Margin Notes: Stolen Interviews, Signs

TORONTO, ONTARIO - Just when you thought I would quit writing about the city workers' strike which has now been over here in Toronto for more than a week, I realized that I neglected to tell one story. On the day that workers were set to vote on the tentative deal, I heard on the CBC Radio One's local morning show that Mayor David Miller was going to speak about the deal in the 08:00 hour. I was somewhat disappointed, as I was headed to work and would not be able to hear it. On that day, I happened to choose to walk to work on a route that passes the CBC headquarters building. I was surprised to find on the sidewalk Mayor David Miller being interviewed by a CTV reporter. Apparently the CTV reporter also heard that Miller was going to be on the CBC and staked out a position at the exit to catch him as he left. Amusingly, the camera was positioned so that it would not be obvious they were outside the CBC building.

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The sign board at Union Station in Toronto, Ontario was showing only networking information on its south side as observed on 6-August-2009

On days when I do not walk by CBC headquarters, I walk through Union Station in Toronto. As I pass through, I look up at the train arrival and departure information to see if anything is unusual is happening. When I looked up last Thursday, I found the sign was not giving train information. Because of a malfunction, it instead was displaying what at first resembled a stock market ticker until I realized that it was actually networking information. Interestingly, the failure only affected the east-facing screen, the west-facing screen was normal. By the next day, the east-facing screen had been reset to a largely vacant screen instead of the mess shown above, but it still remained that way as of today.

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A sign warned to "Post No Spam" along Jane Street in Toronto, Ontario on 5-August-2009

Less formal signs can be reflective of changing culture. I found the above sign on a garbage container along Jane Street near St. Clair Avenue in Toronto. Apparently "spam" no longer just refers to unsolicited commercial e-mail, but to any unwanted commercial advertisement--or maybe the poster really trying to discourage people from posting spam to the Internet, and really didn't mean what was once signed as "Post No Bills."

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The street signs at the intersection of Jane and St. Clair in Toronto, Ontario were noted on 21-June-2006

That intersection of Jane and St. Clair in Toronto has been made famous. For those who are unaware, the lyrics in the Barenaked Ladies song "Jane" were in honor of the intersection. According to Wikipedia:

Steven Page recalls that co-writer Stephen Duffy saw the intersection on a map and remarked that it sounded like the most beautiful intersection in the world; "I didn't wanna break his heart to tell him it wasn't."

Page of course is correct--and I wonder how much even less attractive it might become when the Light Rail Transit lines on Jane and St. Clair someday meet there.