The Canadian Design Resource is sharing this warning about Toronto. They don't know the original source, so if you do, please let us know in the comments.

I can dig it.

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This is a great National Film Board of Canada documentary from 1982 with fantastic footage from our city 30 years ago.

This feature documentary studies one of the city’s most visible yet most anonymous character: the taxi driver. Filmed by day and night, the film offers an entertaining and sometimes comical look at the drivers, fleet operators and dispatchers who are expected to deliver passengers, parcels… and even babies.

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This is what it looked like behind City Hall yesterday. Guillermo del Toro is filming his big budget film Pacific Rim here, and I thought this photo was pretty cool.

Fellow Wire fans will enjoying hearing that Pacific Rim stars Stringer Bell.

That's good. That's like a 40-degree day. Ain't nobody got nothing to say about a 40-degree day. Fifty. Bring a smile to your face. Sixty, shit, niggas is damn near barbecuing on that motherfucker. Go down to 20, niggas get their bitch on. Get their blood complaining. But forty? Nobody give a fuck about 40. Nobody remember 40, and y'all niggas is giving me way too many 40-degree days! What the fuck?

[via Reddit]

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I'm going to steal a topic I heard on Mike Stafford's show yesterday. I accidentally tuned in to a repeat of his show in my car last night and they were discussing the influx of possums in Toronto recently.

I saw my first possum about five years ago, but haven't seen one since. Here's the wildlife I've seen in the city of Toronto.

• Raccoons
• Squirrels
• Fox
• Possum

I've heard stories of coyotes, but have never seen one myself. Someone called into Stafford's show to report seeing a deer, but that's never happened to me, either.

What wildlife have you seen with our own eyes in the 416?

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For April Fools Day, Google Maps has introduced a new view they call "Quest". Quest mode lets you see everything in 8-bit.

"8-bit Quest Maps is our Beta Maps technology and has certain system requirements. Your system may not meet the minumum requirements for 8-bit computations.

Here's how Toronto looks in 8-bit, according to Google Maps today. Click to embiggen.

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This is a nice little parody of the Pet Shop Boys' West End Girls. The draw is great Toronto footage and better-than-you'd-expect lyrics.

I didn't even know there was a Bessarion Station!

Good job, Red Gecko Productions.

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I sat down this evening to write about my supreme disappointment with our professional sports franchises. Then I remembered I wrote this entry two years ago. Disappointment with Toronto's teams is par for the course.

Last night, I watched the Raptors because of all the Linsanity hype. I was pretty confident we'd blow that lead, and we did. We're now 9-21 and will miss the playoffs yet again.

I then flipped over to the Leafs game and watched us lose our fourth in a row. My daughter is turning 8-years old this summer, and the Leafs haven't played a playoff game in her lifetime. With us clinging to 8th in the conference and slipping fast, I wouldn't bet on playoff games this April.

And don't get me started on my beloved Blue Jays who haven't played a meaningful game in September since '93. That's almost 20 years ago.

It's more of the same here in the T dot, where an 8th place finish in the conference is the stuff dreams are made of.

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About four years ago, I had a pretty good idea. I wanted to create Toronto-centric Valentine's Day cards featuring local prominent figures, past and present.

Here are the few I threw together. Feel free to take this torch and run with it. We've still got time.

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I've mentioned I have a Toronto City Hall informant. I call him / her Cardinal. Cardinal just sent me an email following the city's deal reached with CUPE local 416 to avert a strike.

Here's Cardinal's email, in its entirety.

just so you and your blog followers know.... ford claims that there is no money in the budget for anything, yet they spent $20,000 at each transfer station to move the fence lines to within 15m from the road so that in the event of a strike/ lockout, the people picketing couldn't park on the property and would be fined for parking on the street. Also, they had warehouses rented out so that they could dump the city's waste there. That sounds like gravy to me.

I'll just leave this here without comment. The Super Bowl is about to start.

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It's all about subways. Just ask our mayor Rob Ford.

From the National Post:

The power struggle over what transit to build in Toronto continues at City Hall, with Mayor Rob Ford telling reporters, at his weekly weigh-in: “It’s all about subways.” An excerpt of the scrum follows.

Reporter: Mr. Mayor, some people at 11 o’clock are discussing the legal standard of scrapping Transit City and they are saying you may have overstepped your boundaries. What do you say?

Mayor: I didn’t overstep my boundaries, I did what the taxpayers want. They want subways, that’s it. They don’t want streetcars. I was out in Scarborough over the weekend, people came up to me and said, they want subways. That’s it.

Reporter: Is there any wiggle room for you on this issue?

Mayor: It’s the taxpayers. The taxpayers want…I was elected on subways, they want subways, I was out on Saturday, people want subways. That’s it.

Reporter: Do you think you’ll win this vote? It doesn’t seem like you have the votes.

Mayor: It’s all subways. It’s all about subways.

Reporter: What are you going to do though if council votes against that?

Mayor: All about subways. So, it’s the taxpayers that elected me to get the subways in and that’s what we’re going to do.

Reporter: So, you think that gives you authority to, if council votes against that.

Mayor: It’s like winning an election. So if they voted me in, that means [stutters a bit] I don’t win an election? It doesn’t make sense.

That makes sense. I'm so proud of our mayor when he argues so eloquently. Really, you can't argue with his logic, which clearly proves he had the authority to cancel Transit City.

By the way, on Rob Ford's first day in office, I wrote that he did not have the authority to cancel Transit City. He's one vote out of 45. That's it.

But you can't deny his love of subways. Rob Ford loves subways.

Update:

All About Subways (Don't Make Sense) rap remix!

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