A toothless, jumpy, yappy streetcar rider -- whose personal grooming could not be described as fastidious -- offered the operator of the northbound Bathurst Street car a tranquilizer, shaking his pill bottle like a maraca.

She turned him down, saying maybe later.

"Did you mean sex by that?" leered the public transit Casanova.

She goodnaturedly shook her head 'no' -- although it may well have been a serious question from him.

"Well I'm going to take one," he said before popping down the pill. "They keep me calm."

The calmness lasted a matter of seconds. A guy got on and sat behind Trank Man.

"Say friend, weren't you going to quit smoking the last time I seen you," he said to the new target, before adding, "I know we've never met before."

The guy snorted, rolled his eyes, shook his head and moved away.

"That's OK," called out Trank Man. "Do what my mother said: Don't talk to strangers!"

Globeandmail.com held an online discussion this afternoon about the process of embedding journalists. Participating were Geoffrey York, who just finished a month-long stint there; Graeme Smith, who is in Kandahar right now, and Christie Blatchford, who has been there.

You can see it here.

I sent in a question that went something like this:

Hi from one of your corporate cousins at CTV.ca News. When I was a newspaper beat reporter back in the day, while I could cover the "news" almost immediately, it would take me a year to start writing about a new subject area authoritatively (which could say something about me. :)  ). However, it seems most Canadian journalists are in Afghanistan for about a month. Would it help the quality of coverage if journalists had longer rotations there? Or does the inherent stress of working in a conflict zone make that unworkable?

Alas, it went unanswered. :)

Five-nothing.

I was working last night and didn't see the entire disaster unfold. But when I checked the score early in the third (3-0) and then saw it was 5-0 a bit later, that made me a very productive CTV.ca writer. :)

Read the Globe story for details, but it sounds like the Oilers fell down in virtually every aspect of their game.

Jussi Markkanen, the designated starter to replace Dwayne Roloson, gave up five goals on 26 shots. That's a save percentage of just under .800, which is pathetic.

I had booked off next week to go fishing, but then again, I hadn't expected the Oilers to be in the Stanley Cup.

If they don't pick up their socks and regroup, I'll still be able to go fishing with a clear conscience after Monday -- which is Game Four.

The things that happen when you're asleep!

U.S. warplanes finally got some co-ordinates on Abu Musab al-Zarqawi that they could use, and now the leader of al Qaeda in Iraq is roadkill -- literally.

I heard CBC Radio host Andy Barrie describe CBC.ca's website as the most popular news source in the country as he put Sue Gardner, head of CBC.ca, through his patented ringer as they spoke about CBC.ca's 10th anniversary.

She claimed 10 million people a month from around the world click on CBC.ca, and that a million pages exist on the site. Gardner didn't say what proportion came from inside Canada vs. outside.

If  that 10 million number is true, that's only because CBC has bundled all its properties together.

In a head-to-head competition for a Canadian audience, however, I'm pretty sure that CTV.ca draws more unique visitors monthly than CBC (disclosure: I work for CTV.ca but don't speak for it).

What's telling about CBC.ca is Gardner repeatedly referring to "the company" (is that how the online department of a public broadcaster thinks of itself?). Barrie asked a nice little question about advertising on the site. "It's a money question, obviously," Gardner said. "The story is nobody's given the company any more money. The Web obviously costs money to create. CBC.ca is probably the biggest media site in the country ... that's got to get paid for somehow."

The only low point she can seem to recall is not being able to serve enough pages during high-demand times (the 1997 death of Lady Di, for example).

I finally learned how many people work for CBC.ca: 160, according to Ms. Gardner.

When I once phoned CBC's "audience relations" to ask that question, the less-than-helpful disembodied voice at the other end had a question of their own: "What do you want to know for?"

They never got back to me with an answer. Thank God Ms. Gardner was willing to reveal the secret. :)

Update:

I was wrong. CBC.ca surged ahead of CTV.ca in the Olympics period in February, but is falling down to a more natural level, according to Media Metrix numbers sent to me by someone inside the CBC.

Right now, CBC.ca has 2.651 million unique visitors per month in Canada, while CTV.ca has 2.279 million uniques. Canada.com is still number one, with 3.024 million uniques.

Meanwhile, Canadian Idol has just started, and as noted by Landru, that tends to push traffic for the CTV.ca domain.

That still leaves unanswered the question of the 10 million worldwide  uniques claimed by Gardner for CBC.ca. Who measures the worldwide audience, and why wouldn't she use the more common measurement of Canadians.

While Andy Barrie claimed CBC.ca was the most popular news site in Canada, I guess it depends how you measure it, but by the CBC's numbers for "top online news sources used by all Canadians," Canada.com bests it.

Oh well, I guess we can all be forgiven our vanities.