Bobby Fischer was 64. He was the reclusive chess genius who became a Cold War icon by dethroning the Soviet world champion in 1972 and later renounced his American citizenship.
May 19, 2026
Today, I listen to all my music as MP3s. It's usually on the computer or in one of my two personal MP3 players. In my three decades of life, this is my fourth format. In the beginning, all my music was either on vinyl or cassette tapes. At some point
All my life, I've been told I look like my mother. It's strange being told you look like a woman. Whenever I doubt the resemblance I just have to delve into the vault to see it's true. This picture below is an old photo of my mother I recovered when
One of the cooler gifts James got for Christmas is this Optimus Prime mask. It looks cool, but that's not what I love about this gift. When you wear this thing, there's a voice synthesizer that makes you sound like Optimus Prime. I grew up watching Optimus Prime and when
The hot link making the rounds amongst Leafs fans this week is http://www.firerichardpeddie.ca/. They've got 11481 signatures so far and they're promising to print and send the list to the MLSE offices each Friday. As I wrote back in November, I sincerely believe Richard Peddie should be
I share an MP3 from my collection every Wednesday. You have seven days to grab this week's MP3. Please right-click your mouse and select "Save Link As..." or "Save target as..." so you can download it to your PC before playing. Iggy Pop - The Passenger I love this Iggy
We've owned a Nintendo Wii for about three weeks now, and we're still loving it. Just about every day we play WiiSports or WiiPlay. I'm a big fan of the training exercises, particularly the baseball drill where you face 30 pitches in a row and you see how many you
We've planned a birthday party for my son on Saturday. He's turning six and he'll take a bunch of his friends to a movie to celebrate. Normally, since it's his birthday, I'd let him see the G-rated film of his choice. But this time, I vetoed his selection. James chose
This might be the first time in my life I was sorry the Toronto Maple Leafs won. The third period took place while I was playing dodgeball, so it was on my drive home that I heard we were victorious. My fear is that MLSE will view these two points
Brad Renfro was 25. He was the actor whose career began promisingly with a childhood role in "The Client" but rapidly faded as he struggled with drugs and alcohol. I thought he was pretty good in "Bully".
Jon Stewart has a great line about Canada. "What do we think of Canada ... we don't". With apologies to Jon Stewart, I don't call Scarborough Scarlem. I don't call it at all. You've likely read the Star article about Scarborough politicians' frustration with being disrespected by their Toronto cousins who
Jordan is a member of my slo-pitch team Raging Storm and a socially conscious citizen of the world. When Kic got angry at the ump for calling a game at six innings with 18 minutes on the clock, he threw an empty bottle of Gatorade on the field of SkyDome.
Twelve years ago today, on a cold January afternoon in Toronto, I married Taryn. It's funny what you remember a dozen years later. I remember all the costs. $53 for a marriage license at City Hall, $53 for the ceremony at Old City Hall and $165 for a couple of
Considering how injury-plagued both Troy Glaus and Scott Rolen are, I waited until they had passed their physicals before wading in on the Glaus for Rolen deal between the Jays and Cardinals. Assuming Rolen's shoulder holds up, and that's a big assumption, this is a great deal for our team.
Johnny Podres was 75. He pitched the Brooklyn Dodgers to their only World Series title in 1955.
The 65th annual Golden Globe Awards were awesome, weren't they? The biggest casualty of the writer's strike to date, the Golden Globes were awarded via some kind of a press conference thing. It somehow seems fitting that Eddie Vedder would win in a year when the pomp and circumstance is
I'm always fascinated by how few blog visitors actually contribute with a comment. This blog has a small handful of regulars who leave comments, and some of these regulars have blogs of their own. I've been to Jill's blog, Roshan's blog, Al's blog, James' blog and Jason's blog and I
I've never played dodgeball, but I've seen the movie. It looked like a lot of fun, and soon I shall see. I've joined a dodgeball league. My first game is tomorrow night, so today I hit the web to learn the rules. I learnt about the opening rush, the 5-second
I just posted 50 "love" songs that are suitable for a wedding. That was by request from Bella Rose down under. As I was putting that list together, I realized there are plenty of songs with "love" in the title that would be totally inappropriate for a wedding. Here are
I put together a 100 song wedding playlist when my brother got married in 2006. An Australian with the fantastic name Bella Rose chimed in this morning with this comment: Hi Mike!!Thank god I found your post! Your list is exceptional!!!!!!!I am trying to compile a list of
SkyDome was not kind to Boonie's Angels. The fact I'm home writing this tells you we didn't qualify for the playoffs. It was fun and I'm glad we gave it a shot, but we weren't particularly good. Here's a collection of thoughts... At 4:15am, it took me 8 minutes
I'll begin this recap by telling you I didn't catch a minute of this game. I went to bed because my alarm clock was set for 4am. I missed our fifth consecutive loss. In the entire 30 team NHL, only two teams have fewer points than us. Tampa Bay is
Back in September I discovered the Stat of the Day blog and I've enjoyed it daily ever since. One of the writers there is Andy and for fun he just started a new blog I'm absolutely loving. He's going through all 792 Topps baseball cards one by one, explaining why
Murray 'Dusty' Cohl was 78. He was credited with taking the Toronto International Film Festival to the international level it now holds.
"I'll teach you to laugh at something that's funny!"
