I was actually thinking about these the other day and where kids now pick up their copies of Spidyman. They are gone from cornerstores and drug stores. This one is in the Indigo bookstore on Princess Street.

I am having a bit of a time figuring out what to do with myself as a sports fan now that the baseball is over, given the NHL lock-out. I listened to Syracuse lose to Houston in the AHL on WSYR 570 just now. Minor hockey by radio is maybe not going to fill the void, however. There is football but …

My interest in canals has been stoked this week with the delivery of Carol Sheriff's book The Artificial River, about the socio-economic effects of the building and rebuilding Erie Canal from 1817 to 1862. Under a search for "canal blog" I found this wonderful site, Ship's Blog.  •  There is …

Was it because they were measured in troy ounces before?

From the New York Times, 2 October 2004, B18.  •  While I was catching up on my newspapers, I noticed this excellent map from the Weather Report section of the New York Times yesterday. Notice a couple of things. Those little brown patches to the south of Kingston on the US side on Lake Ontario …

From the July/August 2004 issue of Rural Delivery, Canada's best small magazine published out of Liverpool, Nova Scotia:  •  Thanks, Mom.

During my 12 hours in New Brunswick Saturday, I spent the weary hours on the train passing through bog and mill town reading Futebol: The Brazilian Way of Life by Alex Bellos. I put off buying this book due to the amateur cover illustration which I am sorry to say I did not realize was the …

Sometimes pictures of food do not do justice and can look grotesque. But I have a habit of photographing stuff as it bakes when I get the sense things are working out well. Somewhere in a shoebox I have a photo of a cheese soufflé I made ten years ago, all puffed up in the oven.  •  What you are …

I got a pressy yesterday - a new beer book called Brewed in Canada, a 2001 history of brewing in this fair land by Allen Winn Sneath. Thing is - I did not buy it. I saw something on eBay that Melda would like, got it, shipped it, Mel says it is going to a third party so I'll pay ya and when she …