Snowed in, Spicy Noodle House in hand, I am watching the hours tick slowly by. I’m waiting for a bright-white morning where I walk into a hospital and promptly get knocked out. On Thursday, they told me they’ll be keeping me overnight at Victoria Hospital, for what was supposed to be a day surgery. I appreciate their caution, but I’ll be blunt that I am dreading the experience. I’ve been told everyone in my room will snore, and to bring earplugs. Lovely. At the very least, the recovery should give me a chance to think, plan, and blog. (Provided I’m not [...click for more...]

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I could subtitle this post “this ain’t bloggin’,” because a penny for my thoughts, in this case, would drastically overvalue them. My thoughts on this issue are cautious and knotted and not at all leading to a clear bottom line, but whatever, I’m motivated to put fingers to keyboard on it, and this is my space to do that, goshdarnit. As we’ve all heard, the CBSC has ruled that Dire Straits’ song Money For Nothing’s use of the word “faggot” contravenes Canadian broadcast standards. This isn’t really breaking news: the word “fag” or “faggot” has been cut from songs for radio use for ages — [...click for more...]

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I am, right now, as I type this, in the grip of a story that has its hands around my throat, and won’t let go until I cough something up. But I’m not at work anymore. So, in an attempt to rid myself of this foul obsession, a post on something else I am fascinated by: the tale of Ted Williams, the homeless man with the golden voice. Just the other day in this very spot, I was musing on the stories that make a city. And Ted Williams’s story is surely one; the story of a Brooklyn boy fascinated by the [...click for more...]

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If you haven’t seen the highlight reel of the 2010 Winnipeg Free Press Yule Log, I insist you do so. (Goodness I wish that vid had an embed code.) For the record, I think this was one of the most brilliant WFP online initiatives of the year, right up there with the famous (infamous?) Traffic Circle Cam. Here’s the deal: we’re now in approximately year zillion of much international handwringing over the Future of the Newspaper. There are a couple of bright spots — for instance, there was recently an economic forecast that 2011 would be more profitable for newspapers, though [...click for more...]

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