Recent Toronto factoids

A recent poll named Toronto the 7th best gay city in the world.

The city ranked third among the most vulgar Canadian cities on Twitter.

Toronto scientists recently found the biggest dinosaur nest ever.

It's the first city to have an opera about its mayor.

The Flash has been running around the city thanks to local creators. 

The Descendants

Not the best Alexander Payne movie out there, but George Clooney has become a pleasure to watch, and not because of his chiseled good looks.

Captain Marvel is now called Shazam

Not that he wasn't already, but to clear things up once and for all with Marvel's own Captain, DC considered it for the best. The wisdom of Solomon, the strength of Hercules, the stamina of Atlas, the power of Zeus, the courage of Achilles, and the speed of Mercury. Or something like that.

She-King of Hearts

My friend Tiffany by Dan McClaren, who's creating his own deck of cards.

Cop car

Lantern aquarium

To celebrate the new Chinese Year of the Dragon, the Harbourfront Centre created an aquarium made of lanterns and paper fish. 

Installations by Jung-Cheng Pai, Ruey-Shiann Shyu and Sing-Fu Hung.

The winds were strong, but worth the sail.

My new favorite picture(s) - Magnetic Skies edition

Geomagnetic storm over Norway by Bjørn Jørgensen.

Source: Discovery News

Northern Lights in Alaska by mwarren

Source: The Fancy

border of British Columbia and Washington state, near Vancouver Island, to southern Alberta, ne

Source: Nasa

"Aurora Borealis" by Frederic Edwin Church (USA, 1865)

Autralia's Wonder Woman

The Soundmachines

Spinning light as music!

The new DC

DC Comics is on a roll. It unveiled its new logo...

 ...and joined the fight against hunger in Africa (with a little nod to Bowie.)

Only in Brazil

A remote town in the Brazilian Amazon will have a nightclub based on Facebook. Brazil was named as the country with the fourth highest number of Facebook users in the world.

Music City

The Grid declares Toronto a place where "you can hear all the possibilities of the world in one city."

Toronto still got Arts

After much protest and handwringing, Toronto City Council approved the final 2012 Operating Budget. Arts Grants as well as community grants have been restored to 2011 funding levels. Phew! Rob Ford is now “a strong supporter of the arts” apparently, and should stick to shrinking his waistline.

Wikipedia blacks out

The Wikipedia protest yesterday against SOPA and PIPA (bills about putting the US Attorney General in charge of Internet content and allowing the government to shut down whatever they see fit) hid the content from the online encyclopedia to make a point: face it, people, life without Wikipedia sucks!

A Dangerous Lady

David Cronemberg's A Dangerous Method is a fascinating biopic that offers us a fantastic Keira Knightley being spanked by Michael Fassbender. Oscar material!

As is another biopic, this one about the first and only British prime minister, the Iron Lady Margaret Thatcher, played by Julia Child.

My new favorite image

Cross-stitched fashion ads created by Inge Jacobsen for Georg Jensen.

Toronto's lost shell

The Kauffman Centre for the Performing Arts, inaugurated last year in Kansas City, could have been at the corner of Bay and Wellesley in Toronto. In fact, that’s where it was originally meant to be built.

The project, discussed in the 90s, never took off and the "Toronto's Ballet-Opera House" was never built. (Instead, Toronto got the scaled-down-but-still-nice Four Seasons Centre.

Architect Moshe Safdie, the same architect who signed Montreal’s Habitat, shopped his design around for his double-header (Symphony and Ballet) for another decade. Ironically, who first proposed the project was the late Muriel Kauffman, an erstwhile Torontonian, whose name christens the Centre in Kansas City, which was funded by her family’s foundation in the US.

My new favorite image

its worth it for the benefits…

(Source: veganismmakesmehappy)

Plants with eyes

My new favorite picture

Clemens Behr‘s sculptural graffiti.

Dilma rocks out

The Beyoncé fly

Australian fly is named Scaptia beyonceae because her golden butt is reminiscent of the singer circa Bootylicious. For real. Now she's fly like a fly.

M.D.N.A. talks

Poor Madonna, still being questioned about liking younger guys. A little disappointing to see her in that funny dress decorated with aluminium foil strips and trying so hard to look prim and proper in that room with a long piano, stuffy furniture and the pug-embroidered pillow.

Only in Brazil

Some scary reports have been surfacing about a tribe girl being burned alive by loggers in the Amazon. A third of the Awá's land have already been destroyed and their nomadic hunter-gatherer lifestyle is being threatened as they fled like animals in the face of the approaching logging companies.

Paper architecture

Works in paper by artist Ingrid Siliakus.

Source: Designboom

Rio's Solar Tower

These conceptual renderings are making the rounds again.

The proposed Solar City Tower for the 2016 Rio Olympics looked interesting, but it was impractical. Access to the island is difficult and the amount of energy needed to lift the water up to the top of the tower would be enormous. But the view would've been great!

Pepper explosion

Nightmare.

In my head for 10 years

Released in 2001, Kylie Minogue's "Can't Get You Out Of My Head" was the most played song in the last decade, according to a survey in the UK.

My new favorite image

Symbol for the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games. 

Toronto's year-long exposure

Photographer Michael Chrisman placed a pinhole camera at Toronto's Port Lands and took an year-long picture of the city skyline. The streaks in the sky mark the physical progress of the sun in an year.

BrazilVital.com

My new site.