davemerrill

Last night David S. and I went to the Trash Palace for Godzilla VS The Cosmic Monster; the print was messed up so they screened the Gamera film Destroy All Planets instead. This was absolutely the best looking print of any Gamera film I've ever seen, that includes DVDs. It was totally sweet.

Today I got up and went out to the Anime North wrapup meeting. Getting there was no problem. Getting back... I got on the 427 figuring if they closed it I could just hop off and take Dundas east, or get down to the Queensway. Well, all the exits got closed and all traffic was diverted to QEW Westbound because the QEW East/Gardiner was closed due to dignitaries arriving at the airport for the G20 and being motorcaded downtown. So I sat in traffic for 45 minutes and watched my gas gauge get lower and lower. Finally I got off at Cawthra, got gas, and sped home. All the way I'd been listening to the news reports of windows being smashed, police cars being burned, you name it.. and I wanted to get down there and take pix!

So I finally made it home, Shain and I went out to get lunch and started walking east on King. After a few blocks the Toronto FC shirts gave way to tourists, protestors, and cops manning the south-of-King first defense line. At King and Spadina the LCBO was pre-emptively boarded up. Gotta protect the liquor.

We made it over to King and Bay. Past Bay the officers were not letting anybody pass. I wanted to see the car-B-cue, but riot police were blocking the street.

We saw the first riot damage: broken window in the Bay. Take that, Christiano!

Urban Outfitters just south of Eaton Centre on Yonge: condemned by the rioting youth of today.

South of the square, the Popeyes and the Burger King had their windows smashed and crews were already at work. The Hard Rock Cafe was not touched. We moved north on Yonge past the American Apparel, which also has fallen out of favor with today's well-dressed vandals. Reportedly that's excrement thrown onto the window display mannequins.

Truly the forces of International Capitalism will have trouble sleeping tonight knowing the hand of vengeance strikes right its very heart - Starbucks #7694!

Even Tim Hortons was not immune to the wrath of douchebags - I mean, BRAVE ANARCHISTS.

A local check cashing place had its window stove in by a placard advertising World Cup fever, which neatly combines two news items in one.

Our bank is at Bay & College but it wasn't touched; the Second Cup Coffee (a Canadian owned business) in the same building had its window broken.

We moved on down College, found it blocked at University, moved up but were prevented from getting to Queen's Park, where most of the non-vandal demonstrators were speechifying.

I did see one demonstrator get arrested on College just east of University; apparently he had assaulted somebody and that somebody was an undercover cop.

The officer in the foreground in this photo was actually eating a donut.

So we made our way back south to Queen St. West of University the vandals had smashed some banks and a Starbucks and had managed to convince the crepe place to close so we didn't get crepes. Queen & Spadina was occupied by demonstrators and police and the police were moving everybody back east down Queen - past where one of the police cars was torched in front of Steve's Music - so we took a detour south to Richmond.

And from there we went back to Queen, had a sit down and a drink at Shanghai Cowgirl, and cabbed it home which was a good idea since it had just started to rain. And that's our adventure! Thanks to the rock-throwing babies of the anti-G20 crowd, who have managed to reduce any objection anybody might have to anything these world leaders might do to the sight of a smashed-in Tim Hortons. Way to convince the world, you douchebags. I hope the cops use the sonic cannon on you and follow it up with nightsticks and tear gas, and you can go home weeping to your trust fund basements, twittering to your social networks about how the big mean cops won't let you violently destroy other people's property.

Americans can rest assured the American Consulate on University is protected by a phalanx of cops, a blocked-off street, and snipers on the roof.

All in all it was a fascinating day and I'm really glad we went down to check it out. All the police I saw were professional and polite, bystanders were walking right up to the lines of police and taking pictures and asking questions. One complaining guy on a bicycle started blaming all the protests on the "left wingers", you never see right wingers marching, they're all too busy making money, right? The crowd had fun arguing back with him. I didn't personally see any tear gas (though I did see some smoke way off in the distance down Queen Street) and I didn't see any rocks thrown or police brutality. Lots of clueless tourists wandering around, people were still attempting to drive through downtown as if nothing was going on. One guy ignored the big signs saying "road closed" and tried to drive down University past the US Consulate, and the cops just told him to make a U-turn, and next time to not ignore the giant signs saying "road closed."

If you have business in Toronto tomorrow... forget it. Just stay home. Watch it on TV.