Last night I went to Blogtv.ca‘s “opening” party at Supermarket. I attended hoping to see a couple bloggers I might know from Toronto but alas there was no Brett Lamb, no Rannie, no AcidReflux or Thickslab. Come to think of it, I didn’t see anyone from my blogroll or visibly queer bloggers there. There were suits and trendy youths scarfing back OMG vegetarian springrolls!!! (as one frail blogger exclaimed), but no one I knew. I chatted briefly with a couple event organizers and managers for BTV and then, with my beer firmly in hand, started to play with their software.

BlogTV is a Vlog site for people who don’t have their own MySpace page yet, or YouTube account. In fact, it looks to me like it’s trying to be a DRM-goodie goodie version of Youtube. No uploading of TV shows or soccer head-butts but you are able to create “shows” within channels, go live with your web cam and invite people into these shows via video chat. You can record it for later viewing pleasure and create a little series, allowing people to subscribe to your show, if you’re good and interesting enough. I’ve got my show page ready here, but I’m having issues with the sound and profile picture upload. Hopefully that will be ironed out soon and you can see me rant like a disgruntal teen after a Smashing Pumpkins concert.

As I scarfed back free beer and looked around the room I was hit with a sense of deja vu. I’ve done this before, 5 years ago at Paladium on John St (remember that monster video game arcade for Generation WTF?) for the launch of Rogers iMedia’s Women’s portal: Springboard (Yeah, Rogers got into the ‘i” thing for a couple years). Or an abandoned factory floor for the launch of SHIFT magazine with models wandering the party with wireless clamshell iBooks. Or at a Virtual Services launch party, boasting some new porn initiative they were proud of…

Room full of trendy kids? Check!
Unabashed flaunting of slick technology? Check!
Free food and drinks? Check!
Four or five “suits” sitting at the bar? Check!
Business cards flashing from hand to hand? Check!

The evening was missing the pre-web burst thumping house music, and concert-style lighting, replaced with The Commitments soundtrack and low lighting but the generated vibe was there: Lookit our cool app! After a while of observing all this I got a bit skeeved. Maybe it was the two pints of beer hitting me like a hammer but I felt that history was repeating itself again. Because when the last internet bubble broke I fell hard. Not as hard as some but enough to leave Dead Robot shaped skid marks on the road of credit ratings. I realized what was missing: money coming in. There were a couple banner ads on the site but no deluxe sign up at a small fee or any other kind of discernible cash creation. I decided that it was a good time to leave.

As I was going out the door, smiley bright party greeters 180-ed and thanked me for coming. One held up a jet black gift bag. I had forgotten about the free t-shirts and logo-laden swag handed out at events like this.

“You gotta promise to blog about it!” the cheery doorman said, withholding the bag from me.

“Sure. Deadrobot.com,” I said, drunkenly.

They thanked me and handed over the bag.

On the streetcar I open it to find BlogTV branded impulse items: gel mints, a winter cap, a long sleeve shirt, a water bottle and… holy shit… a Logitech QuickCam Communicate STX web cam.

Ladies and Gentlemen, the next web bubble burst will begin in 5… 4… 3…

Wellesley Subway station, 8:20am

The woman in front of me in line for the Goof-in-the-Booth has her money out and is ready to buy her tokens. Just as it’s her turn, a gust of wind comes along and blows the $10 from her hand and it lands on the grimy floor.

In this weather, you know the floor is wetter and saltier than a post-tsunami South East Asian resort lobby. And just as muddy. The bill stays where it lands, mockingly absorbing the sludge on the floor.

She mutters something that sounds like “bugger” or “sonovabitch” and wipes the $10 on her pants. Yes, her own pants. She slides the money into the slot and asks for tokens.

The Goof-in-the-Booth takes the ten, straightens it, looks like he’s going to place it with the rest of his tray of money when suddenly with a cluck of his tongue, his patience lost, shoves the bill back through the slot. “This ten is dirty,” he brilliantly deduces.

The woman balks and looks at the offensive money.

“I won’t take it,” the Goof elaborates.

“But it’s all I have!” she says, panic rising.

“We don’t take dirty money,” The Goof explains.

I think the TTC better rethink that strategy, I say in my head.

“What am I going to do? It’s all I have on me!” She reiterates.

The Goof glances quickly at the line that has formed behind Dirty Money Lady and decides that the situation warrants not being such a belligerent asshole. He waives her on, obviously annoyed that she got a free fare and that someone would actually pass muddy money into his slot. His attitude unmistakably saying he let her ride this time… this time… for free, but next time, lady, you are so busted.

Thinking back, he could have just set the damn bill aside for the duration of his shift to dry or pass it on to some poor schmuck in change, but no, apparently he had to hassle her for a few moments before being “the Better Way” and letting her through, making her feel like crap for getting a free ride.

This little scenario sums up the duality of the TTC that doesn’t flatter it’s meritocratic image much (sorry Busdriver, I know you don’t make policy…). On one hand, the Teet complains ad nauseam that they’re cash strapped, yet this Goof-in-the-Booth, a fine representative of the company, seemed quite picky about where the cash comes from. Meanwhile, while I’m thinking of it, I have to ask: when will they update the token machines to take $5 bills? Probably never it seems, even though the new $5 are just as susceptible to counterfeiting than the more profitable $20.

Does the TTC actually want our money or is it waiting for another big dollar bail out from the government?

Last night, the Husband and I were in the kitchen making happy home (quite literally, Sharkboy was adding icing to a cake and I was playing with the cat) when we’re startled by a head appearing in the back door window. I can’t see all that well out into the gloom but I can see it’s not the upstairs neighbour (who occasionally forgets where the hell he is – thumb to lips, tipsy bottle motion, crazy eyes…). The head in the doorway motions for me to open the door.

Not on your bloody life, my face must have said because seconds after that I was staring at a Metro cop badge through the window.

We let the two cops in and are told that on Saturday night, around 10ish, a man was kidnapped out in the back alley by “Jamaican accented guys with a silver gun”, pistol whipped, and driven to an ATM. When they only got $100 from him they started to beat him some more. At that point, he made his escape.

Did we see anything? No, we were in the front room watching TV. Can you spell your name, sir? That’s with an “e”, like “Jeff”, no relation. What is your work number? Uh… Notice any dark SUVs in the alley that night? No, but we did notice that there is lame, child like Bloods vs Crips graphitti that appeared on some walls back there in the last few days.

After the 20 questions, Sharkboy pipes up with possibly the most “Andy Griffith-esque” line I have ever heard in my life: “If you had come thirty minutes later, I could have offered you some cake!” he said, pointing to the half done bunt pan. They chuckle and say they would have taken him up on that. Always the charmer, my husband. At this point I’m forced to mention that one was hot. Like, “PLEASE EAT MY CAKE!” hot. We joke about police work-load and they leave, moving on to the apartment next door.

I think I got about 4 hours sleep last night.

I’m walking by the Golden Griddle at Church and Carlton and I look in to see a woman, face down on the floor, nearly under her table. Two waitrons are on either side of her, one on a cell phone, presumably calling 9-1-1.

I’m a horrible person!

See what you miss when you wander off the grid for a month?

PeeJunk (like it? I’m all street that way) is giving away stuff if you leave comments on specific posts on his blog! FREE! STUFF!

Go check out the rules at Photojunkie’s One Million Giveaway Extravaganza and start commenting on the “Million” categorized posts like a cheerleader with Tourettes. Here is the main “Million” category with all the eligible posts you can enter with.

I’m hoping he’ll be giving away all sorts of cool stuff like digital cameras he doesn’t use any more. Lets face it, anything is better than my Sony Cybershot DSC-1 (yeah. ONE) that is being held together by one screw.

Is there anything more curious than the Carlton Street Golden Griddle?

I have long since stopped asking myself “why” people eat there only to have the question morph into “How can people eat there?”

Have you ever walked by the front door?

It’s located 8 feet away from an underground parking garage vent. Mix car exhaust in with the kitchen’s grease trap (and whatever vagrant is around at the time) and you have the most unappealing smell ever. They should vent that into Kirstie Alley’s kitchen and watch the pounds fly off her! And hell, throw in the crazy people that eat there, as well as the wonderfully pleasant staff and you have a 4 star dining experience.

What other restaurants do you know of makes you scratch your head and wonder how they do it?

Sharkboy won us tickets to last night’s Raptors game against Cleveland. Not having ever been to a major sporting event in Toronto, EVER, I thought it would be fun to go and check it out.

It helped that the seats were in his company’s executive box. Weep for me, dear readers, the box was NOT catered last night, but we did have an attendant who wanted to take our coats and go get us stuff. We’re not too use to being doted on so we opted to touch elbows with the commoners at Pizza Pizza in the lower levels. After paying $45 for two beers (regular can sized), two bags of popcorn and a diet coke for the second half, we settled in for some hoops.

I knew they played funky music at time outs and did little things to keep the energy up during the game like a 4-beat rising crescendo of music sound byte when the ball entered the Rapt’s end of the court, but I kept on wondering when sporting events started to pander to the public’s attention deficit disorder. I found the band of digital ads at bleacher’s height to be rather annoying and detracting from the game, especially when switching from a dark to light ad. From where we were sitting the Jumbotron was on the same level as the band of ads, and lighter ads hurt my eyes. I was forced to look down at the live action!

I kept on thinking of Rollerball – the 70’s version, not the hideous remake – and Romans cheering on their favorite gladiators as names of players were hollered over the loudspeakers. Stadiums and the shared collective experience, fascinate me.