Yesterday's weather continued to be glorious, unlike today's dreary goop and I decided it would be the perfect time to make the long quest to Queen & Bathurst for my regular hit of Serbian pea soup. Unlike my first few encounters there, the nice ladies who work there now know me and love me. Yesterday when I entered I was greeted with a chorus of "Oh Handsome! We are out of pea soup today!" I was instead convinced to buy a delicious vegetable soup and an even more delicious gooey mushroom blob with bits of politically incorrect baby cow. Now before you get all in my face about baby cow, I have dealt with very formidable individuals on this issue and I still eat it on the odd occasion. Show your love for all God's creatures by beating me up some other time.

On my way there I saw whom I swear was the same woman I saw walking down the street discussing Heidigger almost exactly two months ago, wearing one of those skirts I thought were all torched once the 80s were finally over (if we witness the rebirth of acid wash jeans, folk, I'm packing up and heading for the Arctic). In any case, this time she wasn't yammering on her cell while applying lip-gloss. This time she was strutting down the street with her laptop open and balanced on her shoulder, blasting rap through the littered streets of downtown Toronto. Her laptop . . . just like we used to see with boomboxes (I refuse to call it that other thing we called them in the 80s). And I swear it was the same woman

At first I thought, "What a brilliant modern adaptation of an old cliché!" And then as I passed her and almost had my ears singed off and my eardrums exploded I thought, "This chickie just desperately needs to be noticed".

If I told her that she is rapidly becoming for me a symbol of all that is shallow and vapid about the West as it struts along, blasting its music, babbling into its cell, applying its makeup, and completely ignoring all around it, would she care? And before I am accused of misogyny, the equally apparent male equivalent is the guy I the teeny-weeny (note the emphasis on "teeny-weeny") car that's been fitted with subwoofers under the seats so that all you can hear when it comes within a block of you is BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BA BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM.

The world will be a much different place when I become Emperor of the Universe.