Ben Lean recorded these scenes in Toronto December 16-18 and presents the shopping frenzy in time-lapse for your enjoyment. Aren’t you glad you’re through with Christmas shopping? What -you aren’t? Ha! -via Nag on the Lake

Have you been wondering what the most extreme thing to do in Toronto is?  Me too! Let’s wonder no longer: it’s the Edge Walk at the CN Tower! For $175, some really enterprising Canadians will place you in a harness and send you out along the edge of one of the world’s tallest buildings and let you walk a circle 116 stories above the ground while strapped to an overhead railing. Not in this lifetime, if you’re wondering, but feel free to try it yourself!

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Samantha, named by a volunteer, now sports a bright pink splint. After quarantine, she will be socialized with other young raccoons rescued from the same area before being returned to a green space in the fall within 15 kilometres of the Bloor St. W. and Lansdowne Ave. area where she was attacked, as is required by law. Residents in the neighbourhood said Samantha’s mother kept returning to the backyard looking for her missing baby in the days following, but has since given up her search.

This story has hit a nerve in Toronto where raccoons have become an issue. It has raised ethical and practical questions about how humans deal with wild animals in an urban environment.

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From the upcoming movie Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, you probably know that Scott Pilgrim is a slacker and musician who must battle "evil exes" in order to date the girl he loves.

What you may not know is that in the Scott Pilgrim comic series that inspired the movie, cartoonist Bryan Lee O’Malley incorporated actual places in Toronto in his art:

Dundas Square, the Wychwood Branch of the Toronto Public Library and Second Cup can all be found in the "Scott Pilgrimage" gallery on mad5l5in5′s Flickr account, complete with side-by-side comparisons of O’Malley’s illustrations and the way the sites currently appear.

The lengths she went to and the accuracy with which O’Malley was able to depict Toronto’s city blocks are both impressive. In fact, there may be a legion or two of Scott Pilgrim fans out there who would love to see something like this gallery compiled into a companion volume.

Link: Comics Alliance post | mad5l5in5 Flickr Photoset Scott Pilgrimage | Phototour of Scott Pilgrim by Andrew Barton – Thanks Brian!

The award-winning chef used a specially designed grill with a built-in forklift mechanism designed to flip the oversized culinary creation.

Reader says it took six hours to cook the behemoth of a burger, starting off with a patty weighing 139 kilos. The grilled patty was then nestled in a 48-kilogram bun, dressed with lettuce, cheese, tomatoes, red onions, pickles and barbecue sauce.

The event also raised $8,500 to benefit a camp for burn victims. Link -via J-Walk Blog

Inexplicably, as Santa made his way through Toronto that night last year, the mapping software began identifying the city as being in the United States. Instantly, NORAD Santa’s dedicated Gmail account “just lit up” with messages from irate Canadians, Martin said, and quickly, the Google team fixed the problem.

But not before Martin’s run-in with Canadian Lt. Gen. Marcel Duval. “He said, ‘I understand that you have a new American city,’” Martin recalled. “It was a slightly tense moment for me, standing in front of a three-star general explaining to him why one of his cities had been designated as a United States city.”

Read more about how the NORAD Santa Tracker came about and the technology used in the program today. Link -Thanks, Vince d’Eon!

It was the end of the day so Mr. Bell and a few colleagues decided to wind down by playing a few rounds of the video game Modern Warfare 2 at the office before heading home. A little while later, sudden, intense yelling filled the office hallways.

“We originally thought there was some sort of domestic dispute out there … that was until I clearly heard my name,” said Mr. Bell.

“The guy sounded seriously angry and was instructing me to slowly come into the hall with my hands on my head.”

It was Toronto’s Emergency Task Force, more commonly known as the SWAT team, responding to calls of a man in an office with a gun.

Link — Thanks, Jeremy Barker! | Photo: Global TV

UPDATE 12/5/09: Jeremy Bell has blogged about the incident (via Hell in a Handbasket).

Hundreds of kids dressed up as Max and cavorted with (attacked) a Wild Thing at a Wild Rumpus party held in Toronto October 4th in anticipation of the Where the Wld Things Are Movie, which opens nationwide today.

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From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by rebeccabunch.

Toronto’s motto is "Diversity Our Strength" which makes it kinda awkward for the City to be busted for this exercise in forced diversity: they photoshopped in (badly) a token black guy for the cover of their Spring & Summer 2009 Fun Guide!

Allison Hanes of National Post has the story:

The smiling, ethnically diverse family featured on the cover of Toronto’s latest edition of its summer Fun Guide was digitally altered to make the photo more "inclusive," which city officials say is in keeping with a policy to reflect diversity.

A spokesman for the department that publishes the guide listing recreation activities confirmed the publication was doctored to insert the face of a different father.

"He superimposed the African-Canadian person onto the family cluster in the original photo. It was two photographs and one head was superimposed over the original family photo," said John Gosgnach, communications director for the social development division.

"The goal was to depict the diversity of Toronto and its residents."

The cover shot caught the eye of a National Post graphics editor, who ran it through a program called TinEye that detects visual enhancements to standard art.

To add insult to injury, none of the people are actually Toronto residents: Link – via Torontoist