Does fooling around with numbers make you math-savvy? It must. I convinced myself—a grade 11 honours student—I just “couldn’t do” math. I’ve been using a calculator ever since and now, guess what? I actually can’t do math. My multiplication tables have been erased to make space for information I access more often (Dharma Sushi’s phone […]
Lezlie Lowe
Bad Apple
I’m here. I’m not queer. But I am a PC user. Get used to it. I’m outing myself as a non-Mac addict. You got a problem with that? If you own an Apple computer, you probably do. I’m not Macophobic. If you want to love Apple computers, fine. Just quit being so pushy about it, […]
Peep this
News on the stale Easter candy front: those five Marshmallow Peeps hardening on your kitchen counter aren’t the last of this year’s flock. The little fellas left millions of sickly sweet brothers and sisters back at the factory. And here they come now. Marshmallow Peeps—the toxic-yellow sugar-encrusted baby bird-shaped candies—are no longer hatching just at […]
Out to lunch
Joan Parks-Hubley is my hero. It’s not a title that usually goes along with being a government employee. But Parks-Hubley’s got my nod. The Healthy Workplace program coordinator with Nova Scotia’s Public Service Commission is regularly bolting out the office door. It’s not quite in the spirit of “take this job and shove it,” but […]
Making a scene
Who cares? You do. Or you should, anyway, even if you’re not one of the handful of long-time local music scenesters who’ve gone slack-jawed at the thought of two decades passed. Even if you never had a dub of a dub of a dub of the compilation’s Killer Klamz song. Even if you were born […]
International blend
Stock market virgin Tim Hortons swept onto the Toronto and New York Stock Exchanges last Friday like a debutante at a caffeine cotillion, raising a cool $780 million smackers with one swish of her sugar-coated petticoats. With that kind of dough rolling around, plus the way the corporate giant has managed to knead its products […]
Claiming the games
Question: what does Halifax have on its Commonwealth Games bid checklist that the other cities vying for the 2014 games don’t? Answer: a blog. www.Halifaxnoway.com is a Halifax anti-games site with links to local and national news stories and editorials that flip the bird at the Commonwealth Games. Unaudited Halifax bid figures, planning secrecy, nonexistent […]
Cringe festival
Canadian Tire Guy—every Canadian television-watcher’s next-door-neighbour from hell—has picked up stakes and left town. Or been run out. It’s difficult to tell when so many people are screaming at their TVs: “Don’t let the garden gate hit your ass on the way out!” Hatred of this ad icon and his Simoniz Pressure Washer-hawking wife, Mrs. […]
In case of emergency
The “morning-after” pill—commonly sold under the brand name Plan B in Canada—is a form of emergency contraception. It’s used after unprotected sex or birth control failure, and works up to 72 hours after the incident (not just the morning after). Plan B is available over the counter by asking a pharmacist—no prescription needed. Just like […]
Seasonal disorder
The best one can say about winter, it seems, is a backhanded compliment. Seventeenth century American poet Anne Bradstreet wrote, “If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant….” Percy Bysshe Shelley couldn’t muster much better in “Ode to the West Wind”: “If winter comes, can spring be far behind?” The penguins […]
The drug of choice
It’s the drug pro-choicers call an essential public health measure. It’s the drug pro-lifers call a chemical coat hanger. It’s RU-486. If you lived in France or almost any other European Union country, your doctor could prescribe it for you today. Ditto for China, India, New Zealand, Norway, Russia and South Africa, not to mention […]
Wax and wane
Ladies, pull up your pants. Brazilian wax jobs are going out of style. In case you’ve managed to miss this decade-and-a-half-old trend in pubic hair management that hit its height in the late ’90s, or if you’ve never been plucky enough to ask someone the ins and outs, here goes: You lie naked from the […]

