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It’s been a rough fortnight for iconic Canadian donut chain Tim Horton’s.  First came the story involving the single mother who was fired for giving a 16-cent donut hole to a baby (not surprisingly, she has been subsequently rehired - it’s amazing what a simple tidal wave of international media shaming can accomplish).  Now police in Toronto have issued a warning following an incident where a man was caught peeping into a women’s bathroom stall at a store in the City’s West End.

While the man is suspected of similar incidents at other unnamed businesses in the area, local media have decided to jump on the Tim Horton’s angle.  On the surface, this might appear to be just another subtle attempt by the liberal press to vilify the big bad corporate entity.  On closer inspection, however, this may have more to do with the fast food chain’s bafflingly archaic restroom facilities, which are notoriously inviting to perverts.

Hey, woman in blue - quit reading all the toilet paper!

Authorities have described the suspect as a “short, white man, 20 to 25, who wears glasses, has a heavy build and light brown hair.”  No composite sketch has been released, so just to be safe, I have given police the names of 70% of the men in my office, every single reader of this website and The Hold Steady’s Craig Finn.  And, as a further public service, I am offering a reward of 64-cents worth of donut holes for any information on the whereabouts of this guy:

The back says: "And I don't do second ones."

While these efforts are a start, we all know that this story will not get the international attention it deserves until the suspect is given an easy-to-remember nickname.  The Toronto Sun has weighed in with “Peeping Tim”, which is good, but…actually, it’s perfect.  “Peeping Tim” it is.

Now that the nickname is taken care of, the only other thing concerned citizens can do to help catch ol’ P.T. is to overreact and aggressively take matters into their own hands.  Thus, in an effort to catch this creep (and to qualify for inclusion in the “Best Public Interest Blog” category of this year’s Canadian Blog Awards), we are calling on all able-bodied Canadian men with a sense of justice and a substantial amount of free time to band together in carrying out a round-the-clock patrol of local Tim Horton’s franchises.  

We suggest a rotation of eight-hour shifts, with a special emphasis on the hours between 10 p.m. and 4:00 a.m. (this is known in the police business as “prime lurkin’ time”).  In order to avoid attracting attention, we suggest dressing in a manner that will make it hard to identify who you are.  Dark clothing, including sunglasses and a hood, is a start.  Wispy moustaches are also encouraged.  Also, for evidentiary purposes, it’s best if you can catch this guy in the act.  Therefore, you are going to want to spend most of your time in the women’s restroom area, preferably hidden in random stalls.

No need to thank us, Toronto PD, we are happy to help.  We take the whole “if you aren’t part of the solution, you are part of the problem” thing very seriously.  And if a marketing rep at Tim Horton’s is reading this and is thinking that it might be nice to show us his or her gratitude for our efforts by offering to advertise on our site, we have just one thing to say to you: foodcourtlunch@foodcourtlunch.com.  (We only ask that you allow us 6 to 8 months to figure out how to place ad space on the sides of our homepage).

Happy justice-enforcing, everyone!

Do you know what baseball needs? More dancing. Also, more prancing. And jaunty caps.

Make it so, Bud Selig.

This video may explain how Roger Clemens got the attention of a fifteen year old like Mindy McCready in the first place.

Seriously, that musical abortion is completely horrendous. I hope MLB has the common sense to stay far, far away from it.

Huh. Never mind. Swing batta batta swing, I guess. To be honest, though, I liked it better when K7 did it 15 years ago (see 2:10 below).

The boys of Food Court Lunch are a hardworking bunch. We slave away at our jobs to pay the bills, and then slave away at this website to keep you parasitic, hypercritical, heartless bastards folks amused. We are just simple joes trying to work hard and make something of ourselves. Well, now we know better — we are goddamned suckers. We should have been using our “Act 19 Special Miracle Prayer Handkerchief” to get rich quick, bitches.

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By now everyone in Toronto has heard the news that Raps play-by-play announcer Chuck Swirsky will be leaving the team for personal reasons, and taking over radio announcing duties for the Chicago Bulls.  For those unfamiliar with Chuck, he was an extremely animated, unabashed homer, which made him relatively polarizing to Raps fans.  Those of us at FCL who still possess the capacity to love and be loved (i.e. everyone but Butter Chicken) loved the Swirsk for this very reason. And for many others.

Below is an incomplete list of some other things we will miss about this happy little maniac.  Regardless of who replaces him, rest assured we have sworn an oath to boo him for at least the first month of next season.

1.  Chuck is the only media personality in television history to be featured in a commercial in which he receives a golden shower.

2.  Whenever he felt that the Raptors had the game safely in hand, Chuck would deliver his famous, “you can break out the salami and cheese, Mama, this ball game is over!” line. (He says he started doing this in response to a fan who requested that he give some indication as to when he could safely leave the room to go make a sandwich). 

But on rare occasions, Chuck would get overly excited and break the line out early, which would promptly be followed by the other team staging a furious comeback.  To our knowledge, he was never wrong, but you could actually sense the panic in his voice as Richard Jefferson started nailing a couple of late 3s.  We loved that he genuinely cared about the integrity of his Salami and Cheese, which is more than we can say for the deli counter at Loblaws.

3.  There is shtick homerism, and then there is genuine fandom.  Chuck was definitely the latter.  We are convinced that there are still refs in the league he won’t make eye contact with after last year’s playoff loss to the Nets.  And while we are not saying he hopes that Tim Donaghy gets violated in prison, we are pretty sure he at least hopes he gets lightly roughed up.

4.  We loved the incident where his booth partner Leo Rautins intentionally broke his Chuck Swirsky bobblehead during the pre-game show. We especially loved the fact that this visibly rattled Chuck.  We wish we had video of this.

5.  On a non-basketball related note, you will never find a man who looks more like the ideal candidate for getting shot out of a cannon.  He just seems like he would travel a long way, and probably enjoy every second of the trip.

6.  We never got tired of hearing him routinely make light of his (other) booth partner Jack Armstrong’s alcoholism.

7. He could make jokes about avoiding premature ejaculation without sounding creepy, which is hard for a man over 40 to pull off.  Just ask Rick Majerus.

8.  Most importantly, and what probably rang most true for fans in Toronto, the guy genuinely loved his job, and it showed.  In a city that will never find it in its heart to forgive one Vincent Lamar Carter (and rightfully so), that went a hell of a long way.

So we join in with the thousands of others he has most certainly been hearing from these past few days, and say good luck, Chuck, and we’ll miss you.  Be careful in Hicag.  At the very least, stay the hell away from this guy:

*Thanks to Tuna Casserole and Tarmac Waterfall for the help.*

Addendum: We can’t believe we left off the fact that Chuck was the only reason Brandon Roy was not the unanimous Rookie of the Year last season. His vote? Andrea Bargnani, natch.

As editors of a non-profit sports and entertainment blog, we are regularly granted exclusive access to sporting events.  Some sports writers might use this unfettered access to get the inside scoop on professional athletes in their native environment; namely, the locker room. 

But we at Food Court Lunch do things a little bit differently.  We know that the canned answers that professional athletes dole out like homespun wisdom in locker room interviews rarely tell anything about what is actually going in the athletes’ heads. We’ve discovered that you can actually learn more about a professional athlete by spending some time in the athletes’ parking lot, looking at what is printed on their license plates.  It’s like a window into their souls.

What follows is Food Court Lunch’s definitive list of actual vanity license plates of professional athletes.  We leave the conclusions as to what each of the plates actually says about the athlete’s state of mind up to you.

Elijah Dukes: 

Dwyane Wade: 

Frank Thomas:

Terrell Owens:

Derek Jeter:

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While watching the movie The Firm on a recent flight (Air Canada’s copy of The Secret Garden must have been chewed up by the VCR), we were struck by a jarring revelation, not unlike a young girl who has just discovered a secret key to a wondrous and magical garden.

Tom Cruise has been living a lie.

Yes, the world’s most famous actor has saved perhaps his greatest role for real life.  Mr. Top Gun, Mr. Mission Impossible, Mr. Far and Away is a far different person than the one he and his crack publicity team have crafted for public consumption.  You might say he has been leading a “double life” of sorts. 

That is, until now. 

We know your secret, Tom.  And we have the proof to back it up.

You heard it here first.  Tom Cruise is…Ray.

It’s true, Tom is not his real name.  And even more surprisingly, the proof has always been literally right in front of our eyes.  Cruise has (either cleverly or subconsciously) hidden his real moniker in movies spanning his entire career.  You don’t believe us?  Ob-zoyve!

The year: 1983
The movie: Risky Business

The clue: ”Tom” burst onto the scene in the early-80s in his first leading role, playing a privileged teen who gets into all sorts of prostitute-related hi-jinx while his parents are away on vacation.  The film was a big hit, and it announced Cruise to the world as a box-office presence to be reckoned with.  But its real legacy would lie in Cruise’s popularization of a fashion accessory that would sweep North America in a way that it would not be swept again (that is, until the introduction of ironic t-shirts).  That fashion accessory?  Ray-Ban Wayfarers!  Trust us, it gets better.

The year: 1988
The movie: Rain Man

The clue: In arguably his most critically acclaimed movie, Cruise starred as Charlie Babbitt, a selfish, manipulative yuppie who discovers that there is more to life than wealth after taking a cross-country trip with his autistic brother, played by Dustin “Lisa’s Teacher” Hoffman.  That country’s name?  America.  That brother’s name? Ray Babbitt!  Still not convinced?  You will be.

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Last week the Hudson’s Bay Company (or “HBC” or “The Bay” to those in the know) revealed the Canadian team uniforms for the upcoming Beijing Olympics. Given that HBC is the oldest company in North America (it began as a fur trading company in the 17th century), we had initially thought that the uniforms would be done in a conservative, traditional fashion. I mean, look at the Canadian uniform from the 2006 Torino Winter Games:

Ever since HBC was awarded the uniform contract instead of Roots, there have been some questionable choices made with respect to these outfits. How is it going to be different this time? Tell us, Suzanne Timmins, Olympic designer:

“We really brought fashion to the Olympics,” says a chuffed Suzanne Timmins, fashion director of The Bay.

Bold talk, woman. What makes it so damn fashionable?

“We all see Kanye West in this outfit,” jokes Timmins.

Kanye West? He certainly is fashionable. Those glasses he wears are all the rage now. I myself own several pairs.

We were sceptical. Cynical. We were expecting the worst. Instead, we here at Food Court Lunch were blown away the choices made by HBC. Daring, outrageous, futuristic…

ZUBAZ!!!!

HBC made a wise choice with respect to these uniforms. Never mind all of that high-falutin’ fashion talk — put yourselves in the shoes (or pants) of the average sports fan. What would that sports fan want to wear when he’s going to the mall, tail-gating before a game, or being arrested on spousal assault charges? I think the answer is obvious.

When our athletes parade through Beijing’s Olympic stadium looking like a white trash lynch mob, our hearts are going to soar with pride. The Maple Leaf and Zebra Stripe Forever. I have never been more proud of an item of Canadian clothing (except perhaps for that Bolero hat I stole off of Mitsou).

Oh, the uniforms weren’t even made in Canada?

That’s even better. That increases the possibility that the pants are made from real zebra. Either that or some sort of toxic, lead-based fabric. Either way, people will be talking about Canada, and that’s all we really care about.

The following article appeared on the FOX Sports website on Wednesday of this week:

‘Ranger Star In Hospital With Lacerated Spleen‘

Before reading the article, I feared (like most people) that Walker, Texas Ranger star Charles “Don’t Call Me Chuck” Norris had been rushed to the hospital with spleen complications. And, like most people, I cried. A lot. After all, who the hell would now tell poor Haley Joel that he has the AIDS?!?!? Amazingly, my fragile emotional state only worsened when I read the actual article. For I soon learned that while Chuck’s spleen was fine (thank God!), the spleen of the collectivity known as “North American hockey journalists” had come down with a serious case of retard.

Allow me to explain the symptoms. A Google news search for “Avery” and “spleen” brings up an impressive 1,083 hits (now likely 1,084, given that foodcourtlunch.com is heavily relied upon as a source for hard-hitting internet news, as well as tasty cooking tips). You throw the word “star” into that search, and you get an astounding 46 hits. Accounting for those online newspaper publications that snuck the word “star” into their corporate title (kudos to the clever folks at The Windsor Star and The Star-Ledger), this still leaves a disturbing number of “news” articles describing Sean Avery of the New York Rangers as a “star”. A star with a lacerated spleen.

For those who are not familiar with Sean, he’s the guy who did THIS,  THIS, and got dumped by this:

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Grand Theft Auto IV seems to be all over the news this week, with the big question being whether it will make more money than Iron Man. Although I haven’t played a videogame since Pac-Man (technically, it was tabletop Ms. Pac-Man), I’m not much of a Black Sabbath fan so I figured I’d give “GTA4″ (as the kids like to call it) a whirl. Anyhow, the basic concept of videogames can’t have changed all that much since the early 1980s. A set of rules to follow, which will help your heavily pixelated character (typically in the form of a pie graph with a bow) achieve a basic objective (typically involving the consumption of tasty gold pellets).

After watching a short film (I believe it was by Roberto Benigni) about a European immigrant arriving via freighter in “Liberty City” (a fairly obvious take on Chicago), I was left to control this clean-cut gentleman as he negotiated his way through life in his new surroundings. Having performed some fairly unsavoury tasks on behalf of my character’s cousin, my character was offered employment as a cab driver. Finally, a point to this game!

Suddenly, I began to see why the kids were so crazy about this game! My pulse raced as I picked up and dropped off my fares, as we “hacks” refer to them in the biz. Although I mistakenly believed that I had previously honed my videogame driving skills in Pole Position, I found the driving to be surprisingly tricky. Nevertheless, the lessons I learned in Young Drivers of Canada proved to have much more staying power. Some simple ground viewing techniques as I drove down crowded streets allowed me to swiftly avoid the many pedestrians. And Left-Center-Right scanning as I approached intersections also helped me avoid some close calls with other vehicles. Sometimes these law-breakers were police cars! (But, then again, I guess we’ve all heard the stories about how they drive in Chicago… I mean “Liberty City.”) A tip for new players: be sure to go slowly over toll bridges so that you can pay the fare- I accidentally ran through the toll gate and was quickly stopped by law enforcement. Fortunately, I was released shortly thereafter at a police station, with what I can only assume was a minor traffic ticket.

To assist budding GTA4 players, my mom and I spent the evening compiling this helpful instructional video which should get you through the basics:

In short, I fail to see what all the fuss is about. The critics have simply missed the mark on this one. GTA4 is a nice little driving game, which (rightfully) punishes the player (quite severely, I might add) for breaking basic traffic rules. What child wouldn’t benefit from learning these skills in preparation for the “real world”? Tomorrow, I’m planning to take my character out for a well-deserved drink at a place called “Honkers” (I assume it’s the local watering hole for my fellow cabbies). Stay tuned, blog-readers!

A Fruit Smoothie Original

A critical look at the headlines that shape our world

Alleged Jimi Hendrix Sex Tape to be Released: Excuse me While I Kiss this Guy’s Balls?

The funny thing about sex tapes involving American icons from the 1960s (Marilyn Monroe, etc.) is how relatively quaint the action is.  No, I have not watched this sex tape, but I’m pretty sure it basically features Jimi walking around saying things like “groovy!”

Stella, Beck’s Brewer Hikes Prices; Khaki-Clad Upper Middle Class Set to Revolt

Looks like it’s Hypnotiq from here on out for this cat.  Male, white-collar salaried employees, unite!

Prison ‘Starving Me to Death’: 308-lb. Inmate; Warden: ‘Should Take About 12 Years’

Classic story line.  Fatty murders someone.  Fatty goes to jail.  Fatty gets hungry.  Fatty starts lawsuit.  Fatty does one-third of his sentence, gets out on parole, and becomes celebrity pitchman for Subway.

Bye Lap Dance, Hello Laptop, Hello Sticky Keyboard

Oh, those enterprising Eastern European sex slaves and their goofy get-rich-quick schemes!  Did you know that the City of Toronto maintains a database of licensed strippers?  Your tax dollar-bills at work!

Dolphin Dies After Collision at Sea World as Police Search for Bloody Dodge Stratus

We have officially entered “slow news day” territory. Nothing funny here, unless you can picture a poor elderly couple driving away, bickering, and the husband says “Well, I’m sorry, but the darn thing came out of nowhere!”

Miami Heat’s Pat Riley Resigns as Head Coach, Insists that Stan Van Gundy Resign as Well

Seriously, does anyone doubt that Riley’s either going to swoop in on Van Gundy’s job or re-join the Heat once the renaissance is underway?  15 Strong!

Motive Not Known of Special Education Teacher Accused of Taking Students to Motel for Sex; Possible Motive: Gettin’ Some (Really) Strange

My apologies for making light of a horrible situation.  But frankly, the teacher should know better.  Instead of focusing on being a good teacher and getting to school on time, she’s consistently tardy.