Once a proud Torontoist staffer, now a published YA novelist: Jill Murray is celebrating the release of her first book this week. Break On Through is the story of Nadine, aka Lady Six Sky, a badass b-girl who dreams of winning the Hogtown Showdown with her breakdancing crew. But when her parents announce that they're moving from Parkdale to the fictional suburb of Rivercrest, Nadine's world is turned upside down. Now she's lost her crew,......

The subject on everyone's mind at Spacing this morning is Regent Park's revitalization project. Our favourite public space newswire will be featuring a series of documentaries on YouTube called Regent Park TV, a project by the Regent Park Focus Youth Media Arts Centre. The Toronto Public Space Committee will be screening another series on Regent Park at the Toronto Free Gallery on Thursday, December 14 @ 7:30. "You better be going to school this......

Frank over at OMG Blog passed along this ludicrous looking poster that he spotted along Queen West. It's yet another condo development with yet another silly marketing slogan, this time the Bohemian Embassy. Frank goes on to critique the co-option of the word bohemian by various things including Broadway musicals, and now really really inept condo marketers. David Brooks invented a word to describe the trend of the moneyed class aping poor, edgy, artist......

The jury deliberating on the Lisa Posluns case was withheld some very gruesome evidence on the history of accused rapist/murderer Nelson DeJesus. The Star has the details here, and the Sun doesn't get left behind either. Members of Toronto's Chinese community protested over Rogers' attempts to bring a number of stations owned by the Chinese government to Canada. The protesters argue that the stations are propaganda, Rogers argues that they're merely trying to serve the......

TOist contributor Jill Murray has directed our attention to a tasty fundraiser for Medecins Sans Frontieres (aka Doctors Without Borders). And They Cook, Too is a handily spiral-bound collection of recipes by bloggers all over the internet, including a few by Jill herself (personally, we can't wait to try her Peanut Butter Pancakes). Here's the table of contents, which should get your mouth watering, as well as introducing you to a whole slew of nifty......

The delightful Jill Murray overheard the following at Sweet Lulu this weekend: J. Crew Dad (blue collared shirt, brown blazer): Maybe next year we can go for sushi. J.Crew Daughter (pink collared shirt, pink sweater): Ew, I don't know... J.Crew Son (beige collared shirt, beige sweater): You know what we should do? We should try a new ethnic food every year.......

Since there's been so much coverage of condo development in the media lately, particularly concerning the Queen West-West area near The Drake, we're surprised we haven't really seen any discussion of the ghastly new West Side Lofts sales centre that's getting set to open at Queen and Abell. After three months construction, the worst condo sales centre in the world is soon to be open for business, selling the stacked townhouses that are already being......