Okay, last night's first attempt ever at a blog entry wasn't so much of a success. The good readers of this site have filled in the history and provenance of Ideal Coffee (see comments). It isn't part of a chain as I claim, it's the second branch of a small Toronto business, the first being in Kensington Market. Information that seems so obvious considering just yesterday I bought stuff in Kensington Market (one of the health food stores is having a sale onpomegranate juice from Azerbaijan ). But somehow that fact eluded me at the time. So apologies for spreading false facts (isn't that what blogs are all about?) and to make amends I plan to drop by the building site of Ideal Coffee on Ossington and interview the young couple who are, I've been informed,reno'ing the space on weekends and on evenings. As they pound nails I will conduct an interview and report back to you later this week. Young couple please email me at and let me know when you are going to be there this week! Otherwise I'll just keep hanging around Ossington till I find you.
The mixed blessing of course is that I now know people are actually reading the stuff I put up on this site so I should make sure that I know what I'm talking about. And since I now know people are out there reading this, I await answers to other important questions like: What's the deal with the cigar factory on Ossington? and What does the scary detox centre at the bottom of the street look like from the inside?
Okay, in other news, yesterday I found a smashed crack pipe vial in my backyard (or something like that...certainly it was some kind of apparatus involving drugs and glass). We have a typical urban Toronto west end house so the backyard goes to a garage and the garage goes to an alley. First thought: this was thrown over from the alley. But on closer inspection I think the drug doers were nestled into a spot next to my garage on the property next door. Someone ripped some boards down in the summer that were protecting one of those weird spaces, a mini alley between my garage and next door's. So I think drugs were ingested and the vial was thrown from that spot. The question is now: what to do about it? Hey, I'm a dad now, right, and I can't have people lobbing glass vials into my backyard. However, I don't really talk to those particularnext-door neighbors (there was a lengthy situation regarding their dogs...long story....) and they aren't very cooperative regarding upgrading their property (which is why they have left this hole in the alley exposed and slowly filling with trash since the summer). So should I just fix it myself? Any other action I might take? Once again, I call on the people of Toronto to advise me, this time before I make a mistake....
Hal Niedzviecki
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