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Thursday, November 12, 2009
It took a whole lot of trying, but we in Toronto will reach the big leagues when our subway fares hit $3 for a single cash fare on January 3. As this demonstrates, we will finally have world-class transit fares. Three dollars seems absurd, but I remember paying 320 yen (about $3.75) when I had the misfortune of switching from one company's subway lines to another in Tokyo and about $3 for single rides in Paris and Vienna. I got to pay 50 cents in Beijing and Shanghai, but as I commented on the linked post, 50 cents to a Beijinger is $4 to a Torontonian.Still, if people think wine tastes better when told it costs more and if The Phoenician (really it should be The Scottsdalian of Scottsdale, Arizona) charges $6 for a bowl of Froot Loops, maybe the key to all our problems is to make everything really expensive. This is also the prevailing attitude in London, or at least that's the only rationalization I came up with for why all the prices are doubled, in addition to the exchange rate being doubled.
The urge for many is to write an angry post denouncing the poor public transit in Toronto, as though traffic, crowding and imperfect service are uniquely Torontonian qualities. Yes, mass transit is far superior in places like New York, Hong Kong, Paris or Tokyo, but each of those cities has a population roughly equal to that of Ontario, or Canada in the case of Tokyo. With Toronto, appropriate comparisons are with cities like Chicago, Vienna, or Rome. The systems of Berlin and Madrid are far superior for cities of a comparable size. Reading this list, you can amuse yourself with knowledge of the world's lesser-used subway systems like Detroit, Ottawa or Yerevan (still the largest system in all of Armenia).
What does make Toronto's system something of an embarrassing anomaly is that though we look down our noses at supposedly crumbling, underfunded American cities, our various governments have little to no interest in funding the TTC, which is extraordinarily dependent on passengers for its revenue. The transit strike being proposed for November 13 is the latest in a long line of endeavours aiming to convey frustration through abstention. We've seen it with gas, Facebook, the Cleveland Browns, and so on.
The better idea would be what these Redskins fans are planning, or still more constructive, elect politicians with a commitment to funding public transit. That presumes, of course, that you yourself actually care about public transit and don't just emerge every now and then to bash the TTC as a backronym for Take The Car. We do have seven new light rail lines supposedly coming by 2020, but given that the 8 km York University subway extension was approved in 2005 for service in 2015, I might be dead before we complete 120 km of light rail lines.
By the way, if you understood the title and first sentence of this post, you have horrible taste in music. Here is your reward.
Labels: Beijing, Cleveland Browns, expensive things, Froot Loops, Nelly, public transit, subway, Toronto
posted by Adeel 12:24 AM
Monday, November 09, 2009
Watching the Chargers pull out a 21-20 win over the Giants was watching the Chargers do what they do. This year's 2-3 start was a blessing compared to last year's 4-8 and the year before that they started 1-3. The game was very exciting. Up 17-4, the Giants had first-and-goal at the Chargers' 4 with 3 minutes left. They muffed it up and kicked a field goal on fourth down making it 20-14. Going for it on fourth down would have either sealed the game or given the Chargers 96 yards to go in two minutes.A Chargers field goal after a failed fourth-down conversion would have only tied the game and a touchdown would have won. But a touchdown would have also won against a 20-14 lead, as was the case. Given the choice between a certain victory and a 96-yard field, I think the Giants should have gone for it. If nothing else, fourth down conversions are entertaining. Nobody wants to watch a bunch of wusses play, and wusses tend not to win.
Elsewhere in football, the Saints turned another rout into a decisive victory won going away. Down 14-0 and 17-6 at halftime, New Orleans tied the game 20-20 at the end of the third quarter, kicked a field goal late in the fourth quarter. That must have scared the Panthers so much that a few minutes later, running back DeAngelo Williams simply dropped the ball at his own 1 or 2 yard line. The Saints recovered and nonchalantly strolled into the endzone for a 30-20 win. This was similar to a 24-3 deficit two weeks ago that became a 48-34 win. What has made their last three wins so impressive is that the back-breaking points at the end were scored on defensive touchdowns.
With the best game of the week still to come in a few hours, between the 5-2 Steelers and 6-1 Broncos, it's safe to say that this was the best week of football in a while. There were a number of exciting games, although they were between good or average teams, like the Cowboys-Eagles, Colts-Texans, and Giants-Chargers. There are still two 8-0 teams, one 7-1 team and after tonight, another four teams with at least 6 wins. Compare that with five 1-7 teams.
posted by Adeel 5:19 PM
Sunday, November 08, 2009
I enjoy Toronto most on cold Sunday mornings. I don't know why, but the city seems to be at its best and is most interesting on Sundays. If you trace Toronto's history as a sleepy Protestant city where the subway still doesn't start until 9 on Sundays, you get a good taste of old Toronto on Sunday mornings. When the weather is cold, the streets are empty and shops closed except for Tim Hortons, you're getting the full Toronto experience.In all honesty, it's the full Toronto experience because I often end up running on Sunday mornings for up to 30 km, meaning that I see a lot of Toronto. If it was my habit to engage in low-speed sightseeing tours of Toronto on humid, smoggy Wednesday afternoons, I might feel the same way about those sweltering afternoons, you could argue.
Humid, smoggy summer afternoons do express the fact that Toronto has one of the most miserable combinations of weather anywhere in the world. They don't quite express Toronto's past as a quiet native settlement and then Canada's straight-laced second city that unexpectedly became the centre of the known universe when the first city imploded. Cold Sunday mornings are more fitting than warm ones because cold ones make the streets seem even deader than they are.
Much is made in Toronto of whether or not this is a world-class city, a term that's as nebulous as "a pile of stones". It's not a city without its flaws, but I'm constantly amazed at how many people I've met that have a familiarity with Toronto: a Great Wall bus tour, an LG Twins baseball game in Seoul, an Australian traveling in Paris, a museum guard in Istanbul, and so on. That's largely due to Toronto's status as a magnet for immigrants, you could say, but clearly Toronto has made a name for it that goes beyond its comparatively small size.
Cold mornings in a city that takes its staid Sundays seriously is interesting because Toronto is otherwise a maddening potpourri of architecture, people, ideas and cultures. A good way to see this is to stand at the corner of Dundas and McCaul. The view south is jam-packed with towering monuments to bizarre architecture: the comparatively normal Art Gallery of Ontario is in front, just behind it is the table-top OCAD building, and in the distance is the CN Tower. You're standing just east of Chinatown, but west of the hospital district (official name: Discovery District), south of the university and north of whatever it is that you call Queen Street.
posted by Adeel 11:06 PM
Saturday, November 07, 2009
Guy Fawkes Day is probably a bad time to declare an insurgency, but that's what Michele Bachmann did. Bachmann is a member of the American House of Representatives and she sent Rush Limbaugh an email entitled "Insurgency in Congress". This insurgency was planned for Thursday, November 5, with the aim of maintaining America's status as the only developed country without national health insurance. In addition to the frightening title of the email, Bachmann wrote:"If real freedom-loving Americans come to Washington and walk up and down the halls of the office buildings and the capitol tracking down congressmen, looking them in the whites of their eyes and getting them on videotape, then I think we can kill this thing. If we can kill health care this week in the House, I think we will kill it for the next ten years. We have Jon Voight and Mark Levin confirmed, also Betsy McCaughey. We'll have a meet-up at the Capitol steps and then the insurgency begins. It's a big task, but it's the best way to really kill the bill, which is our goal."
Bachmann is, of course, no stranger to lunacy. In the past, she has called for an investigation of anti-American activities from left-wing liberals in Congress, refused to fill out the census form because that's how the Japanese were sent to internment camps, and rambled incoherently about the benefits of carbon dioxide.
Once again, I call for Chairman Mao on the US dollar bill by 2030. 毛主席是我们心中的红太阳!
posted by Adeel 2:36 AM
Thursday, November 05, 2009
This year, I had the misfortune of spending some time in close proximity with a former co-worker who was both an idiot and a person of epic proportions. One day she boomed, to anyone who could hear, that she was going to cleanse her body of "poisonous toxins". I asked her if there was such a thing as non-poisonous toxins, but she didn't understand the question. There are lots of people like her who like to "cleanse" their body in variety of ill-advised, medieval-inspired methods. They even have their own online communities, but that shouldn't surprise anyone (here are serious communities dedicated to running, fat acceptance, graves and white supremacism).Slate's Samantha Hennig decided to try a 10-day cleanse in which she abstained from any food and only consumed some unholy liquid concoctions. On its own, it makes for interesting viewing, but it's an interesting insight into the warped thinking of that subset of the population which insists on shunning conventional medicine and will try anything as long as it has no evidence to support it and sounds kind of nice. This entry was spawned by a letter printed in the National Post today, which questioned why people will run from the flu shot and entrust their body to all sorts of quackery, but not, say, their cars.
Nobody goes to a mechanic, who says that you need the sort of new part whose name I would know if I knew anything about cars, and then disregards that opinion by going to an alternative, all-natural mechanic, who does nothing but rub your seats with elephant urine. With machines, we don't think twice about trusting the experts, who often do suggest unnecessary products and services. With healthcare, the sort of person who studied medicine for seven years is not to be trusted, but you should probably trust the person who completed a six-week course in naturopathy.
A working theory I have on the appeal of non-scentific medicine is that much of the appeal comes from cures that just sounds nice. There are many things that though we don't enjoy on a regular basis, we like the idea of being able to enjoy them on a regular basis. That's why we buy books that we have no intention of reading, talk about watching soccer if it was ever on, and always drink strange teas, as long as they're of an exotic East Asian origin. On a vague level, many people like the idea of being able to cleanse their body of bile just as the ancients would have liked. Unlike buying War and Peace and occasionally reading its first few chapters, there can be serious consequences to not eating any food for ten days.
posted by Adeel 1:55 PM
Wednesday, November 04, 2009
I don't have an English name, but many people do. I've seen lots of kids with weird English names that came from currency, TV, movies and so on. I've never seen anyone with names as crazy as the ones in this video. I did meet an Athena in China. All the other names were too hard to pronounce.
Labels: 中国
posted by Adeel 5:30 PM
Tuesday, November 03, 2009
I got to spend the afternoon and evening yesterday with my 75-year-old grandmother, who has lived in Canada for about 20 years but is not too familiar with football. At first she confused the pregame showmanship for professional wrestling, asking if it was real. Then she criticized the game for its barbarism. "They hit each other in the head, intentionally. It's so uncivilized." She also found some of the dives a little gratuitous. "Why do they just fall down on purpose?" She was relieved that they do wear shoulder pads and helmets, but given the present concern about the long-term impact of concussions in football, her analysis is not that funny.The game between the Saints and Falcons was very well-played, with shifts in momentum and lots of offense. The best part was the final 90 seconds of the game, even though the outcome was a certainty. The Falcons had no timeouts and were down by 11 points. On a third-down play, Coy Wire simply took the ball away from running back Pierre Thomas, who carelessly dove into a fracas. The Falcons quickly drove down the field and scored a field goal with about 40 seconds left.
On the ensuing onside kick, the ball went off a Saints player and right to Wire once again. The Falcons got a long completion to bring the ball to midfield before a last-second pass was intercepted. Going from a few kneel-downs to actually having a chance to erase an 11-point lead with less than two minutes left to go is fantastic football. For trying to prevent viewers from being treated to a series of kneel-downs 42 seconds apart, I hope the Falcons are justly and richly rewarded.
posted by Adeel 12:46 AM
Monday, November 02, 2009
So, it took seven tries, but the Broncos finally lost. To the extent that I have a favourite football team, it's the Broncos, though I'll cheer for pretty much any cold weather team and refuse to legitimize the Broncos unless legitimate. A 6-0 start was a good claim for legitimacy, but from the moment they took the field against the Ravens yesterday, I could say that I knew they were frauds. After a 30-7, I didn't feel like a complete moron for once after a Broncos game.This probably was the most interesting thing to happen all day in football, unless you consider BRETT FAVRE RETURNING TO GREEN BAY WEARING A JERSEY OTHER THAN THE JERSEY OF THE GREEN BAY PACKERS, FOR WHOM HE PLAYED AS RECENTLY AS TWO YEARS AGO to be an interesting story. If you do, you might also be interested in touring your former workplace and soaking up abuse from erstwhile customers. Lost in the hype of BRETT FAVRE RETURNING TO GREEN BAY WEARING A JERSEY OTHER THAN THE JERSEY OF THE GREEN BAY PACKERS, FOR WHOM HE PLAYED AS RECENTLY AS TWO YEARS AGO was the fact that the Vikings-Packers game was also an important division game. With a win, the Packers, FOR WHOM BRETT FAVRE ONCE PLAYED, AS RECENTLY AS TWO YEARS AGO, could have improved to 5-2 and the Vikings would have been 6-2.
Hopefully the Saints-Falcons game tonight will be more interesting. I was so starved for an interesting game that I resorted to watching baseball last night, knowing full well what the outcome would be. Baseball, I'm always pleased to realize, is actually a really interesting sport if the Blue Jays are not involved. Elsewhere in sports, if you had bet $100 each on the men's and women's winners at the New York Marathon, you would have about $14,000 today. Clearly, if you're bored by football, you should turn to marathons.
posted by Adeel 1:46 PM
Friday, October 30, 2009
If you're at all interested in running, you should watch the New York Marathon here on Sunday. It was originally a great race, but then the runners started to get worn out before the race even started. Two of the fastest men, Martin Lel and Patrick Makau, balked at the thought of running the race, as did five of the women. That still leaves a very good collection of runners, but it could have been much better.Odds make this much more fun, so let's see what they are, courtesy of Oddschecker.
Jaouad Gharib - 5/2
James Kwambai - 9/2
Patrick Makau - 5/1
Ryan Hall - 5/1
Marilson Gomes dos Santos - 6/1
Robert Cheruiyot - 9/1
The rest of the guys won't win. The temptation is to go for Gharib or Kwambai, since they've run a 2:05 and a 2:04 this year. Gharib is very reliable, but almost never wins, except of course for the consecutive world championships he won. I won't pick Kwambai just because the guy with the fastest PB never wins, it's just too simple.
Patrick Makau debuted with a 2:06 in his first marathon this year, and I'd bet on him if he's running, which he's not according to a Kenyan newspaper.
Robert Cheruiyot at the bottom ran well enough to finish 5th at the World Championships, but I see no compelling reason for him to win.
That leaves Ryan Hall, who is white and has blonde hair, and Marilson Gomes dos Santos, who has only won two of the last three New York Marathons, but nobody thinks he's all that good.
If Makau isn't running, then Kwambai (second at Boston in '07, second at Berlin in '08, second at Rotterdam in '09) will finally win something.
On the women's side, we have the following odds:
Paula Radcliffe - 1/3
Salina Kosgei - 9/2
Yuri Kano - 9/1
Ludmila Petrova - 9/1
Radcliffe, unless she's sick or is running at the Olympics, always wins. Kosgei won Boston this year, so she's the better payoff. Kano will only be a factor if the pace is slow and something weird happens. Petrova is 41 years old, though she was second last year.
Speaking of gambling, here's an interesting article about how this Sunday's football games ruined Las Vegas.
posted by Adeel 2:13 PM
Monday, October 26, 2009
Over the course of about 11 hours yesterday, I saw all or parts of twelve football games, thanks to NFL Sunday Ticket. This was my first time partaking in the awesome power of television, and I was disappointed. Before I'd had time to adjust my eyes to the unholy glow of the screen, pretty much everyone was off to a two or three-touchdown lead. With the exception of the Steelers-Vikings, Bills-Panthers and Cowboys-Falcons, all of the 11 games on in the afternoon were routs at one point or another. There were seven games on at 1 pm yesterday, but they were all blowouts except for the Steelers-Vikings, until the 49ers made a game of it in Houston.I was disappointed with the results, but not so disappointed as to not watch just as compulsively next weekend. This is, after all, my just reward for watching football games last year in the most uncomfortable part of the night (Mondays, 2-5 am), on my laptop, in my choice of either Chinese or Danish.
Watching so many football games at once is an overwhelming responsibility. At one point, I just gave up and started watching the Bills-Panthers, until my brother pointed out that to do this would defeat the purpose of the all-games service. Still, if nothing else, it was a instructive exercise in why they only show one or two (sometimes three) NFL games at a time: the rest are really too bad. Who, aside from Bills fans (and even this is debatable), wants to watch the Bills and Panthers play? Or, how about next week's Epic Fail Bowl, the Lions hosting the Rams? I really want someone to look it up and let me know if two worse teams (these two are 1-5 and 0-6) have ever met. It's not just that they combine for a 1-11 record, it's also that the Lions have lost 22 of their 23 games, and the Rams have lost 24 of their last 26. So, we're going to see two teams on a combined 3-46 run.
Of course, there were lots of good plays too. There was a Lamar Woodley fumble recovery and touchdown where the ball sat on the ground for a seeming eternity, and then Woodley ran downfield for what seemed like an eternity, with none of the Vikings able or willing to bring him down. On the ensuing kickoff, the Vikings returned it for a touchdown, thanks to Steelers kicker Jeff Reed, who forced the returner toward the sideline where there were no tacklers, instead of the middle of the field, where there were many tacklers. There were also Eli Manning's fantastic deep passes, which somehow always seem to find their targets in the most improbable of settings.
There was also this freakish run by Reggie Bush in the most entertaining game of the week. The Saints were down 24-3, but came back to win 46-34 over the Dolphins. Proving that the NFL is run by some of the strangest men around, possibly androids, this game came to an end when the Dolphins drove to the Saints goal line and spiked the ball with a second to go. The ensuing play was irrelevant and would have ended the game. Still, the officials conferred for a few minutes. They finally ruled that on the spike, one of the Dolphins receivers "was not in a set position". This necessitated either a 10-second run-off or the loss of a timeout. Since the Dolphins had neither, the game was over PHP exception
posted by Adeel 2:18 PM