It hit me as I paid a visit to my local Shoppers Drug Mart. As I approached the check-out, I noticed a copy of Women’s World magazine, amongst the weekly tabloids.
The cover article?
Lose a pound a day with the DA VINCI CODE DIET
Slimming secrets found in Dan Brown’s novel.
Sadly, I’m not joking.
While I was going through that same checkout, I noticed that they were selling talking beer bottle openers for $7.99, and I commented that I could get people a talking beer bottle opener for free, minus the cost of lots and lots of beer. That got a laugh.
What a Difference a Day Makes
Early in May, we decided to install central air into our home. We’d had a 5000 BTU air conditioning unit which was only good for cooling one room. Since that room was our bedroom, it did its job keeping our nights cool and comfortable, but Vivian changed that. Did we move the air conditioner to her room and suffer through the nights? Did we get a second window unit? And what about during the daytime? Was Vivian to be locked in her bedroom where it was cool?
At that point we said, “screw it, let’s get central air!”
That still left us with a 5000 BTU window unit, that was only two summers old. So, around mid-May, we posted an add on Craigslist, selling the unit for a firm $80, and we waited for offers to roll in.
And waited. And waited.
Until yesterday, when five offers arrived all at once, and we met our asking price.
Frankly, I think we could have sold the unit for $100.
I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that this past Sunday’s edition of the Blogger’s Hotstove is now available at STI Media. It was an interesting discussion with welcome panelist Jason Cherniak replacing the much missed Bob Tarantino, and we talked about the Liberal leadership, the big press fight, and Harper’s change of heart regarding the press at the arrival of the caskets of fallen Canadian soldiers returning home. It was surprising to find myself more optimistic about the Liberals’ prospects than Jason was, but a part of me suspects that Jason’s outlook may have been coloured by other discouraging news he’d received. Bear up, Jason: we’ve all been there, and we’ve all bounced back. Good times are still ahead.
It was a busy Monday for me, covering the illegal wildcat that stranded 800,000 commuters in Toronto yesterday. It was a bit wearing wading through a fair amount of anger and fury, and I was pretty much in journalist mode, but I think it was worth it. Typically, I receive around 300 hits per day for this blog, and 3000 hits for Transit Toronto. Yesterday, my total number of hits reached 22,000, and that’s not including the traffic that reached the crossposted article on Spacing’s Wire. Guess what all of those visitors were coming to see. As a result, I sort of felt responsible for posting the most up-to-date information that I could post. I hope I did all right, and easied some people’s commutes, however slightly, that day.
I’d like to thank Rebecca Anderson for putting up a fair and kind review of The Unwritten Girl on her blog. She came in from Stratford with her newborn son Paul to attend my reading and she not only reviewed my book, but she bought the copy she reviewed. That’s a touching show of support, and it was a real boost to my day.
Previous Visits to Cloudcookooland
- Part I: Where’s Geraldo - April 3, 2003
- Part II: Pirate Fined for Assaulting Sausage - July 11, 2003
- Part III: The FCC Classifies Howard Stern’s Radio Show as a News Program - September 12, 2003
- Part IV: Ontario pits Liberal versus Liberal and Conservative versus Conservative - February 15, 2005
- Part V: When Priests Took Steroids - September 21, 2005