The South Bayview Bulldog

Call me Long tongue/Colin Mcconnell

Here’s a lively guy from the recent outings of nature photographer Colin McConnell.

Environment Canada has issued a strong wind warning. It says gusts of 70 to 80 km/h will whip Toronto during the afternoon or evening. A cold front will sweep through southern Ontario this afternoon.

SUV pounded by falling concrete pieces/City News

Life in North America’s mushrooming tower City brought a deluge of concrete pieces and possibly wet cement pounding down on traffic from a construction site on Yonge St at Cumberland Ave Tuesday evening. The driver of the vehicle shown above escaped with serious injuries and is recovering in hospital.

Scene on O’Connor/Gord Edick Global

Into the house/Doug Gamey Global

1800 block of O’Connor Drive

A tanker truck loaded with fuel slammed into a semi-detached home in the 1800 block of O’Connor Drive late Monday night. Remarkably, no one was hurt and there was no fire. The scene is near Sunrise Ave and it appears the driver, who was southbound from Victoria Park, may have missed the slow bend in O’Connor as it descends from Vic Park.

Many people are commenting on a well-known habitue of Leslieville and area who has no fear of removing packages from porches in daylight and even with the blinds open. Amazon, Amazon. Is this how it’s supposed to work? FB

Ontario will head back into Stage 2 lockdown based on concern that Omicron, mild though it is, will infect so many people that one percent of those who catch it will swamp hospital ICUs. It’s a decision based on “modelling” that calculates a worst-case world. Premier Ford told people to “brace for the impact” of Omicron.

You have been there before

Indoor dining will be banned and gyms will be forced to close and gatherings will be reduced once again from 10 people indoors to five people, from 25 people to 10 people outdoors, and capacity at retail stores and malls will be lowered to 50 percent. The new measures will go into effect on Wednesday at 12:01 a.m. and be in place for at least three weeks (until Jan. 26) before being reassessed. Restaurants and bars will be allowed to open for outdoor dining, takeout and delivery while personal care services will be reduced to 50 percent capacity (as reported by City News). Ontario moves school online, closes indoor dining and gyms as part of sweeping new COVID-19 measures

Twitter skeptics

There is a torrent of skepticism on Twitter about the government’s decision. The guesswork required by doctors and others to calculate a crushing overload of cases demands an enormous number of perhaps 250,000 Ontarians all sufficiently sick at the same time that one percent of them are in intensive care.

Oof, Ontario Health CEO confirms 8-10 thousand non-emergent surgeries will be postponed per week under new order. Non emergent includes heart, cancer surgeries. That will be devastating for many #onpoli

— Cynthia Mulligan (@CityCynthia) January 3, 2022

A freakish tragedy has occurred in West Vancouver in which a large fir tree has fallen on a home, crushing the bedroom of the couple living there. Police say the dead couple is Mike Sharp, former president of the West Vancouver Minor Hockey Association and his wife Caroline.

Narrow lot on Greenwood may get narrow house

To sit on 20 foot wide lot on Greenwood Ave/Haweya Fadal/Contempo Studio

A couple of years ago we told you about the sale of a skinny 20 by 100-foot lot adjacent to 953 Greenwood Ave in East York. Now Andrew Gabriel,22, an aspiring developer, wants to build there. Keep in mind the depiction above seems to have quite a bit more open space on one side than the lot does. Not to quibble. Garage lot 20×100 for $599k on Greenwood and Sammon

Tap and pay makes credit cards sit up straight

Tap, tap

The cashless revolution and easy tapability are working a card payment revolution at many levels. Many new cards from Visa and MasterCard are aligned to an upright look in keeping with the tap and pay process. And Apple wants you to rely on your phone for everything. Everything. But if your cards are in the phone rather than your wallet, you have to hope the phone doesn’t fail.

8 a.m. freezer

Cold start to the week

It’s all just part of winter in Toronto but what a chilly start to the week, especially if you’re outside tearing down what’s left of Sunnybrook Plaza (right). Early Monday the City issued an extreme cold weather warning and specified four warming centres. Weather Network

Darlynne Korobuchi Facebook

Police are now investigating this nasty rear-end damage occurrence outside 141 Erskine Ave on New Year’s Eve or morning. The Honda was legally parked when the (we suspect) tipsy driver slammed the rear left corner and drove the car up onto the sidewalk

Darlynne Korobuchi Facebook

A solid fall of snow is expected in Toronto Sunday with perhaps 5 cm falling by dawn. Another 1 to 3 cm could fall during the day. Motorists should expect hazardous winter driving conditions weather authorities say.

A New Year’s Eve wildfire has destroyed hundreds of homes in Colorado’s Boulder County after strong winds fueled the peril with almost no notice.

Durable Betty White, 99, has died in Brentwood California a few weeks away from her 100th birthday on January 17, 2022.