I went to Canada, here is my cell-phone camera story (condensed)
Canada has trees. You might not think it to look at the place but it does. This one was in a “park” that was between my hotel and the hotel that the conference was in. There wasn’t much grass in Nathan Phillips Park, mostly it was paving stones. Look how sickly the tree looks with its yellow leaves, its like it was dying, I swear the leaves were about to fall right off the tree. Its so sad.
Canada also has streets. Apparently, Toronto has the longest street in the world: Yonge Street. I don’t know how they are defining streets though. US1 is a street, you can drive on it, and I am fairly certain its longer. I’m guessing street has some technical definition here that makes that North-South runner qualify (this isn’t it). You can just make out the washed out building at the end, its the old courthouse. You would think Canada would want to protect their heritage rather than let them get washed out like that. If it washes out anymore, its just won’t be there.
Canada has buildings too. I didn’t want to tell anyone but this one’s sides were poorly constructed. Look at how the edge wobbles around. Those poor people, we really need to help them out, send up some architects and some decent construction folks, teach them how to make buildins with flat, unobstrusive sides. Also, you can just see a bus in the foreground. I hesitate to call it a bus at all. It seemed to be stuck in these ruts and just kept following the same route over and over. Apparently it couldn’t even make it to a gas station anymore, they had to run wires overhead just to get it power. Its really sad.
Another thing Canada seems to have is smoke stacks. But I never saw this one working, its just stood cleanly against the stark blue sky.
Canada, well Toronto really, did manage to have some nice old churches. Its a shame that the view of them is ruined by this absolutely gigantic tower in the background. I swear this thing sticking up in the back must be one the tallest free standing structure in the world, its H-U-G-E. Between this thing and Yonge Street you might think Canadians had some sort of complex; you would, not me.
Canada also has weird monuments to space aliens. They called it “City Hall” but that must have been some sort of inside joke.
So, thats a brief tour of Toronto as seen through the twin lens of…well the one really tiny lens of my cellular phone. At least it is that part of Toronto I had time to see that was around or near the hotel where the conference was. Were there cooler places outside that zone, I doubt it. I heard there was some big lake nearby but seriously, its a lake, you’ve seen one, you seen them all. Who cares that you could fit all of England and Ireland inside the lake? Yep, Canada.
Take off, eh!
Wow…it almost looks like a city. Never knew that building was City Hall. And the space needle looks like it could be part of that church.
This is so funny; I was laughing so hard! The little one was like: “why are you laughing?”. I struggled to say “Uncle Hud [insert real Uncle monniker instead] is so funny!” between laughs, and although she didn’t have a clue why the image of the tree, or the wavy buiding, or whatnot was makng me crack up, she started laughing whole-heartedly, with a beautiful laughing face and loud “Ha! Ha! Ha!”’s.
Dude, you are so funny that your neice has only to imagine you making a joke before she starts cracking up.
Not to be too nitpicky but the Space Needle is in Seattle. The ‘tallest free standing structure in the world’ is the Canadian National Tower. And just because I like throwing out facts, the CN Tower (1,815 feet) is not the highest you can go up in a building, it gets its height record because of the antenae structure on its roof. The heighest occupied floor is in a building in Hong Kong, the International Commerce Centre (1,608 feet). Also, there is a structure that is taller than the CN Tower, the tallest structure in the world is a broadcast tower in North Dakota, the KVLY Tv Mast stands 2,063 feet but it is supported by guy-wires (the Warsaw Radio Mast fell down in ‘91). But this is all the stuff that is on land. The “Mars Tension-leg Platform,” which should win for coolest name, is 4700 feet from tip to base but a big chunk of that is underwater and is providing bouyancy (we don’t count how deep pilings go in buildings so why count the legs on the Mars TP?) And since everyone cares, they are in the process of making a building in Dubai which it is believe will stand around 2,500 feet making it the tallest anything on land, making a clean sweep of the records. I wanted to go to Dubai just to see the insanity of those islands that they built, if they make this thing I will absolutely have to go. So, there’s the tall thing lecture.
Whoa. That was definitely not as funny as the post. However, it was certainly informative. And accurate.
What is the “Mars Tension-leg Platform”? What does it do? Is it an oil rig or something? A space station in the sea?
By the way, check out TS Gamma at the NHC; it’s making a bead on us!
Seriously, I love all those facts, I’m dorky that way. The MTP is an oil rig out in the gulf.
eh! Dork!