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Showing posts from May, 2017

My Back Pages - May

In May I read four books. My yearly total now stands at 23. The Ottawa Senators two playoff series, first with the Rangers and then with the Penguins ate into my reading time as did binge watchIng six seasons of VEEP, one of the funniest series I've ever seen. I started out the month with two Rex Stout mysteries, Over My Dead Body followed by Where There's a Will, numbers seven and eight in the Nero Wolfe canon. Satisfying reads as always. Then I moved on to Letterman: The Last Giant of Late Night by Jason Zinoman. This was an interesting look at Letterman. I never knew the fella had, according to Zinoman, so many insecurities. I always preferred Letterman over Leno so I enjoyed this account and went all the way with five stars. I concluded the month with Neil Gaiman's American Gods. I saw the video version was running on Netflix but wanted to read the book before I watched it. I read the 10th anniversary version of the book on Kindle complete with audio excerpt

Blowing Up

I wasn't going to write a post this week but then I thought that might have provoked a conniption amongst my two or three followers. And if that were to happen I might have had a tantrum. This week's prompt from Two Word Tuesday is conniption/tantrum . Could you tell?

Double Word Score

Did you ever use the wrong word, thinking it meant something else. Come on now I'm sure I'm not the only one this has happened to. But I'm damn good at Scrabble. And I don't even have to check the dictionary. When challenged I just speak confidently in a loud voice "Yeah, that's a word, it means..." It's what I do when playing with my wife, especially, who is Francophone and deigns to play in both official languages. See what I just did there? I misused "deigns". I should have said "who forces me to let her create French AND English words". Now just how do I, an Anglophone, challenge those French words. Well I just have to say I love her and I trust her. She wouldn't cheat. Not like me. One of the words I've misused up until now is temerity. I used it when I thought someone was timid. I thought temerity meant something like frightened. Who knew? Turns out it means bold or impertinent. A synonym is cheek. No, trust

The Latest on Canada/U.S. High-Level Trade Talks

Your esteemed political observer knows why President Pen Pal (all those Executive Orders) has been acting so irrationally. Stick with me here. He wants to rewrite NAFTA with Canada. He almost came so far as to get rid of the deal altogether. He fired the head of the FBI. Many people think , the cynical among you,  that it was because Big Jim was getting too close to the relationship between Russia and the Trump administration. That wasn’t it at all. Hold your breath. *coughs wildly* Sorry, that’s some good stuff. What I was inhaling, yeah. You see Canada is set to legalize marijuana. We have companies cultivating the plants right now. And there are pot shops already operating in every major city. And some not so major. Canadians hold Prime Minister Trudeau, who promised the legislation as part of his party’selection platform, in extremely high esteem. They don’t call his party Libera for nothing. Now think about it. How else to explain Donald’s steadfast desire first to

The Fuss Is On Us

There once were two lads who did scuffle Over a pretty girl. Their feathers she did ruffle She caused fists to fly She had no idea why But it resulted in a three-way... Kerfuffle. The prompt from Two Word Tuesday is kerfuffle/fuss this week.

The Story of Baby Dinger

Betsy and Bob Dinger were always the object of snide remarks because they had a lot of children. An even twelve - six boys and six girls. Their neighbours said they must have been strong believers in equality and fervent practicing Catholics. Others said they could run two hockey or basketball teams. Or one soccer or baseball team. And as the children grew that's exactly what Betsy and Bob Dinger did. Although they favoured fielding a baseball team as several of their children were great hitters and were capable of knocking a few family namesakes out of the park - that is to say dingers. Then one day the unexpected happened. Although after twelve children I guess it shouldn't be unexpected. Betsy was pregnant with child number thirteen. Dave Dinger, Doug Dinger, Donald Dinger, Dick Dinger, Ducky Dinger, Duane Dinger and their sisters Diane Dinger, Dahlia Dinger, Dakota Dinger, Daisy Dinger, Debbie Dinger and Donna Dinger were going to have a brother or sister. As su

My Back Pages - April

I managed to read five books last month raising my year-to-date total to 19 books, pretty much on track towards my estimated 50 books this year. I started out with a Tom Wolfe novel originally released in the late 90s, A Man In Full . I think this was referenced in something I read in March and I decided to try it out. Taking place in 1990s Atlanta it was an interesting read about business, real estate development and inter-racial relations. I enjoyed it and rated it 4 stars. Next up was number 21 in the Harry Bosch series by Michael Connelly, The Wrong Side of Goodbye . In it Harry is charged with hunting down an heir to a an elderly multi-millionaire on his private eye ticket while investigating a series of home invasion rapes for the San Fernando Police Department. A busy man? Yes, but of course he solves both cases with a little help from his half-brother the Lincoln Lawyer. A good read and another 4 stars. The third book I read this month was Emily Schultz's new nove