Booze cruise

I may have discovered why some Toronto bars and streets often seem empty.

Everyone here drinks on boats.

Booze cruises are used for company parties, weddings, private parties or just regular drinkathons. There is just something beloved about the combination of water and alcohol. It is apparently next to impossible to book one of these here. They are so popular, I wouldn't be surprised if they are also used for wedding showers, baby showers and similar unnecessary events that should be outlawed.

For those of you with geography issues - no, the booze cruises don't glide along hockey rinks here, they travel along Lake Ontario. The one I went on involved a large boat with three levels. The bottom level is for losers, the second one is for semi-losers and the third one is for the party people.

So here is the report from the third floor.

The evening started out innocent enough, with people milling about and admiring the views of industrial buildings and highways near Toronto's waterfront. Once the bartender got busy, so did the dance floor. Overweight middle-aged women shook their thing, Indian men pretended to be black, and obnoxious, over-makeuped and overdressed twentysomethings busted out their best slutty moves.

Truth be told, the weather was nice and the cruise was fun so it's hard to bash it. So I'll bash the booze cruise music instead.

Like any Toronto DJ, the booze cruise DJ mixed up a healthy dose of 90s tunes, as Toronto refuses to musically progress into the 21st century. I'm talking 'Brown eyed girl,' 'Come on Eileen,' etc. No matter how many years you are away from this city, it will always play the same music. It's like the whole city's music taste is stuck in some time capsule from the wrong decade.

If I wanted to hear that crap, I'd put those cassettes in a Walkman, or whatever we did in that decade to listen to music. But please, please, get a calendar, Toronto DJs.

A kayak trip

I went kayaking in Lake Ontario the other day.

Because I always mix canoeing and kayaking together, I thought I had done this before. Turns out, I hadn't. That was canoeing.

I didn't really know what to expect, perhaps a little leisurely kayak near the harb(u)rfront. Next thing I know, one of the kayakers in the group was seasick and another had to paddle back to avoid getting hit by a ferry.

I did my best to follow the one rule we were told we must follow, which is to avoid the big white buoys that belong to the nearby island airport. The importance of this really hit me while I was paddling in the middle of the lake, awfully close to a sign that read "Caution, low flying planes overhead" and another that said something along the lines of "Keep away. Avoid criminal prosecution."

My kayak trip - which turned out to be about three hours long - also involved directions to steer right to avoid a booze cruise and later steer left to avoid a yacht.

When we arrived to the more peaceful and quiet side of the island, my fellow kayakers immediately started munching on granola bars they had carefully stored in Ziploc bags and drank out of gigantic Evian water bottles they skillfully strapped to the front of their boats.

Needless to say, I was not so prepared. So I spent most of my time trying to avoid bird shit from above, as a number of birds kept using their feces as artillery, clearly a result of feeling threatened by a group of adults in orange vests and banana-shaped boats.

After proudly returning without bird poop or a criminal indictment, we were treated to a BBQ. One of our kayak experts instantly transformed himself into a BBQ expert. With his life jacket still on, he traded his paddle for BBQ tongs and got to work.

I took this time to observe fellow paddlers from my group, which included a man who wore a Crocodile Dundee hat and a shirt full of pictures of trees. I was convinced that any minute, he would leave the burger line and start hugging trees, but I was wrong.

I, with my ass still soaked from kayaking, stayed in the line and got toasted buns.

Family-friendly

Toronto has an impressive number of "family-friendly" or "kid-friendly" activities. This is great unless:
a) you're not a kid
b) you don't have a kid
c) both of the above.

Being that I belong in the c) category, this family-friendliness is getting on my nerves. Barbecues have more kids than hot dogs, the island ferry has more strollers than life vests and sidewalks everywhere are crawling with little people. There are more kids here than in Brangelina's house, which is just wrong.

Little people seem to be running this city. Everything here is for them. Every activity, fair, show, concert and parade is full of family-friendly, aka boring activities.

For once, I'd like to see a poster for some event that say things like "Not family-friendly, "Please do not bring children" and "No families allowed." I don't want no face painting, animal petting, balloon making or anything with the following words/phrases: "splashing," "loads of fun" and "buckets of fun."

I want some family unfriendly, R-rated fun.

Arts and crafts fair

I went to an arts and craft fair this weekend, which should have been called the arts and other crap fair.

Sure, there were a couple of booths with nice ceramics and pretty travel photographs, but let's focus on the crap, shall we?

There was a giant painting of an ugly, hairy man (the artist himself) breastfeeding a child. Beside them was a table where a nasty cat was licking milk that had spilled from a carton.

This was unfortunately not the last time an ugly artist had included himself in his painting. Another floppy-eared artist managed to incorporate his ugly self into each one of his works. A young woman found space in every painting for a guy that was sitting beside her at the arts and crap fair, presumably her boyfriend.

There were other works of crap too, such as a photograph of a young woman vomitting flowers, gigantic photos of ugly bugs and scribbles that were clearly drawn by someone in diapers yet carried a price tag in the hundreds.

I of all people understand what it means to be broke and in an undervalued profession. But these people seem to be asking to be struggling artists. Because I don't see who in their right mind would spend hundreds of dollars to hang that ugly crap on their living room wall.

But all was not lost as, like any fair, this one included booths with food. So I finally bought some pieces.

Fun activities

During the recent Canada Day celebrations, there were a number of "fun" activities going on in Toronto and the nearby towns and I thought I'd share some of them:

-"1812 historical military re-enactment" Why is this fun? Who wants to go to this unless it's mandatory to pass 5th grade history?

-"family-friendly activities that reflect the diversity - both culturally and geographically - of our country" What the f does this mean? Boring shit for kids while parents eat Chinese spring rolls and chicken masala?

-"Manitoba Chamber Orchestra" I'm sure they would have rocked my world.

-"musket drills, fife and drum music" What does any of that even mean?

-"electronics recyling drop-off" Ok, that really is exciting and I feel very bad I didn't go.

Pick your own

I took part in a big Ontario summer tradition today - strawberry picking.

Signs directed us to "pick our own" and I quickly figured out they were not referring to our noses. So as directed, I picked my own - strawberries that is - occasionally also doing a little taste test.

Then, with my container only half full, a strawberry farm intern looked at our group of Canadian slave laborers and announced: "Only 10 minutes left for picking!" This infuriated me, so I quickly increased the ratio of strawberries to mouth v. strawberries to container.

Having lived in Ontario before, I'm no strawberry picking virgin - I knew to ensure I didn't end up looking like I applied red lipstick in the dark. But my parents are far more experienced, being the longtime Ontario residents they are. My mom has been known to bring a small mirror to ensure evidence of strawberry eating is hidden.

And while I regrettably did not get to see this, I have confirmed that my dad once put on knee pads while picking strawberries. It allowed him to pick strawberries kneeling without pain and occasionally roll in between rows of fruit. This reportedly caused great admiration among fellow male pickers and a great deal of embarrassment from my mother.

When my dad heard my mom and I were going strawberry picking today, he knew we wouldn't go for his knee pad advice. But he had another wise tip to offer: Bring a can of whip cream.

Montreal rules, Toronto drools

Trapped in the T-dot escaped the T-dot this past weekend and ended up in Montreal.

Ooh la la!

I suddenly have a better understanding why Quebec has been wanting to separate all these years. It's simply cooler than the rest of Canada.

While Montreal is an even colder city than Toronto, it is vibrant in the summer, with stretches of outdoor cafes, bars and restaurants even outnumbering those in New York. You would think the T-dot would take some notice and try to copy Montreal. All this time, I have been noticing Toronto's inferiority complex to New York. I now wonder why it doesn't also have an inferiority complex to Montreal. Because it should.

Instead of wasting time coming up with uncool names such as the T-dot, Montreal builds cool outdoor stuff its residents can enjoy in the summer months. The number of outdoor establishments on most Montreal streets easily surpasses the number in Toronto's entire downtown. As a result, the number of residents frequenting Montreal's streets seems to easily topple the population of the entire GTA. Montreal residents need not say "Wow, there are so many people out" every time 10 people are out on the street, as often happens in Toronto.

Montreal's charm is clearly the result of its French/European influence. One would hope Toronto - which prides itself on its diversity more than any city I know - would also tap into its European population to build a couple of cute outdoor cafes. Would it really be so horrible to be able to have a slice of pizza outside if you're not within the 2-block Little Italy? Why must one go all the way to Danforth Street to experience outdoor coffee that is not Starbucks? I mean seriously, stick some tables and umbrellas on the sidewalks, T-dot. It's ok, really. The world will not come to an end if the streets are used by people.

Selling perogies at a stand in front of the Sky Dome just doesn't cut it.

Another birthday

There are a lot of birthdays this week. On July 1, it was Canada's birthday, which no one outside of Canada knows or cares about. July 4 is America's birthday, which everyone knows about.

Canadians celebrated by putting strawberries on whip cream-covered cakes because there is no such thing as Canadian food so the best they can do is create dessert depicting their flag's colors.

Americans will celebrate by getting fatter on burgers and freedom fries. Some will take the time to cherish the freedom of their country, which is increasingly wiretapping without permission, deporting innocent immigrants, holding people without charges and running torture chambers around the world. (and you thought I was only gonna dis Canada on this blog). Normal Americans (read: New Yorkers and Californians) will slap on their Obama badges and hope for the best.

But in between those two birthdays is another birthday that must be acknowledged. July 3 is the birthday of "markww," our most dedicated reader. So we take this time to thank markww for his ever-amusing comments and valuable contributions of links to Southpark's Blame Canada videos.

So let's raise our glasses filled with our favorite Canadian or American beer (who cares which one, isn't it all owned by Americans anyway?) and make some birthday wishes. I'll start:

Canada: I wish you do something to give the world a reason to care about you.
America: I wish all your residents one day be able to identify your country on a world map.

Happy Canada Day

Canada celebrated its 141st birthday today.

Newspapers had headlines such as "141. Not too shabby, eh?" and editors encouraged readers to contribute stories about their "Canadianism," whatever that means. A poll was issued saying 57% of Canadians surveyed gave a 10 out of 10 for how proud they are of Canada. The result was delivered in a story that said Canadians are "maple syrupy sweet on their country." A special section about "Chic Canadiana" - identified as "iconic Canadian style" - included suggestions for a $610 Canada goose expedition parka (despite the fact that it was the kind of sunny day that left most white people looking painfully pink).

On Canada Day, many Canadians engaged in the American tradition of having a BBQ or eating pizza in fast food restaurants. A newspaper article entitled "Teach your kids to really love this country" quoted an American expert. An online quiz called "What's the score, eh?" asked readers to "test your knowledge of Canadian and American history on Canada Day."

Not knowing what exactly it means to be Canadian, some columnists took the opportunity to point out that Margaret Atwood is Canadian and how Canadians should be proud to be so humble and polite.

A new Molson Canadian commercial played on television and included these lines about how do you know you're Canadian:
- you believe everything can be fixed with hockey tape
- you bailed on a booty call during post-season
- you feel bad reclining your seat on a plane.