Reality bites

In an apartment above the Sherbie, famous local artists line the walls

Directly above the West Broadway vendor and noisy bar now known as the Kyoto Kat Club, amid a primly kept wardrobe and dirty coffee mugs, Josh Peterson’s bachelor suite is bursting with coveted Manitoba art.

Brown bombs as Bombers blasted

Winnipeg Blue Bombers quarterback Dru Brown took Friday night’s ‘Christmas in July’ theme a little too seriously.

He wasn’t carrying around a red sack, but he did giftwrap four interceptions to the Calgary Stampeders in what ended up being a 52-30 loss for the Blue and Gold in front of a sold-out crowd.

The result dropped the Bombers, now 1-3 at home this season, to 4-3. Calgary improved to 3-4 and now has a chance to win the tiebreaker when the sides meet for a final time on Oct. 10 at Princess Auto Stadium.

The Stampeders should’ve closed the game out at the end of the third quarter, but they were also feeling generous. Leading 39-20 in the final minutes of the third, Calgary defensive back Ben Labrosse picked off Brown in Winnipeg territory.

Vacant Bay store on road to redevelopment, St. Vital Centre owner says

Entertainment attractions are coming to fill the former Hudson’s Bay space in St. Vital Centre.

Montreal-based real estate firm Leyad, the south Winnipeg mall’s owner, says it is finalizing an agreement for the vacant property. Further details should appear in the next couple months, said president Henry Zavriyev.

“We’re looking at what other types of experiences we can bring to the mall that aren’t just typical retail,” he said during a visit to Winnipeg this week.

“We want to create an experience where you can just come to the mall, hang out here for hours, no matter if you’re a kid, an adult, a retiree.”

Men cycling across Canada for charity have bikes stolen in Winnipeg

Thomas Clark and Valentin Duquenne were devastated after their bikes went missing outside CBC Manitoba’s headquarters, but uplifted by the outpouring of support from Manitobans afterward.

Daycare grapples with five-year-old’s outbursts, choking incidents

A Windsor Park child-care facility is weighing a five-year-old’s right to care versus the safety of other children who have been choked.

Little People’s Place expelled a pre-schooler in the spring in response to his aggressive behaviour toward other children and staff.

The child’s family has appealed to the province for him to be reinstated.

The case is raising concerns about inclusion support resources and measures to protect everyone at the Cottonwood Road daycare.

Busload of characters visit surreal landmarks in imaginative sci-fi romp

In Seattle-based science fiction writer Daryl Gregory’s latest novel, he takes the popular genre trope of humanity being part of a computerized simulation and presents it in one of the most absurd yet mundane settings — an American bus tour.

When We Were Real opens with a handy seating chart with a list of who’s on the bus: the driver, guide and tourists including an engineer, comic book writer, nurse, same-sex honeymooners, a pair of nuns, a rabbi and a pregnant influencer, among others.

Gregory also presents an itinerary for the North American Impossibles Tour — a trip through several strange oddities that appeared seven years earlier, at the same time everyone learned that their lives, and the world they lived in, were all a simulation.

When the Announcement came and let people know about their reality (or lack thereof), it was followed by the Freakout — years of confusion, suicides and shootings. But, seven years later, most have just accepted their virtual reality. Some try to make sense of it, while others take it in stride.