Happy Birthday, Canada, you're 141 years young today. Over the past 5.5 years I've written quite a bit about you. All of those posts can be found at http://www.torontomike.com/o_canada/. This is a great day to dive in and revisit those red and white entries.
The Google universe effects us all in different ways. I feel a great responsibility to be an authority on subject matter I rank #1 for in Google. Tomorrow is Canada's 141st birthday, so many are Googling best Canadian songs and finding my Top 100 Canadian Songs List. That makes me
Ajax Mike wrote me a note today calling me out for referring to the Hockey Night in Canada theme as our second national anthem. The song, recently bought by CTV, was referred to as "our second national anthem" by yours truly in this recent entry. Ajax Mike has a good
I recently shared the track listing for "Early Canadian Rock: The 60s and 70s". That homemade mix served as a crash course in early Canadian rock, and now my bud has put together a sequel. Here are the 27 tracks from volume two. Big Time Operator - Keith HampshireBorn To
I've got a bud who's been burying me in early Canadian rock these past few months. All good Canadians know "As Years Go By" by Mashmakan or "Oh What A Feeling" by Crowbar, but unless you remember the 60s, how would you know The Beau-Marks, The Ugly Ducklings or Motherlode?
I see at Canadian Thinker that the drought is finally over. 26 years ago, Canadian Shannon Tween was named Playboy's Playmate of the Year. For the first time since, that title belongs to another Canadian. Jayde Nicole, 22, of Port Perry, Ontario, has been named Playboy's 2008 Playmate of the
When I saw No Country For Old Men recently, one of the coming attractions we saw was the trailer for Passchendaele, a Paul Gross film about the 10th Battalion, CEF in the First World War at the Battle of Passchendaele. I thought the trailer was pretty good and I'm looking
YouTube user inklinkinklink wins the Coke. This is Gordie Johnson playing O Canada on his electric double neck guitar prior to last night's game between the Toronto Maple Leafs and the New Jersey Devils at the ACC.
The first one to upload video of Gordie Johnson's O Canada from tonight's Leafs game at the ACC wins a Coke. If you missed it, CBC broadcast the national anthems and Big Sugar's Gordie "Grady" Johnson played O Canada on his electric double neck guitar in Hendrix-like fashion. It was
The United Nations has published its human development index which ranks its 175 members plus Hong Kong and the Palestinian territories. Canada is listed as the fourth most desirable country to live in. We used to dominate this list, finishing first nine times between 1990 and 2000. Here's the new
A Place to Stand, A Place to Grow (Ontari-ari-ari-o!) is the unofficial anthem of Ontario. It was featured at the Expo 67 Ontario pavilion, so Ontarians my age and younger know it best from Jim Carrey's appearance on Late Night with Conan O'Brien when he came to Toronto for four
The great show Ren & Stimpy aired an episode in season 2 entitled "The Royal Canadian Kilted Yaksmen". The song from this episode was frequently aired on MuchMusic in the early 90s as a stand-alone video. Here's the video... If you know the song, you likely found yourself singing along.
I don't have a personal story to relate about war. My grandparents didn't serve and I don't have an uncle or a cousin in the armed forces. I once heard about my grandfather's brother serving in WWII, but the details are sketchy. According to Veterans Affairs Canada, there are 205,
Earlier today, I wrote about my inherent disadvantage when compiling a list of this nature. Below are my ten favourite Canadian albums of all-time, but you won't find Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, Rush or The Guess Who. You also won't find The Band, Leonard Cohen or Gordon Lightfoot. I kept
It's happening. At this moment $1 USD will buy you $1.0012 CAD. This hasn't happened since November 1976 when I was in diapers.
AFP has released an article with a title that immediate caught my attention. "Canada's last igloo to be flattened amid Arctic boom" it read, so I read it. I've now read it twice, but my feeble brain is awfully confused. The gyst of the article is that our far north
Speaking of positive reviews for The Simpsons Movie, the Globe and Mail had a nice little collection of Cancon Simpsons moments in an article they called D'oh Canada. I like it so much, I'm reproducing it here in its entirety. D'oh Canada! by David George-CoshThe members of America's favourite nuclear
It's been quite the journey. We kicked off our quest to assemble the greatest Canadian songs in the history of the world back on May 15 and here we are, a month and a half later. It's unlikely everyone will agree with all 100 choices, many great songs were left
One of my YouTube favourites is the closing footage from Live 8 in Barrie back in the summer of 2005. Neil Young closed and Gord, Gordon, Bruce, Steven, Ed, Greg, Jim and other Canadian musicians joined him for Rockin' In The Free World. As amazing as that was, it got
Humble Howard says "Bon Cop Bad Cop" is the best Canadian movie he's ever seen. He openly admits that he hasn't seem a lot of Canadian films, but who amongst us has? I can only think of a handful of Canadian movies that I've truly loved. The first couple of
It all started with an email from Jim. Canada Day is coming up fast. I have never heard of a radio station collecting votes for the best Canadian songs of all time. And of course most of them would be restricted by their own formats (e.g. The Edge doesn't
Dwight Wilson passed away today. He was 106 years old and he was a veteran of the Great War. That leaves us with one World War 1 veteran, John Babcock. The First World War ended in 1918. That was 89 years ago. That means Dwight Wilson was 17 when the
Thanks to Bob and Doug McKenzie, we Canadians have always been associated with the expression "eh?". Truth be told, I never say "eh" unless I'm intentionally saying it to fulfil the expectations of the stereotype. We're supposed to say it, so I'll say it for effect. I never say it
In the past, I've written twice about Vimy Ridge. Today, on the 90th anniversary of this victory, I'd like to re-post both entries. On December 14, 2002, I wrote the following. If Vimy Ridge was an American success story, Hollywood would be churning out big budget epics on the subject
Yesterday I wrote about songs that reference Canada. I promised I'd share my ten favourite musical references to my home and native land. Here are my top ten with apologies to Stompin' Tom Connors. "Bobcaygeon" by The Tragically Hip - I'm starting this list with Bobcaygeon because it's a village
