Ha ha just messing

Come on that was funny…well I thought so anyway!

OK I’m loving Toronto, the change to summer is taking a while but after last year’s summer I’m OK waiting. The roads are super wide over here, after Europe is seems to  take an age just to cross even small side streets plus even the smallest of roads have these massive grass verges between the road and pavement with massive deciduous tree planted in them. The effect (Apart from boring all my readers with civil planning notes) is  that from winter to summer my view goes from a fairly grey cityscape to a very green landscape with Mississauga in the background. Unfortunately it’s raining today so I can’t take a photo & prove it.

Plus the Canadians (I’ve stopped calling them Can-a-dee-ins as people don’t get the joke over here & just look at me funny) are uba friendly. I kind of had an idea that they were after all the great Canadians I’ve meet in my travels, but after Ireland I thought they were going  to have a tough act to follow, I needn’t of worry, these people are great. Oh and that thing that I thought was a urban legend about North American girls being very impressed by your accent while you’re just ordering a pint…It’s ture, I love it!!!

On the down side a semi decent steak is going to cost you $20…oh that’s from the Supermarket not a restaurant. To combat that they do have Twinkies and more importantly Wendy’s, not to mention Quizmos, Harvey’s & A&W. Oww oww don’t forget Taco Bell or Popeyes or Cinnabon. Also I should now mention Tim Hortons. TH is the Canadian answer to Starbucks but without feeling like you are paying Satan money for the honour of eating your soul when buying a coffee. Now I personally don’t think a std double, double coffee (Milk & sugar are put in by the servers so a double, double is 2 milk, 2 sugar) actually tastes like coffee, it’s more like some kind of awesome coffee flavoured drink. I repeat if you want a coffee do not go to TH (Or Starbucks or Coffee Time for that matter) but if you want a delicious hot drink that will quell your morning caffeine craving and whose taste is somewhat similar to coffee you can’t go too wrong with one of these. An annoying food thing is that some of the cable channels on TV are broadcast from either Buffalo or New York State so you get adverts for US food chains with specials for huge meal deals, get all excited & then find out that particular restaurant isn’t in Toronto…I’m looking to get a law pasted so these adverts have warnings on them.

Another weird Canadian thing is that they call singlets jerseys. It took ages for me to explain that I liked the Raptors special St Paddies Day jersey.

Speaking of the Raptors, Russ & I went and checked out Raptors Vs LA Clippers back at the end of March. The Air Canada centre is also where the Maple leaf’s play (They are Toronto’s ice hockey team) so they have a banner hanging from  the roof for every year the leaf’s won the Stanley Cup… those 13 banners look quite impressive, until you realise the last one is from 1967. If you want to drink at a Raptors game remember to take your wallet, 2 pints cost over $20…before tip (Don’t get me started on tipping for pouring a beer). I do like the sippy cup lid though. It was a great game with the Raptors taking it 100-76 but by far the biggest cheer of the day was for the 100^th point since if the Raptors get 100 points or more in a home game you can take your ticket to Pizza-Pizza (Another great fast food chain) the next day for a free slice of…you guessed it pizza. But what American - sorry, I know I’m in Canada- NORTH American  sporting event would not be complete without Cheerleaders. Chicks jumping around in short skirts…I’m a fan. To be honest I’m not sure how some of them made it into the squad, but they did have t-shirt guns so that was very cool.

One of the first excursions I did when I got to Toronto was to the Royal Ontario Museum. On the way there I bumped into the first of many Tamil Tigers protest rallies. Toronto has one of the largest Tamil populations and for most of first  half of this year we have had to put up with constant disruption. As most of you know I’m all for civil liberties and most defiantly the right to protest & the  1^st time I bumped into them I was just interested in what their issues were….that and the police horses, I dig police horses except Toronto Police (Or Mounted Mounties) horses don’t wear visors like the cool Millwall Gee gees. Anyway The Tamil protestors seemed to go out of their way to disrupt every day Torontorians. I’m still not sure what the protesters had against the Canadian public but after 2 months of protest marches & candle light vigils outside the US consulate they decided they would block off Collage & University Ave (One of the biggest roads in town) for a few days…That started annoying people. Then when frustrating people in a city that has no power over Sri Lanka wasn’t working they came up with the brilliant idea of marching onto the Gardnier Expressway & shutting down an 8 lane motorway for over 6 hours…At this point eggings of their protests dramatically increased.

Now where was I…Oh yeah the ROM. Wicked Wicked  building with the Michael Lee-Chin Crystal as the front facade that houses the spirit hall inside, a  multilevel gallery also at crystal like angles  with catwalks  crisscrossing it.

Like any kid I loved the dinosaur bones, especially the  huge turtle chasing the massive 10ft long snapper & my childhood favourite the triceratops. But near the end the Dino people seem to have gotten lazy as one of the displays was just a pile of bones?

 

The NZ display was a bit sad, just a wee shelf  tucked away in the corner of the Pacific gallery (No drawing of similarities please) if anything it was smaller than the Tongan or Samoan displays. But I still say our Marae wall carving kicks the Canadian Totem pole.

 

This girl was cool…can’t remember what part of the museum she was in maybe Blue man Group meets fertility idol.

Also there is an awesome European section (Maybe postmodern I don’t know) with some very funky art deco furniture & appliances.

 

Then near the end when I was trying to find myself after being lost for quite some time I stumbled onto this wall of horns…weird.

Another fairly decent Gallery is the AGO, uba awesome when my mate Jess shows us around. Unfortunately you’re not allowed to take photos inside & when you have a curator walking around with you it’s extra tricky to break the rules. Highly recommend it, some very cool modern pieces & again the architecture is wicked (Canada has produced some of the best in the world I’ve been told….several times) with its ships ribs front & floating staircase. 

Also something I haven’t done since leaving NZ (Apart from that one time in Sydney) is the classic kegger. I’ve been to a couple over here now, each time I  get all excited looking forward to having the red plastic cups with white insides that are in every Hollywood movie involving a party, each time I get  disappointed by clear plastic cups. The hosts of these shindigs, seeing my disappointment and being good host types will normally try to lessen my sorrow by offering me a funnel (If you don’t know what a funnel is, ask ya Dad…If you are a parent & don’t know what a funnel is…ask ya kids) Now when the first one was offered to me I must admit I was a little nervous, the last time I had  played with a funnel was well over 6 years ago if not more & I really didn’t want to make an arse of myself, but what choice did I have, I had to represent NZ didn’t I?… I needn’t have worried it turns out funnels are similar to riding a bike & you never forget how to do them. Then I went to a normal house party the other weekend…and guess what I found (I apologise for the pants N95 & Iphone blurry photos – it’s the camera’s fault…honest)

Pretty much hand in hand with kegger is the late night toddle around Toronto, always fun no matter where you are, but even better with “Street Meat”. On one such adventure I came across some extremely trusting chap who had left his DB9 just parked in the open with  not a soul around for miles asking to be stolen…poor form.

With summer coming on the scene the “BBQ” is getting a workout. BBQ is in  quotation marks because due to some bylaw, apartments are only allowed ELECTRIC BBQs; don’t look at me I didn’t make the law I just have to live with it! Also they have turned on the fountain on in front of my building, why they couldn’t do that when it was -15 outside I don’t know! But the real way you know it summer? Baseball! Sorry people but Baseball wins over Cricket by a country mile (NFL beating Rugby? You must be having a laugh son!) It may have something to do with me hitting the ball out of the park on my first hit in a real game.

OK then that should do for now…will try to be more regular with the updates in future.

Canada Update

OK let’s get into this, I’ve been holding off on updating the blog for far far too long, poor little Holly is about to have an apoplexy. Basically I’ve been trying to hold out until I got an IT job but now after over 6 months I guess I better bite the bullet & update regardless.

So…Williams seem to be doing better after Turkey but this weekend at the last Silverstone race (I’ve been there) will be a real test, where hopefully Nakajima can do a bit better as well. I’m still not sure about him, maybe it’s a broad generalisation but he seems quite similar to Sato in that they both have moments of brilliance but more often than not ruins them by hitting things, like walls or other drivers. I really hope that at the end of the year we’re not reduced to tears by the vast amounts of missed chances Williams have squandered already this season.

Here’s hoping Button can make the last entry on the Silverstone roll of honour an English name, but I must admit a substantial part of me wishes the Michael Schumacher shadow riders, Barrichello & Massa had better luck after all those years behind the big man. In Barrichello’s case there is no one to blame but himself, up until now he would have been given at least the same car as Button if not a better one (Reading between the lines of several interviews with Brawn it sounds like he really didn’t rate Button until his drive at Bahrain this year) I think now that if Brawn needs to (And it’s not like Button had been behind Barrichello at any time in a race this year) they will have to start using Barrichello as a 2^nd driver.

At the moment it’s not looking like that’s going to be required anyway. (Yes I know it’s not even ½ way into the season yet hence the “At the moment”) It doesn’t seem that the aero upgrade Red Bull bought to Barcelona had the desired effect and they still don’t quite have the legs on Brawn, plus Vettel looks like he suffers from some Schumacher-isk crumbling under pressure. (Yeah I know I’m all about the broad generalisations these days) That could just be inexperience but when you put it together with Webber’s turnaround in his infamous bad luck & his continued recovery from his broken leg RBR’s driver war could easily not allow either of them to fight for the championship.

It seems that if you even had a look at the championship last year you’re destined to be a midfield/back marker this year. Both McLaren & Ferrari had a horrible start to the year with McLaren seeming to get back on track faster but then falling back again. Ferrari took a bit longer to come back but seem to be holding it together better now that they are back (Still with a fair way to go before they’re on the top again.) One wonders if Ferrari’s poor start hasn’t had some bearing on the continuing FIA vs. FOTA drama and whether it wouldn’t be better just to put Max Mosley & Stefano Domenicali into a pair of man-kinis and throw them in a paddling pool of baby oil to sort out their differences…or maybe knowing Max’s tastes a paddling pool of thumb tacks (Sorry Max, low blow)

Of last year’s leaders the guy you really have to feel sorry for is Kubica. The poor guy gave up last year’s chase with the promise that he would be leading this year and has only just scored his first points. Has anyone else noticed how Dr Mario Theissen is always wearing those over sided sunglasses these days…The official line is that he keeps walking into doors and then falling down stairs.

So by popular request I’m republishing the F1 Spreadsheets

If you can’t see a fastest lap for a race it’s because fastest was also the pole sitter.

Both Williams & Renault are finding that you need two drivers if you want to do well in the constructors

I like using this for judging how the midfield/backmarkers are doing against each other.

Nakajima really needs to convert his reasonable qualifying performances into finishes and then points!

After a conversation with Craig a couple of years ago, last year I started recording my race predictions after qualifying on Saturday.

Last year I think I did quite well, predicting 7 race wins & even getting the trifecta at China.

I seem to be doing even better this year with 6 winners out of 7 races & the trifecta at Monaco…But really how hard is it to bet on Button?