You can visit astralradiodeals.com to find out more about this promotion and buy a gift certificate. But you must wait. The more impatient amongst you have no doubt clicked the grey-hued “buy” button in a fever of anticipation only to have that fever miserably dispel with the appearance of that cruel little pop-up: “Too soon! Set your reminder…purchases start Wednesday 10:00am!”

And although I spend my days in my 89th floor penthouse office, often wrapped in a palatypus-fur coat  and wallowing luxuriously in my absinthe-filled jacuzzi, I’ve never forgotten my humble origins. This is why my many important clients notice two unusual items ornamenting the upper-right corner of my desk: 1) a functioning automatous Digesting Penguin from the 18th century (similar, of course, to de Vaucanson’s original Digesting Duck) and 2) a velvet portrait of Mother, a sort of tribute to the velvet renderings of Elvis she so adored.

Anyway, the point I’m labouring towards is this: you should get your mother something nice for Mother’s Day (which is Sunday, May 13th, if you’re wondering). And could anything be better than the gift of sight? Since the answer is no, it’s lucky that the Yonge Eglinton Laser Centre in Toronto, Ontario (helmed by Dr. David Rootman and his sundry corneal specialists) is offering just that at the upcoming Mother’s Day Weekend Sidewalk Sale  held in our neck of the woods on Saturday, May 12th between 10:00am and 5:00pm.

We’re offering the following promotion: book a complimentary laser vision assessment and bring a friend or family member, and both of you will save $250 off laser eye surgery. Plus, receive a free 1-hour Organic Facial with the purchase of any Eminence Organic product.

Wow! $250 dollars off laser eye surgery! A free 1-hour Organic Facial! Clearly, your mother’s eyes and skin will somehow yelp with simultaneous glee should you arrange/purchase these things for her. And you really should, these are pretty fantastic deals.

And that’s not all! There are all sorts of vendors participating in the Mother’s Day Weekend Sidewalk Sale, and they’re offering a whole host of sales, promotions, and tastings. Why not take a look here to find out more?

“But wait!!!” you scream as you erupt out of your beach chair and throw your cat at nothing in particular out of pure terror, ”What if you’re one of the many people who come to the Yonge Eglinton Laser Centre in Toronto for the express purpose of undergoing laser hair removal with the aid of our diligent and friendly band of certified laser hair technicians? Haven’t I heard something about sun exposure being bad for this kind of thing?”

Well, inquisitive reader, your concern is justified and you probably have heard some unhappy reality concerning sun exposure and laser hair removal. But with the summer months around the corner, it bears repeating.

It’s important to protect the skin from sun exposure for 4 weeks before and after treatments. This includes the use of tanning beds, spray tans, and self-tanners. We strongly advise patients not to expose the treated area, and to use sunblock with the highest SPF available (30 or higher), such as the ELTA. Even the slightest tan causes melanin to become active at the skin’s surface. The laser is attracted to melanin. Treating freshly tanned skin would put you at a higher risk for burns from treatments. The more your tanned skin is the lower the energy setting for your treatment, and often requires more treatments than non-tanned skin. To have a more effective treatment it is best to not have a tan throughout your treatment period. Your technician may reschedule your appointment if she determines that your skin has significant dark pigment.

So: if you think your skin is tanned or darker than it was when we last saw you, please give us a call at 416-545-1900 to reschedule.

Now that I’ve sent this warning signal rocketing upwards into the blogosphere, I see that the builders have finished installing my second jacuzzi. *Ascends secret staircase to roof, luxuriates in champagne-filled jacuzzi while still wearing expensive suit* Ah ha ha ha, oh yes, mmm, summer. Oh how I love it. Mm ha ha, summer. *Slides downwards until head is completely enveloped by champagne*

Not so long ago, on the evening of *strategically trails off incoherently, so as to avoid revealing the date and thus the once again sizable gap between blog posts* the Yonge Eglinton Laser Eye and Cosmetic Centre in Toronto, Ontario celebrated its ninth anniversary. Dr. David Rootman, who tempers his medical directorship with a side-gig as the main designer and sole proprietor of local coffee mug emporium Cuppa Dave!, was well aware that ninth anniversaries necessitate the bestowal of pottery on loved ones. Thus all YELC employees received the ingeniously crafted and suggestively interlocking personalized coffee mug set pictured below.

That no-one working at YELC is named Jennifer or Michael was no great hindrance to our appreciation, nor was the fact that our celebratory dinner that evening consisted entirely of nine weird, garlicky snails with a birthday candle stuck in each. We’d like to thank Mr. Slimetrail’s Escar-A-Go-Go for a lovely evening out.

Yes, as I lean back in my less-than-comfortable office chair the moted mid-afternoon light falling through the nearby window becomes a golden path of remembrance. Oh what a crazy, wonderful time these last nine years have been, even though I wasn’t working here for most of them. I remember when Dr. Rootman was a mere scraggly-haired roadie in charge of the laser show for noted all-corneal-specialist Pink Floyd tribute act, ShEYEne On You Crazy DEYEmond. The good doctor still chokes up slightly when recalling the moment he decided to devote his life to medicine: a ragamuffin much like the ones we encountered previously had gained admittance to a concert in Bismarck, North Dakota. He stumbled around the audience, his vision so obviously poor that the Roger Waters and David Gilmour stand-ins rocking the stage to the best of their proggy abilities must have appeared to have been faint blobs. Then, at roughly the halfway mark of “Echoes,” serendipity produced a miracle in disaster’s clothing when a stray laser accidentally struck the ragamuffin in the eyes! But after a moment or two, he rubbed his eyes, rushed the stage, clambered atop the giant model prism situated behind the drummer and with arms outstretched bellowingly proclaimed “Behold! I can see!”* The band proceeded to play various mariachi numbers in celebration  rather than the self-pitying, boring entirety of The Wall as originally planned.

Realizing the true power of lasers, and that his Bachelor’s Degree in Roadie Studies had been a complete waste of time, the then yet-to-be-Dr. Rootman enrolled in medical school and eventually became the greatest corneal specialist the world has ever known.

So Happy 9th Anniversary YELC! Here’s hoping we stick around for another 900, giving the gift of clear eyesight to ragamuffin and non-ragamuffin alike.

* This is not a recommended means of doing laser eye surgery.

Laser eye surgery? Yes. Free? Yes. By winning it? Yes. Really? Yes.  At the Yonge Eglinton Laser Eye and Cosmetic Centre in Toronto, Ontario? Yes. And the winning could be won by me? Yes, all too inquisitive reader, yes to everything!  *twirls balletically, kisses random woman in Times Square, is photographed by undead Alfred Eisenstaedt*

Yes, with the same brio a sailor might direct towards whoever’s nearest upon learning of the cessation of war, everyone between the ages of 9 and 90 has embraced our new online and on-air contest, the result of our fruitful partnership with 99.9 FM Virgin Radio. But there seems to be some confusion amongst the general population as to what this contest actually involves. Peeping downward through the telescope installed on the balcony of my 89th floor penthouse office, I see the contest-mad crowds below engaged in all manner of strange behaviour. Here, twenty-four singing ragamuffins, each with a single letter stitched on their oversized caps and arranged in a line to spell out “YONGEEGLINTONLASERCENTRE;” There, a surly gang of competitive Morris-dancers rocking a YELC patrol car back and forth. I must dismiss my fan-wielding concubines and traverse the vast square-footage from the foie-gras filled jacuzzi I presently occupy to the computer and writing desk I must use to correct whatever misconceptions my inquistive readers may have.

What Our Contest is All About and How You Can Enter It

• Contest runs from February 20th to March 11th
• Listeners can go here and fill out all the stuff you need to fill out in order to enter the contest. There’s a short survey you have to fill out, which you can see below.

• The mere act of entering the contest will get you a $300 gift certificate good towards laser eye surgery. Please note that the gift certificate can’t be combined with other offers.
• One lucky listener will win free laser eye surgery at YELC valued at $6000. This is non-transferable. Must have surgery by June 30th, 2012

Unlike the ragamuffins and competitive Morris-dancers, some people knew what to do from the very beginning. 55 people entered the contest during the first two days! Don’t lag behind – enter now! NOW!

Anyway, the last time I graced this blog with my lovingly crafted words, I posed the following question: who shall triumph in the crowded field of Toronto-centric laser eye surgery-related radiotelegraphy? Will certain of our sundry corneal specialists, namely Drs. Theodore Rabinovitch and Neera Singal, snatch the crown of radio dominance away from Dr. Rootman?

The thrilling answer: sure, why not.  Give them a listen:
Yonge Eglinton Laser Eye Centre 2011-12 (Sponsor Profile-Dr Rabinovitch) by Yonge Eglinton Laser

Yonge Eglinton Laser Eye Centre 2011-12 (Sponsor Profile-Dr Singal) by Yonge Eglinton Laser

You know folks – *adjusts fedora with slip of paper reading “Press” tucked in the hatband* – during my long decades of journalistic offerings to the twin goddesses of my profession – the Laser and the Muse – both the critic dwelling in his ivory tower and the everyman in the streets dyed ebony by its shadow agree that I’ve captured the spirit of our modern age to a degree unprecedented in the medium of blogs having to do with laser eye surgery and cosmetics. But despite the avalanche of plaudits under which my career is buried, I am a humble man and cannot help but cast a jaundiced eye upon my own work. All too often an effluvium of fantastic drivel palls my writing. Sometimes I write about giant lava-proof penguins. At other times, violent Irish saints deemed inappropriate for the site and thus deleted.

*Bangs fist on old-fashioned desk for emphasis* Well no more! From this moment forward I shall only write about that which matters! Namely our mad scrabble to domiante Toronto’s airwaves FOR THE REST OF TIME!

And what a scrabble it’s been. First, we had tamer of lions and follower of Zoroaster Dr. Juliusz Gorecki. Then, NHL superstar Ian White. Now, Dr. David Rootman and certain of his sundry corneal specialists have emerged from the Bunker Philosophicus after three months of intense vocal training and communing with the ghosts of Orson Welles and Lee De Forest on matters radiotelegraphic, an effort made possible by the occult ministrations of Grimsdale Whelpwood Mackenzie, grand magus of The Hermeneutic Order of the Aluminum Sunset.  So you better believe they’re ready for the big time!

Dr. Rootman quickly assumed the title King of Radioland with not one but two radio spots for your listening pleasure. Topics of discussion include:

• How we choose only the finest surgeons to perform laser eye surgery at our centre.
• The role age plays in deciding which treatment a patient will receive.
• The nature of keratoconus.
• How to choose the laser eye clinic that’s best for you.
• The most rewarding surgery that Dr. Rootman has ever performed!

And just what is the most rewarding surgery Dr. Rootman has ever performed? Why not take a listen and find out?

Yonge Eglinton Laser Eye Centre 2011-12 (Sponsor Profile-Dr Rootman 01) by Yonge Eglinton Laser

But it all went wrong when one tossed penguin too many awoke the ire of Kkw’qaatha, Hive Queen of All Penguins. One black Tuesday she roared out of her labyrinthine palace within the bowels of Mount Erebus and dogged us across the Antarctic deserts, all thirteen feet of her lava-resistant body simultaneously taut and supple with wrath. After reducing my chums to a pulpy crimson rash on the wastes of our mirthless continent, she spared me by merely doing away with my eyes with her beak of fangs. But why did she not kill me? With my eyes gone, so too were my dreams of being a professional penguin tosser, and without that, why live? Why live…

Anyway! The point I’m labouring towards is this: inadequate vision can hamper one’s enjoyment of winter sports, especially if you have professional ambitions. So if you were, say, a professional hockey player who wants to get laser eye surgery, you wouldn’t want to trust your faculty of sight with anyone but the very best, would you? Certainly not — which is why Ian White chose to have Dr. David Rootman and his sundry corneal specialists at the Yonge Eglinton Laser Eye and Cosmetic Centre in Toronto perform his surgery.

If you didn’t already know, Ian White is currently a defenceman for the Detroit Red Wings and boasts previous stints with the Toronto Maple Leafs, Calgary Flames, Carolina Hurricanes, and San Jose Sharks. His list of accomplishments rivals that of YELC’s very own Zoroastrian high priest and ersatz-Australian rock ventriloquist, Dr. Juliusz Gorecki, and like Dr. G, Mr. White sought to dominate the invisible but very real kingdom of Radioland when he sat down with Alan Cross of 102.1 FM and AM640 for a testimonial to YELC’s unquestionable brilliance in every respect. Why not take a listen?

YELC – Ian White by Yonge Eglinton Laser

“The surgeons there were fantastic. They made me feel comfortable and safe. I’m still 20/20, and loving life on and off the ice.” Should you have laser eye surgery with us, you will no doubt echo Mr. White’s statements to a silent applause of congratulative smiles amongst family and friends. And for that, inquisitive reader, I envy you — *intuitively faces southward in a pang of melancholy* — It is a feeble present I build atop my ruined past, for the only sweetness I can divine from its parched earth is a single joke I keep using at parties — “Q: What’s black and white and red all over? A: The giant blood-smeared penguin that slaughtered my friends” — and all that prompts are a few nervous laughs and the odd puzzled glance downward into a glass of scotch.

** The Yonge Eglinton Laser Centre does not endorse throwing or otherwise harming penguins in any way, unless they kill your friends and rip your eyes out.

If you’ve ever taken a look at our surgery suite, you may have noticed a rather curious vase of eyeglasses sitting on a table pushed against the northern wall of the room.

“You know, I have,” you say while tenting your fingers and settling into your dark-green overstuffed leather armchair in a manner professorial. “Is it a trophy? Is it there because each pair of glasses is symbolic proof of Dr. David Rootman and his sundry corneal specialists masterfully conquering surgery after surgery, the way pilots and bomber crews during the Second World War used to paint planes and bombs on their fuselages to represent the number of enemy fighters or targets they’d gotten rid of?”

Um…not a bad guess, inquisitive reader, but no, not really. That would imply a level of braggadocio that’s not really our style.

You see, at the Yonge Eglinton Laser Eye and Cosmetic Centre in Toronto, we’re interested in providing people with the gift of improved vision in any way we can, which is what makes our partnership with Lions Clubs International and our contribution to their Eyeglass Recycling Program so rewarding. As their website states:

“According to The World Health Organization, 153 million people have uncorrected refractive errors (near-sightedness, far-sightedness or astigmatism). Most of these vision impairments are quickly diagnosed and easy to treat with corrective lenses.

Still, millions of people in developing nations are pushed deeper into poverty simply because they don’t have glasses. They can’t learn, because reading is difficult. They can’t work to the best of their ability, because they can’t see clearly.”

This is a pretty regrettable state of affairs, but it’s not quite as difficult to amend as one might imagine. After all, it costs Lions Clubs International “less than US$0.08 to provide a pair of recycled eyeglasses and change someone’s life” — and you can be the one who makes that change! If you have a pair of glasses you no longer need, you can bring them to our location at 2345 Yonge Street, Suite 212 the next time you come in for an appointment and drop them in the aforementioned vase. Someone from the Lions Clubs comes by once a month to collect them. You can also drop glasses off at Lions-sponsored collection boxes located throughout Toronto or mail them directly to your nearest Lions Eyeglass Recycling Centre.

If you’d like to learn more about Lions Clubs’ Eyeglass Recycling Program, please visit their website. It’s something we’re very proud to be a part of, and you will be too!

“During the bounteous unfurling of youth every man of sensitivity and intellect surveys all of sublime creation within and without, necessarily becoming an eye all-appraising, a craving manifest — he wishes to be Superman or Cyclops from the X-Men. But as he ages, the ripened wisdom plucked from the fields of knowledge by all from Heraclitus to Kant dispenses with this craving and replaces it with another –  there are many heroes who shoot lasers from their eyes, but it is perhaps the greatest heroes of all who have lasers shot at theirs.”

— Ralph Waldo Emerson —

Were you aware that Yonge Eglinton Laser Eye and Cosmetic Centre in Toronto offers special rates on laser eye surgery for HEROES? No? Well, we do.

For centuries one question has baffled those with nothing better to do: what makes a hero? A hero is not as readily discernable from the slovenly multitudes as one might think. Take the classic example of the caped do-gooder. Sure, he can defeat unpleasant people with names like Dr. Planetcrippler, but his fondness for spandex and wearing undergarments on the outside of his clothing make him an object of ridicule and make us question his sanity. And what about the man who rescues a cat from a tree? He seems like an obvious hero. But what if he butchers this cat and feeds it to a starving Neo-Nazi?

I can sense your brow furrowing, inquisitive reader — these are questions in which a thousand moral entanglements present themselves simultaneously. Luckily Dr. David Rootman and our sundry corneal specialists, great thinkers all, resolved to banish these questions to the realm of answerhood some time ago. They retreated to the Bunker Philosophicus, a spheroid marvel of subterranean architecture dedicated to pure thought, located just above the Earth’s mantle and several miles directly below our location at 2345 Yonge Street. They emerged a few hours later with a definitive list of heroes. Great job, brainboxes! Here is the result of their hard work — and if you’re a member of one of these groups or subgroups, you can get laser eye surgery for $250 off the regular price per eye! Wow!

- Emergency Response Workers

• Police
• Firefighters
• Paramedics
• Doctors
• Nurses

- Public Works

• Ontario Hydro
• Enbridge
• City Employees
• Public Transportation

- Professional Courtesy

• Optometrists & staff
• Opthalmologists & staff
• Physicians & staff
• Immediate family members of above

- Seniors ( age 60+)

- Teachers

- Military

- Students

There you have it. Heroes. And who needs wonky vision if you’re a hero? Come on in and get it fixed for cheap, you wonderful ol’ hero you!