Pique'n Yer Interest

I've managed to stay away from criticizing the municipality since I've started working here, choosing instead to educate the public on how to deal with a crummy roommate and how to kidnap that roommate's dog.

For a while there I considered disconnecting from Facebook, which I had taken to calling "bitchbook" because of the sheer number of people using one of the greatest technological advances of all time to complain about their daily lives - with problem

"Get back in your vehicle!" The words rang in my ears. Strolling from my parked car in Marketplace I'd turned to find a young RCMP officer beside his black ghost cruiser, lights flashing wildly.

I begin this week with a mea culpa . Two months ago I told you about Kai Nagata, the 24-year-old journalist who rose to the rank of bureau chief at CTV Quebec.

My editor thinks I'm nuts but I listen to music when I'm writing. For one, it's an effective way to drown out the office chatter when I'm on deadline and a steady rhythm can help loosen the word flow.

I've lived in four provinces and spent at least a few days in nine of them. And I can say with relative confidence that B.C. is the lamest in Canada when it comes to its public policies on alcohol.

What is wilderness? The thought hovered last week as I rafted a 100-kilometre stretch of the Wapiti River from remote northeastern B.C. to northwestern Alberta. Other than the launch and take-out points there'd been no sign of humanity.

I saw a man and what a man he was. He was in mid-20, a slender fellow, wearing skinny jeans, slim-fitting leather jacket and a red scarf. Hardly the archetype of alpha-masculinity. But he had a beard. And not just any beard.

Nothing can ruin a summer vacation faster than these three little words - "Back to School!" Even now, 14 years since I walked out of my last exam, laughing maniacally, never to darken the doors of academia again, I still get a chill up my spine when

Hot yoga - the unanticipated whipping boy of a dinner party discussion about the Shiva (destruction)-Shakti (creation) of yoga - eventually caught a break, though the humorous litany at the table continued.