Gifted Typist

See my Herald column here.
If you stand in line or camp out over night for an iPhone, iMac or any other iThing, you could be accused of being an iIdiot.
The Urban Dictionary defines iIdiot as: “anyone who stands in line and camps out for days in order to be one of the first to own […]

This typist began blogging two years ago this week with this blog.
Hundreds of posts later, a change of address, a busted bandwidth or two and a bunch of new on-line friends and here we are.
To celebrate, I’m posting my blogroll so you can have the points on Technorati:

1, Splotchy
A Box of Nothing
A Cup of Coffey
A […]

Myself!
See Herald column here
Talk about the big one.
Talk about getting a hook in your finger.
Talk about using a harpoon to do your fishing next time.

Uber sprinter Usain Bolt from Jamaica has one of those names. He won gold for the 100- and 200-metre sprint event in track and field. He also busted world records.
Stand by for the cliche headlines: “Bolt of lightning” and “Bolt out of the blue” and “Lightning Bolt strikes twice.”
Bolt is a dream name for a […]

OK, sure Michael Phelps has broken the Mark Spitz medal record. And now he’s King of the Swimming Pool.
But this achievement goes beyond medal count and speed.
It’s done things for the hetero-man hug.
It’s refreshing to see the man hugs after 4×100 IM that won Phelps his 8th medal.
So real. So genuine. So uninhibited.
Finally, men are […]

Canada is wringing its hands again. No Olympic medals.
We are a nation thirsty for Olympic medals.
The other night I heard the CBC sports desk deconstructing the swimming. Our medal hope didn’t win a medal.
Why? The dolphin kick, they said.
Sorry people, but don’t blame the dolphin kick. Or the athletes.
It’s the funding, stupid. Not the dolphin […]

Men who play beach volleyball wear sensible shorts and sweat-wicking singlets or t-shirts.
But women who play beach volleyball have to wear crotch-hugging, butt-bifurcating bikinis.
Why do women have to wear skimpy bikinis to play the same sport men play in shorts and t-shirts?
Or put another way: why don’t men have to wear butt-bifurcating, grape-smuggling speedos?
Well, the […]

It all started innocently enough.
I go to their blogs; they come to mine.
They are Tanya Espanya and Trixie, the artist formerly known as Jacy.
We post. We comment. We laugh. We cry.
Then we email. Then there’s a meet-up planned in Toronto, and my brother-in-law drops me off at the designated meet-up location.
“And you’ve never actually met […]

They’re ugly.
Can we say that without being hauled up before a Committee on UnCanadian Activities?
Well, we’re saying it anyway. And others have said it too. Plenty of others.
Were those get-ups Olympic-opening-ceremonies chic? Ah, no.
Try bowling alley chic. Not offense to bowling alley goers. Those shirts would be fine for a bowling alley.
Look, we know you’re […]

See my Herald column here.,

From now until Aug 24, it will be All Olympics All the Time. I’ve been waiting for this day a long time.
And now it’s here.
I support protests around human rights, bloated budgets, smog, and rampant commercialization replacing the Olympic spirit. And I do happen to think that the Olympics and politics […]

It’s not surprising that the RCMP spied on women’s groups in the 60s and 70s.
I mean, you wouldn’t expect the “boyz in bluez” of that era to be happy about women’s fight for equality. Women’s equality wasn’t exactly in the best interests of your average Dudley Do-Right. If anything it was just going to be […]

Merbstock is the most indie of indie music festivals.
Under a small marquee on the grass, between two cottages, singers sing, guitar players strum, jazz ensembles croon, ex-hippies harmonize, rock bands jam and family quartets perform. And it’s a brilliant evening of entertainment.
Merbstock is the homegrown mini festival put together by a community of cottagers at […]

See my Herald column.

What do you do with them?
All wriggley, white and falling off the green bin in clumps.
What I do is get the ABBA song Dancing Queen going in my head.
Then you replace the word Dancing with the word maggot.
So you’re singing something that sounds like “diggin’ the maggot queen.”
It may not sound pretty, […]