Yesterday I went to Toronto to get a couple of tickets, and had the abject misfortune to see Ed the Sock in the street. The dude who controls the puppet was a short guy with scraggly hair and the remarkably annoying voice we've come to know and love. Anyhow, this whole anecdote is really kinda pointless, and just segues into the fact that I was in Toronto.

While there, we also ran across this commercial that was in the progress of being filmed. From what it looked like, it appeared to be for chocolate bars of some sort, although I was at a distance, so it's a little hard to be sure. The whole damned street corner was cordoned off, though, and at least a hundred people had stopped to 'subtly' gawk, presumably in hopes of 'accidentally' ending up in the commercial. Now that's just sad. First off, the damned thing already had plenty of extras, who were milling about nearby doing their level best to look normal. Secondly, it's a freaking chocolate bar commercial! Anyone who thinks they're going to be discovered and catapulted to a life of fame and fortune just because they happened to be in the corner of a lame shot of two lame kids selling lame chocolate bars is just what this sentence is laced with- lame! Not only that, did I mention they were blocking traffic? It was so bad there were a couple of traffic cops and assorted goons, directing people around the site, so I was unceremoniously jostled into the middle of the road. Hey, it was a sidestreet, but it's still a pain in the ass to have to move just because people are freaking stupid enough to think that a lousy commercial for lousy chocolate will somehow translate into instant stardom. No, I don't care to consider that they were just interested in watching the magic happen. It wasn't magic!

In other news, there was some crazyass woman wearing a black leather vest and knee boots who was pierced at least a hundred times, and we also ran across no fewer than three separate jackhammerings in the street. Okay, so maybe it was two, but the annoyance factor is the same either way. Do you have any idea how loud that is? Actually, the seeming loudness decreases in direct proportion with how prepared a person is for the sound, so after a few initial irritations, we got to watch businesspeople start as the jackhammer was deployed. Anyhow, I guess the trip didn't really culminate with Ed the Sock, but it sure was loud, and we even got the tickets as planned. Nothing like a successful trip.

Good old Nepal. Every time you think someplace is nice and peaceful, something like a mass regicide brings ugly, ugly reality boiling to the surface. This particular case in point(and in fact the only one; regicides seem to be pretty rare nowadays for some reason) involves the crown prince of Nepal, who seems to have been told in no uncertain terms that he was going to have to marry someone. Being mostly used to getting his own way, the prince became temperamental, found a machine gun, and relieved 10 of his family members of their lives.

Obviously, this is fairly old news, but it's still mind-blowing how the prince's uncle then proceeded to try and cover things up by claiming that the shootings were accidental. Come on!! Ten people killed by accident with a machine gun? What was it doing at the dinner table? "Hey, family, check out this spiffy machine gun I found! Look, it even shoots! Like this! BLAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! Oh my! What have I done??!" If that isn't bad enough, there's the small matter of the fact that the prince shot himself too. It's really quite difficult, so far as I can see, to shoot yourself accidentally with a machine gun. Unless you're an absolute imbecile(and circumstantial evidence notwithstanding in this case, I would hazard a guess that the prince isn't a total moron) it's just not possible for events to have transpired in the order the government attempted to portray them. Evidently, the Nepalese people agree with me, cuz they started rioting until the king broke down and decided not to look supremely suspicious. Oh, well. No harm done- save for the dead royal family.

Incidentally, the Toronto Sun's headlines throughout the week dealt almost exclusively with sports, stopping only to declaim "2 Boys Injured In Fire" and then, the following day, "Fire Boys Dead." Isn't that charming?

Well, after a month or so of strangely good play, the Jays bottomed out and suddenly found themselves in a horrible skid of losing. If that wasn't enough, the Leafs are already gone, the Raptors have long since been cooked, AND a trade the Leafs attempted to make, which would have gotten rid of general lacklustre layaround Jonas Hoglund, fell through like a cheap roof. I guess what this amounts to is extremely limited interest on my part in sports right now. The NBA final is all well and good, I suppose, but the fact that they have to sell it with music spots at halftime suggests the product is somewhat less than great. As for the NHL finals, I didn't even know Colorado had survived last night until 4 AM... so I guess I don't really care much for that either. I guess what I'm trying to say is... Sports! Get more interesting, dammit!

Oh, so diapers are suddenly a huge imposition? Try being in MY position, you yammering bag of yammering! I have to wear these stupid things for at least another year, and the diaper rash is simply wretched for my sanguine, intrepidly cuteriffic skin tone! I shall have to bathe in salts for the next seven years to get the redness and itching out... at least if my parents don't get me some baby powder, which I can't use anyway because it clashes with my socks. Begone!