#scrape toronto

[eyes-above--the-waves]

The only good thing to come out of that was Mitch getting an assist on all three of the goals, because now the internet people can’t blame him for the loss, right? 

...Right?!?

#my app is saying he had three assists but other sites saying two so...who knows #but anyway he got on the scoreboard and if the leafs can't win the game at least he's not a liability? #mitch marner #i am literally scraping for CRUMBS of positivity #toronto maple leafs #leafs lb

[fooddatascrap]

To collect data on restaurants in Toronto, Google Maps can be very helpful. This blog shows how to scrape Google Maps to find Toronto restaurant data.

Know more : https://www.fooddatascrape.com/how-to-extract-toronto-restaurant-data-from-google-maps-by-category-with-web-scraping.php

#Scrape Google Maps To Find Toronto Restaurants Data #Extract Toronto restaurant data #Toronto restaurant data extracting services #Web scrape Toronto restaurant data #Web scrape Google Maps data #Scrape Google Maps API

[autismserenity]

A Chabad synagogue in Pomona, New York, burned to the ground on April 17th, along with its three Torah scrolls.

Torah scrolls are hand-written, hand-made, and kept in elaborately decorated cases or wrappings.

Many of them have long histories; my synagogue has two, I think, that were smuggled out of villages being destroyed in pogroms or in Nazi attacks. One of them is the only remaining piece of that village on earth.

Sometimes, the Torah scroll doesn't even belong to the synagogue, but is on loan from a place like the Memorial Scrolls Trust:

There's an entire Jewish holiday just for taking them out and dancing with them: Simchat Torah, "The Joy of Torah."

In fact, that was the holiday on which Hamas's invasion took place.

So it's a particular tragedy when a Torah is destroyed.

Chabad itself has a page about what goes into making just one Torah scroll:

"An authentic Torah scroll is a mind-boggling masterpiece of labor and skill. Comprising between 62 and 84 sheets of parchment -- cured, tanned, scraped and prepared according to exacting Torah law specifications -- and containing exactly 304,805 letters, the resulting handwritten scroll takes many months to complete.

"An expert pious scribe carefully inks each letter with a feather quill, under the intricate calligraphic guidelines of Ktav Ashurit (Ashurite Script). The sheets of parchment are then sewn together with sinews to form one long scroll. While most Torah scrolls stand around two feet in height and weigh 20-25 pounds, some are huge and quite heavy, while others are doll-sized and lightweight."

I learned all of this on Tumblr.

Once upon time, in people's "punch Nazis" days, I would've been able to find some mention on Tumblr of this synagogue burning.

There is none, so I'm posting about it.

And I'm going to quote Daniel Weiner, Rabbi of Temple de Hirsch Sinai in Bellevue, Washington, when his own synagogue was vandalized last November:

"It’s horrific and heartbreaking.... [Taking out your feelings about] what's going on in the Middle East by defacing a sacred space of a synagogue -- that’s the very definition of antisemitism."

I'm also posting about the Kehillat Shaarei Torah Synagogue in Toronto, whose windows were broken on Friday, April 19th, by someone who also tried to break the front door down.

And the April 15 graffiti outside a Bangor, Maine synagogue that said, "Nazi Israel 30K murdered," next to a crossed-out Star of David. The same synagogue faced pro-Hamas flyers plastered around it in November.

I was going to include all the synagogues vandalized over the past six months. But there are way too many. Several every week. Lots are swastikas.

I'll go back to just doing attacks on and near synagogues.

Someone has to talk about the 1-year-old who was stabbed outside Temple Beth Zion-Beth Israel (BZBI) synagogue, in Philadelphia, on April 13th.

The foiled terrorist attack on a Moscow synagogue on April 11th.

The man who, on April 9th, screamed at the rabbi at Moldova's Great Synagogue, "What are you doing here? How come no one has finished you off for everything you are doing to the Palestinians?" Just one week after people had vandalized a Holocaust memorial in nearby Soroka, and sprayed "Free Palestine" on it.

The Oldenburg, Germany synagogue that was firebombed on April 5th.

The Florida Las Olas Chabad Jewish Center, which on March 16 burned, but not to the ground. The Torah scrolls were safe, and no one was hurt, but the back of the building was severely damaged.

The planned-but-thwarted-on-March-7th ISIS massacre in a Moscow synagogue.

The stabbing of an Orthodox Jew in Switzerland on March 5th. (He was badly injured, but expected to survive.)

A man leaving a synagogue in Paris was beaten on March 3rd.

People set the courtyard of a synagogue in Sfax, Tunisia on fire on February 27th. Firefighters managed to put the fire out before it consumed the inside of the building.

The synagogue is no longer used; there are no Jews left in its area, and fewer than 1,000 Jews left in Tunisia overall.

(Thousands of Tunisian Jews were sent to work camps during the Holocaust. Antisemitism across the Middle East continued to increase rapidly for decades. By the 1970s, 90% of Tunisian Jews had fled to France or Israel.)

On February 18, an Orthodox Jew leaving Synagogue of Inverrary-Chabad in Lauderhill, Florida, was beaten by an attacker yelling racial slurs.

Someone deliberately chose International Holocaust Remembrance Day, January 27, to smash all the windows in the front of Sgoolai Israel Synagogue in downtown Fredericton, New Brunswick.

On December 29, Turkey arrested 32 people linked to ISIS who were planning attacks on synagogues and churches.

On December 17, a man drove a U-Haul truck up onto the sidewalk between a barrier and the front door of the Kesher Israel Congregation in Washington D.C., got out, and started yelling "Gas the Jews." He also sprayed a foul-smelling substance on two people leaving the synagogue.

December 17 also saw 400 synagogues across the United States receive bomb threats.

On December 11, a man attacked an elderly couple on their way into a synagogue in Los Angeles, screaming, "Give me your earrings, Jew!!" and beating one of them bloody with a belt. (Happily, he chased the guy down the street, and caught him when his pants fell down.)

On December 10, a 16-year-old was arrested in Vienna for planning an attack on a synagogue.

On December 8, on the first night of Hanukkah, 15 synagogues in New York State received bomb threats. And someone screamed, "Free Palestine," and fired shots outside of Temple Israel in Albany, NY. Which has a preschool that was in session.

Meanwhile, the five Jews left in Egypt were canceling public Hanukkah candle-lighting at their synagogue out of fear of reprisals. Particularly after two Israelis in Alexandria had been gunned down by terrorists on October 8. (While Israel was still fighting Hamas in Israel.)

On November 15, a terrorist group set the only synagogue in Armenia on fire.

Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia (ASALA) has a history of working with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).

(PFLP is part of Hamas's network of groups. Samidoun is their nonprofit arm - which is why Germany banned Samidoun last year, although it's still active in many other countries.

PFLP is also actively supported by the Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM), a diaspora nonprofit group, and Within Our Lifetime (WOL), an SJP spinoff in NYC.)

On November 11, halfway through Shabbat services, police asked Central Shul in Melbourne, Australia to evacuate "as a precaution" due to a "pro-Palestinian" protest that had chosen the neighboring park as its gathering place. Australia has seen some very outspoken antisemitism at protests, including the march shortly after October 7 that chanted "Gas the Jews."

Also on November 11, protesters targeted a synagogue along a march route. They sat in their cars, spraying green smoke and shouting at people leaving the synagogue. The march itself featured a record number of horrifying signs and chants.

On November 7th, Congregation Beth Tikvah in Montreal was firebombed, and the back door of the Jewish organization across the street (Federation CJA) was set on fire.

On November 4, protesters chanted "Bomb Israel," and burned an Israeli flag outside the only synagogue in Malmo, Sweden.

During October, there were 501 antisemitic acts under investigation in France in just three weeks, including groups gathering in front of synagogues shouting threats, and graffiti such as the words “killing Jews is a duty” sprayed outside a stadium.

On October 18, people firebombed a synagogue in Berlin after homes all over the neighborhood were graffitied with stars of David.

And also on October 18, hundreds of "pro-Palestine" rioters attacked the Or Zaruah Synagogue, in the Spanish enclave of Melilla in North Africa, while worshippers were inside.

Based on the video, they seem to have blocked the synagogue entrance completely, while screaming "Murderous Israel" and waving Palestinian flags. (Melilla is an autonomous zone belonging to Spain. It borders Morocco.)

On October 17, during pro-Palestinian protests, hundreds of rioters set fire to Al Hammah synagogue, an abandoned house of prayer in central Tunisia. They hammered down the building’s walls and raised a Palestinian flag on the building. Police did not intervene.

The Facebook page "Tunigate", which has around 88 thousand followers, published a video of the assault. So did "Radio Bousalem”, with 83 thousand users. The vast majority of comments on these videos welcome these acts. The building was severely damaged and almost completely razed to the ground.

On October 15, bomb threats were sent to many East Coast synagogues. Attleboro synagogue Congregation Agudas-Achim received one of the emails, which read, "The bombs will blow up in a few hours. A lot of people will die. You all deserve to die."

On October 8 -- again, while Hamas was still in Israel -- Madrid’s main synagogue was defaced with graffiti that read “Free Palestine” next to a crossed-out Star of David.

And on October 7, an assailant in Rockland, NY fired a BB gun at two women entering a synagogue. Later in the month, a banner at the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue in the area was vandalized with the words, “Fuckin kikes."

#if you have used “Free Palestine” as if it's a sort of verbal assault you can shout in comments or scribble over flyers #if you are unwilling to hear what the Jewish term Zionism means to the people who use it #if you cannot name one Palestinian human rights activist #and most of all if you don't know how Hamas abuses Palestinians and you still think it's The Resistance #then you. are. the. problem. #if you don't know people in gaza have been protesting Hamas and blaming it for deliberately instigating a war they don't want #if you don't know how often they've spoken out about Hamas stealing aid and selling it to them #and especially if you don't want to believe me much less find Palestinians in Gaza to listen to #also if you didn't know about any of the stuff in this post BUT you have taken it upon yourself to tell Jews that “it's not antisemitism” #like seriously everyone deal with your learned distrust of Jews challenge #wall of words #fire tw #guns tw #violence tw #Instagram

[mostlysignssomeportents]

The moral injury of having your work enshittified

This Monday (November 27), I'm appearing at the Toronto Metro Reference Library with Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen.

On November 29, I'm at NYC's Strand Books with my novel The Lost Cause, a solarpunk tale of hope and danger that Rebecca Solnit called "completely delightful."

This week, I wrote about how the Great Enshittening – in which all the digital services we rely on become unusable, extractive piles of shit – did not result from the decay of the morals of tech company leadership, but rather, from the collapse of the forces that discipline corporate wrongdoing:

https://locusmag.com/2023/11/commentary-by-cory-doctorow-dont-be-evil/

The failure to enforce competition law allowed a few companies to buy out their rivals, or sell goods below cost until their rivals collapsed, or bribe key parts of their supply chain not to allow rivals to participate:

https://www.engadget.com/google-reportedly-pays-apple-36-percent-of-ad-search-revenues-from-safari-191730783.html

The resulting concentration of the tech sector meant that the surviving firms were stupendously wealthy, and cozy enough that they could agree on a common legislative agenda. That regulatory capture has allowed tech companies to violate labor, privacy and consumer protection laws by arguing that the law doesn't apply when you use an app to violate it:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/12/algorithmic-wage-discrimination/#fishers-of-men

But the regulatory capture isn't just about preventing regulation: it's also about creating regulation – laws that make it illegal to reverse-engineer, scrape, and otherwise mod, hack or reconfigure existing services to claw back value that has been taken away from users and business customers. This gives rise to Jay Freeman's perfectly named doctrine of "felony contempt of business-model," in which it is illegal to use your own property in ways that anger the shareholders of the company that sold it to you:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/09/lead-me-not-into-temptation/#chamberlain

Undisciplined by the threat of competition, regulation, or unilateral modification by users, companies are free to enshittify their products. But what does that actually look like? I say that enshittification is always precipitated by a lost argument.

It starts when someone around a board-room table proposes doing something that's bad for users but good for the company. If the company faces the discipline of competition, regulation or self-help measures, then the workers who are disgusted by this course of action can say, "I think doing this would be gross, and what's more, it's going to make the company poorer," and so they win the argument.

But when you take away that discipline, the argument gets reduced to, "Don't do this because it would make me ashamed to work here, even though it will make the company richer." Money talks, bullshit walks. Let the enshittification begin!

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/22/who-wins-the-argument/#corporations-are-people-my-friend

But why do workers care at all? That's where phrases like "don't be evil" come into the picture. Until very recently, tech workers participated in one of history's tightest labor markets, in which multiple companies with gigantic war-chests bid on their labor. Even low-level employees routinely fielded calls from recruiters who dangled offers of higher salaries and larger stock grants if they would jump ship for a company's rival.

Employers built "campuses" filled with lavish perks: massages, sports facilities, daycare, gourmet cafeterias. They offered workers generous benefit packages, including exotic health benefits like having your eggs frozen so you could delay fertility while offsetting the risks normally associated with conceiving at a later age.

But all of this was a transparent ruse: the business-case for free meals, gyms, dry-cleaning, catering and massages was to keep workers at their laptops for 10, 12, or even 16 hours per day. That egg-freezing perk wasn't about helping workers plan their families: it was about thumbing the scales in favor of working through your entire twenties and thirties without taking any parental leave.

In other words, tech employers valued their employees as a means to an end: they wanted to get the best geeks on the payroll and then work them like government mules. The perks and pay weren't the result of comradeship between management and labor: they were the result of the discipline of competition for labor.

This wasn't really a secret, of course. Big Tech workers are split into two camps: blue badges (salaried employees) and green badges (contractors). Whenever there is a slack labor market for a specific job or skill, it is converted from a blue badge job to a green badge job. Green badges don't get the food or the massages or the kombucha. They don't get stock or daycare. They don't get to freeze their eggs. They also work long hours, but they are incentivized by the fear of poverty.

Tech giants went to great lengths to shield blue badges from green badges – at some Google campuses, these workforces actually used different entrances and worked in different facilities or on different floors. Sometimes, green badge working hours would be staggered so that the armies of ragged clickworkers would not be lined up to badge in when their social betters swanned off the luxury bus and into their airy adult kindergartens.

But Big Tech worked hard to convince those blue badges that they were truly valued. Companies hosted regular town halls where employees could ask impertinent questions of their CEOs. They maintained freewheeling internal social media sites where techies could rail against corporate foolishness and make Dilbert references.

And they came up with mottoes.

Apple told its employees it was a sound environmental steward that cared about privacy. Apple also deliberately turned old devices into e-waste by shredding them to ensure that they wouldn't be repaired and compete with new devices:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/22/vin-locking/#thought-differently

And even as they were blocking Facebook's surveillance tools, they quietly built their own nonconsensual mass surveillance program and lied to customers about it:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/14/luxury-surveillance/#liar-liar

Facebook told employees they were on a "mission to connect every person in the world," but instead deliberately sowed discontent among its users and trapped them in silos that meant that anyone who left Facebook lost all their friends:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/08/facebooks-secret-war-switching-costs

And Google promised its employees that they would not "be evil" if they worked at Google. For many googlers, that mattered. They wanted to do something good with their lives, and they had a choice about who they would work for. What's more, they did make things that were good. At their high points, Google Maps, Google Mail, and of course, Google Search were incredible.

My own life was totally transformed by Maps: I have very poor spatial sense, need to actually stop and think to tell my right from my left, and I spent more of my life at least a little lost and often very lost. Google Maps is the cognitive prosthesis I needed to become someone who can go anywhere. I'm profoundly grateful to the people who built that service.

There's a name for phenomenon in which you care so much about your job that you endure poor conditions and abuse: it's called "vocational awe," as coined by Fobazi Ettarh:

https://www.inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe.org/2018/vocational-awe/

Ettarh uses the term to apply to traditionally low-waged workers like librarians, teachers and nurses. In our book Chokepoint Capitalism, Rebecca Giblin and I talked about how it applies to artists and other creative workers, too:

https://chokepointcapitalism.com/

But vocational awe is also omnipresent in tech. The grandiose claims to be on a mission to make the world a better place are not just puffery – they're a vital means of motivating workers who can easily quit their jobs and find a new one to put in 16-hour days. The massages and kombucha and egg-freezing are not framed as perks, but as logistical supports, provided so that techies on an important mission can pursue a shared social goal without being distracted by their balky, inconvenient meatsuits.

Steve Jobs was a master of instilling vocational awe. He was full of aphorisms like "we're here to make a dent in the universe, otherwise why even be here?" Or his infamous line to John Sculley, whom he lured away from Pepsi: "Do you want to sell sugar water for the rest of your life or come with me and change the world?"

Vocational awe cuts both ways. If your workforce actually believes in all that high-minded stuff, if they actually sacrifice their health, family lives and self-care to further the mission, they will defend it. That brings me back to enshittification, and the argument: "If we do this bad thing to the product I work on, it will make me hate myself."

The decline in market discipline for large tech companies has been accompanied by a decline in labor discipline, as the market for technical work grew less and less competitive. Since the dotcom collapse, the ability of tech giants to starve new entrants of market oxygen has shrunk techies' dreams.

Tech workers once dreamed of working for a big, unwieldy firm for a few years before setting out on their own to topple it with a startup. Then, the dream shrank: work for that big, clumsy firm for a few years, then do a fake startup that makes a fake product that is acquihired by your old employer, as an incredibly inefficient and roundabout way to get a raise and a bonus.

Then the dream shrank again: work for a big, ugly firm for life, but get those perks, the massages and the kombucha and the stock options and the gourmet cafeteria and the egg-freezing. Then it shrank again: work for Google for a while, but then get laid off along with 12,000 co-workers, just months after the company does a stock buyback that would cover all those salaries for the next 27 years:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/10/the-proletarianization-of-tech-workers/

Tech workers' power was fundamentally individual. In a tight labor market, tech workers could personally stand up to their bosses. They got "workplace democracy" by mouthing off at town hall meetings. They didn't have a union, and they thought they didn't need one. Of course, they did need one, because there were limits to individual power, even for the most in-demand workers, especially when it came to ghastly, long-running sexual abuse from high-ranking executives:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/25/technology/google-sexual-harassment-andy-rubin.html

Today, atomized tech workers who are ordered to enshittify the products they take pride in are losing the argument. Workers who put in long hours, missed funerals and school plays and little league games and anniversaries and family vacations are being ordered to flush that sacrifice down the toilet to grind out a few basis points towards a KPI.

It's a form of moral injury, and it's palpable in the first-person accounts of former workers who've exited these large firms or the entire field. The viral "Reflecting on 18 years at Google," written by Ian Hixie, vibrates with it:

https://ln.hixie.ch/?start=1700627373

Hixie describes the sense of mission he brought to his job, the workplace democracy he experienced as employees' views were both solicited and heeded. He describes the positive contributions he was able to make to a commons of technical standards that rippled out beyond Google – and then, he says, "Google's culture eroded":

Decisions went from being made for the benefit of users, to the benefit of Google, to the benefit of whoever was making the decision.

In other words, techies started losing the argument. Layoffs weakened worker power – not just to defend their own interest, but to defend the users interests. Worker power is always about more than workers – think of how the 2019 LA teachers' strike won greenspace for every school, a ban on immigration sweeps of students' parents at the school gates and other community benefits:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/23/a-collective-bargain/

Hixie attributes the changes to a change in leadership, but I respectfully disagree. Hixie points to the original shareholder letter from the Google founders, in which they informed investors contemplating their IPO that they were retaining a controlling interest in the company's governance so that they could ignore their shareholders' priorities in favor of a vision of Google as a positive force in the world:

https://abc.xyz/investor/founders-letters/ipo-letter/

Hixie says that the leadership that succeeded the founders lost sight of this vision – but the whole point of that letter is that the founders never fully ceded control to subsequent executive teams. Yes, those executive teams were accountable to the shareholders, but the largest block of voting shares were retained by the founders.

I don't think the enshittification of Google was due to a change in leadership – I think it was due to a change in discipline, the discipline imposed by competition, regulation and the threat of self-help measures. Take ads: when Google had to contend with one-click adblocker installation, it had to constantly balance the risk of making users so fed up that they googled "how do I block ads?" and then never saw another ad ever again.

But once Google seized the majority of the mobile market, it was able to funnel users into apps, and reverse-engineering an app is a felony (felony contempt of business-model) under Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. An app is just a web-page wrapped in enough IP to make it a crime to install an ad-blocker.

And as Google acquired control over the browser market, it was likewise able to reduce the self-help measures available to browser users who found ads sufficiently obnoxious to trigger googling "how do I block ads?" The apotheosis of this is the yearslong campaign to block adblockers in Chrome, which the company has sworn it will finally do this coming June:

https://www.tumblr.com/tevruden/734352367416410112/you-have-until-june-to-dump-chrome

My contention here is not that Google's enshittification was precipitated by a change in personnel via the promotion of managers who have shitty ideas. Google's enshittification was precipitated by a change in discipline, as the negative consequences of heeding those shitty ideas were abolished thanks to monopoly.

This is bad news for people like me, who rely on services like Google Maps as cognitive prostheses. Elizabeth Laraki, one of the original Google Maps designers, has published a scorching critique of the latest GMaps design:

https://twitter.com/elizlaraki/status/1727351922254852182

Laraki calls out numerous enshittificatory design-choices that have left Maps screens covered in "crud" – multiple revenue-maximizing elements that come at the expense of usability, shifting value from users to Google.

What Laraki doesn't say is that these UI elements are auctioned off to merchants, which means that the business that gives Google the most money gets the greatest prominence in Maps, even if it's not the best merchant. That's a recurring motif in enshittified tech platforms, most notoriously Amazon, which makes $31b/year auctioning off top search placement to companies whose products aren't relevant enough to your query to command that position on their own:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/25/greedflation/#commissar-bezos

Enshittification begets enshittification. To succeed on Amazon, you must divert funds from product quality to auction placement, which means that the top results are the worst products:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/06/attention-rents/#consumer-welfare-queens

The exception is searches for Apple products: Apple and Amazon have a cozy arrangement that means that searches for Apple products are a timewarp back to the pre-enshittification Amazon, when the company worried enough about losing your business to heed the employees who objected to sacrificing search quality as part of a merchant extortion racket:

https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-gives-apple-special-treatment-while-others-suffer-junk-ads-2023-11

Not every tech worker is a tech bro, in other words. Many workers care deeply about making your life better. But the microeconomics of the boardroom in a monopolized tech sector rewards the worst people and continuously promotes them. Forget the Peter Principle: tech is ruled by the Sam Principle.

As OpenAI went through four CEOs in a single week, lots of commentators remarked on Sam Altman's rise and fall and rise, but I only found one commentator who really had Altman's number. Writing in Today in Tabs, Rusty Foster nailed Altman to the wall:

https://www.todayintabs.com/p/defective-accelerationism

Altman's history goes like this: first, he founded a useless startup that raised $30m, only to be acquired and shuttered. Then Altman got a job running Y Combinator, where he somehow failed at taking huge tranches of equity from "every Stanford dropout with an idea for software to replace something Mommy used to do." After that, he founded OpenAI, a company that he claims to believe presents an existential risk to the entire human risk – which he structured so incompetently that he was then forced out of it.

His reward for this string of farcical, mounting failures? He was put back in charge of the company he mis-structured despite his claimed belief that it will destroy the human race if not properly managed.

Altman's been around for a long time. He founded his startup in 2005. There've always been Sams – of both the Bankman-Fried varietal and the Altman genus – in tech. But they didn't get to run amok. They were disciplined by their competitors, regulators, users and workers. The collapse of competition led to an across-the-board collapse in all of those forms of discipline, revealing the executives for the mediocre sociopaths they always were, and exposing tech workers' vocational awe for the shabby trick it was from the start.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/25/moral-injury/#enshittification

#pluralistic #moral injury #enshittification #worker power #google #dont be evil #monopoly #sam altman #openai #vocational awe #making a dent in the universe

[nhlclover]

fallin' all in you | matthew knies

summary: the morning after with your boyfriend

warnings: some semi-nsfw content, sexual themes, mentions of sex

note: this became a lot more sexual than i intended lol but i actually love this one and i love him.

word count: 0.7k

There wasn’t anything much better than waking up in the same bed as my boyfriend. Our work schedules often conflicted, with me working long and odd hours and him being out of town so often, so we jumped at the rare opportunities we could spend with one another. Following the Leafs' win last night, we wasted no time in getting back to Matthew's apartment, our clothing being discarded not long after the front door had shut.

When I awoke in the morning, I was tangled in Matthew’s cotton sheets. I reached around for him, but only felt the mattress. I opened my eyes, finding him on the other side of the bed. Matthew was lying on his stomach, one arm draped over the edge of the bed. The morning sun beamed through the windows in his condo that he refused to buy curtains for because “we’re so high up no one can see us anyways”. The sun hit his unclothed back, making his skin seem a shade of pure gold.

I leaned over, tracing his toned back softly with my nails. He didn’t even stir. The idea popped into my head quickly, sliding out from under the sheets, grabbing Matthew’s shirt from atop the dresser that I had removed and flung across the room last night. I slipped out of the room, softly shutting the door behind me.

I went to the kitchen, pulling out the frying pan and pancake mix from the cabinet. I scavenged his pantry and fridge for toppings to add to the pancakes. He had chocolate chips but little fruit so I had to improvise by using frozen fruit typically used for smoothies. I mixed together the batter, decorating each individual pancake with some toppings.

“Is that my shirt?”

I jumped at the sound of Matthew's morning voice coming from behind me. I turned around, seeing him leaning against the counter. He now donned a pair of loose-fitting boxers that hung low on his hips, exposing his v-line and happy trail that I remembered tracing the night before.

“First item of clothing I saw.” I shrugged, turning back around and flipping the pancake in the pan. “Somebody tore my shit off when we were in the living room.”

Matthew looked to the couch where, in fact, my white jeans and the Knies Maple Leafs jersey sat discarded. He chuckles, his laugh coming out gravely. I hear his bare feet padding across the floor, getting closer to me until I feel his arms rope around my waist, pressing soft kisses into my jaw. I tilt my head away, giving him better access. He chuckles again, his laugh vibrating against my skin.

Matthew pulls me away from the stove, turning me in his arms to face him. He leaned down, softly connecting our lips. His lips are just as warm as the morning sun that was beating down on the city of Toronto. He snaked his hands down to my legs, picked me up off the ground and walked me to the island, placing me on it. Matthew's shirt had ridden up on me, coming above my hips so my bare legs were sat against the cool granite countertops.

He looks down, seeing that I had on no pants and instead the same white lace underwear that led to the discarded clothing the night before. He groaned, leaning his head back and smiling. I slowly let my legs spread a little wider, intentionally teasing him.

“Are you trying to turn me on right now? Cause' it's working.” He says, his hands gripping my thighs. I giggle, his thumbs now tracing uneven circles into the inside of my thighs.

“How about round two?” He asks in a low voice.

I lean forward, nearing my lips to his before hopping off the counter and pushing past him to the stove. “After, because you’ve just caused my pancake to burn.” I say, taking the spatula and scraping away at the well-overcooked pancake on the pan.

“You are an incredible tease.” He says.

I snort at him. “You better get to work on frying the bacon or else no second round.” I warn.

He laughs and shakes his head in disbelief, a small smirk toying at his lips. He passes behind me, slapping my ass on the way by.

“Yes ma’am.” He says, getting the bacon from the fridge.

#matthew knies #matthew knies x reader #matthew knies imagine #toronto maple leafs #maple leafs #nhl imagine #nhl #hockey #luvzegras

[survivingcapitalism]

As disabled people around the world and as disabled diasporic Asian queers, we have been grieving heavily and finding as many ways we can to be in solidarity with Palestinians during the last 80 days of the genocide against Palestinian people. 

We want to get money and resources directly to Palestinians in Gaza, however, as many people know, the blockade has made it almost impossible to get cash and resources into Gaza. One way that is possible is getting people eSims. 

The Israeli Occupation Forces have attacked wifi and cellular service over and over again, which stops people from being able to get information, be in touch with their families to let them know they’re alive, and for people to get the word out about bombings and conditions in Gaza. The several times that Israel/the IOF cut off all wireless and cellular service have been chilling and also provided sites where harsh damage, murder and atrocities could occur without media coverage, period, and by the heroic young citizen journalists whose social media accounts are some of the only ways that accurate, up-to-date news has been getting out of Gaza. 

On October 29th, 2023, Egyptian writer and activist Mirna El Helbawi founded #ConnectingGaza to get eSims directly to people in Gaza, with updated information about which carrier is most needed. A few weeks later,  poet and organizer Jane Shi decided to sell her remaining “Immunocompromised people are worth protecting” stickers to raise funds for eSims as well as for Palestinian Youth Movement Toronto’s Community Defense Fund after her friend Divya Kaur (@soft.kaur) suggested fundraising for eSims with art and after her friend Vivian Ly and co-organizer at Masks4EastVan linked Mirna’s instructions in a group chat. Doing so was quick and easy, as her stickers were already listed on her Big Cartel page from when they were previously sold to fundraise for fires and floods impacting predominantly Indigenous families in so-called British Columbia. 

Like many others across her social media feed, Jane was floored when she saw that one of the eSims she purchased, which lasts 20 days and has unlimited data, was activated, meaning that it is currently being used to connect Palestinians in Gaza to the Internet. She excitedly sent the screenshot of the activated eSim to a bunch of her friends and community members, hoping to offer some respite against the high stress of protests, social media posts, and ongoing organizing. 

Amidst the onslaught of violence, criminalization of protest, egregious censorship, and grief, including for the assassination of English professor and poet Refaat Alareer, the small blue “Active” offered a glimmer of hope, however small, however inadequate. 

Poet Rasha Abdulhadi, a disabled, queer Palestinian Southerner, invites us to do everything in our power to refuse the genocide against Palestinian people and in so doing, encourages us to make connections between our struggles and theirs.  In their bio in The Offing and elsewhere, they share, “Wherever you are, whatever sand you can throw on the gears of genocide, do it now. If it’s a handful, throw it. If it’s a fingernail full, scrape it out and throw. Get in the way however you can. The elimination of the Palestinian people is not inevitable. We can refuse with our every breath and action. We must.” As disabled people we owe our disabled kin in Gaza to get in the way. 

In the spirit of many disability justice crowdfunds, like Stacey Park Milbern’s collective fundraiser to buy the Disability Justice Culture Club in 2019, we are organizing this disabled (and ally) crowdfund to buy a shit ton of eSims.  

Anything you can contribute helps. There is power in numbers. We know that as disabled/ sick/ ND/Deaf people we are often poor or broke, but we can pool our money to collectively make a big difference. We also know that there is a rich tradition of poor and working class people donating more than middle class and rich people in general, and of poor and working class disabled people sharing what we have as a form of collective access and solidarity. We also call on people with access to money and/or wealth to contribute as you can.

We are also looking for disabled orgs and collectives to connect with and move money and resources to as asked—we have listed some below. We also recognize that everyone in Gaza is now disabled due to the massive number of deaths, new disabilities, life-threatening illnesses and destruction of medical facilities going on. Such destruction also debilitates the land, water, and air, which will impact Palestinians and all surrounding life for generations to come. We owe our kin in Palestine to throw sand on the gears of genocide with our every breath. 

[veronicaleighauthor]

Banned Books Week 2023

It’s that time of year again, when we honor and focus on the books out there that have been banned. And boy, it seems the last few years that book banning has been on the rise. You know if you don’t like a book and you don’t agree with it, no one is forcing you to read it. I’ll even go as far as understanding parents taking books out of their own kid’s hands. My objection is when parents take books out of some other kid’s or adult’s hand. Growing up, if someone had taken “The Diary of Anne Frank” off of my library’s shelf, I would have been lost.

This year I’m focusing on… “Anne of Green Gables,” by Lucy Maud Montgomery. Yes, you read that right, our dear old unromantic Anne Shirley was banned!

Description:

Eleven-year-old Anne Shirley has never known a real home. Since her parents’ deaths, she’s bounced around to foster homes and orphanages. When she is sent by mistake to live with Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert at the snug white farmhouse called Green Gables, she wants to stay forever. But Anne is not the sturdy boy Matthew and Marilla were expecting.   She’s a mischievous, talkative redheaded girl with a fierce temper, who tumbles into one scrape after another. Anne is not like anybody else, the Cuthberts agree; she is special, a girl with an enormous imagination. All she’s ever wanted is to belong somewhere. And the longer she stays at Green Gables, the harder it is for anyone to imagine life without her.

Author:

Lucy Maud Montgomery was born in Clifton, Prince Edward Island, in 1874. Educated at Prince Edward College, Charlottetown, and Dalhousie University, she embarked on a career in teaching. From 1898 until 1911 she took care of her maternal grandmother in Cavendish, Prince Edward Island, and during this time wrote many poems and stories for Canadian and American magazines. Montgomery’s first novel, Anne of Green Gables, met with immediate critical and popular acclaim, and its success, both national and international, led to seven sequels. Maud Montgomery also wrote the popular Emily of New Moon in 1923 followed by two sequels, and Pat of Silver Bush in 1933 with its sequel. L. M. Montgomery died in Toronto in 1942, but it is her early years of lush, green Prince Edward Island that live on in the delightful adventures of the impetuous redhead, the stories Mark Twain called “the sweetest creation of child life yet written.”

Why It was Banned:

You’re probably asking yourself, who on earth would ban something as adorable, and funny, and innocent as “Anne of Green Gables?” (Who on earth bans any book?) Well, let’s find out!

After “Anne of Green Gables,” was published in 1908, it wasn’t long before it was translated into other languages, that way others could fall in love with Anne Shirley. In 1912, it was translated to Polish and it found a captive audience amongst the Polish people. Soon, Lucy Maud Montgomery’s other works were translated, and she grew very popular there. Anne’s individuality was endearing. In 1939, when the Nazis invaded Poland, Polish soldiers were issued copies of Montgomery’s novels to take to the frontlines, as a means to raise the moral. When the Nazis occupied the country, “Anne of Green Gables” and Montgomery’s other works were banned, but that didn’t stop the Polish people. Copies were sold on the black market; resistance members carried them. Anne Shirley had become a beacon of hope. The war in Poland ended in 1945 and I’m sure the Polish people were looking forward to being free…unfortunately, they had been liberated by the Soviets and a Communistic government was put into place. Similarly, because Montgomery’s works were so beloved and “Anne’s resistance to authority” was a threat, the Soviets viewed it as “subversive” and banned “Anne of Green Gables” in 1953 to 1956.

My Thoughts:

I first read “Anne of Green Gables” when I was thirteen or fourteen. My family and I were visiting family up north and we stopped by this huge warehouse that sold old, used books for cheap. I stumbled across “Anne of Green Gables” and from the title I was intrigued, and it was one of the ones we bought. I devoured it and soon fell in love with odd, weird, red-haired girl. She turns her hair green, hits a boy with a slate, gets her friend drunk – what’s not to like? I had no idea it was Classic Lit – to me Anne Shirley felt modern and realistic. I went on to read the rest of the series, and re-read them off and on over the years. Then, I found the miniseries! Imagine my surprise when I learned it was a banned book.  

So, you see, the Nazis and the Communists banned and censored books…Those who are on the side of good don’t ban and censor books. And I’ll leave it at that.

#banned books week #banned books #banned books week 2023 #anne of green gables #l. m. montgomery #lucy maud montgomery #anne shirley #classic literature #poland #communists #nazis #wwii

[datsyuks]

Take Care

(A nice short sweet thing featuring Toronto's best dressed: Willy 88. This came after Sandin said he would do anything for friends and family at any hour.. I mean how could you NOT love that?!)

“You don’t have to go, ya know,” Willy said as his fingers played with your hair. The sun was setting just as you two woke up from a much needed nap. “I really have to go, I should have left an hour ago actually because,..” you sigh and still not making any move to get out of bed. Willy finishes your sentence for you, “you need to help your little sister with homework and then make sure she gets to school on time tomorrow. I know. It’s okay.” He brushes the strands behind your ear.

This was not the first time you had to rush and leave him. It all started as soon as your father got a new job that required more hours and a farther commute. That ended up with most of the house work to fall on you and that included taking care of your sister. You were reaching a breaking point, but Willy didn’t need to know that he already had too much on his plate.

He suddenly rolls himself on top of you, supporting himself with his elbows. “You take care of so much, the house, your sister, who’s taking care of you?” His necklace dangles in between you two and slightly scrapes your chest. You knew he was concerned about you, especially since the main reason why you couldn’t be in a relationship with him was because all this responsibility was piling up. You grab his face to make sure he looks at you, but he already is, “I can take care of myself.” He doesn’t seem satisfied with the answer, but he rolls off and lays back next to you facing you. “I can take care of you,” he murmurs after a few seconds of silence, “if you want me too, of course.” That brings tears to your eyes and you roll over to cuddle into his chest. The sun is almost gone, the bed is warm, and you want to be wrapped in Willy’s arms forever.

#william nylander blurb #william nylander fanfic #william nylander imagine #maple leafs fanfic #william nylander x reader #william nylander #william nylander x y/n

[f1rewalk3r]

okay so i was trying to do pact book club with my roommate b4 we had a falling out (unrelated) and i have cool Pact Motorcycle Analysis from rereading chapter one. (see below)

PMT “set [their bike] on the lawn, leaning against the inside of the fence.” leaning is the key word here. why are they leaning the bike on the fence? does it not have a kickstand? most street bikes have kickstands. the only ones that don’t are for extreme motorcross, not street legal, and built solely for dirt. So it would look something like this:

worth noting that this is a KTM 300 which is really nice and PMT's bike is "...about the shittiest, smallest, cheapest bike ever, and it’s used..." so assume much smaller and shittier then this one. But also, please note: No kick stand, and especially nothing that makes it street legal (plates, headlight, taillight, signals, mirrors) Okay, so what? Well, PMT then begins "...Unlocking and lifting the seat of the motorcycle, [to] retrieve the shirt [they] had stowed away..." These hardcore enduros, and even most sport, naked, and cruisers Do Not have under seat storage, especially locking under seat storage. The only thing that does? Scooters.

Eat your heart out, taylor hebert.

Brief Side Notes here: While our protaganist is referred to as Blake in this chapter, we can assume this is world-editing fuckery, given the snip doesn't happen until 4mo later with Molly's death. Also, we do see them mention a helmet. However, they are also wearing paint covered "...jeans, the lap striped with narrow streaks in various colors." This means that either PMT doesn't wear gear (squid status confirmed) or they wear armored jeans around regularly to the point of getting paint on them from the Toronto artists/dykes.

Later on in the chapter, though, the bike has been "Tipped over in a way that had scraped it hard against the stone wall. Headlight and taillight broken." So it does have lights, and is thus street legal. In conclusion: Given the text in this chapter, we can assume the PMT/Blake's bike is either 1) a plated, street-legal converted dirtbike with no kickstand (It is mentioned as leaning against the fence twice, proving "Leaning" is a deliberate choice) and the seat thing is a continuity error. or 2) the bike is a shitty scooter with no kickstand. or 3) the kickstand AND seat are both continuity errors and blake rides an older model cruiser (my personal HC given. Everything about PMT)

See the storage saddlebags BESIDES the seat, not below. So yeah. Either the bike is a magic fiction model macguffin that doesn't exist and just does whatever it needs for narrative purposes. OR (more likely) Wildbow just doesn't know how to write bikes.

Thanks for reading. Follow for more Pact Motorcycle Analysis.

#pactblr #pact web serial #pact by wildbow #pact spoilers #blake thorburn #pre meiosis thorburn #PMT #motorcycle #wildbow #john wildbow mccrae

[c0ffee-gh0ul]

kim and roxie fluff? ✨

Of course! I hope you enjoy it!

ONESHOT: KIM PINE X ROXIE RICHTER FLUFF

“Y’know, for a ninja, you’re pretty clumsy,” Kim snickered.

“Half ninja!” Roxie replied.

Roxie was walking home from grabbing coffee for herself and Kim and she tripped on a crack in the sidewalk, spilling the coffee in the process. She scraped up her knee and Kim was helping her bandage it up.

“You fell pretty hard,” Kim remarked, searching the bathroom cabinet for wound cleanser, gauze, and bandages.

“I know! I should sue Toronto,” Roxie exclaimed, shaking her fists in the air as she sat on the edge of the bathtub, her left leg propped up with her pant leg rolled up to her thigh.

“This is gonna sting,” Kim approached Roxie’s knee with wound cleanser on a flat piece of gauze.

“Ow! Ow, ow, ow!” Roxie shouted, wincing. 

“I’m sorry!” Kim apologized. “I’m only doing this for your own good.”

“I know, sweetie… I appreciate you,” Roxie replied with a smile. “How are you so good at this?” She asked, watching Kim strategically wrap her leg in bandages.

“I dunno… I fell out of a lot of trees as a kid, I guess,” Kim chuckled slightly.

“A tree climber? That’s kinda cute,” Roxie smirked. 

“Oh, shut up,” Kim blushed. “I’m sure you’ve fallen into, out of, onto, and on top of many things in your life. Too many to count, Miss Half Ninja.”

“Sure I have! It takes work getting to half ninja status,” Roxie replied, matter-of-factly.

“That should do the trick,” Kim finished wrapping Roxie’s knee and rolled down her pant leg. “Does it feel okay?”

Roxie stood up and kicked her leg in the air. “Perfect!”

“That stung a little, didn’t it?”

“Yeah, maybe a little…”

#roxie richter #kim pine #scott pilgrim #scott pilgrim takes off #scott pilgrim vs the world #anon #writer #fanfic #fanfiction #requests #oneshot #fluff

[walrusmagazine]

In Vicki Smith’s Dreamlike Paintings, Women Court Peace in Pools and Lakes

The scenes she renders today are meant to be bucolic, reminders of childhood moments that were easier and more carefree, flooded with endorphins. They appear, in a way, to be anti-Ophelias: summery and nostalgic, each one born from photographs Smith has taken of friends and family lounging in bodies of water: St. John’s, Banff, Vancouver, Florida, Hawaii, Mexico. She uses either her iPhone or an underwater camera, and her reference photographs are strewn about her third-floor studio in Toronto’s Parkdale. She paints from morning into the early afternoon in total silence, an effort to achieve the same meditative state of her subjects. Then she scrapes it all off and starts again. Her first four hours, she explains, are garbage.

Read more at thewalrus.ca.

Paintings by Vicki Smith, courtesy of Bau-Xi Gallery (bau-xi.com)

#Art #Painting #Oil painting #Lake #Summer #Fine art #July/August 2023 #Connor Garel #Vicki Smith

[fooddatascrap]

How To Scrape Google Maps To Find Toronto Restaurants Data?

The technique of collecting data from restaurants via Yelp or Google Maps for restaurants is called Food Data Extraction. To collect data about restaurants in Toronto, one must look for the longitude and latitude of each restaurant listed in the Yelp directory for Toronto, after which they must be displayed on the public map. The information may be sorted with the help of the restaurant's categorization. Continue reading the blog to learn how Web Scraping helps to extract Toronto restaurant data by category through Yelp or Google Maps.

How to Scrape Data for Google Maps Showing Toronto Restaurants?

Scraping of Data

The data will be scraped from Yelp's categories section of Toronto Restaurant. By selecting a category online, the program will obtain every restaurant displayed with its location, longitude, number of comments, ranking, address, contact information, restaurant, and purchase price.

Map Creation

You may try several methods for plotting the data, including Google Maps API; however, the best choice is to display the data on public maps.

What Information will You Search For?

Toronto is known for its variety, with BBC Radio identifying it as the most diverse city. Yelp's 132 restaurant categories reflect the city's different cultures. Almost half of the population was reared outside Canada, with 232 countries mentioned. Learn more in the blog on Web scrape Toronto restaurant data by category using Yelp or Google Maps

Communities of Ethnicity

Little Italy, Little India, Little Tibet, Little Jamaica, Little Portugal, Chinatown, Greektown, and Koreatown are just a few examples of the many areas in Toronto that are associated with specific communities, according to Wikipedia's List of Neighborhoods in Toronto. By checking for the boundaries of each region and comparing them on the maps with other restaurants, one can locate the majority of restaurants in each of their distinct places.

One may search several different neighborhoods for the following restaurant types:

Restaurants serving Indian food are located throughout the city, but this area seems to have the most. You'll find Little India on Gerrard Street East between Greenwood and Coxwell Avenues in Toronto.

Similarly to Indian food, Italian food is generally accessible, with a modest concentration in the neighborhood known as Little Italy.

You can see both Indian and Italian restaurants on the maps, indicating Little India on the left and Italian restaurants on the right.

Various restaurants are found mainly in ethnic neighborhoods:

Most Portuguese restaurants are located around and within the Little Portugal area of Toronto.

There are few Tibetan eateries in the area, although there is a cluster near Queen Street West's far west end.

Maps with estimations of Little Portugal show Tibetan restaurants on the right side and Portuguese restaurants on the left side.

Some are concentrated in many places:

While there are many Greek restaurants in Greektown, particularly anywhere along Danforth, there are quite a few in the Financial District.

The city is full of Chinese restaurants. Many restaurants may be seen in the downtown area close to Chinatown, the north zone of Yonge Street, and the northeast region of Markham. Most Korean eateries are in the urban region, with Yonge Street's north end and Koreatown's Bloor Street West having the higher concentration.

Chinese restaurants marked with Chinatown are located on the left, Greek restaurants highlighted with Greektown are situated to the right, and Korean restaurants in Koreatown are shown to the right.

Although Little Jamaica is home to many Caribbean restaurants, the east and uptown area also have many eateries. There are a few outside the downtown area, some on Yonge Street and its surroundings.

Several didn't seem to be grouped in almost any way:

Maps featuring Jamaican restaurants display Little Jamaica.

Additionally, it is observed that specific locations are home to several restaurants representing diverse cultures:

There is a collection of Ethiopian restaurants located at the Danforth.

One can find a plethora of Ethiopian restaurants on Danforth.

Numerous Tapas and Spanish restaurants may be found just west of downtown.

There are numerous South American restaurants surrounding the Humber River and at the west-end area of the city.

Ethiopian restaurants are located on the left side, Tapas and Spanish restaurants are at the center, and Latin American restaurants are located just on the right, such as Argentine Colombian, Brazilian, Peruvian, Latin American, and Salvadoran.

Financial District

The downtown area is well-known for its cafés, soups, salads, and sandwiches. While browsing the numerous categories, there could be a definite abundance of Sandwiches, Soups, Cafes, and salads within the Financial District. These are the restaurants wherein people eat lunches during the workday

The Waffle Mile

The Waffle Mile restaurants will be highlighted in Green.

Vegandale

Parkdale has several vegan eateries. They are primarily located on the city's western edges, whereas Parkdale is home to only a few vegan restaurants. Parkdale is indicated on maps with vegan restaurants. The names are inspired by upcoming restaurants that don't even appear on the maps.

On the maps, you may see many other unique restaurant category trends.

You may get assistance regarding Toronto restaurant data extracting services from Food Data Scrape by requesting a food data extractor to recreate these apps easily. You may even consult for a quotation for services like Food Data Scraping and Mobile Grocery App Scraping

Know more : https://www.fooddatascrape.com/how-to-extract-toronto-restaurant-data-from-google-maps-by-category-with-web-scraping.php

#Scrape Google Maps To Find Toronto Restaurants Data #Extract Toronto restaurant data #Toronto restaurant data extracting services #Web scrape Toronto restaurant data #Web scrape Google Maps data #Scrape Google Maps API

[slafkovskys]

“B leaving a mark on A's neck and breathing against A's ear: "So everyone knows you're mine."” with willy styles cause when ur as known as he is in toronto u might run into some interesting people

you weren’t a jealous person, swear.

but maybe she was looking at william a little too much, a little too often and maybe you pulling him into a kiss by his chain didn’t get the message across. he lets you in between his legs easily, dropping his head so you can hear the words you utter, “can you come outside with me for a minute? i need some air.”

“yeah,” you tangle your fingers with his, pulling him out of the roped off section of the club and towards the door, “you okay, honey?”

you hum, leading him away from the line that had formed outside, even on the cold toronto night. he chuckles as you bully him up against the brick before burying your face in his neck, teeth scraping the skin just over the silver of his necklace. his palm rests against the small of your back as he tilts his head, allowing more room for you to work, “go ahead, princess.”

and you leave a mark, right there where everyone could see. you don’t miss the sharp intact of breath or the little grunt he lets out just before you pull away to admire your work. with a smirk on your lips, you straighten out his collar, making sure you could still see the hockey that was starting to bloom, “so everyone knows that you’re mine.”

he raises and amused eyebrow, letting his hands grab onto your hips, “well, i thinks it’s only fair that i return the favor, hm?”

#william nylander #sos celly

[total-drama-takes-takes-2]

ttwt episode 1 - part 1

Chris McLean, fresh out of court and looking as spiff and spin as ever, stands on the tarmac of an airport landing strip somewhere in Toronto, Canada. His smile is bright and confident, and his eyes are shimmering with sadistic glee as he giggles to himself. 

“Season three of Total Takes, folks! From sea to shining sea, from forest to plain, from here to Machu Picchu and back, this is Total Takes: World Tour! Seventeen teens you know and love will be competing right here, right now, ALL around the world for another million dollars!"

A large, shiny bus pulls up behind him and the doors slide open with a low hiss. 

“Let’s meet our contestants, shall we?” Chris beams. “Here with us today is Courtney, Scruffy, Ass, Julia, Bonnie…”

The first four teens breeze out of the bus with ease. Courtney waves merrily, while Scruffy gargles something from a Thermos, and Julia and Ass elbow each other when the other gets too close. Bonnie looks less than enthused- even less so than usual. 

“Missing Caesar?” Courtney asks, adjusting the straps on their pack. 

Bonnie shrugs. “A little. Stupid contracts,”

“Staci, Austin, Max, and… Patrick!”

Patrick makes a point to shove Chris a little on his way out. The host scoffs as a crew of makeup and hair assistants rush to fix his flyaways. 

“This season’s gonna be right groovy, isn’t it?” Austin says, wrapping an arm around Staci and beaming. 

Max doesn’t look at him. “Don’t talk to me,”

“And returning favorites, Mal, Kelly, and Frollo!”

The latter slinks out of the bus with his nose buried in his Bible, looking around suspiciously before being barreled out of the way. 

“Watch out below!” Joner and Sha-Mod yell, jumping onto the pavement and trampling Frollo before running off to join the others. 

Julia gives the two an odd, disgruntled look. “I don’t remember seeing you on the carpet,”

“You must’ve mistaken us for each other. We’re wearing matching outfits,” Joner says proudly. 

Julia blinks, then rolls her eyes. 

“Also returning this season- Michela!”

Michela stumbles out of the bus, several bags on her arms. “Was it really necessary I carry all the luggage?”

“Less talky, more carry, She-Hulk!” Ass yells, then chuckles at their own joke. Courtney rolls their eyes. 

“Here, let me help you with that!” a voice from within the bus says. Albert jogs out and takes some of the bags from Michela, who smiles. “Thank you,”

“And without further ado, here’s our brand new cast member- Albert!” Chris beams, then squints. “The guy who got me arrested.”

Albert laughs nervously. “Water under the bridge?”

“Hey, don’t forget about me!” a weak voice from within the bus squeaks. Phillip, dressed eerily similar to Alejandro from the original World Tour, walks out. “Woke media trying to silence me…”

“Oh, yeah. And here’s Phillip,” Chris sighs. The sound of scraping metal pulls everyone’s attention behind them, and a massive, hulking plane rolls up on the tarmac. 

“Great. This is how I die,” Ass crosses their arms. 

“Why don’t you complain a little louder, they can’t hear you in Winnipeg,” Courtney grumbles. 

Mal steps up to Courtney and whispers in their ear. “I know, such a drag, right?”

They jump. “Jesus, where did you come from?”

Frollo appears out of thin air on Courtney’s other side. “Did someone say Jesus?”

Julia, standing next to Scruffy with her hands on her hips, turns to them. “Don’t you have anything to say?”

Scruffy shakes their head and taps their throat. Julia sighs and walks off. 

“Are you sure this is… uh, safe to fly on?” Kelly asks. “No judgment, but…”

“Full judgment, but I don’t think that’s going to be capable of lifting off,” Max cuts in. “Or landing.”

The contestants look between each other nervously. Chris chuckles. “Hey, I’m flying in it too. You guys have nothing to worry about!”

“Fine,” Ass sighs, slinging their pack over their shoulder. “Let’s get this over with.”

---

“As some of you might’ve guessed-” Chris looks at Scruffy. “This season is, in fact, a musical one! However, due to budget restraints and copyright laws and blah blah blah, we only had the moola to recycle the songs from the original TDWT. It’ll be your job to adjust the lyrics accordingly.”

Scruffy jumps up and down and claps their hands. 

---

SCRUFFY: “Ahem. Saving my voice. I’ve been looking forward to this for years! Singing classes since I was ten!”

---

Michela raises an eyebrow. “You can’t honestly expect us to know all that,”

“Oh, but I am,” Chris chuckles. “I’m sure your castmates will give you a hand where they need to. Oh, and- if you don’t sing, you’re automatically eliminated!”

The cast gasps, much to the host’s amusement. “And while you’re here, I might as well explain the perks and the pains. Losing teams will sleep here- in economy. Winners will get first class, though- so you might wanna bring your A-Game,” he grins. “We also have two confessionals, a cargo hold, and a galley- and an elimination hall. Got it? Got it, good.” he says, ignoring the sea of raised hands. 

“This is a nightmare,” Max grumbles, seated next to Michela in the galley. 

The jingling chime of a bell catches everyone’s attention. Scruffy squeals. “It’s song time!”

“That’s right! Whenever you hear the sound of that little bell, it’s musical number time!” Chris grins. “So get to it! We’re taking off!”

Chris disappears behind a large metal door, leaving a host of confused teens behind. Ass rolls their eyes. “Any volunteers?”

Scruffy stands, but before they can get a note in, Courtney rises from their seat in the galley. “Up!”

Kelly joins them. “Up!”

Staci jumps up next, grabbing Kelly’s hand and raising their arms to the ceiling. “Up! Up!”

Sha-Mod and Joner jump in right after. “Sing, sing, sing, sing!”

“We’re flying,” Max grumbles. Austin butts in seconds later. “And singing, baby!”

“We’re flying and we’re singing!” Sha-Mod and Joner pick up, joined by Albert. 

Julia walks across the galley, half-heartedly gesturing around. “Come fly with us,”

Scruffy tries to join in but is barrelled over by Patrick, who sings in a loud, soprano voice. “Come fight with us!”

Bonnie chokes out a half-hearted spoken-word mumble. “I think this stupid plane is about to combust,”

“This is miserable,” Michela sulks. “Come fly with us,”

Mal jumps into frame, shoving her out of the way and beaming. “COME FLY WITH US!”

Frollo holds up a finger. “In the Lord we find salvation, love, and trust,”

Mal and Michela stare at him. 

“This is the best, our noise is so groovy!” Austin shouts, pulling Phillip and Ass into a hug with either arm. 

Ass shoves him off. “You better watch it before I end up in juvie!” 

“Yeah, like guys, isn’t singing kind of gay?” Phillip adds. 

Patrick shakes his fist. “Call me that again and I’ll mess up your face!”

Courtney butts in, pushing the two apart. “Come fly with us! Don’t die with us!”

The plane suddenly lurches to the left, sending everyone flying. Austin flies around the galley like a piece of paper in the wind, shrieking. “Baby, who’s flying this groovy aeroplane!” Bonnie groans and gets up, massaging their temples. “You guys are giving me a migraine!”

“Come fly with us, come sing with us!” Courtney, Kelly, and Staci sing to Ass and Phillip. 

“NO!” the latter two insist. 

Chris ducks out of the cockpit and holds up a thick stack of paper. “Remember, no singing means no winning! Every contestant must SING!”

Courtney elbows Ass’ ribcage. “Let’s hear it! Just one thing!”

Patrick holds up a fist to Phillip again. “You better not cost me a win!”

Phillip sighs. “Well, I don’t want to go home- fine! But for the record, I’m not gay,” he takes a deep breath. “Come fly with us! Come fly with us! Come, and fly, with us!”

Ass palms their forehead and stands. “I hate all of youuuuu!”

Scruffy runs into scene, panting. “Did I miss it? Patrick knocked me out,”

The teens look between each other and Courtney offers them a pat of condolence on their shoulder as they pout. “Aw…”

---

SCRUFFY: “I’m not too worried about getting eliminated- I mean, half the cast of TDWT didn’t sing and they made it out just fine! I’m just bummed I missed the opening number…”

---

“Buckle up, fruitcakes!” Chef’s voice rings over the PA system. “We are now beginning our descent into Mexico.”

The teens ooh and ah as they take their seats, buckling themselves in as the plane begins to descend. 

“Mexico is like, so exotic,” Staci says. “I hope I get to work on my tan- I’ve been doing a lot of indoors-y studying for college.”

“I hope we get to eat,” Michela says. 

The entirety of economy class nods and murmurs in agreement, and then falls silent. Albert fidgets with the zipper on his windbreaker while the hum of the engines gently vibrates the cabin. 

Julia is leaning against the rough metal walls, grumbling to herself while watching Patrick glare at Scruffy. 

---

JULIA: “Things have been pretty awkward with Scruffy lately. I mean, they got worse after Patrick and I… whatever. I figured that things would go back to normal when we broke up but there’s still this wall between us! It’s driving me insane,”

---

Julia sighs and turns to her right, ignoring the scuffle on the other side of her. She watches Albert play with his zipper, squinting. “Hey, I know you,”

He looks up. “Hm?”

“You’re that guy. The investigator person,” Julia crosses her arms and then points. “You got McLean arrested.”

“Oh, yeah. Guess I did,” he says, looking around. 

“I hope you’re taking notes for next time, cause I’d have preferred it if you kept him in jail,” Ass shouts. 

“Hey, that was the court. Blame the legal system, not me,” Albert shrugs. “I did my part.”

“Did you?” 

He seems to shrink into himself, avoiding eye contact. 

---

Albert sits in the confessional for a few moments, tapping the camera and looking confused before he blinks. 

ALBERT: “Wait, this thing is always on? Great. Well,” he sighs. “...I guess all I have to say is that... I did really try. All that research, all that legal evidence- and it all meant nothing!”

---

Julia rolls her eyes and leans back, ignoring Ass tearing into Albert. The blonde crosses her arms as her eyes drift across the cabin before meeting Scruffy’s, and she quickly turns away. 

“T-Minus two minutes to landing!” Chef’s voice bellows over the speakers. “Brace yourselves!”

The teens duck and cover, tightening their seatbelts and covering their heads as the plane shakes and bumps, screeching down the tarmac. 

When it finally comes to a stop and the Seatbelts On sign weakly flickers out, the contestants groan and begin standing. 

“I’m already over this,” Julia sighs, unbuckling herself. 

“Hey, let’s look at the bright side,” Sha-Mod announces merrily. “At least it’ll be warm! That’s something to look forward to!”

“Speak for yourself,” Mal grumbles, slathering on a coat of sunscreen to maintain her sickly complexion. 

The teens line up at the plane door as a staircase is rolled over for their exit. Most are silent, but a few are chatting merrily about the food and the weather. The door finally opens and the teens file out, just to be met with a freezing cold breeze and a cloud of dust from the rough landing. 

“Jesus Christ-” Ass starts, ignoring Frollo’s gasp of offense. “Did you take a wrong turn and land us in the arctic?”

“Great going, Chris! Can’t even find a whole country!” Mal snaps.

Chris walks up, chuckling to himself. “Oh, this is Mexico, alright- welcome to the city of Teotihuacan!” 

As the dust begins to clear, the contestants are met with a massive archaeological wonder of the world, an ancient city spanning around them for as far as their eyes can see. A few ooh and ah. 

“Known for its rich history and ideal real estate- located in this lovely sub-valley- this long-gone capital of archaeological interest is rich with culture, religion, and my personal favorite- pyramids!” Chris chuckles. 

“Okay, that’s very nice, but that doesn’t explain the weather,” Courtney says softly, shivering. 

“Oh, yeah. We maaaaaay have had a part in that,” the host explains, gesturing to the thick, dark clouds overhead. “See, one of the many theories about the collapse of Teotihuacan suggests a volcanic winter might’ve caused some... civil unrest.”

“I’m feeling unrested, alright,” Patrick grumbles. 

“Don’t get ahead of yourself, cowboy,” Chris says. “The worst is yet to come. This region of Mexico is known for its high volcanic activity- and in a tribute to the last season of World Tour, I thought our challenge today would combine the first and last episodes of the Total Drama season.”

Scruffy raises an eyebrow. “So… we’re going to-”

“Your first leg of the challenge will consist of navigating the tunnels under the Pyramid of the Sun, the largest pyramid in Teotihuacan. In our Egypt challenge, we gave contestants the choice of going over or under, but we’re not technically allowed to let you climb the ruins,” Chris shrugs. “So under it is. In the tunnel system below the pyramid, you’ll discover a handful of obsidian objects that you might’ve found in the city some thousands of years ago. Once you’re out, I’ll be waiting to give you instructions for your next task. Ready?”

The teens look between each other nervously. 

“Go!”

They set off, almost immediately fracturing off into groups. Courtney and Bonnie lead, followed by Sha-Mod and Joner, followed by Michela and Max. Albert catches up to the latter two, wheezing. “Mind if I join?”

Michela shrugs, much to Max’s annoyance. 

---

MAX: “There’s something off about that guy. I don’t trust him,”

---

MICHELA: “Everyone’s been giving Albert a hard time lately, and he seems sweet… what’s the harm in helping him out?”

---

Julia runs behind the three, raising an eyebrow at the odd interaction, but she quickly shrugs it off and speeds up. As the blonde ducks into the tunnels leading under the pyramid, a familiar head of green hair pops out of nowhere. “Hey, Jules!”

Julia coughs awkwardly. “Oh, um- hi. Can I help you?”

“Not really- but I can help you. I’ve been studying pyramid architecture just in case something like this would happen. Wanna team?” Scruffy asks. “I’ll get you some good obsidian!”

She relaxes a little and smiles. “Yeah, sure. That’d be cool with me,”

---

JULIA: “Okay, maybe I’ve been overthinking things a little. Scruffy doesn’t seem mad… unless it’s some kind of trick. But they wouldn’t do that to me… would they?”

---

Austin skips and frolics through the tunnels, just ahead of Patrick, who’s trying not to snap as Frollo goes on about unholy pagan religion. Behind them, Kelly and Staci walk casually through tunnels, chatting merrily. 

“I don’t know, I mean, she’s cute and all but I’m not sure if I want to risk my scholarship chasing some girl,” Staci says, twirling a strand of hair around their finger. “What if I get distracted?”

“If anyone can find a good balance, it’s you,” Kelly comments reassuringly, patting Staci’s shoulder. “Who knows- maybe she’ll motivate you!”

Staci nods. “That’s a totally fair point. Next time I find a phone on this show, I’ll call,”

Kelly beams and then looks aside with a cautious expression as Staci chats on. 

---

KELLY: “I’m happy for them, I really am, but sometimes… I just wish I had something to myself, too,”

---

“God, it’s dark in here,” Julia says, only her eyes visible in the darkest stretch of the tunnels. “You know where we are, right, Scruffy?” no response. “...Scruffy?”

Julia continues walking forward before colliding with someone else and sending them both tumbling to the ground. She huffs. “Watch it!”

“Sorry, it’s hard to see,” Courtney’s voice rings out through the darkness. “Julia? Is that you?”

“In the flesh,” she grumbles. 

“Have you seen Bonnie? We got mixed up and I lost them,”

“I haven’t seen anyone since Scruffy and I got split up,”

“I’m here too!” a voice rings out. Courtney and Julia both scream as Mal appears out of nowhere, the light from her phone illuminating her face in the darkness. “And look what I found.”

She holds up an obsidian blade and laughs maniacally. Courtney and Julia look at each other nervously, prompting Mal to roll her eyes. “Oh, quit being such babies. I’m not going to hurt you,” she pauses to smile. “Yet.”

---

“Courtney! Courtney?” Bonnie yells into the tunnels, their own echo bouncing back. 

As they sigh and sit on the ground, taking a breather, they notice a figure across the hall and jump with a start. “Jesus, Max, you scared the crap out of me,”

“Lost?” he asks plainly. Bonnie nods. “Where’s Michela?”

“With that guy, I’m assuming,” he says sharply. Bonnie raises an eyebrow but doesn’t push- not that they have time to, because seconds later Scruffy comes running down the hall, shouting Julia’s name. Without looking, they trip on Bonnie’s outstretched leg and fall face-first into the dirt and dust layering the floor. 

“Hey, Scruff,” Bonnie says as they sit up and brush themselves off. “Lost?”

“No, I know exactly where we are- but Julia wandered off while I was getting this,” they say, holding up a shiny obsidian necklace. “I figured it might get us an advantage in the next part of the challenge.”

“Sure. Well, I haven’t seen anyone but Max for an hour at this point,” 

“What about me?”

Max shrieks as a voice comes from the dirt beside him. Phillip rises, a layer of grime falling from his body. “I was trying to bury myself. I figured this challenge was hopeless since no one wanted to team with me…”

“Oh, brother,” Bonnie mumbles under their breath. 

---

“I’m sure he’ll turn up,” Albert thinks aloud, walking the tunnels with a sulking Michela at his side. “He’s probably already waiting outside.”

“Yeah, you’re right. I still feel weird leaving him, though,”

“Leaving who?” Patrick asks, emerging from the darkness with Sha-Mod and Frollo behind him. 

“Um… you’ve got a tail,” Albert points at the two. Patrick rolls his eyes. 

“Yes. I can’t seem to shake them off,” he sighs. “This one lost his buddy and the other one thinks this place is cursed.”

“Unholy ground,” Frollo mutters. “Unclean… foul.”

“You see what I have to deal with?”

A sudden, loud whooping noise coming from behind the group echoes against the walls, getting closer by the second. Frollo goes pale. “Witches!” he screams, and then runs past Patrick, straight into a wall. 

The impact makes the tunnel tremor a bit, sending bits of dirt and dust from the ceiling- along with an obsidian figurine depicting a serpent. It unlodges itself from the roof and falls on Patrick’s head with a large thump. He mumbles nonsense and passes out on the ground. 

“Well,” Michela picks up the artifact. “It’s something, right?”

The whooping noise comes closer before bursting into their section of the hall- but it’s only Austin, running past them into the dark. “I can smell the way out, baby!”

Sha-Mod and Albert make brief eye contact, and then shrug, the gang following him out and leaving Patrick unconscious on the floor for a few moments before Michela runs back to grab him. 

---

Chris sits outside the pyramid, sipping from a Thermos and enjoying the volcanic weather. 

“It’s your fault, not mine!” a voice shouts. 

Chris perks up. “And here come the first contestants,”

Julia, Courtney, and Mal walk out of the tunnels, bickering, with Ass shortly behind. A very meek and slightly terrified Joner scampers out after them, hanging at the back of the group. 

“Ladies- and others,” Chris nods. “Find me anything good?”

Mal holds up her blade with a big grin. 

“Niiiiice,” the host grins, rubbing his chin. “As the first group out of the tunnels, you are officially team number one- oh, and here come team number two!”

Bonnie, Max, Scruffy, and Phillip emerge from the tunnels, coated in dust and debris. Kelly and Staci trail behind them, still chatting. 

Scruffy immediately lights up when they see Julia, and dashes over to her. “I’m so glad you made it out! Here- I found this for you,” they say, holding up the necklace they found. 

“Sickening,” Ass mumbles. Courtney stomps on their foot and they yelp. 

“Nice find, Scruffy,” Chris comments. “One more team to go!”

After a long, drawn out period of waiting, the final team- lead by Austin- come running out, panting. Patrick is currently conscious, but has a large bump on his head and is sucking his thumb while Michela carries him like a baby (much to her annoyance). 

“Michela, Albert, Patrick, Austin, Sha-Mod, and Frollo-” Chris counts. “You’re team number three!”

Michela drops Patrick in the dirt the second she sees Max, and runs over to him. “I’m glad you got out okay, I couldn’t have lived with myself if I knew you were still down there,”

He raises an eyebrow. “You would’ve gone back?”

“Of course!”

Max thinks for a moment, and then smiles. Chris clears his throat. “Okay, enough of that. It’s time to choose your team names! This season, whoever found your obsidian artifact will be naming the team- so that means Mal, Scruffy, and… whoever.” he chuckles. 

“Michela picked up the artifact, so she should get to choose the team name. It’s only fair,” Albert posits. 

“But Frollo hit the wall, which dislodged it,” Sha-Mod rubs his chin, thinking aloud. 

“Hello! Are we forgetting that thing nearly gave me a concussion!” Patrick shouts from the ground. He is ignored. 

“But it was Austin who made Frollo run into the wall, so…” Michela says. “Austin?”

The five of them turn to Austin, who’s busy practicing karate moves on the dirt a few feet away. When he notices everyone staring, he shrugs. “Easy one, baby. Team Mojo!”

---

AUSTIN: "No, I don't need the money, baby- but a free two-star trip around the world? Parties and birds in the four corners of the globe? Sign me up, baby!"

---

The five sigh. “I don’t know what else I was expecting,” Michela murmurs. 

A few feet away, Ass and Julia watch the discussion, the former shaking their head before turning back to Mal. “You better choose something good,”

“I still think it should be Team Amazon, as a callback,” Courtney says, raising a finger and looking at Joner. “I mean, we have a very similar demographic.”

“Nuh-uh,” Mal puts her hands on her hips. “I already chose the name. Team Yaoi!”

The other teammates groan and give pained expressions to each other. Ass palms their forehead.

“Okay, so after a democratic vote, we’ll have our answer,” Scruffy says. “All in favor of Phillip’s submission?”

Phillip crosses his arms. “You have to say the full thing,”

“Okay, fine- all in favor of The Bleeding Hearts Against Social Justice Warriors?”

Phillip enthusiastically raises a hand, earning blank stares from everyone else. When he realizes his hand is alone, he sighs and starts digging another hole to bury himself in. 

“All in favor of Max’s submission- Team... uh, Psychological Torture?”

Not even Max raises his hand. Scruffy sighs. “Okay, Bonnie’s- Team I Want to go Home?”

Bonnie picks at their nails. 

“Okay, Staci’s- all in favor of Team Friendship?”

Staci and Kelly enthusiastically wave their hands and squeal, sweeping the majority vote. Scruffy bangs an invisible gavel and grins. “Team Friendship it is!”

Max turns to Bonnie. “We probably should’ve had a plan to prevent this,”

“Tell me about it,” they sigh. 

“Alright, campers! Team Yaoi, Team Mojo, and Team Friendship!” Chris says, barely holding back a laugh. “Now that you’ve been paired up, it’s time for your penultimate challenge- that’s right, we’re going hiking- on an active volcano!”

The teens gasp as Chris chuckles to himself. “Unlike the original World Tour, you aren’t getting any advantages- your only goal is to not be the schmucks to get last place. All will be explained- NEXT TIME! On Total Takes: World Tour!”

#ttwt #total takes world tour #stupid autofill tags

[dustedmagazine]

Dinah — Dinah! (self-released)

Photo by Janet Kimber

Dinah Thorpe plays the saddest disco songs, her short, fluttering melodies beating against monolithic dance cadences. She murmurs, intensely, internally, in the wake of blast beats, the ghost in the machine. The artist, out of Toronto, recorded these 17 tracks at home, alone, during the pandemic, letting the thwack of snare, the surge of synths into her solitary compositions. These are spare, harrowing songs, hurling about in a dance macabre without ever raising the volume over a whisper.

Consider the scraped bare, “Oh that lightness,” with its irregular pattern of bass ukulele notes, its velvet black, fundamental silence underneath. Thorpe sings plaintively, her tone just breath with an edge of melody, the notes flickering like a lighter in gusty wind. “Joy is at issue here/oh that lightness in the chest,” she croons at the end of emotion, worn out by it, subdued. “If I’m lucky I will grow old/if we’re lucky we will grow old,” she adds, resolute but not confident about it. It’s a pandemic song, not because of its spare production, but because of the way it works out suffering on its own.

Other cuts boogie harder but no less obliquely, as in the brash, disco interval “crunch/empire” or the shadowy, organ flaring “hummingbird” with its slaps of percussion and slushy synthetic handclaps. Yet even at her danciest, Thorpe sounds like she’s praying; there’s a hushed communion with the authorities even in the syncopations.

These cuts sketch a few lines of narrative, but they’re more about conveying feeling than story. The one exception comes late in the album with “scadding,” a song about the west-end Toronto community center Scadding Courts, where homeless encampments were cleared in 2021. Against an ominous, near Shackleton-like backdrop of sub-bass and glitch, Thorpe intones dispassionately about the showdown:

 “Surrounded by evil, with weapons on its belt, we did what we could until we couldn’t/I keep thinking about this one tiny person/who clearly just needed a bit of help/if one were feeling hopeful, as if one might find power in it taking three armies to move her.”

It’s powerful because it’s so quiet, because it’s so restrained and because eruptive feeling pulses tangibly behind its minimalist calm. In a microcosm, that’s the appeal of these fragmentary, hallucinatory tracks, that they convey more, much more, than you’d anticipate with the very minimum of materials.

Jennifer Kelly

#dinah #jennifer kelly #albumreview #dusted magazine #dinah thorpe #toronto #dance #electronics #glitch #confessional songwriting #minimalism

[ceasarslegion]

Not to keep talking about my new job but. Its insane how the concept of money and how much you have gets warped when youre used to scraping by. Going from starving college student working 2 jobs to pay for Toronto cost of living for 4 years to minimum wage for almost a year to suddenly shooting up into benefits, a union, paid vacation, and a 60k a year salary with guaranteed raises every year based on job performance is kind of messing with my head as i look for my next apartment.

I can... i can get the good ones now, the spacious ones with the balcony and the separate bedroom. I can get those units in the buildings with pools and gyms and attached convenience stores. I can get a car, and it doesn't have to be used. I want one of those hybrids from Nissan. A bit of saving and I can just get a Nissan hybrid if I want it. That is an achievable goal that wouldn't leave me in crippling debt for the rest of my life. I don't have to live with anybody if I don't want to. I can get the good steak at the grocery store instead of asking if they have anything discounted that i can freeze. And I'll still have more savings left over from all that every month than my entire take home paycheques before. And I straight up don't believe it

I only see the numbers and start coughing and gagging. I've never spent THAT much money in one month in my entire life, and I was raised in what's basically THE wealth-flaunting nation. I've never held that much money in my hand before. You gotta remember that my parents are schoolteachers; we were comfortable but we werent rich by a long shot. I can't comprehend the amount im going to have as one person, nor can i comprehend that ill have sizable savings after the fact.

And the thing is, thats not even that much. That's not enough to buy a house with anymore. That's not enough to raise kids with if I wanted them. That's enough for a one bedroom apartment with a balcony in a nice building in the good part of town with a car i wouldnt have to worry about breaking down on me. And that still seems like luxury after 5 years of scraping and clawing and surviving on great value brand spaghetti.

#some thoughts