Top 5 Things That Annoyed me in Toronto This Week

Toronto has a snow removal problem
Originally uploaded by Bitpicture

1. Since Toronto had a major dump of snow this week which only led to more mess with a typical slushy thaw, I decided I'd give in and get myself some waterproof Sorels (winter boots). Everybody who's got 'em on these days is proudly jumping through puddles while billboards all over the city seem to be looking down on me laughing everytime I get a soaker. I dragged myself down Queen Street from The Bay to Get Outside and all I heard from all the shopkeepers is how every place selling Sorels in the city is out of most sizes, which annoyingly also includes mine.

2. I'm staying at a friend's at Spadina and Queen these days where the wireless is surprisingly spotty. Figured I'd fork out $30 for the month to join Toronto's open wireless network One Zone. Figured it would be good to keep data rates on my iPhone down too. (Everytime I log onto Safari it hooks up to the One Zone site so I always have to play around to bypass it as it is.) Jumping onto Safari I went straight to the site, picked a hanle, filled out all my personal details including credit card info and waited to be registered. Three minutes later a warning typed in red told me that my credit card info was invalid. I typed it in again but no luck. I tried another card and the same thing happened. I did this whole thing again using Firefox but it still wouldn't sign my onto the wireless network. I figured I'd call so they could register me over the phone. Their tech guy told me to clear my computer's cache and try again since he couldn't help me over the phone but that if his solution didn't work it must be that their server is down. Forty minutes wasted and now I've given up using the network at all.

3. Parking has been a nightmare downtown but this I'm used to. I parked in a lot at Spadina and King (Impark) one day for work. I figured I'd get all my work done on time so I paid $13 to park until 6PM. It's only $1 more to stay until 8PM but I didn't see anything keeping me late. Well, 7PM rolls around and I'm still in an edit suite with 3 editors working to complete a project. When I finally make it out to my car I find that Impark has given me a ticket for $39.59 even though all I really owe them is $1. I've got 7 days to pay or it goes up to $68.90, then to a collection agent. Anyone know if Impark really has the authority to make people pay or are they just a bunch of scammers? I figure I'll just mail them a cheque for the buck I owe and see what happens.

4. After the crazy week I'd been having I decided to unwind with some shopping last night and also meet-up with my sister. Bloor Street Diner in Manulife Centre was packed so we headed up to Panorama for a sweet city view. Over half the tables were empty, including some nice spots next to the massive windows but the hostess told us all the tables were booked and we'd have to wait 15mins. We were there for an hour and a half and no one was seated at any of those tables at any point. For some reason it annoyed me even more when the hostess cheerily told us to "have a good night" upon leaving. I wanted to snap back but I figured it'd probably be an awkward wait before the elevator came up.

5. With a brutal windchill making the temperature in Toronto feel close to -40C last weekend there wasn't much to do but stay inside and warm up under the covers. Toronto kids can usually take the cold but not when it's this bad. I drove by City Hall to see a bunch of people enjoying Wintercity at Nathan Philips Square but I was too whimpy to get out and skate with the others. Kind of annoyed I missed the party put on by Dave and Irving from Promise and featuring a great circus act out of the Netherlands. Fortunately they've been asked back this weekend and temperatures are warming to a balmy 4C.