Daily Photo: Cake Pops

I ate all the sugar yesterday. I attended a Cake Pop class at Le Dolci for a story for the National Post (it’ll be in the paper on Saturday). This was supposed to look like a mini cupcake, but it kind of looks like a two-toned marshmallow covered in stars instead. In any case, it was delicious.

Daily (yeah, I know) Photo: Terrifying Donkey Sculptures

I was working at CBC last week, and I parked my bike next to these creepy little guys every morning. These sculptures have always reminded me of one of the most terrifying movie scenes ever made, when the lost boys in Pinnochio are turned into donkeys. Maybe it’s intentional and it’s meant to keep children in line on their way to the baseball game (the CBC building is right across from the Skydome). Or maybe the artist has a thing about donkeys. In any case, I should be commended for bravery for facing this freaky nonsense every morning.

Daily photo: A good sign

Outside of the cyclist-friendly Sam James Coffee House. If only every Toronto business displayed such a sign.

Daily Photo: Lazy Saturday Booktown Mashup

On this long-planned day of no plans whatsoever, I have been obsessively poring through the Photojojo archives despite (a) not being a particularly great photographer and (b) owning neither a DSLR or Photoshop. But none of that mattered when I came across this post about this artist who set a digital camera to its long exposure setting, set it up on a tripod, and aimed it at his laptop screen while flipping through a Facebook album.

So I messed around with that for a bit using a Facebook photo album of photos I took in Hay-on-Wye and ended up with this nifty image of the inside of Murder and Mayhem (the town’s crime/mystery bookstore) superimposed on the outside of Murder and Mayhem.

I also vacuumed and dusted the whole living room and made a serious dent in Country Driving by Peter Hessler today. Not bad for a Saturday whose only plans involved an afternoon trip to the pub.

Daily photo: Sargasso at Luminato

Luminato ended last weekend, so you can’t go see Brookfield Place transformed into the Snow Queen’s dancehall anymore. This building (which will always be the BCE Place to me) is my favourite in the whole city, and I love when it gets used for massive public art installations like this one.

Boring souvenirs: The “di-di-dit”

In the quaint Chinese town of Dali, our cellphones were starting to run out of juice and we needed a reliable way to wake up in time to catch a bus to Lijiang the next morning. Fortunately, we were in China, where things like tiny alarm clocks are made. Unfortunately, neither of us speak a word of Mandarin, not even “thank you”, which seemed to be pronounced differently in every town we visited. But on one of the main shopping strips of Dali, a clever man was selling tiny clocks. Trying to minimize our fairly obvious ignorant touristdom, we timidly approached the shop, pointed to a clock, and said “alarm clock?” The clever clock salesman rolled his eyes at us, picked up a clock and said “di-di-dit! di-di-dit!” Our eyes lit up with recognition and delight at the obvious universal phrase for alarm clock. And now we treasure our little pink di-di-dit.

Click click click

In an attempt to improve my meager photography skills and also to justify renewing my Flickr Pro account, I’m attempting a photo-a-day challenge on Flickr.