I remember the first time I saw the word ‘stomach’ in print. I was six or seven years old and I was reading a comic book – I can’t remember the comic but I think it was a western. Now I knew the word stomach, although I probably used the word tummy more often. Still, even though I know what the word stomach meant it was odd to see it in print. I mean stomach is just a weird looking word – look at it – really look at it – if you didn’t know that this is how stomach was spelled you wouldn’t think this was the word for stomach.

Okay — This is it! The biggest shindig of the year and you’re invited! 

Date: Friday, 25th January   

Time: 8:00 pm start (Bagpipes join in at 9:30pm)                            

Place: The Free Times Café (320 College, near Spadina)

Please join us for another evening of ​friendly fun:

Some Burns. Some Scottish music. Some dance. 

… and… of course, the Haggis!

My first full time job after university was working for a public broadcaster in Toronto. I won’t name the broadcaster but it wasn’t the CBC and it just broadcasts on TV in Ontario. I wasn’t in the production end of things, I was in something called Learning Systems Design (yes – LSD). At one point I was asked to write a position paper on some type of restructuring for part of the organization (and you are quite correct to wonder what qualifications I had to embark on such a task because I had none).

I don’t remember anything about what I wrote but I do remember the meeting where it was discussed. There were a bunch of people in the room – not just from LSD but from other departments as well. It would have been cool if there were departments of Potential of Technology (POT) and Systems Produced Enabled Engineering Design (SPEED), etc., because it just would have been fun to play duelling drug acronyms – but the place didn’t really have a sense of humour so that didn’t happen.

You know what we need in Canada now? And please don’t stop reading this and go away to think hard about what we really need in Canada now and engage in weighty discussions with friends and family and then, in a week or two, email me your considered comments, because I’m not really interested in what you think we need in Canada, this is just a literary device to let me say what I was going to say in any event. And what I was going to say was what we need in Canada is a holiday in November.

I know we have Labour Day in September and Thanksgiving in October, which is where it belongs, not in late November like they have in the U.S., and then after a bit of a wait we have Christmas and Boxing Day and that works out to four holidays in four months which is one a month and that seems about right. And of course there’s also Hallowe’en which isn’t a holiday that you get to skip work for (which is really what a holiday is all about) but it’s still a holiday.

I recently learned of a survey by Dalhousie University that showed that Canadians are eating less meat. A number of articles following up on the survey pointed out that this has led to restaurants changing the fare that they offer their customers. Being the intrepid investigator of social trends that I know you expect me to be, I took on the task of eating at a bunch of restaurants, all in the name of research, to see what this really means.

I had assumed, naïvely as it turns out, that I would see restaurants offering more vegetarian and vegan food options. Some restaurants might have also added more pescetarian choices (and I should point out that when I first heard the word “pescetarian” I did figure out that it had to with fish but I couldn’t figure out whether pescetarians worshipped or ate fish – or perhaps both – anyway if you’re wondering, it is (b) – ate fish).

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One of the great things about my work is that I get to travel across the country. There is nothing like going from town to town, playing my music, having intense, intimate relationships with people, getting ideas for new songs, sharing the stage with other great musicians… wait, sorry, that’s not my life at all – that’s sort of what I fantasized my life would be when I was in high school – not sure how I ended up sharing this.

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When I was in law school a few years ago (OK many years ago – OK many, many years ago) the Dean of the law school (which I won’t name but let’s just say it was a law school in Toronto that wasn’t downtown) was fond of saying that we were “the best law school in the Commonwealth.” Now I’d only been at that law school but I thought that might have been a bit of a reach. I was fine with “the best law school in Downsview” or perhaps even “the best law school in North York” (this was pre-amalgamation Toronto) but I didn’t understand the need to try to make something that was perfectly fine and serviceable into something more.

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Hello Roomers and Rumours of Roomers

Jonathan is out of town so you are left rantless for this month.

The plain message is that yes, The Living Room will be playing:

• This Sunday 8 pm to 11pm
• At the Free Times Café, 320 College Street, just west of Spadina
• See y’all there

Rory Gus aka Drone Continue reading →

Hello all
The fact that this is coming from me unadorned with a rant from Jonathan means two things
1: Jonathan is in some place like Newfoundland (true) and he is not rantable from that locale
2: The Band will be performing this Sunday nonetheless

Date: Sunday July 15
Time: 8 pm to 11 pm
Venue: The venerable Free Times Café at 320 College Street at Major
Special Guest: Brian Morgan on bass

See you there

Rory Gus (aka drone) Continue reading →

Has this ever happened to you? You’re with a group of people discussing some issue of greater or lesser importance. You are doing the talking, not dominating the conversation, not going on too long, making a point, getting a few wry chuckles, coming to the conclusion of a well-developed point of view, when one of the other folks cuts in and says, “I don’t mean to interrupt but…” and then takes over the conversation.

Or perhaps a similar but slightly different scenario, you are holding forth, but not in a bad way, about to sum up, when someone sticks their head in the room and says those words “I don’t mean to interrupt but…”

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