The first time Torontoist encountered Dave Meslin was at the August 2004 Trampoline Hall at the AGO's Walker Court. Ostensibly speaking about "Drinking Games," Mez instead develivered a speech about his first experiences with alcohol, the hegemony of mixed drinks, and the backwardness of the cup half-empty, half-full metaphor. It was one of the most spectacular things we have ever heard. This Monday, July 9, Mez makes his return to Trampoline Hall, this time......

Residential property taxes have skyrocketed this year, almost twice the rate of inflation. To lessen the blow, the city is considering a plan to set "pay-as-you-throw" fees for household waste pickup that would be integrated into your water bill. A standard-size garbage bin would cost $4 per month for weekly pickup, but the fee would increase with a special larger bin. There would be no penalty for additional recycling and compost pickup. Liberal MPP Kim......

Each weekday for the next two weeks, Torontoist is facing off local memes and blog drama in a tournament-style ladder and you, the reader, decide the outcome. View the full ladder here. Some highlights from Saturday's matches: 416 trounces 905 (95-12): In perhaps the most dramatic victory of the evening, the Toronto area code showed up the surrounding suburbs in a true show of telecommunications muscle. Miller's Hair buries Zombie Walks (59-47): The closest......

That guy in North York who accidentally let loose his pet giant cobra into the ducts of his semi-detached house pled guilty to mischief yesterday. He also had a poisonous viper in his bedroom and a second cobra that he accidentally left at work. How the hell do you accidentally leave a poisonous snake at work? No, seriously, how do you do that? What major malfunction do you have to have to forget about......

A body that was discovered in 1968 north of Toronto has been identified as a 17-year-old New Brunswick teen. Richard Hovey moved here to take part in Toronto's thriving counterculture scene but sadly met a tragic end. Shaun Bruce, the 22-year-old that ran against David Miller, is back at this old job as a zamboni driver. No word on where Jane Pitfield and Stephen LeDrew are now, and do we really care? There's an old......

Did David Miller do it for you the past three years? Did Jane Pitfield plagiarize your heart? Or did Kevin Clarke shout his way into yours? And what of the 30-odd other mayoral candidates, and that whole "choosing a city councillor" thing? Well, after months of waiting, months of hype, and months of just wanting to get the whole mess over with, you finally get to vote. But what if you haven't chosen? For......

This week, we wandered about the city and did a design analysis of election signs. This post doesn't exactly constitute voting advice -- unless you're often swayed by snazzy typography. At the same time, it's our belief that a terrible sign can tank an otherwise promising candidate and vice-versa. So what about the hotly-contested mayor's race? We have to admit that Pitfield's fiery red-on-yellow has an energy and passion that's missing from Miller's way-cool blue.......

Some of our favourite people ever are getting together to throw a mayoral party and we're all invited. Toronto's champion, David Miller, will spar with challenger Jane Pitfield in the ring at Revival, 783 College Street at 8 PM (barring any unforeseen interruption, of course!) Each mayoral hopeful "will outline their visions for Toronto's public spaces" and face the Spacing Inquisition from a panel of journalists. Followed by a set from HOT ONE, "a......

This afternoon, Torontoist noticed two enormous Jane Pitfield signs on the lawn of a Gloucester Street apartment building, which got us to thinking: does a landlord have a right to erect election signs at a building shared by many who might disagree with the endorsement? The City of Toronto and the Canada Elections Act have very clear rules about the right to place election signs, especially on public property. On private property, any candidate may......

Windy enough for ya? Those heavy gusts that left you scrambling for your scarves yesterday also knocked out power to some of Toronto's east end, and much of Atlantic Canada and Quebec. Michael Ignatieff isn't the only local politician using the internet to reach younger voters. Mayoral candidates David Miller, Jane Pitfield and Stephen LeDrew are hoping to YouTube themselves into City Hall by releasing campaign videos on the popular website. How are the candidates......

Today's topic in The Star's increasingly mundane "20 Questions" feature - where they ask the three biggest mayoral candidates questions about a whole plethora of subjects - was Favourite Movies. Jane Pitfield picked It's A Wonderful Life, The Sound of Music, and Ben Hur, three great films in three seperate genres that are generally accepted by audiences and critics to be among the best of all time. David Miller chose Casablanca, Apocalypse Now, and Richard......

Officials desperately arguing over who's responsible for potential financial shortfall for Expo 2015. If the answer is "somebody other than Toronto," we'll get to bid! If that is not the answer, however, things will be slightly more problematic. (That's the Perisphere and Trylon on the left there, by the way. From the New York World's Fair. They're famous, you know.) David Miller and Jane Pitfield come together to agree that the provincial and federal......

One more piece of bad news for Jane Pitfield's campaign: besides having one of the worst glamour shots we've ever seen on her media page (see above), whoever's writing her blog for her is cribbing Spacing Votes, Spacing Magazine's election blog. Details are a bit scarce, but what we know for sure so far is that for several days a recent entry on Jane Pitfield's blog copied one of John Lorinc's - almost word......

Jane Pitfield got herself some media attention by calling Mayor Miller a liar. "He hasn't been truthful with the taxpayer, and there have been many people who unfortunately have been lied to by David Miller, and I'm one of them," she was quoted at a press conference. The Mayor's team calls the attack a desperate ploy. No word on whether pants were on fire. She also called the mayor "soft on crime." The OPP will......

In response to the collapse of an overpass in Quebec, the provincial and municipal government will look at overpasses in this province. They reassure us that none of this province's overpasses have the same design as the one in Quebec and are regularly checked. Just hours after thousands of people stumbled home after looking at hours of art, 30,000 people take part in the CIBC Run For the Cure on Sunday. The annual event raised......

The City is paying over $28 million to make sure we get bigger recycling bins. The plan is to make recycling easier for Torontonians. We think the Sun's headline spells it out best "Recycling now 4 times the fun." Who could hate that? The OPP raid biker gang strongholds all over the province, including a chapter of the Vagabonds here in Toronto. They found guns and meth labs. 500 police officers were involved in the......

The Gardiner Report is now finally available to the public and not a moment too soon. The report outlines four options for the Gardiner. The one that's getting the most talk from the media and City Hall is tearing down a part of the elevated highway and replacing it with a widened Lakeshore Boulevard. Drivers weigh in with their thoughts, not all of them like the Gardiner it seems, but they're right in thinking......

The report on options for the Gardiner is going to be released to council and the public which means there'll be a lot of talk this election about tearing the ugly sucker down. A prof is suing York University for $10 million, he thinks they have a pro-Israel bias. A prof at U ot T is getting a special room so he can smoke pot. He is legally allowed to smoke marijuana for medical......

Jane Pitfield should send a thank you card to Royson James' office. The Star columnist must've hit a nerve with the mayor's office with yesterday's column. It accused the mayor's office of sitting on a proposal to buy the Green Lane landfill and possibly costing the city millions. The mayor denies this and talked to the Star's publisher. Jane Pitfield's campaign is capitalizing on this mistake. The fire department is estimating that yesterday's huge warehouse......

Council is dealing with the fallout of the landfill deal. The Star found data that the city could've bought land at the Green Lane landfill site for much cheaper last year but did nothing. Jane Pitfield realises a day after the vote that she voted the wrong way and ended up supporting the mayor. George Smitherman is now deputy premier. If this means George gets more face-time during Question Period we might start watching. Whistleblower......

Jane Pitfield and David Miller are going to be seeing a lot of each other until November 13. The round of mayoral debates has started and both of them came out swinging for their first debate last night according to the Star. Incineration and David Miller's record were two of the big issues. Jane Pitfield's anti-panhandling bylaw stumbled yesterday when the Policy and Finance committee decided that the city should look into existing laws to......

Students at Toronto area colleges and high schools are coping with the shootings at Montreal's Dawson College. The murders also has parents of high-school age children worried. Students in the GTA are doing better on provincial math and reading tests sadly those in Toronto-proper need more work. Sean Penn apparently missed that no smoking sign. The actor was caught smoking at a TIFF press conference and now the province is investigating whether the hotel should......

The Toronto District School Board is holding three public consultation nights to ask parents how they should handle the $84.5 million deficit. Jane Pitfield releases her financial platform and we don't spot many surprises: cutting business taxes, a hiring freeze at City Hall, a rollback of the pay raise to councillors. Former city councillor John Adams is joining John Sewell in a bid to unseat Joe Mihevc in Ward 21 (St. Paul's). Through a election......

An audit of litter on Toronto's streets shows that Mayor Miller is on to something. The amount of litter on our streets is down 40% from 2002. The Mayor credits investment in city streets (ie. garbage cans, street cleaners) and you, dear citizen. High-profile lawyer Peter Shoniker is spending 15 months in jail for money laundering. Shoniker is well known among many of the city's powerful and during his court case received words of support......

Tourism Toronto is ecstatic at the success of the AIDS conference. The 25,000 delegates will be injecting forty million dollars into the local economy. Organizers have also noticed that most delegates have given the city very positive reviews. Sadly, many more couldn't attend the conference because of visa problems. A company that runs duty free stores is going to ask for compensation for sales lost because of strict security. The McGuinty government is going......

Chief Bill Blair points out that gun crime in the city is down this year. He feels that increased policing, cooperation from the community and a specialized anti-gun task force have put the pinch on gun crime. With a month left in the summer we hope he doesn't jinx us. Maybe the reason why gun crime is down is because people prefer to get behind the wheel of their SUVs, minivans and sedans and run......

After much righteous chest-thumping over fiscal responsibility and respect for the taxpayers, council barely decided to give itself a 9% pay raise. The vote passed 22-21, and the three interim councillors who won't be running in November's election, all voted in favour of the increase. Councillors' salaries have now been bumped up to $95,000 and the Mayor's salary will be hiked to $160,000. Jane Pitfield has vowed to make this a campaign issue so we......

Jane Pitfield is opening a campaign office in the Junction area, close to Mayor Miller's High Park home. Both campaigns are gearing up for the fall and raising money. Mayor Miller is going grassroots and offering anyone who puts up raises $100 for his campaign an "I Public housing around the GTA is falling apart. The Toronto Community Housing Corporation estimates that it needs $225 million in repairs. A Toronto man saved two others from......

Mayoral Candidate Jane Pitfield is as fed up with the shenanigans at the TTC committee as we are but we think her idea of appointing members of the public to the committee is even worse. Pitfield wants four out of the nine members of the committee to be drawn from the public. On one hand we could get someone like James Bow on the TTC on the other hand we could get someone who is......

With Jane Pitfield's campaign supposedly on the rocks maybe she should take notes from Peter Styrsky, a candidate for Mayor in this fall's election. Sarah B. Hood who runs the Unknown Toronto blog spotted these fake bills that Sytrsky is using as campaign promo material. We'd like to take a few of these and make campaign donations to Jane's campaign. Judging from his calls for a "green-light district," "hemp harm re-education" and other pro-pot iniatives......