http://www.thestar.com/News/GTA/article/682023

Pride starts with a paintbrush

Shared via AddThis

Here's an article from the Toronto Star about the Jane-Finch area.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCAkpYYoW0A

Jane-Finch On The Move presents a Community Forum Date: Saturday, Sept. 20 11:00am-4:00pm Location: Oakdale Community Centre, 350 Grandravine Drive (Toronto Ontario) Including guest speakers, local politicians, grass roots groups, free childcare, live entertainment, lunch, and a chance to have your voice heard!

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=cnVg2tQFZVg

..

The Internet makes it way too easy to get distracted. I was working on a an article and Googled a person. Somehow, one thing led to another and the next thing I know, I’m looking at my name on a gravestone:


Furlan, Angelo
b. 1896 d. Jan. 31, 1937

Saint Joseph Catholic
Siskiyou County
California, USA


Isn’t that something? I’m the son of Italian immigrants and I grew up seeing only two Furlans in the Toronto phone book. The other was my uncle. So I was always under the impression the Furlan name was a rare one on this side of the Atlantic. And now it seems that my name is even less rare than I thought, because here is one last little twist. My grandfather was born in Italy in 1894. His name? Angelo Furlan.

Whew!  The site's back online, and if you Google "Marry Our Daughter", you'll come across an entry for the site in "Urban Legends".  Yes, it's a skillfully crafted hoax!

Sadly this means I have to withdraw my bid for Cheyenne B., who looked like a true bargain for $5,995, especially now that the Canadian dollar is at about par with U.S. currency.  
Oh well.  Guess I'll have to look for romance the old-fashioned way; i.e., Russian mail order brides!

Back in September, I posted a link to a web site where parents could sell their daughters off to grooms who could meet the asking price.  I'm not kidding, though at the time, I wasn't sure that the webmasters were serious.  It just seemed too bizarre.  Parents were setting prices and asking for "proposals", and the webmasters acted as the middlemen for these transactions.  

I was reminded of this site when I went over my recent blog entires.  Sadly, I clicked on the link and found the following message:


Marry Our Daughter
This site is temporarily unavailable.
Please notify the System Administrator

Guess someone actually took a look and saw what was going down on this site.  

The link to this article is a bit too long, so I copied and pasted it below.  I think "Fact 3" was the most surprising.  And the most stimulating, in its own way.   ; )

10 things you don't know about sex
Wing Sze Tang reports.
Provided by FASHION Magazine

http://ca.lifestyle.yahoo.com/family-relationships/articles/sex/stjoseph-fashion/-10_things_you_don_t_know_about_sex

1: Ready, set, go—there's nearly no difference in the amount of time it takes healthy men and women to reach peak sexual arousal: roughly 10 minutes.

2: One per cent of adults have zero interest in sex and have never felt sexually attracted to anyone at all. Asexuality may be an under-the-radar sexual orientation, but researchers have only just begun to study it. On the other end of the rainbow, an estimated 3 to 6 per cent of the population have some form of sex addiction.

3: Straight, gay or flexible? Recent research suggests women may be "intrinsically bisexual," and the higher their libido, the more they desire both sexes. In another study, the female subjects—whether they considered themselves straight or gay—were physically aroused by erotic films of both men and women. In contrast, the straight men were excited just by women, and the gay men only by men.

4: Canadian men have, on average, 23 sexual partners in total (notably more than the global average of 13), according to one recent worldwide survey. Their female counterparts reportedly have 10. The hitch? Number crunchers say the finding that men have substantially more bedmates on average than women is mathematically impossible.

5: Beyond its unsexy smell and taste, smoking appears to double a man's risk of moderate or complete erectile dysfunction.

6: Once upon a time, doctors treated women suffering from "hysteria" by stimulating them to orgasm—a service dubbed "medical massage." By the 1930s, it was abandoned in favour of psychotherapy.

7: Why do I bed thee? Let me count the ways. U.S. researchers who set out to catalogue all the reasons why humans have sex came up with 237 distinct ones. Among the top 10 motives, women and men had eight in common. A notable exception: "I realized I was in love" came in at number nine for women, but at number 17 for men.

8: Having sex regularly—at least once a week—may promote fertility in women by regulating hormones and menstrual patterns.

9: Male sweat contains androstadienone, a compound that enhances mood and sexual arousal in women. Alas, it also boosts levels of stress hormones. The chemical has been used as an ingredient in men's fragrances.

10: What's love got to do with it? Sexual arousal and romantic love activate quite distinct areas of the brain—and love is clearly the more powerful. The latter turns on dopamine-rich regions linked with motivation, and falling in love is not unlike the rush of taking cocaine, hence the addictiveness of a new crush, and the withdrawal-like symptoms of love lost.

I received an email from MySpace earlier today.  It was a Friend Request.  Being the friendly guy that I am, I clicked on the link, but alas, there was nothing in my Request bin.  I've checked a few more times, and there's still nothing.  

I don't understand.  Did this person fall out of favour with the MySpace Gods and get his profile deleted in those hours after he sent the request and before I saw it?  Will I ever know?  Should I even care?

Okay, so I've broken my Blog Silence.  Feel free to comment, but I suggest you think twice about making any Friend Requests.