I feel for the guy. I kinda have the same problem. I'm a junkie for audio systems.

Massimo's is good but my vote definitely goes to Vesuvio's in the Junction. It is, without a doubt, the best pizza in Toronto. It has a nice, crispy, thin crust with a truly fantastic, bright, simple sauce. But alas, I live 2 blocks outside their delivery area and have to go to my girlfriend's place to order it.

I've seen these at a hospital near me. I thought they were pretty cool until I found out how much they cost. They sure look slick, though.

I forgot to add that I do think the design of the cards is great, especially the little skiing, mail delivering animals. Spaceships and satellites for every good little boychik in the motherland.

To elaborate a bit on what Stefan and Zolf had mentioned, these are not really Christmas cards but New Year’s greeting since religious occasions were not permitted to be celebrated in the USSR. Even today, the emphasis is on New Year celebrations, although increasingly Christmas celebrations are becoming more widespread, as well as a return to former traditions – caroling and dressing up in costumes (particularly in the villages) etc.

The other characteristic of these cards reflects the Soviet attitude(lots of rockets because this was an empire intent on global expansion). This is also somewhat misleading, though, since prior to the launch of the Sputnik in around '56-'57, there was a bigger emphasis on a “Christmas” spirit, albeit veiled, because the system was atheistic.

I really hate Rogers. They're one of the worst ISPs in Canada. The have been throttling bandwidth, unannounced, since well before the Comcast debacle down south. I recently canceled my TV and internet with them due to the high cost and low service. Miro and an antenna (free over the air HD!) helped ween me off the tube and a local DSL ISP hooked me up with a dry-line service for half the cost and all the speed. I'll save my usual rant against 'Robbers' for another day but trust me when I say that you will overpay for a service that they will never deliver.

Speaking of crazily named fried chicken joints, I was in Kyiv and spied a 'Beirut Fried Chicken' shop. The logo and colours were remarkably similar to America's favourite dirty bird.

For all the folks having issues with Miro downloading multiple versions of the same show, just refine your search on whatever rss site you use. The one I use allows me to specify season, episode, distribution group and more, just by clicking on the 'advanced search' button. This will eliminate most of those multiple versions.

Having used both Miro and Joost for a while now, I definitely prefer Miro and use it much more often. Joost is heavily restricted, has crap content and I still can't figure out that interface, though it does look pretty slick. Plus, Joost seems to take over my boot up in worse ways than Miro does. Miro, on the other hand, works on my Linux box, will play pretty much anything I throw at it, is very easy to use and it is open. The fact that Miro is open, allows me to grab an rss feed from a torrent site, add it as a channel and, voila, whenever a new episode of my favourite Hollywood or podcast shows is uploaded, there it is in my Miro directory! This beats the snot out of Joost. The posters above slagging Miro for not having enough content just can't seem to wrap their heads around the power that has been given to the user. With Joost you're stuck watching the crap that the netwroks want you to watch. Miro allows me to watch anything I want to watch.

Now that's what I call hanky panky!

I find it ironic that the Russians would go to the extent of banning this artwork. Men kiss each other as a customary gesture of greeting and parting in much of eastern Europe. Sokolov's action speaks volumes about Russia's current level of tolerance. Things are really sliding back over there.

I'm wondering if there was a camera in the holding room. There seem to be cameras all over the aeroports these days. It would sure help to explain some things.

There was a great briefing on this subject a couple of weeks back in the Economist:

http://www.economist.com/world/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9682621

Why do US citizens put up with such absurdity?