In 1993, I was in my second year of university in Toronto, living in the Ryerson residence on the 10th floor; one of those apartment-style spaces where five bedrooms shared a kitchenette, two bathrooms, and a living space. There was a federal election going on at the time, and one day there’s a knock at the door and I answer it and it’s a kid — well, somebody around my age, so a “kid” from my perspective now — asking how I’m going to vote.

So I tell him I don’t know and he asks if I’ve considered voting NDP and I say not really, and he says I should, and we have a short conversation, and I wind up asking him I-don’t-remember-what. I was being an ass at the time, I’m pretty damn sure, and probably just trying to stump this person for the sake of stumping them.

Whatever it was, I stumped him. And he says “hang on a minute, I’ll go get Jack.” And he leaves.

Five minutes later, another knock on the door, and it’s Jack Layton. He introduces himself and I invite him into my shitty residence common space and he comes in and sits down and we have a ten-minute conversation. I’m 20, I’m a shitty kid that doesn’t know anything about anything, and he comes in and sits down and treats me as seriously as a Fortune 500 CEO or a labour leader or whoever the hell.

On the way out, he gives me a tea towel with his picture printed on it, riding information, all that. I’m a bit baffled, and he says “I was thinking before the election of how wasteful all those posters are, and thought it might be a good idea if I gave people something useful for a change.”

Excited to see who gets kicked off the island tonight!

Elena and I had the chance to see our first TFC game last night. I’ve been wanting to go for so long, and my boss gave us tickets plus his kick ass seats (see photo above).

We were originally suppose to go around the time of G20, and because of the protests that day, we decided it was safer to stay uptown instead. In an awesome move of awesome customer service, TFC was refunding those game tickets for new ones. So my boss got us a new pair and we joined some awesome co-workers for an awesome soccer match. Awesome.

Enjoyed warm up pitchers at Maro on Liberty Street (Amsterdam Blonde for $12) and then marched like hooligans down to BMO field.

Toronto won, and it was a big deal because in its infancy, Toronto’s soccer team has a long way to go, but it was awesome to see it all go down live.

It’s amazing to see such wild excitement for a sport in Toronto, regardless of how the team is performing. Everyone is so wrapped up in the culture and the wildness of it all. They’re just having fun and that’s awesome. I like seeing people go ape shit over their sporting teams, rather than just shrugging them off as overpaid, untalented hacks.

The hollering, the chanting, the stomping—I wish I had season tickets.