Gift cards may make convenient presents for Christmas, but they're a lump of coal for the environment. According to the Consumers' Association of Canada, Canadians will spend $3 billion on gift cards this year, which means a lot of rectangular pieces of plastic will end up in the garbage. Gift cards can be reloaded to extend use, but a person who receives multiple gift cards for a retailer usually keeps only one to reload......

Rosie DiManno sucks. Every day, poor Toronto Star readers are subjected to another over-the-top, awkwardly-written, occasionally-insulting column about the day's top depressing story from the purple-streaked purveyor of pulp. Some simply can't take it: according to a friend of Torontoist's who worked customer service for the paper, DiManno is the leading editorial cause of subscription cancellations. So, from this point on, Torontoist is featuring the very very worst of Rosie DiManno. No longer shall......

While trying on clothes in the fitting room of a well-known department store two weeks ago, we were a little vexed by a common oversight: the lack of a cushion or dish in which to stash the pins as we removed them from the neatly packaged dress shirts. The attendant was overly apologetic and vowed to take action after we brought the deficiency to her attention. Imagine our surprise upon visiting the same fitting......

GO Transit recognizes that it is falling behind its standards for on-time performance. Its solution? Change the schedule so the trains aren't technically late any more! (The sad part is that that is actually part of the story and not just a one-liner.) Stephen Harper sends John Baird to Paris while his attempt to make the Tories look like environmental leaders crumbles. Meanwhile, the Fraser Institute and Cato institute - both predominantly run by and......

Photo by Cylla von Tiedemann courtesy of the TSO. If you’re turned off at the idea of classical music concerts because they seem like an activity for the high society rich, think again. There are plenty of ways to enjoy Toronto’s healthy classical music scene on the cheap or for free. Toronto Symphony Orchestra In an effort to infuse some young blood into its increasingly grey-haired audience demographic, the TSO offers $12 concert tickets to......

Citing safety concerns, the TTC is removing their "Walk Left, Stand Right" escalator signs system-wide. After we got sent a tip by reader Tom Mertron of Toronto Rants, a quick trip on the system this afternoon showed that only one of the four downtown stations that we checked -- St. Patrick -- still has the signs in place beside the escalators. At the others -- Museum, Dundas, and Queen -- they've been removed, and all......

Oh dear! After reading another Torontoist's reappraisal of Frankz, while dashing to the Ryerson to catch Werner Herzog's Rescue Dawn we stopped in to pick up a couple of hot dogs, thinking it would take less than 15 minutes, and found ourselves trapped for what felt like hours. Despite being quiet, the few customers in front of us had their orders confused, which took far more dialogue between staff and customers than it really required.......

To some concern and resistance, the City of Toronto implemented a significant taxi reform program in 1998, imposing a more consistent set of regulations and rearranging how the industry was run. From the public's perspective, cabs seemed to become newer and cleaner almost immediately, and drivers were (hopefully) to become less-intimidating. One of the most interesting programs resulting from the 1998 reform is still mysterious to most riders: the Ambassador Taxicab program. Driven only......