Category: Blog

The city doesn’t smell right. All day long it’s been raining with great intensity, but instead of redeeming the city by washing all the filth away, the rain has just provided it with some locomotion. Toronto is now in it’s fourth year of a garbage strike, and with the rain, the place has become a…

A friend of mine once worked on a fishing boat off the coast of British Columbia. One day, while passing through the galley, she noticed two fishermen sitting at the kitchen table. They had out an old copy of People or In Touch magazine in front of them and were flipping through it. “Would you…

As some of you may know, I suffered a home invasion by a warrior raccoon on Wednesday afternoon. The animal was particularly aggressive, and as Heidi and I were feeling a little under the weather, we were unable to fight, and were forced to take refuge in the front room. It was all a little…

Yesterday was my sweet Petal’s birthday. We had a lovely and romantic dinner out, but sadly, the flowers that I bought for her were kind of dismal. I purchased them on a whim, up on Dupont Street at the Green Times Happy Sauce Chinese and Canadian Cuisine Go-Out Restaurant. They had a little display on…

The first thing that he does is turtle. He turns himself upside down on the sofa and begins a low, steady whine. His father tries to coax him out of this behaviour by calling him “love.” But instead of speaking normally, he puts a British spin on it, “Luv.” The boy has bee-stung lips and…

In 1978, when I was in grade seven, I saw the movie Capricorn 1. Starring James Brolin, Sam Waterston and O. J. Simpson as astronauts being forced to fake a Nasa mission to Mars, the movie was a convoluted mess of conspiracy theories and bad acting. The astronauts, eventually learning that they were to be…

Normal 0 0 1 177 1011 8 2 1241 11.512 0 0 0 Ottawa Super-fan Elizabeth Tevlin writes in to ask: Dear Michael, I have a question for you, as a TV reviewer. I know these are oldish news but still. Lisa Raitt( Conservative Member of Parliament) calls medical isotopes a “sexy” problem and doubts…

At five minutes to twelve he comes up from the kitchen dressed in his now stained whites. The tattoos, which form sleeves on his forearms are still works in progress, waiting to be inked. From behind the bar he stares out hatefully at all the customers, trying to figure out who the dicks were that…

On Friday, Rachelle and I went over to Center Island to have dinner with her aunt and uncle. As we sat by their slip, a large powerboat pulled up next to us. Music that sounded like a typical FM rock station, blasted from the deck. Men, who were getting older then they would have cared…