How You Came to me, Part II

In light of all my posts in the recent Toronto Municipal election, I expected a ton of search engine hits which were political in nature and I was not disappointed.

What did make me laugh, however, were the REALLY odd terms which brought people here.

I feel like sharing tonight.

Here is the list beginning with the most frequent used search term(s), then a dash (-) then my comment;

dusan kralik ward 23 – This of course brought people here to check out my piece on my friend Dusan, who came in 2nd in Ward 23.

urban daddy – Errr, that’s me!

reasons to vote for rob ford – People who typed that into Google would be very happy if they read my many posts on the reasons to vote for Rob Ford.

nescafe encore chicory – Yes, I did write a post on this coffee – which is my favourite instant coffee, but might be surpassed by Starbucks VIA Colombia.

beth mclellan ward 21 – Beth ran in my ward, and while she got some positive publicity, she came a distant 4th in the polls.  Better luck in 2014 Beth.

urbandaddy.com – If you searched this and wound up here, I’m sorry.  Tell that website to change their URL!

captain lou albano - Geez… Still.  What’s the fascination with Captain Lou?  Sure I get thousands of hits a year to my post about his life and death, but people please…

toronto george smitherman donor list – First of all, I’m not on this list, secondly, if I had it, do you think I’d be hiding it like George still is…

why you shouldnt vote for ford – Yeah, this site is not going to please you if you are looking for reasons to NOT have voted for Rob Ford…

will rob ford cut transit – Well, I can’t see him removing transit already in use, and I cannot see him allowing another St.Clair fiasco, so you might want to ask him instead of asking Google.

1717 avenue road 2010 – Yup, this monstrosity is almost complete and believe it or not it almost cost Councillor Karen Stintz her seat.  Shame considering that moron who hijacked the process still remains nameless…

is george smitherman a daddy – Yes.

toronto google street view garbage – You really expect to come to this quality website in order to see street view of garbage?!?  Dude, if the street view shows garbage, it’s been picked up already… Duh!

work permit starbucks canada hrsdc? – Do you need a work permit from Human Resources Social Development Canada to drink in Starbucks or work in Starbucks?  Well, it depends… Where are you and what are you drinking?!?

capt lou albano and cindy lauper – The only search term worse that just Captain Lou…

dusan kralik + liberal party – Bet you left here disappointed… Dusan is NOT a member of the Liberal machine!

can i vote out of the area in live – Like for President of the US?  Or you live in the boonies and want to vote for Mayor of Toronto… This answer is a resounding no!  Puhleeze…

toronto vote tax impact – Convoluted search terms like that brought you here.  Sucker!!!  Try again.

trip to the dentist for a filling – Thanks for sharing…

dusan kralik urban daddy – He is NOT the urban daddy, but a friend of urban daddy.

why i should not vote ford – You should not vote Ford because you researched policies of the other 23 candidates for Mayor and found one that better suited your needs, not because some guys blog tells you otherwise… Oh, shit… That’s not good to point out.

urban daddy people who work there – Umm, me.  Just me.

will rob ford toronto mayor cut summer – I guarantee, Rob Ford will NOT cut summer.

10 reasons to vte for rob ford – I’ll give you one reason… A vte for Ford will give you your “o” back.

why should i vote for george smitherman – You too were disappointed because the only reason I would have posted on this blog was the prevailing reason those on the left used, that Rob is fat…  So if you knew that already, you wasted your time here, but thanks for the hit. 

robert ford campaign promises ttc – News flash… We already have the TTC in Toronto.  Plus all candidates wanted to improve the better way.  In order to optimize your search you probably should have typed, “Rob Ford campaign promises for the TTC”.  That way you could hit all the left-wing media and bloggers who would tell you that he wants to rip it up. 

why dont my boys want to play sports – Maybe because you google it looking for an answer instead of asking them… Do you even have kids?!?

adam vaughan fraternity – That would be Alpha, Beta, Nerd.  And yes, Vaughan wants to remove the frat houses on U of T grounds.  But you lefties voted for him instead of Mike Yen… I don’t want to say I told you so.

george smitherman ehealth - Scandalous.  $1 billion dollars of taxpayers money wasted under his watch, you stupid Torontonians voted for him anyways.  What that tells me is that those who live in the downtown core are either too far left of centre to have any hope, or they voted with their eyes and not brains.  Then again, maybe they’re just that rich and wealthy that they don’t care about paying REALLY high taxes for REALLY shitty services…

chicory instant coffee 70s – I did write a post on Encore instant coffee earlier, but someone is having a flashback on the 70′s.  Dude!

dusn father mine by j.r. ward com on aud – The person who typed this was not speaking English at the time…

All in all, thank you for your visits.

Feel free to leave comments.

Cheers!

Attention Bloggers… Make you Famous!!! Come do my Questionnaire.

In effort to get to know you all better and hopefully draw out some lurkers, I have a special Thursday Thirteen meant for you.

This week’s Thursday Thirteen is 13 question I really want to know about you!

13. When did you start blogging?

12. What did / do you hope to achieve from it?

11. Was is your favourite post about?

10. What was your first post about?

9. What is your last post about?

8. What is your URL?

7. What was the worst comment you have ever received?

6. If you could change anything about your blog, what would it be?

5. Do your family / friends know you are a famous blogger?

4. Do they read your posts?

3. Have you ever used your blog alias for personal gain?

2. When someone comments on your blog, what do you then do with their comment? Email them? Reply? Visit their blog? All of the above?

1. Have you ever guest blogged? Would you like to?

Three Strikes and You’re Out! Why Torontonians Should NOT Vote for George Smitherman.

So you live in Toronto, or surrounding area, and all you know how to do is to vote for the Liberals, I get that. I really do. But I think this time around, you are going to have to take a really hard look at who you are voting for if you cast your ballot for George Smitherman on October 25th.

Let’s put aside some of his past transgressions and look at the newest matter which came to light.

Let’s cast aside the campaign asking you to vote for George because Rob Ford is fat. Forget that Ford had a run in with the law and was intoxicated at a hockey game. I know many of you who still follow sports stars like Tiger Woods, or Kobe Bryant, and even celebrities who have done much worse. Plus seriously… How do these personal matters impact Ford’s ability to run a city budget?

They don’t… Unless you are a frequent drinker of the Liberal cool-aid, then it matters who the rest of the world is going to view Ford. Personally, I care more about the condition of our roads and what programs I can take my kids to, than what the Mayor of Calgary (for example) thinks of Ford.

Still with me?

Good.

Let’s make strike 1 for the George the eHealth scandal. He refuses to talk about it because, why? It makes him look bad as a leader. Heck, if I was him, I wouldn’t talk about it either. But it happened under his watch. Sure maybe not the whole billion dollars, maybe it was only $750 million dollars, but wouldn’t you like to be able to squander those kinds of funds without having to be accountable for it?

Strike 2. Well strike 2 came a couple days ago when the Auditor General Report came out showing that the Ontario Health Ministry granted “millions [of dollars] in sole-source contracts while Smitherman was in charge of the file. This health ministry approved at leat $9.5 million dollars of untendered consulting contracts between 2004 and 2009 – Smitherman was the health minister from late 2003 until June 30th, 2008.

But Toronto is Liberal-town, so Smitherman’s response…He said eHealth was not created while he was minister. Not his fault. And for the huge consulting contracts given to those on his inner circle? The ones given without taking bids from other companies? They were all legit. And he expects you to believe him. Rob Ford is fat, remember…

Maybe I’m so pissed off that people are going to vote for Smitherman, not because he has wasted billions of dollars of your tax money and my tax money, but because I never became a Liberal insider and set up my own “consulting” company.
If I did, I’d be rich!

Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/toronto/story/2010/10/07/smitherman-sole-source634.html#ixzz135zPSPyN

But heck, the last strike against Smitherman came via the Toronto Star of all places – the Liberal media centre who has endorsed Smitherman on numerous occasions. The Star, you see, does not like the secrecy that Smitherman has surrounding his campaign donation list.

Both Rob Ford and Joe Pantalone have released their campaign donor lists, but George Smitherman is refusing to divulge his until after the election.

Ford’s campaign figures show that he was able to raise about $700,000, Pantalone about $850,000. Both are well under the $1.3 million limit. Smitherman’s campaign, however, says it won’t release his list early, as has been the tradition in the past two elections, but will do so “in compliance with the law” after Monday’s vote. That leads me, and the Star to wonder, what is George hiding?

Robert MacDermid, my former professor at York University, who taught me law and electoral reform, also doubles as an expert on election and party financing, said in the Star and on AM640 this morning that citizens deserve to know who is giving to which campaigns and Smitherman’s decision to hold off on releasing his donor list does a disservice to voters.

“It’s a shame that he’s done that. It’s a statement about how he views strengthening municipal campaign financing, which needs to be strengthened,” MacDermid said. “It makes you wonder where he stands on this issue — and what he’s got to hide.”

While it’s unclear why Smitherman is keeping his list secret for now, MacDermid suggested that poor record-keeping is not likely to blame.
“It wouldn’t be sensible to say that it was some sort of shortcoming in their record-keeping. Campaigns keep pretty diligent records of who gives money,” MacDermid said.

Is this not the same George Smitherman who on his website, right here in fact; http://www.georgesmitherman.ca/issues.html#opengov asks you to vote for him because there is a “lack of transparacy at City Hall”.

Follow the link to his website. “Mayoral candidate George Smitherman wants to take action on transparency and local democracy.” He uses words like; open government” and “open standards”. He wants “open data access” and to “open up the whole process”.
He just doesn’t want to open it up for you to see. Until he is elected, of course.

George, that is strike 3, and you are out!

Now, who is Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty going to blame during the provincial election next year when Conservative leader Tim Hudek comes calling about the waste, and additional taxes that have been allowed under the Provincial Liberal Party??  That is why Hudek will be the next Premier of Ontario.  The “gravey train” stops here, Ontario!!!

He’s going to blame you, George. Especially when our energy bills come out in the winter and we see that massive increase. That was under your care as Energy Minister, right George? Tax and Spend!

Then all the Liberal-lovers in Toronto can take a huge sigh of relief that they voted for Rob Ford.

Glee Gone Wild

I had to come clean here.

I like the TV show “Glee”.

I actually like it a lot. I loved the episode on funk music and yes, I do find some of it rather quirky, like the kid in the wheelchair being allowed to play football, but all in all the show is pretty great.

Then I heard that some of the characters did a photo shoot in GQ (see link below)

http://www.gq.com/entertainment/movies-and-tv/201011/glee-photos-rachel-quinn-finn#slide=1

… and I heard there was some sort of uproar because they play high-school characters on this show, yet in real life the girls are 24 years old and the boy is 28!

Some group referred to as the PTC – something about parenting, TV and council – called this photo shoot “paedofilia”. Seriously???

In the age of Miley Cyrus – all of 17 years old – whoring it up in videos and with other “starlets” like Britany Spears, and Lindsay Lohan stepping out sans panties with very public drug, baby and mental instability issues, why take a run at Glee?

Maybe they’re pissed off that they didn’t know these “kids” were so old? I didn’t know until I saw this article. Busted, eh?

Do these actors not deserve an opportunity to get publicity for their show and for themsleves? They won’t be able to do Glee forever unless they become the teachers. LOL. It’s not like they’re being caught by the paparazzi drunk or stoned, or without underwear. They posed for a shooot, meant to be provocative in order to get publicity, and thanks to groups like the PTC, they are getting more than enough – geez, even I’m commenting on it.

I think the cast of Glee needs to include the PTC on their X-mas card list this year for keeping them in the news.

Hey, maybe the PTC really does love the show too!

But what do you think? Do you watch this show? Have you seen the photoshoot? Are you offended?

October 25th, vote for Dusan Kralik in Ward 23

I don’t normally endorse candidates… Wait, yes I do. So I am formally endorsing Dusan Kralik to run in the Ward I grew up in, Ward 23.

Let me tell you a little about Dusan to give you some reasons why you might want to vote for him.

I met Dusan a good 20 years ago when he first came to Canada from Slovakia. He was introduced to me by my friend, Mike Yen, who is running in Ward 20. Mike was playing on my ball hockey team – we met in University, and Dusan is a former professional hockey player who was hampered by arthritis in his hip and was unable to make the NHL.

As a ball hockey player, Dusan was awesome! As a human being, I cannot describe what a great guy he is. He would give the shirt off his back to help anoyne (he did actually give me one of his pro jerseys which I still cherish).

I remember standing in the dressing room after a particularly difficult loss, trying to motivate the team, and keep players from losting faith in each other and this (then) very quiet usan yelled out to the team, Hey guys! Shut up and listen to the Couch!”

“Did you call me a couch?” I said to him with a smile on my face.

“Yes! You are Couch!!!” he said very seriously.

“Dusan, I’m a COACH… Not a COUCH. You sit on a couch.”

The tension in the dressing room disappered and we ended up a very strong season on the winning track.

He knows what to do to get the job done.

So back to why he would be a great councillor for Ward 23.

1) He cares about the community. He has talked to a LOT of people and he knows what irritates them in the community and across the city. He’d be taking that to City Hall.

2) He’s been though a lot and appreciated Canada, specifically Toronto. He wants to give back.

3) He’s a businessman, so he’s not going to council without a plan and knowledge of what to do.

4) He’s a great guy who will be accessable and represent the Ward with all he has. He doesn’t know the meaning of the word “quit”.

If I was in that Ward, I would be voting for him.

Here is his website;

http://www.kralik2010.ca/

I think this quote from his website says it all about this man running for City Councillor;

“I can’t understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I’m frightened of the old ones”
John Cage

How do I know this is love? A Daddy’s view on the Relationship of his 3 Children (under 6 yrs old).

My kids love each other!

Well, let me clarify this a little. My boys love their baby sister, and my boys love each other but the boys don’t like each other.

When my boys are together, they play so well together but every now and then my older one grows devil’s horns and provokes his little brother who them beats the shit out of him. But fear not, since both boys are in karate there is some self-defense in there and now that the older one has some courage, he hits back and they both come crying to us with their wounds.

When my younger son used to draw family pictures we would ask him who was in the picture;

“Me, mummy, daddy, baby, nanny, cat”.
“What about Linus?”
“I don’t like him so I didn’t draw him”.

So when my youngest son gets upset, he yells at my oldest boy, “I’m NOT going to draw you in my pictures!!!” Oh, yes he does!

But I am finding more and more that my oldest boy and baby girl have developed a special bond. Not that I’m surprised. When we had Stewie – at home – Linus, who had slept through the birth in his room, came into our room in the morning to see if we had the baby. When he saw newborn Stewie, he ran over, gave the baby a gentle hug and kiss and very proudly held him. He loves babies!

Sure, as Stewie got older, Linus would pick on him and knock him over, but Stewie got even by poking him in the eyes on day and that evened the score.

So now that Berry is around, Linus is all over her, hugging her, kissing her, talking to her, laughing at her and getting her to laugh back. Then, last week I saw Berry and Linus share a laugh followed quickly by Berry smacking herslef in the side of the head. She hit herself three times then laughed, why??? because Linus had taught her this. He was encouraging her to do it, and after 8 or 9 smacks she began pulling her hair and then crying.

Now, he has taught her to make some silly mouth noises and he can get her to do them – including raspberries – by mouthing the action and smiling at her to encourage her to continue when we race to get her to stop. She usually tries the mouth stuff during dinner.

Like I said… My kids love each other.

I’m dreading the day the unite against us. LOL.

Mr. Cunningham, Tom Bosley, has died!

Actor Tom Bosley best known for his role as the father of a “typical American family” on TV show “Happy Days,” has died at 83 years old today.

Bosley began his TV career on a number of popular 1960s TV shows such as “Route 66,” “Dr. Kildare,” “Marcus Welby, M.D.” and “Bonanza.” But it was his role at the father, on the long-running “Happy Days” where he had the most success as a hardware store owner in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

“Happy Days” – a great show! – ran from 1974 to 1984 and was a hit series that made Henry Winkler (The Fonz) a major Hollywood star and sparked the adult success of Director Ron Howard, who played Richie Cunningham. The show also launced the career of Scott Baio. I personally liked the fact that “Potsie” Webber’s real name was Warren. I liked Arnold’s and wished we had one in my area growing up. And seriously, how many of us tried turning on a juke box by hitting it the way Fonzie did. Ayyyyyyyy.

When the show ended, Bosley returned to character work on TV with roles in numerous popular series such as “The Love Boat” and to even more prominence on “Murder, She Wrote.”

He continued working well into the 2000s with parts in series such as “That ’70s Show.” which I do not remember because I hated that show!

The Leopard Lodge is going to miss their Grand Poobah. RIP Tom.

Please Take my Java Joe’s Flavoured Coffee Poll

Looking for readers to take this coffee poll for Java Joe’s Richmond Hill.  We’re looking to see which coffee flavours are the most popular and which will bring in the most traffic.

Personally, I love the cinnamon, toasted marshmallow and snicker doodle (don’t let the name fool you!), but not the butter pecan.

Give me your thoughts!

You might just win some coffee beans.

And remember, flavoured coffee generally needs cream AND sugar in order to bring out the true flavour of the bean…

What Flavour of Coffee Will Bring You to Java Joe’s Richmond Hill Today?

(polls)

A Week of Firsts for me!

This past week sure was an interesting one.  Aside from being the second week of being sick, this one had quite a few firsts.

Here are my firsts;

First time drinking a vodka and tonic, with a twist of lime.  YUM!

First time drinking Kvas - a Russian soft drink made from fermented mushrooms.  There are actually mushrooms floating in the 2L bottle.  The drink itself takes like flat sweet coca cola, but the smell of the foam is enough to make you vomit.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kvass

First time on the radio!  I have never felt the need to call in to talk radio and I listen every day to AM640, sports radio the FAN590 and to music on my XM radio, but this past Wednesday I was listening to sports talk radio and the announcer - Jeff Blair – a baseball guy, and possibly a lawyer was commenting on the fact that the NJ Devils hockey team was over the salary cap and only could ice 15 skaters for their game against the Pittsburgh Penguins instead of the regular 18 skaters.  Blair was really pissed off with the Devils and thought they were flaunting the rules of the collective bargaining agreement (CBA) that the league has with the players. 

Personally, I think in hockey there is one line – or three skaters – too many as the 4th line on pretty much every team is a line with little talent who just skate around, eat up minutes and crashing into guys and fighting.  I think it was great they had 3 lines.

So I called.

And while my phone was beeping as the battery was really low, he took my call, listened to me, asked me a question and as I was responding, hung up on me so I could listen to him talk.  He disagreed.

I was nice.

The next 3 callers – much in line with my thought process were not as nice.

It was a good way to send his segment. 

Other firsts;

My daughter, Berry, learned this week to sleep through the night and to toss up both her arms and say “hurray”.  She also learned to point to her big tummy when prompted.

My oldest boy, Linus, got dressed up in a shirt and tie when we went to his girlfriend’s house for dinner Saturday night.  He’s 5.  She’s 6.  He was so cute!  Then after a while he took of his nice clothes to expose his t-shirt underneath which said something along the lines of; “Here comes trouble”.

I also discovered Nine Inch Nails this week – the band, not the hardware.  I mean, everybody knows their song “Closer”, but that’s not exactly a song you sing the lyrics too around your kids.  Then this week I heard a song of their called “Only” and I was hooked.  The music is great, the lyrics not too bad and I understand this is a song about drug addiction.

“There is no you, there is only me”,

“There is no you, there is only me”.

“There is no f%cking you, there is only me.”

I had my first Pumpkin Spice Latte of the season this Friday.  I bought a colleague from Montreal one as I felt I owed it to him.  I’ve been trying to get him a bottle of the syrup for over a year, but apparently Starbucks does not sell it, and the few people I know who work there cannot pinch me a bottle (or most of the contents of one).

This week also signified the first time my oldest boy showed an interst in climbing trees as we went apple picking on Monday and my little tree-money climbed up to the top of many apple trees to pick the best apples for us.

This week also signified the first time I’ve seen Linus eager to play soccer.  Each night he has practically begged me to play soccer with him in the basement.  About time!

This week also signified the fist time Linus and I sat down and watched a period of hockey – the Toronto Maple Leafs and I even got him to admit his favourite player is #81 Phil Kessel.  although tonight it was Sidney Crosby.

Busy week of firsts for me!  This sure was.  What about you?

This Urban Daddy’s favourite instant coffee – Nescafe Encore

I really did not intend on writing a post about what kind of instant coffee I like.  It’s kind of personal and a little (okay a lot) odd.  But this post kind of fell into my lap on Friday morning…

Background:

Pretty much every day on my way into the office I grab my one and only cup of coffee and that usually is a Tim Horton’s large double double, except for the odd morning where I head to Java Joe’s for something different.

This Friday morning I came into the office with a large cup of pumpkin spice coffee from Java Joes and upon smelling the strong scents of pumpkin, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves, one of my staff asked me what was in my cup. 

Well I showed him mine and he showed me his…

He was drinking instant coffee.

So I asked him what kind it was.  He said, “the kind in the green bottle”.

Ugh, I thought to myself.  Most instant coffee is (as quoted by my kids) gross beef. 

“Have you tried Nescafe’s Encore coffee?” I asked him.  “It has chicory”.

“What is chicory?” he said.

“I don’t really know”, I said, “but I’ll Google it right now”.

So here is what I found.

Chicory – used as a coffee filler or substitute – also known as blue-sailors due to it’s blue flowered herb and long white root.  Parts of chicory, known as endive, are found in salads, as either a vegetable or a green.

The thick chicory root is roasted and powdered to be added to coffee. The origins of adding chicory to coffee as a filler and flavor enhancer began as early as the 15th century. The tradition spread to the French, and it became common in parts of Europe where coffee could not be grown or because it was cheaper.

Eventually, it became quite popular in the U.S., specifically in New Orleans. Unlike coffee, chicory does not contain caffeine.  It tends to have a flavor like chocolate.

The salad versions of chicory come in broad and curly leafed varieties. The narrow-leaved version is also called curly endive and the broad leafed variety is also known as escarole.  The outer leaves are green and have a bitter taste.  Inner leaves are lighter in color, even white, and have a mild taste.  Endive is often added to blander lettuces in a salad to add flavor.

Chicory is also purported to have several health benefits, including possibly aiding in digestion.  Because it contains a compound called inulin, a soluble fiber, chicory may assist digestion by aiding the probiotic bacteria in the digestive tract.

So with all that, I recommend you try this coffee;