Easter Weekend

Sunday March 31, 8:58 p.m.

Hard to believe that we're almost into April, and there is still the threat of snow tomorrow. And the weekend was so mild, too. Maybe April Fool's is coming a bit early this year. Hey, this is Toronto...world of wacky weather!

Since I'm neither religious nor a huge eater of chocolate anymore, Easter doesn't have that much meaning for me. And since I work almost exclusively at home now, the long weekend didn't really have that oomph. Still, since it was a holiday weekend, our family went out for good ol' Fish n' Chips. But because the Catholics are indeed keeping to tradition and not eating any red meat, the Fish n' Chips places were doing volume business; I think one owner remarked that Good Friday is the busiest day of the year for them. My family hit The Olde York, a venerable old place, on Saturday evening. And sure enough, Good Friday was spilling over into Good Saturday. We had to wait for about 30 minutes before we could get a table, but the service was absolutely friendly and unruffled despite the hungry hordes, and we all splurged for the Halibut. Of course, that fish is the most delicious (and not surprisingly, the fattiest one); whenever I've gone there in the past, I've gone for the more inexpensive but drier Haddock but since I was eschewing the chowder and the dessert, I decided to go for the gusto. Wasn't disappointed.

Got back home to see the Leafs trounce the Senators 4-0....one columnist for "The Toronto Star" has all but anointed the team into Playoff Nirvana. I'm not quite ready to make that pronouncement myself, but it's nice to hear such happy thoughts this year compared to the horror that was on the ice this time last year.

Then, I saw the start of the 2nd half of Season 7 of "Doctor Who" with a new companion and a slightly new outfit for the Time Lord. Apparently, the reviews have been somewhat mixed for "The Bells of St. John". I'm more in the middle of the pack. It was nice to see Matt Smith happy and madly eccentric, especially after that horrid swan song episode to the Ponds, and the accompanying travelogue to London reminded me of "Skyfall". However, the episode didn't have quite the oomph I had been expecting for the 11th Doctor, especially after all of the accolades that the Xmas Special had gotten (still haven't had the chance to watch it). Hopefully, things will be going ever upwards.

Unfortunately, there has been another shooting at another major shopping mall in Toronto in as many years. The Toronto news channels were all fixated on Yorkdale Mall for the rest of the night after some sort of altercation; from the sounds of the victim's and the instigators' names, it may be a Vietnamese gang issue. Just another way that Toronto seems to be resembling more like an American metropolis....creaking transit system and urban crime.

Springing Forward

Friday March 8, 10:54 p.m.

Looking a bit more optimistic out there in the weather department. Went out with Dad and it felt quite warm. Mind you, +1 degree is pretty relative but it was also quite sunny, and things are just looking better for the weekend. Makes one wonder why anyone would like to head down south for March Break. Well, mind you, the folks down there are getting 29 more degrees than we are.

Finished off a good week of translation, and looking forward to a bit of respite perhaps just blogging and watching TV. Spring seems to be coming in and our clocks are gonna be springing forward one hour as of early Sunday morning. But I saw an amazing instance of springing back...from adversity, that is. I woke up this morning to see a bit of that Japan vs. Taiwan game at The World Baseball Classic. Japan was behind 2-0 in the bottom of the 8th when they started to pull off a major upset by tying things up. Then when Taiwan pulled ahead 3-2 at the top of the 9th, Japan just tied things up again before winning for good in the 10th. That is grit. The Leafs have pulled this sort of feat before, and hopefully they will remember to do so in the latter half of this strike-shortened schedule.

Still, not all lightness and heart in Toronto. There was that tragic case of that 5-year-old girl getting struck down and killed by a garbage truck yesterday; the school and surrounding neighbourhood are mourning very deeply. And then at Thistledown Collegiate yesterday, scum actually had the gall...and stupidity...to ooze in and rob two students of their cellphones and fire a bullet at one other kid before taking off and pulling off some more robberies. Luckily, those kids left a pretty good bread crumb trail in the form of their blue Toyota with a fully-recognizable license plate and security camera footage. It's almost as if they were begging to be arrested. And then of course, our walking trouble magnet, Mayor Rob Ford, is back in the news for allegedly groping a former mayoral candidate at a party the night before, although I'm getting the feeling that there may be holes developing in her story. Never a dull day in this city....kinda wish for some, though.

Nice to be at home

Friday February 8, 1:28 p.m.

Well, there truly was a calm before the storm last night. There was a nice fresh coating on the ground after 9 pm, but there was nothing falling. It looked like a nice Christmas-y moment. However, this morning, the snow was coming down steadily and heavily, although traffic on my street looked pretty smooth. I even saw two TTC buses pass by within about 5 minutes of each other, which is very good on a snow day.

I took a walk outside but just around the block, since wearing heavy boots and trudging through several centimetres of the white stuff has a tendency to tucker me out fairly quickly now. Maybe someone can make a seasonal exercise regimen out of it, although I can imagine Emergency Services picking up people out of snowbanks. At least in my neck of the woods, the storm is really just a batch of really heavy snow. The winds aren't blowing all that much here, and aside from the trudging, it was a pretty nice walk. Plus, the sound-muffling qualities of freshly-fallen snow always give an eerie feel to any stroll in a quieter neighbourhood.

Speaking about Christmas, it kinda feels like I am currently in that time period. Usually when I just came for the Holidays, I had friends here in Toronto all calling or e-mailing me for that lunch or dinner somewhere in the GTA. Well, my old friend The Egg contacted me to see if I were up for something next week. I told him about my upcoming lunch with my other ramen buddy next Tuesday at Santouka, so I'm seeing if he'll be up for that. The Egg is also pretty big for Japanese food, so all these izakayas and ramen shops that have been popping up like mushrooms are manna from heaven for him. And my call from The Entrepreneur the other day and my subsequent e-mail over to CG may translate to a lunch or dinner outing in the west end of town soon. Apparently, there's some restaurant chain called Fork And Spoon that's a mutual favourite of theirs. I'm not too willing to go all the way into deepest, darkest Oakville for a meal since that's where the both of them live, but I gave a counter-proposal in the form of the chain's Etobicoke branch which would only entail a purely TTC subway and bus ride.

Newswise, of course, locally, it's been all about the snowstorm of the season, and all those cars slip-slidin' away like billiard balls. However, I've also been keeping an eye on that story in southern California where this rogue ex-cop, Christopher Dorner, has been terrorizing the LAPD with three killings and the threat of even more mayhem. It just sounds like a screenplay from a Steven Seagal movie. At this point, Dorner may be holed up in a remote wooded area which is good for the public at large. My main worry would be if he somehow evaded the dragnet and headed back into the city. With the Grammys coming up this weekend, an insane ex-cop and Navy reservist who is aiming for the cops would make things very dicey for a Hollywood high-security event like that.

Charlie and Wayne

courtesy of maurisico
from Flickr

courtesy of M. D'Evreux
from Flickr

Wednesday January 23, 2:43 p.m.

Yesterday was a marathon session to get that mammoth translation assignment in on time. Gave myself some virtually permanent katakori by tapping away at the keyboard for hours. And sure enough, I have another big assignment due next week. But ain't touching that today....nope, gonna give myself a bit of a break. Mind you, if I had to be cocooned in the apartment, it would've been and should've been yesterday. It was rather cold out there with a high of only -12 C

But I couldn't just stay at home all day today....would've gone stir crazy. And so with it being -18 C this morning, I had my first experience of really cold weather for the first time in decades. It was bracing out there although I was fully equipped, tonsorially speaking. Had the scarf and longjohns on. It was rather nice, though, walking through that cold. Felt positively Canadian again.

Now, as for the title today. I heard and saw a couple of stories....one which is true, one which is not (at least not for now or the near future). First, the true one. Apparently the voice actor behind Charlie Brown was nabbed by police....for stalking, of all things. This is probably gonna be a dream target for the late night show hosts. And strangely enough, couldn't you see perpetually depressed Charlie Brown growing up to become a stalker? His obsession with the Little Red-Haired Girl going to extremes? In any case, I can imagine if some reporter were able to stick a microphone in the actor-turned-jailbird's face, the first thing he probably would say, "RATS"! That is, after he got nabbed by the cops when he exclaimed, "AAAAAAUUUUUGGGGGGH!"

The other story that got Toronto going crazy like a fox was the rumour that The Great One himself, Wayne Gretzky, could become the next President of the Maple Leafs, occupying the place left by ousted Brian Burke. Not sure how this one got started, but it was probably a reporter who just decided to throw something into the mix when he/she was interviewing one of the new powers-that-be of the hockey team. I was too busy and stressed out yesterday to catch TV but apparently the media was having a field day with it. But can you imagine Gretzky, the best hockey player in NHL history and with his record as a businessman in the sport, coming to this town....the so-called Mecca of Hockey? Just hard for me to imagine a guy like him leaving the sunny confines of California in happy retirement, though. But then again, if someone finally gets him that money from the Phoenix Coyotes, perhaps he could see Toronto as the ultimate challenge worthy of his talents and time.

Different News Fronts

Monday January 21, 7:51 p.m.

Well, it's been a varied day in terms of news. Down in the States, the main story was the second inauguration of Barack Obama, over in Japan, NHK led with the sad news that 7 Japanese nationals have been confirmed killed due to the hostage incident in Algeria, and over here, the big story was the return of the Leafs to action tonight. It was nice to see and hear the Leafs win the first game in Montreal....and a low-scoring one, at that. Saw the first few minutes of tonight's Buffalo-Toronto game....pretty spirited although the Leaf defence still needs a bit of enhancing, but our own buzzsaw, Colton Orr, managed to knock a 6'8" fellow down to his knees in the first fight at the ACC this year. Always great for morale to see that.

I managed to fairly sprint through another 50 pages of translation this afternoon since there wasn't all that much text. Just have another 50 or so to go and then the final check before hand-in.

System Progressive Protection

Monday January 7, 7:36 p.m.

Feeling somewhat exhausted right now. I went toe-to-toe with my first computer virus/malware in several years earlier this afternoon. Someone once coined the phrase "Evil is banal." Well, you couldn't get more evil than "System Progressive Protection". Somehow, somewhere....despite having all of my defenses up, I got smacked in between the eyes with this sudden outburst of a fake-looking screen scanning my computer and informing me that I've got tons of viruses and that I should be paying bucks for this fake anti-virus software. I didn't visit any weird sites or download anything, but then again, anytime I'm online, there is always a chance of getting hit with a virus.

And SPP is one truculent piece of malware. Its icon is a lock and it insinuated itself with the proverbial claws. It held fast, and every few minutes, it kept haranguing me with messages about these problems and that I should get the solution....all the while preventing me from accessing any of the other legit antiviral remedies in my hard drive, as well as Hotmail. Every other site I tried to access got me a page warning me about not accessing it before it let me through. Despite my annoyance, I read enough about how insidious SPP is and then checked out YouTube to see if I could find any remedies there. There were a lot of videos and they sounded useful but every time I tried to download the needed software, the malware stopped me at every turn until I found a Trojan Killer at one site and was able to get that past the guards and kill the entire process. Glad that I could do it by myself and am better protected now. I guess it's true what they say: whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger.

New Year's Day

Tuesday January 1, 9:51 a.m.

Well, Happy New Year to you. Woke up with only 5 hours of sleep since I knew Mom would be early up in the kitchen making the annual o-zoni: miso soup with rice cakes inside. Plus, there was the usual blobby stewed konnyaku and black beans. No problems with eating them (although a few people in Japan leave this mortal coil due to choking on the rice cakes) but I sometimes feel that eating this stuff is more of an obligation than a desire.

Didn't take too long before the shots rang out here in Toronto. There were a couple of shootings downtown overnight, and apparently there has been some sort of incident near Vic Park Station according to the TTC reports. Life in the big city, I guess.

No particular plans but my brother's family will be coming over later today for dinner. Of course, right now in Japan, it's much later into the evening over there, but I assume that a lot of extended families are still reveling in the party atmosphere of O-Shogatsu. This will continue for a couple of more days at least. Over here in the Great White North, it will be straight back to the grindstone as of tomorrow. Of course for me, this will probably entail me walking just a few metres from my bed.

The Last 24 Hours

Tuesday November 27, 12:25 a.m.

It must be a great day to be a journalist of any kind in Toronto. I can imagine reporters everywhere kneeling in their bedrooms tonight and just looking upwards with a beatifically joyous gleam, screaming "THANK YOU, LORD!!! OH, THANK YOU!!!"

I would've thought that the only thing that could steal the headlines from the Argos winning the Grey Cup (the first time the team has done so on home turf in 50 years) was a miraculous agreement between the National Hockey League and the NHL Players Association. I was quite wrong. Instead, it turned out to be the firing of Mayor Rob Ford, around 12 hours after the Argos made it official.

Ford was found guilty of breaking conflict-of-interest rules for using official City Council resources to ask for donations for his football foundation back when he was still a councillor. This was back in 2010, and I guess it isn't just the arm of the law that's long....so is the memory. And the judge was having none of it. Citing the need for administrators of high office to be held to a high standard, the judge took away Ford's council seat and gave him 2 weeks to clear out his things and get out of City Hall. Wow! I thought this reality was the least likely option; my feelings had been that the judge would've given Ford a stern lecture and ordered him to return the donated money but allowed him to keep his job.

But with this verdict, the journalists are just jumping and jiving. And it looks like the population may be evenly divided. In any case, Ford was at his most truculent and said that he would fight the verdict "tooth and nail". Politics just became a nuclear hotbed in this city. And the ironic thing is that the Argonauts are gonna have their victory parade later today which will involve the team handing over the trophy to guess who? It should make for a fascinating and awkward moment.

Decompressing Time

Thursday November 22, 1:47 p.m.

Just taking some time off for the next few days. I had that all-day translating assignment yesterday, and considering the written version of a stern lecture from the boss the other day for not providing a high-quality product, I concentrated even more on this one on Wednesday. After a triple check, I handed it in a few hours before the deadline. Got the acknowledgement from the boss this morning, and he even offered me another assignment today but I turned it down. It was even larger but I'm feeling even more tired. So, today is just taking care of my blogs.

Started my Xmas time this morning when I sent out the first 8 Xmas cards over to Japan, and bought a couple of calendars for my former students since the two of them had been kind enough to send over a small parcel of rice crackers and peanuts a couple of months ago. I figure things are gonna get nuts starting in a couple of weeks.

This morning on NHK News, it was being reported that there was some sort of hostage-taking incident happening at a store in Aichi Prefecture. At the time, the psycho released a couple of hostages and got some bento for the remaining people inside. As bad as that situation is over there, I can't even imagine what it's gonna be like tomorrow on Black Friday in the States. I can guarantee that it will be violent.

Meanwhile in the final sumo championship of the year, there are two yokozuna grand champions for the first time in several years. Hakuho is protecting his one loss as the leader but the new yokozuna, Harumafuji, is looking a bit uncertain after losing 3 bouts. Not too yokozuna-like in performance but then again, the pressure is probably a bit harder on him right now.

Dissolution or Disillusion?

Friday November 16, 7:39 p.m.

There have been some strange parallels going on between Japan and North America in the last couple of days.

Last Tuesday, the United States...or half of them....re-elected Barack Obama as their President in a culmination of nearly 2 years of steadily hysterical campaigning that has left the electorate exhausted after record numbers of them came out to vote, except now they're facing the Fiscal Cliff. Meanwhile in the last 24 hours, PM Noda was basically forced to dissolve the Japanese Parliament by the Opposition led by a supposedly rejuvenated former PM and current LDP leader Shinzo Abe. What will follow is a month of white-gloved and loudspeaker-manned-truck campaigning before the Lower House election on December 16....for which there will most likely be very anemic voter turnout. In another parallel, Obama gets back into the Oval Office, no longer as the Man of Change or Yes We Can, but as a hardened Chief Executive who beat a Republican candidate who just seemed to beat himself up. On the other side of the Pacific, the Democratic Party of Japan led by Yukio Hatoyama seemed to be the hopeful new engine of a Manifesto when they trounced the once-unbeatable Liberal Democratic Party 3 years ago. But as of today, the DPJ's Manifesto is pretty much a verboten word and the governing party has half the support that the LDP currently has.

And the same thing can be said about transit crime. A couple of days ago, there was a kerfuffle in which a TTC driver had been suspended for being a Good Samaritan by abandoning his post and trying to chase down an alleged sexual assaulter who ran from his vehicle (luckily, the driver has been re-instated with full pay). Over in Tokyo, a prominent NHK morning anchor for the weekend, Takeshige Morimoto, has been arrested for allegedly sexually assaulting a lady on the subway on Wednesday night. Since we have TV Japan, his face was a regular one to see at home. When we turned on NHK tonight to see the morning news (Tokyo is 14 hours ahead of us), he was obviously not there, and there was not a mention of his name. At this point, he is persona non grata....until things get cleared up. Apparently, Morimoto had been drinking at the time, so I guess he was pretty dissolute. Just wondering if his career is gonna be facing dissolution as well.

This is Morimoto in happier days.

Miyoko Sumida

Monday November 12, 2:39 p.m.

The past several days on NHK News, there has been a long running report on this woman, Miyoko Sumida, who has allegedly been the mastermind behind the extortion and murder of a number of people connected with her extended family over a period of many years. Apparently, she, along with a few of her other family members, imprisoned, tortured, killed and dumped at least a couple of bodies while reaping some financial benefits. And this is a 64-year-old woman who supposedly has some fearsome control over her family. She has apparently confessed to the murders but will not implicate any of her henchmen. Another psychopath to add to the long list in Japan.

I haven't heard anything like this for over a decade. There was the curry-poisoning incident in Wakayama in which Masumi Hayashi was responsible for doping vats of curry with some form of arsenic in 1998. She and her husband were tried and convicted. Heck, she even tried to off him for the insurance money.

Fear in the old neighbourhood

Wednesday October 24, 10:12 a.m.

I'm in a holding pattern so far today. I sent in my translations last night well before the due time; nothing from the boss but he usually doesn't respond before 11. No calls from the school, either. I just whipped up a homework sheet for my Skype student and sent that off to him...something on complex sentences.

It's still plenty gloomy out there. Not raining per se but pretty darn overcast. I really have to take that walk today since I kept it all inside yesterday handling the final part of that translation.In Japan, on NHK, the weather forecaster made the rounds of the countryside. Not sure where she went but she pointed out the snow and some formation of ice in the water....she remarked that the temps were a "bonechilling" -1 degree; how cute. Tokyoites were bundled up in their heavy winter clothing as temperatures there were now hovering just over 10 degrees. They couldn't have such short memories about one of the hottest summers in recent memory. As I've said before, summer is one of the few things that I don't miss about Japan.

I saw the news report yesterday about that poor woman who had been brutally murdered in Cabbagetown in the wee hours. At this point, it seems to be a totally unprovoked attack which is scaring everyone. For me, it's been almost 40 years but I used to live in St. James Town which is literally a stone's-throw away from the area. I was on Ontario St. and the other streets of Winchester and Bleecker are all well-known to me. In retrospect, St. James Town was never all that safe even back when I was a kid in the 60s and 70s....urban planners have called it a failed project. I think it was just that they packed too many highrise apartments too far away from the major streets. Still, there were some fond memories there. School wasn't one of them but I used to remember the homemade ice rink at Rose Ave. Public School, the huge chestnut trees and some pretty scary-high snow mountains right at the cul-de-sac in front of my building. If we hadn't moved away, I would've gone to Winchester High School in Cabbagetown. Even now, though I haven't set foot in the area (aside from being in a car) for decades, hearing about this crime is chilling.

Subway explosion

Friday October 19, 7:41 p.m.

I heard a couple of hours ago that there had been some sort of explosion on the Tokyo Metro. It was on the Marunouchi (Red) Line at Hongo-Sanchome Station at around midnight. I was never on that line at that time of night but considering it was Friday, it was probably still quite crowded with commuters coming home from a night carousing at the bars or karaoke. Luckily, if one can call it that, it was an accident involving a chemical reaction between some cleanser and the aluminium can that it had been in; a young lady had the can in her bag. She and about 14-15 others got some slight burns but nothing more major than that. When I first heard the news, my mind immediately brought up images of the sarin attack by Aum Shinrikyo back in 1995.

A few hours after the explosion on the Tokyo Metro, there was some sort of knifing spree at JR Fukuoka Station. Some 26-year-old psycho had stabbed about 5 men before he was subdued. Several years ago, there was a rash of these stabbing sprees done by troubled men who had thought the world and their lives meaningless. Luckily, the wounds at Fukuoka were all relatively minor.

Just goes to show that Japan may be safer than most countries but there's no such thing as total safety.

Computer Blues

Thursday September 5, 1:57 a.m.

I haven't had my new computer for even a week, and I'm already facing a hiccup with it. Looks my Samsung refuses to accept the product key for the MS Office, and for some reason it won't do downloads of songs due to some error somewhere. Ugh! I've called The Anime King for some assistance.

Although I taught a full day back on Tuesday, it was just a quiet day of translation yesterday with me meeting the boss and another colleague in our translating collective. The boss picked us up at the station and just drove us down to one of his working haunts for a brief hour about what's up with the latest work assignments. I'm in the middle of one such assignment and should be getting an editing job in the next couple of days or so.

Earlier in the summer, we all had been wondering whether Toronto was gonna have Summer of the Gun II after the shooting at the Eaton Centre and the Danzig St. massacre. It seems that the crazy season may end up as the Summer of Body Parts. First, there was the horrific Luka Magnotta murder of that poor Chinese student, then the murder of that Chinese woman here in Toronto by an ex-boyfriend, next came the torso that had popped up in the Niagara River. Finally, we just got another case today with a couple of folks coming across a decomposing torso in a suitcase floating in the water.

I will be heading out tomorrow to have that lunch at the Chinese restaurant that Ol' Sam took me and our other old friend last week. And then, I will see if I can get to the Bell Lightbox further downtown on the first day of the Toronto International Film Festival in probably vain attempt to catch some celebs. And tomorrow, I actually cook for the parentals for the first time. They are hinting that with their advancing age, they'll need a rotation now when it comes to cooking meals.

One of those bizarro weeks

Saturday September 1, 3:45 p.m.

Just haven't had any time to blog here for the past number of days. I had that huge translation assignment which I finally got done with 3 days to spare. Translating tax returns is just as onerous as actually filling them out....except with the former, I will actually earn money. I've already got a less epic assignment but I've decided to not touch that one until Labour Day.

Newswise, it's been one for the year. The police caught the psychopath ex-boyfriend who had killed and chopped up that poor woman a few weeks ago. But now, it seems as if the GTA has started seeing body parts everywhere. A woman's torso popped up in the Niagara River a few nights ago. And even out west in Victoria, BC, shoes with a certain meat-like substance inside them also been washing ashore; methinks that's probably a hoax since similar things had occurred  across the bay in Vancouver a few years ago.

Then, it was seeing a wizened Clint Eastwood doing some unfunny Vaudevillian bit with an empty chair at the Republican National Convention. Man, I didn't think anything could make Dirty Harry look uncool. It almost looked like Clint was channeling Foster Brooks. And he looked OLD! Even in his most recent movies, Clint had that residual steel glint in his eye which could still make people sit up straight, but up on the podium there on Thursday night, he looked more like that doddering family uncle who the relatives humoured on Thanksgiving Day. Still, Jay, Bill, David, Jon and the rest of the late-night gang must've popped champagne corks on seeing all this play out.

Had a teaching gig in the morning yesterday. Basically, only half the class showed up....being the Friday before the long weekend can take the winds out of any student's sails. I just did a stand-up routine and presented the material that the regular teacher had given me. I've also got a full-day deal on Tuesday. But until then, I've got one more Ribfest to attend with The Anime King and his crew tomorrow out in Burlington. My last chance to zestfully enjoy food before my doctor lowers the boom on me; he asked me to come in next Saturday to discuss the findings from my checkup the week before. I'm sure he saw blood platelets the shape of Krispy Kreme donuts.

Well, September is indeed here. More comfy than yesterday's steam bath. Looking forward to my first Fall in Toronto in 17 years.

Sunset Grill and Crime

Saturday August 18, 5:08 p.m.

Man, it was pretty chilly this morning. Only 15 degrees out there. Not complaining, mind you. I've had enough of my Japanese summer mornings waking up in a pool of my own sweat back in Ichikawa City. It's a bit unusual today but overall, Toronto mornings are far more reasonable meteorologically speaking.

I met up with Automan once again, this wife with the missus, The Wild Guy, The Egg and The Tea Lady for brunch at The Sunset Grill on Yonge St. The place is always great for All-Day Breakfast. I had my usual Hash Brown Plate with sausages on the side. We had a perky waitress who was endlessly apologetic when she accidentally spilled coffee on Automan's wife.

In this Summer of the Gun 2, there has been a new crime that has taken over the local airwaves in the last half-week. Shades of Luka Magnotta, body parts have been found in the Credit River over the past few days. One foot with yellow nail polish, a head and both hands have been found scattered. And now I just heard that other parts have been found all the way somewhere in Scarborough.

One Wish

Monday July 23, 12:55 a.m.

Earlier in the month, Japan celebrated an annual ritual called Tanabata on the 7th. Depending on where you live in Japan, the custom can range a fair bit in terms of celebration. But in every place, people write their wishes down on coloured strips of paper and tie them up to the branches of a tree.

Of course, we don't have that ritual here in Canada. But if I could, I would write down for the violence to end not just in my hometown, which has had an unprecedentedly bloody week in the number of shootings and deaths, but also in Aurora Colorado where that horrible mass movie massacre took place. And there is the genocide going on in Syria, and all sorts of mayhem happening all over the globe that is not getting reported. I just want it to all end.

Toronto in Festival Mode

Saturday July 21, 12:17 p.m.

Well, it'll be hell on all of the drivers trying to negotiate downtown, but apparently there are a rash of festivals and events going on in the GTA for the weekend. I think there's something called "Big on Bloor"in the West End of town, while Yorkville is closed off for something, and even a foodie festival somewhere celebrating hot & spicy fare. There's also a jazz festival going on down in The Beaches.

I, myself, will not be immune to the charms of festival mania. I'm heading down to some sort of Night Market around the Cherry Beach area with The Dancer's family tomorrow afternoon. If I'm lucky, I may be able to grab another bag of bagels down there.

But of course, the big thing is that I'm hoping all of the events will be lead-free. Namely, no shootings or other such dangers. Unfortunately, there were three more shootings last night.

Shooting Gallery Continues

Thursday July 19, 2:27 p.m.

The Summer of the Gun is continuing to claim casualties. After the massacre on Danzig St., there have been two more fatalities due to gun crime in as many days. There has been the rightful and righteous screaming and condemnation but solid action may still be days away at the very least.

As for me, it's been a pretty quiet week all told. I sent my editing assignment into the boss last night, and got my feedback from him about the prior translating assignment. He was fair...told me good and bad. Just feel bad after my double-checking that I still missed out on one obvious error.

The Wild Guy called me up to say that an old mutual friend that I hadn't seen in several years was wondering if both of us would be willing to see him for some sort of Ribfest or party out in Mississauga on Saturday night. I've declined since it's a bit of a long haul for me from all the way out here, and even before the shooting gallery started this week, I was never all that enthused about traveling the TTC at night, especially on a weekend.

The gun crisis currently plaguing Toronto reminds me of about 20 years ago when I came back from my 2-year stint in Gunma Prefecture. My parents told me NOT to head down to Chinatown. I was a regular there during my days at U of T because of the proximity, the food and the atmosphere (which could get downright rank and chewable during the summer back in those days). But some turf wars erupted amongst the Chinese and Vietnamese gangs which meant their fair share of shooting and other violence. One of former early members of The Anime Court had relatives who owned a restaurant on Dundas St. near Spadina. I never quite found out if the restaurant had been targeted or had been the unfortunate "bystander", but it managed to earn a couple of bullet holes in the window. After that and before I left for Japan for the next 17 years, I had to settle for going there during the daytime instead of having those late-night dinners I'd enjoyed. But it's not so much that I miss my Chinese dinners there; it's just that my freedom to go to one of my favourite areas in Toronto has been taken away due to fear.

Is Toronto Safe?

Tuesday July 17, 5:15 p.m.

One of the issues that I'd initially wrestled with when I made the decision to come home for good was about crime. I mean, it wasn't a dealbreaker issue...I was coming home regardless but I did wonder about getting used to the so-called mean streets of Toronto after spending years in Tokyo, which is generally regarded as one of the safest big cities on the planet. Case in point: the street where my old Ichikawa apartment was located on was never one of the most brightly-lit, and yet even when I came home from work at around midnight (which was often), the thought of being mugged or worse never ever entered my mind in the 17 years that I'd lived in my small abode. I walked my 10 minutes home in the relative dark fully secure. That doesn't mean that Tokyo or my bedroom town of Ichikawa City was a Paradise Unto Earth. Crime did occur in the Big Sushi, whether it be the unfortunately steadily rising phenomenon of convenience store robberies or murders. Single women and elderly couples living alone have been killed by robbers or psychos over the past several years. Still, when I consider things like per capita rates and the general perception of security of urban living, my adopted home was indeed safe.

Getting back home in December, I quickly got tuned into the latest shooting somewhere in the GTA. In fact, it wasn't too difficult to hear about some sort of knifing (which was the prototypical example of assault or murder in Japan) or shooting on a nearly daily basis as the Holidays passed by. But I was able to let it slide down my back and shrugged it off as just being the necessarily evil part of urban life. I was able to get used to those mean streets. Whenever I went out to meet friends, it was almost always into the northern parts of town, nowhere near the downtown core (on New Year's Eve, I saw some ugliness on the subway and was just thankful that I didn't have to stay onboard that long). If I came home at night, I always kept my wits about me even in my neighbourhood which, knock on wood, has been pretty safe for a long time now.

But it looks like The Summer of the Gun II has come to Toronto. There have been four high-profile and very public shootings in the past number of weeks. Eaton Centre, Little Italy, some festival downtown, and then last night's spree in Scarbourough where 2 people were killed and over a dozen injured because of some altercation at a block party. But there have also been the small ones....such as the one a few nights ago when some nutjob fired a few rounds around Spadina and Queen, the only casualty being a parking meter. I've often walked through that intersection during the day, and back in my university days, I often had late-night dinners with friends in Chinatown just a few minutes north of that intersection. I don't think I've been able to do that for some years.

So the question is: Is Toronto safe? Well, Mayor Rob Ford just announced insistently that Toronto is indeed safe. I didn't see the news conference myself but I can imagine that he used the expression, "....just an isolated incident..."for the gun battle last night. He may continue bleating that mantra even if similar crimes happen over the next few weeks since he's shown he doesn't give a care about what anyone else has to say. On the other side, there will be certain news columnists and a number of citizens who will declare Canada's largest city a cesspool of iniquity....the real-life version of Gotham City without a Batman to hunt and destroy the scum.

I'm not quite in the middle. I tend toward the side that feels Toronto is not in a great state...at least for now. But I don't think the city has fallen into the chasm. I can still go out with friends and family into areas that are safe and even friendly. A festival was held in front of City Hall today in which Mayor Ford was boogeying away (a memory that I would like erased). Toronto has good safe neighbourhoods and the vast majority of Torontonians are decent people. However, all that has been overshadowed by the impression that anything bad can happen in even the safest of areas. My other fear is that this impression will be adopted permanently by us. People may just visit this certain area of the city because there is "only"a 30% chance of a gun battle happening.

Politicians and statisticians will love to state that the number of gun deaths is lower than at the same time last year or that this is the odd blip on the graph. But for the rest of us, all these shootings, big or small, few or many, scare the devil out of us. If they can happen at an enjoyable block party or a cafe in the middle of a soccer celebration or in one of the largest shopping malls in the country, they can happen in any block on any street in this city.