Things I like about the internet:

1. The forums. I've talked about several subjects, and even made some friends. I've also learned to upload images.

2. The ezines. Everyday I look at salon.com and huffingtonpost.com. (Does that tell you what my politics are?)

3. Ebay. I've bought tons of old comic strips, and also sold a lot. A feedback line I received saying "One of Ebay's best" is priceless to me.

4. Email. Though I get a lot of spam, it's very useful for quick communication everywhere.

5. Bookselling pages. You can find almost any book edition at amazon.com or abebooks.com.

6. Sites like meetup.com, meetin.org and torontolinkup.com, which help me meet people for common activities. Using the internet doesn't have to keep you isolated in your home.

7. Search engines like google.com. I can look up anything on a whim.

8. News sites. It's easy to keep well-informed on anything.

9. The DVD rental site zip.ca. (It's the Canadian equivalent of Netflix.) I appreciate having an extremely wide range of films to rent, and my queue has over 500 selections.

10. Blogs. Especially being able to write one myself.

Can we all just pretend the following things don't exist? Part II

Dr. Laura
Visible navels
Rock Against Drugs
FRIENDS reruns
Family values
College athletics
The war on pornography
Body art
Back to School clothes
The swimsuit issue of SPORTS ILLUSTRATED
Any issue of SPORTS ILLUSTRATED
Rahm Emmanuel
Cheerleaders
"They hate freedom!"
Stiletto heels
The McCain-Lieberman partnership
Any show where young people establish that they're "cool" by smoking (ie TITANIC)
Communitarian values
Victoria's Secret
THE NEW REPUBLIC
The halftime show at the Super Bowl
The rest of the Super Bowl
Slylock Fox
Piercing
The war on divorce
THE WALTONS reruns
Mass balloon releases
Security Moms
Rock ballads
The war on "the war on Christmas"

Things I like about Toronto:

1. The library system. You can order a book online from most branches of the Toronto Public Library, and arrange to pick it up at the branch closest to you. And they have a wide selection. (Very useful for book clubs.)

2. The transit system. My home is conveniently close to a streetcar line. (Yes, some cities still have them.) For less than $100/month I subscribe to the Metropass, which allows me to travel all over the city at no extra cost. What's remarkable is that the Toronto Transit Commission does such a good job with an unusually small subsidy: they deserve a far bigger one.

3. The ethnic communities. Toronto used to be a bland, fastidious white Protestant town which Alistair Crowley said made Edinburgh look like a witch's coven. But we've attracted immigrants from all over the world, who among other things have created a terrific restaurant scene. I have a Chinese doctor, a Czech dentist, a Palestinian psychiatrist and an Italian singing teacher.

4. The cultural scene. Toronto's a great city for live theatre, opera and concerts. I myself sing in an Italian choir and a non-professional opera chorus.

5. The Cinematheque. Run by the Toronto International Film Festival people and attached to the Art Gallery of Ontario, it shows an astounding range of classic movies from all over the world, going back to the silent era! (The silent movies are generally shown with live piano accompaniment.)

6. The night-school programs. The Toronto District School Board provides lots of reasonably priced "continuing education" courses in several of their schools Tuesday through Thursday evenings. I've taken courses in acting, creative writing, opera and taichi.

7. The Meetup groups. Being such a big city, it's easier to attract enough people for Meetup events. (I'm into stuff like book clubs and movies.) There are also lots of Meetin and Linkup events.

8. The karaoke. 'Nuff said.

9. The video stores. I've found lots of rare high-quality stuff at places like Revue, Suspect Video and Hollywood Canteen.

10. The parks. I live near Hillcrest Park on the edge of the escarpment, which has an impressive view of the downtown and Lake Ontario. I especially like walking downtown through the Nordheimer Ravine.

Does VANITY FAIR have any editors?

Here's a sentence from Michael Wolff's January column "Billionaires and Broadsheets." (Remember, it's a single sentence!)

"This was the cosmic joke: newspapers, once the singular province of big men, great sons of bitches, monsters, Citizen Kane himself--the TRIBUNE was run by one of the most outsize of news barons, Colonel Robert McCormick, grandson of a Chicago mayor, co-founder of one of the nation's biggest law firms, isolationist, militarist, show-off, star of the first newsreel, avid and odd personal crusader (spelling reform was one of his hot issues)--had become the land of nobodies."

What's my tribe?

Do I belong to the "tipping tribe"? (Well, my father is in the tribe of lousy tippers.) The website applebeesamerica.com provides a curious little quiz to find out if you're in this tipping tribe, which is a fancy way of saying swing voters. (Props to digbysblog.blogspot.com for linking to it.) I went and tried to take the quiz, otherwise there wouldn't be any story.

1. You're at the counter of your local convenience store and have an extra dollar in change. You:
Save it for a rainy day
Buy a lottery ticket cause you're feeling lucky

That one's easy. Lotteries are for suckers who can visualize a hundred-to-one chance but not a million to one.

2.At a picnic with friends, you open a cooler full of soft drinks and reach for the:
Dr. Pepper
Sprite or Pepsi

I'd go for the Pepsi if they had it, but the Dr. Pepper if they only had Sprite.

3. You've won the jackpot on a game show and have a choice between two kinds of vehicles. You select the:
Audi
Saab

I don't know how to drive. (I live near a street car line, thank goodness.) My perception of the difference between these two models makes the difference between Democrats and Republicans look big, if only for a moment.

4. A free subscription to one of the following two magazines is offered to you. Which one do you choose?
US News & World Report
magazine
TV Guide

How about neither?

5.You're headed out to buy some groceries. You are most likely to visit:
A superstore like Wal-Mart or large supermarket such as Kroger
Whole Foods or similar organic grocer

They don't have Whole Foods in my area, and I don't know where to find any organic grocers. But it'll be a month of Sundays on February 29th before I buy GROCERIES at Wal-Mart.

6. You're at a cocktail party, and the only choices are gin, bourbon, scotch and vodka. Which liquor do you choose?
Bourbon or Scotch
Gin or vodka

I never drink. (Blame my parents.) I don't even have any idea of the differences between those choices.

7. If we opened your refrigerator, it is more likely that we would find which brand of bottled water:
Ozarka or local brand
Evian or Dannon

Two words: tap water.

8. You're at happy hour and there is a special on domestic beer. Which do you choose?
Coors
Bud

Once again, I know nothing about beer.

9. Which special event would you be more inclined to attend?
Monster Truck Show
Pro Wrestling Match

Life is too short to think about that.

10. If we checked your Internet history, it would more likely show that you had visited:
An auction site, like eBay
A dating site, like Match.com

For once, an answer I'm sure about. Ebay, though I've taken some embarrassing stabs at internet dating.

11. Nothing is on network TV you are interested in, so you click through cable, do you:
Stop on the Discovery Channel
Tune in to Court TV

I don't subscribe to either channel in the first place. (Sucks to be me.)

12. Between the following sporting events, which would you more likely watch?
X Games or college football
U. S. Open Tennis or Major League Soccer

I don't watch sports. I'm not even sure what the X Games are!

It all reminded me of an episode of the '70s sitcom GOOD TIMES I recently saw on DVD. The one where Michael the Militant Midget refused to take an IQ test because it embodied white oppression in asking kids what to pair with a cup when some of them had never seen a saucer, or fitting eight people into a four-room home they couldn't imagine. So his parents went to the geek who graded the tests and gave him the Black IQ Test, and he couldn't tell Malcom X' last name (Little) or what TCB stood for (taking care of business), and his adding machine short-circuited!

Let's all pretend that the following things don't exist, OK?

Low-riding pants
The Family Circus
Supermodels
Right-wing blogs
Reality TV
American Girl dolls
Lindsay Lohan
Crosses worn for fashion
Mormons
MTV
Anne Coulter
Thongs
Dakota Fanning
Supermodels
Fox News
Jenny McCarthy
Harley-Davidson motorcycles
Britney Spears
The vital centre
That girl who says "That's hot!"
Grunge rock
Visible underwear
Shania Twain
Rock the Vote
Disney Princess stuff
Madonna
Lads' magazines
TomKat
Anything advertised in ROLLING STONE magazine
ROLLING STONE magazine itself
Brangelina
Gangsta rap
Hillary Clinton
THE NEW YORK TIMES
Jessica Simpson
Patriotic fashions
Clubbing
The middle class

The other day I was translating Julius Caesar's account of the wars in Gaul, and I ran into this sentence: "For the immortal gods, in order that those whose crimes they would punish may lament their reversal of fortune all the more bitterly, sometimes grant them greater short-term prosperity and a longer wait before their nemesis." Needless to say, it was hard to translate. But it's worth learning Latin just so you can discover a gem like that. (I couldn't help thinking of the people in charge of the United States.)

Last night I dreamed of a Gene Kelly musical where a group of American soldiers were coming home from Europe, arrived in Quebec by ship, then drove through a park in the Quebec wilderness. (Needless to say, that musical doesn't really exist, though I'd like to see it.)