Last night was the sixth annual Blackout Anniversary, a tribute to the Northeast Blackout of 2003, which Streets Are For People described thusly:

Party the 1st : Blackout on Ossington Avenue, Dundas to Queen, 8 pm to close – 28 venues, buskers, live acoustic music, parking meter parties, candlelight Party the 2nd: Group bike ride – bring your lights, meet Bloor and Spadina at 8:45 – at 9:15 let’s ride! Party the 3rd: Circus geeks and dance freaks, meet NW corner of Trinity Belwoods near Simon de Bolivar bust at 9 ish, bring glowsticks and dancing shoes …don’t miss the big surprise at 10pm when three parties become one…

Coming down Ossington from Dundas, the first parking meter party you may have seen was an accordion-led game of musical chairs.

Further down, a parking space hosted the communal jitz.

Shortly after 10pm, the pedestrian parade moved up Ossington, marshaled by a fire juggler.

Not realizing it at the time, I caught Brian Sharwood of Homestars.net taking pictures.

You might notice the crowd seems preoccupied with something directly over my head. That something was a buildering busker (a builderer?)

There were also plenty of great signs encouraging everyone to GTFO.

Once the street was completely occupied, the “surprise” was revealed. As everyone chanted “black-out”, the streetlights magically responded, shutting off one by one. Spooky.

While the lights were out, sparklers started materializing.

Of course, the party wouldn’t be complete without what Milton Bradley’s competitor’s called “sex in a box”.

Video has surfaced from Urban Repair Squad and atochillin.

P.S. Post style shamefully appropriated from hyfen.

I recently had the opportunity to talk to Kris Reyes and Tony The Cameraperson from CityTV about VoIP:

To add some detail:

• I’m not normal. I don’t have a landline or a mobile. Big Canadian Telco’s are clueless when it comes to pricing this stuff.
• I have Skype at ~$36/year to make unlimited calls across North America. Annoyingly, Skype can’t receive calls (“SkypeIn“) in Canada, although people have been asking for it since at least 2006.
• I use Gizmo5 at $20/3 months to receive calls, in Skype’s stead. That basically gives me a “real phone number” in Toronto’s 416 area code.
• I can receive live calls if I’m running Gizmo5′s desktop application (similar to Skype’s desktop app), but I rarely do, unless the call is scheduled ahead of time. Usually, calls and texts go straight to my voicemail, and those voicemails are immediately emailed to me as attachments. I like isolating things to my inbox.
• At one time, I played with DIDWW, which offers a “real phone number forwarded to Skype” service. Voicemail didn’t work, which was a dealbreaker.

This isn’t for everyone, but if all you want is a phone, voicemail, and you don’t mind “living in software”, it’s the cheapest option I’ve found.

Recently snapped some shots of a storefront in my ‘hood claiming to offer “Full Service Web Development”:

And up close:

According to the awful type and clipart smeared across their window, they offer “website architecture”, “software development”, and “search engine marketing”. Yet something tells me they’re not the best choice for such services… and that something is their website. Consider yourself warned.