Sorry Lance....don't think so.

Thursday January 31, 5:05 p.m.

I was watching CTV News at 6 pm last night as I usually do, and of course, at around 6:45, the avuncular sportscaster Lance Brown popped up to do his report. One of the features was about this proposed huge arena out north in Markham. The mayor of the growing city, Frank Scarpitti, and the other supporters behind the project just barely passed the gauntlet in the wee hours of the morning a few days ago, which means the consternation will continue about the financial feasibility of this project and the local popularity. One of the carrots on the stick where this arena is concerned is the attraction of an NHL franchise in the supposedly not-so-distant future.

Brown feels that it's just a matter of time before the NHL comes knocking. In his words, "....not tomorrow, but soon". And here I thought he was one of the more cynical local broadcasters, especially when it came to the fortunes of the Maple Leafs. Heck, I'm still not sure whether this arena is even gonna get built, and Brown thinks the Phoenix Coyotes or the Tampa Bay Lightning are gonna migrate upwards? I don't think so....I heard that there were a few more possible candidate cities before Markham even gets a first glance....namely, Quebec City. Personally, it would be nice to see the Nordiques-Canadiens rivalry again. Brown is right in that any team that would come up to Markham will most likely have to pay tribute money to the Leafs to encroach on their turf, but I think for that very reason among others, the GTA becoming a 2-team city is hard to imagine. I don't think it's impossible to see a second team here; I just don't agree with Lance's truncated timeline.

And it seems like the group trying to keep the Coyotes in Arizona has run into another financial snag. So, the team may be moving after this season, but it won't be anywhere by Toronto. I hope the players can learn French and love poutine..

Topsy-Turvy Temperatures of Toronto

Wednesday Jan 30 at +14 C

Thursday January 31, 4:47 p.m.

Gotta say that the picture on the left doesn't really do the weather yesterday justice. But after last week's deep freeze where the average temperature was hovering around -12 C, to experience a temp that was 26 degrees higher was almost overwhelmingly giddy. Toronto weather has always been a bit on the weird side no matter what time of the year, but even yesterday was cause for Torontonians to scratch their heads....or just walk to work in T-shirts and shorts. Taking a walk around the neighbourhood meant that the only obstacle was mud and not ice.

Thursday Jan 31 at -3 C

Then, this morning when I went outside, I was buffeted by some high winds and some major flurries....and a temperature of -3 C! Talk about getting the runaround. I wouldn't have believed that there were less than 24 hours between the two pictures if I hadn't actually experienced the two scenes.

Of course, all this extreme weather has meant consequences on the city's aging infrastructure. Water pipes burst and giant sinkholes emerged out of nowhere. And Toronto City Hall is trying to figure out where to get the funds to do all this repair.




Well, in any case, I'm feeling a bit antsy since I handed in the big translation project last night, and have got not all that much to do right now. Mind you, I do have that small financial statement translation to hand in for Cozy, but I got the basic translation done this morning. I just have to ask him a few questions on some vocab, and I should be OK to give the final draft.

Snow, Rain, Fog....Next, Locusts?

Tuesday January 29, 4:08 p.m.

Back in my Japan days, I often told students about the wacky nature of Toronto weather, and sometimes I did tend to embellish things a bit, although it wasn't by much. But I gotta say that yesterday was an exaggeration come true. Snow in the overnight hours, followed by sleet in the morning, full-blown rain in the afternoon and then fog last night. I can now honestly say that weather is indeed certifiably insane in this city. And it ain't over by a longshot. It's absolutely balmy today at +9 C, but we're getting even hotter tomorrow with a double-digit high of +12 C! Of course, Thursday will have a high of just -2....the temperature will plummet faster than Wile E. Coyote off a cliff.

I've finally got another epic translation done, and this time with more than 24 hours on the clock before deadline, so I've got a chance to give it a very decent going-over before the hand-in. And I got a good deal of practice on TRADOS. Still not too crazy about it but I feel I've got a fairly good bearing on it now. And at least, I can get a good start on Cozy's annual translation of his statements.

I received a couple of contacts from friends yesterday. One was from Sam who wanted to see if I were interested in having a Winterlicious meal with him sometime this week. Not sure if it's lunch or dinner. Winterlicious is one-half of that annual Toronto foodie festival, along with Summerlicious, that was borne from the SARS scare of a decade ago when restaurants were struggling to survive from lack of customers; so fairly high-falutin' restaurants decided to have weeklong specials at reasonable prix fixe to attract the skittish but culinarily curious hordes. It was a good way to get the food business back into the swing of things, but I wonder if it should've just stayed a one-shot injection into the arm instead of the chronic care it has become. People have been complaining that these currently healthy restaurants have been serving sub-standard fare at those fixed prices in a crazily crowded environment. I didn't bother going to any of the designated restaurants since even at prix fixe, I really couldn't see myself paying the prices they still demanded. I'm still not even sure now, but I did ask Sam what he was interested in trying out.

The other contact was the bi-weekly phone call from The Anime King. Had a good talk on the Precure franchise, since the current series in the franchise finished its run a couple of days ago. According to my friend, it was fine but nothing too awe-inspiring. But the new series starts on the ground running from this Sunday. Told him that I wasn't too sure about meeting him this coming Sunday since it's possible that my brother's family may be coming over, but I'm keeping Saturday open as an option since the two of us have wanted to head on out to The Olde York Fish N' Chips shop; it's open on Saturday but not on Sunday. It'll have to be a truncated outing with him, though, since I also have my Skype student on that night. Speaking of which, I got some souvenirs from him via the mail yesterday from his Holiday trip to Taiwan.

Leafs Lose, Ontario Wynne!

Sunday January 27, 12:14 a.m.

Well, it was another day spent figuring out Japanese into English, although I did use my "parole" to walk around the block in the last day of deep freeze before another thaw comes our way. Heading up to 12 degrees by Tuesday! With this pattern of alternating freezing and heating up since the year began, all of us may end up truly tempered by Spring. Didn't make a whole lot of headway in the translation since I got caught in a spate of tricky vocab and tangled sentence structure, unfortunately. At this rate, by tomorrow night, I'll probably have to inform the boss that I will need to pass off the final parts of it to others since I now have Cozy's translation requests to handle as well.

The overarching theme on TV was via CP24 with that Ontario Liberal Party leadership convention finishing up today at the old Maple Leaf Gardens (I heard the Leafs used to actually win Stanley Cups there once). I just popped in on the channel once every few hours to see how the voting was going; unless I were the most ardent of political animals, I wouldn't last 10 hours to watch who was going to win one of those. But at the end of the day, literally and figuratively, Kathleen Wynne got the nod to become the new Liberal leader and, therefore, received the keys to the Premiership of Ontario....for as however long as she can keep them before a Spring election. It may all end up being a short internship for her since the Liberals are not a well-loved group outside of the Gardens.

It was a slight surprise since in the last few days, it seemed that her closest competitor, Sandra Pupatello, was about ready to take over in the media's eyes, but on the third ballot, Wynne won. So, she now not only has become the province's first female premier, but she is the first openly gay premier in the history of Canada. And the wonderful thing is that, although that latter fact was mentioned a fair bit during the coverage, jaws didn't drop or eyes boggle out as in a Warner Bros. cartoon at the news.

But it could be interesting for Mayor Rob Ford. He's never said it openly, but it's generally assumed that he's no fan of the LGBT community. I just wonder how a first meeting is gonna be like.

As for the Leafs, I think I'm detecting a pattern. They take a lead for two-thirds of a game and then lose it all in the end. It's kinda like that Las Vegas sucker who supposedly wins big at poker before the Ocean's Eleven gang wipes him out at the stroke of midnight. Maybe it's time for Coach Carlyle to put his Loonies where his mouth is and start benching a few players.

A Week of Translation

Friday January 25, 11:13 p.m.

It's been another week of slogging through translation work. But at least it's steady work. I've not only gotten a major assignment right now from the current company I'm working for, but I've also got my first of my annual translation requests from my old student, Cozy, back in Tokyo. It's the first of the financial statements. It doesn't look too, too difficult and it won't be due until next weekend.

I think aside from the Sunday foodie-and-anime outing last weekend, I've basically been staying in my neighbourhood for the past 3 weeks. Haven't even been downtown since the year began. Not that I'm going stir-crazy or anything, and it's always better to earn more money than spend it. Certainly, I'm not too thrilled about paying more for the TTC.

Weatherwise, as I always liked to say to my students in Japan, Toronto is always predictably unpredictable, especially in the Winter. We've just gone through a major deep freeze this week; in a slightly masochistic way, it was nice to have felt -22-degree wind chills. However, by early next week, we may be soaring into the double digits...in the plus zone....for a day or so....before we get back down to Earth once more.

As for the Leafs.....I think it's gonna be another one of those rocky (though truncated) seasons. They've won 2 on the road and lost 2 at home. Sometimes the Leafs want to play, sometimes they don't.....not exactly the right frame of mind for a team that wants to get into the playoffs for the first time in almost a decade.

Toronto's Political Fun and Games

Friday January 25, 10:55 p.m.

Well, let's see. Ontario's losing a Premier under a cloud, Toronto's keeping a Mayor under a cloud. Enjoy the symmetry! For those folks who are completely outside of the Ontario sphere of influence, Premier Dalton McGuinty has probably spent his last few hours in the big chair down at old Maple Leaf Gardens where he's getting his final lionization by the Liberal Party hordes before his replacement is chosen at a good ol' brokered convention tomorrow. Supposedly, the mild-mannered fellow had a pretty good decade at the helm before things fell apart for him in the last 12-18 months in terms of a teachers' strike, and a fiasco involving the very wrong person as the top guy for the province's air ambulance service, ORNGE (as ORNGE you sorry you hired the dummy?), among other things. And I believe there are quite a few protesters outside the Gardens who plan to give him a sendoff of their own.

As for Mayor Rob Ford, I don't think I've seen local media so hyped up for a single political figure in this city in decades....no, let me change that....in ever. CP24, CTV, CBC, City....all of their talking heads were up early this morning to find out if Ford was gonna lose his appeal against the original decision to have him turfed out of office for violating conflict-of-interest laws. But he got the happy ending he wanted....he won the appeal, media just went nuts, and of course, the citizenry got split down the middle in their reaction. I'm just happy it's over (I don't think that counter-appeal by the lawyer and his client who had brought all this down on Ford in the first place will go anywhere); I'm not a huge fan of Ford's but I think it's time for City Hall to return to a relative sense of normalcy....which just means the political brawls are taking place inside chambers instead of outside.

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.