nonamedufus

Well we're into July now, the Canada Day long weekend's behind us, my brothers have left and gone back home leaving me to take the empties back for a refund. How else will I afford to buy more books? Got through 10 books in June bringing my year-to-date total to 59. It was an interesting and somewhat eclectic month what with several novels, some stand-by private eye mysteries and a couple of books about the music industry. Here are the books... Inferno - Dan Brown And the Mountains Echoed - Khaled Hosseini A Quiet Vendetta - R.J. Ellory The Last Detective - Robert Crais White Bicycles - Joe Boyd The Forgotten Man - Robert Crais Joyland - Stephen King Abbey Road to Ziggy Stardust - Ken Scott City of Lies - R.J. Ellory Running Blind - Lee Child I was disappointed in Dan Brown's new book. It kind of plodded slowly along and we've seen this symbol stuff before. But And The Mountains Echoed was a delight. It's by the guy who wrote The Kite Runner. A goo...

It's Canada Day. Let's celebrate the fact that Justine Bieber lives in California. Happy beer and BBQ day to my Canadian friends. And to my American friends: ha, ha, we get to celebrate our national holiday first!

Each month, P.J. over at a 'lilhoohaa hosts a photo blogging challenge. This month's prompt was bridges . Now, I couldn't afford a plane trip to L.A. in order to hunt down Lloyd, Beau or Jeff so I had to make do with some local talent. With rivers, canals and highways, the Ottawa area has plenty of bridges. There are some nice rustic wooden bridges out of town on the Quebec side of the Ottawa River. Here's one on the way to Wakefield, Quebec... And if you make it to Wakefield you'll see this covered bridge... Back in Ottawa the Pretoria Bridge crosses the Rideau Canal. It's a lift bridge and stops traffic every time a boat large enough has to float beneath it. What many call the E.B. Eddy Bridge is actually known as the Chaudiere e Crossing. This is a series of bridges across the rapids of the Ottawa River between Ontario and Quebec through the old E.B. Eddy paper factory. Here's one section... And finally, one of my favourite loc...

Okay, so these usually get posted on Sunday but tomorrow's the end of the month and that's when I post photos related to P.J.'s monthly photo challenge. So we're running our editorial cartoons today. C'mon back tomorrow for the photos.

If memory serves me well - not that I was around then, but the history books tell me it happened - back during the war of 1812 a bunch of silly, and incendiary-minded, whooped-up Canadians burned down the White House and the Capital Building in Washington. Hey, what did we know? Who's up for some s'mores? Since then the relationship between us has improved immeasurably. After all, it had nowhere to go but up. Of course, if a bunch of nut-job Yanks were still harbouring a grudge and were up to returning the favour this would probably be the best week to do it. Sound incredible? It could happen. Just think of rallying the members of the Westboro Baptist Church together. And I thought Canada was the per capita king of nut jobs. How could it happen? Because many Canadians - the ones in so called lower Canada - will likely book off work this week and take advantage of yesterday's Fete National or St Jean-Baptist Day June 24th - where the majority of Quebeckers eat a...

Yeah, that's me. About three-quarters of the way through my root canal yesterday. Last week, I was lying about, reading a book on my iPad and coping with one of those man colds. I was hacking my lungs up, blowing my nose to beat the band and cranking up the stereo because I was so stuffed up I was practically deaf (why's Mrs D always yelling at me?) when just when I thought I was a marvellous medical malady multi-tasker a tooth started to ache. It got worse Thursday but I didn't call the dentist. I have one of those love/hate relationships with my dentist. Usually hate wins out. Did I think my toothache would get better? Hey, miracles can happen. By Friday I was eating food the consistency of baby food and called the dentist. He doesn't work Fridays it turns out. He golfs. Lucky guy. But his colleague could take me, and did, and prescribed antibiotics until I could see my dentist Monday. Interesting weekend. More pablum-like food. Soup. Stuff that doesn't r...

My toilet was on the fritz so I called a plumber. When the doorbell rang I was surprised the repairman was a woman. And she was gorgeous. No American standard, believe me. She told me her name was Fawcett.  I thought "Yep, I'd tap that." I was struck dumb. I flushed in embarrassment. But she didn't seem to notice and plunged into her work. I had to crane my neck to see what she was doing. I asked if she could use any help. She said she could handle it. But I knew she was having a tough time of it 'cause she nearly blew a gasket. She about bowled me over because she swore like a stevedore. Whatever floats your boat, I thought. And then I thought if she'd taken elocution lessons they'd surely gone to waste. Oh, well. For me, though, it was like water off a duck's back. I wasn't offended. There was no chance that I'd sewer. She reached into her bag and pulled out a can of motor oil; an odd item to fix a toilet with. I sai...