Margin Notes: India, Ice Cream, A-Rod, Ross

The Parade for India's Independence Day in Toronto, Ontario took place on 14-August-2010

TORONTO, ONTARIO - I was pretty sure I wasn't going to have trouble finding something to do between two Heritage Toronto walks held yesterday in downtown Toronto, and I was right. Figuring that something would be going on at Yonge-Dundas Square, I stumbled upon the parade for India's Independence Day heading down Dundas Street. A good smattering of India's states had representative floats, and a wide variety of music was played. In some sense, the event was one day early, as the holiday is normally celebrated on 15-August, today.

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An ice cream truck sat right across the street from my residence on the afternoon of 6-August-2010

Sometimes, I walk all over Toronto to come up with photos used on this blog, but all I had to do was look out the window recently. There's a daycare facility in the next block along Jane Street, and they apparently arranged to have an ice cream truck come in the afternoon--they had him park right across from my residence and brought the kids out the back and down an alley to the truck. It was very tough to stay inside after I saw that.

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One of the enticing things about the ice cream truck is the music it plays as it approaches. While that music does not come from Muzak, it has been compared with that variety of generic music that comes from the company of that name. What I did not learn until recently is that the end of the company name was derived from "Kodak," basically because Muzak inventor Major General George O. Squier thought it was a cool name.

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A lot of people thought that "A-Rod" was a cool nickname for Alex Rodriguez to the point that pretty much nobody uses his real name anymore. I was asked if I was going to write anything about A-Rod after his recent attainment of 600 career home runs, but frankly while I remember watching many baseball stars in my life, I don't have any notable memories of A-Rod despite seeing him many times in his early career with the Seattle Mariners. That seems to be the plight of the shortstop (A-Rod only became a third baseman upon going to the Yankees)--the good ones just are more reliable than flamboyant, more clutch than memorable.

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A-Rod left Seattle and eventually found his way to New York, but broadcaster Dave Ross did the opposite. As an update to this post on his disappearing podcast, it should be noted that WCBS has quietly restored the podcasts it had taken away, with the Dave Ross commentary here. WBZ still hasn't followed suit. Meanwhile, I have to say it's very weird to hear Ross doing the voice work on Duxiana ads running on ABC affiliate KGO in San Francisco--Ross is clearly identified with CBS.

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As one final radio note, satirist Harry Shearer has brilliantly picked up on the story about National Public Radio becoming simply NPR, resulting in this report.