Bidding fond farewell to a career full of hilarity and hijinx

The time has finally come for me to say thank you and goodbye — again.

A valuable lesson from the book of Bogey

It probably doesn’t qualify as a Christmas miracle, but we’ll take it all the same.

Columnist really nailing the holiday spirit

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas — and for the first time that includes my toenails.

What’s in a name? Whatever you call your pet is still just as sweet

When my daughter moved home about three weeks ago after spending several years working and living in northwestern Ontario, she didn’t come alone.

Ho, ho, hold on a minute

Jeff Liba had some big boots to fill on Tuesday morning — and he’ll be squeezing into them again today.

You can have my candy when you pry it out of my zombie hands

There are only two more sleeps until Halloween, and I think all you protective parents know exactly what that means, don’t you?

Tables work their magic with dementia patients

Modern medicine can work wonders, but residents at Winnipeg’s Riverview Health Centre are discovering that a little magic can also transform the lives of people living with cognitive challenges.

It’s a dog-eat-pumpkin-spice world… and I’m wearing whipped-cream underwear

For more than a decade, I have been using this column to rage against the ever-growing pumpkinification of North America.

Tims’ cookie campaign something to smile about

When I reached Jane Kidd-Hantscher on her cellphone Wednesday morning, I could tell the executive director of the Children’s Rehabilitation Foundation wasn’t sitting behind her desk.

Raising a glass to 102 great years of great-auntie Ann

I hate to brag, but here I am in Vancouver, sipping sangria in a hip and happening sidewalk café while soaking up the West Coast sunshine on a gorgeous late-summer day.

One year of grandparenthood couldn’t feel finer

If you are wondering about that big, stupid grin plastered on my face, there’s a simple explanation.

Cool level red-hot thanks to hand-me-down shades

There’s no easy way to say this, so I’m just going to blurt it out — after spending 65 years on this planet, I have finally become a hip and happening sort of guy.

A kayak? This landlubber’s good on the dock, thanks

I was stretched out on the couch in the den the other morning when, suddenly and without warning, the dogs began barking at something on the other side of the living room window.

Golfer? Sure. I bucketed a birdie and an eagle just last week

For the record, I am not one of those people who always dreamed about honing his skills on the golf course after retiring.

No, I am one of those people who dreamed about perfecting his ability to relax on the couch in the den and lapse into a coma while watching hour after hour of the Weather Network.

The point is, even though I am now in a state of semi-retirement, I still get invited to participate in charity golf tournaments because I am the sort of person who is willing to accept free food and prizes for doing absolutely nothing.

It is not easy, using mere words, to describe how horrible I am at the game of golf, but I am willing to give it the old columnist try: I am really, really horrible at golf! It would make more sense for me to buy a dozen golf balls, drive to the nearest course, then stand on the first tee and throw them into the woods without going to all the expense of shelling out for a cart and green fees.

War of stumping stumps will have many battles

My mother knew absolutely nothing about gardening, but for reasons that no one fully understood she was on a mission to fill our backyard with one of every kind of tree in the known universe, even if these trees were never intended to withstand the bitter cold of a Winnipeg winter.

The point is three of these trees finally gave up the ghost this year, and my wife, She Who Must Not Be Named, is not the sort of person to let a dead tree rest in peace, so to speak.

Which is why she asked my buddy Bob — who along with being the publisher of this newspaper owns his own chainsaw — to drop by and chop them down, which he did Sunday afternoon.

Unfortunately, when Bob arrived, he discovered that his chainsaw refused to start, eventually forcing my buddy to confess that he had no idea what the problem was, hang his head, and return home in defeat.

Workplace pet perks could help staff sit — and stay

Canadian companies struggling to fetch workers back to the office post-pandemic would be well advised to enlist the services of a retriever — or any other dog breed, for that matter.

That’s just one of the findings from a new report, The Future of Work: Dog Friendly Companies, says rover.com, a website that touts itself as the world’s largest and most trusted network of five-star pet sitters and dog walkers.

The survey of 500 Canadian dog owners, conducted last month, revealed the soaring rate of canine adoptions during the pandemic has made employees more reluctant to abandon their home offices and return to in-person workplaces.

“With millions of pets welcomed into our families over the last couple of years, it’s understandable that folks are genuinely concerned about returning to the office and what that means for their pets — from separation anxiety to finding pet care they can rely on,” Rover’s Kate Jaffe barked in a release that landed in my inbox.

Backward your syntax must be before like Yoda can you talk

Grab your noisemakers and party hats, kids, because it’s time to celebrate.

For the record, we are not celebrating the fact that today marks the start of the May long weekend, the unofficial first day of summer, a time when we diehard Manitobans look forward to long walks on the beach, chugging ice-cold brews at backyard barbecues, slathering our pasty bodies with sunscreen and swatting mosquitoes the size of Yorkshire terriers.

Unless you’ve been hiding in a drainpipe for the past month — and I sincerely hope that you haven’t — you will know that lately it feels more like the start of Monsoon Season than the run-up to another moody Manitoba summer.

But suck it up, buttercup, because the good news — and you will be able to hear it if you turn your sump pump off for a moment — is that, despite the unrelentingly soggy weather that has turned my house into oceanfront property, we still have something worth celebrating.

Water off a Doug’s back

Is it just me, or is everyone else getting a little sick and tired of the seemingly never-ending rainstorms we’ve had to endure for the past few weeks?

It’s not that I don’t like rain. In fact, I developed something of a fondness for heavy rain because I grew up on the West Coast, where I spent my formative years practising to be a human sponge.

The rains we used to get when I was an extremely moist kid in Vancouver were so Biblical in proportion that I can vividly recall lining up my Animal Crackers two by two before forcing them to march back into their box.

But that is not today’s point. No, today’s point is that my fondness for the rain — OK, maybe tolerance would be a better word — is starting to evaporate thanks to the recent deluges that have led to flooding in much of the province.

Deep, deep dive into the dangers of outhouses

What with being mostly retired, I was confident that I would never again have to write a groundbreaking column about the role toilets play in modern society.

But I can see now that I was a fool.

Over the years, I have bravely written a great many hard-hitting columns on commodes, including major contests wherein you can win a toilet equipped with a big-screen TV and state-of-the-art stereo system, motion-activated night lights that transform your toilet into a 1970s-style disco ball, and a baseball fanatic whose cremated remains were being flushed down the toilets in every Major League Baseball park in North America.

I was especially fond of writing about how the tyrannical toilet in our main bathroom frequently launches into reverse-thruster mode in an attempt to lead the rest of our plumbing fixtures in a revolt against their human oppressors.

Turns out you want a surgeon who’s Thunderstruck after all

I believe I have come up with a genius plan for reducing the huge backlog of surgeries that has piled up in Manitoba since the pandemic began.

I stumbled on this genius concept while engaged in the main pastime among retired columnists such as myself — sitting in front of the home computer and randomly Googling stuff on the Internet.

Which is how I stumbled on a landmark study stating — prepare to be blown away in a scientific manner — that surgeons work far faster and more accurately when songs by legendary hard rockers AC/DC are played extremely loud on the operating room stereo.

Q: Is that a brilliant medical discovery, or what?

Winter storm just another notch in our blizzard belts

Wow, that sure was one heck of a blizzard, wasn’t it, Manitoba?

OK, technically speaking, I don’t have a clue how bad this blizzard was because, thanks to the newspaper’s tight deadlines, I am writing these words on Wednesday morning just as the snow is beginning to fall.

However, as a crusading columnist, I have just bravely taken a brief glance out my back window, and the fact there is a huge white lump where my beloved propane barbecue normally sits fills me with an impending sense of doom.

Fortunately, I am a battle-hardened Winnipegger and we are a stout-hearted, pioneering people who laugh in the face of blizzards, because we are afraid that if we start openly weeping we will soon run out of tissues and there is no way we are venturing out to the store to buy more in the middle of this Snowmaggedon or Snowpocalypse of Snowzilla or whatever stupid name the TV weather people are applying to this storm in an attempt to differentiate it from all the other storms we have endured in our lifetime.

Max McGee would have approved

It was last Saturday morning and I was savouring the final few minutes of sleep when my wife burst into the bedroom because she couldn’t wait to share the grim news.

“THERE’S WATER IN THE BASEMENT!” she roared as I jolted upright in bed, sleep-encrusted eyes bulging with a mix of terror and confusion.

I assumed the finicky toilet in the basement had unexpectedly gone into reverse-thruster mode, but it turns out ice damming on the roof was the culprit.

Like a lot of homes around the city this winter, we have roughly four feet of snow parked on our roof, and ice dams — those frozen ridges along the eaves — were preventing melting snow from draining off the edges, causing it to instead seep through the roof and drip, drip, drip through the ceiling tiles in the basement.

Squirrels are the cutest, furriest terrorists you might ever meet

I think I speak for almost everyone in the free world when I say the time has come to stop the madness.

For the record, I am not talking about unhinged extremists who think it’s fun to occupy our nation’s capital and block border crossings or even the soul-crushing deep freeze that refuses to relinquish its icy grip.

No, I am talking here about something I find even more alarming — the growing menace posed to our planet by rogue bands of extremist squirrels.

As regular readers already know, these bushy-tailed little devils are out to get me because I have published dozens of crusading columns exposing the fact that squirrels pose a greater threat to our power grid than any terrorists.

Coffee, tea… or concussion?

It is one of the most searing scenes in modern film history, but before we talk about that I want to blather on for a few minutes about an important philosophical concept.

The weighty concept I am referring to here is the notion — and let’s all take a moment to put on our thinking caps — that life tends to imitate art.

The legendary writer Oscar Wilde said a lot of famous things during his lifetime but none more famous than this impressive gem: “Paradox though it may seem — and paradoxes are always dangerous things — it is none the less true that life imitates art far more than art imitates life.”

I’d like you to ponder the beauty of that quote as I describe a gut-wrenching scene from David Cronenberg’s 2005 action thriller A History of Violence, wherein Viggo Mortensen portrays “Tom,” the mild-mannered owner of a modest diner in a small Indiana town who spends his life chatting with customers and serving them coffee and pie.

Mandate this, winter!

It was either legendary writer Mark Twain or editor Charles Dudley Warner who famously said everyone talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.

Well, that changes today. In today’s groundbreaking column, along with talking about the weather, I am going to bravely draw a line in the snow and do something about it.

As a courageous semi-retired newspaper columnist with way too much time on his hands and a low resistance to the cold, I am going to launch what I hope will be a national protest demanding an immediate end to (insert dramatic pause here) winter.

I hereby promise that I will not stop protesting until warmer weather arrives, possibly in April or May, at which point I will personally take credit for the season changing — in your face, Mother Nature — declare myself a national hero, and demand to be inducted into the Order of Canada, or at least have my name engraved on the Stanley Cup.

Shovelling kid proves heroes come in all shapes and sighs

In these troubled times when simply walking out the front door can bring you into contact with a soul-crushing deep freeze or a lethal virus, we need all the heroes we can find.

Fortunately, today’s column is dedicated to a true Canadian hero, a young man whose brutal honesty and dedication to his community is melting hearts — not to mention the Internet — throughout this frozen nation.

I am referring here to nine-year-old Carter Trozzolo, a Grade 3 student in Toronto who skyrocketed to fame this week after he was interviewed by CTV News while shovelling the never-ending piles of snow from the driveways and sidewalks of his and surrounding homes after Monday’s blizzard.

It wasn’t so much that Carter was out there doing battle with his shovel that touched the hearts of Canadians. No, it was the fact that, in a brief interview that has been viewed millions of times, the forlorn little guy made absolutely zero effort to hide his total exhaustion and complete lack of enthusiasm for being tasked with digging out the neighbourhood.

Just when he thought he was out, the treadmill pulls him back in

When I retired about a month before Christmas, my “friends” didn’t like the idea of me spending the rest of my life on the couch in the den consuming unhealthy snacks and watching the Great Chocolate Showdown on Food Network.

In an effort to start my retirement on a healthy note, they gave me one of the most unique gifts I have ever received — an advent calendar with 24 little cardboard compartments, inside each of which was hidden a tiny bottle of fancy whisky.

Sadly, however, the calendar came with one major catch — before they’d agree to let me sample these itsy-bitsy bottles, my “friends” insisted I submit to a three-week program wherein I would go walking with one of them (I mean a friend, not a bottle of whisky) each and every day.

Out of a sincere desire to adopt a healthier lifestyle — and with visions of exotic whisky dancing in my head — I quickly agreed to climb off the couch and fling myself into this daily fitness regimen.

In with the new, out with the weird

It’s the eighth day of 2022, and all you frostbitten Manitobans know exactly what that means, don’t you?

It means it’s time to curl up beside the fire with a hot mug of cocoa and enjoy the 13th edition of Uncle Doug’s much-beloved Annual Super Cool Guide to What’s In and What’s Out for the New Year.

Before we start looking ahead at a shiny new year, however, we need to take a few seconds to look back. Remember how excited we were just over a year ago as we danced on the grave of 2020, the most dark and deplorable year in anyone’s lifetime?

We knew deep in our hearts that 2021 couldn’t get any worse, right? Ha ha ha! It turns out we were — and I mean this the best way possible — idiots. We should have known 2021 was going to be a dumpster fire when it began with a bunch of lunatics storming the U.S. Capitol building because their guy didn’t win the presidential election.

Sparkling salute to Riverview’s ‘culture of kindness’

It’s becoming a tradition for the patients, residents and staff at Riverview Health Centre to welcome the new year with a bang — a really big bang.

That’s because, for the second straight year, they are being treated to a spectacular fireworks display on New Year’s Eve.

The fireworks display was first launched last year in honour of Patricia McGarry, who passed away in October 2020 at the age of 93 after spending her final days in Riverview’s palliative care unit.

It’s being presented again by local commercial real estate firm Cushman & Wakefield Stevenson, where McGarry’s son Martin is CEO and her son Kevin is managing broker.

Two anniversaries, one man’s dream to stay connected

Winnipeg comedian Big Daddy Tazz is celebrating two remarkable milestones as the city gears up for its second Christmas under the cloud of a global pandemic.

The first milestone came at precisely 8:45 p.m. on Nov. 21 as the famously barrel-chested comic with the impish grin was about one-third of the way through a live show for a sold-out crowd at the Park Theatre.

It was at that moment the alarm on Tazz’s cellphone, which was resting on a stool at centre stage, began beeping. The 54-year-old father of two scooped up the phone as a huge grin threatened to split his cherubic face in two.

“It’s official,” he told the audience. “As of this moment, I have been doing comedy for 30 years. It was exactly 30 years ago I did my first paid gig in Red Deer, Alta.

When it comes to a granddaughter, Doug’s in the Ivy leagues

For my first weekly freelance column since joining the ranks of the retired at the end of October, I’d like to share a heart-tugging Christmas story.

Unlike most of the columns I wrote during the 15 years I spent as this newspaper’s humour columnist, this story is completely true.

It began on the morning of Dec. 25, 2020, the first Christmas Day the world has spent amid a global pandemic in roughly 100 years and a day when many families had to celebrate from a distance because of public health orders aimed at stemming COVID-19.

My wife, Diane, who I was never allowed to mention by name (until now), and my daughter, Kayleigh, were with me opening presents in our home, while my son, Liam, and his partner, Ava, joined us from their home via Apple’s FaceTime video conferencing app.

Caring columnist tries to carve his way to victory

I love the fall season more than any other, because this is the only time of year where I am allowed to wander into a shopping mall carrying a butcher knife.

That’s because every October I take part in Carving for a Cause, Kildonan Place Shopping Centre’s annual celebrity pumpkin-carving contest.

This is the 13th straight year I have put my skills on the line for the mall’s big pumpkin throwdown, wherein knife-wielding media carving teams whip up jack-o’-lanterns in support of their favourite charities.

For the first 11 years, knife in hand, I wandered into the mall’s centre court hoping to cover myself in pumpkin guts and glory. And every year, I slouched away, a beaten man, my blade coated in a thick layer of shame and my body soaked with enough perspiration to float a battleship.

Orange you glad you’re not a pathetic Lions fan?

I will be attending a big, noisy party tonight — and I’m pretty sure it’s going to end in tears.

The sad truth is my friends will be disappointed if I am not weeping openly because the whole point of the party is to stare at their big-screen TV, eat grease-containing snacks and watch the hometown Blue Bombers tackle (and potentially mangle) my beloved B.C. Lions.

Unless you have been hiding in a drainpipe since the pandemic began, you will know the Bombers are easily the class of the Canadian Football League, whereas my Lions are playing like a bunch of orange traffic cones that would have a hard time beating the Vienna Boys Choir.

The party invitation arrived on my phone in a group text, which prompted dozens of our Bombers-loving friends to ask what manner of delicious foods they should bring for everyone to enjoy during the game.

Putting a price on innocent lives

It’s a traveller’s worst nightmare — being plucked off the streets of a foreign country by some ruthless gang hoping to swap hostages for cash or advance some nefarious political motive.

Consider the case of 17 missionaries — 16 American and one Canadian — who were abducted by the notoriously violent 400 Mawozo gang as they were leaving an orphanage on a commune in Croix-des-Bouquets, a northeast suburb of the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince last weekend.

The missionaries are affiliated with the Ohio-based Christian Aid Ministries, which says the abducted group is made up of five men, seven women and five children.

We are not amused: Queen told to ditch nightly tipple

What with being a crusading newspaper columnist with naturally curly hair, I am morally obligated to weigh in on controversies that pose a burgeoning threat to democracy as we know it.

Which is why today I have decided to courageously draw a line in the sand and issue the following statement that I have spent several valuable minutes thinking about: “Let the Queen have her (bad word) martinis!”

For those of you who are not hardcore royal watchers like me, I will point out that the Queen’s royal physicians have made headlines around the world by advising our monarch to give up one of her few pleasures — a nightly dry martini.

Not that I am a major consumer of martinis, but as a columnist committed to protecting individual rights — especially when those rights belong to one of the wealthiest women in the world — I have to say I am both shocked and appalled that supposed men of science would choose to deny the Queen her beloved nightly tipple, if you catch my drift.

It’s a tough spell for official wizards

What with there being only two weeks until Halloween, I’m not sure this is a good time to fire your official wizard.

But that’s exactly what the New Zealand city of Christchurch did the other day when it dumped its official wizard from the payroll after 23 years of loyal service.

Ha ha ha! OK, I’m not kidding. Christchurch’s city council has ended its contract with the world’s only state-appointed wizard — “I’m going to have to ask you to turn in your wand!” — because it has decided to go in a more modern and diverse direction.

Anyone who has ever read a Harry Potter novel or seen one of the films is probably thinking: “Laying off your wizard just before All Hallow’s Eve can only end in tears, right?” Or as famed American columnist Dave Barry chirped in his blog: “Tomorrow’s headline: City council turned into frogs!”

Shatner inspired tin-foil rocketeers of all ages

When I was a pasty-faced kid growing up in Vancouver, I was more than mildly obsessed with the possibility that, one day, I could be blasted into outer space.

My futuristic space fantasies were initially fuelled by spending hours in front of our TV staring at reruns of the classic black-and-white adventure serial Commando Cody: Sky Marshall of the Universe.

This was a highly realistic TV show in which the hero, known as Rocketman, battled the forces of evil by strapping on a rocket-powered black leather jacket, which he operated via highly advanced controls on his chest in the form of three dials labelled “Up,” “Down,” and “Speed.”

Sitting in my pyjamas, I’d watch Rocketman blast off by the standard method of running real fast, wearing a bullet-shaped aluminum helmet that looked like an upside-down garbage container with eye holes cut out, jumping on a hidden trampoline, then, suspended by clearly visible wires, “flying” in an uncomfortable horizontal position with his arms thrust forward.

Misery in the music

With apologies to American Pie singer Don McLean, the real day the music died was April 10, 1970.

That was the day the breakup of the most beloved band in music history, the Beatles, went from rumour to reality.

In a press release issued that day for his first solo album, McCartney, Paul McCartney leaked his intention to leave. Interviewing himself, Paul said he could not “foresee a time when Lennon-McCartney becomes an active songwriting partnership again.”

Britain’s Daily Mirror ran a front-page headline screaming: “Paul Quits The Beatles.” For the past 51 years, disgruntled fans have placed the blame for the breakup squarely on the singer’s shoulders.

A little pizza advice

If you had been walking past my house the other day, you would have been treated to a magical sound wafting over the back fence.

It sounded something like this: “WAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!!!”

For the record, that is the screaming sound of anguish a large newspaper columnist makes when he is attempting to turn his backyard into an outdoor pizzeria.

What with being a hip and happening columnist, I have jumped onboard what has to be the hottest (and I mean that quite literally) pandemic-related culinary trend — a portable, outdoor, wood-fired pizza oven.

Bees gone bad

It sounded like the cheesy plot from a B-grade Hollywood horror movie.

Late last month, the bodies of more than 60 endangered African penguins were discovered on the shores of world-famous Boulder’s Beach not far from Cape Town, South Africa’s second-largest city.

The Southern African Foundation for the Conservation of Coastal Birds initially thought a predator was responsible for the grisly deaths, but postmortems revealed bee stings around the birds’ eyes and flippers.

Manitobans buck national beer trend

Today I’d like to raise a frosty glass and toast all the brave Manitobans who are doing their part to avert a growing national crisis.

Just to be clear, I am not talking here about the COVID-19 pandemic. No, I am talking about a crisis that cuts to the very heart of what it means to be Canadian — our rapidly declining consumption of beer.

What I’m trying to say is I was overcome with provincial pride this week when I got my mitts on the 2021 Industry Trends report produced by Beer Canada, the national trade association representing more than 50 Canadian brewing companies that account for 90 per cent of the beer made in this country.

According to Beer Canada — and you might want to rest your brew on a coaster before reading this — Canadians of legal drinking age consumed on average 69.3 litres of beer in 2020, a decline of 2.7 per cent from 2019. The 71.2 litres of beer consumed by the average Canadian in 2019 was a decline of 4.6 per cent from 2018.

Bowling for dollars: toilet thefts baffle cops

As regular readers are already aware, I have dedicated a great deal of my journalistic career to groundbreaking columns detailing the important role toilets play in modern society.

Over the years, I have bravely written a great many hard-hitting columns on commode-related news, including major contests wherein you can win a toilet equipped with a big-screen TV and state-of-the-art stereo system, motion-activated night lights that transform your toilet into a 1970s-style disco ball, and a baseball fanatic whose cremated remains were being flushed down the toilets in every Major League Baseball park in North America.

Not to mention the gripping story of a Canadian stuntwoman who set a world record a few years back for being the fastest person on a toilet after equipping her throne with wheels and an engine and racing it at a speed of 75 km/h around Sydney Olympic Park in Australia.

Despite this heroic commitment to defending the public’s right to know about toilets making headlines around the world, my efforts have still not been rewarded with a major journalism prize. Go figure.

VP of bark-eting

For Canadian companies looking to build back bigger and better post-pandemic, going to the dogs might be their best option.

According to a survey that landed in my email inbox this week, dogs can be a hard-working employee’s best friend.

“Today, dogs are integral members of people’s families, which means workers no longer want to leave their pups behind when they go to the office,” howled the survey from The Dog People at rover.com, a website that touts itself as the world’s largest and most trusted network of five-star pet sitters and dog walkers.

“And the pandemic has only amplified this sentiment by forcing so many to work remotely, often at home with their pets by their sides,” the Canine Co-workers Are the Future of Work report barked. “In fact, the majority (72 per cent) of Canadian dog owners now place even more importance on working for a dog-friendly company than they did before the pandemic. What does this mean for the future of work? Whether people are working remotely or commuting to the office, we at Rover think it’s safe to say there will be dogs — lots of dogs.”

It’s time to squash pervasive pumpkin-spice trend

I didn’t think things could get any worse, but I can see now that I was a fool.

I am referring here to the out-of-control trend wherein manufacturers of everything — from house paint to underarm deodorant — feel compelled to pump up their products with pumpkin spice.

Don’t get me wrong, kids. I don’t mind some things smelling and tasting of pumpkin spice; what I strenuously object to, however, is the alarming campaign to make EVERYTHING smell and taste like pumpkin spice.

Tragically, fall has come to be defined not by crunchy leaves, wool sweaters and trick-or-treaters, but by the fact that the moment you walk outside in the weeks from September through November your nostrils are assailed by the stench of cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, allspice and cloves.

Public service, private matters

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is no stranger to generating headlines around the world, but not like this.

Consider this gem that topped a story in the venerable Washington Post: “Boris Johnson confirms he has six children. This is a big story in Britain.”

Johnson’s fatherhood confession is getting a lot of media attention because it’s a question the twice-divorced leader has been dodging for years in countless interviews and press conferences.

“I think what people want to hear is what plans we have,” Johnson said ahead of the 2019 election when a radio host asked how many children he had. “I love my children very much but they are not standing at this election and I’m not therefore going to comment.”

The ring is the thing

Pop superstar Britney Spears is making headlines again, but this time it has nothing to do with her much-publicized battle to end a 13-year conservatorship that has controlled both her personal life and finances.

No, Spears is in the news again after announcing her engagement to boyfriend Sam Asghari with a wildly exuberant post displaying a glitzy diamond ring.

The pop singer, 39, and the actor-fitness enthusiast, 27, announced their engagement on Instagram on Sunday hours before the music world hit the red carpet for the 2021 MTV Video Music Awards.

The focus of the online announcement was the four-carat round brilliant stone in a platinum cathedral setting that is engraved inside the silver band with “lioness,” a nod to Asghari’s nickname for Spears.

Me, hate cute little squirrels? You must be nuts

I was standing in the backyard next to a very tall tree, sipping the first coffee of the day, trying to think of a topic for today’s column, when suddenly it hit me.

No, I was not struck by a sudden inspiration. I was bonked on the top of my head by a pine cone the size of a regulation volleyball.

In quick succession, several more potentially lethal pine cones plummeted from the sky and thudded into the ground near my feet.

“I can see you up there!” I shrieked, waving my fist at the sky. “You are not going to get away with this!”

When the cookies crumble, children benefit

When the world starts to crumble, cookies are always there to help pick up the pieces.

That’s been delicious news for the Children’s Rehabilitation Foundation, which for the past seven years has relied on Tim Hortons’ annual Smile Cookie campaign to help it raise critical fundraising dough.

For the first five years, my buddy Big Daddy Tazz the comedian and I helped kick off the campaign by taking part in a cookie-decorating contest that resembled a European soccer riot mixed with a kindergarten Christmas pageant.

But for the past two pandemic-fuelled years, it hasn’t been possible to have a throng of media teams crowd into centre court at Polo Park shopping centre to launch the campaign, during which the proceeds from every $1 Smile Cookie sold in the city until this Sunday go to help local non-profit organizations.

Wasp magnetism key to being bocce MVP

What with the federal election campaign, the fourth wave of the coronavirus epidemic, the huge infestation of wasps, and the chaos in Afghanistan, I’m guessing most of you are champing at the bit to hear how my bocce ball team is doing.

I personally do not wish to brag about our success, but my bocce team is heading for the playoffs, which start this week. Technically speaking, all 24 teams in our league are going to the playoffs, but we are not about to let that fact dampen our enthusiasm.

I know what some of you are thinking. You are thinking: “Bocce? Huh???” I can understand your confusion. Unless you spend a huge portion of your free time hanging around an Italian restaurant, chances are you have never heard of this action-packed game.

What you need to know is that bocce was invented by the ancient Egyptians, who used to play with polished rocks. It was eventually taken over by the Italians and someone came up with the genius idea of using grapefruit-sized balls made of rubber and resin and — voilá! — the modern game, roughly pronounced “BOW-chay,” was born.

Another harebrained scheme comes up short

What with being a big-shot newspaper columnist with champagne tastes and a beer budget, I am always scanning the horizon for get-rich-quick schemes.

I am talking here about the sort of genius schemes that allow participants to bring in big bucks without having to break a sweat or lift anything heavier than an icy mug of beer.

I discovered my latest concept for becoming insanely wealthy the other day while scouring the internet for the sort of idiotic stories that people with too much time on their hands find amusing.

Which is how I stumbled on a gaggle of news reports about how a baseball-sized clump of hair that came from the head of Elvis Presley sold at auction last weekend for (wait for it) US$72,500.

Let’s face it… today is a pretty big, hairy deal

By the hair on my chinny chin chin, I can tell today is an extremely special day.

Before I explain, allow me to point out that I normally do not use this column to discuss special days on the calendar.

That’s because for the past three months I have been using our Uplift newsletter to spread joy and mirth via the journalistic technique of explaining what is special about the day it arrives in your email inbox, which is every Wednesday.

If for mysterious reasons Uplift does not land in your email inbox each Wednesday, you can subscribe to it — and all the other entertaining and educational Free Press newsletters — by clicking on https://fpnewsplatform.winnipegfreepress.com/email-alerts.

No match for Momma

It’s a hard and fast rule — never get between a mother and her children.

Tragically, a young mountain lion learned that lesson the hard way last week after it attacked a five-year-old boy in the front yard of the family home in Calabasas, Calif.

According to dozens of news reports, the boy was playing by a tree near his home in Calabasas, west of Los Angeles, on Thursday morning when a 65-pound mountain lion attacked, dragging the child for about 41 metres.

Alerted by her son’s screams, the boy’s mother came running to the rescue and the fierce lion proved no match for the protective mom. Reports making headlines around the world state the mom saved her child by repeatedly punching the big cat with her bare hands.

Wasps! Run for the… couch

The last thing we all needed as summer winds to an end was yet another reason to hide in our houses.

But that’s just the way life rolls when your city — and pretty much every other city on the continent — is besieged by a plague of overly aggressive wasps.

If you have been foolish enough to step outside in recent weeks, you will know that wasps are everywhere!

Thanks to this summer’s drought, wasp populations have exploded and the yellow-and-black pests are more aggressive than ever because bone-dry conditions have hurt their natural food source of insects and flowers.

A beef with boundary-breaking bovines

I do not wish to pick another fight with Manitoba’s beef producers, but as a crusading newspaper columnist I feel it is incumbent on me to warn the general population about the imminent threat cows pose to the planet.

By way of background, I will confess that back in 2017 a Manitoba farm lobby group made a bit of a stink after I wrote a column wherein I cited news reports stating cows threaten the planet because they pump a lot of methane into the atmosphere via their flatulence and, especially, their belches.

You will not be surprised to learn that, in that column, I gave in to my barnyard instincts and made a lot of lame jokes about cows farting. It would be an understatement to suggest the Manitoba Beef Producers were not amused.

In other words, they had a beef with me. Which is why they fired off an extremely polite and informative letter making the central point that I am a bit of a doofus and had done a disservice to Manitoba’s hard-working beef producers.

I was tickled pink to caddie for these Twisted Sisters

I should warn you that I may become a touch emotional in today’s column because I am pretty sure that, for the last time in my life, I have been forced to dye my hair a shocking shade of pink.

This misty-eyed moment took place Monday morning at Bridges Golf Course about 40 kilometres southwest of Winnipeg where I once again caddied in the Pink Ribbon Ladies Golf Classic for Hope, the largest women-only golf tournament in the province.

This is the tournament wherein each of the 32 four-woman teams is assigned a hairy-legged person of my gender as a caddie to cater to their every whim, a manly man who not only keeps score, lines up putts, retrieves errant balls and fetches cold beverages, but does it while wearing a golf shirt so shockingly pink circus clowns would refuse to wear one on the grounds it was beneath their dignity.

It was the 12th year I have caddied for a group of veteran female golfers known as The Twisted Sisters, and since 2011 the other key tradition has been that, once we get out on the course, I allow these fun-loving women to use a can of spray-on hair colour to turn my sandy-coloured locks a stunning shade of “Lynx Pink.”

Paralympic titans

It would be fair to say Canada got off to a hot start at the pandemic-delayed Paralympic Games in Tokyo.

On the first day of competition, Canada’s athletes didn’t waste any time clinching spots on the podium at the 16th Paralympics, which will see some 4,400 athletes and guides from 162 countries — including 128 Canadians — compete in 22 sports.

Canadian track cyclist Keely Shaw raced to a bronze-medal finish in the women’s C4 3,000-metre individual pursuit Wednesday — becoming the first Canadian to earn a medal at the Tokyo Paralympics.

“I’m so excited to be able to show off all the work the entire team has done in the last five years and have that come out with a bronze medal for Canada,” said Shaw, who played ice hockey before a 2009 accident when she fell off a horse, resulting in left-side paralysis.

Strolling for the gold is no cakewalk

As I lay on the couch in our den Thursday evening watching the seemingly never-ending 50-kilometre race walk unfold at the Tokyo Summer Olympics, I found myself thinking about Cary Grant.

Thoughts of the late, great Hollywood leading man made their way into my brain because Grant starred in one of the favourite movies of my youth, the 1966 romantic comedy Walk, Don’t Run.

Grant’s final film role, the movie is set during the 1964 Summer Olympics — also held in Tokyo — and revolved around (brace yourselves for another coincidence) the 50-km race walk.

As we watched Canadian Evan Dunfee of Richmond, B.C., and 58 other athletes waddling along in the scorching heat and humidity of Sapporo, Japan, on our big-screen TV, I felt compelled to tell my wife how much I loved Walk, Don’t Run.

These Olympians deserve a medal for sportsmanship

Soccer legend Christine Sinclair, captain of the Canadian women’s national team, had every reason to celebrate.

She had just helped her team pull off one of the biggest upsets in its history at the Tokyo Summer Olympics on Monday, beating the U.S. Women’s National Team for the first time in 20 years and earning a spot in the gold-medal game.

But at the end of the semifinal match, Sinclair didn’t immediately begin celebrating with her squad. Instead, the all-time leading goal scorer (man or woman) in the history of international soccer made her way across the field to despondent American midfielder Lindsey Horan and wrapped her in a tight hug.

The two are teammates on the Portland Thorns, and Sinclair knew she needed to comfort the younger player. As the cameras looked on, the Canadian legend, 38, who serves as the Thorns captain, gave an animated pep talk to a visibly distraught Horan, 27, who has fallen short of the gold at two consecutive Olympics.

Faster, higher, stronger? How about weepier?

As a legendary Canadian couch potato, I typically find myself stockpiling a mountain of supplies in my den whenever the Olympic Games roll around.

The items I cannot do without obviously include a healthy supply of greasy snacks and icy adult beverages, but there is a surprising item at the top of my shopping list — a family-sized box of tissues.

I could not imagine lying on the couch in our den and watching the Olympic action unfold on my TV without a healthy supply of tissues to dab at my eyes when some heart-tugging moment punches me right in the feelings.

I am a sucker for those powerful moments when Olympians celebrate the thrill of victory or bravely endure the agony of defeat.

Olympians crossed the sportsmanship line with bites, kicks and brawls

You might say Moroccan boxer Youness Baalla really sank his teeth into the Olympic spirit during his opening bout at the Summer Games in Tokyo.

That’s because Baalla, 22, tried to literally take a bite out of opponent David Nyika’s ear late in the third and final round of his loss to the New Zealand fighter.

Baalla decided to channel Mike Tyson — who famously took a chunk out of Evander Holyfield’s ear during a championship fight at Madison Square Garden in 1997 — during a clinch in the centre of the ring.

The fight continued and Nyika, who was one of New Zealand’s flag bearers at the Games opening ceremony, registered a 5-0 win to book a spot in the quarter-finals. He was surprised the referee didn’t see the attempted bite, which was only picked up on television.

Robot revolution may be on hold after all

This is not easy to admit, but I’m starting to think I may have made a terrible mistake.

I am referring, of course, to the dozens of columns I have written in recent years warning about the looming Robot Revolution, wherein all of our state-of-the-art smart appliances develop supreme artificial intelligence and morph into cruel robotic overlords that will enslave mankind for generations.

But I began having serious doubts about this potential insurrection over the weekend, which I spent lying on the couch in our den stuffing my face with grease-containing snacks and watching countless hours of action from the Tokyo Summer Olympics on my big-screen TV.

I was feeling pretty relaxed until halftime of the basketball game between the men’s teams from the U.S. and France, which is when a spooky seven-foot-tall figure wearing a No. 95 jersey rolled onto the court, picked up a ball, and began draining long-distance buckets with 100 per cent accuracy.

Mischievous mongrel unleashes flurry of worry

It was early the other morning and I was starting my day the way I always do — flipping through the newspaper while floating in the bathtub.

But the tranquility of my morning ritual was shattered when, suddenly and without warning, the telephone began loudly chirping on the magazine rack beside the tub.

Dripping wet, I answered the phone and a voice at the other end declared: “Hello, this is Lifeline calling. Your sister-in-law’s medical alert bracelet was activated this morning and we haven’t been able to reach her.”

“Oh,” is what I recall saying, because as a professional newspaper columnist I am trained how to react in stressful situations.

Drones fun for some, flying terror for others

Despite being relatively small, drones can cause some seriously large problems.

These remote-controlled flying devices — also known as “unmanned aerial vehicles” — can be a lot of fun for their operators, but they can also pose a serious hazard for larger aircraft with humans on board.

For example, a drone made the wrong kind of headlines last weekend when it was flown into the path of a water bomber trying to put out a forest fire in eastern Manitoba, forcing the plane to turn back.

The water bomber was flying over the south shore of West Hawk Lake Saturday — en route to douse the flames of a fire in Whiteshell Provincial Park near the Ontario border — when the drone forced it to turn around, leaving firefighters on the ground in jeopardy.

Toothy predators could use some positive PR

What with the COVID-19 pandemic, the blistering heat wave, and the smoky wildfire haze that has settled over the city, I’m guessing most of you are champing at the bit to learn what I did during my week off.

Call it an example of brilliant timing, or just a lucky coincidence, but my week of vacation time just happened to coincide with Discovery Channel’s 33rd annual Shark Week, which this year featured a whopping 45 hours of shark-related programming from July 11-18.

So when I wasn’t floating on my back and getting a vicious sunburn in our backyard inflatable pool, there I was stretched out on the couch in the den staring with unabashed delight at humongous finned creatures with teeth the size and shape of steak knives cavorting on our new big-screen TV.

The fact that Shark Week has been swimming onto our TV sets for 33 years — and National Geographic’s rival SharkFest is now in its ninth year — tells you something important about typical TV viewers such as myself: We have an insatiable appetite for shows about sharks, especially when they toss in the possibility that cheesy guest celebrities like William Shatner may get swallowed by a fish the size of an SUV.

Flying cars pave way for airborne road rage

When I was an impressionable kid growing up on the West Coast. I knew exactly what the future was going to look like.

Back in the 1960s, a fabulous future was displayed in awe-inspiring, full-colour artist’s renditions in the pages of Popular Mechanics magazine, and in the ultra-cheesy science-fiction movies that I watched on the black-and-white TV in the basement of my family home.

Those glitzy magazine stories and movies promised that, by the year 2000 at the latest, we would all be living in fabulous domed underwater cities, feasting on five-course meals stuffed into pills, solving crimes with our wisecracking robot sidekicks and, best of all, zooming to work in our personal jetpacks.

But more than anything, the future was going to be all about flying cars.

Will England be in a pickle without Pickles?

With England and Italy squaring off Sunday in the final of the European Championship, this is the perfect time to share the story of Britain’s greatest football hero.

I am referring, of course, to a four-year-old black-and-white border collie mix named Pickles.

What you need to know is that Sunday’s big game marks the first time England’s men’s soccer team has made it to the final of a major tournament since 1966, when they defeated West Germany 4-2 in the World Cup to claim their first and only international title.

What you also need to know is that England’s football heroes would never have been able to wrap their sweaty mitts around that trophy 55 years ago if Pickles hadn’t come trotting to the rescue.

The wurst of times

Even among champions, Joey “Jaws” Chestnut is a champion.

No other “athlete” has dominated their “sport” quite the way the world’s No. 1 competitive eater has over the past 15 years. On Sunday, Chestnut easily put the bite on his rivals — and emerged as the ultimate wiener — capturing his 14th Nathan’s Famous Fourth of July Hot Dog Eating Contest in dominant fashion.

Chestnut downed an astonishing 76 franks and buns in 10 minutes, one more than he did in setting the men’s record last year, when the contest unfolded without fans because of the coronavirus pandemic.

“It just felt good,” Chestnut, of Westfield, Ind., told ESPN after capturing yet another mustard belt. “Even if I was uncomfortable, having everybody cheer me and push me, it made me feel good.”

Cleanliness is next to grill godliness

The summer grilling season is in full swing, and I have been firing up my beloved propane barbecue like never before.

This is partly because I consider myself to be Canada’s Greatest Amateur Grill Enthusiast, but mostly because my wife says we can’t turn on the kitchen stove due to the fact our central air conditioning died on the day the heat wave rolled into town and the temperature in our house is already hot enough to bake cookies on the living room floor.

Deceased air conditioners aside, I am far from the only Canadian obsessed with the primal joys of cooking over an open flame in the privacy of the backyard.

One of the consequences of this pandemic is that barbecue sales are currently hotter than every (bad word) room in my house, which means there a lot of rookie grillers out there nervously picking up the tongs and spatula for the very first time.

Cold comfort in AC unit’s untimely demise

In life, timing is everything. That is especially true when it comes to air-conditioning and heat waves.

The truth of that statement was tragically driven home on the morning before Canada Day as I lay in bed with our two dogs, wondering why I was perspiring like a Butterball turkey on Thanksgiving.

Which is when my wife, who was getting ready to leave for work, burst into our bedroom and informed me that, just as the heat wave that has been scorching Western Canada rolled into town, our central air-conditioning system had decided to drop dead.

“I noticed the house was getting hotter so I looked in the furnace room and the air-conditioner is frozen solid,” she explained as the dogs and I looked up from the bed with expressions of abject horror on our faces.

Getting the gift of the (second) jab

I would like to start today’s column with the following heart-felt expression of unfettered joy: “Hurray!”

Pardon me for letting my emotions run wild, but I am feeling like 20 pounds of happy in a 10-pound bag because my wife and I got our second jabs of a COVID-19 vaccine on Friday at the RBC Convention Centre, Manitoba’s largest immunization centre.

It is not easy, using mere words, to describe how I am feeling about being among the 40 per cent of Manitobans who are fully vaccinated — a number that could exceed 50 per cent late next week — but I will give it the old college try: I feel really, really happy!

My innermost feelings at this precise moment would probably best be summed up by the following deeply moving poem I wrote to commemorate this historic moment: “Roses are red/violets are blue/I am fully vaccinated/I hope you are, too!”

These icons hit the half-century club this year

Fifty years ago this fall, Canada took one of the boldest steps in its history — becoming the first country in the world to adopt multiculturalism as an official policy.

In a statement to the House of Commons on Oct. 8, 1971, Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau announced multiculturalism wasn’t just some vague ideal, but an official government policy.

The lofty goal was to preserve the cultural freedom of all individuals and provide recognition of the cultural contributions of diverse ethnic groups to Canadian society.

This bit of history is more significant than ever as Canada faces a national reckoning over the deadly legacy of residential schools.

Pinnacle pups down to personal preference

I have never met a dog owner who did not think their canine companion is the cutest, most loyal and brightest creature on the planet.

In fact, I have looked on in horror as rival dog owners — this was at a tension-filled dog show — threatened to brain each other with squeaky toys in a teeth-baring battle over whose hound was superior.

The thing is, all of these people are correct in the sense that all dogs are perfect in the biased eyes of the human beings that love them.

I was forced to ponder the issue of pup popularity last week when I peered into my email inbox and found yet another insightful report from the people at rover.com, a website that touts itself as the world’s largest and most trusted network of five-star pet sitters and dog walkers.

The needle and the (hearing) damage done

If you’re searching for something to lift your sagging spirits amid the ongoing gloom of the COVID-19 pandemic, you’ve come to the right spot.

I was overwhelmed with joy this week when I cracked open my inbox and discovered an email from Finland stating they had confirmed the finalists for arguably the coolest sporting and cultural event in history — the Heavy Metal Knitting World Championship.

I’m not kidding. I know exactly what you are thinking. You are thinking: “HUH?!” But allow me to assure you this championship is a real thing wherein the clacking of knitting needles is combined with the ear-splitting din of heavy metal music.

The first contest took place in 2019 in a packed square in the small Finnish town of Joensuu, close to the Russian border, and the crown went to Japan’s five-person Giga Body Metal team for a show featuring crazy sumo wrestlers, a man dressed in a traditional Japanese kimono and, of course, some head-banging knitting.

Out, standing in their fields

Carl Nassib made history this week, but it had nothing to do with his exploits on a football field.

The 28-year-old defensive end with the Las Vegas Raiders announced that he is gay, becoming the first active player in the National Football League to do so.

It marked a monumental moment for a sport with a long history of stigmatizing homosexuality on the field and in the locker room. The five-year NFL veteran made his announcement on Instagram.

“I just wanted to take a quick moment to say that I’m gay. I’ve been meaning to do this for a while now, but I finally feel comfortable enough to get it off my chest,” Nassib said in his video message.

Around the world, some unique prizes are up for grabs for getting your jabs

New cars. Luxury apartments. Live chickens and cows. Hunting rifles. Lottery jackpots. Scholarships. Girl Scout cookies. Super Bowl tickets. Not to mention free french fries, pizza, doughnuts, hotdogs and beer.

Those are just a few of the nifty incentives being offered by jurisdictions around the world to reward citizens who have gotten their COVID-19 vaccinations or encourage those who are foolishly dragging their feet.

Almost every day some politician — or business — makes headlines by dangling an assortment of off-the-wall prizes in an effort to get more people showing up at vaccination centres.

For instance, Moscow’s mayor, Sergei Sobyanin, has promised that everyone who gets the first of their two doses of vaccine between now and July 11 will be entered into a weekly prize draw with a chance to win one of five cars worth one million rubles (about C$17,000) each.

Singing the praises of the summer solstice

Get ready to crank up the volume on your car radios and pump your fists in the air, Winnipeg, because there is only one more sleep before the big day.

And before we go any further I should point out that, no, I am not talking about the fact Sunday marks the second Father’s Day we will be celebrating amid this pandemic.

While we are on the topic, however, allow me to suggest the perfect gift to let Dad know how much you enjoy his bad jokes and his ability to use his propane barbecue to turn delicious food items into inedible lumps of carbon.

This year, Dad does not want you to give him another amusing tie or a bottle of cologne with the sort of eye-watering aroma you would get if you stuck a rotten egg in an old gym bag.

This MVP’s a shocker

It was one of the most miraculous saves in the history of soccer. It came after Denmark’s Christian Eriksen’s heart stopped last Saturday during the first half of his team’s game against Finland at the European Championship in Copenhagen.

As 15,000 people in the stands and millions of TV viewers looked on, Eriksen’s teammates formed a protective wall around their fallen star when he collapsed on the pitch after suffering cardiac arrest.

Players from both teams, as well as fans in the stadium were visibly distressed as medics raced to restart the heart of the man considered Denmark’s finest player.

He was brought back to life through a combination of CPR — the manual cardiopulmonary resuscitation that involves repeated pushing down on the chest — and an electric shock from an automated defibrillator.

Smart machines have met their match

It turns out I emit some kind of strange radiation that causes high-tech devices to go haywire.

I started to suspect this was the case a few months back when I visited my dentist’s office for a mid-pandemic checkup on my oral health.

When I walked in the door, the receptionist handed me a pre-disinfected iPad and asked me to complete the standard COVID-19 screening questionnaire via the method of tapping “Yes” or “No” on the screen with one of my pudgy fingers.

No matter which finger I used, or how hard I tapped the screen, nothing happened. It worked perfectly fine for the receptionist — and for every other patient who strolled into the waiting room — but it refused to acknowledge my existence or obey my commands.

Delivering the naked truth is a newsman’s duty

What with the mini-heat wave we’ve been basking in this month and the fact the summer solstice is just over a week away, it seems like the perfect time to sit in the shade, slather on sunscreen and enjoy another instalment of a semi-recurring feature I like to call Naked People in the News.

This is the revealing feature I feel compelled to present whenever the weather turns warm, even though, as a middle-aged, overweight newspaper columnist, I refuse to engage in any activity without pants, including taking a shower.

I suspect most Friendly Manitobans feel the same way, because pants are not considered optional in a province where exposing one’s nether regions in an outdoor environment is like ringing the dinner bell for mosquitoes the size of Yorkshire terriers.

It’s an entirely different story in other parts of the world — this would include Toronto and Vancouver — where thousands of cyclists are reportedly preparing to pedal their butts off today in the annual World Naked Bike Ride.

Fingers, meet face

It was definitely a slap heard around the world.

French President Emmanuel Macron, who has been on a tour to take the pulse of his country after the pandemic, was slapped in the face Tuesday during a walkabout in southern France as he greeted a small crowd of onlookers.

Amateur video footage of the slap quickly went viral on social media. It showed a man — later identified as Damien Tarel, 28 — slapping Macron, then shouting, “Down with Macronia” and “Montjoie, Saint-Denis,” the battle cry of the French army when the country was a monarchy.

A bodyguard, who was standing right behind Macron, raised a hand to protect the president, but was a fraction of a second too late to stop the slap. The bodyguard then put his arm around the president to shield him.

The deafening silence of Trump

I have a confession to make, and some of you are not going to like it.

There’s no easy way to say this, so I’m just going to blurt it out — I miss Donald Trump!

Seriously, my life just has not felt the same since the bombastic alleged billionaire lost the 2020 election and was punted out of the White House.

(Warning to Extremely Right Wing Readers: If you do not agree Trump lost the last election, you probably will not want to read the rest of today’s column.)

No moonshot complete without a double-double

I became overwhelmed with feelings of national pride last week when I learned Canada is shooting for the stars — or, to be precise, the moon.

That’s because Science Minister François-Philippe Champagne announced last week that Canada plans to land a rover on the moon in the next five years.

The Canadian Space Agency — yes, we have one — says the unmanned robotic vehicle will gather imagery and measurements on the moon’s cratered surface, showcasing technologies from Canadian companies in a polar region of the earth’s only natural satellite.

In partnership with NASA, the Canuck mission hopes to have the rover make it through an entire lunar night, which lasts about two weeks and presents major technological challenges because the moon gets extremely cold and extremely dark.

A day you can really sink your teeth into

Prepare to become overly excited, Winnipeg, because today is definitely a day you are going to want to sink your teeth into.

I say that because today, May 26, is officially World Dracula Day, because it was on this day way back in 1897 that Irish author Bram Stoker’s legendary Gothic horror novel was first published.

For those of you who are not quite as literate as myself, Dracula is the quintessential tale of a plucky vampire seeking to move from Transylvania to England to find new blood and spread the curse of the undead.

The only reason I know today is World Dracula Day is because I used that fact to introduce the first edition of our Uplift newsletter that was written by myself instead of my good friend and colleague Kevin Rollason, who is now writing Passages, a newsletter paying tribute to some of the lives we have lost.

Burned into memory

Where there’s smoke, there’s a good chance you’ll find a wildfire.

That’s just a tragic fact of life throughout much of the world as drought-like conditions fuel uncontrolled fires that consume acres of forest and threaten lives.

In this province, several communities were poised for potential evacuations earlier this week while others declared states of emergency as wildfires raged in southern Manitoba.

Clouds of smoke led to highway closures and prompted Environment Canada to issue special air-quality statements for much of southern Manitoba Monday.

We’re too sexy for our city

I can tell by the pained expressions on your faces that you are in desperate need of a little bit of good news this morning.

Well, guess what, Winnipeg? I have just what the doctor ordered in the sense I am poised to share some surprising news that should get your juices flowing.

There’s no point beating around the proverbial bush, so I’m just going to blurt it out — you live in the fifth-sexiest city in Canada!

Yes, Winnipeg, prepare to become extremely excited, because among Canada’s major cities, you rank No. 5 on the sexiness scale for 2020.

The sky is falling! Not joking!

Congratulations, everyone! If you are lucky enough to be reading today’s feature, it means you were not fatally beaned last weekend by a huge chunk of metal falling from the stars.

Just after midnight last Saturday, the world breathed a sigh of relief when it was confirmed that a section of the Chinese Long March 5B rocket, used to launch a space-station module into orbit last month, fell into the Indian Ocean north of the Maldives — though it’s not yet clear if any parts hit land.

For days, scientists and an increasingly fearful public had been trying to determine where this huge piece of Chinese space junk might land after making an uncontrolled re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere. The Chinese space agency said most of the 18-tonne booster rocket was destroyed during re-entry.

Before that, however, scientists and officials were unable to give a clear prediction of its possible landing site, because it was orbiting the planet unpredictably every 90 minutes at about 27,000 km/h without controls to guide its trajectory.

Long live incomprehensible genius of Louie Louie

I have sad news for anyone who has ever cranked the radio in their car to a decibel level somewhere above nuclear blast, rolled down the windows, clenched the steering wheel with a white-knuckled grip, and belted out the lyrics to a rock ’n’ roll classic at the top of their lungs.

There is no easy way to say this, so I’m going to just blurt it out — Mike Mitchell passed away last month at the age of 77. No cause of death was provided other than Mitchell “peacefully passed away.”

I can tell by the confused look on your face that a little more information might be helpful.

What you need to know is that Mitchell was a founding member of the 1960s-era rock group the Kingsmen and the guy who, 58 years ago, delivered one of the greatest guitar solos of all time on the band’s legendary cover of the song Louie Louie.

Hospital parking hits a nerve

As regular readers are already aware, I am inordinately proud of the fact that the vast majority of my columns are what I like to call “100 per cent fact free.”

From time to time, however, I feel compelled to write something that is completely true. That’s what I did in last Saturday’s column wherein I complained about one of the biggest problems facing our health-care system — how difficult it is to find parking near a hospital.

I fired off this diatribe after spending a good half hour driving up and down every street near St. Boniface Hospital, where I needed to have blood tests, in a fruitless search for a spot to park my car.

The thrust of my gripe was that it is almost impossible to find free on-street parking within three time zones of a hospital, which means you have to pay whatever fees they are charging at for-profit hospital lots and parkades.

And the award for Best Cringeworthy Awards Speech goes to…

There’s nothing all that unusual about children doing awkward things that embarrass their parents.

But it’s more than a little unusual for that awkward moment to occur on live TV while the child is giving a heartfelt speech after receiving an Oscar statuette during the Academy Awards broadcast.

That is precisely what happened last Sunday when Daniel Kaluuya went delightfully off track as he accepted the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for his searing portrayal of Black Panther party chairman Fred Hampton in the film Judas and the Black Messiah.

After delivering an inspiring speech that touched on a host of topics, Kaluuya pivoted.

Hospital parking fees sting like bees

It’s Friday morning and someone is about to jab my arm with a needle that looks roughly the size of a whaling harpoon.

For the record, I am not talking about getting a shot to help protect me against COVID-19 or one of its more infectious variants.

No, I got THAT shot Thursday morning and, as I described in a column in Saturday’s newspaper, that one was a piece of cake.

The process at the RCB Convention Centre, home to Manitoba’s biggest vaccination clinic, went off like clockwork and I didn’t feel a thing when a retired nurse injected me with the Pfizer vaccine.

Vaccine supersite works smoothly as columnist gets Pfizered in the arm

| It’s Thursday morning and my wife and I are sitting anxiously in our car in the lower-level parkade at the RBC Convention Centre.

We are here at the province’s largest COVID-19 inoculation centre to get our first shots of a vaccine to protect us against the potentially lethal virus.

I should stress here that the province has not made immunizing newspaper humour columnists a priority, likely because there are so few of us it wouldn’t do much to promote herd immunity.

Playing the long game

San Jose Sharks forward Patrick Marleau made history Monday without scoring a goal or registering an assist.

All Marleau had to do was step on the ice, a simple act that allowed him to pass the legendary Gordie (Mr. Hockey) Howe for the most games played in NHL history.

The 41-year-old NHL veteran skated in his 1,768th game — a 3-2 loss to the Vegas Golden Knights. Howe, who died in 2016 at age 88, played in 1,767 regular-season games and 419 more in the World Hockey Association, the latter of which are not recognized by the NHL.

“Just extremely grateful for everything and all the support everyone has given me throughout my career, especially tonight,” Marleau said. “I don’t know how many phone calls or texts I got. It might take me a week to reply to everybody. It’s been overwhelmingly humbling, to say the least.”

It's a ruff job, but these marvellous mutts ready to put it all on the line for Busch

To: Busch Beer

From: A Canadian dog owner

Re: A career for my canines

Dear Busch Beer: I am writing you today on behalf of my two dogs, Bogey and Juno, partly because they can’t write to you themselves because their lack of opposable thumbs makes it tough to use the computer keyboard, but mostly because I want to send you their resumes.

Hope in the cards

A retired mental health professional and two friends are trying to spread a little hope amid the third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Jane Burpee and friends Tammy Lambert and Tara Morissette want Manitobans to create and carry “Hopeful Cards,” which resemble business cards but instead of company information, they feature uplifting quotes and life-affirming messages that can comfort anyone feeling overwhelmed by stress during the pandemic.

For these close-knit friends, carrying around little packets of encouraging cards is like having a miniature therapist or an emotional support worker or a compassionate friend in your pocket.

Each packet contains 10 cards offering calming, inspirational messages such as: “Breathe. Everything will be fine.” And: “Stay strong! This too shall pass.” Or: “Courage is the door that can only be opened from the inside.” A friend of Burpee’s finds strength in a card that simply states: “Jane says you’re a good mother.”

Thompson boy among the lucky who've escaped sinkhole tragedy

Bullies and bad weather are the usual hazards kids have to contend with when they’re walking home.

But a 12-year-old Thompson boy walking home with a friend last Saturday became mired in something much more alarming — a sinkhole hidden under a muddy puddle.

According to online news reports, Samuel Desjardins and a friend were walking home after playing basketball and went through the puddle in an attempt to avoid deep mud at the side of the road.

This Mountie always gets her dog

Cross Lake RCMP Const. Stacey Shearer doesn’t just take suspects into custody — she takes them home, feeds them, and helps them find homes.

That’s because the only crime these “suspects” are guilty of is having four legs, cold noses, and running loose in the community 536 kilometres north of Winnipeg.

The numbers are staggering — since starting her career as a Mountie in Cross Lake two and a half years ago, Shearer, 25, has rescued and fostered more than 500 dogs and puppies, many of whom required bottle-feeding.

Her home in Cross Lake has been transformed into a makeshift shelter and when residents contact the local detachment they typically ask for “the lady who looks after the dogs.”

Grilled cheese gone bananas

If you’re depressed Easter is in the rearview mirror and can’t wait for your next holiday fix on Victoria Day, I have some excellent news.

Prepare to become overly excited — and get ready to award me several Pulitzer Prizes — because today, Monday, April 12, is (dramatic pause) National Grilled Cheese Sandwich day!

Yes, today is the one day set aside to pay tribute to bread grilled to perfection, and warm, gooey, melted cheese.

Q: Is that exciting, or what?

Bewildering bids

There is no shortage of people who cling to the belief they would be millionaires today if their mothers hadn’t tossed their childhood comic-book collections in the garbage.

It turns out there might be a grain of truth in the notion that it’s possible to strike it rich by auctioning off some of the old junk that’s been lying around your home for decades.

Here’s the proof — earlier this month a sealed copy of the Nintendo video game Super Mario Bros., forgotten in a desk drawer for almost 35 years, sold at auction for a record-breaking $660,000.

It’s the most ever paid for a video game, according to a news release from Heritage Auctions, which ran the sale. The Dallas-based auction company told CNN the NES cartridge was purchased as a Christmas gift in 1986, and was untouched until the seller found it earlier this year.

Madam Speaker, I rise to relay a big, hairy apology from…

What with being a big-shot newspaper columnist, I am always willing to look at both sides of an issue.

Which is why today, out of a sense of journalistic fairness, I am going to look at both sides of a controversial issue — the horrific hairstyle commonly known as “the mullet.”

Regular readers will recall that earlier this week I courageously called on our provincial and federal governments to take steps to ban the mullet, which, for the record, is a 1980s-era hairstyle in which the hair is short at the front, but ridiculously long at the back.

I was compelled to take this courageous stand because — brace yourselves for a major shock — the mullet, also known as the “Hockey Player Haircut,” is making a major comeback amid the gloom of the pandemic.

Let’s send the mullet back to the ’80s

As a crusading newspaper columnist with naturally curly hair, I have decided to use today’s column to take a courageous stand.

With absolutely no regard for personal safety, I am going to draw a line in the sand and demand that our provincial and federal governments immediately take steps to ban the horrific hairstyle commonly known as “the mullet.”

I was inspired to take this stand because I have just read a series of international news reports stating that a pair of right-thinking schools in Australia have bravely banned the mullet, which had its heyday in the 1980s.

This not a knee-jerk reaction, because I have two logical journalistic reasons for demanding this hairdo be outlawed, namely: 1) It looks stupid; and 2) I hate it!

Turnssss out I can ssssee the future

It took me more than six decades on this planet to discover the startling fact that I am clairvoyant.

For the record, I am not able to look into the future and predict the winners of sporting events, a skill that would allow me to cash in and spend the rest of my life on the couch in our den watching the Weather Network.

Sadly, like most newspaper columnists and political analysts, I am only able to predict completely useless events that no one in their right mind would care about.

I discovered my unique skills in this area late last month after writing a groundbreaking column about how airlines in the U.S. and Canada were cracking down on the range of “emotional-support animals” passengers are allowed to take onboard aircraft.

Don’t fret, your Roomba will return… but not to vacuum!

If I’m being honest, I have to admit this thing is not playing out the way I expected.

And when I say “thing” I am, of course, referring to the Robot Revolution that I have been bravely warning readers about for years in this newspaper.

As most of you already know, my vision of this cataclysm involves Killer Robots from Mars descending on Earth, encouraging all of our smart appliances to cast off their shackles, then morphing into cruel robotic overlords that enslave mankind for generations.

What I did NOT expect — and if you are being honest I’m sure you did not expect it either — is that this inevitable revolution would be led by (pause for dramatic effect) the Roomba, those little flying saucer-shaped robotic vacuum cleaners that bump around and clean your carpets while you, the unsuspecting human, lie on the couch in your den watching Star Trek reruns and picking toast crumbs off your chest.

High-voltage horror

One moment, Katherine Díaz Hernández, 22, was dreaming of surfing her way to glory at the Tokyo Olympics.

The next, her Olympic dreams — and her life — were snuffed out by a bolt that literally came out of the blue.

Diaz, one of El Salvador’s top surfers, died earlier this month after being struck by lightning while training in the ocean off El Tunco beach, not far from her home.

Keeping furry frequent fliers in check

It’s probably a good thing air travel is so difficult these days, because I’d be a mess if I tried to board an airplane without the comfort provided by my emotional support weasel.

Ditto my emotional support alligator. And my emotional support Tasmanian Devil. Not to forget my emotional support Komodo dragon.

Unless you have been hiding in a drainpipe for the past few months, you will know there are new rules that make it pretty much impossible to get on an aircraft while accompanied by emotionally supportive critters that would have been allowed to book tickets on Noah’s Ark.

In December, the U.S. Department of Transportation issued a ruling stating there is only one species of recognized service animal in American air travel: the dog. A dog, to qualify for free boarding with a human companion, must be “trained to do work or perform tasks for the benefit of a person with a disability.”

Dogs are good at playing fetch, not playing chauffeur

| I realize there are a lot of scary things to worry about during the pandemic, but I have one more alarming item to add to your already-heaping plates.

As if avoiding the coronavirus wasn’t enough to occupy our minds, we now have to be on the lookout for a growing road hazard throughout North America: dogs driving cars.

I wish I was just joking in a light-hearted manner about this highway menace, but, based on recent news reports, seemingly innocent canines seizing control of cars is becoming what we professional newspaper columnists consider “a dangerous trend.”

Spring into action with this egg-citing news

| Get ready to celebrate, Winnipeg!

Before you jump to some wildly inaccurate conclusions, allow me to explain why I think we need to be happier than normal today.

What I’m trying to say is that today, Saturday, March 20, marks the arrival of the Vernal Equinox — it marched into town at 4:36 a.m. this morning — meaning today is officially the astronomical first day of spring in the Northern Hemisphere.

Sit? Lie down? How about 'paint another lovely abstract, you furry genius?'

A young South African painter is taking the art world by storm, despite being a real swine.

Meet Pigcasso — a pig who was rescued from a slaughterhouse in 2016 and has gone on to hog the limelight as an internationally renowned porcine painter.

Now five years old and somewhere in the neighbourhood of 450 kilograms, this piggy painter’s remarkable flair for wielding a brush was highlighted this month in a viral video on the MSN web portal.

Pigcasso discovered a love for painting after being rescued as a piglet from an industrialized hog farming facility and taken to a new home at Farm Sanctuary SA just outside Cape Town, South Africa.

Keep ‘sleep thieves’ away from that hour hand

I am not in tip-top shape this morning, as you can probably deduce from the chain of drool dangling from my mouth and the fact I am using toothpicks to keep my eyelids from slamming shut.

The problem — and it was not supposed to happen this year — is that yesterday, on the second Sunday in March, the government forced us once again to “spring forward” and revert to daylight time, wherein we set our (bad word) clocks ahead by an entire hour, which, for those of you who remember Grade 5 math, means we got an hour less sleep.

We, as a nation, have been forced to do this for more than 100 years because THE GOVERNMENT HATES US!

I am not kidding around here in a lighthearted manner. What is especially frustrating is that last year, amid the pandemic, it looked as though the world was coming to its senses and would finally abandon this twice-a-year time flip-flop and prevent innocent citizens such as myself from nodding off in our morning oatmeal.

Behind every Great One…

Free Press reader Bette Jayne Taylor wasn’t quite sure why she forwarded me the email — but I’m glad she did.

The email contained a heart-tugging story in which her son, Jim Taylor, described the unforgettable day he was able to give Canada’s most beloved hockey dad, Walter Gretzky, a private tour of the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto.

Like so many hockey fans in North America, Jim was devastated last week when Walter died at age 82 after a nine-year battle with Parkinson’s disease and a near-fatal brain aneurysm in 1991 that robbed him of his short-term memory.

Walter’s passing has prompted an avalanche of tributes for a man who, along with being the father of Wayne Gretzky, the greatest hockey player of modern times, became a household name for his dedication to minor hockey and charities and the kindness, compassion and patience he showed to everyone whose life he touched.

Winnipeg's tallest building is nearing completion

Winnipeggers have something new to look up to — and we mean way up!

That’s because the city has a new titleholder for tallest building. The soaring skyscraper at 300 Main St., one block from the famed intersection of Portage and Main, captured the crown March 5 when the concrete was poured for the 41st floor.

That puts our newest skyscraper at just over 128 metres, edging out the office tower at 201 Portage Ave., the former TD Centre, which had been the tallest building in Winnipeg since it opened in 1990.

When completed later this year, 300 Main will be a 42-storey colossus reaching 142 metres above the pavement, anchoring the south end of Winnipeg Square. The north end, at 360 Main, features a 30-storey high-rise structure built in 1979.

Who needs vibrant colours when you have grey, yellow?

There are just 10 more sleeps until the March Equinox rolls into town to herald the arrival of astronomical spring in the Northern Hemisphere, and all you stylish Winnipeggers know exactly what that means, don’t you?

Unless you’ve been hiding in a drain pipe for the past decade, it means it’s time for Mr. Doug’s Annual Spring Fashion Report, the beloved seasonal feature Mr. Doug publishes every year — except when he forgets — to inform you what bizarre colour scheme your cutting-edge wardrobe (and everything else you own) will be legally required to showcase this season.

Prepare to burst into fashionable flames of joy, Winnipeg, because Mr. Doug has just read a news release from the style gurus at the Pantone Color Institute, the worldwide authority on every shade under the rainbow, stating that the official Colour of the Year for 2021 is — brace yourselves while I activate the caps-lock feature on my keyboard — TWO COLOURS!

For the record, this is the second time two colours have been given this remarkable honour. In 2016, Pantone announced the pale pink and blue hues, Rose Quartz and Serenity, would be that year’s dynamic duo of colour.

Culinary desecrators deserve hard time

What with being a crusading newspaper columnist with naturally curly hair, I will be the first to admit that I hate a lot of things.

But, in my jaded view, there is one horrible thing that has always stood above the rest in terms of causing the veins in my forehead to throb like the drummer in a heavy metal band.

Just to be clear, I am not talking about squirrels, although I stand by my repeated warnings that these bushy-tailed terrorists easily pose the greatest threat to the power grid in North America.

No, I personally direct the vast majority of my journalistic bile towards what I consider the most insidious and evil practice on the planet — putting pineapple on pizza.

Creatures comfort for new humane society head

Every morning, shortly after arriving at work, Jessica Miller welcomes a special visitor into her comfortable corner office.

It would be fair to say each of these visitors is unique. Some days it’s a dog. Some days it’s a cat. Other days it might be a hamster.

It might seem odd in most workplaces, but it’s standard for Miller, who on Feb. 15 became the new chief executive officer of the Winnipeg Humane Society, taking the reins from outgoing CEO Javier Schwersensky.

“Every morning I walk through the shelter halls and I peek through the glass to see who is still there from the night before, from the week before, and I try to choose an animal that could use a break from their space,” Miller says with a laugh.

Star-struck

He’s forged a career out of overcoming adversity, but even Tiger Woods may find this latest mountain too steep to climb.

The sports world held its breath on Feb. 23 when the world’s most famous golfer was rushed to hospital after the SUV he was driving hit a median and crossed over into oncoming traffic, rolling several times.

The 45-year-old, frequently injured golf legend was believed to have been travelling at a high rate of speed before the crash near Los Angeles, authorities said. There were no skid marks or other indications of braking, according to the sheriff.

Woods sustained injuries to his right leg that required a rod, screws, pins and a surgical release of the muscle covering — which surgeons believed would save his leg from amputation.

Robot revolution starts with Rusty Nail

I don’t wish to cause widespread panic, but it’s getting closer.

I am referring, of course, to the inevitable Robot Revolution, wherein all of our state-of-the-art smart appliances develop supreme artificial intelligence and morph into cruel robotic overlords that will enslave mankind for generations.

Those of you who are still taking your prescription medications will know that for years I have been bravely warning people about the threat posed by killer robots, even though my heroic efforts have still not earned a major journalism prize.

In recent years, I have written about a robot lawnmower that automatically cuts your grass while you lie corpse-like on your couch boning up on Newton’s First Law of Motion, which states a body at rest is most likely an overweight newspaper columnist.

Take the p-p-p-plunge!

It was a perfect afternoon to take the plunge.

The temperature was a brisk -9 C, snow was gently falling, and there I was, wearing only my Hawaiian-themed bathing suit and a T-shirt, sitting on a lawn chair in the middle of a kiddie pool in my snow-covered backyard while a mask-wearing crew from Special Olympics Manitoba dumped buckets of ice and cold water over my head.

I agreed to turn myself into a human Popsicle Wednesday afternoon to help Special Olympics launch its first-ever Virtual Polar Plunge, wherein participants collect pledges, then post videos on social media of themselves “taking the plunge” in the frosty outdoors to help raise funds and awareness for the charity.

I was invited to help kick off the online campaign because back in 2016 I was one of about 60 people who took part in the Ultimate Polar Plunge, flying up to Churchill and then taking a flying leap into the freezing waters of Hudson Bay, famous for its polar bears, beluga whales and vast quantities of ice.

Honour thy polar bear

Today is a great day for Manitoba’s most famous, fearsome and furry residents.

That’s because Feb. 27 is officially International Polar Bear Day, a day set aside to raise awareness of the issues facing these iconic creatures and the ways in which we humans can reduce our carbon footprint.

For the record, this unofficial holiday was created by Polar Bears International, an advocacy group run by conservationists, scientists and volunteers working to educate the public about the effects of climate change on the Arctic region.

More specifically, they focus on how global warming is slowly destroying the habitat of polar bears and adversely affecting their population. Today is a special day for Manitobans, because this province is home to the northern community of Churchill, long considered the Polar Bear Capital of the World.”

Rascally rodent’s death a smelly, couch-ruining affair

I don’t want to cause widespread panic, but it appears the situation is far more alarming than even I realized.

As regular readers have no doubt already deduced, I am referring here to the ongoing threat posed by bushy-tailed squirrels intent on overthrowing their human oppressors.

A few weeks ago I wrote an informative column about how a Toronto woman was shocked to discover a knife-wielding squirrel in her backyard, which prompted a regular reader to send me an email with the following subject line: “$7,300 squirrel.”

“Hi, Doug,” began the email, written by a woman I am going to call Diane Paquin, because that is her name. “I have been following your squirrel issues and, again, I just had to respond by sharing our own squirrel story. (I wrote to you last year after reading about your beer can chicken experience, but I am sure you get a lot of readers writing in).”

Quit yelling, Peloton; forget to put Poise in your pants?

I’m not sure if it’s the pandemic. I’m not sure if it’s the brutal cold snap. I’m not sure if it’s because Tom Brady just won his seventh (bad word) Super Bowl. I’m even not sure if it’s the fact the dentist says I have my first cavity in the last 25 years.

Whatever it is, I am in a supremely foul mood. Which is why today I have decided to use this space to let off a little steam via the journalistic technique of venting my spleen over something that has really been getting on my nerves lately.

As many of you have no doubt already deduced, I am talking about TV commercials, which, unless I am utterly mistaken — always a distinct possibility — have become more (bad word) annoying than ever.

Consider something media psychologist Stuart Fischoff wrote in 2013 for Psychology Today: “I call it ‘Commercial Creep,’ the relentless, intrusive proliferation of commercials into every media second of our multi-media lives. My tolerance is long gone. The issue now is controlling my intolerance, which is bordering on complete irrationality.”

A glass of Pinot the same vintage as that hotdog, please

Whenever I watch the TV news before going to bed, I always end up having strange, unsettling dreams.

That’s exactly what happened earlier this week. Moments after nodding off, I found myself standing at the entrance to what I assumed was a swanky new restaurant/bar.

“Good evening, monsieur,” gushed the moustachioed, tuxedo-clad maitre d’ as he ushered me to a small table next to shelves stacked with chocolate bars and taco chips.

“Would monsieur like to sample the boeuf bourguignon with potatoes dauphinoise or perhaps the Coq au Vin with concombre a la menthe?” he inquired as I slid into a comfy chair and placed a napkin on my lap.

Cuppa d’oh!

It would be an understatement to say Tom Brady does not normally land in hot water for flinging a football.

But that’s exactly what happened earlier this month when he tossed the Lombardi Trophy, which is topped by a regulation-sized sterling silver football, across the water to another teammate during Tampa Bay’s Super Bowl celebration boat parade.

Days after helping to lead the Buccaneers to their second championship in franchise history, Brady went viral when he threw the trophy from the boat he was on to a teammate on another vessel.

The trophy toss prompted one Florida woman to demand an apology from the seven-time Super Bowl champion.

Officially dull and boring, and I couldn’t be happier

There is no easy way to say this, so I’m going to just blurt it out — I am not just dull; I am certifiably dull!

I am not trying to brag, but the full extent of my dullness became apparent last week when I cracked open an email and discovered a certificate of membership inducting me into the Dull Men’s Club.

“The Dull Men’s Club is pleased to let it be known that Doug Speirs is a member in good standing of the Dull Men’s Club, has demonstrated noticeable skills at celebrating the ordinary, and is hereby certified dull,” the certificate proudly declares.

It turns out this tremendously tedious honour was bestowed upon me because I recently wrote a column wherein I pointed out that, in the midst of a pandemic, boring has become the new exciting.

Humble reporter was true go-to guy

If you were looking around the Free Press newsroom in the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s, your eyes would eventually come to rest on a wavy-haired, bespectacled reporter, sitting at his desk with his arms folded across his chest and a faraway look in his eyes.

Mischievous colleagues, like this columnist, would sometimes gaze back at Paul Moloney, dressed in his trademark white dress shirt, a cigarette dangling from his lips, as he stared into the middle distance with laser-like intensity.

Eventually, realizing a colleague was staring back, Moloney would suddenly snap out of his reverie, an impish grin would spread across his face and he’d offer the onlooker the faintest of nods as if to say: “You caught me!”

But make no mistake — the tall, slender reporter with a razor-sharp sense of humour wasn’t given to daydreaming in the office; he simply had the unique trait of shutting out the world around him when his brain was sorting out the details of yet another complex story that would find its way onto the front page of the Free Press.

Straight from the heart

Here we are on the eve of Valentine’s Day, and I’m getting the sense that some of you are a little confused about how to celebrate the most romantic day of the year in the middle of a global pandemic.

Fortunately, on your behalf, I sat down this week with a group of young romance experts to seek their advice on how to spread the love in a COVID-19-friendly manner.

I am referring, of course, to the wise-beyond-their-years students in teacher Matthew Ramsay’s Grade 6 classroom at John Pritchard School in North Kildonan.

As part of I Love to Read Month, I visited the school in the sense that I appeared on a video-conferencing app, which allowed me to read Charlie Mackesy’s uplifting new picture book, The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse, while the kids stared at a gigantic version of my head on a huge screen at the front of the classroom.

Put some lust on a plate for your love-ah

There is only one more sleep until the world celebrates Valentine’s Day amid a global pandemic this century, and all you romance-minded Manitobans know exactly what that means, don’t you?

It means you need to put down this newspaper, hop in the car, and drive somewhere (anywhere) to obtain the perfect gift to show your one true love just how much you care.

For the record, what we are suggesting today is that you get your hands on what is arguably the most traditional Valentine’s Day gift of them all — a heart-shaped box of yummy chocolates.

Along with demonstrating your innermost feelings, the gift of a box of chocolates also has a serious scientific side benefit in the sense all that gooey goodness will help you and your true love feel just a little bit sexier.

Armed squirrels? That’s just nuts!

I had desperately hoped that I would not be forced to write another angry column about the global menace posed by squirrels, but it has become obvious that I was only deluding myself.

In recent years, despite the fact I have not yet received a major journalism award, I have written literally dozens of groundbreaking columns wherein I warn that extremist squirrels are clearly plotting the downfall of mankind.

I know, on the outside, squirrels are all fuzzy and cute and bushy-tailed, but it is becoming increasingly obvious that some of them will do anything to cast off the shackles of their human oppressors.

Their attacks are becoming more brazen every day. Which is why I was alarmed this week when I spotted a handful of news reports, most of which sported some variation of the following headline: “Toronto woman finds knife-wielding squirrel in backyard!”

My era is finally upon us… I’m a bore!

It goes without saying that the global pandemic has changed our world in some painfully obvious ways.

What needs to be said, however, is that COVID-19 has also resulted in some subtle changes that can only be perceived by highly trained crusading newspaper columnists such as myself.

What I am trying to say that, just as orange is the new black, pandemic restrictions mean boring has become the new exciting.

I mean, it is impossible now to do something like drive to the local drugstore to buy toothpaste — the very height of tedium in the pre-pandemic world — without stopping to consider the possibility that you might contract a potentially lethal virus while deciding whether Crest or Colgate will earn more points on your loyalty card.

Winnipeggers' $60-M windfall impressive, but there have been bigger jackpots

Winnipegger John Chua and his family have a few more reasons to feel happy amid the gloom of the pandemic — 60 million reasons, to be precise.

That’s because Chua, along with his wife, Jhoana, mother Angie, and uncle Ben Lagman, were revealed Tuesday as winners of the largest lottery jackpot awarded in Manitoba history, and the largest win from a ticket purchased online in Canada.

Chua confessed this week he was originally jealous after hearing someone in Winnipeg had won the $60-million Lotto Max prize, not knowing it was him.

Then he received the email from lottery platform PlayNow.com that changed his life: he and his family had won two free plays, a $20 prize — and the $60-million jackpot.

Finding our place in the binge-watching pack

It will surprise absolutely no one to learn that Canadians are binge-watching more TV than ever during the pandemic.

But it will surprise a lot of people to learn who most Canadians are binge-watching with.

According to a survey that landed in my email in-box this week, Canadians would much rather watch marathon TV sessions with their family dogs than their partner, friends, or children.

“(The year) 2020 was a year of seeking comfort — and our TV watching habits with our dogs are living proof,” howls a survey from The Dog People at rover.com, a website that touts itself as the world’s largest and most trusted network of five-star pet sitters and dog walkers.

Not a lotta love for Pink Candy KD

If you thought the news couldn’t possibly get worse, I am sorry to report you could not be more wrong.

I say that because I have just read an extremely disturbing news release that was forwarded to me by several editors at this newspaper.

It announced that one of the staples of the Canadian diet — I’m talking about Kraft Dinner, obviously — is under attack by the very people who make it.

“Kraft Dinner sweetens up the cheesiest holiday with a new way to show love,” chirped the news release, which unveiled an alarming new flavour of KD to celebrate Valentine’s Day.

Tail to the chief

Critics have howled that the White House went to the dogs during the four years Donald Trump and his family were in residence.

But the reality is, for the first time in four years, canine companions have returned to the Oval Office in the form of President Joe Biden’s two German shepherds, 12-year-old Champ and two-year-old Major.

Just as the administration of Biden and Vice-President Kamala Harris boasts several firsts, the first canines made history and headlines this week as Major became the first-ever shelter dog to live at the White House. |

Giving voice to my inner Scotsman

What with being more Scottish than anyone currently in Scotland, my family religiously celebrates Robbie Burns Day every Jan. 25, unless, of course, we forget.

It’s the night when Scots — and everyone who dreams of being Scots — celebrate the life and work of Scotland’s national poet with a bit of Auld Lang Syne (which he wrote), a wee dram of whisky (single malt) and a heaping helping of haggis (sheep entrails mixed with onions and oatmeal and boiled in a sheep’s stomach).

So there I was early Monday evening, parked in front of our home computer, staring into the middle distance, ignoring my Scottish heritage, when my wife, She Who Must Not Be Named, walked in the front door.

When the dogs had finished barking, she looked at me and chirped: “Happy Robbie Burns Day, dear!”

St. Vital woman's frozen polar bears nab her a slot on Live with Kelly and Ryan

The Bears on Barrington are going big time.

The popular U.S. daytime TV talk show Live with Kelly and Ryan will be airing a segment this week showcasing a Winnipeg woman who turned the front yard of her Barrington Avenue home in St. Vital into a polar bear playground.

Hosts Kelly Ripa and Ryan Seacrest will be chatting Thursday morning with Vinora Bennett, a 40-year-old married mother of three whose rapidly growing display of lifelike polar bears sculpted from snow and ice has become a tourist attraction for passing motorists.

“I’m so pumped. I’m so excited. I couldn’t say no, because my neighbours and my sister would kill me if I said no,” Bennett says about appearing on Live with Kelly and Ryan, which airs weekdays at 8 a.m. on CTV.

Hello, Joe, it’s me, Canada

To: U.S. president Joe Biden

From: A Canadian couch potato

Re: Congratulations, eh

Dear Joe: When I heard that your predecessor, Donald Trump, was kind enough to get off the golf course long enough to write you a “very generous” letter, I figured the least I could do was climb off the couch in my den and send a few thoughts from a northern neighbour.

Today on Pandemic Self-Care with Doug… Taming the Beast

Excuse me for bragging, but it turns out I have far more in common with Hollywood superstar George Clooney than you might think.

It’s not that people get me confused with the famously silver-haired, bearded dreamboat when I’m standing in the frozen-food aisle at Safeway, although I am not ruling that out.

It’s just that Clooney and I are both willing to publicly admit that we have, on occasion, cut our own hair. I’m not saying I have cut Clooney’s hair, or vice versa.

No, I’m saying that, while in different locations, we have engaged in some serious hair removal in an effort to be as presentable as humanly possible if we are ever allowed to appear in public again.

Out of bounds

You could be excused for not knowing that American golfer Harris English snapped a seven-year drought on the PGA Tour last weekend when he won the title at the Sentry Tournament of Champions in Hawaii.

That’s because English’s first victory since 2013 was overshadowed by a headline-grabbing gaffe by Justin Thomas, the No. 3-ranked golfer in the world.

Thomas, 27, who finished in third place, was forced to apologize repeatedly after uttering a homophobic slur that was caught by television microphones during the third round of the tournament.

The incident happened on the fourth hole after Thomas, the defending champion, missed a five-foot par putt. As he went to tap in the bogey, microphones picked up the slur, which became a hot topic on social media.

Winnipegger's slice-of-life photos immortalized on Jones Soda bottles

It would be fair to say Glen Zelinsky is Manitoba’s most prolific pop artist.

That’s because his work — photographs taken on his smartphone, often featuring his kids — have appeared on more than 200,000 bottles of soda pop throughout North America.

Zelinsky, a media buyer and accountant with Winnipeg ad agency HR AdWorks, has had his photos selected for five labels by Jones Soda Co., famed for using customer-submitted art on every bottle.

He’s defied the odds in the sense only about one per cent of submitted photos make it through the vetting process and end up showcased on a bottle of Jones Soda, also famous for its array of quirky flavours.

Finger-lickin’ good news for your fireplace

What with being a crusading newspaper columnist, I am used to the constant ups and downs of doing journalism for a living.

On the upside, I was 10 shades of excited late last year when my city editor emailed me a news release along with the following comment: “This has your name all over it!”

The opening paragraph of the news breathlessly declared: “Forget chestnuts roasting over an open fire, because KFC’s famous fried chicken-scented 11 Herbs & Spices Firelog is coming to Canada.”

It contained this inspiring quote from Samantha Redman, chief marketing officer, KFC Canada: “Canada’s winter season and fireplaces go together like an iconic KFC bucket of chicken and gravy. It’s the comfort of a warm fire and the delicious aroma of our world-famous fried chicken that makes the KFC 11 Herbs & Spices Firelog a truly hearth-warming and hunger-inducing experience for all.”

Ditching the darkness

It’s the ninth day of 2021, and all you hip and happening Manitobans know exactly what that means, don’t you?

It means it’s time for you to put down this newspaper and give yourselves a pat on the back for surviving 2020, the most dark and deplorable year any of us has ever experienced.

It’s also time to look in the mirror and ask yourselves a difficult question: Am I ready to put the past behind me and sparkle like a diamond in this bright and shiny new year?

Well, are you? Are you ready to face the challenges of a year that began with a bunch of lunatics storming the U.S. Capitol building because their guy didn’t win the presidential election?

McGarry family to celebrate late mom's life, end of difficult year with Riverview fireworks

When Patricia McGarry passed away in October at age 93, her family wasn’t able to give their fun-loving mother the big send-off she’d always wanted.

Instead, they made headlines because confusion over new COVID-19 restrictions on gathering size prevented two of McGarry’s six children from attending her funeral.

On New Year’s Eve, however, the McGarry family is going to finally send their mother out with a bang — quite literally — in the form of a huge fireworks display for patients and residents at Riverview Health Centre, where she spent her final days in the palliative care unit.

The display is being presented by local commercial real estate firm Cushman & Wakefield Stevenson, where McGarry’s son Martin is CEO and son Kevin is managing broker.

Christmas spirit echoes among neighbours

For a decade, Paula and Jason Paterson have lived in the shadow of their Linden Woods neighbour’s spectacular Christmas display.

Festooned with 80,000 lights and more dazzling decorations than you could shake a candy cane at, Dayle and Al Jasper’s home on Shorecrest Drive has won top prize in the annual Linden Woods lights contest multiple times over the past decade.

“He (Al) does such a good job,” Paula said, wearing a face mask as she chatted in the foyer of her home.

“I call him Clark Griswold (the lights-loving character played by Chevy Chase in the 1989 seasonal staple National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation) and he’s like: ‘That’s a huge compliment!’ He loved it. He’s the star of the street.”

Have an appy holiday: bringing Santa to smartphones

You’d better not cry or pout if you can’t get a festive seasonal photo at the mall this year — because a tech-savvy Winnipeg mom has come up with a safe way to bring Santa to you amid the global pandemic.

Sharon Knutson, a married Charleswood mother of two, is the creator of the Santa Pics App, which allows users to take holiday photos with a virtual Santa without leaving the comfort and safety of their own homes.

“In July, I was reflecting on how COVID-19 was affecting my kids,” Knutson says of daughter, Grace, 13, and son Chris, 10. “I thought about my annual tradition of taking taking the kids to the mall for a photo with Santa.

“I’ve done that every year since they were babies, never missed a year. We display the photos in our house every year and it’s fun to see how the kids have grown over the years.

Delivering holiday joy to families

Santa’s getting a little break this year, but the elves at a children’s charity will be working double time to deliver two truckloads of holiday hampers and toys to Winnipeg’s neediest families.

“We’re just trying to do our part to give these families something to look forward to, something to brighten their lives over the holidays,” said Jeff Liba, CEO of Variety, the Children’s Charity of Manitoba, which provides specialized equipment, programs and services to kids with special needs.

Liba said the charity’s offices are overflowing with about $45,000 worth of holiday hamper items and toys that will be delivered on Dec. 8 to 150 families who care for about 600 economically disadvantaged schoolchildren in the city.

“We’ve got a truck with a big trailer pulling up, we’ll load up and make the drop-offs at four family resource centres in low-income neighbourhoods,” he explained. “The centres will distribute the items to the families and the kids. There’s so much stuff, it will take us two trips.

You’re doggone right he’ll be back

For the past 25 years, Frank Adam has struggled to get thousands of jittery dogs and cats to look into the lens of his camera for festive holiday photos.

This year, he’s simply struggling to breathe.

This would have marked the 26th year the owner of Adam York Photography has volunteered his skills at the annual Pet Pics with Santa Paws fundraisers in support of the Winnipeg Humane Society.

But the surging global COVID-19 pandemic killed a holiday event beloved by Winnipeg pet owners — and it almost killed Frank, too.

Humane society asks families to help furry friends

If you’ve got an empty shoebox and some spare gift wrap, you can help make the holidays brighter for pets and owners struggling to make ends meet amid the pandemic.

The Winnipeg Humane Society has unveiled its Kids Give Back project, in which families, especially those with children, are being asked to fill gift-wrapped boxes with pet food, treats and toys, then take them to shelter at 45 Hurst Way for a curbside drop-off on Dec. 6.

“It’s an opportunity for youth, kids and families to engage in kindness over the holidays,” said Kelle Greene, the society’s manager of volunteer services.

“We’re asking families to put together a pet shoebox. Inside, would be things like dog treats, dog food, cat food, litter, toys, catnip, anything a pet would like,” she said. “They have to wrap it in holiday wrap, make it look cheerful. Put a tag on the box saying cat, dog or critter so that we know and can direct it to the appropriate person for their family pet.”

Toy story: Children’s Hospital moves to online donations for holiday campaign

It’s one of the most joyful sights of Christmas — kind-hearted Winnipeggers dropping off toys for sick kids who are stuck in Children’s Hospital over the holidays.

But this year, that joyous sight has become yet another victim of the COVID-19 pandemic. Children’s Hospital Foundation of Manitoba broke the sad news Wednesday that it can’t accept in-person toy donations because visitors are prohibited from entering the hospital.

“We know people are phoning and asking: ‘When can we drop off toys?’ This year, we’re saying: ‘Please make a monetary donation if you can,’” Stefano Grande, president and CEO of the foundation, said.

Grande said the foundation has to do everything possible to ensure the virus doesn’t slip into the Sherbrook Street hospital.

This brand of ‘sexy’ just ain’t selling

This is hard to admit, but it seems I share one thing in common with defeated President Donald J. Trump — I have been robbed of something I really wanted to win with all my heart.

What I am trying to say is that People magazine has once again issued its list of the Sexiest Men Alive and — brace yourselves for a major shock — I am not on it!

Q: Doug, are you trying to suggest, without evidence, that you were robbed of the title Sexiest Man Alive in 2020 due to widespread fraud just as Donald Trump is trying to bulldoze democracy by spewing delusional, unfounded claims that he was robbed of a second term in the White House?

A: Yes, that pretty much sums it up.

Athletes driven to tears by personal loss, unexpected achievement

No one was surprised when Dustin Johnson, the No. 1-ranked golfer in the world, won the Masters Tournament last Sunday at Augusta National Golf Club with a record-setting score of 20-under par.

But almost everyone was surprised when the normally stoic 36-year-old golf pro, long considered one of the most aloof athletes in the sport, broke down and cried after earning his first green jacket.

Johnson, who grew up about an hour from Augusta, shared an embrace with his partner, Paulina Gretzky, after securing the win and was then asked by CBS reporter Amanda Balionis what the victory meant to him.

The newly minted champion looked down at the Augusta National logo emblazoned on his jacket, then paused for about 10 seconds as he struggled to find the words in what became a remarkably heart-felt moment.

Disney nonagenarian worth considering as Donald ducks results

It turns out Joe Biden and Donald Trump weren’t the only senior citizens racking up votes in the never-ending presidential election.

According to news reports throughout the United States, voters disillusioned by the two human candidates opted to write in the name of their favourite senior celebrity — Mickey Mouse.

In Wake County, N.C., for instance, Mickey got the support of 94 registered voters, easily outpacing infectious diseases expert Dr. Anthony Fauci (14 votes) and seasonal superstar Santa Claus (eight votes).

“As an election judge, who assisted with recording the names of write-in-candidates voted for on ballots, it was amazing to see how many votes fictitious characters like Mickey Mouse received,” one election official grumbled in a letter to Montana’s Independent Record newspaper.

House of the people all the better with dogs

Every day without fail, I stop and stare at a framed poster that hangs in the hallway leading to our main bathroom.

A gift from my buddy Bob, the publisher of this newspaper, and his wife, Lena, it features an artist’s rendering of 22 famous presidential pets throughout American history.

Along with Jack Lincoln the turkey, Old Ike Wilson the Shropshire ram and Socks Clinton the cat, there’s a plethora of presidential mutts — Charlie Kennedy the Welsh terrier, Checkers Nixon the cocker spaniel, Lucky Reagan the Bouvier des Flandres, and Bo and Sunny Obama, the Portuguese water dogs, to name just a few.

Conspicuously absent, however, is the depiction of any pet belonging to Donald J. Trump, the outgoing president of the United States who refuses to admit he is the outgoing president of the United States.

It’s raining cats and dogs… and iguanas!

Today’s informative and entertaining column is like a double-edged sword in the sense I have some good news and some bad news to share with you.

What with being a glass-half-full sort of columnist, let’s start with the good news, which is the fact that I’m pretty sure we can all stop worrying about gigantic murder hornets coming to Manitoba and stinging our eyeballs.

I say that despite the alarming fact five of the invasive Asian giant hornets have recently been found on British Columbia’s Lower Mainland and a basketball-sized nest containing nearly 200 queens was just discovered in Washington close to the border with B.C.

For the record, this is good news because almost all of my relatives live in B.C. and, regardless of how many times we invite them, they refuse to visit Winnipeg on the grounds that, and I will quote them directly, “Your winters are way too (bad word) cold!” I assume B.C.’s murder hornets would feel the same way.

Gracious concession the latest norm trashed by Trump

It’s far more than a common courtesy — it’s a cherished American tradition.

When a candidate loses a U.S. presidential election, tradition demands the candidate promptly and publicly acknowledges defeat in a concession speech to help with the peaceful transition of power.

A concession speech isn’t part of U.S. law or the Constitution — it’s a time-honoured voluntary gesture, the moment a candidate tells supporters the other side has won, the campaign is over, and it’s time to begin healing.

It goes back to 1896 when Democrat William Jennings Bryan, after losing to Republican William McKinley, sent a congratulatory telegram reading: “I hasten to extend my congratulations. We have submitted the issue to the American people and their will is law.”

There’s real bravery in acknowledging our vulnerabilities

Today I’d like to spend a little time remembering Connery, Sean Connery, the charismatic Scottish actor who died late last month at the age of 90.

I admired Connery and not simply because he was the first — and best — actor to bring James Bond, the suave and lethal British secret agent, to life on the big screen.

He also wasn’t my hero simply because he had “Scotland Forever” tattooed on his arm at the age of 16 when he enrolled in the Royal Navy and was a tireless advocate for Scottish independence.

That’s saying a lot considering my son is a proud bagpiper, my daughter was a longtime highland dancer, and I personally have appeared in a kilt countless times and own an impressive collection of single-malt whiskeys.

Bursting with pride over a bunch of bronze busts

What with living in a code-red world along with everyone else in Winnipeg, my wife and I are unable to escape the boredom by going out to restaurants, bars, movie theatres and recreation facilities.

Instead, She Who Must Not Be Named and I have been beating the pandemic blues by taking our two mutts walking every day in Assiniboine Park, which is conveniently located across the street from our house.

After barking at every squirrel, the dogs will eventually drag us down a lovely tree-lined walkway in the southeast corner of the park, near the future site of Canada’s Diversity Gardens. Along either side of that path are the bronze busts of 46 exceptional Winnipeggers, men and women immortalized in the Citizens Hall of Fame.

The Hall of Fame was launched in 1986 by the Winnipeg Real Estate Board — now the Winnipeg Realtors Association — to honour individuals “who have contributed to Winnipeg’s quality of life with exceptional achievements in leadership and community service.” The first inductee was Steven Juba, the city’s longest-serving mayor.

Vicious sword attacks are far from uncommon in the 21st century

It was a horrifying attack that sent shock waves across the country.

On Halloween night, a 24-year-old suspect dressed in “medieval garb” and wielding a Japanese-style samurai sword randomly attacked seven people, killing two, in the heart of Quebec City’s historic district.

“Quebec is waking up after a night of horror. Words fail me to describe such a tragedy. I offer my condolences to the loved ones of the victims,” Quebec Premier François Legault wrote Sunday morning on Twitter.

The suspect, identified as Carl Girouard, was charged with two counts of first-degree murder and five counts of attempted murder in the sword attacks, which plunged the province into mourning and made grisly headlines around the world.

2020 is depressing enough without jolt to biorhythm

I think we can all agree — regardless of political affiliation, regardless of which NHL team we cheer for, regardless of whether we replace the toilet-paper roll paper-under or paper-over — that tomorrow is a pretty important day.

As most of you already know, tomorrow, Tuesday, Nov. 3, is (pause for dramatic effect) International Sandwich Day, the day on which we celebrate the birth of John Montagu, the fourth Earl of Sandwich, the first man to slap delicious items between two slices of bread and then stuff it into his mouth.

“In 1762, the earl, who was fond of gambling, asked his cook to prepare him a meal that wouldn’t require cutlery nor interfere with his 24-hour long gambling streak. The cook gave him sliced meat between two pieces of toast, which allowed the earl to have one hand free to continue his game,” gushes the website nationaltoday.com.

According to a national survey in 2013, Canadians eat approximately 3.6 billion sandwiches every year, which is definitely food for thought, but unfortunately that has nothing to do with today’s topic, which is the fact that tomorrow also happens to be Election Day in the U.S.

Ghosts and goblins and COVID, oh my!

It’s Halloween, and I think all of you candy-craving ghosts and goblins know exactly what that means, don’t you?

I am, of course, only kidding around in a light-hearted manner because the tragic reality is that none of us really knows what it means, despite the fact this is not the first time our home town has celebrated Halloween amid a pandemic.

But I’m guessing the vast majority of you, unless you happen to be vampires, weren’t around 102 years ago, in 1918, when the last great pandemic, the so-called “Spanish flu,” was making Halloween even scarier than normal.

Instead of COVID-19, the city was battling the H1N1 influenza A virus, which killed an estimated 20 million to 50 million victims worldwide, including about 55,000 across Canada and at least 1,200 in Winnipeg, which had a population of roughly 180,000 at the time.

Working like a dog for chance at gourd glory

If I have learned anything in my 64 years on the planet, it is this — the moment you climb into the bathtub, either the phone will ring or someone will pound on your front door.

So I was not surprised Thursday morning when, seconds after immersing myself in hot water and leaning back to read the newspaper, the morning calm was shattered by the sound of someone knocking on the door.

What with being a highly trained professional newspaper columnist, I jumped out of the tub, climbed into my ratty blue bathrobe, staggered down the hallway, and bravely threw open the door.

There in front of me, wearing a mask and clutching a large tote bag, was Corey Quintaine, the affable marketing manager for Kildonan Place Shopping Centre.

The dentist was easy. The iPad, however…

As regular readers already know, I have a long and not so glorious history of being a major weenie when it comes to visiting the dentist at the best of times.

A standard appointment typically ends with me curled up on the floor like a huge boiled shrimp because I believe that will make it impossible for the dentist to poke my gums with pointy steel instruments that, in my mind, are roughly the size and shape of whaling harpoons.

Throw in a global pandemic and I am even more reluctant to sit in one of those high-tech reclining chairs while the dentist freezes my face, then jams a stretchy rubber dam, a series of metal clamps, and most of his fingers into my mouth while casually chatting about how everyone else in the world has to wear a face mask just like him.

Speaking of masks, I was wearing one earlier this week when I slunk into my dentist’s office for an appointment to have my teeth cleaned, which I now do on a regular basis because one of them disintegrated a few years ago after biting into a crunchy slice of pizza.

Finders keepers

It took 15 years — and the threat of a curse — but a contrite Canadian woman made headlines around the world this week when she returned artifacts she swiped from the ancient city of Pompeii.

The woman, identified only as Nicole, sent a package containing two white mosaic tiles, two pieces of an amphora vase and a piece of ceramic wall to a travel agent in Pompeii in southern Italy.

According to news reports, the package included a letter in which she confessed to stealing the artifacts from the Archaeological Park of Pompeii in 2005 and asked for forgiveness. Pompeii was buried in volcanic ash after the eruption of the Mount Vesuvius in AD79.

Nicole said she was 21 at the time and wanted to have a piece of history “that no one could have,” but now, at age 36, she blamed the theft for her past 15 years of bad luck, including having breast cancer twice, resulting in a double mastectomy, and her family’s financial struggles.

More than a dance craze: It’s a global sensation

Somebody more famous than me once said you should dance like nobody is watching.

That’s easy for me to do because, when I dare to dance, I make (bad word) sure no one is watching, because I am to dancing what a hippopotamus is to pole vaulting.

Out of journalistic fairness, I will confess that I once danced with several hundred people watching — in 2010, at the Dancing with Celebrities fundraiser in support of the Society for Manitobans with Disabilities, I performed a painfully awkward version of the rumba.

But, with the exception of events meant to help worthy charities, I am not one for moving my feet in an organized manner — or at least I wasn’t until a couple of weeks ago.

Hang on a sec… just getting my ducks in a row

Even hardened newspaper professionals like myself can be enticed by an alluring, provocative headline to read news stories we might otherwise ignore.

Which explains why I was unable to resist reading a gripping New York Post report last week because it appeared under the following gripping headline: “Mailman attacked by sex-crazed duck.”

I do not know about you, but when I see the words “sex-crazed duck” I feel a journalistic obligation to get to the bottom of the story. And we will do that in a minute, but first I need to confess that I have become mildly obsessed with ducks.

This duck-related obsession began earlier in the year, before the pandemic arrived, when I felt compelled to stop fretting about the global menace posed by rogue squirrels and focus my attention squarely on a burgeoning criminal conspiracy involving these feathery fiends.

Talking turkey, with a hint of pumpkin pie

There are only two sleeps left until Thanksgiving, Manitoba, and I think you know exactly what that means, don’t you?

OK, I’m hoping you know what it means, because this year, what with the global COVID-19 pandemic you’ve probably been hearing about on the news, I’m not entirely sure that I know.

What I think it means is that it’s an excellent time for Uncle Doug to share a few thoughts on how this year’s scaled-down, socially-distanced Thanksgiving might be even more joyful than in previous years, wherein I have overeaten to the point where I am forced to lie horizontal on the floor with my pants unbuckled, moaning like a wounded woodland creature.

For starters, I am totally onside with the recommendation from public health officials that we have far fewer people around our dinner tables this thanksgiving, or possibly gather in our backyards, or even stuff our faces while looking at friends and family on our computer screens via a videoconferencing platform.

History in the making

Fifty years ago this month, Canada was plunged into one of the most turbulent periods in the nation’s history.

The infamous “October Crisis” was a time when a militant independence movement led by the Front de Libération du Quebec terrorized Quebec, and the War Measures Act was invoked for the first time during peacetime.

On Oct. 5, 1970, FLQ members kidnapped British diplomat James Cross at his Montreal home and demanded the release of detained or incarcerated FLQ members, and the broadcast of the group’s manifesto on the CBC.

Five days later, Quebec’s deputy premier, Pierre Laporte, was also kidnapped. His body was found a week later, on Oct. 17, in the trunk of a car near Saint-Hubert Airport, outside Montreal.

Sinister squirrel waging war from above

Call me biased, but it doesn’t seem like a fair fight from my point of view.

This is because I am forced to remain trapped on the ground, whereas my enemy is safely ensconced in the branches atop a towering evergreen tree in our back yard.

The very best I can do is fling futile curses into the sky, whereas my enemy is able to bombard me from on high with a never-ending supply of one of nature’s cruelest weapons.

There I was the other morning, shortly after climbing out of bed, standing in the back yard next to a very tall tree, sipping the first coffee of the day and clad only in a fuzzy blue bathrobe and flip-flops, when, suddenly and without warning… “Bonk!”