The history of High Park

In 1836, John George Howard purchased a 160-acre (0.65 km²) property in the County of York, to the west of Toronto, for a sheep farm.

In 1873, Howard and his wife agreed to convey their country property to the City of Toronto.^[3] There were several conditions to the conveyance, including that the Howards continue to live at their residence, no alcohol ever be served in the park, and that the City hold the park "for the free use, benefit and enjoyment of the Citizens of Toronto for ever and to be called and designated at all times thereafter High Park".

1930 - The city purchases 71 acres to the west of the park (formerly part of the Ellis estate), encompassing all of Grenadier Pond within the park boundaries.

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

Stuff in High Park: http://www.toronto.ca/parks/highpark.htm

High Park Community Advisory Council: http://www.highpark.org/
Mar 08 - 10:30AM - Walking Tour - Winter Tree Identification

ok... time to stop procrastinating and get some work done.

Daniel Burnham - The Chicago Plan

The Plan for Chicago: Daniel Burnham

Overview article in New Yorker this week.

Most important of all, a hundred years ago, in 1909, Burnham completed work on a document with the unassuming title “Plan of Chicago” that remains the most effective example of large-scale urban planning America has ever seen ... Assisted by the young city planner Edward H. Bennett, he laid out the shorefront of Lake Michigan, quadrupling the amount of parkland and thus insuring that the lakefront would forever be public open space.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Burnham#City_planning_and_.22The_Plan_of_Chicago.22

... everyone should be within walking distance of a park...

HIV contraction prevention in ice cream/breast milk

GML (glycerol monolaurate) is an 'emulsifier'; it's in ice cream and apparently, breast milk.

http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2009/03/04/u_of_m_aids_research/

“Ordinarily when we expose these animals to these high doses two weeks later an infected animal will have hundreds of millions of copies of virus floating around in its bloodstream. And all of the GML treated animals had nothing at two weeks”, says study coauthor Pat Schlievert.

Monkey Study also: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/abs/nature07831.html

Song of the Day: North of Canada - Modernday Saint Peter

Song: Modernday Saint Peter

(btw, to download myspace music, I used this. Sketchy program (works off another website), not very intuitive, but works.)

... people try, but they put me down...
... pick me up when I'm falling down, but don't line me up against the wall.

... I went down to Saint Petersburg!...

Catchy!.. reminds me of the Local Rabbits, Starkicker, Marcy Playground, and a local London band I remember existed about 10 years ago, Scrotes. No, seriously... I'll profile them soon! (edit: ok, did a quick search, there's no chance of finding these guys... )

... definitely lo-fi indie... but nice song D.C. Band, Two Polish guys in it (I think)... ugh.. you gotta love that lo-fi sound. Straight out of a 6-track. So raw and great. You could just see them recording this.. vocals can definitely use some work..


http://www.myspace.com/northofcanada

Profiled: http://musicunderfire.com/2008/12/north-of-canada-showcased-in-dc.html

Live: Oh gawd, vocals live could use some work, but really fun song...

Coyne on Arcade Fire: "They're Pricks, So Fuck 'Em" - Not Andrew Coyne... hahaha

Giant douche?

http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/news/149542-coyne-on-arcade-fire-theyre-pricks-so-fuck-em

I'm a fan of them on one level, but on another level I get really tired of their pompousness. We've played some shows with them and they really treat people like shit.

What's the point of calling the guys out in the media?

The D40 w 18-200 lens! First few actuations!

Here are the first few pics after the battery charged... A planning session for the deep south trip. Some shots taken with the SB-400 flash.

Classic Adam pose.






Puss in boots. Google books is great.


Post-it notes!


First, we take Manhattan...


.. then we take Birmingham!










Transparent.


Stupid Macs.


Escher-like doors.

The National Post

Got a tip the National Post is folding in the next couple of weeks. That is all.

Top 10 songs: Joel Plaskett - Non-believer

Joel Plaskett's transcends song of the day.

Song #1 of 10, in no particular order... and there may be more than 10 at some point.

Lyrics: http://www.songmeanings.net/songs/view/3530822107858601047/

So gorgeous. This entire album is gorgeous. I'm gonna try to over-analyze it line by line one of these days soon. For now, here is this song.

Also, album torrent: http://torrents.thepiratebay.org/4345193/joel_plaskett_-_la_de_da.4345193.TPB.torrent

BBC: Horizon - Parallel Universes

http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/horizon/2001/paralleluni.shtml

Michio Kaku on the BBC!

Torrent: http://isohunt.com/torrent_details/28249294/Nature%27s+Great+Events?tab=summary

The internet, circa 1996

http://www.slate.com/id/2212108/pagenum/all/

In 1996, Americans with Internet access spent fewer than 30 minutes a month surfing the Web, according to Steve Coffey, who's now the chief research officer of the market research firm the NPD Group.

Some of Yahoo's 1996-era front pages have been saved in the Internet Archive. What's interesting about them is what they lack. First, no e-mail: The first webmail site, Hotmail, launched in July of 1996. There was no instant-messaging software; the first big IM client, ICQ, hit the Web early in 1997. The MP3 file format was invented in the early 1990s, but very few people traded music in 1996—the files were too big to cram down modems, and Winamp, the first popular MP3 player app, was published in 1997. All these innovations hit the Web suddenly, defying prediction, and each completely altered how we'd spend our time online.

First Google page: http://web.archive.org/web/19981111184551/http://google.com/
ESPN - 1998: http://web.archive.org/web/19981212013850/espn.sportszone.com/
Facebook - 2005: http://web.archive.org/web/20050806011211/http://facebook.com/

Album of the Day: Sloan - Parallel Play

Surprisingly good album! Sloan's incredibly polished now, too much so for my taste. There's less emotion / more production in all their songs. The lyrics leave a little to be desired, but a listen to after coming work never hurt nobody.

Highlights include songs 6, 7, 8, 11 and 13. Maybe 10 for a Dylan-esque listen.

Torrent: http://dl.btjunkie.org/torrent/sloan-parallel-play/4495a9fbde5809223fd5a60c7860d03beab80588b837/download.torrent

Metacritic: http://www.metacritic.com/music/artists/sloan/parallelplay

Sloan playing Mod Club during CMW March 11th and 12th. I'll be there on the 11th.