Yesterday I went to Toronto with W.O.V. and we walked from Union Station to Bloor, then back. Had a great time. I got a few small things for myself- some nice new hair bands, and a rabbit amulet. I bought a few presents for my brothers- for my youngest brother, a pin that says �Eat the Retards�, and for my other brother, a pin that says �Keep Music Evil� and some Spiderman peppermints. I also got them some Larvets worm snax to share. (BTW, I will be uploading video of them consuming said snax while extremely intoxicated.) They�re by far the nastiest snacks I�ve ever seen. The packaging includes the top 5 reasons to consume Larvets.

They are as follows:

1) You�ll give people something new to say about California besides that it�s the state of fruit and nuts.

2) Your entomologist friends will think you learned to cook.

3) Tastes like chicken will have new meaning.

4) You don�t have to drink a whole bottle of mescal to get the worm.

5) BBQ, Cheddar Cheese and Mexican Spice Larvets make great party food.

He said that they didn�t taste that bad, but the texture was terrible- apparently they turn into a nasty, dusty powder the second you chew them.

Sounds lovely. Just lovely.

While in TO, we had the vegetarian platter for lunch at a Mediterranean restaurant and W.O.V. got all gassy from the Falafel, and he managed to clear a discount souvenir store with his Falafel Farts. It was funny, everyone was looking at the guy behind the counter as if he was the one responsible.

One sobering event that took place over the course of the afternoon was hearing an ad on the radio for Mandarin, in which they discuss their current health precautions against the SARS outbreak. I think this is terribly sad, that people are so paranoid about the disease that there is a need for such an ad. In fact, if you visit the Mandarin website, the first thing you see is a pop-up notice to the same effect. All the Asian import stores we went to yesterday also seemed to be very pleased to see us as well� I�d imagine that the outbreak has hurt their business some.

*drags out soapbox, steps on*

What bothers me most about this is that most people haven�t bothered to educate themselves at all about the disease and how it works. Most people are at minimal risk for catching the virus, and if you do simple, ordinary things like wash your hands you can cut your risk even further. In fact, the people working at Mandarin are probably less at risk of both catching or transmitting the disease than anyone else, because Health Canada�s website states that hand washing is still the best and easiest form of protection, and people in food service are generally trained to wash constantly.

It just seems like some people are using SARS as an excuse to indulge their ignorance or racism. SARS is not being solely carried by people of Asian descent. True, it has been traced to Asia, but in our �global village�, just about anyone can travel anywhere and anyone from any ethnic group can originate from pretty much anywhere. Could be carried by anyone, people! Don�t blame it on the guy working at the buffet.

*sets soapbox aside*

Mostly we had a great time on our journey, though. I bought more presents for other people than for myself, and we really didn�t spend much money. We went to the Old Spaghetti Factory for dinner, and it was cheap and we had a great dinner with lots of food for very reasonable price, and our server was fantastically nice, and the place was just cool in general. We sat inside an old carousel that had been taken apart and then reconstructed around a dais with tables in the middle. It was fun, and we talked our server into taking some photos of us as well for my album.

Today was nice too, I made a roast beef for my brothers and W.O.V. and the punk girlie for Easter dinner, and I made Peanut Butterscotch cookies- peanut butter cookies with butterscotch chips in them. We gave Oscar a bath and he was all cold and shivery after� I felt so awful, poor baby. But he was SO stinky. Had to do it. I wrapped him in a blanket and cuddled him until he was warm again, but he kept giving me the �sad puppy eyes� and all the guilt.