This is not an apology, it's a notification. My Samsung is working again and nobody touched it.
As previously written, my four year Samsung refrigerator stopped working last week and a serviceman was scheduled to arrive at our house Friday past to have a look and charge a lot.
Well something happened that delayed his arrival and eventually he called late Friday afternoon to say he wouldn't be able to make it until the next day.
And then something very strange happened. I got up in the morning and wandered into the kitchen only hear the fridge humming and working perfectly. The temperature lights on the front were back on and she was crankin' at -19 c in the freezer and +3 c in the fridge. Perfect.
Somehow, someway, to my benefit, it re-set itself. If the service guy had come on Friday he would have fixed a fridge that maybe didn't need fixing. His delay probably saved me big time.
I quickly placed a call to the service centre on Saturday morning and cancelled my 74 dollar appointment, and when I hung up my wife told me that the original person at the call centre had said something about Samsungs re-setting themselves with 24 hours.. but ours took 72.
We had a power outage in our area just prior to the fridge shutting down.
Whatever, it doesn't matter. All I know is that my four year old fridge is still working and its one more thing off the to-do list. I hate shopping for big ticket items.
Hopefully this isn't an intermittent problem. I'll keep you posted.
I got up for a pee the other night and it ended up hurting big time.
I know what you're thinking. I'm in my early 50's so it shouldn't be a big surprise that something as simple as having a piss could lead to pain or discomfort. You don't see too many guys under 50 in a urologist's office.
Apparently it comes with hitting the big 5-0, just like an old house your plumbing can become an issue and you have to deal with it.
In my case, now that I've got your attention, I'm happy to report I have none of that.
My painful pee came through my foot. Let me explain.
The other night, I awoke about 2 am following four 20oz Bud Lite's at Riley's in Peterborough during the Team Canada, Germany game.
How does the saying go? Something about a race horse? Anyway I jumped out of the bed I share with no one in the little apartment I have in Peterborough and headed for the pisser.
It's not a tiny bathroom in the apartment but it's somewhat narrow and the vanity sticks out farther than it should, especially with the lights out.
I think it happened on the second step. My right foot came forward and in full stride I hammered the vanity, forcing the second smallest toe to be bent back in a violent manner.
The pain was immediate and it was deep. It actually paralyzed me for a split second before I strung a bunch of swear words together that actually had a nice ring to them.
Son of a bitch prick asshole bastard. Say them out loud quickly and you'll appreciate the charm.
Anyway, when my body stopped vibrating I hobbled to the toilet, drained the main vein and then went back to bed with only a slight throbbing in my foot.
But the next morning, let me tell you mister, when I was my legs out of the fart sack put my feet on the floor and stood up, I nearly passed out. The blood that rushed through my foot made the injured area throb like nothing I've felt before.
I couldn't walk properly, my limp was pronounced and putting a shoe on was excruciating. This happened on Wednesday and it still hurts like hell and several people have told me that I probably broke my toe.
Go to emergency they say, but deep down I know there's nothing they can do for a broken toe and given the wait times in most emergency rooms for things like broken toes, it will probably heal before I get to see a doctor.
I've decided to live with the subsiding pain and look at the bright side.
At my age, it's a whole lot better than erectile dysfunction.
Up at the trailer in the shed I have a refrigerator that has to be twenty years old. It's a General Electric and year after year after year it never lets me down. I plug it in come May and I unplug it come October. No problem what so ever. All it ever does is keep my Bud Lite cold and provide extra space when my wife needs it. Flawless.
At home in Brampton I have another GE in the basement. This good old fella sits there year after year hummin' away doing the same outstanding job that his brother does in Burleigh Falls. Never an argument.
I tell you this so you can appreciate how pissed off I am that my four year old Samsung stopped working yesterday. I bought the bastard in 2006 against my better judgment.
We were looking for something modern for the kitchen and after looking at several makes and models we settled for the cool looking Samsung with the lower freezer and the LCD temperature read out on the front.
I had been told that a lot of the new fridges come with computer panels now-a-days that are unnecessary for the consumer but lucrative for the manufacturers. They're built to last beyond the warranty but designed to screw up long before they should.
The Samsung man is coming to the house on Friday, but I've already been warned - Don't expect it to be the compressor with a five year warranty that has failed; it will be one of those damn computer panels that are only guaranteed for a year.
But don't worry, when it comes to shit like this I'm like a pit-bull on a jerky treat. I'll go after consumer justice and berate the buggers until they stand behind their shameful product. How will anyone be able to stand in front of me and come up with any valid reason why an appliance should die after four short years?
Four years. Hell I think there has been stuff living in the back of my trailer fridge for longer than that.
If there's a lesson in any of this it's to go basic. We all get caught up in the newest and neatest crap that features stuff we never use. I should have bought another GE with no bells or whistles. What a mistake. What a goof ball I am.
Tell me how Dan Duran could have a forty year old trailer fridge that still works, yet there will be a Samsung repairman at my house on Friday for a 74 dollar house call for something that was built in 2006? Tell me now, please!
I can't wait to see how this unfolds. I'll keep you posted.
I received the following e-mail from my good friend John Ellefson who grew up in Buffalo but now resides in Washington D.C.
Hi Freddie:
Hope all is well with you and the family. Gotta say, a little bothered at the new dose of America bashing on the blog. Seems like every time an American, even an ignorant one, disses Canada, our entire population become the "ugly Americans."
I had hoped you knew better than this.
I have known you for many years. I have lots of friends in Canada; matter of fact I consider some of them my closest friends. For many years, we have bantered about the differences in countries, both good and bad. At the end of the day, we do not make sweeping generalizations such as those on your blog.
Should I tell you about the time I walked into a pub in the Big Smoke, and greeted by the bartender with "How can you stand to be American?" I was also given a bunch of sheit at a Blue Jays game once, just because I had New York tags on my car. Oh, and I had a Jays hat on. Didn't seem to matter, though. So it goes both ways my friend. Are there ignorant Americans - you bet. Does the ignorance exist north of the border as well? Don't kid yourself if you think not.
I could easily offer a rebuttal to your comments about Canada being better from economic, health, and standard of living perspectives. I could even throw in something about Quebec. But this American will take the higher road, thanks.
For all the public America bashing that comes out of Canada, I am sorry to say that I don't see the same down here. I can honestly say that I have never met an American that has spoken of Canada in a negative light. Frankly, I can't see why we are so very different, when 90% of Canadian population lives within 100 miles of the US. Guess I am just ignorant too.
You are still invited to visit anytime you would like.
After this, I thought of that punk American who refused to stand for the Canadian athem when I was at a Leafs game in Florida last month.
Americans really should watch this because they should know our economy is better, our people are healthier and our standard of living is superior to theirs.
From CanadianThinker.com on January 31, 2010
"When we were at the Leaf game in Sunrise, a group of kids in their late teens or early 20's refused to stand for the Canadian anthem. One of them, while sitting, went out of his way to mock the anthem and then mumbled a few things which included Canada and the word stupid.
Needless to say, I wanted to lean forward and slap the dumb ass across the side of the head, or at the very least give him a piece of my mind, but I was traveling with my sweet darlin' and confrontation bothers her. I thought.
Afterwards she told me she wouldn't have minded if I'd said something. Like: "Hey goofball, do you not realize that Canada is your countries most faithful ally? Do you not realize that in most of your countries confrontations over the years, Canada has been at your side? Do you not realize that most of the players on your team, the Florida Panthers, are Canadian, so actually you're insulting them?
But I didn't. I simply wrote him off as another dumb American who doesn't know much about the world around him because in his mind, he doesn't have to."
Besides some of the events and achievements that have take place in Vancouver during the Olympics, I find the reaction of the foreign press to be the most amusing, especially the British press that has been relentless in its criticism of the Games and especially the weather.
Needless to say, the weather is a non-issue because you can't control it and from a British stand-point it's grossly hypocritical. Let's see what happens in 2012 when the Olympics are being held in London and there's a very good chance rain will be a factor.
The writers who are bitching about sunshine and warm temperatures in Vancouver will look even more ridiculous.
I look at it this way. By next Sunday, the games will have been held, I'm sure all the events will have been run and all the athletes will have no regrets.
That's all that matters at this point. Believe me, if Canadians taxpayers come out of this with a huge bill, there will be some issues to deal with, but that's water under the bridge that can't be changed now.
When it comes to what Canada is being criticized for right now, none of it really matters and that's what is so maddening about the bad press the Vancouver Games are getting.
I've talked to a few people who are out there and I've listened to reports from people who are working out there and to a person, they don't see any of the problems that are being blown out of proportion in the British press.
The funny thing is, the Olympics are one of those things that really won't change the lives of anyone but a few athletes. No matter what happens, a few days from now the Games will be over and everyone will have returned home and nothing that happened in Vancouver will have any affect on anyone other than a few athletes who will cash in big time.
So really, the twits in the British press should give it a rest because in two years from now the eyes of the world will be on them, and the rain could be falling and the security that will be needed could make it a very unpleasant experience for everyone.
In fact part of me hopes that's exactly what happens.
This is no excuse, but I've been extremley busy lately and haven't had the chance to write much, but that's not to say a lot hasn't caught my attention or pissed me off.
On Saturday for example, the Toronto Star highlighted this articleabout systemic racism within the Toronto Police Force. A desctructive pointless piece that serves to incite many, but help none. Typical of the Star.
I was so pissed off, I had trouble coming up with the appropriate words in the short amount of time I had. I prefer to measure my words in such a case because of all the hypocrites out there ready to pounce and scream racism at every opportunity no matter how slim.
I've been sitting on this story for a couple of days with every intention to write about it, and then take the usual flack from the usual group about being an intolerant grumpy old man.
Then I read Lorrie Goldstien, and he pretty well says everything I feel.
Let's not kid ourselves, last week's by-election in Toronto Centre had little to do with politics, and very much to do with sexual orientation. They replaced one gay man, George Smitherman, with another gay man, Glen Murray.
So when Premier Dalton McGuinty yaks about Liberal Murray's election as a "wonderful way to begin Ontario politics in 2010," take it for what its - bullshit.
As for Murray himself, who became the first openly gay mayor of a North American city when he captured Winnipeg in 1998, don't listen to him either.
Here's what he had to say. "I think people are starting to understand this government is getting elected because it's working hard on real issues for real people."
Who is he trying to kid? The McGuinty Liberals aren't working hard on the real issues for real people, far from it.
What put Glen Murray over the top last week was his sexual orientaton. Beginning, middle and end.
Some might argue that it was McGuinty throwing money at Toronto Grace Hospital in the eleventh hour, but I don't think so, I think Murray was elected first and foremost because he's gay, and believe me, to use an overly used phrase, there's nothing wrong with that, because it's part of the democratic process, just like proroguing is.
If anything, it displays the power of our process. If a group of people organize and work toward a common goal within our system, they can accomplish anything. There is a large gay population in Toronto Centre and they have obviously decided they want another gay MPP so they went out and voted.
Too bad more people didn't exercise their franchise in such a way.
Of course, a devil's advocate could say that it's not good for democracy. They could say a man was elected not on the issues or track record, but elected solely on what he represents from a non-political standpoint - Barack Obama comes to mind.
But again, if that's your beef and you have a problem with it then you're free to organize your own group to counter-balance it. But there rarely happens because if you're not part of a group you tend to be complacent and think your vote won't matter.
Last week's election is Toronto Centre was no reflection of the sitting government, because the sitting government has been an unmitigated disaster and doesn't deserve the support it got and another indicator of this was the missed opportunity of a protest vote.
I'm convinced if Glen Murray wasn't gay, the vote would either been a lot closer last week, or the people of Toronto Centre would have voted in the NDP in an effort to send a message to Dalton McGuinty.
But they didn't because they didn't care as much to send a message as the gay community did to replace one gay MPP with another.
And good for them.
One final thought. If Murray was Conservative, do you think he still would have won in Liberal loonie Toronto Centre?
I had promised to update this blog during my trip to Florida last week, but the hotel in Key West wouldn't allow me to upload anything. Internet access was free, but I couldn't send anything from my laptop to my web platform.
Why, I don't know but Mike Boon told me it's possible for the hotel to block something or other for security reasons.
Maybe they don't want people to make sex videos in their rooms and then send them into cyberspace. Somebody might recognize the wallpaper or something and correlate the hotel with the sex trade. Wow, how's that for a leap.
On the subject of hotel rooms, before I left I mentioned that I was chasing my tail trying to find something before I left. I was using Tripadvisor and it was crazy. Reviews of the same hotel went from spectacular to miserable. I got the feeling that a lot of it was bullshit, but still I didn't know whether to believe the good ones or the bad ones.
Eventually I went outside Tripadvisor and just googled "great hotels in the Miami area" and I came up with this. It's called "The Blue" and it's located in Doral, right beside the famous golf course, about 20 minutes from the beach.
This place was perfect for my wife and I. We're not real beach people any more; we're more interested in quality accommodations and a reasonable price and if that means a few miles off the beach, so be it.
"The Blue" was outstanding. Give it a click and see for yourself. A boutique style resort with spacious rooms, top notch décor including 46 inch flat screen TV's and as I mentioned earlier strategically located to just about everything in the Miami area.
The room equipped with a great kitchen with a full sized fridge, dishwasher, microwave oven that was also convectional, dishes and cutlery, very handy for a fella who tires quickly of restaurant food.
The room also featured one of those "rain showers." Lord liftin' Jesus talk about ecstasy.
I had two showers at day whether I needed the second one or not. The feeling of that heavy water pounding down upon my bloated body put me in a special place. But that's all the detail I will provide.
Hey, if you're ever in South Florida, and you're looking for a place to stay, close to South Beach, Fort Lauderdale and Sunrise where the Panters play, check out "The Blue."
Excellent for 149 bucks a night.
We left Miami last Monday and made our way down to Key West without having hotel reservations, but again, we really lucked out.
While driving into Key West we saw one of those "Information Centers" so I stopped in to get a little advice. Within moments they hooked me up with a great hotel right in the heart of "Old Town." Actually it was break and breakfast style hotel called "Ambrosia."
I had seen it on line but the nightly request was $269.00 dollars and that was more than I wanted to spend. But once I got to this info centre, they recommended the place and the nightly hit was $159.00. We took and we're glad we did.
It was over the top clean and conveniently located with a great hot breakfast as part of the deal. It was literally a thirty second walk to Duval St.
I won't go on and on about Key West, other than to say this. If you've never been, you should go there at least once. It's a fabulous place with a great vibe and superb restaurants, although I'm a little reluctant to pluralize restaurant because we were there four nights and ate at the same place three times.
It's called "Blue Heaven" and it features Caribbean cuisine in an inviting down to earth atmosphere. Most of the tables are outside with a sand and straw floor. While you eat, roosters and cats walk around freely. It may sound gross, but it's actually pretty cool and the food is fabulous, especially the pork tenderloin.
How about some other stuff? I'll move on from the trip, but first I have to mention this.
When we were at the Leaf game in Sunrise, a group of kids in their late teens or early 20's refused to stand for the Canadian anthem. One of them, while sitting, went out of his way to mock the anthem and then mumbled a few things which included Canada and the word stupid.
Needless to say, I wanted to lean forward and slap the dumb ass across the side of the head, or at the very least give him a piece of my mind, but I was traveling with my sweet darlin' and confrontation bothers her. I thought.
Afterwards she told me she wouldn't have minded if I'd said something. Like: "Hey goofball, do you not realize that Canada is your countries most faithful ally? Do you not realize that in most of your countries confrontations over the years, Canada has been at your side? Do you not realize that most of the players on your team, the Florida Panthers, are Canadian, so actually you're insulting them?
But I didn't. I simply wrote him off as another dumb American who doesn't know much about the world around him because in his mind, he doesn't have to.
And I have to mention this. Pearson Airport.
What a joke. When Delyse and I left on Friday the 22nd, we got to the airport two hours and 15 minutes before the flight, but didn't have enough time to pop into Starbuck's before boarding the plane.
Not only was the line at U.S. customs slow, but the security system was worse. I realize it's a new frontier with airport security and there is no room for risk or chance, but at the same time I've gotta believe it could be more efficient. Several things happened that left me shaking my head, and it had nothing to do with the inexplicable high pitched tone that was swirled through the terminal, literally driving most of us nuts.
Interesting, that on flying back, Miami International was much more efficient and speedy.
I predicted before I left that there would be predictable response from the union regarding the sleeping TTC ticket taker. Don't you love it, the union boss actually blamed riders from not making sure the ticket taker was OK.
How insulting. I'm sure if there was indication the guy was doing anything but catching a few winks, they would have responded appropriately.
The threatened strike by teachers at Ontario's 24 community colleges once again raises the point of essential services. To me, teachers are near the top of the list, especially University and College teachers, because of the impact they have on so many lives.
If the college teachers walk out in mid-February, the lives of thousands of kids will be thrown into chaos. So many of them depend on summer jobs to make money to pay tuition and student loans, and if there school year is interrupted it could actually mean the end of school. Summer jobs could be lost if the school year in pushed back and if its lost, it could mean other expenses that a lot of kids can't absorb.
Teachers should not be allowed to strike by law; however short of that, you'd like to think they'd have enough class to consider students before their own exorbitant demands.
The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter.
The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away..
Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed.
The grasshopper has no food or shelter, so he dies out in the cold.
Moral of the story:
Be responsible for yourself!
MODERN VERSION
The ant works hard in the withering heat and the rain all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter.
The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.
Come winter, the shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while he is cold and starving.
CBC shows up to provide pictures of the shivering grasshopper next to a video of the ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with food.
Canadians are stunned by the sharp contrast.
How can this be, that in a socialist country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper be allowed to suffer so?
Kermit the frog & the grasshopper appear on "Any one of a number of CBC Shows" and everybody cries when they sing, 'It's Not Easy Being Green...'
OCAP stages a demonstration in front of the ant's house where a crew of eleven from CBC News films the group singing, "We shall overcome."
Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff condemns the ant and blames Prime Minister Harper for the grasshopper's plight.
Jack Layton & Buzz Hargrove exclaim in an interview with "any one of a number of CBC hosts" that the ant has gotten rich off the back of the grasshopper, and both call for an immediate tax hike on the ant to make him pay his fair share.
Finally, the BLOC, NDP & Liberals draft the Economic Equity & Anti-Grasshopper bill retroactive to the beginning of the summer.
The ant is fined for failing to hire a proportionate number of green bugs and, having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes, his home is confiscated by the Human Rights Commission and given to the grasshopper.
The story ends as we see the grasshopper and his free-loading friends finishing up the last bits of the ant's food while the government house he is in, which, as you recall is the ant's old house, crumbles around them because the grasshopper doesn't maintain it.
The ant has disappeared in the snow, never to be seen again.
The grasshopper is found dead in a drug related incident, and the house, now abandoned, is taken over by a gang of spiders who terrorize the ramshackle and once prosperous and peaceful, neighborhood.
The entire nation collapses bringing the rest of the free world with it.
I've been pretty busy over the past week and really haven't had a lot of time to put finger to key, so I thought I'd do a round up of several things that have been going on lately.
NBC Late Night Talk Show wars - I blame the big brains at NBC for this whole mess. They should have known that Leno wouldn't fly at ten, and they should have known that Conan wouldn't fly at 11:30. I'll cut them a bit of slack on Leno because it was an experiment, but Conan at 11:30 was just too much for the older demographic to swallow. All those body gyrations and goofy faces he made into the camera were perfect for the kids at 12:30, but for traditionalists who grew up on Johnny, Jay and Dave, it just didn't fly. They turned away, and the ratings prove it.
Tiger Woods is addicted to sex - Bullshit! Tiger really blew it by not facing the music right out of the box, like Letterman did. The longer he remains in hiding, the bigger deal it will be when he emerges. By now, it could have been all over. He really should have taken up that offer to be on Oprah. Claiming to be a sex addict is the weasel's way out. He's looking for excuses, and there are none. He fucked up. It happens.
CNN's Anderson Cooper - I love the work he's done from Haiti. Night after night he's asking the same question; why aren't supplies getting to the people. There's food and medicine sitting on the tar-mac in Port au Prince but there's an organizational nightmare that's costing lives by the moment.Cooper keeps asking questions, but nobody wants to answer them. I think it might have something to do with this. The U.S. has taken control on the ground in Haiti, and nobody wants to admit they can't handle it.
Mike Danton goes to school at Saint Mary's - Absolutely ridiculous. To think that he will take the place of a younger, more deserving student is shameful.
The sleeping TTC ticket taker - You watch, there's no way this guy will be fired. It will be your classic union stand-off. I can't wait to hear the excuses as to why he was sleeping on the job. He's got a sleeping sickness, he's got problems at home that have been keeping him up, he can't handle shift changes etc, etc.
Proroguing protests - For losers, and nothing but.
Scott Brown winning a Senate seat in Massachusetts - this is a clear wake-up call not only to Barack Obama but also to all those who voted for him. Obama has been an abject failure as President so far, and although he continues to get a free pass as the great non-white hope, it's becoming abundantly clear that he may not be up to the job. Obama and America would have been a lot better off having him lose the Democratic ticket the first time around and then coming back in eight years. He was elected for noble reasons, understandable reasons, but not necessarily good reasons. Rather rough for the good old USA. Eight years of Bush, and now this.
Ron Wilson - Speaking of free-passes, this guy continues to get one. I just watched the Leafs lose another one in Tampa Bay and it was the result of a gross lack of discipline.
It was Alexei Ponikarovsky who took the stupid penalties, but this crap continues to happen under Wilson's watch. The Leafs are a disorganized mess and Wilson should held more accountable.
Caledonia - Dalton McGuinty keeps trying to pass the buck, but anyone who's followed this mess knows the real issue. It's got nothing to do with native land claims, and everything to do with lawlessness and lawlessness in Ontario falls squarely in the lap of the Provincial government. It's disgusting what's happened in Caledonia and McGuinty has let it happen.
Colleen Walsh - Have you been following this story? The former Canadian newscaster freaked out on a plane last March. She was fined 24 hundred dollars for breaking the Aeronautics Act after slapping a fellow passenger during an outburst on the runway in St. John's Newfoundland. The scary thing is, she blamed it on menopausal exhaustion, and to some degree the judge bought it. Why is it scary? Because tomorrow morning I'm getting on a plane with my sweet little darlin' and heading for Florida and she's going through the same thing as Walsh. With my luck, we'll both end up in Guantanamo Bay
I'm taking my laptop with me, so I'll be checking in a few times from the Sunshine State.
Stay tuned.
I can't take it any more. I've spent the past few days on Tripadvisor looking for hotel rooms in South Florida and its driving me nuts.
I feel like the proverbial dog chasing his tail.
I'll be clicking around on Priceline or Hotwire or Hotels.ca and I'll see a hotel that looks pretty cool. Then I'll go over to Tripadvisor to get a review and I always end up in the same situation.
The reviews go from outstanding to miserable. It seems like half the people like the place and the other half hate it. One person had the time of their life, while the next person was covered in bed bugs. One person thinks the pool is great and he next claims it was a septic tank.
I can't help but wonder how much of this is guerrilla warfare. Some hotels write bad reviews about others, while writing sparkling reviews about themselves.
In the end, unless you're willing to spend three or four hundred dollars a night, which I'm not, the reviews on Tripadvisor only serve to confuse you.
I've stayed at hotels that have been perfectly fine, and then I read their review on Tripadvisor wondering how I missed all the horrible things that people are writing about.
And of course there's another dimension to this. My wife.
If I was traveling with a buddy, I'd be a lot more willing to take a chance on a place if the location was good, the price was great and the reviews were average.
But not with Delyse. It wouldn't matter where the hotel was, if one bug bit her sweet little ars it would lights out, game over, back on a plane to Canada. In other words, I've got to make it count.
And that's why I'm putting a plea out to the wonderful readers of CanadianThinker.com.
On Friday we're flying into Miami and I'd like a place in or near South Beach for two or three nights. Then on Monday the 25th were driving out to Key West for four nights.
Is there anyone out there that's made this trip recently and can recommend some good, reasonable accommodations?
I don't have to be right on South Beach and I'm open to just about anything in Key West.
Do I believe in God? Not really. I can't say there isn't a God any more than anyone can say there is a god, nobody knows for sure, so I don't spend a lot of time thinking about it.
I look at it this way. If there is a God and he's as great and mighty as those who believe say he is, then I've got nothing to worry about.
Anyone so great and mighty and wonderful and pure will judge me on the person I am. He won't judge me on whether I read the scriptures, go to church or pay tithes. If God is so great, he must have the ability to see through all the creeps who use religion as a front while screwing people from behind.
At the same time, he can see the good in those who don't worship at his feet.
But let's get back to the great and mighty aspect. If God is so great and mighty, and "looks after us" what's his beef with the little island of Haiti. What has he got against Haitians?
I don't get it. Haitains are a very religious people, even while their world was crumbling around them yesterday; reports say citizens were screaming out with "Praise for the Lord." Those who survived were thanking the "Lord" for sparing them.
If Haitians are so committed to God why does He pick on them? This little island has had to deal with more than their share of grief.
Bizarre political problems, an overwhelming history of natural disasters, an AIDS epidemic, poverty, a deforestation issue that leaves the island vulnerable to mudslides during tropical storms, and now this earthquake.
If God is so great and mighty, why?
If God is so wonderful, why does he allow this happen at all, let alone continuously to a small defenseless little island in the middle of a sea?
I don't know about you, but I'd love some answers.
As of Monday, January 11th this blog will no longer exist. I can no longer provide a platform for those who choose to continually blast the greatest Prime Minister in our history.
On Monday, this blog will disappear.
Only kidding. In reality I just wanted you to know that while clearing more aggravating spam I accidently deleted some comments. I did not censor. Please feel free to re-submit.
"Fred: Check this out - just a drop in the bucket of what women have had to endure in the entertainment media over the years. Your argument really is ridiculous."
A Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you and yours.
I just wanted to forward a link to an opinion piece from the Windsor Star by Karen Hall. It starts off innocuous enough, but at the last stage supports violence against men. In light of your recent post I thought you may want to have a look at it.
There were a couple of commercials over Christmas that really pissed me off. I assume one has stopped running, while the other continues to make me shake my head at the hypocrisy and double standard.
The first one is that Honda commercial. There are a man and a woman standing at their front window watching another couple in their driveway across the street. The woman inside has what appears to be a food processor in her arms.
The couple across the street is celebrating the gift of a car that the man has given the woman.
The commercial ends with the woman inside showing obvious disgust with her husband that he didn't deliver a gift of the same magnitude, so she takes the food processor, rams it into his ribs and stomps away.
The is wrong on so many levels. The physical abuse, the dominance and the humiliation not to mention the fact that maybe the poor bastard can't afford to give his wife a car.
I realize that we've come a long way, and historically men have dominated women and there was a time that a man could freely and confidently put "his woman" in her place unchallenged, but is that any excuse for what we're seeing on television today?
If men aren't being portrayed as king sized goobers, they're being physically abused by women.
Don't get me wrong, if the hypocrisy angle wasn't there, I wouldn't give a shit, but we're constantly reminded of physical abuse against women so I find it kind of weird that advertisers and pea brained copy writers have taken the recent route they have.
It's like the term reverse racism. There is no such thing as reverse racism. The term reverse racism makes it sound like only white people are guilty of racism, and anything else is simply their racism being turned around, or reversed.
That's crap. Racism is racism.
Same with physical abuse, whether it's a man or a women being abused by a husband or wife makes it equally wrong. At least it should in our new frontier of political correctness. Why is it OK for men to take a pounding on TV today?
The second commercial that pisses me off has a double helping of hypocrisy. It's the Scotiabank commercial that features Cassie Campbell and Jerome Iginla.
This commercial ends with Cassie taking a full tilt run at Iginla and knocking him out of the picture. No problem they're both hockey players right?
Wrong. They would never dream of making this commercial with the roles reversed. There's no way anyone would allow that commercial to end with Iginla plowing into Campbell.
And what adds another layer to this for me, is Cassie. Several years ago, Humble and I were doing a remote at the Eaton Centre and Campbell was one of our guests. Before she got there, Howard and I mentioned that not only was she a great hockey player, she was also very good looking.
Apparently the feminist, judge me for what I am not what I look like Cassie Campbell was offended and told her handlers that she never wanted to be part of our show again.
So I find it amusing, and hypocritical that Cassie would take part in a commercial that displays a woman abusing a man. Remember, they aren't on the ice when this takes place; they're in a Scotiabank branch.
And I won't even talk about Campbell's less than competent performance of Hockey Night in Canada. The only reason she survives is because she's a woman and I'm sure she knows it, which again makes me wonder about her hypocritical side.
I think she'd prefer to be judged on performance not gender. But hey, there's no money in that.
From the Toronto Star - A man who pleaded guilty to second-degree murder Tuesday for his role in a gunfight that killed 15-year-old Jane Creba obviously made some "terrible decisions" four years ago, his lawyer says.
But by entering a plea a month before jury selection was to begin, Jeremiah Valentine, 27, has "stepped up to the plate," Edward Sapiano told Ontario Superior Court.
"He has expressed to me that he wishes he could turn back the hands of time," Sapiano told Justice John McMahon. The plea "speaks volumes about his remorse and while had can never make amends, he's given all he has left -- a guilty plea."
In light of his plea, which has "given the people of Toronto certainty," Sapiano requested Valentine become eligible for parole after 12 years."
The Canadian Press reports that President Obama "left the climate summit in Copenhagen early to get home before Washington was pounded by a record-breaking snowfall that dumped 60 centimetres of snowthroughout the region." The Examiner reported two days ago concerning the Copenhagen climate summit that "Leading up to the event, much of the United States was plunged into a deep freeze. Snow fell in Houston, Denver experienced temperatures 30 degrees below normal and 370 new record low temperatures were set or tied in a three day span across the United States. Not even the summit itself has been immune to the effect as a major snowstorm struck Copenhagen yesterday and temperatures plummeted. President Obama landed at the summit today amid snow falling. Denmark's Meteorological Institute said that the nation may have its first white Christmas in 14 years."
When I was a kid and still believed in Santa Claus, every Christmas Eve my parents would leave something for Santa.
A beer, a smoke and some carrots for Rudolph.
When I'd get up the morning I'd run to the kitchen to see if Santa had been to our house, and it would be verified by an empty bottle of Molson Golden, a squished Buckingham butt and the carrots would be gone.
Never did I consider how hammered Santa would be if everyone around the world had left him a beer, and I didn't think of the consequences of all those cigarettes either.
I grew up to be a non-smoker who doesn't drink and drive. Somehow all the so-called bad influence around me didn't turn me into a reckless drunk with bad lungs.
That's why I get so aggravated by todays over abundance of political correctness.
There's a story in today's Toronto Sun headlined "A cold one for Santa" and it explains some of the shit that's hit the fan over a Labatt promotion for their de-alcoholized beer.
The ad suggests if you want to leave a cold beer for Santa, leave him one with alcohol because he's driving. Rather innocent and marginally clever, but of course the arsholes have come out of the wood work trying to turn this into something it isn't.
Labatt is completely on the right track here, promoting their non-booze product while reminding us that nobody should drink and drive, including Santa, but there are still those who find the ad offensive.
One woman suggests that it sends the wrong message. "Children see that and they think we'd better leave beer for Santa instead of cookies and milk." she said. "I have grandchildren and great-granchildren and I don't approve of it. "Maybe I'm an old fuddy-duddy."
Fuddy-duddy? Yea.
Another whack job, some marketing wizard from York University says this. "The ad breaks the "golden rule" to never associate drinking with driving in a sales pitch. They're positioning that you can have a beer and you're still safe to drive, but they can't control how many of those 0.5% beers people consume. They thought being this lower alcohol would get them off the hook, but I don't think it does. This is a silly ad and if they've got a decent product, it should be powerful enough."
It's at times like this I wonder where we'll be ten years from now. You won't be able to say or do anything without having somebody ready to pounce.
Scenario 1:
Jack goes quail hunting before school a nd then pulls into the school parking lot with his shotgun in his truck's gun rack.
1959 - Vice Principal comes over, looks at Jack's shotgun, goes to his car and gets his shotgun to show Jack.
2009 - School goes into lock down, Metro police called, Jack hauled off to jail and never sees his truck or gun again. Counselors called in for traumatized students and teachers.
Scenario 2:
Johnny and Mark get into a fist fight after school.
1959 - Crowd gathers. Mark wins. Johnny and Mark shake hands and end up buddies.
2009 - Police called and SWAT team arrives -- they arrest both Johnny and Mark. They are both charged them with assault and both expelled even though Johnny started it.
Scenario 3:
Jeffrey will not be still in class, he disrupts other students.
1959 - Jeffrey sent to the Principal's office and given a good paddling by the Principal. He then returns to class, sits still and does not disrupt class again.
2009 - Jeffrey is given huge doses of Ritalin. He becomes a zombie. He is then tested for ADD. The school gets extra money from the province because Jeffrey has a disability.
Scenario 4:
Billy breaks a window in his neighbor's car and his Dad gives him a whipping with his belt.
1959 - Billy is more careful next time, grows up normal, goes to college and becomes a successful businessman.
2009 - Billy's dad is arrested for child abuse. Billy is removed to foster care and joins a gang. A psychologist is told by Billy's sister that she remembers being abused herself and their dad goes to prison. Billy's mom has an affair with the psychologist.
Scenario 5:
Mark gets a headache and takes some aspirin to school.
1959 - Mark shares his aspirin with the Principal out on the smoking dock.
2009 - The police are called and Mark is expelled from school for drug violations. His car is then searched for drugs and weapons.
Scenario 6:
Zamvig fails high school English.
1959 - Zamvig goes to summer school, passes English and goes to college.
2009 - Zamvig's cause is taken up by the Ontario Human Rights Commission. Newspaper articles appear nationally explaining that teaching English as a requirement for graduation is racist. A class action lawsuit is filed against the provincial school system and Zamvig's English teacher. English is then banned from core curriculum. Zamvig is given his diploma anyway but ends up mowing lawns for a living because he cannot speak English.
Scenario 7:
Johnny takes apart leftover firecrackers from Canada Day, puts them in a model airplane paint bottle and blows up a red ant bed.
1959 - Ants die.
2009 - The Mounties are all called. Johnny is charged with domestic terrorism. The Mounties investigate his parents -- and all siblings are removed from their home and all computers are confiscated. Johnny's dad is placed on a terror watch list and is never allowed to fly again.
Scenario 8:
Johnny falls while running during recess and scrapes his knee. He is found crying by his teacher, Mary. Mary hugs him to comfort him.
1959 - In a short time, Johnny feels better and goes on playing.
2009 -Mary is accused of being a sexual predator and loses her job. She faces 3 years in prison. Johnny undergoes 5 years of therapy.
What a drag. Most of the past 24 hours of my life have been spent dealing with a fishbone. Let me explain.
A couple of weeks back my good buddy Darren who's the promotion and marketing wizard at Q-107 invited me to see Steely Dan at Massey Hall.
We would see their presentation of "The Royal Scam" but before hand we'd go somewhere for dinner and catch up on a few things.
We ended up at a little Portuguese place on Elm Street called Adega and as we usually do, we got adventurous with menu and ended up sharing an entire grilled octopus and a European sea bass. We started with appetizers of grilled calamari.
Everything was great but the sea bass was boney as hell. It came as the complete fish, head and everything which meant the young waiter who served us had to de-bone the bastard.
Well, let me tell ya, when you order sea bass don't be fooled by the de-boning process because its still filled with lots of tiny slivers of bone and although I was very careful, one of them slipped through and went down my gullet.
It was one of those weird moments in your life. You're sitting there having a pleasant time and all of a sudden you know something is wrong. As the bone went down my throat my mind started to race. My eyes watered a bit while it scraped the sides of my esophagus and I immediately started to "will" it into my stomach.
In those few short seconds I imagined it getting caught in the wrong place and causing me to choke at the table. I would turn pink, then red and then blue while Darren dove across the table in a valiant attempt to save his doughy little friend.
Darren would scream for someone to call 911 while I slowly lost consciousness hoping that someone, anyone, maybe a doctor in the house would know the Heimlich maneuver and save my life.
So what if I expelled everything that I had consumed in the last half hour and ruined the dinners of all those around us, so what if there was beer, bones, bread and bile all over the floors and walls around us, I would live. My last moments of life wouldn't be spent with an octopus, a sea bass and a women at the next table who was showing way too much cleavage for her age.
Shit, I hadn't even seen the concert yet.
As turned out it wasn't that dramatic. It didn't feel the bone made it into my stomach, it seemed to stop somewhere near the bottom of my throat and although it felt uncomfortable it wasn't going to kill me, not yet anyway.
When the young waiter came back to the table I brought the situation to his attention and he really didn't have a solution but told me he'd ask the manager for any bone-in-throat remedies.
He came back with a big pile of mashed potatoes and told me to take big scoops and swallow them and the bone should go down.
I did, but it didn't. It was still rather uncomfortable while we sipped cappuccinos and cognacs and I was still pre-occupied with the sea bastard that was trying very hard to ruin my evening.
I kept swallowing hard while we walked down Yonge Street. I couldn't tell whether the bone was lodged in my throat or whether it had just scraped the walls on the way down. Either way, every time I swallowed, it felt like a large lump.
As we approached Eggspectations at Shuter St., Darren decided he had to have a dump, something he does like clock work after every meal. I thought I'd go in with him and have a leak but the washroom was small with only one toilet and one pisser.
Not wanting to listen to him bust a gut I decided to pass on the piss and I went back out into the hall, and that's when it happened. Something triggered my gag reflex so I turned around and for some reason went into the women's washroom rather than the men's.
Luckily there was nobody in there to witness by my heaving and gagging and subsequent load of discolored phlegm that was deposited into the garbage pail. My mind started to race again, I was afraid the octopus and sea bastard would try and come up, but not be able to get out because of the bone that might be lodged in my throat.
Perfect I thought, I'm going to die in the basement of Eggspectations. How classy is that? The only upside is that I'd die not far from some of the greatest moments of my life, near the Edge studios at 228 Yonge.
It didn't get that dramatic. After heaving a few times things settled down and I convinced myself that the bone was no longer in my throat, it was somewhere in the garbage pail. I sprinkled some water on my face, had a whiz in the women's toilet, washed my hands and proceeded to the concert.
The concert was great. Except for some big fat fuck with a bald head and pony tail dancing like an idiot in the aisles, it was everything I hoped for and more. Although it still hurt when I swallowed, the sea bastard did not ruin my Steely Dan experience.
It wasn't until I got home and lied down that things changed. I quickly convinced myself the bone was still there and that if I fell asleep it might go sideways and kill me. Although this scenario was a little more attractive, expiring in my own bed beside my wife, I still didn't want to die so I got up at two o'clock in the morning and drove myself to emergency where I underwent some inconclusive ex-rays.
The doctor told me he didn't think there was anything lodged in my throat but the only way to make sure was to come back in the morning for a cat-scan. I quickly reminded him that it was already morning, like five o'clock in the morning, so he apologized and recommended I come back "later" in the morning, which I did.
To make a long story short I went back at eleven o'clock and had a cat-scan at 11:30, but it was four o'clock in the afternoon before I finally got the results. For some reason it took that long for a doctor to have a look and tell me there was no obstruction in my throat.
I felt like leaving a few times during the wait, but again, I was worried that there might be something in there and I had to make a stop on the way home for some batteries and I didn't want to die in a Dollarama.
With a clean bill of health I left the hospital and to celebrate on the way home I bought a big order of jerk pork, no bones, and a case of beer.
But not before calling Darren to let him know everything that had transpired in the past several hours. He laughed his bag off and made a shrewd observation.
"What a great way to get a free order of mashed potatoes."
Part of my job situation right now dictates that I have to rent an apartment and this week opened my eyes to the practices of cable companies.
Talk about frustrating.
I called Cogeco Cable to ask about getting hooked up and by the end of the conversation I wanted to pound my head against a wall.
I should let you know, at home I'm a Star Choice customer and I've had nothing but positive experiences with them.
The Cogeco experience was a completely different story. I went on line and noticed a package priced at $28.99 which was called Classic Cable. It appeared suit my needs except for one thing.
The basic package included TSN but not Rogers Sportsnet. That's a bit of a drag I thought, why would they offer one sports channel yet not the other one. Upon further investigation I noticed that in order to get Sportsnet, which has most of the Leaf games, I would have to step up to the Analogue Value Pack which is priced at $48.99.
Wow. I want only one more channel but I have to spend twenty dollars more and take a bunch of channels I don't want? That can't be right. It's either gouging or a mistake so I placed a call and got my answer.
Wow again. Talk about a company having no problem fucking with a potential new customer.
First of all, it was brought to my attention that if I wanted the $28.99 package, the first month would cost me $78.98. What? How does that work?
The lady on the line was quick with the response. "Well sir, somebody has to pay for the truck to come out."
"What truck?" I asked.
"The technician who connects the line." She said.
"Pardon me?"
"There's a $49.99 connection fee."
"Let me get this straight" I replied. "I want to become your customer and use your service but I have to pay for the initial hook-up?"
"Yes."
"Well that doesn't seem right" I said
"Well that's the way it is sir, somebody has to pay for the technician."
"That's ridiculous" I replied. "I can't become a subscriber until the service comes into my apartment and I really think that's your responsibility, but if its not, maybe I'll look into satellite. They hook you up for free."
At that point she said. "One second sir, I'm going to place you on hold."
A couple of minutes later she came back and told me that if I took a package that was worth almost sixty dollars a month they would wave the hook-up fee.
"But I don't want or need all those channels" I said.
At this point she basically told me to take it or leave it so like most suckers I took a minute to ponder this, I didn't want to pay for the hook-up but I didn't want all those channels so I momentarily considered paying for the hook-up.
"Tell me this" I asked. "If I take the basic package and pay for the hook-up, can you add Rogers Sportsnet to it?"
"No"
"Why"
"Because we don't offer it, if you want Sportsnet you have to take the Value Pack."
"But that's twenty dollars more" I said.
"Yes"
"But I don't want to spend twenty dollars more for one channel. Can't I just buy one more channel; I thought you could add extra channels for a couple of bucks."
"Sir, if you want to buy individual channels you have to take a digital package."
"How much is that?"
"They start at $51.99" she said. "And you have to rent a receiver."
"But that's even more than the $48.99."
"You're right sir, but those are your only options."
At this point I didn't know what I was more pissed off at. Her attitude, the hook-up fee, the separation of the sports channels so you had to buy more than the basic package or the fact I didn't have a pair of rabbit ears.
So here's what I did. I said goodbye.
And here's what I will do. I'll learn to live without cable, or maybe make friends with someone else in the four-plex who already has cable.
"The ruling said the case fit a pattern whereby a Caucasian in a position of authority has "an expectation of docility and compliance" from a black person."
But the questions begs to be asked. What if the black woman had been a white woman? Would the arrest have been OK?
The Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario is a runaway train!
I have a 407 transponder, in fact I have two. This despite the fact I find the pricing and business practices of the 407 to be offensive.
But it's a choice I've made; convenience over principle.
I'm sure you've read recent stories about the highway and the billing screw-ups that have left hundreds deep in the hole and with no where to turn when it comes time to get their registration renewal. It's downright maddening.
A deal struck with the Harris government back in the early 2000's totally screwed the drivers of Ontario and crazy as it seems to a bunch of you, I'm willing to admit it. Harris did a lot of good for the province, a lot of good that Dalton McGuinty is still taking credit for, but the 407 deal was bad, very bad.
Ontarians are left with a convenient highway that will be operated by a consortium for the next 99 years. They want to make lots of money, and to their credit, when it came time to do the deal with Harris; they got everything they wanted and more. The result is thousands of stories of 407 billing problems that have left people owing perverted amounts of money and unable to get their new license stickers until they pay up.
But here's the deal people, I have the feeling that there is more to these stories than a lot of so-called victims are willing to reveal and when it gets right down to it, there is a way that all Ontarians can rebel against the 407.
Stop using it.
I know this doesn't help those who are still with massive bills and no one to help them, but going forward if you don't like the pricing or you're afraid that one day you might become a victim, stop using the bloody highway.
The deal that the 407 got with the province has proven to be iron clad with no loop-holes or options, so the best advice to anyone who's been screwed by the consortium, or those who are afraid they might be screwed in the future is to turn in your transponder and don't use the highway. In other words, the citizens of the Province of Ontario should put the consortium out of business. Stay off the road, dry up the funds and watch them walk away. It's the only way.
I know what you're thinking. Fat chance.
The same advice has been given to Toronto Maple Leaf fans over the years - stop going to games and maybe things will turn around, but for some reason when it comes to getting down and dirty with protests, we tend to turn around bend over and take it up the ass.
I don't plan on handing by transponders in. I've got an account and any charges immediately go onto my credit card so I don't seen how I could run into any billing problems.
I think the road is too expensive, I think the deal they got with the province is too sweet and I don't agree that the consortium should be able to prevent Ontarians from renewing their registration.
But I find the highway to be luxuriously convenient and when I really need it, I appreciate it and I'm willing to pay for the convenience.
There are three things that make my blood boil. Wife beaters, animal abusers and forced marriages - in no particular order I might add, it all depends on the situation.
I got up Saturday morning and went through the various e-papers and happened upon an article in the Toronto Star about forced marriages and it made me shake by head - and of course, made my blood boil.
Talk about infuriating, and from so many angles. In its purest form, a forced marriage is not only archaic and selfish and silly, in most cases it's racist.
Imagine your average white Canadian man refusing to let his daughter marry someone because of their colour or religion? He immediately would be labeled an intolerant, trailer park Archie Bunker asshole. But for some reason, when it happens within the South Asian community, where it's most prominent, there's an air of understanding or tolerance.
Like most things that deal with race and religion in our confused little country, there's always politically correct attempt to understand it as long as it doesn't involve the white guy.
It's culture they say. It's tradition. It's the way it's always been done. Cool, and I'll accept all that if it doesn't happen on Canadian soil. It doesn't make it right that they're still living in the dark ages in India, but there are enough things in Canada to fix without having to worry about a third world country with something as oppressive as a caste system.
In Canada, forced marriages should be declared illegal. Any attempt by parents to force their child to marry someone against their wishes should be reported to authorities and be dealt with severely. This is no better than the slave trade or human trading that every decent society has worked so hard to prevent or snuff out.
Maybe I'm too rational, or I've always been too distanced from religion, but as the human species evolves I can't help but think that rationality should take over in many instances.
In the year 2009, regardless of race or religion or status, the idea of one person forcing another to marry someone against their wishes is simply not acceptable. There is no excuse for it, there is reason for it and there should be zero tolerance for it.
It is wrong.
The stories referred to in the Star article are shocking and we should all take notice because it's happening all around us. Cultural strength within some communities has reduced some children to objects, objects to offer someone else to keep a culture or a race intact, objects to satisfy prehistoric beliefs.
And this should be far reaching. If parents coerce their children out of the country and force the marriage of a Canadian child on foreign soil they should be charged immediately upon their return and the marriage should not be recognized and any documentation initiated to bring the "new husband" to Canada should be dumped into the garbage.
That's another motive of these forced marriages, easy access to Canada.
And let's not try to play games through this. In the Star article the point is made that this problem is a cross-cultural and cross-racial issue. If you want to beat the bushes long enough you can find examples of forced marriage within every race, religion and culture including the polygamists out in BC who are conveniently referred to in the Star.
Of course this is an attempt to draw white boy into the fray, but make no mistake about it, this is decidedly a South Asian practice.
The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in BC is a cult and can't be compared to the systemic practices of the South Asian community. Neither is right, but one vastly differs from the other.
And I have to laugh at the headline of the Star article. "Forced to wed: 'They think they're doing what's best for the child." .... To my mind just another politically correct attempt to justify this on some level.
Anyone with half a brain in their head knows this is wrong and no level of rationale can justify it.
Don't kid yourself, these parents do it for themselves because they're very selfish, extremely intolerant but mostly racist.
Neil Morrison aka Brother Bill from his CFNY / Edge days sent me this e-mail yesterday. Neil does afternoon drive at CFOX in Vancouver and H1N1 has kicked him in the nuts.
Look what it's done to his hair!
Freddie - I have been away all week after contracting the H1N1 virus.
Buddy, it's NOT FUN!
NM
p.s this is the note on my webpage at cfox.com
Update: Thursday November 5, 2009
Greetings.
As you may know, I have been away for the past week. Last Friday night I arrived home and started feeling, 'pressure' on my chest. I thought I was perhaps coming down with a cold. I couldn't be any further from the truth. By Halloween night I was SICK. Very Sick. For the next three days, it was impossible to get out of bed. Hell, it was impossible to do anything! For two days I lay in bed and struggled to breathe. Very close to going to hospital but thanks to a fantastic new wife...(...in sickness and in health!) managed to keep breathing despite a fever of over 102f. Nurse practitioner Sue diagnosed me with H1N1 on Monday. ( She will be on the show Friday if I'm in ) After another couple days, I managed to walk up and down my stairs more than once without almost passing out. As of today - Thursday November 5 - I can breathe and am 99% better. I hope to be back at work tomorrow but that decision is not up to me.
Let me just say this.
If you are thinking that H1N1 cannot get you... and/or you believe the H1N1 Shot, 'Ain't for you'...you are insane.
Get your shot.
Shame on the people responsible for its production and distribution and shame on those who believe professional sport means more than pregnancy and people who work in the medical fields.
I paid a visit to Toronto Mike yesterday and I amazed to read what my good buddy had written on Thursday about H1N1.
Basically, Mike things anyone who doesn't get the shot is selfish and is not being a responsible member of society or responsible parent if they have kids.
What a pile of crap.
I'm not getting the H1N1 because I don't bloody well feel like it. My wife isn't and my grown kids aren't either. We don't want to and we have as much right to this decision as Mike Boon has to his.
What this shouldn't become is a pissing match because believe me, I could write a couple of chapters on how ridiculous I think it is that people who generally seem to be stable, get caught up in the over-blown hysteria of something like this and become freaking imbeciles.
Can you say Global warming?
Let's address a few things. Mike claims that all the doctors he's spoken with recommend that everyone get the H1N1 shot. Yea, so what, big deal - what else are they going to say. It's nothing more than ass covering at this point.
Very few doctors are going to take the chance of not recommending the shot and then having a patient contract the virus, even if they don't believe in it.
Secondly, Mike doesn't seem to think there's much to the theory that this could be part of a pharmaceutical industry conspiracy. Are you kidding me?
A good measure of the entire medical industry is built on pharmaceutical industry payoffs and back scratching. Excuse me for entertaining the thought that millions of vaccinations on a rush order might be making a few people rich along the way, both above board and below.
How about e-heath Mike?
And how about this? Those who think that they should decide for me whether or not I get the shot don't seem to think the long term affects of the shot is anything to worry about - easy for you to say while you're lining up with the rest of the sheep feeling all proud of yourself.
But how about this, ten years ago while I was battling severe back pain I was prescribed Viox by more than one doctor, including one who I trusted immensely. At the time, based on all he knew, Viox was a safe and effective drug. Six years later it was quickly removed from the market because of severe long term side affects.
How about that Mike? Do you think that's a myth? Do you really think I want to line up with a bunch of hypochondriacs or bubble wrapping parents to be injected with something that might actually cause problems down the road - and do it while I'm not sick?
I've been offered the regular flu shot every year for the past decade but I've never accepted, and you know how many times I've had the flu? Maybe twice, for 24 hours. I can live with that if it means not being "cranked" with something I'm not comfortable with.
That's my experience Mike, and that's how I've arrived at my decision.
And of course I have to address this - the young Mississauga hockey player who died last week. I feel horrible about that and I can't for a moment imagine losing one of my kids, especially to something like a flu virus.
But again, we have to keep our heads through this. The death of Evan Frustaglio provided everyone with an example of what "could" happen and probably made a lot of passive people sit up and take notice.
But it still comes back to the same thing. You deal with what's in front of you, you make an assessment and then you make a personal decision, a decision that involves being injected with something that still has an unfinished story.
It's a personal decision and certainly not something that should be criticized or lead to insults from people who are willing to buy into every flavour of the month.
If you want to throw the word selfish around, how about those bastards who showed up even though they knew they weren't eligible. And I wonder how many healthy people have actually contracted something while standing in one of those pathetic lineups.
If you're that worried about the virus put your house in lock-down or wear a flippin' mask when you leave the house.
Get your goddamn flu shot Mike, but leave me out of it.
I got a little bummed out yesterday. I returned from Peterborough for the weekend and after exchanging hugs and kisses and pleasantries with my sweet little darlin' I got back in the car and headed for my local beer store.
My local beer store resides in the Heart Lake Town Centre in the north end of Brampton (insert Brampton joke here) and it's been part of my life since we moved here in 1984. That's 25 years of going to the same beer store, the same Shoppers Drug Mart and the same A+P.
The Heart Lake Town Centre provides a comfort zone for me that I've taken for granted over the years. You use the amenities and presume they'll always be there for you.
But yesterday, things changed. As I got out of the car at the beer store I glanced way across the parking lot and was startled by what I saw.
Where the big letters A+P once were, they were now replaced by a strikingly cold display of "metro'". I was aware that a Quebec company had taken control of A+P and that all stores were slowly being switched over, but that doesn't make the transition any easier for me and it all deals with sentimentality.
The A+P in the Heart Lake Town Centre has been a reference point for our family for a quarter century. In our first house we were half a kilometer away, our second house we could almost see it, and the house I'm in now is about three kilometers away.
A+P was part of our vernacular.
"Hey hon, we need some ketchup, can you whip down to the A+P?"
"We need a pumpkin for Halloween; I'll just grab one at A+P."
"Why would I buy flowers at a florist when A+P is half the price?"
Ring ring. "Hello."
"Fred where are you?"
"I'm on the 410."
"Can you stop at A+P and grab some toilet paper?"
You get the idea. A+P was a big part of our lives. When my kids were young the name A+P was music to their ears. it's where they picked out their favourite cereal, their lunch time treats and hollow fake fruit drinks with absolutely no nutritional value.
A+P. Buns and meat. Cake and tea.
I got to know the aisles, and the butcher and I looked forward to seeing one cashier who was stunningly attractive. All these things were talked about with A+P the constant. But now that has changed.
I could handle the odd aisle change, the retiring butcher and the attractive cashier having a few body parts drop over the years, I could even handle having to use a quarter to release a shopping cart, but I really can't handle the name change.
I will not buy my frozen Lick's burgers at "metro". I will not whip down to "metro" to grab some garbage bags. I will not buy my lottery tickets at "metro."
They can call it anything they want, but it will always be A+P to me.
And I'll still buy my economical game snacks there before going to the "Skydome."
I've had several e-mails from people asking me what I think of news that 27 members of CTV Bell Globe Media will carry the Olympic Torch when it arrives in Canada later this year.
I think it blows, but I just can't figure it out. Of course CTV as the host broadcaster will try to suck as much publicity as they can out of this colossal waste of time because they have to justify the expenditure, but what about the people who've agreed to do it.
To me there are three categories to this thing. 1. athletes, both former and current 2. the public 3. assholes.
Don't get me wrong, if any of the 27 from CTV had registered to carry the torch like any other Canadian it would be a different story. If they had registered like the woman my wife works with or the kid next door and they were chosen, that would be cool.
But this is a dirty rotten, slimy inside job that stinks as bad as one of Neighbour John's farts. It stinks so bad that anybody with any character would refuse to do it.
And that's where I have the problem.
I look down the list and I see Ben Mulroney and I can understand why he'd do it. He loves himself and in many quarters he's considered an asshole, but then I see the likes of Ken Shaw and James Duthie and I know they're solid decent and extremely humble guys and I can't believe they'd buy into this shit.
I realize it's easy for me to say at this point but if I worked for CTV and they arranged this inside job which might actually mean that Joe Smith from Wawa won't get his chance, I'd refuse to do it. I honestly would.
So it ends up begging the question. What gives? Why would people like Brian Williams and Stephen Brunt agree to do this when you know it probably goes counter to everything they believe in?
Were they told they had to? If they were, it makes them look like assholes.
The only people who should carry the torch are athletes both former and current and the public.
Not assholes, neither bona fide or created by CTV.
I won't write much about this because if I started I couldn't stop. It tells you all you need to know about the Olympics and how corrupt the whole process is.
Not that there's anything wrong with it, but don't you think its interesting that of all the things that the city of Toronto bids for, the one it captures is the 2014 World Pride Bash.
Toronto lost out on the 1996 and 2008 Olympics and the city is currently in what appears to be a losing battle to host the 2015 Pan American Games.
When it comes to events of this magnitude, Toronto is taken seriously, but never really taken for real, but when it comes to an event like the World Pride Bash, good old TO ramps to the top of the list.
Not that there's anything wrong with it. (Actually, I'm tired of the saying "not that there's anything wrong with it", but when it comes to the Gay community you have to say it to prevent yourself from being labeled a homophobic arshole.)
Anyway, I found reports out of St. Petersburg today quite amusing because those who were representing Toronto rode the same roller coaster of emotions that the Toronto Olympic Committee experienced while waiting for the Olympic decisions, only this time, we won.
Toronto knocked the livin' shit out Stockholm 77 votes to 61.
To be honest, I don't know what all of this means. I doubt it means a new stadium, a redeveloped waterfront or an athlete's village that will be used in the future to house the homeless, but it's something.
Estimates put the financial injection to the city at about 100 million dollars which makes the cost of ten million look like a pittance. Of course the problem here is that the ten million is real and will come from taxpayers, while the 100 million is a great big guess.
But again, it's something and Toronto is a city that likes to consider itself world class, and if it can't have events like the Olympics, what the hell, have something like the World Pride Bash.
Toronto does a bang up job with Gay Pride Week and I guess you could consider it to be the farm system of World Pride Bash, so now the big smoke has finally entered the big leagues of world class events.
Toronto's World Pride Committee will go after all levels of government for funding and you can't help but wonder what the tone of the backlash will be if somebody says no.
Ah, what the fuck, congrats to all involved, but in the words of my late father Big Dick Patterson, "keep your pecker in your pants."
Peterborough, Ontario - Former Toronto/Calgary broadcaster Freeway exposed himself in the city of Peterborough last night when he sent fellow former broadcaster Fred Patterson and e-mail that said the following.
LEAFS SUCK -You outshoot us but we still beat you. LOL. Your team is bad. Watch out for Gionta, Gomez and Cammy and Price looked amazing."
This from a man who grew up in Montreal and because of that automatically thinks he knows everything about the game. Obviously, he does not. He exposed himself as a hockey fraud.
Yes, the Montreal Canadiens beat the Toronto Maple Leafs in over-time last night, but they were widely outshot, outplayed and outhustled. Goaltending was the difference.
How this turns into "your team is bad" is something only a delusional Hab Fan could explain. It's obviously the ramblings of a Hab fan who is scared for his team which obviously is too small and timid to compete in the NHL over an 82 game schedule.
The ramblings of a Hab fan that's got to enjoy the few special moments this season will offer a team that barely made the playoffs last year, a team that is actually weaker this year than it was last.
The ramblings of a man watched his team litterly ground into the ice last night by a team that he refers to as "bad."
The ramblings of a man who chooses to ignore the Leafs were missing three regulars last night, while the Habs had their full complement of small frys who will slowly disappear as the season wears on.
The ramblings of a man who knows Carey Price, the only reason the Habs won last night, will get worn out by Christmas and have trouble stopping a beach ball again.
The ramblings of a man who will probably respond to this posting by accusing me of rambling myself.
"Aside from hijacking a plane and shooting at several of his 270-plus hostages, Saini lied his way into Canada, has never gained landed immigrant status, faces deportation and by ministerial order remains a national security threat."
"Over the course of the last 15 years, (Canadian) courts and tribunals have declared that he is a danger to the public and security in Canada and that he shouldn't remain," law society counsel Susan Heakes told the hearing this month into whether to accept Saini's licence application to practise law."
"Nobody questions Saini's initiative and persistence. While fighting deportation to India, he earned a BA from York University and a law degree at the University of Windsor, finishing in 2006."
There's a restaurant near my tin palace in the Kawarthas. It's called the Old Bridge Inn and it's a quaint little place with a great service and a superb menu.
My wife Delyse and I paid a visit recently and were directed to a small table for two that was up against a dry wall divider that had a table immediately on the other side. The divider was just the length of the tables so the gentleman next to me was in view, maybe two feet away.
I ordered the seafood linguini with red sauce and it was fabulous. Shrimp, scallops and salmon chunks in a thin spicy sauce served over pasta cooked just the way I like it.
Problem is, I'm the kind of eater what when I leave the table you know I've been there.
It doesn't matter what I eat I always leave my mark. My wife can eat the same thing and leave a table cloth spotless. I leave stains, spills and quite often saliva.
Anyway, on this particular night at the Old Bridge Inn I was quite famished so I dove into my seafood with the gusto of a starving sailor and it wasn't long before my wife made an observation.
The drywall divider was splattered quite generously with thin spicy red sauce from by seafood linguini. It was something to see. Splashes directly on the level of my mouth would have been easy to understand, but some of these splashes were a good two feet above my head. Boy oh boy, was I ever enjoying this meal.
The sauce was thin enough that while I was twirling the linguini on my fork sauce was flying off against the wall. Sometimes while I was lifting it to my mouth portions would fall back onto the plate explaining the higher splashes.
Needless to say I was embarrassed, not quite as embarrassed as Delyse of course, but embarrassed just the same, and embarrassed to the point that I quickly grabbed a napkin and started to scrub the wall.
Not only did this make Delyse more embarrassed but it created more of a mess than I started with.
Stop, said my sweet wife, don't worry about it. Just leave it alone, which I did.
At that point I plowed back into my meal but it wasn't long before I was horrified to see further results of my vigorous eating habits.
It was the guy next to me. I happened to glance over and the entire sleeve of his dress shirt was spotted with thin spicy red sauce. What hadn't been flung against the divider had leaped two feet and found his shirt.
My heart sunk. Assaulting the wall was one thing, but soiling another mans shirt was something I didn't want to deal with. What if he noticed? What if some thin spicy red sauce slapped the side of his face? How would he react?
To that moment it seemed to be OK. He was going about his business like nothing was wrong, so I was safe. I wanted to stop eating to prevent any further damage, but the linguini was too good. I dropped the fork and drank the sauce like soup while I kept looking over at buddy boy.
He noticed nothing. He smiled and chatted with his wife through dessert and cappuccinos and man oh man was I relieved when they got up and left.
It was quite the experience and if learned anything from this experience its this; restaurants shouldn't put tables so close together.
If you read this blog with any regularity, you're probably a radio fan and have become aware that there have been some changes made at CFRB in Toronto.
Among them is another change for veteran Bill Carroll. He moves back to mid-mornings after a couple of years of being Ted Woloshyn's replacement in the breakfast show.
I don't know why this move was made and I don't really give a damn because at the end of the day, it really doesn't matter. The powers that be at CFRB decided this was the best way to go and that's the way it's going to be, so beginning a week from Monday, John Moore (who's never done mornings before) will become the new morning man.
(Good luck with the alarm clock week after week after week Johnny boy. You have no idea.)
I like Bill Carroll. Always have and always will. Bill's a professional and whether the switch at 'RB was made because of Bill's performance or Bill's preference doesn't take away from his ability as one of the elite broadcasters in Toronto.
He's great at what he does and that's why I find it so aggravating to see what's been written on particular radio forum about Carroll over the past couple of months. It's a nasty little website that ranks slightly below a shit stain.
At this point I'll stop down and address what you're thinking. If I don't like shit stains, why do I go there? Because I'm an idiot I guess. I'm playing right into the hands of these jerk offs who are legitimized by being recognized.
Anyway, this place website really has no set of rules. If certain people are attacked, the comments are quickly removed. But if you're not part of the inner circle you're fair game for whatever anybody wants to say about you.
Over the past year, Bill Carroll has been relentlessly attacked on "the board" and most of the stuff has been petty, vindictive, and personal, spurred on through jealousy.
I guess it's one of those brotherhood things. Bill Carroll works for a competing company and at one time worked for a competing radio station. I was on MOJO Radio while he was at 'RB. But that doesn't matter because to me, he's still "one of the guys."
And what does "one of the guys mean?" It means a guy who's paid his dues, put in his hours, experienced exceptional success and knows exactly how tough that journey is.
But instead of showing Bill a little respect, he's been attacked personally.
Admittedly, we radio guys take shots at most things under the sun and we should be prepared to take what we dish, but when it becomes personal the rules change. You move from commentator to weasel.
Good luck Bill. Dive into the new job, kick some ass and enjoy your beautiful family along with everything else you've earned.
I've been debating over the past few days whether I should write about this because it only involves a few cents. But it's the principle that counts, so that's why I've been moved to attack a Canadian institution.
Why the hell would Tim Horton's raise their prices right now? Talk about a slap in the face to millions across this country that have made Horton's the cash cow it's become.
It's a peculiar move at this time. Here we are in the middle of a recession, thousand are losing or have lost jobs and from what I can gather, nobody seems to be getting a pay raise these days.
How insensitive for Tim Horton's to choose August 31st to raise their prices. Again, it's only a few cents, and they made that clear by posting signs for a couple of weeks after the price increase, but that doesn't matter.
Canadians have supported this company like no other fast food chain in this country's history, and they've made a lot of corporate people and franchisees unbelievable rich.
I don't care what their excuse is, given the popularity of Tim Horton's which is blatantly displayed by the constant line-ups at their drive through windows, nobody is going to tell me that they were feeling any kind of a cash crunch.
We all understand there are bottom lines and the new corporate way is to earn, earn, earn regardless of the economic climate, but this one is a little bit different.
If anything, as a thank you to Canadians for helping build this empire to incomparable heights, Horton's should have offered Canadians a price break.
Instead they decided to stick it to us!
From what I understand, McDonald's coffee is a lot better these days.
Hello everyone, it's nice to be back. I've had a lot e-mails lately asking why I haven't been updating CanadianThinker.com so I thought it was time to address it.
First of all, I have been updating the site, but almost exclusively through the audio bits that I do with various radio stations across the country. If I've learned anything its this - a lot of people who visit blogs would prefer to read them than listen to them.
I assume this has something to do with the workplace where it's easier to read blog than listen to it without your boss or other co-workers catching on that you're doing something that maybe you shouldn't be.
The most amusing e-mails I received were from the slithering weasels who like to make something out of nothing because apparently they have some kind of a bone to pick with you for reasons you never really find out because they don't have enough guts to sign their names to their postings.
I've received several notes from people suggesting that I haven't been blogging because Corus Entertainment has instructed me not to. That's funny.
In other words, I'm not writing anything controversial anymore because someone at Corus has decided that as a Program Director, it's not appropriate. How bizarre is that?
If I don't say so myself, I'm still pretty on my radio hits, so why would someone at Corus tell me to stop writing stuff but over-look what I "say" on this site. It's so ridiculous I find it almost painful to talk about it.
But it comes with the territory. There are weasels out there that seem to spend a lot of time thinking this stuff up. I mean really, think about it. I pick up the phone one day and it's someone from Corus telling me to stop having a point of view on issues and stop writing about them on my own website. It wouldn't happen.
It's so bloody stupid I don't think I should spend any more time on it other than to say this, now that the summer is over and several things are in place at work, I'll have more time on my hands to blog. And I will.
I'll get back to talking about things like politics, where Michael Ignatifeff is in the process of committing political suicide by flirting with the idea of an election that nobody seems to want. But we shouldn't be surprised, Ignatieff's power hunger is taking control and he just can't wait any longer. Meanwhile, the Prime Minister continues his steady, rational course and more and more Canadians seem to be catching on.
And don't be fooled by the howlin' over yesterday's deficit announcement. It's a fact of life that all governments have to deal with, the only difference being, that as usual the Conservatives are actually honest about it.
It was a sad week in Toronto. Segregation came to town. The Africentric School opened near Keele and Sheppard, and no matter how you slice it or dice it, in 2009 it's wrong. It goes against everything that Canada is supposed to be about. It's nothing more than a con job perpetrated by those who know the best way to get your own way is to scream racism. In this case it worked. Big time.
I've got admit I'm not impressed with Neil Young. He claims he never intended to be in Toronto on Monday night for a mini-concert to promote his new movie "The Neil Young Trunk Show." For the past week there has been a buzz about him being part of promotion at Yonge-Dundas Square but all of a sudden he claims he knew nothing about it. Knowing the people I do who are connected to this kind of thing, I find this hard to believe. Neil is has always been a bit of a loner, or shy or aloof, I get the impression that in this case he probably just changed his mind.
A good friend of mine opened the Young-Town Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Omemee a couple of years ago and it's a wonderful tribute to Neil and Rock and Roll in general.
Although its in Young's home town, and he's been back a few times, he's never bothered to check out the museum. Seems a bit weird.
On the subject of Jim Balsillie and Phoenix Coyotes, like a lot of sports fans I can't wait for a resolution to this thing and it could take a giant leap forward today. Granted, Balsillie has gone against the grain and tried to come in through the back door, but that's OK. The NHL deserves it. This is a league that has made scores of bad decisions over the past few years and thanks to Balsillie they've finally been exposed for what they are.
And don't kid yourself, the Leafs are a big part of this, which will make it that much easier for me to become a fan of Hamilton's new team, if it comes to that.
The best case scenario would be to have Balsillie with this thing and have the Coyotes out-point the Leafs in year one. I can taste it.
Other stuff. I 'd love to seen George Smitherman run against David Miller in the next election. John Tory is the right guy, but strategically, Smitherman is probably the better choice.
David Miller has been horrible for the city of Toronto. Like Stephen Harper was the right man at the right time for Canada, Miller is the wrong man at the wrong time for Toronto. He has been a disaster. Get rid of the guy.
And it looks like its not going to happen. I've lived in the GTA for all of my 53 years but I never ever went to Bigliardi's Steak House on Church Street. It opened in 1977 and will close on the 26th of this month, and I never ate there. I had the intention many times when going to Maple Leaf Gardens over the years, but for some reason or another, I never got around to it. Maybe it had something to do with the prices. And that's why I won't make a special trip to go there before it closes. I have a problem with paying 40 or 50 dollars for a hunk of meat that I can buy for 12 dollars in a store. More often that not, I leave steak houses unsatisfied.
This story just leaves me shaking my head. This is the result of political correctness spinning terribly out of control and you just have to wonder where it will end.
It won't be long before police officers refuse to stop anyone for fear of repercussions.
I know we all want our cops to be super-human, and it's really cool and fashionable to be sympathetic towards anyone who cries rascism, but in this case, for the sake of debate, I'm going to take the other side.
Was stopping this man a mistake. Yes. Is it worth the shit storm it created. No.
Just think of the job police have to do and the split second decisions they have to make, and to jump all over them, and throw them in front of some bogus Human Rights Tribunal is disgusting.
The Ontario Human Rights Tribunal assumes rulings like this will lead to be better training of our police. In reality all it will do is chase good people away.
I think a very telling line is this. "Phipps, 44, is asking for a financial award in the case; he won't say how much."
After reading this piece I get the impression it's the police who are being profiled.
Mr. Phipps claims his life has come apart after being stopped for a few questions, I would ask what will become of Officer Shaw who's now been labled a racist for doing what he thought was right.
What exactly was Shaw supposed to do in this case? Let your mind run wild for a second and allow that maybe, just maybe he had legitimate concerns about Phipps identity. Was he supposed to forget about it because Phipps is black?
Letting him go because of his colour would be just as offensive as stopping him because of his colour.
We want our cops to be strong, passionate, level headed, clairvoyant social workers.
We don't pay them enough.
"Phipps, 44, is asking for a financial award in the case; he won't say how much."
I can't begin to tell you how pissed off I was to read about the swarming and beating death of a young man in Glamorgan Park on Saturday night.
It's another story about where I grew up and how much it has changed over the past couple of decades and I don't mean for the better.
Glamorgan Park is on Antrim Crescent, which is off Kennedy Rd. just south of the 401. Antrim Crescent is also where my wife's parents bought their first home way back in the mid 70's.
It was 19 Antrim Crescent to be exact, a nice townhouse in a nice location because of its proximity to the 401 and the park. The park came in handy because Delyse (my wife) got a dog named "Summer" and it was the perfect place to let it run.
I remember it vividly because I fell in love with the dog and would often take it over to the park and watch kids playing baseball or whatever else you do in parks.
Or should I say what you "did" in parks.
Back in the mid 70's you could no more conceive someone being beat to death in a park, than you could a kid being knifed or shot at a high school.
Back in the mid 70's if you wanted to play baseball and somebody else was using the diamond, you either waited till they were finished or you asked if you could join in. You didn't leave for a few minutes; gather up a bunch of thugs and return to beat someone to death.
I can't get my mind around this territorial stuff. Make no mistake about it, Kristian Thanapalan died on Saturday night not because he was playing volleyball where some other guys were playing cricket, he died on Saturday night because he had the audacity to step onto someone else's "turf."
Kristian's friends say there were was no build up to the swarming or no words exchanged. They say the guys playing cricket literally turned on them and "territory" was probably the issue.
I realize it's hard for those of us whose family history in Canada stretches back over several generations to get our heads around "territory" when it comes to public parks, but that's where we're at today.
A park that was built with taxpayers money back in the 70's, a park that was built for the pleasure of "all" has become the turf of a faction of a religious or political group from another country half-way around the world.
And you don't just get a "whippin" for using it, you actually die for it.
It's a huge tragedy that 22 year old Kristian Thanapalan died on Saturday night, but the reason he died is even more of a tragedy.
He died in a country that opens its doors to just about anyone who wants to escape conflict and pain in far away places. He died in a country that encourages, often naively, that people from all over the world come together to live in peace.
He died in a country that builds parks for entertainment and enjoyment not "turf wars."
We got back from Vegas at about 11:30 last night so I thought it only fitting that I deliver what I promised.
I said I would take my laptop along for the ride and post updates every day. That lasted just one day because the internet connection at New York New York cost 14.99 a day and it blows hogs.
It was slower that shit and management at the hotel must know because the minute I raised the issue they immediately took it off my bill. What they wouldn't remove was the three dollars a day for telephone service whether you use it or not.
Even if you take a cell phone, or even if you don't touch the goddamn phone for as long as you're there, they still charge your three bucks a day. It's really not a money issue, its more principle.
This is a money issue and shows how are times are changing. On Friday me and my son Danny bought half of a dozen Bud Lites in aluminum bottles only to find when we got back to the room that they don't have twist tops. You need a bottle opener.
No problem, we were in a hotel so I picked up the phone and called room service assuming that someone would have a bottle opener up to us in seconds.
No such luck. The woman on the other end told me they'd be glad to bring a bottle opener up to the room, but it would cost ten dollars and I still don't know if that meant I could keep it. I never got that far in the conversation.
First I asked her if she was serious and then I asked her if it was some kind of a joke and then I don't her that traditionally hotels usually supply things like bottle openers free of charge because it's a service to the people who are paying close to two hundred dollars a night for their hotel room.
Her response was a pregnant pause and then my response to that was to hang up.
Lucky for the hotel putting the bottle to the edge of the bathroom counter and banging down firmly did not leave a mark.
Anyway, on the good stuff, we saw The Beatles Love on Friday night at the Mirage and we all enjoyed this much more than "O". I won't go into the intricacies because it wouldn't be fair to those who haven't seen it.
What I will say is this. If you're going to Vegas and you get the chance and you have a few hundred bucks to blow, take it in. Do it. It's fabulous. The combination music, dancing and acrobatics could turn anyone into a Beatles fan.
As a matter of fact I know a few people who were indifferent to the Beatles before seeing the show and this turned them around big time.
On Saturday morning we rented a car and drove out the Hoover Dam and this was another fantastic experience. We took the power plant tour and they take you to the bottom of the dam and show you how and where the power is generated for most of Nevada and Southern California.
I won't get into the history of the Hoover Dam came about, but it's a fascinating story of taming the Colorado River which through the early part of the century was a cruel beast.
Saturday night we saw Bette Midler at Caesars and to be honest, this show rivaled the Cirque Du Soleil stuff. I don't know what to say, but in the early 70's both Delyse and I loved Midler and Delyse has always wanted to see her live.
Her show was a combination of song and old style Vegas jokes and dance that offered a bonus for our whole family.
My son Danny went to Mayfield High with a girl named Heather Graham who was a graduate of the dance program. She now dances in Midler's show and we saw her perform on Saturday night.
I should also mention that besides the "extra charges" at New York New York, it's a fabulous hotel. Situated in a good spot it has comfortable rooms and an extremely interesting casino and mall that mimics Manhatten.
We had a great time, and as good as "O" was, and as fabulous as "Love" was, and as fascinating as the Hoover Dam was and as fun as Bette Milder was, the best part of the trip was being together with my family.
It's good to get away with your kids no matter how old they are and yesterday was the supreme capper as Delyse and I celebrated our 29th wedding anniversary.
US Airways flight 160 left on time, arrived ten minutes early, our bags quickly came to the carousel and there was cab waiting for us we left the airport.
The weather is hot, although not much hotter than it was when we left Toronto, but the beer is cold and the company is great.
We immediately toured the strip yesterday afternoon checkin' out some of the big hotels while grabbing our show tickets.
Last night we saw "O" by Cirque Du Soleil and although I fully appreciate the technology involved, I've to say it didn't blow me away. After I got the point, I started to shift in my seat and fidget while constantly looking at my watch.
I don't know what to say, I'm not much of a live theatre guy and although isn't live theatre per say, it still didn't reach out and grab me like it has so many others.
Maybe it had something to do with the clowns. There are a couple of clowns in the show, and from what I can gather; they're there to allow for set changes behind the scene.
I hate clowns.
This is not to say that I wouldn't recommend it to people. Just realize that four tickets cost over 700 bucks Canadian, so make sure you're into this kind of stuff.
I expect "Love" to be a lot more entertaining tonight.
Other notes - We had lunch at "The Cheesecake Factory" which is a must-do when you're travelling with my wife in the States. It's a great place with a fabulous menu and you really can't go wrong when you concentrate of their Thai-style appetizers.
We had dinner at a place called Mon Ami Gabi which is at the front of the Paris Hotel across from the Bellagio. You can have dinner while watching the water fountain display in front of the Bellagio. It's pretty cool.
As for the food at Mon Ami Gabi; it was exceptional. Melanie and I had the seared sea scallops while Danny had the trout. Delyse had some thin steak dish that had his crazy good sauce all over it.
One other observation - the skin trade is still quite healthy down here so the streets are full of young Mexicans handing out cards that guarantee that they can have a woman in your room with 20 minutes.
It's bizarre because it's obvious there's a city by-law that says they can't speak to you, so as you walk by they smack the cards together to get your attention and then attempt to hand you one.
It's ridiculous for a couple of reasons. First of all, they all stand in a row and they can plainly see that you refused a card from the person in before them, but they still insist on offering you another one.
It gets to the point where some people just take the cards anyway and then immediately throw them away, which means the sidewalks are littered with cards that prominently display topless women in suggestive poses. It's pathetic really.
The whole concept is bizarre. As I said to Danny, "do these guys think that just because they hand me a card I'm going to all of a sudden decide to have a hooker come to my room?"
I think having a hooker come to your room is something that takes a little more contemplation and preparation. I mean really, if I want a hooker in my room I don't think the revelation is going to be made while walking down the street and having some teenager hand me a card.
If I'm going to have a hooker come to my room I'd ask Delyse first and then probably do it over the phone.
Like I've done many times over the past couple of years since I've started this blog, I'm going to take you on the road with me again.
This time to Las Vegas, where me, my wife Delyse and my two kids Melanie and Danny will spend three nights and four days on the strip this weekend where we'll see three shows and maybe take a side trip to the Hoover Dam.
The main reason for making this trip is to see "LOVE" by Cirque du Soleil at the Mirage on Friday night, but we'll also see "O" by Cirque du Soleil on Thursday night at the Bellagio and Bette Midler at Caesars Palace on Saturday night.
Delyse and I have always loved the Beatles and the constant sound of the fab four in our house over the years turned the kids into huge fans as well.
Ask either one of my kids what the greatest song ever written is and chances are very good they'll say "Imagine", because it's been drilled into their heads since they were old enough to think.
However, if they say "In My Life" instead, then I'll cut them some slack.
Delyse and I have taken many trips "without" the kids, but going to Las Vegas to see "LOVE" was something that we always designated as a family trip..... and thanks to a fortunate series of events over the past few weeks it all came together.
And I know what some of you are thinking, Bette Midler?
Sorry, but Delyse and Melanie absolutely adore Bette, and I'm not far behind. Her 1970's album "The Devine Miss M" remains one of my favourites.
So Thursday morning we'll be hopping a US Airways flight out of Pearson to spend a very busy four days in a pretty cool place, but I don't mean cool literally because it supposed to be close to 40 degrees celcius while we're there.
I think me and Dan will have some beers while we're there.
I'll take my nifty little Nikon with me and send back a daily report.
"I still have never florched. I have great sphincter control. I have come close a couple of times, but never has there been a stain on my shorts. I don't care if you don't beleive me."
"At this point I'm getting so old that I've probably florched but I've
forgotten..that or my normal wiping is so haphazard that there's always
a bit of doo doo in my undies.
Nice seeing you the other day..your son's a prince."
You can now watch the video from our podcast of memories by clicking right here.
The video was filmed by two gentlemen who deserve a great deal of credit. Ric from ACME Pictures took video and put together this video with Dan Duran's audio and @geoperdis took additional video that helped flesh out this piece.
Thanks to all, and be sure to talk to ACME about all your corporate video and television production needs.
Freddie P is done. This site used to be exciting, controversial, thought provoking etc etc....it just plain stinks now.
Sammi
I agree with you guys, I believe this blog has run it's course. I think a lot of people have switched over to twittering. Of course, it doesn`t help that Freddie P can no longer post on a daily basis for whatever reason.
BobB
Geez thanks guys. I guess it doesn't matter that I explain the situation a posting above, because like anything else, there are always people ready to jump.
Let me put it this way. This blog is like a radio station. Nobody is forcing you to listen or read. I do what I can when I can, but nowadays I'm spread pretty thin with other committments.
But let me add this. From the outset I've always maintained that the purpose of this blog was to allow me to exercise whatever writing skills I have. To stay in shape so to speak, and from that standpoint it has served its purpose.
I've tried to stay current with the audio bits, but apparently that's not good enough.
If you think this blog sucks Dougie, then don't come here. If you think it stinks Sammi then I can only hope that when it didn't stink I gave you some entertianment. And sorry, BobbyB, but this blog hasn't run its course because I'll continue to write when I have the time and the urge.
If it cost you something you might have an argument.
In a nutshell fellas, bite my clank and call me Henry.
After repeated, vigorous cuts through the flesh the Queen's representative turned to the woman beside her and asked enthusiastically: "Could I try the heart?" - Afterward she grabbed a tissue to wipe clean her blood-soaked fingers.
Dani Stover is a friend and the producer of the Dean Blundell Show on 102.1 The Edge.
Here is one of her blog entries from last week... It's fantastic!... She's a darlin'.
Hi everyone!
So I'm going to let you all in on a little secret... well, it's not a secret really, but something I want to share. It's something that I've been dealing with for quite some time - a few years, at least. It's depression! Yay ME!
The reason I feel the need to be open about this condition is because, with clinical depression comes a lot of stigma. And there's no need for it. One in five people suffer from some sort of depression. And I'm not talking about occasional sadness or periods of feeling distressed or miserable. I'm talking about feeling day-to-day sadness, anxiety, pessimism and helplessness.
Now I realize I have a lot to be thankful for, and happy about. And if it were only that easy... well, then I wouldn't be writing this blog.
But think of it this way: if you had (or have) diabetes, you would be expected to do something about it. People wouldn't typically judge you for having to take insulin everyday. Depression is, for all intents and purposes, the same thing. Good mental health is just as important as good physical health - it's essential to a balanced lifestyle.
I read a statistic that says only one in three depressed women will seek professional help and though women experience depression twice as often as men, men are three times more likely to commit suicide.
Depression is said to be genetic, and I have reason to believe that several of my family members had or do suffer from it. But I find the more you talk about it, and share your stories with other people, the more you find that you're not alone. One of the most important things is sustaining a strong support system and encouraging positive relationships.
That's where I'm pretty lucky. I love my job, and I work with really cool people. I have a great family and terrific friends. I live downtown and I am experiencing the wonderful things Toronto has to offer, but it's not always as easy as simply counting your blessings and snapping out of the funk.
There are a lot of great web sites out there with a lot of really useful information - and being informed is the first step towards feeling better, whether it's you who is suffering, or someone you care about.
So I want to reduce the stigma behind depression. It's more common than you think, and there's no shame in asking for help or sharing your stories with others!
I'm not alone here, am I? Start talking - you might be surprised how good it feels to share with people who are feeling the same way you do!
Anyways, I hope this blog entry isn't too boring. I have just been feeling a little low lately, and I thought, why not share that with you guys! You lucky bastards... :)
Be happy and be safe!
By the way Dani, it was great to see you at the Humble and Fred 20th Anniversary Podcast of Memories.
Part of my house stinks, my car stinks a bit and my garage stinks a lot.
On Monday night as my daughter Melanie and her boyfriend Josh were leaving the house, their dog "Bones" ran into my open garage and tangled with a skunk.
It was about eleven o'clock and the skunk, who reportedly lives beneath Neighbour John's front porch, decided to visit the my garbage restaurant and was in the midst of enjoying some rotting leftovers when Bones bounded out of the house, got the scent of the skunk and did what any dog would do, he went after it.
Unfortunately the skunked was in the corner of the garage where I have some hardwood flooring stacked and although he directed most his vile spray into the face and down the throat of Bones, some of it made contact with the wood, and that's bad news.
Skunk spray isn't too bad if it's just in the air, but when it makes contact with something, it's a whole different story.
That's why Bones got an immediate scrub down and two days later still stinks in the head region and probably will for the next several days.
Although, I should tell you this, it could be worse. Immediately after the incident happened on Monday night, we scrambled for something to use on the dog but we never have tomato juice in the house, and it's supposedly the best thing for skunk spray.
But we did have some Ragu Spaghetti sauce with extra garlic.
Melanie took Bones into the backyard and dumped the jar over his back and worked its entire contents into Bone's fur. At first the dog didn't like it, but then he got the whiff of garlic and tomatoes and thought he had gone to heaven.
What dog wouldn't want to be bathed in something that smells like humans eat? Hell, there are a lot of food stuffs I'd love to be bathed in, with the caramel-chocolate mousse cake that I got my wife for her birthday at the top of the list.
Anyway, Bones laid pack and enjoyed the scrub down, but he wasn't so keen about the rinse off with the cold water from the garden hose.
But I'll tell ya, the Ragu made a big difference. Obviously the tomato base was a factor, but we really think the garlic had something to do with it as well. The skunk juice made a direct hit to the head, but having the entire dog covered in Ragu Spaghetti sauce with extra garlic balanced the odour enough for Melanie and Josh to put Bones in the car and head back to the city.
Yesterday the expected happened, Melanie went to a grooming place and they sold her a super expensive bottle of something that is probably nothing more than dish soap in a fancy bottle, but hey, that's part of owning a dog - getting ripped off by groomers and vets.
Last I heard, Bones was doing fine. The initial shock of the skunk hit freaked him out, but by yesterday afternoon he was lying comfortably in the backyard licking his balls like he's never licked his balls before.
And the byline says this. 'When Hamilton was going to get a hockey team, he made a statement' so why not now?
Can I answer that?
Because he doesn't have to and maybe he doesn't want to. Please, will somebody pinch me and tell me this is nothing more than a bizarro dream.
The Canadian Tamil Congress holds a news conference in Toronto and insists that our Prime Minister responds to their demands? It's too much to comprehend.
And then they use the Hamilton hockey angle? Are you kidding me?
Here's the deal Mr. and Mrs. Tamil, he's the Prime Minister of Canada and to the vast majority of Canadians, whether Hamilton gets a hockey team or not means a lot more than what's going on in Sri Lanka.
Pretty shitty eh?
But receive it, eat it and then choke on it. The average Canadian who has no ties to Sri Lanka loves hockey and has little or no time to analyze, consider or even ponder what's going on in a screwed up country half a world away.
Pretty heartless eh?
The average Canadian worked his butt off at work today and can't wait to get home and watch the Jays or the Stanley Cup playoffs and probably has more than a passing interest in whether another NHL team is coming to Canada.
The Prime Minister was probably addressing these people when he "offended" you by making a statement on the Hamilton hockey situation. But you see, the hockey situation is a lot more clear cut than your concerns.
Hamilton wants hockey and most Canadians want Hamilton to have hockey. You might find this simple and frustrating, but thanks to Canada being the greatest country on earth, its the type of thing that pre-occupies us.
Pretty weird eh?
Most Canadians when pressed might have a degree of sympathy for what's going on in your "homeland", but that's balanced by the assumption that when you came here, Canada became your homeland.
Pretty naive eh?
The Prime Minister spoke about the Hamilton hockey situation because he must have bloody well felt like it and it's a subject with nationalistic over-tones.
Please don't compare it to what is going on in a country that's been fucked up for 25 years and despite what happened over the weekend still appears to be fucked up.
Applaud the Prime Minister for being measured in his response to a conflict that involves a terrorist organization that has a long and disturbing history of committing all the human rights violations that its is now crying about.
It's not enough that you demand money and medicine and millions of dollars in aid and insist on making Sri Lanka's problem a Canadian problem, now you've drawn hockey into the issue.
You've stepped over the line and as hard as it may be for you to swallow, most Canadians simply don't have the time or energy to care about your "homeland", your crisis or your opinion of our / your Prime Minister.
Stephen Harper's got a country to run. A country that works.
I woke up Sunday morning and threw on my earphones just in time to listen to a re-roll of the John Oakley Show that featured Lorrie Goldstein of the Toronto Sun.
Man, was I ever disappointed.
As a rule I like Goldstein, but he was on the Oakley Show to talk about a column he wrote last week entitled Protest backlash unearths racismand his argument was a little flimsy
I would expect so much more out of Goldstein. To stoop to the racism angle is too easy and predictable.
In a nutshell, Goldstein condemns the Tamil protest on the Gardiner and even a few on University Avenue, but he maintains a good measure of the reaction to it has been redneck.
Problem is, he doesn't say who's being racist.
Are we to assume that he means only white people?
In the article Goldstein talks about all the peaceful protests the Tamils have conducted over the past few months without much reaction.
But once the Tamils started to inconvenience the people of Toronto, Goldstein writes, " all hell has broken loose on talk radio and media websites seeking public reaction --much of it utterly racist."
Why because they were pissed off? Because they have a different point of view and once civil disobedience took place they called for more severe measures?
That's the way I felt. It's the same way I felt last year when cyclists blocked off the Gardiner Expressway, an example that Goldstein likes to lean on saying there was little or no reaction to it. But that was a protest about a domestic issue and women and children weren't used as human shields.
It's the same why I feel when OCAP takes over the city and breaks the law, but with these examples the racism angle can't be used.
I find what Goldstein writes to be downright insulting. You can't generalize in this situation any more that you can generalize about the Tamil community.
And that's what really bothers me about what Goldstein writes.
My wife is a visible minority and she was totally pissed off at the Tamils and thought more severe action should have been taken. Does she qualify as a racist?
Are we to believe that of all the people of who called radio shows and wrote on blogs that none of them were black, brown, red or olive? Are we too assume that none were Tamils?
I've actually heard a few Sri Lankans speak out against the protests saying they're embarrassed by them and they should be stopped.
Are they racist? Is that possible?
I hate to say it, because I thought more of Lorrie Goldstien, but his article is just plain lazy. I think he was reaching a column deadline and had nothing else to write so he leaned on the old reliable.
Throw out the "R" word and try to embarrass anyone who disagrees with you.
"All we want is for Canadians to help us," said Gowrishangar Kamalanphan, the apparent leader of the demonstration, which was conducted by a group of high school and university students.
This just about says it all. Another pack of Tamil teens, who were probably born in Canada, pissed off even more people on Friday night by blocking Yonge Street near Dundas.
More and more I get the feeling this is less about what's going on in Sri Lanka and more about what's going on in Canada.
High school and university students? Are these punks really interested in ending the alleged genocide in Sri Lanka, or are they more interested in baiting police to get some kind of perverted attention.
Are they really concerned about what's going on in their "parents" homeland, or are they trying to make some kind of a statement about Canadian society by almost begging police to get physical with them.
I mean really. If I lie down in the middle of a street and refuse the order of a police officer to move, what am I really doing? Am I protesting something half a world away, or am I hoping a cop will smack me upside the head so I can scream something?
Am I acting on behalf of my countrymen who aren't really my countrymen, or am I frustrated at being a visible minority in Canada who doesn't feel he's getting a fair shake?
Am I using my body to protest what's going on in Sri Lanka, or am I using my colour to gain something in Canada?
Am I demanding that the bloodshed in Sri Lanka ends, or am I hoping that some is spent on the streets of Toronto so I can accuse somebody, anybody of something that makes the establishment look bad?
I'm sorry Tamil teeny-boppers but you've lost me. Actually, you never had me, but now I find you even more ridiculous.
This is no longer a protest, it's become "something to do on a Friday night."
Get off the fuckin' road and count your blessings that you wake up every morning in the greatest country in the world.
"We're the source of the game, the players, and the money, and I think we should have a seventh team. I spent five years looking for a front door. We couldn't find a front door. I found a side door."
As most of you have probably noticed Mike Stafford is a regular contributor to CanadianThinker.com and his intelligence is much appreciated.
Like it was yesterday while I was listening to his show on am 640.
Mike is one of those radio guys who has big balls and doesn't hesitate to say how he really feels even its unpopular and considered politically incorrect.
Mike, like any rational thinker abhors the Tamils takeover of the Gardener Expressway on Sunday night and he's identified the main culprits of recent demonstrations.
They're young Tamil University students who've embraced the cause and decided to take their protest to another level in order to get more attention.
Something Stafford said yesterday made a lot of sense. Mike said the last thing Toronto Police should do is use water cannons or force during an unruly demonstration because that's exactly what the young punks want.
As Mike put it "they're dying for a picture of one of them being knocked around by a cop, it would play right into their hands."
He's so right. The Tamils would love to have a picture like that splashed all over the papers because it would increase the peculiar support they're already getting from a lot of bleeding hearts across the city.
These kids want confrontation and they're willing to do anything to get it. Like carrying Tamil Tiger flags and using elderly women and children as human shields to gain the type of position that will lead to confrontation.
So what do we do?
To be honest, I don't really know, but how about this?
The Mayor and the Police Chief hold a news conference and draw a line in the sand.
They make it clear beforehand that any lawlessness will be dealt with severely, establishing this as fair and adquate warning. Then, if they still want to block the roads, give them what Stafford says they want.
Thanks to all of you who showed up yesterday for Humble and Fred's 20th Podcast of Memories. Pretty well everyone we wanted to be there was there, short of Jason Barr and Jeff Marek.
Both had hockey commitments. Danger Boy pretty well runs Brampton Minor Hockey, while Marek has got himself a nice little gig on Hockey Night in Canada in case you didn't notice.
Dan Duran was there, so was Chicken Shwarma, Bingo Bob, Scary Pete, Andy Wilson and even lil' Spanky showed up.
Lil' Spanky's one of the guys who pulled his pud in the studio washroom during one of our Really Tough Contests.
Thanks to Nick Kypreos for taking time out of his busy schedule to pay a visit and we received a surprise appearance from Tyler Stewart of the Barenaked Ladies.
It was great to see Edge production chief Rob Johnston as well.
Lou Schiziz from am 640 was there and so was one of Howard's current side-kicks Colleen Rusholme.
And two people from the Wolf in Peterborough came all the way down to lend their support. Production whiz Ryan Lalonde and the super sweet Catherine Hanrahan.
The incomparable Psychic Niki came by and predicted that the Humble and Fred franchise is not dead. It will be revived, although considering current commitments I guess she means through Viagra commercials when we're 60.
We had listeners show up like Buffalo Mike and faithful twins Pam and Trish. Blog regular Horonymous was there and so was blog king and master mind Toronto Mike who will make sure yesterday's production will be available to the masses over the next few days.
Humble and me both had our families there, including my mom Junie P. who wouldn't have missed it for the world. Neighbour John was there too, and he's just like family.
How did Charlie grow up so fast?
Everything I've mentioned was fabulous, but not quite as fabulous as sitting at a table with a microphone in front of me and Howard to my side. What made it so great is that it didn't feel any different.
We just picked up where we left off and started pissin' our pants.
Thanks Howie. It was fun...... and thanks Dan, we know it wasn't easy pushin, twistin' and workin' all those buttons and knobs.
Toronto's best talk show host wrote this on his am 640 blog yesterday. Thanks buddy.
"For some reason April 30th always brings a smile to my face.
It shouldn't. It's tax deadline day. Not fun. But it is payday. That's fun. Except when you see the amount of taxes you've paid for the first four months.
April 30th makes me smile because of something that happened 23 years ago. When I worked the morning news shift on CFNY. It was called the "Pete and Geets Breakfast" and it aired on Rogers Cable 10 throughout the Ontario network.
I'm sure the audience count reached triple figures. But it didn't matter because Peter Griffin and Geets Romo, along with yours truly and Toronto radio stalwart Fred Patterson brought our goofy morning show to the parking lot at Rogers Cable 10 in Mississauga, hard by your 1979 train derailment site.
Rogers in Mississauga back then worked in tandem with Maclean Hunter to bring Peel Region local news and entertainment with a spirited staff of volunteers, many of whom have moved onto professional careers, including Lance Chilton up in Barrie.
I remember it as a warm spring morning with Fred and I dressed as gay emcees from the movie "Cabaret". Pete was, God bless him, the anchor of the show while Geets would disappear at times to dress in his assortment of characters...climaxing with an appearance of "Lardette" as the show reached its conclusion.
Again, the show was loose and maybe we were the only people who thought it was funny. But 23 years ago seemed a somewhat more innocent time in radio and in local television. The Toronto Sun's Jim Slotek gave us a tepid thumbs-up review by suggesting the show worked without a net and nobody was killed or seriously injured.
I was a happy boy that morning because Claude Lemieux of the Montreal Canadiens had scored an OT winner over Hartford to move onto the second round of the playoffs which, you'll remember, Montreal won over Calgary.
That night, the Leafs lost in seven to St. Louis. But I didn't see that game because after the Pete and Geets Breakfast Show Fred and I and our producer Kevin went back to Fred's and kicked the top off a bottle of Crown Royal to celebrate our "network" premiere.
I'm a huge fan of nostalgia because, to tell the truth, there's not much these days you can look ahead 23 years and remember as "the good old days".
On that note, for my buddy Fred, he and his long time radio partner Humble Howard will get together this Saturday at the Dominion on Queen (500 Queen Street East) at 1:30 PM for a good old Humble and Fred podcast. No heavy lifting, nobody's going to get hurt. Humble and Fred worked at the former CFNY and were appointment tuning for many in the 1990s followed by our days at MOJO radio until that thing imploded.
I can't make it Saturday but I thought I'd mention that it might be a great time to hoist a pint and enjoy two pros who know how to do morning radio without the worry of process servers outside the studio door when they're finished.
"You guys can't push us off," screamed Lexie Thambinayagam, 19. "You only care about protecting certain kinds of people."
Isn't that a wonderful thing to say to the cops who stood back and let these people block off a main artery for the better part of four days? You knew the race card had to be played eventually.
The Tamil protest went over the line yesterday. Police had to deal with a mob that broke through a barrier and in the end were forced to make 21 arrests.
Ain't that just freakin' wonderful. Several Toronto police officers went to work yesterday and literally had to put their safety on the line for something going on half way around the world.
Is it just me, or is that beyond ridiculous?
A mob of Tamils who live in Toronto are pissed off at something going on in Sri Lanka so it becomes the problem of Metro Police. Somebody slap me upside the head so I can wake up from this disgusting dream.
Why should one cop suffer so much as a scratch because of something going on in a country that hasn't known peace in a quarter century? With so many other things going on in the city, why should our police force have to spend one second dealing with a pack of assholes who are probably professional protesters.
And don't kid yourself, a good measure of the creeps on University are there for nothing more than the fun of it right now. The novelty of it. Getting a rush from the attention. And not one of them seems to care that they're blocking easy access to three hospitals.
Well enough is enough.
Yesterday I was reluctant to say it but today I have no problem. Bring in the water cannons and literally spray the bastards back to wherever they came from.
If they were born in Sri Lanka, deport them. If they were born in Canada, jail them.
But I've got to tell ya, the over-riding thing that keeps coming to my mind is David Miller, the spineless weasel of a Mayor who the left side of Toronto voted into office not once, but twice.
Where the hell is he and what is he going to do about it?
This guy is unbelievable. Not only is he running the city into the ground through bad management, but he doesn't have the balls to step into a crisis like this because he's deathly afraid to deal with the ethnic aspect of it.
He's chickin' shit and this in just another indication of what a stroker he is. He and his buddy Police Chief Bill Blair should be ashamed of themselves.
Blair especially for letting this candy ass Mayor drag the reputation of his force through the mud. I imagine all the cops who have been placed on duty during this protest are embarrassed that they can't flex the muscle necessary and end this stupid bloody thing once and for all.
But you can bet the pansy Mayor has given strict orders to hold off because he doesn't want the Tamils to accuse him or the police force of racism.
Who gives shit? It's gone way beyond that now. We all know it's the expected and presumed reaction of ethnic groups in Canada. If you don't get your way, use the "R" word. We all know it's going to happen anyway, so hook up the hoses, turn on the taps and start blastin'.
What should piss off most Canadians is the double standard here. I made the point yesterday, if this was a protest involving Joe Whiteguy it would have been over long ago, no doubt about it.
I don't know about you, but that drives me nuts.
Think about it! For the past four days protesters have shut down University Ave. to protest something going on in Sri Lanka, and every day they've become a little more disobedient and every day Mayor Miller has done nothing.
Never allow anyone who comes from another country to refer to themselves as second class citizens because they aren't.
On Monday I wrote a piece about a growing problem in Canada, government inaction against "certain" groups.
In Brampton the city is terrified of the South Asian community because of their growing numbers and political strength. They can get away with things that Joe Whiteguy couldn't dream of getting away with.
Spineless politicians put self interest before their city, their province and their country which is nothing short of despicable.
The same can be said about what's going on in front of the U.S. Consulate on University Ave. in Toronto. Tamil protesters have forced traffic to be re-routed for the past two days.
Let's use the word despicable again. It's absolutely despicable that that Toronto's Tamil community can disrupt the lives of so many because of something that's happening half a world away, something that has nothing to do with Canada, nothing to do with Canadians and shouldn't have anything to do with someone who left Sri Lanka to make Canada their home.
Am I a horrible person for saying I don't care about what's going on in Sri Lanka? Should I be spat upon for not losing sleep over what the Sri Lankan government is doing to Tamils? Am I an evil man for thinking if it means that much to somebody they should get on a goddamn plane and go fight Sri Lanka's battles in Sri Lanka?
Why should one bloody person who has no ties to Sri Lanka be one minute late for work because of something that's going on in a country that's been screwed up for the better part of 25 years? Why should one person miss a doctor's appointment, a dental appointment or a cheap rub and tug because of something going on in a country that wouldn't give a second of consideration to Canada if the roles were reversed?
It's bullshit, and what makes it a heaping, steaming, stinking pile of bullshit is the fact that if this was a protest by Canadians, about something going on in Canada, University Ave. would have been cleared fifteen minutes after the protest started.
It's another prickish double standard that people who put Canada first should find totally offensive.
And how dare some of the protesters criticize Toronto police for converging on the crowd.
Some had the audacity to point to little scratches on their bodies and accuse Toronto police of brutality, meanwhile they're protesting about something going on in a country that would literally snuff them out for walking on the wrong side of the street.
Talk about ingrates.
Toronto police inspector Gary Meissner said this. "So long as public safety is not at risk, then these people are lawfully entitled to voice their dissent."
Can you imagine these people being given the same rope in Sri Lanka? I think not. The only rope they'd get is the rope that would be used to hang them from the closest tree.
Canada is an immensely compassionate country and we should always have our door open to those in danger and those in need of this big wonderful place for safety.
However, a line should be drawn about protesting in Canada about something that is happening in a foreign country when it starts to disrupt the lives of those who live and work here. The same line that would be readily drawn if it were a domestic protest.
Don't forget kiddies, the Humble and Fred 20th Anniversary Podcast of Memories is coming up this Saturday at the Dominion on Queen.
We'll gather sometime around 1:30 and then start recording the podcast at two o'clock.
Everyone is welcome. The place seats about one hundred, but don't be influenced by that, chances are there will be lots of room, but even if there's not, over-flow will only add to the atmosphere.
We've got several people lined up to make an appearance but I won't give their names in case they have to back out at the last minute. But let me put it this way; they're all people you came to know and hopefully love during the run of the Humble and Fred Show.
There's something else I should explain. We are recording the show on Saturday, but it you're not there you won't be able to hear it until early next week. It won't be broadcast live.
Dan Duran will package the show, and then Toronto Mike will upload it to his site, Howard's site, my site, i-tunes and various other places.
It should be a good time as we regale with stories that seem like they happened yesterday, and others that we'd rather forget.
The story out of Brampton involving the rich guy Sikh and the weekly prayer meetings at his mansion is explained very easily.
There's a combination of two things that have made live hell for other taxpayers who live on the street. The rich guy is a lousy neighbour and the city of Brampton is ruled by fear.
Let's push all the bullshit aside and admit right off the bat that if the Sikh guy was a white protestant living in the same house on the same street these prayer meetings would have ended long ago.
The city would have answered the call, the cops would have been dispatched and there would be thousands of tax dollars being earned through traffic and parking violations.
But not in Brampton. Not in Brampton where the South Asian population is exploding and local politicians know where their bread is buttered.
Brampton Mayor Susan Fennell wasted no time letting people know where she stood. She responded by saying there was nothing wrong with inviting a bunch of people over to your house to pray. Then she raised the question, "what's the difference between this and having a large Superbowl party?"
The difference is, Brampton Sue, is that you don't have a Superbowl party and over a hundred cars on your street every week.
I convinced that deep down she knows this, but she'll do whatever she can to side with the South Asian population because she knows they control her future. You don't cross these people because they carry too much clout in Brampton and its only getting stronger.
A South Asian mayor in Brampton is inevitable and Fennell knows she's on borrowed time, so ironically, the best way to maintain is to sustain her relationship with the community that will eventually topple her.
She and a pack of other weasels on Brampton city council are terrified of this community and they aren't going to do anything that will ruffle their feathers and set the stage for the convenient use of the "R" word. That's a politician's worst fear.
But everything else aside, this issue could end tomorrow if Ramesh Ahluwalia was a decent neighboour.
All if would take is for Mr. Ahluwalia to listen to his neighbours, face the fact that he's inconveniencing them and use some of his enormous fortune to make other plans.
I mean really, why wouldn't the guy consider "other" people for just a second and realize that what he's doing isn't fair to those he shares a neighbourhood with?
So let's get this straight, one of the scumbags responsible for the murder of Jane Creba is found guilty of second degree murder, is sentenced as an adult and gets a life sentence, but he could be back on the streets in less than four years?
Are you kidding me? What the hell is wrong with this country?
Forget all the bullshit that led up to this, because it doesn't matter now. What matters is this, and it should piss off every decent citizen of Canada - Jane Creba will never get a second chance, but Jorrell Simpson-Rowe will.
This brazen little turd was only 17 when he decided to fire a gun on a crowded Yonge Street on Boxing Day 2005 and to many a bleeding heart his age at the time should have played a part in his sentencing... but thank goodness it didn't.
From a courtroom standpoint justice was only partially served. JSR as they call this waste of air was convicted as an adult, which is good, but in this whacked out system we have a life sentence turns into parole eligibility after seven years, and that's pathetic.
He's already served three years and four months, so it means he could be out in less than four years.
Granted, given his history, his attitude and his total disregard for human life, there's a good chance that JSR won't make parole in 2014 but it's the principle that bothers me.
How do we allow this? How are Canadians supposed to have faith in their justice system when little pukes like this get to walk after seven short years? Hell, it's been almost four years since Creba was shot to death but it seems like yesterday.
I hate to make sports analogy in a situation like this, but it's something that keeps coming back to mind whenever I read about this story. How the world got the short end of a very bad trade on December 26th, 2005.
During a gun battle between a group of thugs who aren't worth a kennel of dogs, we lost Jane Creba but got to keep the likes of Jorrell Simpson-Rowe.
Jane Creba would be 19 years old now and as a contributing member of society, at her own expense, would probably be finishing her first or second year of university.
But she's dead.
JSR meanwhile, if he chooses to, can now pursue a university education in prison - at your expense.
I realize that I've spent a lot of time over the past couple of months writing about the Montreal Canadiens and their fans, but I had to.
Even though it bothered some, I had to keep it going for the same you reason you keep hearing the same song on the radio.
Demand.
You know what I'm talking about. Every time you turn on the radio you hear the same hit song and it gets to the point where you don't want to hear it anymore and you assume everyone else feels the same way. You wonder why the radio station keeps playing it.
Well here's the deal, they keep playing it whether you want to accept it or not, because the demand is still there. The song is still charting well and keeps getting tons of requests so rather than fly in the face of good business, the station keeps playing it.
Same thing with my Habs Watch and Countdown, believe me, long ago I wondered if I was over doing it and that's why I held an on-line poll a few weeks ago.
I was getting lots of response and my daily visits were increasing dramatically, but I still wondered if I was going over-board.
Obviously I wasn't because the written response I got supported what my numbers were saying. People were diggin' the Hab stuff and that's what was bringing them to CanadianThinker.com from coast to coast.
Yes, coast to coast.
That's why it continued and that's why I have no regrets, although having said that, I'm absolutely thrilled the Habs were eliminated the other night and I can move on.
Which brings me to another on-line question or poll - If you're a regular visitor to this website what kind of things do you like to read about? What are the things that keep you coming back?
This is my favourite commercial in years. I was lucky enough to have a girl and a boy, but there's something about this commercial that speaks to all fathers of daughters. I snort back tears every time I see it.
I know a lot of Stephen Harper haters won't like this, but once again I've got to tip my hat to the guy for the way he handled himself during the Summit Of Americas in Trinidad.
For the first time in a long time we've actually got a Prime Minister who acts like a Prime Minister, who doesn't say and do a lot of stupid things like his predecessor did.
And I especially like the way Stevie boy has handled the Jamaican situation.
He landed there last night with a message that might have raised a few eyebrows, but he also took the important step of acknowledging the Jamaican problem in Canada.
Harper will address both houses of the Jamaican Parliament today and during that address he will speak of the great ties between our two countries and the contributions Jamaicans have made to Canadian society.
Again, that may seem odd to some given the gun violence and gang warfare that takes place within the Jamaican community in Toronto, but for the most part it's true.
Most Jamaicans that come to Canada are law abiding people who want nothing more than to improve their lot in life. Unfortunately, there is a fringe that cast a shadow over the entire population.
And that's where Harper stepped up to the plate yesterday. Rather than spew a bunch of blather about all the good stuff, the Prime Minister actually touched upon the gun violence issue in Canada.
"We're certainly aware of reports of violence among people who are identified with the community."
"We know ... that the vast majority of people who live in those areas and belong to the Jamaican Canadian community are not only deeply shocked and concerned about this kind of violence, they're often the first victims of it and the people most concerned about it."
It showed a lot of balls because without being over-critically while in a situation where diplomacy was the order of the day, the Prime Minister sent a message that not everything is perfect and that Jamaican crime in Canada is not going unnoticed.
Of course if Canada wanted to hard line our relations with Jamaica we could cut off all immigration from that country until we got the gang and gun problem under control in Toronto, but that wouldn't be prudent. It might be smart and warranted, but political correctness dictates you don't do things like that.
Instead you do what the Prime Minister did. You extend an olive branch with a message tied to the end of it.
Although I shake my head at the latest stories coming out of Mexico, I'm not surprised.
This dirt-hole of a nation really showed its true colours over the past week through the Conquest Vacations collapse. Go to any newspaper and you can read about it.
Canadians paid money in good faith to Conquest for vacations in Mexico, only to have the hotels turn on them when bills went unpaid.
Off the top let's get this out of the way, there were a few incidents in the Dominican Republic as well, and it turns out the Canadian consulate was useless in both places and that is inexcusable.
But really, I'd like to focus on Mexico, a disgusting country with a corrupt government and despicable police force because the majority of the incidents happened there.
There has been a rapidly growing list of reasons why people shouldn't travel to this third world hell hole over the past few years, but Canadians keep going back.
Yes, it's unfortunate that Conquest went under and that Mexican hotels went unpaid, but that was an arrangement between the tour company and the resorts, it had nothing to do with the Canadians who paid their bills in Canada and then were threatened in Mexico with imprisonment if they didn't pay again.
Can you believe it?
There are stories of families and young single people literally being held hostage with armed guards surrounding them waiting to be paid exorbitant amounts of money in return for being "released."
What kind of a country allows this to happen?
What kind of a country that depends so much on the tourism dollar allows hotel managers to immediately turn on patrons when a deal they made with a tour operator turns sour.
Did it not cross anyone's mind down in that shit hole that the people staying in the hotels and eating the food and drinking the booze were not responsible. They had already paid and really shouldn't be held responsible because they wouldn't be there in the first place if they hadn't?
Did none of these ruthless bastards not think about the image it might project and how it would affect future business? Did they not think it might be a good idea to swallow the loss and then go after Conquest at some other level?
Did they literally have to throw people out of their hotels mid-week and then demand payment before they could leave the grounds?
No they didn't. But they did because this is a rotten country with a rotten system that allows just about anyone to turn into a dangerous prick in the wink of an eye.
There are stories of hotel managers who could speak English one day, and then claimed they couldn't once the Conquest story broke.
I have friends and family who still travel to this country and I really can't understand why.
Canadians have been abused, beaten and murdered at an alarming rate in Mexico over the past couple of years but people keep going back.
I guess in the end, it's their fault and they deserve everything they get.
However this latest incident provided Mexico, the asshole of the world, an opportunity to show another side, a compassionate side, but they refused.
They showed their true colours.
Again, Conquest is not without blame and the Canadian consulate should have done more, but to take this right down to the grass roots, the behaviour of resort managment was abhorrent and downright scary for many Canadians.
I've been to Mexico twice, and to quite honest, I didn't find it that great. Far from it. If you don't mind living the high life in front of poverty and you don't mind urinating out your ass, then hey, all the power to you.
As I stated on this blog some time ago, after Canadians started dying in that country I swore I'd never go back and I haven't.
And yes I know, people will claim they've been there many times and nothing has happened, its a wonderful place, but I'd rather make my decision on principle.
I'd rather spend a week in Iraq. It's probably safer now.
There's no doubt about it, I want the Bruins to beat the Habs in the first round of the playoffs mainly because I don't like Les Habiskanks, but there's there's another reason.
As I've pointed out on a few occasions I share part of my summer with Boston Bruins defensive coach Craig Ramsay. Believe it or not, Ramsay also has a tin palace and it's parked in the same park as mine. He frequently visits the Tiki Bar.
There are different levels of trailer parks you know, and I'm proud to say when it comes to trailer trash, Ramsay and I are in the upper end.
Anyway, here's the other reason why I want the Bruins to beat the Habs. I want the Bruins to beat the Habs because ultimately I want them to win the Stanley Cup.
You know what happens when a team wins the Stanley Cup - all members of the team including the coaching staff gets the the Stanley Cup for one day and they can take it where ever they they want.
Believe me, if the Bruins win the Cup there will be immense pressure on Ramsay by me and the other trailerites to bring it to our park.
Imagine that, the Stanley Cup in our trailer park. We'll be able to pose with it, drink from it, maybe even play a bocce ball game for it.
I would touch it, stroke it and kiss it...... and then I'd go back over the Stanley Cup.
I just got off the phone with Humble Howard and Dan Duran. We had a three-way call concerning the technical aspects of the Humble and Fred 20th Anniversary Podcast of Memories which is fast approaching.
It's a licensed establishment so not only can you attempt to enjoy a couple of hours with Humble and I, you can also get liquored up and throw a few punches if you want.
It should be a fun day as we reminisce about days gone by but not forgotten.
Howard and I have been working on a "set list" so to speak and we've been pissing our pants just thinking about some of the stuff that happened on our show over the years.
Like the time a guy spanked his monkey ten times in four hours during one of our "Really Tough Contests."
Again, if you had any interest in the Humble and Fred Show over the years you're invited to come down and hopefully squeeze into the Dominion on Queen May 2nd.
If you don't have any interest, then quickly scroll down to the next posting.
The video is over 13 minutes long, but take the time to give it a watch and fully appreciate how much of an asshole Billy Bob Thornton is.
He and his third rate band the Boxmasters played Massy Hall this week and yesterday they were invited into the CBC for an interview with Jian Ghomeshi.
Thornton for some inexplicable reason took offence to Ghomeshi mentioning that he was an actor, and proceeded to ruin the interview.
Full marks to Jian for holding his ground.
I can only laugh at selfish bastards like Thornton. There was a probably a time when he'd be willing to do an interview anywhere, anytime to further his career. But like so many others, once he becomes the big man he forgets those people who helped get him there.
Not only that, but if Billy Bob Thornton doesn't think the modest success of his shitty music isn't tied to his film career, then you can blame drugs for this pathetic interview.
The Boxmasters offer bar band stuff. In fact they probably couldn't get a gig at the Keltic Rock in Brampton.
Dick head.
The Irony of this interview for me, is that Jian Ghomeshi is actually a musician, and a good one at that. In fact he wrote one of my favourite songs of the 90's while he was with Moxy Fruvous.
The boys were always good to the Humble and Fred Show - and I like to think we were good to them.
It certainly was disturbing news that came out of Afghanistan this week.
President Hamid Karzai on Thursday signed into law legislation that some believe legalizes the rape of a wife by her husband and prevents women from leaving the house without a man's permission.
One of the most controversial articles of the law stipulates that the wife "is bound to preen for her husband as and when he desires."
"As long as the husband is not traveling, he has the right to have sexual intercourse with his wife every fourth night," Article 132 of the law says.
"Unless the wife is ill or has any kind of illness that intercourse could aggravate, the wife is bound to give a positive response to the sexual desires of her husband."
Yikes.
Some might argue it's a world away and not really our worry, but that's not so.
We currently has soldiers fighting and dying in Afghanistan fighting the Taliban which treats women no better than dogs.
To have the new recognized government turn the clock back a few centuries with this pathatic law makes you wonder what the hell our boys are fighting for.
But it doesn't stop there. Even in Canada there's some weird shit going on.
On Thursday night Neighbour John and I went to the Brampton Batallio's playoff game against Mississauga, and right across the street from the Powerade Centre is something called the Masumeen Islamic Centre.
They have a men's entrance and woman's entrance.
Now tell me, ain't that a bit whacko for the calender year 2009? It reminds me of when blacks had to use seperate entrances to public buildings, use their own water fountains and know their unprivileged place in society.
It's absolutely fucking ridiculous. Actually, it shouldn't be allowed in this country, But who's got balls enough to do or say anything about it?
Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today...
Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace...
Earth Hour arrives at 8:30 tonight, and chances are, when it arrives I'll probably be doing what I always do on a Saturday night around that time, watching the hockey game in my rec-room on my now inefficient 36 inch Sony Tube television.
There won't be a lot of lights on in the rec-room, but it won't have anything to do with Earth Hour, it's got everything to do with the fact I don't like a bright room when I'm watching television.
Meanwhile, the lights will be on upstairs in the kitchen and the foyer and probably the living room because we like them on in those rooms at night. The lights at the front of the house will be on also because I like the way my place looks when it's lit up.
If a load of washing needs to be done, it will be. If my wife wants to bake something in the oven, she will, and if my son wants to crank his electric guitar, he will.
Earth Hour is just another one of those goofy symbolic things along the way that makes me shake my head and laugh, and here's why.
Because day to day my family doesn't use a lot of electricity or waste a lot of energy but I'm willing to bet a lot of the people that will take part in Earth Hour tonight, "do" waste a lot of energy.
But tonight will make them feel better about themselves. You know, like carbon credits make Al Gore feel better about the gross amount of power he uses in his seven houses.
The CN Tower will go dark tonight. Big deal. What about the other 364 days of the year - same with Niagara Falls, government buildings and all the huge skyscrapers in town.
Call me a cynic, but Earth Hour is a pointless event that only serves to feed a new industry, the industry that the likes of Gore and David Suzuki are getting rich off, the business of Green hysteria.
Don't kid yourself people, it is big business and it is filled with con artists and hypocrites who don't see a safer or cleaner planet, all they see is opportunity, the opportunity to spread fear through nonsense while selling their act to every gullible goof on the block.
Here's what really makes me laugh. We have the likes of Gore and Suzuki selling us snake oil while tons of people are still throwing their Tim Horton's cups their car windows. Just check out any off-ramp.
We're supposed to live in the dark for an hour tonight, but there won't be any fewer cigarette butts laying on the ground tomorrow.
Millions of suckers will take part tonight, pat themselves on the back, and then go about their business as they always have.
I wonder how many Earth Hour T-shirts have been sold?
Meanwhile, in the next couple of weeks I'll be putting new windows in my house that will cost roughly half of what I bought my first house for. I'm also looking at a new high efficiency furnace and one of those tank-less water heaters.
To some I may look like a hero because of all this, but really, it's got nothing to do with Green hysteria or wanting to help the environment, it's got everything to do with wanting to help Fred Patterson.
I'm doing this because I don't like a drafty house, I'd like an unlimited supply of hot water and I'd like my gas bill to be lower so maybe I can save enough money buy one of those flat screen TV's that use very little energy.
It just so happens that all these products are now made with conservation in mind and by wanting them or needing them I will be doing my part for the environment by purchasing them - and not necessarily by choice I might add, because just about everything we buy is more efficient today.
Cars run cleaner, appliances don't use nearly as much electricity and industry is being forced conform. Generally speaking we're doing a pretty good job of helping the planet through advanced technology and buying the products attached to it.
It's the realistic non-hysterical approach because when you get right down to it, considering our busy lives, there's not much more we can do other than bending over to pick up some litter or turning off our lights for an hour every goddamn night for the rest of time - and you know that ain't gonna happen - anywhere.
Yea, spare me the symbolism and the guilt trip and the hypocricy of everything connected to Earth Hour and the fear of an impending environmental disaster.
Take just half the bullshit attached to Earth Hour, dump it into the Atlantic Ocean, and that my friends would be an environmental disaster.
I don't know why anyone would be surprised by what transpired on Fox News last week.
The issue isn't that the ibeciles involved poked fun at Canada, it was their ignorance to our involvment in the Afghan War.
I'm sure if they had known the extent to which Canada is involved, and that we had sacrified well over 100 soldiers, they would have backed off and chosen some other area to make fun of Canada.
Which is no big deal because we can take it, just like they should be able to laugh and gafaw when the rest of the world pokes fun at their obvious ignorance, stupidity and epidemical obesity.
If there's anything as useless as religion itself, it's having somebody who represents a religion running around the world spreading naïve nonsense that only makes things worse.
Take Pope Bendmydict or whatever he's called.
While on his way to Africa, aboard his Pontiff Plane, Mr. Popey spread this wisdom about condoms with the same gusto that many of his disciples use to spread the butt cheeks of young alter boys.
Mr. Brilliance said that condoms are not the answer to the HIV/AIDS pandemic that's ravaging Africa - abstinence is the way to go.
Easy for him to say, Bendmydict only uses his Pope-pecker for taking a Pontiff-pees while tens of millions of Africans suffer from a disease crippling a continent.
Of all the ridiculous things to say in 2009 - how could condoms not help?
How bloody naive to expect millions of Africans to buy into his abstinence dream. Great in theory, impossible in practice.
Meanwhile there's a tangible solution like condoms. Something that could be provided, shown and taught.
Wake up Bendmydict. This is Africa. Outside of hunting, screwing is the only other pastime they can afford.
I'm telling ya, I don't know if its age or intelligence but I sure as hell am losing all patience with goddamn religion and all the nonsense attached to it.
It's frightening that someone as powerful as the Pope gets an audience to spew crap that barely stood up a century ago let alone today.
I'd like to tell the Pope to bite my clank, but he'd probably take me up on it.
In reference to the new banner on CanadianThinker.com, yes Humble and I are getting back together for another podcast.
This one will be known as Humble and Fred's 20th Anniversary Podcast of Memories and it will take place Saturday May 2nd at a cool little bar named Dominion on Queen.
Our first three podcasts, Humble and Fred's Message of Hope, Humble and Fred's Gift of Christmas and Humble and Fred's Podcast of Love were all recorded at Dan Duran's house in front of a minute audience.
This time we're taking the show on the road and everyone is welcome to drop by, say hello and take part.
The Dominion on Queen is small, but is capable of handling about the same number of people we attracted to our radio show on a daily basis.
There's room for 90.
If you show up around 1:30 you'll probably arrive just in time for the finishing touches of our set up and the beginning of our show.
We don't know how long it will be and at this point we don't know exactly who the guests will be, but we'll keep you posted over the next few weeks.
I will say this, if you were a fan of the Humble and Fred Show you'll probably want to listen or attend because I'm sure some old familiars will show up.
Saturday, May 2nd. In the afternoon.
I hope to see a lot of people who've become regulars on this blog, and It would be really cool if some other radio people showed up. Even people we didn't work with.
The OLG is back in the news, and once again it's not for anything nice.
You really have to wonder what they were thinking. Purchasing 22 cars for give-away is rather intriguing, but buying 22 German and Mexican made Mercedes wasn't too bright given the current economic climate.
Even though the steel used in Mercedes is made in Canada and there are thousands of people employed by Mercedes-Benz across Canada it still doesn't look good when the Canadian government is in the process of bailing out General Motors and Chrysler.
The Ontario Lottery and Gaming Commission is quite the group. If they aren't paying millions to their own vendors, they're misplacing bags of unused tickets on street corners.
But enough of that, I have a solution that could turn the reputation of the OLG around almost instantly.
They could contribute to the wonky economy by splitting up the prizes.
If tonight's jackpot is four million, they should make four separate draws and create four new millionaires. This might not be the best example, because the pot is rather low compared to recent weeks.
A couple of weeks ago it was 39 million. That would have been a great opportunity for the OLG to make big noise about "spreading the wealth around" and changing the lives of 39 people instead of one, or two, or as it turned out, three people.
Chances are, if you win 20 million or so, you gonna spend some but you'll probably put most of it in the bank.
But if twenty people win a million, they'll probably spend a big chunk of it by paying off their mortgages and buying some toys. Spread it out, and more comes back into the system.
But don't hold your breath, the OLG claims that sales go up as the jackpot goes up, so if they were to hold prizes to a million bucks sales would suffer.
But you have to wonder by how much, and wonder if they couldn't sacrifice that on the premise of helping more Canadians in these tough economic times.
Canadian Somali Congress
1541 Riverside Dr. Suite 1412
Ottawa, ON
K1G 4E2
(613) 523-2656
February 28, 2009
Hello Mr. Patterson,
I read your blog entry this morning titled "Blame The White Guy." After reviewing the facts contained in that blog, I have to agree with you on all the points that you raised. We in the Canadian Somali Congress, the national advocacy organization representing Canadians of Somali heritage, do not see this as a racial issue. We believe that the police and the crown have behaved in a professional manner and that the problem lies in the lack of witnesses who are willing to come forward.
The Canadian Somali community in Toronto is currently working to encourage these witnesses to come forward and assist in the case. I am kindly requesting that you post this email on your blog so that your readers can understand the real views of the Canadian Somali community on this matter.
Regards,
Ahmed Hussen
National President
Canadian Somali Congress
Email: ahmed@canadiansomalicongress.com
White people get handled different than brown folk?
You mean like how the media put so much emphasis on Jane Creba, a pretty middle class white girl that was killed in Toronto? Anyone remember the brown folk killed in a drive by while attending a funeral?
You know Fred, the part where YOUR industry focuses on the death of middle class white folks because it sells. A pretty white girl that gets shot at the Eaton Center is no more tragic than a fat ugly brown girl getting shot.
Just one sells more papers/brings in more ratings than the other.
So maybe that's why they feel so pissed ? You remind me of an American Bush voter. You can't seem to understand why the rest of the world thought he was a tool.
I'd love for you to be a minority for a while man.. but the closest thing you'll get to a minority is having a double burrito at Taco Bell
Mark Irvine
Hey Mark, just so you know my wife is Afro-Canadian. (a term her family refuses to use because its divisive, but I'll use it to make a point)
And by the way, because my wife is "brown" my kids are racially mixed.
If anything, this gives me a better perspective. My wife's family fled South Africa in the 50's because of apartheid. They wanted to give their kids a fair shot at life and they found that in Canada.
My wife's birth certificate has "coloured" stamped across it.
Her family lived in a one bedroom apartment in Scarborough with nothing but mattresses on the floor and they worked thier butts off to eventually buy a beautiful home and live a comfortable and safe life in Canada.
They never once looked for excuses, only for opportunity.... and this was during a time when they stood out as visible minorities and suffered the consequences.
Don't give me this shit about me not knowing what its like to be visible minority. My skin my be white, but I've been part of a "brown folk" family since 1973, and its amazing to see what can be accomplished when you take responsibility for your kids..... because you know Mark, that's the root problem.
I know its cool for psuedo intellectuals like yourself to look beyond the obvious and complicate things. But that is the root problem, parenting. Fix that and we go a long way in fixing the over-all problem.
As for the balance of coverage for the Creba shooting, get serious.
If Jane Creba had been black and shot on in cold blood, while shopping with her mother on Yonge St. on Boxing day it would have definately got the same coverage.
Gang related drives bys are a tad different. You talk big, but you really are an ignoramous.
And by the way, I never go to Taco Bell, I much prefer curry. My mother in law makes the best chicken curry on earth.
What a shame. What a shame that following yesterday's shocking acquittal of two accused murderers, this is what comes of it.
A year ago 18-year-old Abdikarim Ahmed Abdikarim was killed and five others wounded in a brazen shooting at a housing complex in the city's west end.
Although captured on video, yesterday the crown determined there wasn't enough evidence to go forward with the trial, so the accused, Owen Anthony Smith and Wendell Damian Cuff were set free.
The video failed to supply positive identification, but more importantly, the five wounded men refused to come forward with any information so the prosecution was screwed.
The whole thing came back to a growing problem in Toronto, the refusal of victims to "snitch" fearing backlash.
Unfortunately, there are those who choose to take it in a completely different direction.
You can understand the disraught family of the murder victim lashing out and blaming everyone and everything for what happened, but there are no excuses for the words of Osman Ali, head of the Somali Canadian Association yesterday.
He took the race route
"What's another black Somali who's been killed?" he asked as others nodded. "We feel it would have been handled in a different way if he was a white Canadian."
How the hell can this become a race issue? The video failed to provide positive identification and five eye witnesses refused to speak. What could anyone in the "white" community have done differently without eye witnesses?
Ali went on to say this. "It's more painful when the justice system fails you than when the criminals do," he said.
What?
Police used a couple of "tips" and made lightning quick arrests in the case, but to nail it down they needed eye witnesses, and even though they had five, in the end they had none.
The justice system didn't fail Abdikarim Ahmed Abdikarim, his five buddies failed him.
Police are convinced with the help of just one of the five wounded this could have been a no brainer, open and shut.
But instead facing the facts, Osman Ali prefers to take a wild turn and run it up the over-used, broken down and heavily abused racism road.
I would like to ask for permission to use your "Message to the Osgoode Shooter" blog entry with my grade 7/8 students if that is ok with you. We are looking at responding to differing text formats and your piece was extremely good and will resonate with the students.
Please give me the thumbs up or down. I stumbled upon your blog a few weeks ago and really enjoy reading your take on lots of things. I also used to enjoy listening to you growing up in Mississauga.
Glad to be able to at least read you again.
Many thanks,
Wayne Rockel
IT/ Intermediate teacher
Billy Green School, HWDSB
Stoney Creek, ON
I'm sure you pulled that gun for a valid reason yesterday but I'd like you to stop down for a few minutes and consider the other side.
I realize I'm stepping over the line here, but I really want you to appreciate the impact your actions could have had yesterday.
Believe me, I can imagine it's a drag when somebody disrespects you with a look or a gesture, or when somebody comes up a little short when you want to sell them a bag of something, or if somebody wants to borrow your woman, but come on, a gun on a crowded subway platform?
Again, let me apologize for being so bold because I know Canadian society has been unfair to you by not providing all the things necessary to thrive in this country.
We make sure you've got a roof over your head, money in your pockets and medicine in the cupboard if you need it, but obviously that's not enough.
You need more. You must need more because the same things keep happening time and time again and way more often than not, it seems to involve people with your profile.
You come from a certain part of the city, your family structure is somewhat flimsy and despite your apparent poverty, you wear the best of clothes, hats and shoes.
We'd like to give you more, but we're not really sure what it is you need.
There are jobs if you want to prove you deserve them. You might argue that people of your profile can't get jobs but that goes out the window every time I walk into a business and see hard working kids who under the clothes, look just like you.
They can get jobs, why can't you?
Education? It's there if you want it, but that's the problem, you've got to want it.
Excuses? We can't give you any more of those because they've all been exhausted. I'm sure over the next few days we'll hear the same old excuses in your defense, and once again you'll try to hide behind them, but for most people, that's become tiresome.
What we'd really like to give you is a little more guidance, but the very people who should provide that guidance don't seem to want to provide it.
You don't want the establishment to tell you how to live or act, apparently you'd prefer it to come from within your own community, but for some reason, as the months and years go by, there's nobody in your community willing to step forward and accept that role.
It's interesting that yesterday's shooting took place just a couple of days after Barack Obama became President of the United States. A large part of his platform was the insistence that "people" become accountable for their own lives. Take responsibility for your actions, with the children you father at the top of the list.
But hey, that's the States, and this is Canada, maybe you're right and the rules should be different and when you get right down to it, you'd rather Obama provide more excuses not solutions.
That damn Obama. How dare he prove that any man is capable of any thing.
In Canada you should be able to run wild and do whatever you want and then blame the consequences on somebody else and that leads me back to the point of this posting.
If you must pull your gun on a crowded subway platform again think of the people around you.
I know it's hard, because most of them represent everything you hate about our society, they're hard working, decent people who on their way to somewhere so they can look after their "families" - you know, taking responsibility for the people they've brought into the world.
But really, the next time you want to shoot somebody who's dissed you in a crowded place, please look around and appreciate that one of your stray bullets could kill somebody I love.
"The Ontario Coalition Against Poverty stands behind the striking CUPE 3903 works until the bitter end, just as you have supported us morally and financially for more than a decade.
And if the province were to force back to work legislation I hope CUPE 3903 would not follow such undemocratic laws."
Check out their whacky website, but be prepared to feel guilty for being successful.
Can you imagine anyone rejecting a 9.25 percent wage increase in these stormy economic times?
It happened at York University last night. Not only were these CUPE members offered almost ten percent over three years, they were also offered improved benefits packaged and better job security.
But they said no. Overwhelmingly. In January of 2009, when people are being thrown onto the street like bags of garbage, the part -time CUPE members at York University think they're special.
For some reason, they don't think the current economic climate should affect them, and the fact that thousands of York University students could lose their year, has little or no affect on these people.
There are thousands of students who paid their tuition in good faith expecting to go to school this year, but they've been literally robbed by CUPE 3903.
Sorry, but that's the way I look at it.
There are all kinds of labour disputes and they all have to be considered differently, and to my mind, the members of CUPE 3903 should have their asses ordered back to work yesterday.
If you're in a union that doesn't directly affect the lives of others then go crazy, enjoy your sit ins, strikes and barrel bonfires, but when you're unrealistic greed means somebody's kid can't go to school, then it's time for action.
It's time for the Premier of this Province to stop sitting on the fence, recall the legislature and restore this essential service.
Yes, essential service.
University tuitions are staggering and time is crucial for the students who registered at York fully expecting to get their year. Rents were paid, food has been bought and the expenses are piling up while a union jumps for joy over holding out even longer.
I know firsthand the stress that what's going on at York is causing the students who have been pushed to the sidelines. Even if the strike was to end now, many students would be forced to continue school through the summer, meaning crucial summer jobs would be sacrificed.
And that would mean larger loans.
I honestly can't believe that these "teachers" who continuously claim to put their profession and students first, can sit back and watch the students flap in the wind.
CUPE 3903 needs a reality check. Despite the offer, they're demanding more money and more benefits and more job security.
Who the hell in 2009 gets guaranteed job security?
It's a whole new frontier and its time the Premier pointed that out.
It hasn't been revealed "officially" what kinds of birds were sucked into the engine of US Airways flight 1549 yesterday, but you can bet your ass they were Canada Geese.
These bastards are becoming a huge problem, not only in Southern Ontario, but pretty well everywhere between here and the Florida panhandle.
Their population is out of control and to appreciate that, all you have to do is take a walk along the beaches of Lake Ontario in the summer, or visit any goddamn golf course in the province or spend a few minutes on the front lawn of my tin palace.
They can't walk a step without dropping a load.
Something has to be done about Canada Geese, and now that they almost killed 155 people in New York City yesterday, there is no time to spare.
They are filthy disgusting beasts that have become fat and lazy over the past decade.
They used to migrate, but thanks to the warm water that flows out of our nuclear generating plants, they've become conditioned to colder weather and more and more they choose to adjust their travel plans, and thanks to conservationist or their classification as a national bird or whatever the hell they are, their population has spun out of control.
They never used to inhabit the lake that my trailer sits on, but now they control it. They never used to be an issue in the GTA, nothing more than a pleasant site from time to time, but now they own the bloody province.
And they're quickly becoming a problem in the northern states.
I was listening to some talk radio out of New York last night on WABC and the hosts there are convinced it was Canada Geese that caused the problem. The population around New York City has exploded and a flock of the big fat bastards got in the way of that plane yesterday.
They're huge, and apparently just one of them sucked into an engine can cause problems.
It's time for a culling. It should be open season on Canada Geese. We should be able to eliminate them like we do mice or rats because they're on the same level. At the very least the all levels of government should step up a spraying program that prevents eggs from hatching.
But if you really want to get creative we should be able to shoot the buggers willy-nilly then take them to a government run slaughter-house where they're prepared for eating and then delivered to homeless shelters.
It's hard to believe that Canada can leave itself open to "Neanderthal Marriage."
What blows me away, is that in 2009 there is still anyone on the face of this earth that doesn't think an arranged marriage is anything but disgusting, immoral and oppressive.
Screw culture and screw religion, the rights and well being of any young woman on this globe should trump it all.
Dowrys - give me a big freakin' colossal break.
Not only should the father-in-law be charged with murder, so should her parents.
I've received several e-mails this week from readers requesting my take on what's taking place in Gaza right now.
The same thing keeps coming to mind whenever I think about what's apparently going on over there and the spin its getting in the media.
I say apparently, because between the news black out enforced by the Israeli's, and the propaganda that's coming through Hamas, it's hard to know exactly what's going on.
What keeps coming to mind is and old saying. "The enemy of my enemy is my friend."
I think explains a lot of the anti-Israeli sentiment that you see in the main-stream media.
It's actually anti-American. The Americans are the number one ally of the Israeli's, so its convenient business to beat up on Israel and hope it somehow sticks to Americans.
It may sound like a stretch, but sorry, that's the way I perceive it. For some, looking for new reasons to hate the USA is a full time job. Life is so simple.
In so much of what you read it's amazing how a couple of facts are continuously overlooked.
First of all, long before Israel launched this "defense", Hamas was systematically launching crude missiles into border towns in Israel. But for some reason, this didn't matter to a lot of the bleeding hearts who are now screaming bloody murder.
Secondly, it's conveniently forgotten that Hamas, although elected, is a terrorist organization that puts the eventual elimination of Israel far ahead of looking after its citizens.
If Hamas cared anything about the people of Gaza, they wouldn't launch "offensives" from school yards and public buildings, something that has been proven.
They're actually inviting retaliation so "innocents" die, because it helps the propaganda machine that so many Western news agencies buy into.
Again, none of us knows exactly what's going on over there so you have to take it for face value.
Israel is constantly under threat by organizations and governments that don't hesitate to publicly call for its annihilation with religion being the underlying issue.
I've always been against Toronto hosting the Olympics games because I'm convinced in Southern Ontario it would be a recipe for disaster.
Cost over-runs are pretty well guaranteed, but when you couple that with a socialist city council that's become entrenched in Toronto, a city council that's proved they can't run a lemonade stand let alone hold the Olympics, having the games come to this part of the country would be downright punishing.
It doesn't matter how they're presented, the Olympics always carry baggage that remains long after the games have been held, the medals have been awarded and organizers have patted themselves on the back.
Unfortunately, most of the baggage isn't revealed until commitments have been made, contracts have been signed and the games approach.
Vancouver is a prime example.
The people of that great city were slapped upside the head this week when they were told taxpayers are now on the hook for an Olympic Village that originally was estimated to cost 750 million dollars, but will now cost 875 million dollars.
And you can bet your sweet ass that's only the beginning. Already there are rumblings that it will eventually balloon to over a billion.
I hope nobody in Vancouver in surprised by this. It's part of the game when you host the Olympics and its only going to get worse, and to go back to the top of this fascinating piece, the extent of the damage won't be known until long after everybody's gone home.
Between now and the people of Vancouver can expect to keep hearing about cost overruns and other problems that weren't anticipated, and from there will become not only their problem, but our problem as well because somewhere along the line the federal government will be expected to help out.
Meanwhile, like most other deals of this type, there are a select few on the inside who will get rich.... or richer.
It was the most joyous of Christmas's thanks to my kids.
Every year they become mildly annoyed when Christmas approaches and I don't give them any ideas about what I want for Christmas.
I usually come up with the usual dad thing and say "nothing, save your money for something important."
This year was a little bit different, while driving back and forth between Brampton and Peterborough I kept hearing a Bay-Bloor Radio commercial on the Edge talking about "internet radios'.
I found this intriguing and I wanted one and I let it be known.
I spend a lot of time checking our radio stations on line from all over the world. I think it's so cool to be able to call up any station anywhere, and within seconds be listening to it.
The problem is, or was, that do this you have to be by a PC or have your laptop open. Even the mobility of a laptop made listening to internet stations a bit of a chore because you have to find the station, then click on the listen live feature and then stream the player.
With an internet radio, there's none of that.
It sits on your night table and remains ready for action either manually or with a remote.
For it to work, you have to have wireless capability in your house, but that's the extent of it.
You simply configure the radio like you would your laptop. You lock onto your network, punch in your WEP and the radio is ready to go, and when I say ready to go, I mean ready to go.
You can choose a country by scrolling through literally every country on earth, and then you can choose a genre. Thousands of radio stations are at your disposal without having to use a computer.
Somehow this wonderful little box by-passes everything and takes your directly to any radio stations streaming system. It buffers like it does on a computer but in makes cases it takes mere seconds and offers eight pre-sets which allows you to move quickly and freely between your favourite stations.
I love the bloody thing.
Since Christmas I've listened to live talk radio out of Jerusalem, following the on-going conflict over there.
Saturday night I found a sports radio station out of San Diego that was celebrating the Chargers victory over Indianapolis.
I enjoy listening to talk radio out of New York on WABC, the Fox Radio Network and hundreds of other stations spread across this earth.
It's also handy for my work situation. While in Brampton I can listen to The Wolf and The Kruz, and while in Peterborough I can listen to Toronto radio stations. Every stinkin' one of them.
When I opened this wonderful package on Christmas morning I was "tickled pink" to begin with, but since then my love for this contraption has increased tenfold, and sometimes I just look at it and stroke it without even turning it on.
And sometimes I wonder where the saying "tickled pink" came from.
Anyway, if you're a radio junkie like I am, and you love to surf the radio net, this is the thing for you, and from what I understand, Bay-Bloor Radio is about the only place you can get them right now.
Mine is a Sanyo.
Thanks Mel, thanks Dan - you made Christmas the most joyous occasion.
I can hardly believe it. I can hardly believe that this is the last day of the final year of the first decade of the new millennium.
At least I think it is.
Will 2009 be the final year of the first decade of the new millennium, or was 2000 the final year of the 1900's? If it was, then 2009 will be the second last year of the first decade of the new millennium.
Regardless, I think you get my drift. Where does the time go?
It seems almost impossible that nine years ago tonight I was in my buddy Darren's basement as we all stood around and wondered whether the lights would stay on.
Remember that load of bullroar that was fed to us in the late 90's. It was called Y2K and there were quite a few people who made a lot of money off throwing fear into society by planting the seed that computers would not function once the date flipped from "1999 to 2000."
To be honest, I didn't believe it and at one point it actually caused a little stress between me and Humble Howard.
Howie was totally in to Y2K while I was a bit of a skeptic and one day after we had Y2K booster Peter de Jager on the show we had a heated debate..
de Jager was a big benefactor of the Y2K scare writing books and giving speeches on the horrible things that were about to come upon us.
To me, it never made sense. I couldn't believe that we could be so vulnerable to something so simple and as it turned out, we weren't.
Midnight came and went and we all survived without a hitch - and the funniest part was, there were actually some people who were disappointed after all the build up.
Howard wasn't one of them. On the contrary, after emerging from his cold cellar where his wife Randi had stocked several pounds of dry goods and gallons of fresh water, he could be heard screaming like a Banshee through most of Oakville.
Anyway, we close out 2008 and what a year it was.
It's hard to pick a "big story".
The economy has been a world wide kick in the gazooni's, but on the upside the USA elected a black president. Going into year, I don't think anyone, anywhere, predicted either.
In Canada we had another election, an attempted over-throw and two car companies that teetered on the brink of disaster.
We also had a provincial election that was John Tory's to lose, and he did.
The country also lost far too many soldiers in Afghanistan.
On a personal note like most people experience, there was good and bad.
I became one of those people who lost a parent but I got back into the work force landing a great job in Peterborough.
As a matter of fact I can't wait to get 2009 started on Monday morning. Peterborough is a great town, blessed with two great radio stations and they're both full of great people.
He's a frequent reader and contributor to CanadianThinker.com and he continuously takes me to task over a multitude of things. This, that and what have you.
I got this e-mail from Mark today.
So Fred, how about a post on the following:
(1) Harper a few months back claimed a deficit was unacceptable and ridiculed the liberals on the subject. Today, I read, four years of deficits..
(2) The oil companies. Are they still gouging you?
I won't bother with a seperate posting Mark, I'll just answer this way.
(1) I don't know where you read that, but it really doesn't matter. Considering your history on this blog, if you say you read it, I'm sure you did.
I respond to it this way.
Harper, like so many other politicians spoke too quickly. As things have turned out it was a stupid thing to say and it's come back to bite him on the ass.
Having said that, I will give the guy a slight break considering how the world economy blows hogs right now. To pin too much on Harper would be foolish.
You might have noticed that I've given Dalton McGuinty a break through the current economical turmoil. I love to jump all over this liar, and a lot of what he promised and pledged isn't coming true, but I'll cut him some slack because of the times. I'm being rational.
That's not to say politicians shouldn't shut their mouths and speak more carefully, because they should.
As for an over-view, I still like Stephen Harper better than anything else that's been offered up.
I realize Michael Ignatieff is enjoying an Obama-style love-in by staunch Liberals, but we can't really judge this guy until there's something to judge.
(2) Yes. Oil sits around forty dollars a barrell today, but I just paid 75.9 for a litre of regular. By all accounts it should be in the 60s.
I'm happy to report that Vienna Meats will live on.
Vienna Meats is a delicatessen on Birchmount Road just south of Eglinton in Scarborough and it's a place I hold very near and dear to my heart even though I haven't set foot in the place in almost 30 years.
Vienna Meats was the closest store to my house while I was growing up on Chopin Avenue, which is about a five minute walk from Vienna.
When I was kid there were two variety stores within walking distance of our house. There was Scarborough Variety on Kennedy Rd. at Eglinton and there was Birch-Lawr Variety at Birchmount and Lawrence.
When I was a kid variety stores were important because they carried the widest variety of candy, so when you got your twenty-five cent a week allowance that's where you'd go.
The problem is both stores were about a half hour walk away.
Vienna filled the gap when time was a factor.
Often after having lunch at home, and having only a short window of time to get some candy before going back to school, Vienna represented a reasonable opportunity.
The selection of candy was slim, but it was still good enough when you needed a sugar fix.
Vienna didn't have jawbreakers or bubble gum or McIntosh Toffee or any of the real good stuff, but they did have Mentos , wine gums and chocolate encased in what looked like gold coins.
Nothing at Vienna was over the top and really inviting, but it was there when you needed it and I'm thrilled that it survived a five alarm fire yesterday.
Ironically I received the news from my buddy Alan Falkner who's a big shot District Chief with the Toronto Fire Department. Alan lived in my neighbourhood, he also went to Vienna on many occasions, and there he was yesterday directing his men at the fire.
Meanwhile, the Vienna Meats story reminded of another story, and it deals with haircuts and big boobs.
Shortly after become a teenager another variety store opened in our neighbourhood that was about half the distance of the variety stores that I mentioned in the Vienna story.
It was at Birchmount and Flintridge Rd. about halfway between Eglinton and Lawrence and it was called what else, "Flint-mount Variety."
Anyway also locating in this new strip mall was a hair cutting place called "El Dorado"and it represented the first "cool" hair cutting place in our district.
By this time if you didn't want to get your hair cut at the local barber shop, you had to go all the way downtown to a place like the "House of Lords" or some other over-priced rip off joint.
"El Dorado" became the favourite of all my friends and me because of the "extra" it offered.
None of us had ever had our hair washed as part of the hair cutting process. You just went to the barber shop, jumped in the chair and let Harry snip away.
"El Dorado" was a little more expensive but before you got into the chair you were directed to a sink to have your hair washed by a women. A young woman who always wore a very short skirt, painted herself up with lots of make-up, and made sure you noticed her enormous breasts.
You couldn't help but notice her big and bouncy boobatats because after you leaned back so your head would go into the sink, she would lean forward so her upper womanhood would engulf your face.
Word spread quickly and all of a sudden our neighbourhood went from a collection of pimply faced greasy longhairs to a collection of pimply faced not-so-long-hairs with beautiful gleaming shiny manes.
I was a brilliant marketing move by the owner of "El Dorado."
Don't kid yourself, it was all planned, and I had the boners to prove it.
Hey everybody, do you like this website? Have you ever thought of having your own website or blog?
If you have, then let me recommend the Booner. Toronto Mike. Mike Boon.
Even though CanadianThinker.com rankles a few of you, if it wasn't for Mike Boon, this website wouldn't exist.
The guy is unbelievable. He know it all, he does it all. If I have a problem, no matter how big or small, Mike is right on it - bingo, bango, bongo it's solved!
He's a darlin'.
And don't worry about the dough, Mike is extremely reasonable and you can dictate the level to which you want to become involved.
Blogging is fun, blogging is rewarding and sometimes blogging can cause people to call you names, but I highly recommend it.
Beyond that Mike has put together some pretty neat websites for businesses. I know, I've seen them.
If you're interested, here's what Mike can do for.
-securing the domain name
-securing the appropriate web hosting
-installing Movable Type
-writing the XHTML / CSS and working to get the right site design
-mapping out navigational structure
-optimizing output for search (SEO)
-education transfer to teach how to manage own site / blog
-doing it all on budget and on time with a guy who's super easy to work with
I received a lot of response to my postings yesterday and as usual there was no censoring.
There is a mechanism on my site that blocks certain comments until I can review them, but rarely do I choose not to post them.
This one came in yesterday and it's a fine example of how some people, in their pathetic attempt to defend the seperatist coalition, will stop at nothing.
The men who fought in the World Wars were fighting for freedom. To say that they were fighting for Canada is a bit naive. When you get right down to it, they were fighting for their lives. Fighting for the hope of seeing their loved ones again. To try and wrap the Canadian Maple Leaf Flag around these guys, when the Flag hadn't yet been introduced is laughable.
I highly doubt that my Great Uncle who fought in WWII gave a rat's ass about the future of Canada and Quebec's stance in the dominion.
Poor argument Fred.
Kram
Hey Kram, if your uncle is still alive, go ask him what he fought for, and if he's not, you should go to his grave today and apologize.
This is one of those weird situations where you don't want to bring attention to somebody, but at the same time you want to make a point
In this case it's David Frost who was acquitted on four counts of sexual exploitation in Napanee last week. In my opinion he got off thanks to some suspect work by the Crown and the fact that in Canada we seem to go out of our way to protect those who abuse children.
I probably shouldn't do this because it could actually help Frost make some money down the road and that would be wrong.
But here's the deal, Frost has started up a new website called HockeyGodOnline.com.
I won't link it because I'll let you decide whether you want to go there. But I think it's important to know it's out there because it helps expose Frost as the type of person he is..
Just one week after being acquitted he has the balls (apparently three of them if you followed the trial) to publish a website that not only features a "Mike Danton" section, but it also features something called "Hockey Hottie."
Danton is the former Mike Jefferson who under Frost's guidance had his life literally destroyed over a five or six year period. Danton currently sits in a U.S. jail for conspiring to have Frost killed.
And if that's not bad enough, on the heels of a trial that heard all kinds of testimony about Frost's sexual involvement with teenage girls, he slaps the world in the face by including a section that offers prizes to young women who send in pictures of themselves wearing almost nothing but hockey sweaters.
Nice eh.
Again, writing this piece actually brings attention to someone who doesn't deserve it, but maybe we can make something of this.
On the site, Frost doesn't allow comments on his postings because he knows what they would probably be. People would take the opportunity to tell him what they think of him and his wonderful past.
However, on the "Hockey Hottie" page there is an active e-mail address that you could use to send the classy Mr. Frost a message, so why don't you.
If you've got the stomach, go on over to HockeyGodOnline.com and tell Frost what you think of him, and then come back here and tell us what you wrote.
And I'm going to do my part. I'm going to expose anyone who contributes content to his site, and publish the name of anyone who might decide to advertise on it. Hopefully at that point, the thousands of people who visit CanadianThinker.com in a week can let those advertisers know how they feel about their involvement with such a swell guy.
We can only hope this becomes an OJ Simpson situation, whereby this scumbag gets nailed for something else. David Frost has destroyed so many lives, yet he walks away.
For the record, lawyer Marie Henein defended Frost and Ontario Court Justice Geoffrey Griffin acquitted him. Assistant Crown Attorney Sandy Tse blew the prosecution.
"Griffin also smacked around the prosecution - led by assistant Crown attorney Sandy Tse -for failing to convince him on the crux of the case. The judge expressed amazement the Crown hadn't called players' parents, sports psychologists and police investigators, or subpoena cellphone records."
Is this political correctness gone too far? I think so, as a matter of fact I know so.
But given the new Canada, despite it being racist and over the top, it's not too hard to believe.
It's what we've become, a nation of over-reactive politically correct nitwits desperately trying to come up with the next thing that will save the world, or at least put the white Canadian male in his place.
Can you imagine if anybody in this country ever came out with the declaration that they were going to dis-continue something based on the fact that someone was black, brown, yellow or olive?
The student union at Carlton University has decided to discontinue their support of the Canadian Cystic Fibrosis Foundation because somewhere in their whacked out world they latched onto the unfounded belief that CF affects mostly white adult males.
This is not true, in fact there is more than enough proof that this disease does not choose its victims on any level, but that didn't stop the Carlton gang from plunging forward with their a righteous gesture that does nothing but do what they're apparently trying to prevent.
Discriminate.
These feeble minded little twits are beyond comprehension, they go to bloody university but they weren't smart enough to think this thing through. Apparently the motion was kick-started by a few radicals who became delirious with the thought of killing something that supposedly benefitted only the white guy.
They actually issued a statement that boasted they supported a motion to withdraw support because they want fundraising to be as "inclusive as possible," and "CF has recently been revealed to affect white people and primarily men."
I can only laugh at what's happening in Scarborough. A proposed plan for wind turbines off the shore of the Scarborough Bluffs is a perfect example of the hypocrisy of most green plans and why they'll never work.
Everybody puts on a good face. Everybody wants to save the planet, and everybody claims they want to buy into anything that will save the environment.... until of course, it affects them directly.
Those who live along the Bluffs over-looking Lake Ontario are digging in their heels. Yes, they realize Canada should get away from fossil fuels, and yes they'd like wind power to become the wave of the future, but no, they don't want to look at windmills placed a couple of miles out in the lake.
At first they just told the truth. The windmills will be an eye sore and could affect property values. But once they realized that story was a little on the selfish side and made them look like enemies of the planet, they turned to a bullshit story about bird migration being disrupted.
Whatever it takes to preserve their view of the lake.
Hey, I don't blame these people. If I lived on the Bluffs over-looking the lake I'd probably be pissed off too, but I'm not one of those wieners who buys into advanced global warming hysteria and I don't claim to be ready to do what David Suzuki tells me do while making hundreds of thousands of dollars telling me to do it.
I bet you could go all over North America and find the same thing that's happening in Scarborough.
The people who are directly affected by the windmills are probably the same people who when asked previously would say they would support anything that would help the environment, and the people who gathered at a meeting in Scarborough last night and fall in favour of the windmills, probably live nowhere near the area.
And if the roles were reversed, the opinions would be reversed. Those who don't want them now, would, and those who do, wouldn't'.
That's the reality of the situation and the reason I laugh at all those people who use "An Inconvenient Truth" as reference to the world's so-called environmental crisis.
Everybody wants to save the polar bears. Until they have to go out into the cold.
It's amazing how all levels of Canadian government throw money at "reports" only to make sure those reports are politically correct first and accurate second.
The latest is a provincial report released by a couple of old sticks of dead wood named Alvin Curling and Roy McMurtry. They deliver the same old stuff.
Youth violence it seems is the fault of everybody under the sun except those who irresponsibly blast their sperm all over the province to willing recipients, with neither having any intention of dealing with the consequences.
It really is tiresome.
Racism is blamed, so is poverty, housing and the school system. In other words, it's the white establishment that's to blame for everything that ails Toronto's troubled youth.
Apparently it's government, society and the racist attitudes of white Canadians who force some segments of our community to have children without really thinking about it or having the financial means to deal with it.
That's what blows my mind about this stuff.
It's seems too simple, but its not. Youth violence in Toronto can be traced back to the home 99 percent of the time. It's the breakdown of the family unit and it's a huge problem in the black community with far too many fatherless homes, and if people want to dispute that, then let's start keeping statistics.
Let's keep statistics and release reports that ignore political correctness and uncover what's really going on out there. If there's nothing to hide then there's nothing to worry about.
It's a lot better than throwing good money at bad, toothless reports.
I've got to admit some of these breastfeeding issues piss me off so much I can't see straight.
The latest story comes out of York Region, where a breastfeeding mother thought it would be a good idea to pop a boob in a public pool and feed her kid where everyone else was swimming.
She was asked to leave the pool and offered two other locations in the facility with comfortable chairs, but that wasn't good enough.
Like so many of these self-centered wing nuts she had to take it to the next level by organizing a protest whereby dozens of breastfeeding women would invade the same pool.
Luckily, the owner of the pool got wind of the protest and hired security which prevented the disgusting protest from taking place.
Sorry, but I really can't get my head around the thinking of a lot of these women. Yes, we all know that breastfeeding is a wonderful and natural and healthy thing but there are certain times and places and a public swimming pool isn't one of them.
I'm not allowed to eat in a pool, so why should a baby? It's unsanitary and really isn't fair to anyone else in the pool who might find it objectionable. What about drips of lactate or vomit entering the water. Why should I have to put up with that?
Who in their right mind would risk having their darling little child ingect chlorinated water with a healthy dose of urine added to the mix?
What is the big goddamn deal about leaving the pool for a few minutes to feed your child instead of making it a front page issue? It's ridiculous.
The attitude towards breastfeeding has come a long way in the past few years and deservedly so, but there are lines that have to be drawn and when they're crossed it shouldn't be considered intolerance or a human rights issue. It should come down to common sense, but to some people, their own bloody self interest trumps everything else.
What a wonderful life Cinira Longuinho must lead if she has so much time to devote to this nonsense.
Listen lady, I wouldn't want to swim in your breast milk either.
As many of you know, I live in Brampton. But I live as far north in Brampton as you can go. As a matter of fact, when I look out my back window, I'm looking at Caledon.
Unlike Brampton, Caledon has a fine reputation. Wide open spaces, beautiful homes and money. But it also has a history.
It has a history of some horrific car accidents involving impaired teen-agers. There's a reason for this, not an excuse mind you, just a reason.
Caledon is rural and the only way for kids to get around is to drive. There's no transit system, so the majority of kids get their licenses early and take to the long and winding roads.
Again, this is no excuse for drinking and driving. I'm sure in many cases kids took their parents cars under the promise they wouldn't drink and drive but one thing led to another which led to tragedy. I'm sure many bad decisions were made along the way.
But how's this for a bad decision.
On Saturday night my daughter went to a party in Caledon and rather then drive home, she left her car on the street and took a cab home. The responsible thing to do.
This morning when I drove her over to her car there was a parking ticket on it and it wasn't cheap, it was thirty dollars, her reward for being responsible.
This was a wide but quiet side street and having her car parked there would have made no difference to anyone. Anyone but the Town of Caledon.
The Town of Caledon which has a terrible history of accidents involving young people. The Town of Caledon which rather than relaxing parking rules on a Friday and Saturday nights, would rather scoop thirty bucks off someone who chose not to drink and drive. The Town of Caledon which given its history should have enough foresight to figure this out.
I realize towns and cities depend on parking fines as part of their revenue stream, but sometimes common sense has to over-ride revenue. It was a Saturday night for cryin' out loud.
My daughter's car wasn't parked on a main street or highway. It wasn't impeding anyone's drive way and it wasn't parked next to a fire hydrant. It was left on the street because we continually drive it into the heads of our youth to not drink and drive because the consequences can be devastating.
But all of this has apparently escaped Caledon Mayor Marolyn Morrison, and by-law enforcement officer K. Louro, badge number 8356.
The following line was written in the attached article by Andrew Chung: Trained as a lawyer at his father's alma mater, Université Laval, he has become used to the limelight over the years and has honed his skills as an adept, funny and engaging public personality.
I'm happy for Neighbour John. He runs a manufacturing company that does almost all of its business in the United States.
With the Canadian dollar dropping below 80 cents, John is a very happy man these days. Over the past couple of months, he got a 20 percent raise. How many people can say that?
Of course John would counter with this. During the brief moment in time that the Canadian dollar was strong, he wasn't so happy. Like many Canadian manufacturers, it put a lot of pressure on his business from top to bottom.
I like to think of Neighbour John and people like him whenever I get pissed off about the dollar. It makes me feel better.
Tomorrow morning I'm leaving on my third annual sports trip to Michigan and although it's only for two days, I 'm still not thrilled about paying $1.26 for an American dollar.
Thank goodness all our tickets were purchased when the dollar was in the upper 90's, so that makes it even easier, but all of a sudden a quick trip across the border will cost 26 percent more than it would have a month ago.
I've guess we've been spoiled over the past couple of years. With a dollar floating around par, it made trips to the United States a lot more enjoyable. Especially when you consider that besides smokes and booze and "some" clothing, prices in the States didn't seem to differ much from Canada.
Definitely not food - groceries or restaurants.
I admit, I'll probably only spend a couple of hundred bucks in Michigan this weekend, but that instantly means $250.00, and I don't know about you, but I don't like having 50 bucks disappear into thin air. Not only that, but a $240.00 dollar hotel bill will turn into almost three hundred.
Here's the deal. This trip was planned a few months ago, so we're on the hook to go. But honestly, if the dollar had been worth 79 cents when we were planning it, I probably would have declined, on principle. And it will definately make me rethink a planned trip to Florida in the spring.
It lets you appreciate how the United States will probably suffer over the next few months from a tourism standpoint. How many Canadians planning extended trips will decide to stay home? Lots.
But I go back to my original point. Guys like Neighbour John are happy today, and so is the Canadian tourism industry, and when you get right down to it, that's way more important than my trip to Michigan.
I think I'll check out Newfoundland in the spring.
You may have noticed already, but if you haven't, let me bring your attention to the new banner on this website.
It's been rebranded.
From now on, FreddieP.ca will be known as CanadianThinker.com by Freddie P. To be honest, I couldn't handle two websites any more.
Canadian Thinker was an idea I had a few months ago when I didn't have a full time job nailed down. I had planned to throw as much into it as I had FreddieP, but given my new schedule, I just couldn't give Canadian Thinker as much time as I wanted, so it went unattended and that bothered me.
But while my efforts remained focused on FreddieP.ca, I couldn't shake the name CanadianThinker.com. I like the name and I think it describes what I try to do with my websites.
So, in collaboration with Toronto Mike, I came up with this idea. FreddieP.ca would become CanadianThinker.com by Freddie P.
I will continue to present FreddieP.ca as I always have, but I will now incorporate some of the ideas from Canadian Thinker.
I'm sort of killing two birds with one stone. I'm maintaining my original website, but using a new name. A name I prefer, and one that gives the website a more wide ranging appeal to the outside world, including those radio stations I currently do "hits" with every week.
If you don't know "me" it carries more weight with this moniker than it does with a personal moniker.
So that's it. Today I announce a merger. FreddieP.ca becomes CanadianThinker.com by FreddieP.
There are all kinds of low life in our society, but they don't come much lower than those who traffic, produce or use GHB - the date rape drug.
Admittedly, those who traffic in hard drugs like heroin, cocaine and crystal meth are scum bags too, but their victims are on a different level.
People who use these drugs have made a choice, however feeble and stupid; they've decided to put this shit into their own bodies.
GHB is much different.
The victims are completely unknowing and then become a virtual toy for the creeps who secretly put it into their drinks.
What kind of a low life piece of crap would do this to a woman, usually a young woman who's decided to go out with some friends, have a few drinks and then go home alone at the end of the night?
What kind of a dirty rotten useless bastard finds pleasure in having sex with a woman who has no idea what's going on, a woman, who given the choice, would probably have nothing to do with the creep who ends up violating her body?
It doesn't get any lower than this. Do these dirty pricks actually look at this as some kind of an accomplishment? Can you imagine having your brain work that way?
The law has to come down big on these people and there was a case in Toronto yesterday that was somewhat encouraging.
A human pig got six years for buying a whack-load of GHB from some other junk-brains who allegedly spend their days with that fine upstanding organization known as the Hell's Angels. After sentencing the pathetic skunk actually started to cry.
I wonder how many of his victims had their lives destroyed?
Six years is a start, but not enough.
To my mind, anyone who deals in this stuff should be convicted one day, and then be hanging from a rope the next.
Sorry liberals, but in some cases I don't want to hear about rehabilitation.
Needless to say, FreddieP.ca has had a lot of action over the past couple of days and I love it.
Everybody is entitled to their own opinion and I welcome the feedback, even the stuff that paints me as some kind of a redneck roughneck. I just consider the source and write them off as simpletons who can't come up with anything better.
Take Irvine for example. Thirty percent fact and seventy percent bullshit. But I honestly appreciate his input. He adds pepper to my site even though he goes round in circles and really doesn't say much.
But I have to highlight one of the comments I received yesterday. It really blew my mind because whoever "Bram Chester" is, by taking a shot at me, he actually accentuated what I was trying to say in my posting "Harper Connects."
To be an artist doesn't necessarily mean you have to stick your hand out.
Bram Chester wrote this.
"Fred, how do you feel about the fact that the culture generally being attacked is the same independent culture that once built CFNY, which gave you a career?
This isn't a rhetorical question, if you dare to answer it."
Here's the deal "Bram Chester", or whoever you are afraid to say you are, CFNY was built on independent culture by a bunch of wonderful people who received absolutely no government assistance.
They built the "culture" with love and devotion without ever thinking that someone should give them a handout, or a grant or a subsidy. They did it because they believed in it and they were willing to accept what it returned.
They were people I consider family who lived in basement apartments, drove shitty cars and watched every goddamed dollar they spent.
They did shows all by the themselves, often providing their own resources because they wanted to produce the best show possible and provide an "alternative" to most of the junk that other radio stations were dumping on the masses.
How dare you compare them to CBCers who do simple radio shows with a staff of seven or eight. How dare you group them with wingnuts who make sculptures out of cigarette butts and then expect the government to support them.
"Bram Chester" when you tried connect CFNY to subsidized culture and art you were so off base it made me laugh so hard I pissed my pants.
I have to be honest when I arrived back at the trailer last night I was exhausted. The first day of my new job as Program Director of the Wolf and Kruz in Peterborough was wild.
I made a point of trying to talk to everyone in the building, at least for a few minutes, and yakking for close to eight straight hours can take a lot out of a guy.
I'm not complaining because actually being in a radio station as an employee was not only satisfying, it was of great relief.
Man oh man, I love this business and while I walked through the doors yesterday morning, I thought of something Iain Grant said to me last Thursday.
"There's nothing worse than sitting in the foyer of a radio station, waiting for an interview, while other people breeze by you with their pass cards. Those people are on the "inside" working in the business they love, while you're not, and it sucks."
Today I took a deep breath before I entered the station, and sucked up the atmosphere as I walked through the foyer and right into my office.
It's a great bunch in Peterborough, and they've made me feel so welcome it's almost embarrassing. I'm just a knob from Brampton, but to these people treat me like 28 years in Toronto radio actually means something. I'm humbled and flattered and thankful.
It's going to be a lot of fun working with a talented people, building on a radio station that leads the market and hopefully will continue to do so under my direction.
Yesterday was a case of information overload but I took lots of notes and today's primary job will be to remember all the names I learned from yesterday.
Former Humble and Fred contributor and now highly successful voice actor and singer/songer writer Pete Cugno has entered the Hockey Night in Canada Anthem Challenge.
Pete is a talented fella with a basement studio that allows him to turn out magic, and his entry in the Hockey Night in Canada Anthem Challenge is catchy and cool.
Hey!!!
I finally received the revised link for my Hockey Night In Canada anthem entry!!! It's simply called "GO!!!" It's quite a departure from the old anthem. I wanted to put more "arena crowd" feel and "rock" vibe in the tune...hope you like it!
Please click on the link below, listen to the anthem, and RATE it a 5 out of 5...or 10 out of 10 - whatever it allows! THEN, please, please, please, pass the link on to anyone and everyone you know who will also listen to it, rate it, pass on the link...and so on. The more views and the better ratings it gets, the better chance it has of making the top 5. At that point, it's all up to a nationwide (internet-wide) vote...fingers crossed!
Please click here and give Pete's entry a listen and a rating.
I've mentioned over the past few days that I plan to continue with FreddieP.ca, but to be honest, at this point I don't know how much time I will be able to devote to it.
A recurring theme in the comments I've been getting is people almost pleading with me to continue.
Believe it or not, it takes more time than you might think and now that I have a real gig, it will have to drop on my priority list.
Having said that, I don't want anybody to think that it will be neglected or cease to exist because it won't, mainly because it wouldn't be fair to thousands who visit it every week, and Toronto Mike wouldn't allow it.
FreddieP.ca is not only my baby, but it's something that Mike Boon has become very proud of over the past couple of years.
The website started out in its rawest form, and then after meeting Mike through Humble Howard, it took a large step forward. Mike offered to help me to not only improve the look but to also turn me on to the world of Googling and rankings and all sorts of other technical stuff to give the site a larger platform.
It's all worked out wonderfully and I'm currently in talks with him to make more changes that will make it easier for me to maintain the site while also doing a full time job.
I've been the face of FreddieP.ca, but believe me, Mike Boon has been the backbone.
Tonight I'm packin' up the car and heading north to start my new adventure. I have a couple of meetings tomorrow and then I report for work Monday morning.
I can't begin to tell you how much I'm looking forward to getting up in the morning and having a place to go, especially a radio station.
As I mentioned yesterday, I plan to continue this website and when I can, I'll keep you up to date on my new experience, and I continue to give my opinion on what's going on in the world.
I realize I may have gone a little overboard with the "thanks" over the past day or so, but I'm a bit of a sentimentalist and appreciate those who stayed in touch over the past couple of years.
The response on the website yesterday was amazing, but so were the personal notes I got from so many people in the radio business. Unfreakinbelievable.
I won't list the names because obviously many of you wanted it to be private, but I have to tell you how inspired I was to get a note from David Marsden.
Hey Fred - I hear you are back in the game. But then you really never left. :-)
Congratulations!!!!
I'll be banging on your door for a gig - soon.
Be great!!!
Marsden
David was my first Program Director back in 1979 at CFNY and I enjoyed every minute that I worked for him.
If I can come close to creating the atmosphere in Peterborough that Marsden did in Brampton I'll be a very happy man.
I know your type. Sitting behind the desk listening to the morning show air-check and giving me shit because the 7:10 break just didn't sound like there was any show prep at all.
Oh, and there wasn't! Yikes! Ha ha.
Frederick! I could not be happier for you. You will be great as the new PD. You get it. You will help a new generation of radio kids grow. From reading your blog I know you have had great teachers and I bet you will do them proud and even add some great new stuff to the mix.
You are back in the club house. The radio Tree-Fort. That is soooooo cool!
I've been reading about this guy in the beer commercial and his child porn conviction. Ha!
As you may or may not know, I lived in Texas for two and a half years. A great place with wonderful people. But Texas doesn't fool around with child porn perverts.
Follow this link and discover what real justice is all about.
This is one of those posting that has several subjects in it. OK ya buggers.
First of all, how about the arrest of two Toronto guys on the Niagara River on the weekend? Talk about an over-reaction!
It's hard to believe that they would have to spend even a minute in jail. How did common sense go out the window when it was quickly sized up that they were a couple of hosers on a Sea-doo screwing around?
I realize there's a constant threat to the American border by undesirables, but holy cow, this was a bit different.
You'd think during the time this guy was in hospital they could have realized what the situation was and let it go at that.
It will probably seem like an eternity to Robert Smith, the former Alexander Keith's beer pitcher, but twenty months in jail for child porn possession doesn't seem like enough of a slap to me.
He also got three years probation and has been forbidden from having contact with anyone under sixteen, including his own kids, but is that still enough?
If we're going to set an example in Canada, and prove that we really care about protecting our kids, shouldn't guys like this be made an example of?
Granted, it's similar to the drug trade, you have to go after the pushers more than the users, but when it comes to our kids, the rules change.
Nail them all.
As tragic as the Maple Leaf Foods crisis is, there could be an upside.
Maybe everyone will stop eating processed meat, period. Forget about the stuff that's killed people recently, no matter how they dress it up processed meat will probably kill you eventually anyway.
The plans for a Burlington man to gather signatures on a petition in front of beer stores this weekend is noble, but it won't have much impact.
Dalton McGuinty has made it clear that the monopoly will continue and the big boys will continue to run the beer business in Ontario, even it means squeezing the mircro brewers who are making good product but can't get placed in beer stores.
For some reason this province resists the "beer in the corner store" concept even though it works in jurisdictions all over the world, including some in Canada.
And there's never been a better argument against the "Beer Store" than there is right now.
Molson's, Labatt's and Sleeman's are now all foreign owned and its these companies that own and control the "The Beer Store."
Why should foreign ownership that controls 80 percent of beer sales in Ontario, have it all their way?
Finally, good luck and best wishes to all those involved in the launch of "Virgin Radio" in Toronto. I realize how exciting and wonderfully optimistic a re-launch can be.
Only time will tell.
I got up this morning and had to drive up Hwy. 28 to a little place called Big Cedar where I buy my fresh drinking water.
It's a neat little general store and if you look up above the counter there's an autographed picture of Ed Robertson of the Barenaked Ladies. Apparently, Ed often stops in at Big Cedar on his way to his cottage near Bancroft.
There were a few people in the store this morning and that was the subject at the cash register. Ed had crashed his plane but he had survived.
Rumour has it that Eddie has created quite the place up there. He bought a huge piece of land with a real sweet cottage on it and then to protect his privacy, he bought a whole pile of land directly across the lake so nobody else could build on it.
On the top of a nearby hill he built a landing strip for his plane. For those times when he wants to avoid weekend traffic and just fly to his cottage.
However yesterday, he wasn't using the landing strip, he was using the pontoons on his plane when he attempted to take off from Lake Baptiste and things went terribly wrong.
He couldn't get enough altitude and the plan plunged into the woods. Miraculously Ed, his wife Natalie and two friends not only survived, they walked away, and from all accounts they had no business doing that. The plane is a wreck.
It gets a guy like me, who doesn't like heights or small planes, why a guy worth millions of dollars, who's got the whole freakin' world by the tail, would want to fly around on an engine surrounded by a thin hunk of metal.
I often think the same way about Humble, except for the millions of dollars part. I've been up with Howard a couple of times in a plane, and although I full confidence in his ability, I've got to be honest, they weren't the most enjoyable times of my life.
There was something weird about sitting a studio with a guy telling fart jokes and the radio and then having that same guy pilot the plane you were flying in. It's one of those situations where you almost "don't" want to know the guy who's flying.
It was hard to get my head around having the pilot as the same guy who got on the phone with his friend "Stinky" only to make weird childish noises that made them laugh like school kids.
Although it was completely unfair and Howard handled the plane flawlessly, it still made things somewhat unsettling for someone like me who doesn't like to be too far above the earth at any given moment unless I'm in a huge jet with a couple of Gravol in me.
Anyway, all this stuff went through my mind this morning while I stood in Big Cedar and heard bits and pieces of the story about Ed Robertson crashing his plane a few miles north of where I was standing.
Eddie had a close call yesterday, and you just shudder when you think his wife was with him and what that could have meant to their children if the worst had happened.
If I'm Ed Robertson, from now on I forget about the airplanes and put up with the traffic on the 401. (yes I know, statistics probably dictate you're safer in a plane, but I like to be touching the ground.)
There was another interesting angle to this story, and one I'm sure that drives Steven Page crazy.
Every newspaper account of yesterday's incident that I've read on line today have mentioned Page's arrest for cocaine possession earlier this summer.
I received the e-mail from neighbour John, who got it from his father. A good read for today's parents who like to bubble-wrap their kids.
First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they carried us. They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing, tuna from a can, and didn't get tested for diabetes.
Then after that trauma, our baby cribs were covered with bright colored lead-based paints.
We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets, not to mention, the risks we took hitchhiking.
As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags.
Riding in the back of a pick up on a warm day was always a special treat.
We drank water from the garden hose and NOT from a bottle.
We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and NO ONE actually died from this.
We ate cupcakes, white bread and real butter and drank soda pop with sugar in it, but we weren't overweight because..
WE WERE ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING!!
We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on.
No one was able to reach us all day. And we were O.K.
We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then ride down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem.
We did not have Playstations, Nintendo's, X-boxes, no video games at all, no 99 channels on cable, no video tape movies, no surround sound, no cell phones, no personal computers, no Internet or Internet chat rooms..........
WE HAD FRIENDS AND WE WENT OUTSIDE AND FOUND THEM!
We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no lawsuits from these accidents.
We ate worms and mud pies made from dirt, and the worms did not live in us forever.
We were given BB guns for our 10th birthdays, made up games with sticks and tennis balls and although we were told it would happen, we did not put out very many eyes.
We rode bikes or walked to a friend's house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just yelled for them!
Little League had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment. Imagine that!!
The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law!
This generation has produced some of the best risk-takers, problem solvers and inventors ever!
The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas.
We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned
I got caught in one of those moments yesterday. Not like George Costanza in the bathroom with the Cosmopolitan, but it was almost as embarrassing.
Let me preface this by saying I'm married to the world's most well adjusted, calm, cool and collected woman alive. She's got endless patience and wouldn't say shit if her mouth was full of it.
I'm somewhat the opposite and tend to let little things get the better of me sometimes.
Like yesterday when I was attempting to use my weed whacker again. It's useless. Delyse bought it for me a couple of years ago, and she bought it because I asked for it.
My Weed Eater had screwed up for the one hundredth time and against my better judgment I asked for another gas powered small engine jobby even though I knew these things are more trouble than they're worth.
I should have asked for the cordless re-chargable but I thought by the time I asked for a new gas machine they would have ironed out all the wrinkles and the tendency for these things to stall all the time or refuse to start for no goddamn reason.
I was wrong.
Delyse bought something called a Homelite and although it worked properly for maybe the first two or three times, since then its been a bitch bastard pain the ass.
It always starts OK when its cold, and it actually whacks a few weeds before something comes over it and it refuses to continue.
It stalls, and then you have to choke it before it even pretends it wants to start. And then if it does start, as soon as you take the choke off it stalls. And if for some reason it doesn't stall at that point, as soon as you give it some gas it definitely stalls.
Imagine being in the middle of yard work and having to deal with this. It got so bad at one point yesterday that I was continuously yanking the cord, and if it ran for a brief few seconds I would run over to some grass and try to cut it before it stalled again.
It was brutal, frustrating and extremely aggravating. So I did it. I threw it across the yard.
But I have to admit, just before I threw it, it crossed my mind that somebody might be watching me. But it was early in the morning and there was nobody else outside so I went with the law of averages and flung the son of a bitch halfway across the yard where it landed with a bang against the bottom of the fence.
And then almost instantly I heard a tapping. Like someone was tapping on a window. So I looked up, and there in the bedroom window was Delyse giving me a sarcastic thumbs-up.
In my world, this was trouble. Delyse is the most patient and tolerant person in the world, but when it comes to my impatience, she has no patience or tolerance.
I sheepishly nodded as she left the window with a look of disgust on her face.
I finished doing a few things around the yard and then prepared myself to go into the house and face the music. But I decided to be pro-active. Rather than wait for her to bring it up, I decided to bound into the house and explain myself.
"Dol" I said. (That's what I call her) "What I did was stupid, silly and immature. There's no excuse for it and it would have been awful if someone else had seen it. Like one of neighbour John's kids or Danny's girlfriend (who I'm just getting to know). But I had to do it hon, that piece of crap has been haunting me for two years now. It was the wrong thing to do and solved nothing..... but I'll tell ya something, it felt great!"
What happened at that point surprised me. She laughed. My little darlin' laughed.
Turns out she has witnessed what I've been going through with that hunk of junk over the past couple of years and she understood. She understood the extent of my frustration and how it could push me to the point of an outburst.
Too many times she saw me pulling on that cord to the point of exhaustion only to have it sputter and spit in my face. She understood.
Today I'm going to crush it with the back wheels of my Pathfinder.
It'll be interesting to see how the aftermath of the Downsview explosion plays out over the next few weeks or months.
How the hell did such a facility end up smack dab in the middle of a residential area just three short years ago?
You could understand if Sunrise Propane had located there a few decades ago and a neighbourhood developed around it, but this was reverse order and somebody has to answer to the victims.
At this point, it appears that Ontario's Technical Standards and Safety Authority is holding the bag, but that's according to David Miller, and as well know, he loves to blame everything on other levels of government.
And I'm sure if someone asks Dalton McGuinty about it, he'll find a way to blame it on Mike Harris.
Before the city gets off the hook, there better be some big time investigation put into this because several lives were destroyed in the early morning hours of Sunday.
Forget about the property damage, people were seriously injured and a couple were killed.
Apparently residents had complained about this facility since its inception because it began as a place to fill up your barbeque tank, to a full blast accident waiting to happen.
All complaints fell on deaf ears, including the Mayor's. He seems to forget regardless of "how" the thing got there, as Mayor he still has to address the concerns of his citizens.
In this case he didn't. As usual, he just passed the buck.
Hey, if you're ever in the Peterborough are, or you frequent the area like I do, you should know about it's wealth of restaurants.
I don't have the data to back it up, but I'll step out and say it, Peterborough has the best restaurants per capita in the country. For a city of less than 70 thousand people, they sure have a lot of great places to eat.
I'm sure it has something to do with being a tourist destination and the face that it's also a University town, but whatever the reason, Peterborough has a ton of good restaurants and neat coffee shops and the list is growing monthly.
If you're up their you can check out "Hot Belly Mama's" on George Street. Try their Roti.
For cool salads and fantastic mussels try St Verona's Café and Tap Bar at the corner of Hunter and Water Streets. It's a Belgium theme with close to a hundred beers on tap.
Also on Hunter St. you'll find Nicolini's. An Italian restaurant that usually requires a reservation it's so popular. I once had their blue steak over pasta with gorgonzola sauce and it made my eyes roll back in my head.
For Thai food there's Cosmic Charlie's on Charlotte Street. As good as any in Toronto and a cool atmosphere.
Speaking of Thai, if you want some great chicken wings with a beer, check out Girdy's on Hunter Street. Their thai wings are fabulous.
And if you want to venture outside of Peterborough for a great dining experience, try "The Old Bridge Inn" in Youngs Point, about 20 minutes north on Hwy 28.
They have a short menu, but it's fabulous.
My sweet darlin' had to work this week so I was up at the tin palace all alone, until yesterday. In the late afternoon, my buddy Doug arrived.
Doug is my longest and dearest friend. We've been friends since we were five years old, and we've been through a lot together, including many great times on the lake where my trailer sits.
As kids our parents rented lots at a nearby park and we spent every summer in the Kawarthas gathering memories which have led to great stories.
A good portion of yesterday was spent looking up the lake and prefacing most of what we said with "do you remember that time?"
It's actually bitter sweet because as much as fun as it is to remember, it's a bummer to realize how the years have flown by.
Doug and I talked about things that happened 40 years ago, as if they happened last week.
Spin the clock ahead by the much and we'll probably be like Scruff Connors isn't.
OK, let's get this out of the way right away. You can't judge a person by their looks, and it's downright unfair to connect anyone to anything just because in your own mind "they look the part."
But let's be honest, when you saw the picture of this guy this morning, were you at all surprised that he's been charged with abduction and sexually assaulting a 12 year old girl.
I'd like to have a nickel for every time it was said by a water cooler this morning. That this guy looks the part.
That doesn't mean he did it. Even though he's got a history of weird behaviour, and his own mother said this afternoon that they should lock him up and throw away the key, it doesn't mean just because he looks like he does, that he's guilty of anything but being an odd looking fellow.
I struggled before writing this piece because it just isn't fair, but I couldn't ignore the nagging reality of what is probably being said throughout the country today when people first lay eyes on the photo and then read the charges.
On every level imaginable, it's wrong to make the connection.
But on every level imaginable it's hard not to.
Look at the guy!
By the way, he's been denied bail, which is encouraging considering our pathetic justice system that often doesn't protect our children.
As a parent, you want your kids to experience all they can. Why wouldn't you?
Life experience develops character and we all want our kids to be solid citizens don't we?
OK, not all of us. I'm forgetting about the skunks in our society who blast their seed all over the place and then take off with no accountability, but if you read this blog often, you know how I feel about that, so I'll move on.
This past weekend both my kids went to Chicago for Lollapalooza and it made me feel good.
I remember when I was in my early 20's and how enjoyable road trips could be, especially to far away places, and considering that Chicago is a nine hour drive, it qualifies as a far-away place.
Not only that, I think them to experience not only the things that I have, but also things I haven't, and other than a brief weekend jaunt to Chicago back in 1991 for a Blue Jays series, I really haven't experienced Chicago.
Since then I've often said to my wife that we should go there for a long weekend and check-out all the neat stuff they have in Chicago, including Wrigley Field, the Sears Tower and some great food.
It's often been said that Toronto could be the twin city of Chicago. The cities have similar profiles and sit on the waterfront of a Great Lake.
It was one of the first thing my daughter Melanie noticed, but on closer examination she quickly realized how Toronto is failing while Chicago in thriving.
It's hard to believe this because Toronto used to take pride in its cleanliness, but according to Melanie, there's no comparison.
The litter is a minimum, graffiti doesn't seem to be a problem, there are no bums on the streets and she found the general attitude of the people to be a lot nicer.
She also noticed that the Chicago waterfront isn't cluttered with condominiums. The city isn't "cut off" the way it is in Toronto.
My son Danny made the same observations. He fell in love with the city and wants to go because he felt a much different vibe in Chicago, as compared to Toronto. Chicago is on its way "up" while Toronto is heading in the other direction.
I find it sad, because when I was their age, Toronto was a model city and when I compared to most of the cities I visited, my hometown came out on top.
The streets were tidy, the roads were in good shape, there was no graffiti and the subway wasn't a filthy mess.
Toronto was a functional city run the way Chicago is now. As a business. A serious business run by business minded people with rational thought and fiscally responsible decision-making.
While Chicago has improved, Toronto has been pulled into the mud by a socialist city council, led by a delusional maniac.
Toronto is suffering. All you have to do is look around, and then listen to people who travel to other cities and report back.
Toronto is no longer the model that most other North American cities are compared to. It's become trashy, mismanaged experiment for a pack of losers who are ripping it apart.
When I was in my early 20's wherever I traveled I found comfort in the feeling that Toronto was a better place than pretty much everywhere else.
I’m going to direct you over to Toronto Mike’s site now, because I don’t want something he posted yesterday to be on my site.
It’s the Obama Song, by an arsohole named Ludacris.
I can’t call him a singer because he doesn’t sing, and I can’t credit him with making music, because he’s a rapper and from this old bastard’s perspective, most rap doesn’t quality as music.
And don’t get me wrong, I like Barrack Obama and I hope he becomes the next president of the United States.
He has distanced himself from this piece of racist garbage, and so he should have.
It’s fascinating how in our society racism is considered a one-way street by so many.
Can you image if anyone endorsed John McCain simply because of his colour?
I’ve got to admit, I’m amazed at the lack of juicy issues that have been in the news lately.
It’s been a quiet summer when you think about it. There’s been some gun play in the GTA, but nothing like past years, and the gang activity seems to have thinned out.
Mayor Miller has been rather quiet. He must be taking some time off this summer because; there have been very few puzzling or mind boggling decisions or statements by the man who’s slowly destroying Toronto.
Federally, it’s the same old story. A Liberal leader is attempting to destroy himself, but Ontario won’t stand for it. Canada’s most twisted province prefers to over-look the obvious shortcomings of the Liberals, and instead, dig deep for anything that might make the Conservatives look bad, even if it’s fantasy.
It’s left me scratching my head many days this summer wondering what to write about.
You need issues to sink your teeth into, but there’s been no meat outside of my little world in the Kawartha’s.
Inside my world however, there are have been two issues lately.
A bear and poop.
There’s been a black bear spotted at the garbage dumpster just down the road from us, and we’ve had some trouble in the trailer park this year with having our black water tanks emptied.
The bear, which very few people have actually seen, has most of the women, including my wife freaked out. They feel we’re under the constant threat of being torn apart by a bear, who in reality, would rather eat our garbage than eat our limbs.
Even during the day when we walk near the vicinity of the dumpster, Delyse walks a little closer to me and her head spins like “what’s her name” in the Exorcist.
I keep telling her there’s nothing to worry about. I’ve been coming up to these parts since I was “crappin’ yellow” and never once has anyone been threatened, let alone attacked by a bear.
We used to make special trips up to a dump just to watch them play and eat. Black bears don’t care about us unless we threaten their young, and I don’t think anyone is going to go out of their way to threaten a cub.
“But what about at night” said my sweet.
“Same thing” I said. First of all, chances are the bear will be way more interested in the garbage than he is in us, and if you leave him alone, he isn’t going to do anything.
It’s really a needless worry, especially when you consider that only a select few people have actually seen the thing.
To be honest, I’d love to see the bear. I’d take a few pictures and put them on my website. In fact I’d like to lure him to the Tiki Bar with a shot glass of honey.
Baby come on! That would be a picture!
What I find a lot more threatening in the park right now is full black water tanks.
Black water thanks hold your poop and pee and through a management change this summer, there’s been a problem with emptying these things on a consistent basis.
They’ve been done every week, but it’s been a bit of a “crap” shoot when it comes to the actual timing. This week it was done on Friday night, right at the dinner hour. Several people were just sitting down to a nice meal when the “Poop Wagon” guy was sucking stuff out of their trailer. And believe me, no matter what you do, while the process is taking place, there’s an odour.
My buddy Darren was a nervous wreck on Friday. He was expecting company, yet his holding tank was brim full of chocolately goodness. He was at his wits end wondering what he was going to tell his guests. Luckily, all embarrassment was avoided at the eleventh hour.
Unfortunately, the same couldn’t be said for my other friend Chris. Her black water tank wasn’t emptied properly and what she thought was an empty tank turned out to be a “still full” tank. How unfortunate that my other friend Danny Bonchek was the first upon the scene and responded to Chris’s distress.
He put a bucket under the valve and cranked it. He created enough room until the next pump out - and let it be known Chris disposed of it in a very environmentally conscious way.
My buddy Bruce had an entirely different problem. His valve was broken, so there was no way of getting the nectar from inside his tank into that of the “excremental engineer.”
He’s in the process of replacing the valve while not having any of his own body waste splash him in the face. He’s a handy guy, but this situation poses a major problem that I hope I never experience.
Amazing eh. I start out saying I have nothing to write about but I end up with his long drawn out story about something you’d probably rather not think about.
Hey, but that’s exactly why I’m so concerned about black water pump outs.
I haven’t been writing a lot of things of any depth on my website lately, and the explanation is simple.
I’ve been up north enjoying some time with my wife, and for the most part I’ve considered it a bit of a holiday.
I’ve scoured the newspapers and posted stuff on CanadianThinker.com, but I haven’t really sunk my teeth into anything because to be honest, nothing has really inspired me.
I got mildly pissed off at the Commissioner of the MLS (Major Soccer League) who said he wanted the Argonauts to stay OUT of BMO field.
Of all the nerve, some upstart Mickey Mouse soccer league that probably won’t be around in five years, and this guy is dictating to one of the oldest franchises in North American sport.
That stadium was built with taxpayer money, and if the Argonauts want to eventually play there, they should be able to “bump” TFR or TYF or TDG or whatever they call the soccer team on a days notice.
I was mildly amused by the Loreen Small story. The mother of murdered teenager Jordan Manners, who along with her daughters were shot at last week.
Why is it that more and more I feel a connection somewhere along the line? That there’s way more to Jordans’s murder than meets the eye and the incident last week was just an extension of that.
Again, it’s just a feeling.
I’m fascinated by Stephane Dion.
Incompetent, confused and downright silly, but he still rivals Stephen Harper in national polls thanks to the people of Ontario.
Until Ontario grows up, wakes up and smartens up, this country is in trouble. Ontario has to get over its anti-Conservatism before it’s too late.
We could easily end up with another Liberal government within the year, and that’s scary.
And I’m totally blown away with extended weather forecasts.
I laugh when I go on-line on a Monday and one of the weather sites has posted the forecast for Friday and Saturday.
Ha Ha Ha.
Give it up.
Last week when I was listening to the John Oakley Show, as I often do, I didn't jump for the dial as I often do when movie reviewer Chris Alexander came one.
Alexander may be a great movie reviewer, but as a radio guy I'm not a fan. His attempts to sound super-cool rub me the wrong way, often to the point where I simply can't listen. Sorry, but that's the way I feel.
Hey, what the shit, if he can review movies, why can't I review him.
Anyway, last Friday I endured his act because he was talking about the latest Batman movie, "The Dark Knight". Alexander loved it, and ranked it right up there with the best movies he's ever seen. He was so blown away with the movie, for a few minutes he actually forgot about how blown away he is with himself.
Yesterday, I saw the "Dark Knight" in Peterborough and I loved it.
I'm not going to do a movie review, because I'd probably lose you a couple of lines into it, but let me say this, it was everything that Chris Alexander said it was.
Dark and frightening with a twisty plot. Alexander calls it the best American film of 2008.
I don't know about it being the best film of '08 because I haven't seen enough to make that determination, all I do know is that I enjoyed the two and a half hours thoroughly, and I'm the type of guy who usually starts to squirm after 120 minutes.
You've probably already heard this, but know that Heath Ledger was absolutely amazing in this film.
I won't be posting anything until later today because I spent the night at my buddy Doug's.
I'm building him a Tiki Bar on the new deck in his back yard, and after sweating by bag off all day yesterday, we sat down to a good feed of corned beef and cabbage over rice that his mother in law made. It was complimented with some Patak's Mango Pickle.
My wife Delyse and our neighbour Ally spent about half an hour this morning sitting in my car in the driveway.
They were being nosey.
Our neighbours on the other side were off to the wedding of their daughter Gopey, and Delsye and Ally wanted to see her in her wedding dress.
Our neighbours are East Indian, and it was quite the week on our street. Relatives from all over the globe converged on Brampton and several of them stayed next door, and they got great use out of their garage.
I don’t know if its part of the East Indian culture or whether its just a passion for garages, but most of the festivities took place in the garage this week. There were tables set up, and bar along one wall and a barbeque that was chugging out the most delicious smelling food.
There was laughter, loud chatter and at one point, even some dancing on the driveway.
Today everybody next door woke up early and prepared for the wedding that would take place at nine o’clock this morning in Scarborough.
And that’s why my wife and Ally were in my car this morning. It didn’t matter that it was wife’s day off and she likes to sleep in on Friday’s, she set the alarm for 6:45 and made sure she was up in time.
There was a light rain falling, but they didn’t want to miss Gopey emerging from the house in her cultural wedding dress.
They wanted to see a kid who grew up on the street take her last few Brampton steps as a single girl.
They weren’t disappointed, Gopey looked tired and nervous, but she looked beautiful and happy has she slid into the waiting limousine.
Delyse and Ally were impressed, but uncharacteristically they did not shed a tear.
I guess part of them was pissed off we didn’t get invited to the wedding.
I have only one posting this morning because I have to dash out of the house early for a big day.
I’m heading to Orillia with a few friends to golf, have a nice dinner and then see one of my favourite bands of all-time.
Steely Dan is playing Rama, and I’ll be there front row centre.
I’ve been a fan of Steely Dan since the 1970’s, but fell in love with them in 1980 when they released Gaucho.
I hadn’t worked at CFNY very long when the album came out, and it became of favourite of all the ‘NY jocks because it was so bloody good. ”Hey 19” was the so-called hit off the album, but that meant nothing at the Spirit of Radio. All tracks were played, and to be honest, it was this album that made me go out and invest in my first quality stereo.
Geets Romo sent me to Fairview Electronics on Albion Rd. and I bought a Technics package that included a 30 watts per channel receiver, a turntable, cassette deck and two monstrous Advent speakers that I still have to this day.
I had Gaucho on vinyl and Donald Fegan and Walter Becker sounded sweet wafting through me and Delyse’s one bedroom apartment on Church Street in Brampton.
Babylon Sisters might be partly responsible for Melanie.
I never got to see Steely Dan perform Gaucho because shortly after the album was released they broke up for ten years. By 1991 I was on to other things and wasn’t really blown away with either one of their two studio releases since they got back together.
“Two Against Nature” and “Everything Must Go” are alright, but neither spun by propeller like Gaucho.
From what I understand, bands that play at Rama aren’t allowed to come and play their new stuff. Rama pays big bucks, so it’s hits only.
I’d like to thank the asshole or asshole’s who couldn’t go to a house party in Brampton on Monday night without taking a gun.
You’ve made even more people feel a little shittier about where they live.
The mentality really blows me away.
Can you imagine being invited to a barbeque at somebody’s house and part of your preparation is packing a gun? Who are these mental midgets?
One hundred people show up to a party, presumably to have a fun time and some good food, but somebody ends up dead in the backyard from a bullet wound to the head.
What kind of a world do you live in that this is the consequence for a dispute. That you pull a gun amongst a crowd of innocent people and fire away with no conscience.
It happens too often and it really isn’t fair.
It isn’t fair to those are law abiding citizens, it isn’t fair to other people who live on the street and shouldn’t have to worry about bullets flying through their neighborhood, and it isn’t fair to the majority of a certain culture who aren’t responsible for this crap.
And there’s other fallout.
How could you blame anyone for being intimidated by certain gatherings on their street, given the frequency of these shootings?
I’m sitting in the tin palace right now, waiting for the Canada Day weekend to kick-off, and I feel inspired by only “one” subject today, and I want to talk about it at 4:20 this afternoon on Neil Morrison’s radio show in Vancouver.
But I have a problem.
I got up this morning revved about something I heard on the radio last night, but as I scour the internet, I can’t find anything in print.
It was a story about how much better Canada is than the United States.
We have a better economy right now and a better standard of living. On average we make more money than they do, work fewer hours per week and we’re a whole lot healthier than they are.
All wonderful things to hear, but before I bellowing about how much better this country is than the United States, I wouldn’t mind having some black and white on the issue, an article of some sort to back up the claim.
Some might argue I don’t need it, because it’s painfully obvious that we’ve got it all over the States when it comes to life in general, but if I’m going to make this a subject on Neil’s show, I need more.
I can’t even remember what station I heard it on last night. I was driving up the 115 when I heard it, but I can’t remember whether it was on 640, or 1010 or even when of the Peterborough stations.
I should have made a mental note and then actually called the station this morning looking for the source, but I didn’t. I was just cruising along, enjoying the ride, and I assumed I’d simply google the story this morning and it would be there.
I can’t find the bastard.
I’ll be honest, I’m a frequent viewer of Fox News because I’m fascinated by it. I’m impressed by the large collection of arsholes they’ve managed to assemble, and a constant theme on the channel how wonderful the United States is, with the often attached tag, the greatest country on earth.
It’s a bit frustrating for a Canadian because we sit on their northern border, but it’s like we don’t exist. Most references to Canada on Fox News or condescending or almost paternal, like we wouldn’t exist without them.
Shawn Hannity is probably the biggest culprit. He’s got his head stuffed so far up his ass it’s unbelievable, his delusional view of the United States is so twisted and over-rated its actually harmful.
But I won’t waste much time on this whack job, because I could keep writing until tomorrow afternoon.
Believe me, when it comes to Canadian politics, I lean to the right, but if I was an American, the likes of Shawn Hannity, Bill O’Reilly and Fox News would turn me into a Democrat.
But I digress.
The original point of this column was to expose my frustration with not being able to find a written article attached to what I heard on the radio last night.
From top to bottom, from every goddamn angle possible, Canada is a better place to live than the United States.
I guess I shouldn’t care that much because it really doesn’t matter when you get right down to it. I live in Canada, I love Canada, and I know how great our country is.
Why should I care what anybody else thinks?
I’m sitting hear looking at the Canadian flag that flies at the end of my dock, knowing that tomorrow night the Tiki Bar will be crowded with people wearing red and white and celebrating something that Americans are oblivious to.
I laugh at those who are opposed to uniformed, armed police officers in some Toronto high schools.
They feel its too intimidating, it leaves the wrong impression and it’s not necessary. They’d rather have the police unarmed, in casual garb to make the little darling’s roaming the halls feel more relaxed.
What a joke.
As Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair says, “if my officers are going into the schools, they’re not going to act as hall monitors.”
Bang on. If cops are going into the schools there shouldn’t be any question who they are and why they’re there. Unfortunately, things have gotten to the point in some Toronto schools that police patrols are necessary and it gets back to the same old thing.
If you’ve got nothing to hide, you’ve got nothing to worry about.
Ideally, I think it’s the right thing to do, but man oh man do I ever feel sorry for the cops who will be put on this duty. They’re going to be left wide open for every accusation under the sun.
Already the failure of some kids in the system is blamed on teachers, the school board and anything else bad parenting can come up with.
Cops in the halls will only give them something else to point at.
An anti-spanking bill that was passed by the Canadian Senate yesterday, definitely puts us on a slippery slope.
How involved should the government become with parenting?
The bill targets corporal punishing or spanking, but its designed and written such a way that interpretation will probably cause loads of anguish in the courts, not to mention the time it will waste.
How can you pass a bill that prohibits spanking?
The bill doesn’t outlaw the practice completely, allowing for certain levels of spanking, but when kids start running to police when they’ve been spanked, or when do-gooders report anyone who lays a hand on their kid, who’s going to determine the threshold without a video tape replay.
Here’s part of the wording: The bill adopted by the Senate allows parents, teachers or those acting for a parent to use "reasonable force other than corporal punishment, but only in three specific circumstances: preventing or minimizing harm to the child or another person, preventing the child from engaging in conduct of a criminal nature, or preventing the child from engaging in excessively offensive or disruptive behaviour."
A parent, for example, could not spank the child as a routine disciplinary measure.
Wow. Talk about a convoluted pile of crap.
Hopefully when it gets before Parliament, common sense will kick in and they’ll throw it out.
Yes, the great defender. The "R" word. When all else fails, roll out the "R" word and see where it takes ya.
If you’ve driven downtown lately, you’re aware of crappy cabs racing all over the city, honking their horns, nosing in, rarely yielding and paying little or no attention to pedestrians.
It’s nothing new, and given the price of cab licenses and gasoline, it’s not surprising that the taxi-cab industry has become so cut-throat, but at some point, if laws are being broken, the police have to become involved.
But apparently upholding the law is not the main focus of the cops. Targeting immigrant drivers because of their skin colour is the reason they stop cabs.
The Police Services Board will hear this today when they are presented with a report by three authours, who have apparently studied the taxi-cab industry over the past 11 months.
Basically, the drivers are OK, but cops are bad.
Looking for an excuse for getting a ticket is a universal reaction that transcends race, creed or colour. How often have you met someone who admits they "deserved" a ticket? We all look for excuses, but some of us are willing to stretch it to the limit.
Of several cabbies quoted anonymously in the report, one told the surveyors that city police "don't like us for no reason. They hate us, maybe because of our race or colour."
Now tell me, how does a cop defend himself against that?
Yesterday I wrote about Barack Obama and his Father’s Day message to the black men of America.
Obama says its time for African American men to take responsibility for their sperm and reduce the number of fatherless kids in the country.
Failure in school and a life of crime are directly connected to absentee fathers, and Obama showed a lot of guts by tackling the issue now, when he will depend on a large black vote to become President.
Obama called for responsibility, accountability and community leadership, and its interesting that on heels of what he said, the Toronto school board has announced that they want to reduce the black student dropout rate from 40 to fifteen percent within five years.
The aim is to make all intermediate and high schools across the city more sensitive to the demographic roadblocks often facing students of differing backgrounds, and that’s good, but this is better.
TDSB has finally recognized the need for mentors in this process, and that’s the key.
Until the black community comes up with some positive, involved and progressive thinking role models or community leaders, nothing will be accomplished.
It’s alright for a bunch of white guys to sit around and tell the black community what they should do, but it doesn’t go far, and in the end, and nothing changes.
Single parent families is the root cause of the shocking dropout rate of black kids in our schools and until black community leaders come out and address the problem by admitting the problem and create solutions to fix the problem, it won’t matter what the school board does.
There is a sense of accomplishment and status within the Caribbean community connected to fathering several children by different women and until that changes, it won’t matter what the school board does or what teachers do, kids will continue to struggle before they even leave the house in the morning.
Roughly half of the black kids in Toronto schools don't have a father living at home.
But again, I can say it, and so can a bunch of other white guys, but it won’t have any impact until it comes from strong black leaders.
For some reason, nobody wants to take on the responsibility.
This morning I was listening to Toronto’s best talk show host, who’s filling in on the am 640 morning show this week, and it was very interesting.
Mike Stafford referred to an article in the National Post today entitled “Taking stock in fossil brands.”
Adam McDowell writes about discovering “Molson Stock Ale” back in the mid-90’s when he was 16 years old. He fell in love with it, but now he’s somewhat annoyed that its only available in certain Beer Stores and very few bars.
This inspired a conversation on the Stafford Show about other brands that have come and gone over the past few decades, and for a fella like me, in his 50’s, it brought back a lot of memories.
The first beer memory I have goes back to the early 60’s when my dad would actually have beer delivered to the house. They did that back then.
A Brewers Retail truck would pull up in front of the house and drop off a case of Red Cap. And I distinctly remember this, because my dad often told me, in the early 60’s, 24 Red Cap cost $3.50.
Can you imagine that?
My dad eventually changed his brand from Red Cap to Molson Golden, and he drank that well into the 80’s until he finally gave up the suds for red Wine.
Along the way he would enjoy the odd case of 6.5 Brador, because that’s what I’d buy him on Father's Day or his birthday.
As a young punk first discovering beer, it was tough for me. I never liked Molson Golden, so “borrowing” the odd beer from my dad was a struggle.
My first beer of choice was Molson Export, but I’d say roughly half of my buddies drank Labatt 50. We dabbled with Labatt Pilsner when it first became “Blue” and tried the other novelty beers as they came along like Oktoberfest and Heidleberg.
In my early twenty’s when I first started working at CFNY the beer of choice was Carlsberg Light. It was brewed by Carling O’Keefe back then, and they were a huge sponsor of the radio station.
After Carling O’Keefe was bought out by Molson, somehow Carlsberg Light ended up as a Labatt product and something changed. It lost its taste appeal and I moved on, getting sucked into the introduction of American beers into the market.
Budweiser and Miller Genuine Draft.
Eventually I gravitated to Molson Canadian which absolutely blows me away now, because I can’t stand Canadian. The first sip always tastes like plastic to me.
After that, it was on to Coors Light but eventually I lost my taste for it as well because I discovered Bud Lite.
Bud Lite. Cool and crisp with no initial shock or aftertaste. A refreshing beer that I continue to drink until this day.
I’ve been called a “beer suck” for drinking this beer. It’s been referred to as a women’s beer by a few of my buddies. But I don’t care. I like it. I don’t like to be challenged by a beer like my good friend Dan Duran.
He often shows up with beers that are dark and thick and bitter, and they have weird names like “Evil Bat Ale” or “Liquefied Vulture Crap Lager.”
Needless to say, Dan doesn’t have to share his beer that often.
I’ve tried other stuff like Alexander Keith’s, the Rickard line, Stella and the Sleeman stuff, but none of it satisfies me like a Bud Lite.
And no, it doesn’t make me want to sit down to pee.
Not to sound like a broken record, but from time to time I’ve made the point that parenting is the most pressing problem of society today, in particular fatherless homes.
Of course there are those who have their heads stuffed up their asses and won’t address the problem, and it becomes even touchier when it’s pointed out that fatherless homes seem to a problem more prevalent to African Americans / Canadians / (insert other here)
Unless you’re African-Something you stand to be barraged with the “R” word, because its great defense for those who refuse to address the root problem which affects not only the world and North America, but Toronto in particular.
How refreshing that we have the likes of Bill Cosby and now Barack Obama who aren’t afraid to speak out on the topic and chastise their own people.
We’re supposed to be one people, but when a white person questions the cultural habits of a black person, something is lost in the translation.
But when one black man speaks out against another black man, then it holds some water and people have to listen, including the women who bear children to several different sperm donors.
There’s something weird been going on around my house this spring, and this morning it became so bad it woke me out of a sound sleep and I jumped out of bed and dashed downstairs.
Birds are flying into my windows. Not by mistake, but on purpose.
A couple of weeks ago I heard a constant tap against my basement window and when I went down to investigate, there was a sparrow flying at the window, banging into it, and then perching itself on a tree branch before doing it all over again with precision timing.
There was some stained glass hanging in front of the window so I moved it hoping there was something in the glass that was attracting the poor bastard who was literally knocking his brains out.
It worked for a few minutes, but it wasn’t long before he was back to doing it again.
Over the past couple of weeks, it hasn’t been constant, but every so often another bird will come back and choose another window.
This morning it was crazy.
As I said, it woke me out of a sound sleep and caused great concern with a measure of consternation as I rambled down the stairs in my underwear.
There are the front window was a large Robin throwing itself into the glass repeatedly and making quite the bang.
Like clockwork it would fly into the window, perch on a tree, and then do it again. If you put a stop-watch on the son of bitch it would have been precision timing.
Of course this finally led to the question why. Why are these birds doing this and why are picking on my house?
My mind quickly raced. Are they trying to get at me? Eventually will a huge flock smash through the window, attack me, knock me over and pick my eyes out?
I saw “The Birds.”
And then I had a “dad” moment. My dad loved birds and seemed to know why they did everything, so without a doubt I would have picked up the phone and called him for the answer. Unfortunately, I don’t have that option any more, so I did the next best thing, I googled “why do birds fly into windows” and here’s what I got.
Turns out during mating season they’re a little freaked out and when they see their reflection in a window they think its another bird and they attack.
How bloody stupid is that? Now I know why they came up with the term "bird brain".
I think we should all know the name Elliot Khelawan. He’s a 52 year old man who’s been charged with impaired driving after leaving the scene of an accident on Sunday night.
In these situations you have to say allegedly, because Khelawan hasn’t had his day in court, and with our court system now-a-days, and with the right lawyer, we all know even the guilty can get off easily.
Meanwhile, we know, if the police charged this guy there’s a pretty good chance the “alleged” part of this story isn’t necessary.
Just know that Khelawan is accused of getting drunk, speeding down a residential street and running over a four year old boy before leaving the scene. The four year old is at Sick Kids Hospital in a drug induced coma.
His name is Elliot Khelawan, and I’m sure he’s made his family proud.
I doesn’t happen very often, but I have to give kudos to Dalton McGuinty. On two counts.
First of all, even though he flip-flopped on the issue, I commend the Premier for throwing his governments support behind a private members bill that bans smoking in cars with children present.
Last winter, McGuinty said it was a slippery slope that infringed to much on people’s rights. But he had a change of mind, and this one was for the better.
Even though it will be hard to enforce, and police shouldn’t be expected to drive around the province looking for people smoking in cars, having the legislation in place could act as a deterrent and give cops an option should they need it.
Meanwhile, McGuinty is down in San Diego right now trying to drum up business for Ontario in the biotechnology field.
Predictably, the opposition leaders are yakking about the trip not being necessary, with too much work to be done at home with a hurting economy, but that’s bullshit.
Three days in California may sound nice, but the Premier belongs there.
Late last night Delyse and I decided to head for the tin palace because the days are clipping by pretty good and next thing you know, the summer will be over, and not only that, but I may have to join the work force soon and three days weekends will be few and far between.
I can’t tell you what my next job will be, but I can give you a hint.
Two words, and the second one is Depot. I’ve always enjoyed working around tools – that’s how I lasted in the radio business so long.
Anyway, I can’t offer much today. I’ve got the internet up here, but it’s slow and I have a whole whack of other things to do.
I’ve got to sand the top of a picnic table and re-paint it. I have to head down to Peterborough and pick up a new barbeque, and I have to get into an aggravating debate with Dan Duran about global warming and how the high price of gasoline is actually a good thing for the environment.
That’s what my day will involve. But I encourage you to check back later, because at 4:20 I’ll be doing another “bit” with Neil Morrison (aka Brother Bill) in Vancouver.
He does the afternoon show at The Fox and he’s been gracious enough to add FreddieP.ca to the list of stations I bark on every week.
After I talk to Neil, I’ll post it for weekend content.
As for stuff in the news…. Those damn Americans have killed two more Torontonians.
Two young men were gunned down in the Theater District and of course it will be blamed on guns being shipped up from the States.
If Americans would stop doing that, we would probably have no murders at all in Toronto because everybody is nice and wonderful and squeaky clean with the best of intentions.
If only more people would listen to Mayor Miller, things would be a lot better.
On another note, the Competition Bureau will investigate gas price fixing in other provinces following the charges laid in Quebec. Several retailers have been charged and convicted after banding together and screwing consumers.
Encouraging, but it’s the first time in over 50 years gas price fixing prosecution has led to convictions in this country.
I think its safe to say there’s a lot more of it going on, and there has been for decades.
I refuse to put the Paul Bernardo video on my website because having the putrid bastard come to life on something I’m responsible for is totally out of the question.
But I will admit I watched it, and I’m sure I feel like a lot of you. I’d like to crawl through the screen and grab the son of bitch by the throat and squeeze the slimy life out of him.
But that wouldn’t be human. Or would it?
According to Paul Benardo, regardless of our actions, we’re all human beings.
It was the worst part of the video for me. The part when he says “I realize I’m giving you guys a hard time, but I’m a human being.” And then rambles on about something else.
It’s sickening, because it’s so delusional.
You can see that Bernardo is enjoying every minute of the interview and he carries on like he’s a legitimate member of the society. He refers to mistakes of the past, almost like he thinks he should be forgiven all these years later.
It was another moment in the spotlight for Bernardo and he soaked it up while toying with a shockingly awkward detective.
And here’s another part that bothers me.
Recurring evidence keeps referring to Bernardo’s favourite radio station, CFNY 102.1.
I worked there at the time, in fact the Humble and Fred Show was in its infancy back then, and it bothers me to think that maybe, must maybe we gave this prick one moment of pleasure. It creeps me out.
Needless to say, the concern pales when compared to the pain and suffering that the French and Mahaffey families went through, and are still going through, but it gives you an idea of how far reaching the effects of such a monster can be.
I’m still not sure what the purpose of releasing this video was, because all it does is provide some creepy entertainment for those not directly affected, but it’s got to be excruciating for the parents of the victims.
They’ve had to re-live this nightmare too many times.
Have you ever been witness to anything more useless than recent protests launched by General Motors workers in Oshawa?
We all feel bad for those who will lose their jobs, but do they really think that anything they do will change the mind of an auto manufacturer that is losing money hand over foot.
Do they really think they can stand in the way of reality, the reality of trucks no longer being practical to the average driver?
They want to hold on to their jobs and continue to build trucks, but who hell is going to buy them once they're built. It’s a whole new landscape out there, and two thousand GM workers in Oshawa are the latest victims.
Yes, they can blame General Motors for bad planning and empty promises, but in the end, it all comes down to the all mighty dollar, and General Motors isn’t about to build thousands of units that will sit in a field somewhere.
And now the union is talking about wild cats strikes!
From this standpoint striking against a job your about to lose doesn’t make a lot of sense.
Grand Canyon, Arizona - Vacations are funny. They always start out slow, and then blow by like you can’t believe.
That’s what this one has been like.
When we made the decision to make this trip just a couple of weeks ago, we had no idea it was going to be this amazing. It’s a part of the world everyone has to see.
I’ve been saying it all week, but I’ll say it again, pictures and videos (or digital movies) do it no justice. I post them so you can get an idea, but there’s no depth perception and that’s why these pictures of the Grand Canyon especially, or not worthy of the real thing.
The drive from Sedona to the Canyon yesterday was spectacular. We wound our way through the Oak Creek Canyon which was lush and green, and literally ascended two thousand more feet above sea level reaching seven thousand feet before entering the highway near Flagstaff.
Once there, you can see Flagstaff in the distance with the mountain range still featuring snow on top.
It then became downright remarkable as we took the Flagstaff by-pass and went up highway 89 through the desert. You go from lush and green to barren and pink in no time flat. For sixty miles north of Flagstaff there is nothing but unfriendly rock which looks like the surface of the moon. It’s full tilt desert.
And the temperature change is crazy. In Scottsdale we had temperatures over 100, but they dropped to the eighties in Sedona. By the time we got to the Canyon yesterday, it was in the low 60’s and when we watched the sunset over the Canyon last night, it was downright cold.
Again, there’s no use trying to describe what we saw yesterday, it’s too much to comprehend let alone describe. When you first look at the Grand Canyon its hard to convince yourself that what your seeing is real, and that’s no exaggeration.
We entered from the east side yesterday, started with the Desert View, and then worked our way west for 23 miles stopping at various places along the way.
It didn’t matter where we stopped, the view was different and just as interesting and spectacular. It truly is a wonder.
Today we’re heading back to Scottsdale, and then tomorrow on it’s the plane and back to reality.
However, if I’ve learning anything on this trip its that I may have found my next calling and an alternative to my quest to get back into radio.
Sedona, Arizona - We found a little piece of heaven on earth yesterday. It’s called Sedona, Arizona known for its breathtaking topography and red rock.
It’s one of those things where I can try to describe it, and I can post some pictures, but you really have to see it to believe it.
As we approached the area from the main highway, it was almost too much to digest. We saw what was in front of us, but it was hard to comprehend that it wasn’t a post card or a big movie screen showing some famous western.
We got here later in the afternoon so we didn’t have a lot of time to scout around, that’s we plan to do today.
We’re going to a hiking trail in a place called Oak Creek, and then we’ll spend some time scouting around the actual town of Sedona before finding a good place to watch the hockey game.
I’ll report back tomorrow.
Meanwhile, if you plan a trip to this area in the next little while, don’t be fooled about all you read and hear about “Old Town” in Scottsdale.
It’s nothing more than your typical tourist trappy area. A bunch of souvenir shops selling the same over-priced crap.
And one more thing. I got into conversation with a couple of hockey fans in our hotel lobby yesterday, and they were steamed at Tiger Woods.
Tigers comment the other day “nobody watches hockey anymore” rubbed them the wrong way. It was stupid thing to say, and what bothered these Coyote fans is the disrespect it showed for fellow athletes.
As a good fella named Carl offered, why would a pro athlete say that about another pro sport? Is there no unwritten law of respect?
I’ve to be honest it bothered me as well. Especially when you consider Woods plays in a sport that features fat guys and old guys. A sport where the competitors get pissed off if someone clicks a camera before they swing. A sport where aggravating fans yell "in the hole" when I guy makes a tee shot on a par five.
I think I might join my mother in the “anybody but Tiger” club.
Scottsdale, Arizona - I saw the hockey game last night. In a place, that boasts the world’s largest selection of draft beer.
It was called the Yard House and we planned the day so that I could watch the game, while Delyse shopped at a huge extravagant structure called the “Fashion Mall” in Scottsdale.
The Yardhouse has no less than 50 plasma TV’s, but when I first walked in I had to search for the game. The rest of the TV’s were showing the University of Arizona women’s softball team in their “World Series” game against Texas A and M.
The hockey game was playing on one screen at the end of the bar so I sat their with a kid from Minnesota and a local guy, and we appeared to be the only hockey fans in the place.
There was a big crowd because don’t forget, the game starts at five o’clock here and there was a big supper crowd to take advantage of the “happy hour specials” that are a big part of life in Arizona.
I had a couple of Boddington’s and some jerk chicken, while I waited for Delyse who was going to hook up with me at seven o’clock, at roughly the end of the second period.
By the time Delyse arrived, I’m happy to report that the Pittsburgh Penguins and Detroit Red Wings had captured the crowd at the Yard House.
With a one-goal game and the action going end-to-end, eventually every plasma in the place had been switched to the game and the drama increased to a climax when the Penguins tied it up with 34 seconds to play.
Unfortunately for this crowd the game dragged on a little too long. It did even for us.
As the overtime continued the bar emptied, and at the end of the second overtime, even we went back to our room to finish watching it.
But not before Delyse had the ginger encrusted salmon and I had the seared ahi tuna with wasabi.
I had mixed emotions when the game ended at approximately 9:35 local time. I was glad the Penguins had extended the series, but felt for Neighbour John and his boys who were at the game hoping to see a Stanley Cup awarded, obviously a once in a lifetime opportunity.
But not to worry. John has informed me he’s secured tickets to game seven, so he and the boys are hoping Pittsburgh can pull out a victory in game six tomorrow night.
As for touristy shit, we climbed halfway up Camelback Mountain yesterday morning.
It’s one of the things you’re supposed to do while in Scottsdale, so we got an early start to beat the heat and it was rather enjoyable. The entire hike up the mountain is about 1.7 miles with the final half mile recommended for only experienced hikers.
We climbed until we could catch a glimpse of the landscape on both sides of the mountain, Scottsdale to the east, Phoenix to the west.
After that, we hung out by the pool for a few hours, taking advantage of the 102 degree temperatures, and this allowed me to continue my Arizona observation of countless good-looking women with short blond hair and large breasts.
It’s almost cookie cutter. Like clones or something. And judging my the consistent shape of the breasts, I’m sure there’s a very rich plastic surgeon in town.
Today we’re going to the Museum of Contemporary Art (something else you’re supposed to do while in Scottsdale) and then we’re heading north to Sedona.
Scottsdale, Arizona - This trip got off to a good start because of the Air Canada factor. We didn’t fly Air Canada.
It meant a fast and efficient check in with a smile not a scowl, and a large luxurious jet with leather seats that were half-empty.
Me and my sweet had a whole row to ourselves. It got me to thinking about joining the mile high club but the blankets they provided weren’t big enough and to be honest, given a choice, Delyse would rather open the emergency door and jump out at 37 thousand feet.
I should mention that we did encounter one problem before departure. There were only three American customs guys on duty. It wasn’t the busiest day at Pearson, but three wasn’t nearly enough and it took us about forty minutes to get through.
Just another thing about the Toronto airport experience – from my experience – there’s always something. It’s seems you can blow through other major airports like Atlanta, Raleigh and Chicago without much of a problem, but Toronto always seems to throw you a curve.
Arrival in Phoenix brought another surprise of medium proportion. At the car rental desk it was brought to my attention that taxes on the PT Cruiser I was about to get would be forty seven percent.
“You’ve got to be kidding” said Fred.
“Nope, we’ve got to pay for all these stadiums somehow,” said the obviously biased car rental attendant.
“What do you mean” I replied.
“To build Chase Stadium for the Diamondbacks and the US Airways Centre for the Coyotes, the state of Arizona decided to institute heavy taxes on tourism to pay the bills and rental cars were hit really hard.”
In other words, hard working people on business or pleasure have to cough up more dough so guys like Randy Johnson can have somewhere to make twelve or thirteen million dollars a year. Another reason my interest in sports isn’t what it used to be.
Now here’s the hypocritical part.
I went to the Diamondback’s game yesterday. Whenever I’m in a city with major league sports facilities I like to check them out. Yesterday was no different.
Delyse and I headed for Phoenix about ten in the morning, parked the car for free believe it or not, walked around the quiet city for a couple of hours, then bought a pair of six dollar tickets that were remarkably good.
It was a fun couple of hours. It got us out of the 98 degree heat and into an air conditioned stadium that Skydome haters would probably hate just as much.
In Toronto, we have a closed stadium that opens for games. In Phoenix, they have an open stadium that closes for games. The heat is so punishing, they have to close it just before game time or nobody will come, but it makes for a weird feeling.
There’s bright sunshine and heat outside, but inside its dark and dank and cool. Again, all the things that Skydome haters hate, is provided at Chase stadium. But at least in Toronto, when the sun is shining, you can feel it.
We stayed until the sixth inning with the Diamondbacks enjoying a 5-0 lead, then headed back to the Scottsdale area to do a little shopping.
It’s the off-season in Arizona, so you pretty well have the streets and the stores to yourself. Not that it bothered me, because people tend to bother me a lot more.
The streets of Phoenix were like a ghost town and Scottsdale wasn’t much different. Literally, nobody on the streets, including a trendy little shopping area called Fifth Avenue.
We walked around for an hour so, headed back to the fine hotel we booked, had a swim and 16 oz Bud Lite, then headed for Delyse’s favourite American restaurant chain, The Cheesecake Factory.
If ever you’re down in the states you’ve gotta check one of these places out. There’s one in Buffalo near the Galleria Mall. I won’t get into a long description other than to say you don’t have to go beyond the appetizer menu. That’s all we ever order for dinner.
After dinner last night we stopped in a Walgreen’s to buy a couple of things, we got into a mild argument about the quality of fish oil on sale, and then headed back to our room where we crashed because we’re still feeling the affects of the time change.
Today we’re going to climb Camelback Mountain and then visit an area called Old Town.
Yes my friends, I'm heading out on another adventure, this time with my sweet darlin' Delyse.
Tomorrow morning we're flying to Phoenix, Arizona where we'll spend a week touring the state.
We plan to spend three days in the Phoenix/Scottsdale area before heading north to Sedona, Flagstaff and then the Grand Canyon.
It's going to be hot, the forecast for arrival time tomorrow is sunny and 37 degrees celsius - buy hey, what the hell, it's better than the crap we've been getting up here lately.
It should be fun, and as usual, I will take you with me. My trusty little Toshiba laptop will make the trip so I'll try to post something every day while we're away.
On Sunday afternoon I'm going to an Arizona Diamondbacks game - I will drink beer.
Part of the reason I created CanadianThinker.com was because of people like “Mike from Lowville.”
Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate that Mike is a frequent reader and contributor to FreddieP.ca, and CanadianThinker, but that doesn’t mean I agree with the guy, or that his damaging political correctness escapes me.
Guys like Mike are why Canada is going where its going. Guys like Mike, in his quest to prove whatever to whomever, like to squash the opinions of others by making outlandish statements designed to silence them.
Yesterday was a great example.
I posted a piece called “The Mayor is Stupid”. I talked about the David Millers plan to close a couple of shooting ranges in Toronto as a bizarre way of helping to battle gun violence in the city.
I went on to say the Mayor refuses to confront the root problem of gun violence in the city, which is mostly committed by a small portion of a small group in the city. A fact that can’t be disputed, a fact that’s been well documented and a fact that’s been validated by people within the actual community.
But what does Mike say? Mike from Lowville, in his ongoing to mission to sound like the smart guy comes out with this.
"There has to be some way to get this lunatic out of office A.S.A.P. before he really does some permanent damage."
There is. All you people, (including Fred) are alluding to it. Get someone from the islands to do it. Put a cap in his ass. Then arrest tall the coloured folks that come from that island and throw away the key. That will solve everything....... How moronic!!
To be honest Mike, the only thing on this page that’s moronic is your response.
The city of Toronto took a giant leap backwards last night with the official approval of an Africentric school which will open in the fall of 2009.
I can’t believe I’m actually sitting here writing this piece.
Here it is, the year 2008, Toronto prides itself in being a multi-cultural city in a diverse country, yet we’ve buckled under to the politically correct again and allowed something to happen that is not only wrong, it’s downright embarrassing.
Everything that Canada stands for crumbles with this decision. Allowing segregation in our schools is nothing to be proud of. This is not progressive and it’s definitely not a solution for what ails black youth in the current school system.
It’s an excuse. Nothing more than a silly excuse for parents who let their kids down at home long before they were let down at school.
It’s a power play. It’s ill equipped parents looking to blame some else for their shortcomings and then standing behind the all mighty “R” word to get their way.
And it’s pathetic. It’s pathetic that this could be allowed to happen in this day and age, especially when you consider what black people have fought against for generations. It’s wrong, and what makes it even worse is that most of the people who voted in favour of this probably know it’s wrong.
But they were afraid to say so.
And the spotlight should go on trustee Maria Rodrigues today. She did the most predictable thing during last nights final vote which will allow this regressive joke to go forward.
She accused fellow trustee Josh Matlow of being racist simply because he apposed to the idea. How predictable, how mindless, how manipulative.
In some respects however, what Rodriques did was a solid argument against the school. It goes back to my point about a power play. This school exists mainly on the strength of the "R" word. During the whole process opposition was stifled by it's use. It stopped rational debate and silenced those who might have had good reason to be against it.
It divided the trustees. Much like the school will divide children.
And this is only the beginning, make no mistake about it.
On the heels of last nights decision to open a school for kindergarten to grade five, demands were made for a high school. It will only grow from here. The segregation will only spread.
It’s a sad day for Toronto, it’s a sad day for Canada.
Today’s story about the 15 year old Toronto lacrosse player, who died as the result of an injury in a game, is horrifying for all parents.
Obviously, it can’t match the living nightmare that Jamieson Kuhlmann’s parents are going through, but it’s something that constantly plays on the subconscious minds of parents every time they watch their kids walk out the door.
To lose a child under any circumstances has to be the most horrific thing that could happen to a person. And it doesn’t matter whether it’s to disease or an accident.
As the father of two healthy young adults I try not to think about it, but when I see stories like the one about Jamieson Kuhlmann I shudder. I can’t imagine losing one of my kids, and for those who do, I wonder how they go on.
My father died recently, and the pain it cause is bad enough. My dad was 82 years old and lived a long and productive and mostly healthy life.
But if losing him can hurt so much, how do you measure that against losing a child. As the old saying goes, your kids are supposed to bury you, not the other way around.
When I talk to new parents I love to ask this question. Especially of those who swore at one time that they’d probably never have kids.
I ask them, could ever imagine loving something as much as you love your kids, and the answer is always the same. A resounding “no!”
Prior to Monday, I’m sure the parents of Jamieson Kuhlmann had a lot on their minds.
It could have been anything, their jobs, their finances, personal relationships, and before Monday these things may have played a big part in their lives.
Today I’m sure nothing means anything and everything else is a blur.
The Kuhlmann’s have suffered the absolute worst thing that can happen to anyone and I’m sure for the time being, their lives have lost all meaning.
Parenting continues to be ignored in the ongoing search for what's "wrong" with Toronto's public schools.
A lot of time an money is spent on identifying every problem known to man, every problem that is, except parenting.
The Toronto School Board will spend four million dollars on a new program designed to battle racism, sexism and violence.
It's part of a one thousand page report that was commissioned after the Jordan Manners murder, but it offers precious little on the root problem of bad behaviour in Canadian schools....... Bad parenting.
This is not an apology, it's a notification. My Samsung is working again and nobody touched it.
I got up for a pee the other night and it ended up hurting big time.
I received the following e-mail from my good friend John Ellefson who grew up in Buffalo but now resides in Washington D.C.
After this, I thought of that punk American who refused to stand for the Canadian athem when I was at a Leafs game in Florida last month.
Besides some of the events and achievements that have take place in Vancouver during the Olympics, I find the reaction of the foreign press to be the most amusing, especially the British press that has been relentless in its criticism of the Games and especially the weather.
This is no excuse, but I've been extremley busy lately and haven't had the chance to write much, but that's not to say a lot hasn't caught my attention or pissed me off.
Let's not kid ourselves, last week's by-election in Toronto Centre had little to do with politics, and very much to do with sexual orientation. They replaced one gay man, George Smitherman, with another gay man, Glen Murray.
I had promised to update this blog during my trip to Florida last week, but the hotel in Key West wouldn't allow me to upload anything. Internet access was free, but I couldn't send anything from my laptop to my web platform. 
I predicted before I left that there would be predictable response from the union regarding the sleeping TTC ticket taker. Don't you love it, the union boss actually blamed riders from not making sure the ticket taker was OK.
OLD VERSION 
I can't take it any more. I've spent the past few days on Tripadvisor looking for hotel rooms in South Florida and its driving me nuts.
Do I believe in God? Not really. I can't say there isn't a God any more than anyone can say there is a god, nobody knows for sure, so I don't spend a lot of time thinking about it.
"Fred: Check this out - just a drop in the bucket of what women have had to endure in the entertainment media over the years. Your 
Freddie,
There were a couple of commercials over Christmas that really pissed me off. I assume one has stopped running, while the other continues to make me shake my head at the hypocrisy and double standard.
From the 
The Canadian Press reports that President Obama "left the climate summit in Copenhagen early to get home before Washington was pounded by a record-breaking snowfall that dumped 60 centimetres of snowthroughout the region." The Examiner reported two days ago concerning the Copenhagen climate summit that "Leading up to the event, much of the United States was plunged into a deep freeze. Snow fell in Houston, Denver experienced temperatures 30 degrees below normal and 370 new record low temperatures were set or tied in a three day span across the United States. Not even the summit itself has been immune to the effect as a major snowstorm struck Copenhagen yesterday and temperatures plummeted. President Obama landed at the summit today amid snow falling. Denmark's Meteorological Institute said that the nation may have its first white Christmas in 14 years."
American syndicated morning men Opie and Anthony had a great "bit" on their show recently.
When I was a kid and still believed in Santa Claus, every Christmas Eve my parents would leave something for Santa.
1959 vs. 2009
What a drag. Most of the past 24 hours of my life have been spent dealing with a fishbone. Let me explain.
Part of my job situation right now dictates that I have to rent an apartment and this week opened my eyes to the practices of cable companies.
I have a 407 transponder, in fact I have two. This despite the fact I find the pricing and business practices of the 407 to be offensive. 
There are three things that make my blood boil. Wife beaters, animal abusers and forced marriages - in no particular order I might add, it all depends on the situation.
Neil Morrison aka Brother Bill from his CFNY / Edge days sent me this e-mail yesterday. Neil does afternoon drive at CFOX in Vancouver and H1N1 has kicked him in the nuts.
I paid a visit to Toronto Mike yesterday and I amazed to read what my good buddy had 
I got a little bummed out yesterday. I returned from Peterborough for the weekend and after exchanging hugs and kisses and pleasantries with my sweet little darlin' I got back in the car and headed for my local beer store.
I've had several e-mails from people asking me what I think of news that 27 members of CTV Bell Globe Media will carry the Olympic Torch when it arrives in Canada later this year.
Not that there's anything wrong with it, but don't you think its interesting that of all the things that the city of Toronto bids for, the one it captures is the 
Peterborough, Ontario - Former Toronto/Calgary broadcaster Freeway exposed himself in the city of Peterborough last night when he sent fellow former broadcaster Fred Patterson and e-mail that said the following.
"Aside from hijacking a plane and shooting at several of his 270-plus hostages, Saini lied his way into Canada, has never gained landed immigrant status, faces deportation and by ministerial order remains a national security threat."
There's a restaurant near my tin palace in the Kawarthas. It's called the Old Bridge Inn and it's a quaint little place with a great service and a superb menu.
If you read this blog with any regularity, you're probably a radio fan and have become aware that there have been some changes made at CFRB in Toronto.
I've been debating over the past few days whether I should write about this because it only involves a few cents. But it's the principle that counts, so that's why I've been moved to attack a Canadian institution.
Hello everyone, it's nice to be back. I've had a lot e-mails lately asking why I haven't been updating CanadianThinker.com so I thought it was time to address it.
The most amusing e-mails I received were from the slithering weasels who like to make something out of nothing because apparently they have some kind of a bone to pick with you for reasons you never really find out because they don't have enough guts to sign their names to their postings.
I'll get back to talking about things like politics, where Michael Ignatifeff is in the process of committing political suicide by flirting with the idea of an election that nobody seems to want. But we shouldn't be surprised, Ignatieff's power hunger is taking control and he just can't wait any longer. Meanwhile, the Prime Minister continues his steady, rational course and more and more Canadians seem to be catching on.
It was a sad week in Toronto. Segregation came to town. The Africentric School opened near Keele and Sheppard, and no matter how you slice it or dice it, in 2009 it's wrong. It goes against everything that Canada is supposed to be about. It's nothing more than a con job perpetrated by those who know the best way to get your own way is to scream racism. In this case it worked. Big time.
I've got admit I'm not impressed with Neil Young. He claims he never intended to be in Toronto on Monday night for a mini-concert to promote his new movie "The Neil Young Trunk Show." For the past week there has been a buzz about him being part of promotion at Yonge-Dundas Square but all of a sudden he claims he knew nothing about it. Knowing the people I do who are connected to this kind of thing, I find this hard to believe. Neil is has always been a bit of a loner, or shy or aloof, I get the impression that in this case he probably just changed his mind.
On the subject of Jim Balsillie and Phoenix Coyotes, like a lot of sports fans I can't wait for a resolution to this thing and it could take a giant leap forward today. Granted, Balsillie has gone against the grain and tried to come in through the back door, but that's OK. The NHL deserves it. This is a league that has made scores of bad decisions over the past few years and thanks to Balsillie they've finally been exposed for what they are.
Other stuff. I 'd love to seen George Smitherman run against David Miller in the next election. John Tory is the right guy, but strategically, Smitherman is probably the better choice.
And it looks like its not going to happen. I've lived in the GTA for all of my 53 years but I never ever went to Bigliardi's Steak House on Church Street. It opened in 1977 and will close on the 26th of this month, and I never ate there. I had the intention many times when going to Maple Leaf Gardens over the years, but for some reason or another, I never got around to it. Maybe it had something to do with the prices. And that's why I won't make a special trip to go there before it closes. I have a problem with paying 40 or 50 dollars for a hunk of meat that I can buy for 12 dollars in a store. More often that not, I leave steak houses unsatisfied.
Brett Favre and garbage strikes.
This 
I can't begin to tell you how pissed off I was to 
We got back from Vegas at about 11:30 last night so I thought it only fitting that I deliver what I promised.
We got to Vegas without a hitch. 
Like I've done many times over the past couple of years since I've started this blog, I'm going to take you on the road with me again.
"I still have never florched. I have great sphincter control. I have come close a couple of times, but never has there been a stain on my shorts. I don't care if you don't beleive me."
"At this point I'm getting so old that I've probably florched but I've
You can now watch the video from our podcast of memories by clicking right 
After repeated, vigorous cuts through the flesh the Queen's representative turned to the woman beside her and asked enthusiastically: "Could I try the heart?" - Afterward she grabbed a tissue to wipe clean her blood-soaked fingers.
Dani Stover is a friend and the producer of the Dean Blundell Show on 102.1 The Edge. 
Part of my house stinks, my car stinks a bit and my garage stinks a lot.
The headline in the Star says this... 
I woke up Sunday morning and threw on my earphones just in time to listen to a re-roll of the John Oakley Show that featured Lorrie Goldstein of the Toronto Sun.
"All we want is for Canadians to help us," said Gowrishangar Kamalanphan, the apparent leader of the demonstration, which was conducted by a group of high school and university students.
Thursday, May 14, 2009
As most of you have probably noticed Mike Stafford is a regular contributor to CanadianThinker.com and his intelligence is much appreciated.
Thanks to all of you who showed up yesterday for Humble and Fred's 20th Podcast of Memories. Pretty well everyone we wanted to be there was there, short of Jason Barr and Jeff Marek.
Hooray Hooray it's the first of May,
Toronto's best talk show host wrote this on his
The Tamil protest went over the line yesterday. Police had to deal with a mob that broke through a barrier and in the end were forced to make 21 arrests.
On Monday I wrote a piece about a growing problem in Canada, government inaction against "certain" groups.
The
So let's get this straight, one of the scumbags responsible for the murder of Jane Creba is found guilty of second degree murder, is sentenced as an adult and gets a life sentence, but he could be back on the streets in less than four years?
I realize that I've spent a lot of time over the past couple of months writing about the Montreal Canadiens and their fans, but I had to.
I know a lot of Stephen Harper haters won't like this, but once again I've got to tip my hat to the guy for the way he handled himself during the Summit Of Americas in Trinidad.
Although I shake my head at the latest stories coming out of Mexico, I'm not surprised.
There's no doubt about it, I want the Bruins to beat the Habs in the first round of the playoffs mainly because I don't like Les Habiskanks, but there's there's another reason.
The video is over 13 minutes long, but take the time to give it a watch and fully appreciate how much of an asshole Billy Bob Thornton is.
It certainly was disturbing news that came out of Afghanistan this week. 
Earth Hour arrives at 8:30 tonight, and chances are, when it arrives I'll probably be doing what I always do on a Saturday night around that time, watching the hockey game in my rec-room on my now inefficient 36 inch Sony Tube television.
I don't know why anyone would be surprised by what transpired on Fox News last week.
If there's anything as useless as religion itself, it's having somebody who represents a religion running around the world spreading naïve nonsense that only makes things worse.
The OLG is back in the 
Capitalism rules! blah blah blah The NDP are awful blah blah blah Bob Rae blah blah blah Mats Sundin sucks blah blah blah the Habs are losers blah blah blah Steven Harper, genius blah blah blah
I'm sure you pulled that gun for a valid reason yesterday but I'd like you to stop down for a few minutes and consider the other side.
The Ontario Coaltion Against Poverty, a radical group of malcontents, is now posting on CanadianThinker.com.
Can you imagine anyone rejecting a 9.25 percent wage increase in these stormy economic times?
It hasn't been revealed "officially" what kinds of birds were sucked into the engine of US Airways flight 1549 yesterday, but you can bet your ass they were Canada Geese.
I've received several e-mails this week from readers requesting my take on what's taking place in Gaza right now.
I've always been against Toronto hosting the Olympics games because I'm convinced in Southern Ontario it would be a recipe for disaster.
It was the most joyous of Christmas's thanks to my kids.
I can hardly believe it. I can hardly believe that this is the last day of the final year of the first decade of the new millennium.
I'm happy to report that Vienna Meats will live on.
Meanwhile, the Vienna Meats story reminded of another story, and it deals with haircuts and big boobs.
Hey Fred,
Hey everybody, do you like this website? Have you ever thought of having your own website or blog? 
This is one of those weird situations where you don't want to bring attention to somebody, but at the same time you want to make a point
Is 
I can only laugh at what's 
I've got to admit some of these breastfeeding issues piss me off so much I can't see straight.
As many of you know, I live in Brampton. But I live as far north in Brampton as you can go. As a matter of fact, when I look out my back window, I'm looking at Caledon.
I'm happy for Neighbour John. He runs a manufacturing company that does almost all of its business in the United States.
You may have noticed already, but if you haven't, let me bring your attention to the new banner on this website.
There are all kinds of low life in our society, but they don't come much lower than those who traffic, produce or use GHB - the date rape drug.
Needless to say, FreddieP.ca has had a lot of action over the past couple of days and I love it.
I have to be honest when I arrived back at the trailer last night I was exhausted. The first day of my new job as Program Director of the Wolf and Kruz in Peterborough was wild.
Former Humble and Fred contributor and now highly successful voice actor and singer/songer writer Pete Cugno has entered the Hockey Night in Canada Anthem Challenge.
I've mentioned over the past few days that I plan to continue with FreddieP.ca, but to be honest, at this point I don't know how much time I will be able to devote to it.
Tonight I'm packin' up the car and heading north to start my new adventure. I have a couple of meetings tomorrow and then I report for work Monday morning.
I got up this morning and had to drive up Hwy. 28 to a little place called Big Cedar where I buy my fresh drinking water.
I got caught in one of those moments yesterday. Not like George Costanza in the bathroom with the Cosmopolitan, but it was almost as embarrassing.
It'll be interesting to see how the aftermath of the Downsview explosion plays out over the next few weeks or months.
My sweet darlin' had to work this week so I was up at the tin palace all alone, until yesterday. In the late afternoon, my buddy Doug arrived. 
OK, let's get this out of the way right away. You can't judge a person by their looks, and it's downright unfair to connect anyone to anything just because in your own mind "they look the part."
As a parent, you want your kids to experience all they can. Why wouldn't you? 
I’m going to direct you over to 
I’ve got to admit, I’m amazed at the lack of juicy issues that have been in the news lately.
Last week when I was listening to the John Oakley Show, as I often do, I didn't jump for the dial as I often do when movie reviewer Chris Alexander came one.
I won't be posting anything until later today because I spent the night at my buddy Doug's.
My wife Delyse and our neighbour Ally spent about half an hour this morning sitting in my car in the driveway. 
Thanks everybody for all the birthday wishes yesterday, both on the blog and through Facebook.
I have only one posting this morning because I have to dash out of the house early for a big day.
I’d like to thank the asshole or asshole’s who couldn’t go to a house party in Brampton on Monday night without taking a gun.
Hello Canada.
An anti-spanking bill that was passed by the Canadian Senate yesterday, definitely puts us on a slippery slope.
Yesterday I 
This morning I was listening to Toronto’s best talk show host, who’s filling in on the am 640 morning show this week, and it was very interesting.
Not to sound like a broken record, but from time to time I’ve made the point that parenting is the most pressing problem of society today, in particular fatherless homes.
There’s something weird been going on around my house this spring, and this morning it became so bad it woke me out of a sound sleep and I jumped out of bed and dashed downstairs.
I think we should all know the name Elliot Khelawan. He’s a 52 year old man who’s been charged with impaired driving after leaving the scene of an accident on Sunday night.
I doesn’t happen very often, but I have to give kudos to Dalton McGuinty. On two counts.
Late last night Delyse and I decided to head for the tin palace because the days are clipping by pretty good and next thing you know, the summer will be over, and not only that, but I may have to join the work force soon and three days weekends will be few and far between.
I refuse to put the Paul Bernardo video on my website because having the putrid bastard come to life on something I’m responsible for is totally out of the question.
Have you ever been witness to anything more useless than recent protests launched by General Motors workers in Oshawa?
Grand Canyon, Arizona - Vacations are funny. They always start out slow, and then blow by like you can’t believe.
Sedona, Arizona - We found a little piece of heaven on earth yesterday. It’s called 
Scottsdale, Arizona - I saw the hockey game last night. In a place, that boasts the world’s largest selection of draft beer.
Scottsdale, Arizona - This trip got off to a good start because of the Air Canada factor. We didn’t fly Air Canada.
Yes my friends, I'm heading out on another adventure, this time with my sweet darlin' Delyse.
The city of Toronto took a giant leap backwards last night with the official 
Today’s 
Parenting continues to be ignored in the ongoing search for what's "wrong" with Toronto's public schools.
It's not often that Canada makes a big impact on the world stage, but every so often along comes a Canadian who stands above the crowd.