Just putting out the idea. Spring will soon come and it’s time to get out of hibernation. 
I didn’t realize that there’s enough Dopers here to constitute a whole DopeFest Toronto Style. I haven’t been here very long but it looks like a large majority of you are from Australia/New Zealand.
This post from a few years ago is a little out-of-date, but it should still give a good idea of where Dopers typically come from. As you can see, the simplest answer is “everywhere.”
The large majority of Dopers are from Australia and New Zealand? Wha?
(Consider this a statement of my interest in a T.O. Dopefest.)
There is a Toronto in Australia, but as my location states “Toronto, Ontario”, that’s not the one I’m thinking of. Though if Lugubrious was kind enough to fly us down there, I certainly wouldn’t mind. I’m starting to get a bit sick of winter.
Well, for once, I noticed this thread the first time around.
It’s a great idea, Sunspace. Toronto Police Service have probably forgotten about our last adventure by now.
Let me see if I can dig out a previous list for ego-surfing hits:[ul][]Booker57 (to meet our long distance quorum)[]Kid_A (to prove that he isn’t only drawn out for HazelNutCoffee)[]Kythereia ('cause she’s a trouper)[]Leaffan ('cause he hasn’t made one yet)[]Lissla Lissar (so that we can see how motherhood is treating her)[]Mahna Mahna (no idea, not sure where this name got added to my ‘T.O.’ people list, sorry)[]Mindfield (another not-done-it-yet type)[]Rick (if he’s on this side of the continent that weekend)[]RickJay (just 'cause)[]Swallowed My Cellphone (running out of trite comments, here… help!)[]Telperien (not even gonna bother)[]Treviathan (good gods, it’s hard to keep this up)Dr_Paprika (if he’s not too busy patching up bullet holes)[/ul]It looks like many of the rest of the names on this list are of people who are no longer around (although I have phone numbers for some of them).
Nah, they’re simply too distracted by the chaos on the roads.
What would be a good time to meet? Weekend, yes, but which one?
It matters not to me, as long as you’re bringing your blonde Scandinavian wife.
Well, actually, it’ll probably matter to you unless you don’t care whether my two sons attend. I know they’ve come along in the past, but they’re 13-going-on-18 now.
So you’re going to be around town and not in Tokyo for the next few weekends?
That would be cool.
(Actually having a wife to bring would be kind of cool too, but no such luck.)
I will probably not be Tokyo-bound until this summer, partially because my Japanese III class starts in April.
New, and located in Tronna, depending on timing - what, exactly, is a dopefest? My wife seems to think you’re going to trick me into meeting you somewhere and sacrifice me to Cthulhu. I told her the people on the board seem to be very much like me, only that didn’t seem to reassure her much…
Sacrifice you to Cthulhu? What a silly idea…
A Dopefest is when we get together and sacrifice [del]one new-comer[/del]some wine to Arawn. Yeah, wine. That’s the ticket. Wine.
Bienvenue, M. le Ministre!
Be assured, we don’t sacrifice anyone to Anyone. We get together and have food and conversation at some pleasant restaurant. If you find it congenial, please feel free to bring your spouse.
At previous gatherings, we’ve even had picnics on the Islands and kids present!
Edit: though not in February, understandably.
Cerowyn, I am indeed in TO. Damned if I know how I ended up on your list either… hmmmm.
So what does a dopefest entail? Based on my short stay so far, I’m worried that this may somehow involve goats and/or squid and/or various other acts that are strictly forbidden in Leviticus.
Leaffan, last time I checked, lives in Carp, which is just outside of Ottawa.
I think you ended up on my list because I obsessively stalk Torontonians on this board. It was that, or I grabbed the names of everyone who posted to a Toronto-themed thread, thinking to myself, “self, this would be a good opportunity to collect the names of some Toronto-based Dopers in case Sunspace suggests a Dopefest.”
As for what a Dopefest entails, in the past we’ve done the following (wow, making use of a LIST for the second time in a single thread…):[ul][li]Tortilla Flats (the now-defunct location east of Spadina)[]Tortilla Flats (the newer location west of Spadina)[]Barbecue on the Islands (as Sunspace mentions above)[]Barbecue in High Park (woohoo for belly dancing lessons…)[]Armadillo’s[]Lone Star Cafe (a couple of times, part of our Tex-Mex phase along with Armadillo’s)[]C’est What?[]Montana’s[]Alice Fazooli’s[]Friar and Firkin[]mumble place on Yonge near Summerhill that we went to with HazelNutCoffee that I can’t remember[/ul]I’ve probably forgotten one or two, since my memory kind of fuzzes out once you go back further than about the winter of 2002. Basically, we meet up, eat dinner, gossip, get to know each other better, catch up on lives lived since the last meeting and then go home. Sometimes, a part of the cadre continue on at a watering hole of some description.[/li]
We have also done multi-day events, such as the infamous summer weekend for which more people came from Vermont and Montreal, so that Booker57 wouldn’t be our only long distance attendee.
I think he was added to the list for the crime of suggesting that he’d be interested in coming to such an event at some point. Or maybe it was just was shared self-pity as a follower of the Leafs.
Hmmm… allow me to express my interest in this particular ritual.
Unless it involves a picnic, since I’m not really masochistic enough to eat outdoors in this weather.
I always want to go to these things and something always comes up to stop me. But I’ll try again this time.
The Squid Is Optional. (And only available if we go to the right restaurant.)
Usually we go to somewhere central, that has enough room. Any of the indoor locations mentioned by Cerowyn would be good. I keep thinking about that buffet (the Shangri-La?) in Little India as well, even though it’s a bit of a trek to the east.