Click the chart to see a larger version.
Chart courtesy of Miss Fipi Lele.

If you’re ever in Tokyo, you need to observe the scramble crossing in Shibuya. It’s pretty fascinating.

Tomorrow at 11 a.m., the intersection at Yonge and Dundas streets will become a scramble crossing (or as some of you urban and traffic engineer types might call it, a Barnes Dance or “exclusive pedestrian phase”). That means that at a certain point in the traffic light cycle, all vehicular traffic in any direction must stop, and pedestrians can use the entire intersection to cross it any way they like, including diagonally. I work a short bike ride away from this intersection and might pop by to take some photos.

For more on scramble crossings, see the Wikipedia entry for “Pedestrian Scramble”.

b5media, the company where I work and hold the title of “Nerd Wrangler”, is one of the finalists in Red Herring Canada’s “Top 50″ Awards, which is described as…

…celebrating the most innovative and promising companies in Canada. Adding to the success of our yearly North America 100, Europe 100 and Global 100 events, Red Herring Canada will provide an opportunity for the nation’s Top 50 companies to deliver their message to the top VCs and other participants throughout North America and abroad.

The Top 50 will be announced at the Red Herring Canada ‘08 event in Mont Tremblant (near Montreal), which takes place from September 15th through 17th.

First: a quick lesson. For those of you not familiar with Craigslist, it’s a classified ads site created by San Francisco-based programmer Craig Newmark, and it’s a thorn in the side of newspapers, whose classified ads revenues are shrinking because in many cases, Craigslist gives you more bang for the buck (for my own examples, see When Craigslist Beat the Toronto Star Classifieds and A Craigslist Wedding). It doesn’t cost any money to read Craigslist; in fact, in most cases, it doens’t cost money to post an ad on it, either. Its sole source of income is paid job ads in selected U.S. cities and paid apartment broker ads in New York. Despite this seemingly small revenue stream, they are believed to have made over $100 million last year (it’s hard to tell because they don’t release financial info).

Inspired by a post on Twitter by Jordan running, I decided to take a peek at the “Casual Encounters” section of Craigslist in both Minneapolis and Denver, where the Republican and Democratic National Conventions are taking place. Convention-goers are big on kink, and that seems to be doubly so for political convention-goers, who spent high school and university leading lives of repressed student council wonkery, which often turns into wacky overcompensation later.

Results for Craigslist Minneapolis

In the Craigslist for the city where the Republican National Convention is taking place, I entered some search terms and these are the number of classified ads that turned up:

• RNC: 15
• Republican: 12
• GOP (short for “Grand Old Party”, a nickname for the Republicans): 3
• convention: 13

My favourite:

“Looking to set up jerk-off party at GOP Convention - m4mm” (Posted July 15th)

Its early but looking for jerk off convention for GOP convention, Minneapolis. I can host; you can host. Older and chubs preferred.

Wait a minute — isn’t the Republican party already a jerk-off party?

Results for Craigslist Denver

Farther south and west in Denver, where the Democratic National Convention is happening. I entered some search terms and got these numbers:

• DNC: 125
• Democrat: 7
• Democratic: 5
• convention: 68

My favourite:

Sleeping With the Enemy – RightWingNut Seeks FlamingLiberalWoman - m4w (Posted August 25th)

Sleeping With the Enemy – Denver Native RightWingNut Seeks FlamingLiberalWoman for NSA “interracial encounter” …

The DNC is in town, and walking around downtown tonight, the Liberal Women were all damn good looking… they were HOT… (are liberal woman “better” looking?)

I propose a NSA meeting of the minds, um, I mean bodies…. Do conservatives and liberals “do it” different? Do we have different sexual priorities and skill sets? Consider it a “diversity” learning experience.

We would meet for a drink, have fun slamming the other side (in a good way…) and then go back to your hotel room or my house and screw our brains out. This would be as exciting as doing someone from another race, or from a foreign country that speaks a different a language.

I think this is one of the best ideas I’ve had in ages, do you agree?

I happen to be way more conservative than McCain, 45 and good looking and disease free, single and very “oral”…. All races and ages welcome (and exciting), conservatives and liberals are almost different races, but we’re all Americans, right?

Do me…. I can be available for a day or evening encounter… it would be a great DNC memory…. Help me bridge the gap between differing political views…. The Liberals and Conservatives must find common ground… (in the bedroom).

This could be a great memory for each of us… email me back… NOW… times a wastin…

I have to hand it to this guy — he’s a uniter, not a divider!

The Final Score

So in the end, the Democrats win this particular kink contest, having more Craigslist “Casual Encounters” ads than the Republicans by an order of magnitude. Perhaps this is a good thing; the “Hillary Harridans”/PUMAs/Clintards could stand to unwind a little.

This of course is not indicative of how much sex is actually going on: you have to keep in mind that the Republicans have been trying to keep their sexual proclivities on the down-low given the number of gay sex scandals that have been attributed to them. Let’s not forget that Minneapolis is also home of the Larry Craig bathroom sex scandal, so they’re probably being quite careful to put their best foot forward, least their image become the new gay stereotype:

Maple Leaf CEO Michael McCain.
Photo by Tara Walton, Canadian Press.

Once again, for those of you who haven’t been paying attention to the news: Maple Leaf Foods, a Canadian company, has issued a massive recall of all meat products produced at its Bartor Road plant in Toronto. They’ve published a list of the 200 or so recalled products in PDF form; thanks to Laurie Sefton, I’m able to publish a web-friendly version below.

Be sure to note that Maple Leaf products are sold under more brands than just the Maple Leaf name. Affected products are also sold under these brands:

• Artisan Collection
• Best Value
• Bittners/Schneiders
• Boston Pizza
• Burns
• Campfire
• Compliments
• Coorsh
• Country Morning
• Equality
• Fleetwood
• Foodservice
• Generic
• Harmonie
• Hickory Farms
• Hygrade
• Kirkland Signature
• Main Street Deli
• Mayfair/Marque
• McDonalds
• Mitchell’s
• Mr. Sub
• No Name
• Northern Best Value
• Olympic
• Our Compliments
• Overlander
• Parma
• Safeway
• Schneiders
• Shopsys

I strongly recommend that you check your fridge for any of the items on the list below: