Let’s Talk
Today is Bell Let’s Talk Day, an initiative that makes me proud to work for Bell/CTV. It’s about openness, discussion, the truth and helping people overcome stigmas and mental illnesses. …
January 2018
Cold Nose, Warm Brain
Your nose temperature might provide insight into how hard your brain is working. …
Caught Between Two Schools
Someone in authority recently called me “old school” as high praise because in the old school we put in extra effort and we put on our game faces when we needed to. We followed policy and didn’t make a scene – often to our detriment. Old school wasn’t necessarily the better school, to be sure. …
Out of Site
They say necessity is the mother of invention. It’s also the inspiration for buckling down and learning things you never thought you’d need to know. …
Throwback Thursday – Def Jam
Some people have stacks of concert tickets from their teen years. I can count on one hand the number of concerts I saw when I was young. Growing up in rural Ontario, traveling to a live show wasn’t a top priority. Let’s see, there was Triumph, Frank Zappa – I’m already stumped. Apparently I only needed peter pointer and a thumb on one hand. …
Pea-Shoots and Leaves
Advertising works! We received a postcard-ad letting us know that Mama Earth organics is now delivering to our area, and I made my first order in less than 24-hours. …
How About Them Apples?
I hate my iPhone and now I know for sure that my iPhone hates me. …
Grand Idea
UPDATE: At its meeting Tuesday night, the TVDSB agreed to reinstate its $15,000 funding for Prom Queen. The Board Chair and other members spoke passionately about how the original decision didn’t reflect where they are as an organization. From the Catholic Board: crickets.
People around the world gathered for Women’s Marches on the weekend in protest, and to mark, Donald Trump’s first anniversary as President. They’re fighting social conservatism and a government that values a watered-down version of The Handmaid’s Tale. Hundreds turned out in my city’s downtown. …
Tori Tori Tori
On a recent visit to my doctor, I heard the words that could either mean an emergency or nothing to worry about: “I have no idea what that is.” Lucky for me it was the latter. …
Throwback Thursday – Biker Buddies
We spent some time sorting stuff in the basement last weekend, after the temperature plummeted to -22C after hitting 9C the day before. Bins of papers from The World of Motorcycles Expo are stacked floor to ceiling. As suspected, not all of them have to be kept. …
The Company Name Game
Business names have always intrigued me. Sometimes, I’ll see one that’s so complicated or confusing that I want to stop in just to ask them how they decided on it. …
What Happened in Vegas
The festival of nerds is over for another year. CES, formerly the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, has wrapped after blowing the minds of tech-geeks with its innovations. It’s all about smaller, better, faster, wearable tech, self-driving cars, and futuristic gadgets. And I was there, sort of. …
Living on the Edge
Ken says, never apologize for showing emotion. I’m fortunate that he feels that way as tears streamed down my cheeks from about 8:15-8:30 during Friday morning’s show on News/Talk 1290. …
Judge With Caution
I’ve written and set aside at least a half-dozen columns about the #metoo movement. Most of what’s worth saying has already been said. Then I considered my own experiences and realized I had an unusual one, long ago, that might serve as a cautionary tale. It became my final column before Our London closed its pages for good. I was also invited to talk about it this week on News 95.7 in Halifax. …
Throwback Thursday – Wile E. Coyote
Go looking for Saguaro Cactus in Arizona if you ever want to feel tiny and young, …
Words Old and New
Language is fluid. It evolves and morphs over time, like it or not. Those of us working alongside millennials don’t want to sound like an old fart. I’m not suggesting we adopt the millennial phraseology – egad no – but we need to relate. Many of my peers think it’s up to the twenty-somethings to do all of the work but I disagree; we can meet halfway. To that end there are words and phrases better left where they belong, in the past. …
Related Regrets
Over the holidays, the sister of a London police Constable posted photos on social media. They showed the officer – long before she was an officer – step by step as she dressed up in blackface, tribal-like beads and a colourful dress for Halloween 2006. At the time, she was a teenager who thought she was putting on a costume and didn’t understand the implications of her actions. Now she certainly does. …
#$*&^! Winter
Yes, I choose to live in Canada. Canada has winters. Those winters can sometimes be harsh and this has been a particularly rough one. I’ve done the research and Ecuador has my ideal climate. It also has spiders the size of dinner plates and scorpions as big as water bottles so I’ll stay here and bitch and moan, if you don’t mind. …