Welcome to this week's Friday Open Mike. I'm Mike and I'll be your master of ceremonies for the day. Feel free to use this space to vent, rant, share a story and/or ask a question of the hivemind.
April 01, 2026
I've been watching tennis grand slam events forever. As a young man, you'd have thought I was German the way I cheered on Boris Becker and Steffi Graf. After all, Canadians were never a threat. Here's something I wrote in July of 2009 about Canada's male singles tennis failure. We
Taking the subway to university on Thursdays meant picking up a copy of Eye Weekly. Eye Weekly was a cool alternative weekly newspaper that was distributed for free in Toronto. I always found something interesting to read in there. In May of 2011, Eye Weekly was rebranded / relaunched as The
In this 82nd episode, Mike chats with Alan Cross, David Marsden, Brother Bill, Todd Shapiro, LoriAnn, Fred Patterson and others about the life and death of Martin Streek on the 5th anniversary of his death. This episode is exactly 1:56:33. You can listen to this episode in a
Welcome to this week's Tuesday Open Mike. I'm Mike and I'll be your master of ceremonies for the day. Feel free to use this space to vent, rant, share a story and/or ask a question of the hivemind.
I will be sitting down next week with legendary broadcaster Erin Davis. She'll be dropping by to record an episode of my podcast Toronto Mike'd, and I get an entire hour to ask her anything I want. I know what questions I'll be asking her, but I'd love to know
With the 33rd annual Pride Parade taking place in our city today I thought I'd jump in the time machine and remember that time I was quoted in a textbook called "Perspectives on Ideology" alongside Ayn Rand. Happy WorldPride day!
I often hear rants and jokes about how we're breeding a generation of underachievers by rewarding them for participation. The insinuation is that we don't keep score and everyone is regarded as a winner. This isn't true, nor is it new. In the early 80s, when I started my house
Bobby Womack was 70. He was the soul singer best known for the hits "Lookin' For a Love", "That's The Way I Feel About Cha", "Woman's Gotta Have It", "Harry Hippie", "Across 110th Street" and "If You Think You're Lonely Now".
Today, I turn 40. Living on this planet for forty years teaches you a thing or two. Here are ten things I've learned along the way. Get in shape and stay thereYou can't teach experienceSome people just want to watch the world burnAlways save your source filesTalk to your kids
Welcome to this week's Friday Open Mike. I'm Mike and I'll be your master of ceremonies for the day. Feel free to use this space to vent, rant, share a story and/or ask a question of the hivemind.
The NBA Draft is tonight. Several Canadians, mostly from the GTA, are likely to be drafted. That would make this by far the best NBA draft for Canadian talent. The previous high for Canadians drafted was three, set in 1983 and 2012. This year, three Canadians may go in the
Throughout primary school, we had a French teacher who would pop in our class for 45 minutes or so on certain days of the week. I'm sure there was (and is) a minimum number of hours French must be taught in Ontario, and we got that minimum. Looking back, we
In this 81st episode, Mike chats with his wife about their newborn son, Elvis's beer, the World Cup, and lessons learned. This episode is exactly 34:17. You can listen to this episode in a variety of ways: Subscribe in iTunesSubscribe directly to the feed at https://www.torontomike.com/
Welcome to this week's Tuesday Open Mike. I'm Mike and I'll be your master of ceremonies for the day. Feel free to use this space to vent, rant, share a story and/or ask a question of the hivemind.
The Washington Redskins were given that nickname in 1933. Many terms from that era are no longer appropriate. It's time to change the Washington NFL teams' name. I've got friends who think the name should be grandfathered in as an offensive relic from another era. In essence, it's always been
Pulp Fiction is my favourite movie of all time. Forever I've had this poster hanging in my bedroom. Over the last few years, my son and I would talk about Pulp Fiction. He's wanted me to watch it with him for a couple of years now but I waited. My
For a couple of weeks every May, whimbrels migrate through Toronto in great numbers. One of the best places to see them is the appropriately named Whimbrel Point in Sam Smith Park.
Welcome to this week's Friday Open Mike. I'm Mike and I'll be your master of ceremonies for the day. Feel free to use this space to vent, rant, share a story and/or ask a question of the hivemind.
In grade 5, I wrote a speech about dreams. My teacher awarded me a spot delivering this speech in front of the entire school. That competition, however, was weeks away. During that gap, I started tweaking my presentation. One day, out of the blue, my teacher asked me to deliver
In this 80th episode, Mike chats with Freddie P from the Humble and Fred Show about sports, politics, radio and Martin Streek. This episode is exactly 1:12:11. You can listen to this episode in a variety of ways: Subscribe in iTunesSubscribe directly to the feed at https://www.
Do you remember the great O-Pee-Chee Gremlins cards scandal of 1984? Because I don't.
The first time I ever saw a VCR it was rented for a friend's birthday party and we watched Star Wars. A couple of years later, we bought our first VCR. We went with VHS, even though the local video store guy carried titles in VHS and Beta. Soon thereafter,
In 1982, the state of Idaho made it legal for cyclists to treat stop signs as yield signs. Essentially, if it's safe, you can slow down a little and blow right through the stop sign. I consider myself a safe cyclist. I signal, I respect vehicles on the road and,
Welcome to this week's Tuesday Open Mike. I'm Mike and I'll be your master of ceremonies for the day. Feel free to use this space to vent, rant, share a story and/or ask a question of the hivemind.
