6 men and Bell Canada

Fri Nov 12 00:11:05 UTC 2004

 Tuesday night, I walked from Christie Station south along Grace Street to
Harbord.

At Harbord, I asked a gentleman about cafes in the neighbourhood.

He said that he didn't know of any anywhere close to Harbord and Grace.

I walked west to 326 Harbord.

326 Harbord is the Bickford Park.

I walked further west, asking in variety stores and pubs about Linux Caffe,
previously known as Caffe Bickford.

No one had heard of it.

At Ossington, Harbord ended.

At Ossington, I used a pay-phone to call Bell Canada information (411),
and asked about Linux Caffe, previously Caffe Bickford.

Bell Canada Information said that there was no such thing,
either Caffe Bickford, or Cafe Bickford, or The Bickford Caffe,
or any such name, and, that, furthermore,
there was no such place as Linux Cafe, Linux Caffe, Cafe Linux,
Caffe Linux, etc. anywhere in Toronto or neighbouring cities,
such as Mississauga, Pickering, Aurora, Newmarket, Oakville, Oshawa,
Markham, Thornhill, Richmond Hill, Vaughan, Maple, Brampton, etc.

I could tell that she was getting tired from me asking so many questions
and taking so many minutes,
but I really thought that the place existed.

6 men accumulated in a cafe, named Harbord Street Cafe, or similar,
frustrated at being unable to find Linux Caffe.

5 of us walked over to the Galbraith Builing at U. of Toronto,
and found the old meeting place totally empty,
with a sign on the room's door directing us to 326 Harbord Street.

Does this Linux Caffe actually exist ?

What is its telephone number ?

What colour is the building ?

Does the building have a sign:
- Caffe Bickford ?
- The Bickford Cafe ?
- The Linux Caffe ?

How many buildings from the intersectiion of Grace and Harbord is it ?

Remember that at least 6 men who couldn't find it
gathered by chance at The Harbord Street Cafe,
and more could have missed Linux Cafe
without happening onto The Harbord Street Cafe.

Remember that Bell Canada said that no cafe anywhere close to Toronto
has "Linux" or "Bickford" in its name.

Jim McIntosh 416-292-8126 <jemcinto-cpI+UMyWUv+w5LPnMra/2Q at public.gmane.org>

----------------------------------------------------------
| NOTICE; this is not (yet) for general distribution. Although not a
| secret (dude, you put it on a mailing list ??) this is a
| pre-announcement directed towards the TLUG membership. Big splashy press
| releases come later. Till then, let's just keep it amongst us geeks,
| shall we ?
|
| thanks
|
|    Hello ! You might remember be from such popular threads as; "weather
| script" and "postscript purgatory" , but I'm posting today as the guy
| who made all that buzz last spring about the OSS-centric Caffe Bickford.
| Well, the dream is alive !
|    To recap, linuxcaffe (then Caffe Bickford) will be a friendly
| neighborhood place to get cappuccino, free (as in speach) software,
| music and more. Many months ago I brought this idea to TLUG and was met
| with several generous offers of help. I have had to surmount several
| major hurdles since then, (surprise) but I am happy to say that "I'm not
| dead yet !" and development is accelerating.
|    A fusion of caffe, convenience store, sandwich counter, art gallery,
| juice bar, music/video store and software centre, linuxcaffe is a
| concept for the community, and is being designed for direct community
| involvement. The full spectrum of sales and services takes a few pages
| (with charts and arrows) to properly convey, but it's safe to say that
| there's something for everyone.
|    The domain names linuxcaffe.com and linuxcaffe.ca have been
| registered, as has the ontario business name, and the renovations are
| taking shape, and the time for the code to hit the road.
|    Now those of you who know me, know that I'm eclectic, enthusiastic,
| bringing both inspiration and perspiration to everything I do. My "day
| job" is cinematographer, with over 30 years of experience in "the biz".
| Those same people may also realize that I /could/ program my out of a
| paper bag, but it would have to be dampened first. An habitual computer
| user since the mid 80s (RadioShak TRS80 model100) my knowlege of
| computer systems is surprisingly broad, but not particularly deep.
| That's where /you/ come in !
|    Why would you want to spend some of your precious free time helping
| me put this thing together ?
| - You like the idea of a place with a twelve foot high penguin on the
| wall where you can get a good sandwich, and listen to cool tunes, and
| you want to be a part of it.
| - You think that if there were a place where average Joe could go to see
| linux in action, and walk away with a shiny CD full of OSS, it would go
| a long way to promote something you believe in.
| - You're a red hot programmer/ sysadmin/ artist and you'd like to make
| some money.
|    These are but a few of the many reasons you might like to come and
| play. To that end I would like to propose that the next TLUG meeting
| (Nov 9th) be held at the caffe. It's at 326 Harbord (at Grace St)
| exactly 1 block south of Christie subway station. It will not be
| officialy open in two weeks, (lots still to do) but by then I will be
| able to offer a big room with up to 30 comfortable seats, and I'll bring
| coffee (not the good stuff, the espresso machine's not hooked up yet)
| and a projection screen (projector to follow). If enough interest is
| shown, beer could be had, too ! Heck, the bathroom plumbing might even
| be working ;-) !
|    If the topic/ speaker is already entrenched, that's fine, but if not,
| then perhaps I might suggest "linuxcaffe; the source of the code ?"
|    The ball is now in your collective court. Thanks for thinking about
| it,
|
| David J Patrick
----------------------------------------------------------

Jim McIntosh   416-292-8126   <jemcinto-cpI+UMyWUv+w5LPnMra/2Q at public.gmane.org>

--
The Toronto Linux Users Group.      Meetings: http://tlug.ss.org
TLUG requests: Linux topics, No HTML, wrap text below 80 columns
How to UNSUBSCRIBE: http://tlug.ss.org/subscribe.shtml