It’s a strange, perhaps undesirable, thing to admit to, but Torontoist spends a lot of time thinking about R. Kelly. Generally it comes down to one core question that we just can’t answer (nor do we think we ever will): Is R. Kelly a genius or a lunatic? Here is a man who has produced some of the most pitch-perfect songs in the sickeningly syrupy ballad category (including possibly the pinnacle, Michael Jackson’s "You are......

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......

If you like Honda Civics modded with blue neon, enormous spoilers and V-Tech stickers, you're gonna love what's happening to Toronto's most iconic structure. Management of Canada's National Tower (formerly the Canadian National Tower) have begun testing the unfortunate new animated LEDs that were recently installed, dramatically transforming a brilliant exercise in modernist subtlety into a cheap, plastic martini spear. The "intelligent LED" colour effects will permanently go live after a launch event at......

With all that went down this week, we thought we thought we'd cheer everyone up by giving everyone a double dose of dogs. It was a rollercoaster ride of emotions this week at DCist. Like the rest of country, we were floored by the news of so many dead coming out of Virginia Tech, and with so many of the victims and their relatives from the D.C. area, we felt it important to pay tribute......

There are two big things going on in the world of education this week. The first is The National Inner City Conference 2007. Sponsored by the Toronto School District Board and the Ontario Institute of Education Centre for Urban Schooling, the focus is on helping city kids get learned. One of the major criticisms of the contemporary curriculum is that it is more concerned about training kids for jobs instead of teaching them how to......

Toronto student Soohyun Park took top prize at the CanSpell Cup nashional spelling bee. Her corect spelling of 'hypobulia' trumped 'cerumen' and 'moiety'. A Virginia Tech student gunned down 33 of his classmates yesterday, the deadliest school shooting in U.S. history. Shortly after 3:00 a.m., a three alarm fire gutted a house at Spadina and Baldwin, between College and Dundas. One southbound lane on Spadina is closed to traffic, but the streetcar is running......

If you use the RSS feed reader Bloglines to read Torontoist, please keep reading. If you don't, please ignore this message. It has been intentionally back-dated to keep it off our front page. About two weeks ago, almost half of our posts simply stopped showing up in Bloglines. While we thought this was an isolated issue at first, we quickly realized that the problem seemed to affect all (or almost all) of subscribers to the......

For the past four years, La Carrera has been busy turning itself into a Harbord Village institution. Everyone recognizes the bright orange bike shop across from Central Tech and next to The Original Patty Deluxe. Torontoist admits we were a bit dismayed when we saw the "We're Moving" in their window, but delighted when we realised they were just moving down the road (over near Harbord and Robert) to a roomier new location. To......

Residents of Harbord Village may have lately found themselves tickled, scandalized, offended or bemused by a strange crop of recent graffiti notable on the south side of Harbord between Spadina and Bathurst. Some local wag has sharpied the word "glory" along with an arrow onto about every possible hole in lamp posts or elsewhere, turning the street into some sort of glory hole bonanza. By this point, several of the holes have been postered over,......

If you haven't read it yet we suggest you read Raju Mudhar's A-Z list of Toronto happenings from the Saturday Star. We thought it was charming. Sure he misses a few beats, Torontoist isn't sure if anyone uses Meetup.com anymore ever since they started charging. All the cool techie kids at Social Tech Brewing use upcoming.org. Torontoist could also recommend a few better galleries other than X-Pace. But Mudhar does a pretty good job reminding......

Eli Singer, of Singer.TO, signs on to a lifetime of hyperlinks and inspired comments from Billonlogan today, as we launch his weekly feature, Tech Tune-Up. Today, Flickry photographers. Tomorrow, the world: Toronto is home to world-class photobloggers. Earlier this year, Sam Javanrouh's Daily Dose of Imagery won a Bloggie for best international photoblog. PhotoJunkie by Rannie Turingan took the best in Canada prize. Sam and Rannie do an amazing job of capturing moments in our......

How do photo desks get pictures for stories like these? Most outlets front a picture of Dr. Sheela Basrur, Ontario's Chief Medical Officer, for the story on Ontario obesity escalation. In doing so, they avoid the mean task of taking a picture of a chubby Torontonian in a swimsuit. But CTV never shies away from an opportunity to get the goods (see borrowed pic). And a pub called Sci-Tech-Today goes the super obvious photo illustration......