George Lindsey was 83. He spent nearly 30 years as the grinning Goober Pyle, Gomer's cousin, on "The Andy Griffith Show" and "Hee Haw."
December 12, 2025
Every time I smell burnt toast, I ask aloud "burnt toast, Dr. Penfield? That's what happens when you see this ad a million times during your formative years. Who else does this? There's no way I'm the only one...
Adam "MCA" Yauch was 47. He co-founded the Beastie Boys in 1979 with Mike D, Mix Master Mike, and Ad-Rock. I'm a big Beastie Boys fan. Paul's Boutique and Check Your Head rank among my favourite albums of all time. Adam Yauch was a practising Buddhist, and because of that,
May the Fourth be with you. On this fine Star Wars Day, let's have some good, clean fun with an Open Mike. Discuss anything you want. And if you have a question, I'll drop by throughout the day to answer questions.
At my former place of employment, I worked on the 10th floor. The men's bathroom had urinal dividers between the urinals. It felt nice and private when taking a leak beside a colleague. At some point, I was moved to the 9th floor. It was nicer on the 9th floor,
I've had a few emails asking me when I'm going to write about the incident at Rob Ford's house yesterday evening. Here's Daniel Dale's account of what happened, if you're a bit behind. The fact is, I don't want to write about this. This story annoys the shit out of
Junior Seau was 43. He was a 12-time Pro Bowler and 6-time First-Team All-Pro NFL linebacker, enjoying his best seasons with the San Diego Chargers. Early reports indicate Junior Seau died from a self-inflicted gunshot. That's a damn shame, he was one of my favourites. Update: Junior Seau is the
The Maple Leafs' official Twitter feed isn't bad. It's informative and engaged, and it says "cheers" a lot. It practically has a personality... But then there's the Los Angeles Kings' official Twitter feed. Now it has personality, and even likes to trash talk. Here's their infamous taunting of Canucks fans
Today is May Day, which is a holiday in a whole bunch of places for a wide variety of different reasons. When I hear it's May Day, I only think of one thing. Brad May's deke of Ray Bourque and goal against Andy Moog on April 24, 1993 in overtime
I've been watching a lot of playoff hockey lately, and that means I've seen the Meridith Valiando DigiTour Blackberry Bold ad about one million times. Of course, I haven't seen it a million times. I'm exaggerating. And that must be what Meridith Valiando is doing in the ad. She claims
Rob Ford sure loves subways subways subways subways subways subways subways subways subways subways.
For the past few months, I've been rotating between boring ol' regular Cheerios and Special K. That's it. Cheerios and Special K. A bunch of cereals I used to enjoy got fired when I read the labels. A lot of tasty cereals are loaded with sugar, and there's more than
I got an email from Scott asking me to update Custom's MySpace page with new unreleased tunes. I no longer control Custom's MySpace page, so I offered to share a couple of tracks here. This won't be the first time I've done this. I shared an unreleased Custom song a
I was reminded of something I wrote back in 2003. I had just seen an ad for Nutella, and felt compelled to write this. What's the deal with Nutella? When I was a kid, I was always envious of my classmates who would bring Nutella sandwiches for lunch. What could
Today was an interesting day. It began with the full release of Ubuntu 12.04 which I installed on my desktop. Then, the XPS 13 arrived from Dell. I didn't pay for the XPS 13. Dell just gave it to me, so I'm going to review it and compare it
I was watching some old footage of the NHL on FOX on Youtube. This footage was from 1995 and it included this graphic regarding the longest Stanley Cup droughts at the time. The Red Wings were suffering from a "40 year itch". They'd win a couple of Cups before the
In the 80s, when we were trying to act adult and cool, we'd drink Sarasoda. Sarasoda was non-alcoholic, but everyone in school knew it contained 0.9% alcohol, so it was our booze. It had this grapefruity flavour, as I recall. Here's an ad for Sarasoda I dug up. Does
In late 1989, I was reading the Toronto Star and they were asking folks what they thought were the best albums of the 1980s. Somebody picked The Clash's London Calling, despite the fact it was actually released in 1979. That very next Saturday, I headed downtown to Yonge and Dundas
There's not a lot of blogs left that go back 9+ years. Plenty of bloggers were writing 9 years ago, but most disappeared long ago. My archives go back 9.5 years, so I can read what I wrote about SARS exactly 9 years ago today. Here's the entry: SARS
This is a great National Film Board of Canada documentary from 1982 with fantastic footage from our city 30 years ago. This feature documentary studies one of the city’s most visible yet most anonymous character: the taxi driver. Filmed by day and night, the film offers an entertaining and
My kid is writing about the origin of hip-hop for school. We had a good chat about hip-hop being a culture as opposed to a type of music or dance. It's a collective encompassing rap, DJing, breakdancing and graffiti. This discussion had me diving into old Public Enemy albums, and
Prior to drafting my playoff pool this year, I wrote down the teams I thought would advance to the second round of the NHL playoffs. I picked: PittsburghNew JerseyNew YorkBostonVancouverSan JoseNashvilleChicagoExcept for calling Nashville over Detroit, I could get bulldozed. Pittsburgh and San Jose are already out and New Jersey,
Last night, while I watched the Penguins and Flyers, the Blue Jays turned their first triple play since 1979. At least it was the first triple play called properly by an umpire, but more on that later. With the runners moving in the third inning, Eric Hosmer hit a sinking
