I was scanning the scans just now and came across a picture from 1986 in the driveway of the Bridgewater Anglican rectory when Wally and I were two of a bunch of single guys none of whom had many responsibilities in the world. When we got together last Thursday, we brought ten at the table with …

Mike is at it again. Posting about things I wished I had thought of. His post about playground games reminds me of stickball.  •  This was played in one field in Kingston, Nova Scotia in the early-70's behind Jeff Bond's and Tony Smith's houses. We were taught the rules by older kids who drifted …

So, did everyone see Mars? We were out to Charleston Lake Provincial Park last evening visiting Wally and Laura who have been there all week and on the drive home there is was...[turn on your copy of Holst's The Planets...riiiight..now!]...Mars! I suppose in the days before flashing antenna tower …

Mike Campbell has written a very good recollection of back to school as happy. I guess I had more problems with school so the first thing his post reminded me of is that I have yet to have my annual "back to school" dream.  •  Every late August for years it comes.  I am in a class room, usually Mr …

You'd think the Crown would get this sooner or later.  •  As my old law prof, Bruce Wildsmith, has pointed out one more time, we recognized the rights of First Nations in 1761, did deals with them (especially in the Maritimes) as we dealt with other nations, we continued the recognition in theory …

Finally... my first conspiracy theory post.  •  This morning, listening to NPR on WRVO out of Oswego, New York, I heard an interview on the Diane Rehm Show of an author who has written about a city destroyed by a massive explosion in Texas in 1947:  •  “In his book City on Fire (HarperCollins …

I caught this item on CBC PEI today about "aggressive" Newfs selling us west-of-Edmonstonians their mussels.  Bring it on. What the world needs now is more cheap sustainable seafood. Gotta love the reaction of the little monopolist now faced with competition:  •  “I wish (there) was more …

Note to world: it's a "ship'slog" from now on, too.  •  *[etym.: Mid.Web "web (log) english" (1994(7)-2003), "webenglish" (Aug. 2003), "weblinglish" (26 Aug. 2003), "blinglish" (4:37 pm, 26 Aug. 2003); alt.: Hip-Hop usage - see: www.blinglish.com]

While I do not run a blogroll to the side of this page, I do like to read the writings of others and have been happily directed to Discount Blogger, a New Brunswicker in Georgia, and note his noting of another good reason why the oppostion to gay marriage hasn't got its story straight...as it were.

It's a sad day when you realize both your cars suck. The VW has been in the family for ten and a half years. Friends point out that no one I know has owned the same new car for over a decade. From the lot to the wrecker. The van, also a 93, makes new expensive noises every month. Both are to go …

Two interesting announcements from the BBC made at the Edinburgh International Television(?) Festival. First, they are reviewing their website operations which already has 2,000,000 pages and is used by 43% of Britons a month. It cost £72m to run in 2002. [By that price the nine million buck …

While I can't spell worth a damn, I am fond of keeping useful simple words around. Mike Campbell made the following statement on his well written - if somewhat politically divergent from this local norm - blog which I cannot let pass:  •  “While Coady may have used the word 'socialist' to describe …

Two unrelated stories caught my eye which gave me pause while reclining on the chesterfield this weekend.  •  One of the worst of the Boston pedophile priests has been murdered in jail. While there is no doubt a special spot in Hell now occupied by the guy, what really bugs me is how jail can work …

The air took a change today which, if we were still in the Maritimes, would have come after the first hurricane of the season had passed through, up from the Caribbean. Cool and dry. The downtown Kingston market is full of tomato and basil.  Found a locally grown watermelon to eat.  The corn is …

I was looking at a blog I had not read before this morning and came across reference to Keith Haring, a NYC subway artist from 1980 to 1985, who died of AIDS 13 years ago. His images are very familiar. I was especially interested as I spent an afternoon in 1986 walking through an exhibit of his at …

The forces of rock and roll, as this new so-called "music" is known, are taking control of the youth of today...  •  Rather than laugh at developments, I have watched as David Janes of Ranting and Roaring has set up a new bog on Canadian music and music scenes and then given me one of the keys to …

One of the oddest thing about the Canadian understanding of our relationship with the US is the general tradition - except for the David Frums - of distancing ourselves, making sure we are not "too American". We like to be distinct, confident in our way, while being generally respectful but often …

Fellow glider, Mike in Halifax, has paid homage to our hero here at HQ, Brent. Mike kindly points to my tracking of his playlist on CBC Ottawa's All in a Day (to your right, my left) and goes on to praise Brent's days on the overnight show Brave New Waves. I also learned a lot about music from him …

Moving to Kingston from the Maritimes recently, I have started to hunt out blogs in the local area. The best found to date is Chumptastic. Well written, with a sense of humour and about getting on with living in Kingston, it opens a bit of the City to me that I don't get to see: life under 25 …

Odd crimes sometimes do occur. Hope they had lots of batter.  •  “THIEF STEALS 3,000 QUAHOGS - ALBERTON, P.E.I. -  •  RCMP are searching for a thief who struck on the weekend, and made off with 3,000 quahogs, a kind of large clam. The owner of Mills Seafood discovered he was missing the quahogs on …

45 cents. Dad got the 45 cent orange popsicle. Four year old gets the 1.99 ice cream sandwich. Three year old gets the Rollo caramel centre for 2.19 or so. Cheapskate Dad gets the 45 cent treat. Watched the Montreal to Toronto VIA train roll in and out of the station with the kids as melting sugar …

Paraphrasing from a saying about beer, electricity makes you feel like you wished you felt like when you didn't have electricity. Thank God I am a radio nerd with batteries.  •  I am sure the drop in humidity and temperature have as much to do with it but it is amazing what a grump I am without …

All his kids recovering from the blackout of 2003 blackouts.  Only grandkids 1500 km to his west.  Behind my mother's voice on the phone, Dad can be heard shouting out his only real concern: "Who are they playing?"  •  Stenhousemuir, as it turns out, where they, the mighty Greenock Morton, won 2-0 …

Highlights so far:  •  Woke up at 7:57 am. Alarm messed up.  •  Called at 8:01 am. Do not come to work but stand by in case needed by my boss the City to man a phone or something.  •  Watched private golf course across street water fairways 8:01 am to present.  •  Watched Howie Mandel on Regis and …

In the middle of the night, in the middle of the blackout, I have a belly ache. Five hours ago, we ate the chocolate ice cream and cooled the last of the drinks with the few remaining ice cubes as we watched from the 12th floor as the sun went down leaving the City in darkness. Now, Kingston glows …

Home sick, turning on the BBC news site this morning, my world shifted about 2 degrees in some direction. This is the new face of terror? Uncle Louie? The guy who runs the corner store? So much for racial profiling as a tool when Mr. Hooper goes to the dark side. I had Elmo pegged from way back …

Apparently their Federal government has determined that Aussies like porn. Wonders never cease. Apparently, next door to those researchers, others are working on the study "Does the contemporary Australian male like to (a) drink and/or (b) swear?"

I have become interested in Upstate New York, the bit of the US which is now within a three-hour drive from my house. When I was a kid growing up in Nova Scotia, most of us thought the USA was the great Satan or at least, like Upper Canada, a source of nothing that is good. One taste of a beer …

When I was looking through some lps at a second hand shop at lunch today I noticed how fixed in time they were.  Though I bought the Nirvana on MTV album on vinyl when it came out, I think it was 1989 when a couple of Christie Moore lps had last hit the turntable fresh from the shrink wrap, new …

I have never been in on the beginnings of anything but I get the feeling that something is going on. Since my return from the State of Maine with a handful of ska CD's, there has been something between a murmur and a roar on - ok, its very close to murmur but technically I am not lying...  •  It's …

In the BBC's technology pages, there is an interesting article on the confusion surrounding the word "WiFi". An illustrative passage:  •  “Five per cent thought that it referred to a night club, while 2% said it was something smelly that had been left in the sun for too long. Among the other …

Until I lived with Al Jones of Unity, Saskatchewan in 1989, I could not bear hot sauce. Given the choice of burning my insides or putting up with the jeering taunts of this one of Unity's sons, a mad young caffine stoned loud loud loud W.O. Mitchell, libertarian without politics, cousin to …

It was quite the thing seeing TV shots of a very familiar neighbourhood in Halifax evacuated yesterday due to a fire at grain silos down by the South End rail yards. Just a few streets over from the SMU campus, these concrete silos tower over houses on Atlantic Street, one of the last working …

Just when you thought it was safe to go out on the information super highway, we are now going to hear about "fisking" - a new word for a usenet-old practice of interweaving replying within the text of what is being discussed, used often in flaming. For the first round of response it is slightly …

Looking through some boxes last evening, I came across stacks of letters I had saved and there were a few things I noticed.  They pretty much stopped coming in when I got the computer in 1996 and signed on to the information super highway.    Names of those who did not get nerdy along with me in …

Nice to see that the favorite tactic of NS Tories came back to kick them in the pants. The greasy smile that was Premier John Buchanan always held votes before the university students got to Wolfville, Halifax and Antigonish so that they had a hope of holding the seats. Premier "Dad of Kingsman …

Finally stinking hot. Humid and above 30. Maritime Boy sweats in central Canada. Good thing the unhappy niece is here. Good thing I have new ska albums to soothe the baby's wailing. Or cover it up. Wee skanking thing.  •  Ska is the music from the planet of beautiful women. It came out of R+B …

Though it was something of a challenge over beers during a raw oyster eating session - aka "deexpectoration" - I do find myself wanting to learn a few more songs to do wrong to on the guitar. Here are the lyrics - perhaps familiar to some of you - to my first choice:  •  “When I was a kid, I found …

Back. Nice to see the typo twins chimed in over the weekend. I don't know why I don't care too much about spelling but I don't I think it was all the teachers who made so much about it but didn't seem to have anything to say with their perfect grammer. Couldn't have been. That being said, I am …

New Hampshire has redeemed itself. For years bad thinks happen everytime I am driving through New Hampshire - people giving me the finger, getting lost out of Dover because the "Live Free or Die" folk don't like spending on road signs. I only drive through New Hampshire - like New Brunswick. Last …

Being booted off another blog for rue-ning threads, I have made a home for the mystery man on Moncton where he can spout off about anything. I will take him on but this is a dirty fight so you can all jump in too.  •  Later: Feel free to add your own rants here too for general kicking around …