Author: Bill

I knew the mature Ronald McDonald (Hi, John) when I worked on the advertising account in the 90s. He scared the account execs sometimes, but he was nowhere near as scary as the early Ronald, don’cha think?
The cup-nose and the bib-collar had to go. And what’s with the eyebrows? I’ve heard of unibrows, but quadrabrows?
The old Ronald turned up when I searched for a vintage ad for Danica. She saw an amusing one for lard at a presentation yesterday. This isn’t it, but we liked it, anyway.

Danica and I were back at Tea-N-Bannock today, seeking warmth and comfort food for lunch. The corn soup with vegetarian bannock (with raisins) and a mug of coffee was $5.50. Perfect. We both had the combo.
The soup tasted great. Nice stock with corn and black beans and chunks of potato, plus pieces of turkey. Danica said it was as good as her own homemade soups. I agree, and that’s a real compliment.

Here’s an update to the Apple logo story below… Apparently Apple, the computer company finally resolved the trademark squabble with Apple Corps, the Beatles music label, back in 2007. Apple Inc. bought the Apple Corps logo.

Please yourself, of course, but I wouldn’t buy another one. Mine was a 500GB unit that I used with Time Machine to back up my iMac’s drive. Luckily, the iMac drive has outlasted the 4-year old Elephant Storage Drive. Kinda not the way it’s supposed to go, though.
I believed the external drive was really built. Carbon Computing makes them exclusively and I’ve always had good service from the Queen East store.
Apparently, I need at least 2 backup drives… preferably ones with better than the Elephant Storage one year warrantee. Carbon Computing wants 65 diagnostic dollars to even look at their old hard drive and then who knows how much to retrieve whatever data might still be on it. Nope, I’m not throwing good money after bad.

Until today, I didn’t know that the original Apple logo’s “bite” was designed to accommodate a lowercase “a”. Thank goodness the redundant wordmark was quickly eliminated, leaving only the famous bite mark.
I found the story here, on Brainpickings.

“Don’t worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you’ll have to ram them down people’s throats.”
–Howard Aiken, computer pioneer

A little over 5 months ago, Danica and I had the privilege of visiting Ray Souster (pronounced sou as in south) in his Bloor Street apartment. Friend and author John Robert Colombo had given me a book of Souster poems and I asked if he thought that I might get my copy autographed. John said we should check with Ray’s editor and ask.
Shortly thereafter, we were there chatting with the poet, learning a bit about his personal history, his current circumstances, his ongoing work and his love of jazz recordings. He was very easy to talk to. I got my autograph and more. We came away with more books of Ray’s vast output of poetry.
CBC has given a good account of Ray’s long and significant career. So has the Toronto Star.
The man we met was old, frail and blind. What a contrast with his work, which strikes me as strong, independent and sometimes radically opinionated. Definitely one of the good guys. I’m so glad we met him.

We always enjoy our visits to the Alumnae Theatre on Berkeley Street, home of the Toronto Irish Players. Our visit yesterday, to see Brian Friel’s play Translations, was no exception. And yet, this particular play was not as satisfying as some. Figuring out why isn’t exactly easy.

How could I have missed this most obvious evidence? Thanks to an email received this morning, I am now up-to-date on climate theory. Convincing stuff. Thank you, Karen Bell.

Thousands were out bright and early in Woodbine Park, eating gourmet activist soups and signing the giant petition against the Mega-Quarry.(You can sign the online petition here. Sorry, no soup.)
The event was an overwhelming success, supported by enormous crowds, entertainers and celebrities. Can you see my one celebrity close up shot?
I couldn’t squeeze the size of the crowd into a single picture. Masses of people lined up with bowls at steaming kettles under hundreds of pavillion tents. The cause is just, the weather was perfect and the soups were amazingly good.
A few more photos…