Gifted Typist

After almost chopping off the tip of my left index finger chopping carrots the other day, I noticed blood on my keyboard. The letters T, R, F, G, B, V were stained red. How poetic, I thought. How Dylanesque.
So I put out a call for lyrics for Blood on the Keyboard.
The Tartan Taxidermist – also [...]

With news focusing on the cyclone in Burma, there are conflicting messages as to what the country is in fact called.
Canada, Britain and the US do not recognize the name Myanmar because it was imposed on the country by the military junta in 1989. They say Burma. Pro-democracy campaigners also call it Burma.
The New York [...]

Call me a miserable SOB, but I cannot stand the chirpy, cutesy little “Happy Monday!” greeting.
Ditto Happy Tuesday-Sunday.
I don’t mind Thank God It’s Friday, or (Tell me why) I Don’t Like Mondays. I don’t mind Good Day or Hello, either. I don’t even mind Eff Off, if it’s delivered with a modicum of flare.
But Happy [...]

Waking up this morning to news of Jeff Healey’s death was like getting mugged and whacked over the head with a 2 x 4. I still have the stars circling over my head. I feel sick about it.
This amazing blues and jazz musician and musicologist died from cancer at 41. I didn’t even know [...]

In my continuing effort to satisfy the 100-Things meme challenge issued by the Bad Tempered Zombie, here is a list of the books I’m reading.
I’m not a one-book-at-a-time sort of reader. I don’t feel I need to finish one book before starting another. There is freedom in dipping into this book or that one at [...]

Is it just me? Or am I living in Comaville.
International headlines are blaring with dire news of a global sell-off and international market melt-down brought on by the sub-prime mortgage crisis.
Thousands in the US are losing their houses and thousands more will do so in the next six months. Jobs will be lost forestry, manufacturing [...]

Not to spoil the fun, but the party’s over, people.
The local CBC radio station launched a 10-Reasons-to-get-Letterman-to-Nova Scotia contest after local gal Ellen Page appeared on his show. It was all sort of fun until the politicos and branding people hopped on board. Then things started to get embarrassing.
Premier MacDodo pitched a YouTube video [...]

Good news. Terry O’Reilly is back on the public airwaves with his excellent radio program Age of Persuasion. This is the third season for A of P which airs on CBC Radio 1 Saturdays 11:30-noon.
A of P explores the power and techniques of media, public relations and advertising in culture and politics. The shows are [...]

OK, Time Magazine has named Russian President Vladimir Putin as its person of the year.
Now, will somebody pal-lease tell the CBC radio announcers to pronounce the man’s name correctly.
It’s Putin with the T, not Poo’n like CBC announcers seem to think. A couple of months ago this typist accused the CBC of lazy elocution [...]

No. Really. Take off, boys.
I know this could get me hauled up before a committee investigating Un-Canadian Activities, but I never got the whole Bob and Doug MacKenzie thing.
They were the two dim-witted, beer-drinking, lumberjack-shirt-and-tuque-wearing fellows who made the word “hoser” a household word in Canada in the 80s. Their SCTV sketch Great White North [...]

This morning I flipped on CBC radio and heard a grown man cry.
No-one had died. The man’s village had not been devastated by a massive earthquake. He had not lost his job or discovered that his wife was cheating on him.
No, this man was crying because the Canadian football team he supports did not win [...]

Upon hearing on CBC radio that Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper was meeting with the Dalai Lama this week, one of the little typists replied in earnest: “Mummy, why is Harper meeting a dying llama?”

You are not funny. Your host is not funny. Your debaters are lame. Your live audiences are sycophantic and undemanding.
This program has graduated from the Stuart McLean school of CBC comedy. It is in love with itself and its own little tropes. It fancies itself cute. It is founded on the premise that the louder [...]

Turns out that this typist is not alone in being irritated by the new CBC radio taglines. Even the CBC’s own insider blog is quoting listeners who are being driven to distraction by the following cutesy little tropes.
 If you live in Nova Scotia you hear: CBC radio – Soooooooo Nova Scotia
If you are in Toronto [...]

What a difference a year makes and a gender makes in the Canadian sport of hockey.
In Torino 2006, Canadians were tut-tutting the Canadian women’s hockey team, telling them to tone it down and stop scoring so many goals. It didn’t look good. It lacked class. It wasn’t Canadian to dominate like that.
Then this week the [...]