Toronto the Strange

Top photo: gbalogh Bottom photo: FuzzyRixard

When I first moved to Toronto, I would see painted moose in a few locations. I actually thought at one point it was an Asian symbol I was totally unaware of, as I only saw them outside of Asian businesses (obviously, not painted as those above). How naive. I have since learned it was a brainstorm of former mayor Mel Lastman to put Toronto on somebody's map. Fortunately -- in my opinion anyway -- there are only a few of these creations left, out of an original 326. A few is OK. The Ronald McDonald moose directly above graces the headquarters next door to my place of work.

Toronto local TV is graced with more than its share of outrageous pitchmen. The aforementioned former mayor Mel Lastman has passed his furniture business on to his son as well as his Bad Boy sense of the grab-their-attention sell.

Check out Idomo Furniture's fuzzy flowerchild gone grey on YouTube. (There must be something about the furniture business.)

But the worst (and more original) offender is Russell Oliver of Oliver Jewellery. This guy is just kind of creepy (and he has a whole slew of commercials -- playing fairly often). The sadly defunct Royal Canadian Air Farce pegged him more than 10 years ago.

And, for now, last but not least, are the multitude of raccoons in this city. Coming home at 2:30 a.m. I generally can see them every other night -- but especially the night before garbage pickups. Very healthy, fat, lumbering raccoons, often with three or four little ones waddling in their humpbacked manner across the streets. I've even seen one in broad daylight, flattening itself through an opening into the attic of a three-storey home. It is a mystery to me why the new Porter Airlines picked a raccoon -- Mr. Porter -- as its symbol.