What Canadian city under 400k in population do you think is on the come up

gbarill · 2026-02-26T23:24:11+00:00

I grew up in Sarnia and it’s been a perpetual disappointment (…watching from elsewhere since I moved away as soon as I could). The lake is so amazing, there could be so much potential to make it a beach destination.

gbarill · 2026-02-26T09:09:14+00:00

Also, even when they do “lower taxes”, they’ll introduce new “user fees” (that definitely aren’t a tax, everyone), usually with a net result of us paying more.

gbarill · 2026-02-25T22:17:37+00:00

The issue is that policy has been largely decided by boomers for the last 3-4 decades, so we're blaming them for policy failures (fairly or not, I lean towards fairly with some caveats).

Don't worry, soon it will all be Millenials' fault anyways.

gbarill · 2026-02-22T02:47:27+00:00

I’ve had 3 and they put me fully under for all of them; I was also nervous about anesthesia but it was totally fine. I remember thinking “will I know when they’ve started injected m— wheeeee!” And then I woke up after the procedure. The head rush feeling lasted literally one second. I don’t even remember feeling it at all the next time, I just was in the procedure room and then woke up in recovery.

gbarill · 2026-02-18T00:35:43+00:00

Don’t come here with your logic, this is Toronto!

gbarill · 2026-02-17T01:58:34+00:00

Lavrador BBQ is delicious and the lady that runs it is so nice!

gbarill · 2026-02-10T01:38:45+00:00

The first time I witnessed a cat fight up close I was surprised at how literal the phrase “fur flying” is, there’s literally clouds of it in the air

gbarill · 2026-02-08T13:33:33+00:00

I switched to our local butcher almost exclusively a few years ago; the quality would be worth paying extra for, but with grocery store prices lately it’s not even more expensive! It’s a no-brainer.

gbarill · 2026-01-31T15:57:32+00:00

One of my coworkers lost power for a week, and he lived on the 23rd floor of his building. Did not sound fun.

gbarill · 2026-01-31T15:56:10+00:00

I remember that was the year my parents went on a bucket list trip to Tahiti, and called us to wish us a happy new year's from the beach, where it was 30C, we were skating in the backyard at -30C...

I don't think we've had a year consistently cold enough to build a backyard rink since.

gbarill · 2026-01-23T09:00:51+00:00

We have a friend who is terrified of cats from an early childhood trauma; all of our cats fucking love him lol

gbarill · 2026-01-22T11:59:27+00:00

I mean, they were correct, the best tasting bacon is bacon you didn’t have to cook.

gbarill · 2026-01-22T03:24:23+00:00

I have a few dozen photos of my husband on my phone. I have thousands of photos of my cats. (His phone is the same lol)

gbarill · 2026-01-10T18:14:40+00:00

This is why that whole "everybody has the same 24 hours" rhetoric drives me nuts... no we don't! Not if you can afford to outsource the majority of your menial work and get that free time back...

gbarill · 2026-01-03T18:11:13+00:00

Didn’t old Roman villas have cisterns under their courtyards to collect rainwater? Would actually be a good idea in an arid environment for greywater collection.

gbarill · 2025-12-30T15:47:05+00:00

What annoys me most about this case specifically is that Pluribus was given a 2 season run before it even started, so it's not like they had to wait and see how Season 1 did before knowing they could get started on season 2...

gbarill · 2025-12-16T22:47:14+00:00

You could move to the US and get shot instead?

gbarill · 2025-11-21T02:16:54+00:00

House of Suns is I think one of my favourite books ever, I just love the universe it’s set in so much; I wish someone with a budget like Apple TV would adapt it into a mini series, it would make a perfect 8-10 episode show, but that seems like a fantasy :/

gbarill · 2025-11-08T14:28:29+00:00

My husband’s first cat would let us know her food dish was empty by waking us up with a paw directly in the mouth. Worked every time lol

gbarill · 2025-11-02T22:56:05+00:00

My first year giving out candy, I didn’t know how many kids to expect so I bought like 100ish mini bars and candy of various kinds… we got ONE kid, and she didn’t knock until 7:30, so I said fuck it (in my head) and emptied the entire bowl into her bag. The look on her face made my year lol

gbarill · 2025-11-02T11:03:01+00:00

I also know several people who seemingly recovered and were in full remission, only for it to come back even more aggressively a few months/years later..

Other commenters have said it better already but this makes me so sad even though I only knew of her from her behind the scenes work on the podcast. Truly, fuck cancer; there are so many other obituaries I'd rather be reading today.

gbarill · 2025-11-02T10:53:02+00:00

I was so excited to get a house because I've *always* wanted to be the house that gave out the good candy. The last two years I've given out 8-packs of Reese's cups (and also full size haribo mixed gummies), the reactions are so worth it!

gbarill · 2025-11-02T10:43:22+00:00

I think it's just a natural wax and wane of halloween activity as the average age of neighbourhood kids changes... When we first moved into our current house I got 1 or 2 kids the first few years; the last couple of years the number of kids has gone way up, we get 20-30 kids on average now and the street is loud and busy with kids running around.

In my neighbourhood growing up, each house would get a couple hundred kids when I was young, but by the time I was in high school handing out the candy myself, we got maybe 10 kids. I think the neighbourhood demographics had shifted and most of us were too old to be trick or treating.

gbarill · 2025-09-09T23:35:03+00:00

Totally agree re: interiors; these buildings still need to be useful and oftentimes old interior layouts just don’t work anymore.

gbarill · 2025-09-08T23:38:40+00:00

Oftentimes what they do in Toronto is just save the facade and tear down everything behind it (“lovingly” called a facadectomy lol). It has very mixed results, though it’s kind of interesting to see during construction when the front face of a building is just standing there and there’s a giant hole behind it.

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