Now that it's Spring, many of us are digging out our trusty aluminum (or iron) steed, and realizing that it needs a thorough tune-up. Or maybe we're getting fed up with the TTC, and looking for a comfortable and dependable human-powered vehicle to take us to and from work. Or perhaps we're gearing up to rip through some trails or roll through some country roads, and all we need is a new bike?

Fortunately, as a city with a healthy cycling culture, Toronto has an abundance of bike shops for cyclists of every stripe, sort and persuasion.

Today I woke up to a familiar, but somewhat forgotten sight: shirts and towels fluttering in the gentle summer-like breeze. My neighbours have set up a clothesline in their backyard! The reason I seem to be so excited about this seemingly mundane fact is that up until a couple of days ago hanging out your clothes to dry would have been illegal for many home dwellers across Toronto. While there was no city-wide clothesline ban (at least I can't find any evidence of it), many subdivisions had anti-clothesline covenants in effect - restrictive clauses that tell you what you can and can't do with your property.

Did you know that running a gas-powered lawn mower for an hour produces as much pollution as driving a car 500 km? I always kind of suspected that the stinky two-stroke engines used in lawn mowers and leaf blowers weren't exactly environmentally friendly, but even I was surprised to learn that they account for five percent of our urban smog. Throw in some pesticides, and you've got a paradox - what's supposed to be a backyard nature oasis is polluting and poisoning our environment.

It's that time of the year again! The sun is shining, the birds are chirping, the roads are crumbling, the fastfood wrappers are flapping about! Can you smell Spring in the air? I do, and it smells like someone just stepped into a big dog pile that has been carefully preserved through the winter by the almost-but-not-quite-record 194 centimeters of snow. Welcome to Toronto the Beautiful!

I love beer. And as a self-proclaimed beer authority, I state that the best beer you can get in Ontario is a product of local microbreweries. That's why Bow & Arrow holds a very dear place in my heart. At any given time, they have up to 27 local beers on tap, usually including several cask-conditioned brews. On this occasion my friend and I kicked off the evening with Black Oak creations: a pint of Chocolate Cherry stout and a cask-condition version of their famous Pale Ale. Both were promptly delievered by our cheerful and articulate waiter.

To find out more about Bow & Arrow, read the review in our Restaurants section.

I am about to move in a few weeks, and I am thinking of leaving the good ole' Bell telephone service behind. Like more and more Torontonians, I am about to ditch the standard phone line for the VoIP technology - the Voice over IP protocol that turns your phone conversation into digital data and transmits it via an Internet connection. The main incentive for the switch is to slash your phone bill - VoIP services are typically considerably cheaper than your standard phone line, and often include many perks such as free call display, voice mail, and other features, as well as low long-distance calling rates.

Well, apparently it's not just us ordinary folks who are eager to embrace new money-saving technologies. The City of Toronto's 5-year $60-million contract with Bell Canada is coming to an end in 2008, and some of the councillors think it will be smart to not extend it into 2009 and 2010. The government management committee is considering the proposal to retender the contract and to save up to $1.7 mln a year by going digital with a VoIP phone company.