Month: May 2012

I upgraded hours ago, as soon as I found out about DuckDuckGo. All the fast results of Google without the privacy invasion and filtering.

Click image for an explanation.
Google keeps you in a search results “bubble”, too. You are shown first page results that Google decides you want to see, based on your previous searches. Other results are buried on deeper pages. Is that service or a way of keeping you in a rut. Pop the bubble.

…until we get CBC TV back from the NHL.

Surely success lies ahead for this nifty invention, followed by a ton of inferior knock-offs. I found them on Kickstarter, which is a pretty nifty site in it’s own right.

Merrill sent me a few of these… I picked a favourite.

No need to name these two famous Canadian jazz musicians, captured in a rare daylight sighting by alert photographer Rebecca Staton. I think she was attracted by the hats.

Brian phoned up with a mystery offer. He would pick us up and whisk us away for a 3 hour excursion to an undisclosed cultural event. Brian went to the Picasso exhibit with us recently. He assured us that his event would be quite different from that one.

More pictures after the break.

Back in 1939, a mother told her daughter to go ahead and live in her “Fool’s Paradise”… an isolated, electricity-free cottage by Lake Ontario. Doris McCarthy liked the name for her $1250 real estate purchase and kept it. She lived and worked in this dream location her whole life, gradually adding on rooms. She did without electricity for the first 7 years or so.
Interior photos after the break.

Click image and do some shooting.
Thanks for the link, Brian and Paul.

Danica and I enjoyed a visit with Ray Souster at his place on Bloor Street yesterday. John Robert Colombo had given me a book of Ray’s most recent poems and when I said how much I liked them, John said we should meet the author.

Isn’t this a beautifully rendered piece? So brief, simple and direct, yet so dramatic. Masterful.

WHILE SHE WAS SOUNDLY SLEEPING
he was nervously awake in his bed,
every now and then
peaking cautiously
around tomorrow’s corner.

When you know that the poet is now over 90, another layer of meaning emerges.
Ray Souster is one of Toronto’s great poets but frankly, I hadn’t read a word of his until John Robert Colombo introduced me to this lively, very readable book. It’s full of life and it’s as fresh as can be. One more? OK… here’s one on Toronto’s mayor.