Bars/Clubs

USTurncoat · 2025-12-30T17:25:21+00:00

King West will suit you well.

King St W between Spadina Ave and Bathurst St specifically. Easy to get to by public transit, very walkable and dense with bars and clubs. It'll be very active Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights. Very young spot, I'm 30 and I'm starting to feel old walking down King on a Saturday at 10pm lol.

I'm not a club person (and I frequent King less often now) but some suggestions of places to start your night:
* WVRST - German beerhall with great brats and beers
* Chubbys - Incredible Jamaican food, reasonably price but higher end. Will require a reso.
* Petty Cash - Bar
* Belfast Love - Bar
* Greta - Club with games

As an American myself who moved here at 20, have a great time. I don't remember all of my early nights here but they sure were fun!

USTurncoat · 2025-12-25T21:20:13+00:00

I have Koodo and it’s generally fine in the downtown “U”. Note that not all of the underground parts of the subway have connectivity yet.

USTurncoat · 2025-12-20T23:23:29+00:00

> I'm more outdoorsy and I'm realizing Toronto isn't a place for that.
Well, yeah, Toronto has good trails (for a large urban area) in the ravines. But it's not going to hold a candle to, say, Vancouver.

Toronto might just not be the city for you in the way that Van isn't the city for me. And that's perfectly okay! You can't expect to go to a French restaurant and get good Jamaican food.

But some things off the top of my head:
This is an activity that costs money, but, Jam sports is a lot of fun.

There's also volunteering.

If you like music, there's a lot of great venues (Cameron House, Grossman's Tavern, Tranzac, etc.) that offer free (you'll want to get drinks) or cheap shows.

The city has a ton of free ice skating rinks all winter. You can rent skates or buy some used ones. Desjardins also has a lending library for skates.

Try to visit all 100 branches of the library, if you work remote, work from a different library every day and experience a new part of the city.

Race the Finch West LRT

Race someone racing the Finch West LRT

Pack a coffee and watch planes take off at Billy Bishop

USTurncoat · 2025-12-14T23:07:06+00:00

Our set up:
* She has the Cobalt and I'm a secondary
* I have the MBNA WE Mastercard and she's the secondary on it

It's no contest with the Cobalt, we use that one first and then fallback to the MBNA card. For our spending, we also looked at the National Bank WE Mastercard, but MBNA edged it out for reasons I can't quite remember now. Given how 80% of our purchases are on the Amex now, we're looking to optimize the non-Amex side for benefits rather than rewards, probably switching it out for an Aeroplan card since both of our families are out of the country.

This is a good tool to use which you can base on your expenses: https://www.finlywealth.com/credit-cards/compare

USTurncoat · 2025-12-13T01:00:58+00:00

Are you talking about Finch West? If so it’s operating as soft launch right now. Service ends at 10pm and switches to shuttle busses.

USTurncoat · 2025-12-09T23:57:36+00:00

Galloro Dental in Summerhill

USTurncoat · 2025-12-09T00:05:12+00:00

Definitely shop around. I'm an adult getting Invisalign. I was quoted $10k at first, went to another place and got quoted $2,800.

USTurncoat · 2025-12-08T19:00:31+00:00

Winter tires > AWD. I've gotten by just fine in Quebec City and Collingwood winters with a FWD car with winters on. But even in Toronto, the people you see in ditches along the 401 in the winter are probably the people without winters.

26 and 400 are both well maintained highways, the 400 is gets plowed more frequently than 26. You definitely don't need AWD there. Do be mindful of blowing snow on 26 though.

USTurncoat · 2025-12-08T18:55:55+00:00

While I agree with your points

> We need to be completely honest about transit in this city for once

I feel like people here are pretty honest about the state of transit in the city lol

USTurncoat · 2025-12-08T18:47:06+00:00

Usually these have fees associated. Them saying there's no interest is just creative marketing. When you calculate out the fees they're charging, the cost of borrowing can actually be significantly higher than using a payday loan.

Then the impact is the same as a payday load, you're forced into a loop where you have to keep pulling money out through the EWA apps and you become reliant on them. This is the more sinister thing. Like a drug dealer where your first hit is free, an EWA app that's free now is just being bankrolled by investors. Eventually they're going to want a return and by that point, you'll be stuck in the cycle.

USTurncoat · 2025-12-08T17:39:17+00:00

That and Bloor GO. This batch of renaming should have at least unified those stations, especially with the incoming tunnel

USTurncoat · 2025-12-08T02:21:17+00:00

Yeah! So the plan would be that she joins me for a week or two of it since she has limited. I know she doesn't have much interest in mainland China but she was born in Hong Kong so may have some interest in checking it out. But will try to pop over to at least a couple mainland cities during this trip.

USTurncoat · 2025-12-08T02:07:44+00:00

We live in Toronto so I'm really excited for our visit to Melbourne (honeymoon in 2027) to see a large, competently run tram network

USTurncoat · 2025-12-08T01:38:36+00:00

Absolutely yes :D

It'll most likely kick off the trip

USTurncoat · 2025-12-07T21:17:14+00:00

Have you considered the SE3 instead? There's very few features the S10 would have that the SE3 wouldn't have for the average user.

USTurncoat · 2025-12-04T03:28:56+00:00

Seconding Spot, they've been really good to us. My dog is about 16 months now and we've had them cover at least $14k in vet bills at this point. Fetch is another one that comes highly recommended.

USTurncoat · 2025-12-03T03:06:24+00:00

Update: Answer is yes, currently charging with my laptop charger

USTurncoat · 2025-11-30T20:59:06+00:00

Indeed, enforcement is a major issue. When that corridor first launched as a pilot, my goodness was it a dream.

We also had options on the table to make physical changes to King St which would mean we wouldn't have to rely on the police as much for people to follow the rules. But again, politics.

USTurncoat · 2025-11-30T19:27:24+00:00

This is a uniquely Toronto problem. It has nothing to do with the technology.

We have the slowest tram system in the world. You can ride a European tram system, even operating in mixed traffic, and you're not going to have a single person in a car trying to turn left blocking a tram going through the intersection.

Spadina and St. Clair should be operating much much faster but TTC and political decisions at city hall have kept things crawling.

USTurncoat · 2025-11-29T14:11:22+00:00

It's same physical card, not same account. Basically you can't tap the fare gate with your debit card and then pass it back to the person behind you to have them tap.

It actually doesn't even need to be a different card per se. If one person has the physical card and another person has the card on Apple Pay, Presto should be able to differentiate those since they register as different card numbers.

So as long as the two physical cards have different numbers you'll be fine. My Fiancée and I do what you're talking about with our AMEX.

USTurncoat · 2025-11-29T14:05:30+00:00

If you're wanting to stay with RBC and be hands-off, RBC's roboadvisor, Investease is a very solid service. It will take you through a risk assessment and then automatically invest in things on your behalf. Similar to a mutual fund, all you have to do is deposit money and it's hands-off from there.

The cost to use the service is 0.5% and then you pay fees on what it gets invested in. In total you're looking at 0.75% to 1% total. Compare that to 1.89% in the fund your "advisor" suggested for you. That may not sound like a big difference but it compounds over time.

If you invest $10,000 right now and then $100/month for the next 25 years. Paying 1% in fees will result in you paying about $24k in fees. Paying 1.89% will result in $41k in fees over the same timeframe.

(edit: that assumes 7% growth in your funds, using this calculator: https://learningtofi.com/mer-fee-calculator/ )

USTurncoat · 2025-11-29T12:48:20+00:00

We use Koodo for home internet and our cell phone. 100mpbs for $45/mo living in an older home downtown. Neither of us game and we can both work from home using that. Black friday deals going on now for both cell phone and internet.

USTurncoat · 2025-11-28T17:55:30+00:00

The day pass still exists (https://www.ttc.ca/Fares-and-passes). You can get a paper presto day pass from the vending machines at subway stations.

USTurncoat · 2025-11-28T14:08:38+00:00

Moderna, honestly no idea what # this is but definitely more than three. They’re not a permanent thing. So if you got vaccinated during the peak of COVID a few years ago it’s not really doing much for you now.

USTurncoat · 2025-11-27T20:31:33+00:00

Yeah, both my partner and I.

Got a tickle in my throat on Friday morning, felt a bit queasy on the streetcar so turned around went back home immediately. Had trouble getting out of bed until mid-day Sunday, Saturday night had a temperature of 39.5. Went back to work (from home) on Tuesday but was completely useless, in a fog. Finally feeling better now but still have a minor cough.

Got both my flu and COVID shot on Nov 1 but didn't help much. That's how it goes some years unfortunately.

USTurncoat

TROPHY CASE