February 15, 2021
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The Tardis

Our Tardis

The TARDIS (/ˈtɑːrdɪs/; Time and Relative Dimension in Space. Doctor Who fans will all know a Tardis is a combination time machine and spacecraft. The Doctor, who is a Time Lord, has one that looks like a vintage 1960s police booth from the outside. A Tardis is built with a chameleon circuit (of course), which allows it to change the exterior form of the ship to blend in to the environment where it lands. One of the interesting things about a Tardis is that while the exterior is of limited size, it is significantly bigger on the inside. This is because the interior is a separate dimension with an infinite number of interior spaces.

We have one. From the outside it appears to be a 6-drawer red lacquered cabinet, but inside you might find anything at all. Our Tardis is the place in which we put things for safe-keeping, things we might need one day. Of course under normal circumstances, should the day come when we need one of those items and go fishing through the Tardis trying to find it, it will be safely hidden from view in the alternate dimension.

Sometimes the Tardis plays jokes on us by hiding things temporarily, just to see how frustrated us mortals can get, only to cause the items to reappear days or weeks later in seemingly obvious places.

This morning, there was a glitch in the space-time continuum. Tuffy P took advantage of this temporary condition to attempt to organize the contents of the Tardis. Dangerous business.

Certain items of dubious origin appeared.

We have no idea what these things are or where they came from. What would happen if we discarded these items? Would it cause a permanent and catastrophic shift in the space-time continuum? Would it cause a chain reaction leading to the end of the Universe as we know it? Or would the effects be more minor, perhaps an Ice Age.

The safest thing will be to return the items to the Tardis while we can.

February 15, 2021
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Foraging (yes I know it’s only February)

Tuffy P was having a look through some of the older videos on my YouTube channel and she came across this one. Both of us were surprised to see it had over 9800 views. Compared to “viral” videos, that many views over a 5 year period is peanuts, but for me, getting over 100 views on any of my videos is a lot. I suppose this is a good year to not be viral, huh?

I guess foraging is a popular topic. I once made a post in jest suggesting there are NO edible wild mushrooms in Southern Ontario. A lot of people failed to see my humour, and I was chastised with many comments about how wrong I was.

I don’t usually shoot video when I go out foraging and I’m not sure what possessed me to do so on this particular day, but as it happens it was one of my most successful days at this particular forest. It’s a place I like to stop for 20 minutes on my way to other forests. There is a lot of forest at this spot, and I have walked much of it but one small area seems to be by far better for mushrooms than anywhere else I’ve looked in the area. I park my car and go in for a look. If there are edibles fruiting, I can usually find them very quickly, then head further on up the road to more productive forests.

My brother showed me this place, and some other choice spots as well. He’s very good at finding mushrooms and he’s familiar with quite a few forests. Typically, when I stop here, I can count on finding a few lobsters and if it is well into August, a few hedgehogs and maybe some boletes as well. Earlier in season, I might find a small number of chanterelles, but so few it’s hardly worth a walk to the usual spots. On this particular day, I pretty much filled my basket with lobsters and hedgehogs, which is really unusual there.

Over the past year or so, they’ve been doing a lot of logging at this place, right in the area where we find most of the mushrooms. Is it a coincidence that I found very few mushrooms there this year? I’m not quite ready to draw that conclusion, but it may be so. I was only out foraging a few times as I was recovering from some heavy-duty knee surgery. I’m know better during the 2021 season.

February 14, 2021
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An Amusing Diversion

If you’re at home, worrying yourself about all those cowardly Republican senators down in America who failed to convict Trump in the face of so much evidence against him…..

…..let me provide you with a brief diversion. Here is the late Ellie Mae, perhaps the laziest dog who ever was born, at her finest….

This video is from 2013.

February 10, 2021
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I’ll Take you Back

In a facebook comment thread, I was asked what blues performers I enjoyed. I provided a list, but it didn’t include David Bromberg, because he plays such a wide spectrum of musical styles – not just blues – that I don’t think of him as a blues player. . I suppose the marketing term “Americana” could have been coined just for him. Still he plays some fabulous blues. Enjoy I’ll Take you Back…

February 9, 2021
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Dead Reckoning

The new episode of The Agency Podcast is up. You can listen here or find it at all the good podcast places.

This week: Superbowl and The Weeknd; Tom Jones has the Reality Television Blues; n-scale; low-tech antics; My Kind of Eats; Phuc Map Vlog; Talk Radio woes; The Choir: Sing well you work; Your Honour; Tin Star; Dead Reckoning.

Please join us.

February 8, 2021
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Real Eggs

Today on his televised address, Ontario Premier Ford gave Tim Horton’s, (because his schtick is “for the people”, Mr Ford likes to call them Timmies) a shout out for coming out with breakfast sandwiches made with “real eggs”. One question. Just what exactly were the old ones made from? A while back they introduced “steeped tea”. Um, what other method is used to make tea? The same outfit also has a current ad campaign telling us how bad their previous efforts at “dark roast” coffee really were, promising this time they’ve got it right.

Strange Days.

February 7, 2021
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Ice

Ice comes in many forms over at Col. Sam Smith Park. The pond is frozen over, and several people are out skating today. Along the shore of the lake, we can see where water has sprayed up against driftwood, creating strange formations.

West of the yacht club, there is an undulating formation of slush and ice just out from shore. Nature has created thousands of circular forms pushing against one another in the harbour. If this cold continues, the solid ice will extend further and further out from shore. For now, it is mostly slush, undulating with any wave action.

I find these formations to be hypnotic. Each time they are different, and each time, strangely compelling. Watching this one, I thought of the first line of 100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Do you remember it? About discovering ice?

“Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice”.