants out of business instead of picking it up for them. Even if you’ve never caught an episode of this somewhat entertaining garbage can of a show, you’re no doubt aware of its dubious reputation as the kiss of death for most any establishment it touches (Taste T.O. even recommends playing “Restaurant Makeover Deathwatch” with your food-nerd friends). Since its inception, we’ve seen the post-makeover demise of Jeremiah Bullfrog’s on Queen, Oasis on College, Innocenti on King, Via Oliveto in the Annex, Lüb on Church, Eduardo’s (formerly Latitude) on Harbord, and Mississauga’s Rubicon Grill (to name a few). Some before the episode even makes it to air.
Add to that the recent closure of The Office at Islington and Bloor, widely recognized as one of the first sports bars in the city, after its makeover only succeeded in alienating what regulars it had left (middle-aged sports dudes just don’t need brie nachos or sandwich breads they can’t pronounce). Le Cafe Vert on Queen East reportedly completed their makeover and re-renovated to undo the changes. Grapefruit Moon threatened legal action and accused the show of crafting their makeover into a ratings-grabbing “Shocker Episode.” (From Torontobrunch.com: “Her requests to keep the aura of the original place were ignored as the show painted over the exposed brick wall with a metallic silver and the new equipment was not ready by the completion date.”) Even Massimo’s pizza—named by Torontoist, a leading source in pizza criticism, to be the greatest delivery pizza in the city—has suffered from its makeover.
We couldn’t be luckier that this nationwide show with such a high fail rate films the the large majority of its episodes in our city. Though to be fair, the shelf life of a Toronto restaurant is negligible to begin with, so for already struggling establishments, there isn’t much that can keep them in business. Either way––note to Toronto restaurants: Don’t do it! It’s a trap!
Photo of Church’s Bulldog Cafe by beenbair from Flickr.

CORRECTION: JANUARY 2, 2008
This article originally claimed that the Living Well Cafe on Yonge was one of the restaurants that was renovated for Restaurant Makeover. It was not. Torontoist sincerely apologizes for the error.
]]> http://torontoist.com/2008/01/villain_restaur/feed/ 34 Villain: Scarborough Rapid Transit http://torontoist.com/2008/01/villain_scarbor/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=villain_scarbor http://torontoist.com/2008/01/villain_scarbor/#comments Tue, 01 Jan 2008 16:00:00 +0000 Amanda Buckiewicz http://torontoist.com/2008/01/villain_scarbor/ 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 [...]

]]> 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.
villain_srt.jpg
It smells like a mixture of hot pee and old sweat. It’s really loud, sometimes emitting a high-pitched tone that makes our head want to go boom. It’s crowded, its seats aren’t evenly spaced, and the doors close really, really fast and really, really hard––we’ve seen bruises! Despite being called the TTC’s most reliable line, it’s still pretty damned unreliable, sometimes not working at all and other times working very, very slowly.
The TTC has recently announced in their 2008 Capital Budget that the SRT will be getting a revamp, with longer cars and a proposed extension to Sheppard and Markham roads. And with an estimated $1.28 billion price tag attached to it, the TTC is looking at outside sources for some of the funding. But why not just ditch the SRT altogether and go with the cheaper option––extending the Bloor-Danforth line to the Scarborough Town Centre? With a price tag of $1.22 billion, it’s not necessarily a huge savings, but when you consider how many people commute through the STC each day versus the amount of people who would benefit from an RT line up to Sheppard, it hardly makes sense. But then again, this is the TTC, and nothing ever really makes sense. Hell, come the next budget crunch, this whole project will probably go down the drain, and we’ll still be stuck with the pee-smelling, screeching, annoying behemoth we are dependent on today.
Photo by David Topping.

]]> http://torontoist.com/2008/01/villain_scarbor/feed/ 7 Villain: Cheap Retailers http://torontoist.com/2008/01/villain_recalci/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=villain_recalci http://torontoist.com/2008/01/villain_recalci/#comments Tue, 01 Jan 2008 11:45:00 +0000 Maneesh Mohindra http://torontoist.com/2008/01/villain_recalci/ 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.
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Despite the loonie’s heroic achievement this year, there was still an unpalatable flip-side to its gratifying performance for many Canadian consumers.
Although the intense scrutiny of the media has died down as of late, there were more than a few Canadian retailers who simply chose—and continue to choose—to disregard the loonie’s value and charge prices that are almost laughably out-of-whack with the prices of the same products in the US.
There are those who allege that due to fixed costs for Canadian retailers and the fact that retailer costs are in Canadian dollars, it will take year or two for prices to truly reach a comparable level with the our southern neighbours. Even if that were true, however, Canadian retailers still have the ability to engender some goodwill amongst their native consumers by cutting prices (some of them have), and yet many continue to choose not to. In an article originally published in the Globe and Mail, Ken Georgetti explains what most of us were probably thinking anyway: retailers are happy to reap the benefits of the value of the dollar by keeping prices high.
Mr. Georgetti had a different take on the old “fixed-cost” excuse: “Retailers in Canada buy many of their products in U.S. dollars or related Asian currencies, but sell them in Canadian dollars. As the exchange rate swings in the loonie’s favour, their costs fall. Lower import prices should have been passed onto Canadian consumers as their revenues rose.” “The Bank of Montreal estimates that,” Georgetti relates, “even with the Canadian dollar worth as much as the U.S. dollar, a typical basket of consumer goods costs 25 per cent more before taxes on this side of the border. While retail prices should not necessarily be identical, there is no justification for such a huge markup.”
At the end of the day, you can always shop online or head across the border to take advantage of our dollar’s value. The question is, why should you have to?
Photo by girl-anachronism from the Torontoist Flickr Pool.

]]> http://torontoist.com/2008/01/villain_recalci/feed/ 3 Villain: Hate http://torontoist.com/2007/12/villain_hate/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=villain_hate http://torontoist.com/2007/12/villain_hate/#comments Mon, 31 Dec 2007 20:44:00 +0000 Sam Sutherland (Guest Contributor) http://torontoist.com/2007/12/villain_hate/ 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 [...]

]]> 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.
villain_hate.jpg
That’s right. We said it. Hate is a villain. Torontonians spend a whole lot of time complaining. It’s only right to point out the things that don’t work in a city, be it failing funding for public transit, or Rob Ford just being a douche. Look no further than our own year-end coverage, of which fifty percent is dedicated purely to shitting on people. Some of those people are finally getting some well-deserved online come-uppance. Others are… a bookstore.
When it comes to things that suck in this city, we stand to gain a lot more by advocating for alternatives. Calling out bogus people, places, and things is all a part of a healthy democracy, but doing so without even attempting to suggest solutions doesn’t really accomplish anything. Is the ROM Crystal mind-blowingly ugly? Probably. Become an architect. Is Doug Holyday the worst city counselor? Yes. Yes he is. So do your best to encourage anyone you know in Etobicoke-Centre to stop their stupid voting for him.
Obviously there’s some truly evil hate in this city, but that incarnation is so beyond villainous that it barely warrants mentioning here. The kind of hate we can really curb in our day-to-day lives only involves taking an extremely small amount of time to be just a little more thoughtful. With all of us adding our own ideas of how to make this city better (hello, commenting on blog posts!), we stand to actually build a great city, not just tear down a mediocre one.
Photo by haydensimons.

]]> http://torontoist.com/2007/12/villain_hate/feed/ 4 Villain: North By Northeast http://torontoist.com/2007/12/villain_north_b/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=villain_north_b http://torontoist.com/2007/12/villain_north_b/#comments Mon, 31 Dec 2007 15:59:00 +0000 Anni Spadafora http://torontoist.com/2007/12/villain_north_b/ 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 [...]

]]> 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.
villain_nxne.jpg
Most people would respond with shock if you expressed your distaste for the ever-growing music festival (read: conference) that involves music enthusiasts (read: label mongrels) congregating in the city with a common denominator: a love for the music (industry). Sure, with a long list of solid alumni ranging from Feist to Dinosaur Jr. to Sufjan Stevens, it’s difficult to hate NXNE in its dedication to giving independent artists the opportunity to play at a high-profile festival. The conference, in fact, is quite direct about its mission. As per the NXNE website: “NXNE has always been about the music. The festival gives 500 local, national and international artists the chance to rock the crowds and to showcase for agents, talent buyers, media, promoters, labels and management company heavies at a variety of essential downtown venues.” Yes, that is definitely what music is all about.
But the chance to “rock the crowds” definitely comes at a price—each band must submit an application and pay a fee of $25 to be considered for inclusion. Admittedly, the $25 seems reasonable compared to Canadian Music Week’s $50 application fee, but the fee seems unnecessary considering how generous the city is to the conference. First, dozens of locals volunteer for NXNE and generously help with big tasks ranging from equipment load-ins, ushering attendees at venues, running the doors at shows, and posting banners and signage at venues throughout the city (many of these venues are free for NXNE to use, by the way). And of course, NXNE is very well-sponsored—sponsors everyone is made well aware of since ads for most are plastered across the venues occupied by the conference. With 500+ artists showcased at NXNE (which is nowhere close to the number of applicants), $25 with every application is a huge fee.
The conference in and of itself is not the only disappointment. Local print media jump at the chance to big-up the conference with detailed schedules and play-by-play recommendations. It is disheartening to think of the pull-out feature pieces available every year for the conference while much less enthusiasm is disposed into local music series that are equally, if not more, supportive of independent music in and around the city.
Photo of the NXNE rabbit in Vegas by NXNErabbit.

]]> http://torontoist.com/2007/12/villain_north_b/feed/ 13 Villain: Cigarette Butts http://torontoist.com/2007/12/villain_cigaret/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=villain_cigaret http://torontoist.com/2007/12/villain_cigaret/#comments Mon, 31 Dec 2007 11:44:00 +0000 Marc Lostracco http://torontoist.com/2007/12/villain_cigaret/ 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 [...]

]]> 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.
villian_cigarettebutts.jpg
There were obvious benefits to 2006′s Smoke Free Ontario Act, which did away with smoking in public areas and enclosed workplaces. The elimination of self-contained smoking sections, however, brought a disgusting side-effect: mounds of used cigarette butts scattered on the sidewalk outside bars and restaurants. Even sandpails and ashbins provided at the doors of some venues don’t help the problem much, and smokers who normally wouldn’t just toss their trash on the ground don’t seem to consider used cigarettes as litter, despite butts being ubiquitous underfoot.
An American study showed that, worldwide, smokers toss at least 4.5 trillion butts on the ground every year, and that’s not only revolting to look at, but causes significant environmental damage. Cigarette filters are made of non-biodegradable polymer acetate (read: plastic), and discarded butts start fires, kill small animals, and are the most common item washing up on beaches. A 2006 City of Toronto litter audit [PDF] found that cigarette butts were the fourth most common small litter item, after chewing gum, paper, and glass pieces.
So—Toronto’s smokers need to step up and find proper disposal options, just as bars and restaurants should consider providing receptacles for their customers. Significant environmental problems aside, the used cigarette debris fields are just plain nasty to look at (well, maybe not for everyone).
Photo by Melsky from the Torontoist Flickr Pool.

]]> http://torontoist.com/2007/12/villain_cigaret/feed/ 12 Villain: Pee-Pee http://torontoist.com/2007/12/villain_pee_pee/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=villain_pee_pee http://torontoist.com/2007/12/villain_pee_pee/#comments Sun, 30 Dec 2007 20:45:00 +0000 Rebecca Pardo http://torontoist.com/2007/12/villain_pee_pee/ 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 [...]

]]> 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.
villain_peepee.jpg
A couple of months back, a chap named Simon “Pee-Pee” Harris lost his wallet. Luckily for us, the person that found the wallet posted about it on Craigslist, enlightening us all to the enigma that is Pee-Pee. Pee-Pee’s a complicated fellow; a man of contradictions. He’s a sexually promiscuous weed-smoker, and a member of the Conservative Party. He’s also a white supremacist, which didn’t much impress the person who found the wallet; they kindly offered to throw a party in his honor, with “music, games, fags, dykes, people of indeterminate-at-a-glance gender, blacks, asians, [and] indians (both kinds!)” We never found out if Pee-Pee showed up to the party, but we can only imagine the good times that ensued.
Pee-Pee is a villain of 2007 because he’s a racist, and because his name is Pee-Pee, but mostly because we’re hoping the embarrassment of having this posted about twice will encourage him to see the error of his ways. It’s a new year, Simon. Let’s leave Pee-Pee behind in 2007.
Photo by ianqui.

]]> http://torontoist.com/2007/12/villain_pee_pee/feed/ 0 Villain: Eye‘s Movie Listings http://torontoist.com/2007/12/villain_eyes_mo/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=villain_eyes_mo http://torontoist.com/2007/12/villain_eyes_mo/#comments Sun, 30 Dec 2007 15:59:00 +0000 Roxanne Bielskis http://torontoist.com/2007/12/villain_eyes_mo/ 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 [...]

]]> 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.
villain_eyemovielistings.jpg
Instead of listing all of the films and theatres on one page and linking them to their reviews, like they used to, Eye‘s new dumb-assed online movie listings seem deliberately constructed to frustrate and confound the reader. The films can be viewed alphabetically or by genre, but the alphabetical listings are navigable only by page numbers (vs. the more logical “A-D”, “E-H”, etc.). There are thirty pages to sift through. The genre listings aren’t any better: “unknown” is an actual category. The genres are also not cross-listed, so a film like Bee Movie is listed only as a family movie, even though it’s also a comedy. Next to each film is a link to showtimes, but in the case of films playing at rep cinemas, like 2001: A Space Odyssey, it doesn’t display when the film will play, only whether or not it is playing the day you are looking at the listing. Whoever green-lighted this redesign has got to be someone who hates going to the movies. Eye has felt unfocused and with very little substance print since its redesign, and it’s weird and sad to see that lack of concern with content spill over into something as pragmatic as their online film listings.

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