tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-71353782012-01-26T17:07:32.757-05:00Computer Hacker and an old-time Sports Hack. This will probably be the perfect site for couch potatoes. Don't count on daily postings, but I'll be here with something new to rant about several times a month.Gary Mugfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12373692715883477861noreply@blogger.comBlogger8121100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7135378.post-42814763615227508132012-01-26T17:07:00.000-05:002012-01-26T17:07:01.334-05:00

I know SOME of you need to put food on your table. But before resorting to telemarketing try everything else. EVERYTHING else. And, if you are telemarketing an actual scam rather than something with some semblance of value, then don't. DO NOT DO IT. If you believe in Karma and re-incarnation (and some of the people who do this probably do), then you are coming back as a cockroach or a flea on a

Gary Mugfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12373692715883477861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7135378.post-63271726681711518692011-12-02T00:38:00.001-05:002011-12-02T00:55:43.010-05:00

It is a testament to my conniving ways that, once again, I have a Christmas Tree worth bragging about in my living room. And it took me all of 30 seconds to add the finishing touch, the angel atop the tree. The rest of the work? All done by the junior members of my extended family. The Christmas Tree Raising Ceremony was a bit special this year in that A.J. rejoined the Movie Mob for the first

Gary Mugfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12373692715883477861noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7135378.post-16659755427763307972011-11-13T21:37:00.001-05:002011-11-13T21:39:11.806-05:00

Just noticed, the most page views I've had for a blog posting. The winner? The quick test for seeing if a posting widget worked. In other words, the most visits were for a post where I said nothing. Considered me deflated.

Gary Mugfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12373692715883477861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7135378.post-30109319231150732572011-11-13T20:33:00.001-05:002011-11-13T21:35:23.303-05:00

Sorry about the title. It should have been Rusting Away in My Driveway. But you're here, so you might as well know, I've given up my car. More or less. The Saturn I've driven throughout this century is now parked in my driveway, tucked out of sight up against the kitchen window. I no longer am insured to drive the car and the only reason I haven't sold it  (or scrapped it, which my father has

Gary Mugfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12373692715883477861noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7135378.post-1657295299701607732011-11-09T23:45:00.000-05:002011-11-09T23:45:22.966-05:00

I was talking to a friend and I mentioned the old saw, "Never meet your idols." Seems, a lot of the times, the idols have clay feet. I was telling her the story of meeting a former major TV star on the set of a movie, one that I had a crush on as a teenager. Turns out the lady in question was incredibly unpleasant ... and headed for a career crash out of the movies. Karma can be a friend.

Gary Mugfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12373692715883477861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7135378.post-11324785785921062622011-10-27T12:20:00.000-04:002011-10-27T12:20:03.784-04:00

So I get a phone call from the designated victim at my main client. The guy has been picked since they know I'm about to implode and he's one of the few I respect there and they hope that I will spare his life when I go thermo-nuclear. THEY have a customer who's operational staff seems to consist of in-bred idiots who have somehow stumbled onto a fool-proof way to make money. Cuz, lord love a

Gary Mugfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12373692715883477861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7135378.post-39404748234047693692011-10-26T19:27:00.001-04:002011-10-26T19:27:59.532-04:00

They are back negotiating in New York as I write this. And some optimism, pushed mainly by Chris Sheridan, is in the air. The optimism is based on some unassailable logic. These fools are losing money by the minute, even if they haven't actually lost any games, permanently. The owners HAVE lost their exhibition cherry on the top of their payday Sundays. Given my oft-told antipathy towards unions

Gary Mugfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12373692715883477861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7135378.post-47888764126766718782011-10-14T16:34:00.002-04:002011-10-14T16:34:34.760-04:00

Okay, I've addressed this, this week. There won't be a trade between the Blue Jays and the Reds that puts Joey Votto in a Blue Jay uniform. On the scale of possibilities ... well it isn't on the scale of possibilities. I read it again at JaysJournal.com where the author suggested Adam Lind as the foundation of a trade between the two teams. The author is obviously a huge Adam Lind fan. A

Gary Mugfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12373692715883477861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7135378.post-40679373871707689632011-10-13T15:19:00.000-04:002011-10-13T15:19:00.999-04:00

My interest in the baseball play-offs waned somewhat once my prediction of a Phillie victory over Detroit became yet one more excuse to avoid the betting parlours. Do they still have betting parlours anymore? At any rate, my thoughts, as evidenced the last two days, has turned to the Toronto Blue Jays of 2012 (and the shenanigans that will shape them between now and then). Question: How many

Gary Mugfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12373692715883477861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7135378.post-58238036227577555722011-10-12T13:50:00.000-04:002011-10-12T13:50:00.098-04:00

Toronto Blue Jays fans have been hankering for a revival of the early nineties when the club was world champion twice over ... and the team with the largest payroll. The latter will never happen again. In fact, tripling the payroll wouldn't even get them within a all-star pitcher's contract of the New York Yankees. And might not even get them past the Boston Red Sox payroll. But the first part?

Gary Mugfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12373692715883477861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7135378.post-29418180789660174232011-10-11T13:03:00.000-04:002011-10-11T13:03:31.624-04:00

Wouldn't it be great to have Albert Pujols in the Toronto Blue Jays' line-up next year, even if it cost $30M a season to put him there? And you know, watching more of Prince Fielder over the last ten days has me convinced he'd look almost as good, even at $27M. BUT, although I don't think GM Alex Anthopoulos has ever categorically denied he's had the same dream, I'm coming around to the idea that

Gary Mugfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12373692715883477861noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7135378.post-69902534983132098592011-10-06T10:22:00.000-04:002011-10-06T10:22:00.130-04:00

I have been a fan of CrossLoop forever. Well, forever in terms for how long the company has been up and running. Actually thought it was a European start-up when I wrote about how the software saved my sanity back in February 2008. I waxed prosaically back in August 2009 when a friend called from Cairo, Egypt with a problem and I was able to fix it, using Crossloop. Today I have stopped using

Gary Mugfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12373692715883477861noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7135378.post-87333911334817647762011-10-05T10:50:00.000-04:002011-10-05T21:39:09.525-04:00

A LOT of money has been spent in the last couple of months on the political campaigns that culminate in the Ontario provincial elections today. How do I know? 'Cuz those $%(*$%)*($%& politicians employed every $%*(&_%*& political polling company around to call and harass me repeatedly over the last month. And the election this week ends that. I return myself to blissful, peaceful silence, free

Gary Mugfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12373692715883477861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7135378.post-58965881961607954622011-09-24T14:54:00.001-04:002011-10-05T22:26:52.283-04:00

Just saw the first trailer for One For The Money, the adaption of the first of the Stephanie Plum novels by Janet Evanovich. Those books have been a birthday present staple in this house for most of the last two decades. I love them in general, although there's been some rough spots since the turn of the century. Casting a movie adaption has been a long-time pastime for Plum conniseurs.

Gary Mugfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12373692715883477861noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7135378.post-70426708349348432982011-09-19T10:34:00.001-04:002011-09-19T10:34:04.108-04:00

Several times this weekend, both on-air in the game and on wrap-up shows, I heard announcers say that the Buffalo Bills scored 21 unanswered points yada yada. Invariably they then said "Oakland scored ..."Now, I'm a little testy about this kind of thing. But c'mon! Unanswered means NO ANSWER. Saying the other team scored with your next breathe, proving it's better to be thought a fool than to

Gary Mugfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12373692715883477861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7135378.post-21347923732383688172011-09-03T09:49:00.000-04:002011-09-03T09:49:23.939-04:00

Last night, as I watched my two TV's where both Toronto teams imploded, the horror was occurring on the big screen. That was the one where the Toronto Argonauts were laying a large egg at home. Sound up, big pic, and I didn't even have the comfort of the small screen where the Toronto Blue Jays were coughing up a 2-0 lead in New York to Brett Gardiner and the Yankees. I guess it's true that you

Gary Mugfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12373692715883477861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7135378.post-35754565834051422382011-09-02T19:15:00.001-04:002011-09-02T19:15:45.335-04:00

This is just a test to see if my quick post widget actually works.

Gary Mugfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12373692715883477861noreply@blogger.com0Bramalea Rd At Alexandria Gate, Canada43.711594 -79.700241tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7135378.post-72259105749076828642011-09-01T02:40:00.000-04:002011-09-01T02:40:00.204-04:00

Yes, I know Review Month is behind me (and writing 31 reviews without making them all cookie cutter examples of effusive praise is harder than it looks). But I did sort of screw up one review, Lee Goldberg's The Walk. So, to make up for the faux pas, I offer a bonus review of yet another five star book. Also written by Goldberg. If Mr. Monk On The Couch had been a script for the long running

Gary Mugfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12373692715883477861noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7135378.post-7608230454397568192011-08-31T01:07:00.004-04:002011-08-31T01:07:00.621-04:00

The book review month ends with what is a bit of a surprise to me, a period piece. I normally like my books to be about the day after tomorrow, or even further into the future. I did my time with noirish books that looked back at earlier last century when I was a young 'un. But Clive Cussler is Clive Cussler and I am nothing, if not a completist when it comes to his work. I though the initial

Gary Mugfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12373692715883477861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7135378.post-40403738497530275932011-08-30T19:39:00.000-04:002011-08-30T19:39:00.388-04:00

It's extremely rare for me to start a series somewhere in the middle and then backtrack. I came to Laura Resnick's Esther Diamond series with the third book Unsympathetic Magic (review) and made an effort to go back and read the first two volumes. The series starter Disappearing Nightly was just about as good as Unsympathetic Magic. But the treasure turned out to be the book in the middle,

Gary Mugfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12373692715883477861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7135378.post-40858134442114648952011-08-30T17:39:00.001-04:002011-09-04T04:47:59.719-04:00

The Toronto Blue Jays are in a race. That race is for the 16th best record in Major League Baseball at season's end. Seventeenth best would be better, but the Jays need to get a little late June Swoon thing going to cement being in the bottom half of the teams when 2011 comes to a close. As of today, Toronto holds that coveted sixteenth-best slot, but are in a four-way dogfight with Cincinnati,

Gary Mugfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12373692715883477861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7135378.post-12322065493959943282011-08-30T07:26:00.000-04:002011-08-30T07:26:12.396-04:00

I misread the note about Lee Goldberg walking the route written about in The Walk after the Northridge earthquake and using that as the basis for the story. In fact, as I have been alerted by Mr. Goldberg, he came up with the idea in the aftermath of the earthquake and later walked the course, so to speak, in parts, to get the details correct. I apologize for the error. The section mentioning

Gary Mugfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12373692715883477861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7135378.post-24160562384980780002011-08-29T23:26:00.000-04:002011-08-29T23:26:47.370-04:00

One of the issues I had with Siskel and Ebert (and other long-running critics like them) is a critique along the lines of, "Nothing original, I've seen it before, so I'm giving it a thumbs down." Drove me batty for two reasons. First, not everybody has seen the canon of movies either of them had and so are new to the concept/plot/whatever. Secondly, it never answers the question, is it well done?

Gary Mugfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12373692715883477861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7135378.post-47186583028959392142011-08-28T22:34:00.000-04:002011-08-28T22:34:11.467-04:00

I realize now, I got my reviews of Jeffery Deaver's Edge backwards with this novel, Barry Eisler's Hard Rain. I read the two books on consecutive nights (one sign of a great book is the 'in one night' reading length), but I read this one first. And for all intents and purposes, the books are the two opposites of the same coin. Edge was all about a bodyguard intent on protecting the lives of two

Gary Mugfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12373692715883477861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7135378.post-21241503013933829912011-08-28T22:02:00.000-04:002011-08-28T22:02:01.323-04:00

This is a book that is as close to being a provisional five-star book as it is a two-star rating. It all boils down to how computer 'in the know' you are. Zero Day is a thriller for nerds and geeks and professionals in the business. And if you count yourself amongst them, then it's worth five stars. If not, well, your results may vary. I'm not familiar with Howard Schmidt at all. His co-writer

Gary Mugfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12373692715883477861noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7135378.post-47222970579771604952011-08-28T21:38:00.001-04:002011-08-30T07:28:54.395-04:00

As the first non-series novel by Lee Goldberg I have read, I didn't have a feel for the characters in The Walk until ohhh, about a paragraph from the end. That was because, by then, Goldberg had sent his character Marty Slack through a modern-day version of The Perils of Pauline. Based structurally on an idea fomented by a true-to-life event, the Northridge earthquake, Goldberg's actually made

Gary Mugfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12373692715883477861noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7135378.post-58160852623098607142011-08-25T11:59:00.000-04:002011-08-26T00:00:48.769-04:00

Two things about this post's book. First, Mike Brown is right with Neil DeGrasse Tyson for being able to explain science to a guy like me, somebody who likes science but who isn't interested in the minutiae. Secondly, how can you POSSIBLY NOT WANT to read a book called, How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming. Great title. And as it turns out, great book. Brown writes well, doing it in a

Gary Mugfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12373692715883477861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7135378.post-33672874957799697402011-08-23T02:18:00.001-04:002011-08-23T02:18:00.481-04:00

This is the second of back-to-back reviews of Clive Cussler books today, getting ready for a skip day tomorrow. Read some of the details in the review below on Cussler's The Jungle. As Yogi Berra was fond of saying, "It's like deja vu all over again." That was the feeling when I loaded up Cussler's The Kingdom mere days after reading The Jungle. The story starts in ancient China .... That's

Gary Mugfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12373692715883477861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7135378.post-59925310497437716812011-08-23T01:25:00.002-04:002011-08-23T01:25:00.470-04:00

The first of two review today, both books coming from the best-seller production line overseen by Clive Cussler. I'm out and about tomorrow and experience has taught me I won't feel like doing too much when I get home. Ergo, the two reviews in a day idea. This first Cussler book follows the now familiar Cussler formula. Start eons in the past and have something of value vanish in the mists of

Gary Mugfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12373692715883477861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7135378.post-84476033107740452652011-08-22T01:12:00.000-04:002011-08-22T01:12:32.901-04:00

If I have some time to while away on gaming while on the computer, it's spent with Bridge or Scrabble. I've gotten through a reasonable number of screens on Angry Birds, but haven't fired it up in awhile (I'm stuck on a screen that requires using the boomerang birds effectively and that's ... well ... not ever going to happen). Occasionally I might play some mahjongg. That's it. No First Person

Gary Mugfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12373692715883477861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7135378.post-55449494209014808632011-08-21T00:53:00.000-04:002011-08-21T00:53:37.131-04:00

It's been almost two whole weeks since I reviewed a Jeffery Deaver book. Time for another one, one that doesn't star Lincoln Rhyme, or even Kathryn Dance for that matter. In what I hope will be the start of the new series, Deaver has hit a home run with Edge. Corte, one name, Corte. Oh, there are a couple of initials somewhere in some Justice Department database. Corte to his friends, Agent

Gary Mugfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12373692715883477861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7135378.post-86580585255999774092011-08-20T00:28:00.001-04:002011-08-21T00:58:17.205-04:00

Back for another dose of Jim C. Hines and for a second dose of his highly enjoyable fantasy series featuring Jig the Goblin. Goblin Hero has some goblin-sized warts being the second of a trilogy, but Jig's so .... I'd say adorable, but that's what the runt-size, near-sighted goblin hero happens to be. He's also my kind of guy/goblin. He's a coward. A highly-functioning, incredibly successful

Gary Mugfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12373692715883477861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7135378.post-51373064548339741432011-08-19T20:25:00.000-04:002011-08-19T20:25:08.440-04:00

How can you give a five-star rating to a book that doesn't really end? Well, that's the rating I've given the latest entry in the long-running military science fiction series by Jack Campbell. Technically titled The Lost Fleet: Beyond The Frontier: Dreadnaught, this seventh book overall is the first book in the BTF sub-series. Boy, that's a mouthful. All the elements that made the Lost Fleet

Gary Mugfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12373692715883477861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7135378.post-15504978043683492842011-08-18T21:23:00.000-04:002011-08-18T21:23:17.332-04:00

I reviewed the first of the Spellman books three years ago and gave it four out of five stars in my calibre database. I'm happy to report that that's the last Spellman book with such a low rating. The second book in the series by Lisa Lutz, Curse of the Spellmans, ups the ante to a five-star rating as you see the maturation of the author. Curse still has the artsy-fartsy layout, a mish-mash of

Gary Mugfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12373692715883477861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7135378.post-31101787911707051282011-08-17T21:48:00.000-04:002011-08-17T21:48:34.663-04:00

Like many a computer book these days, I first caught wind of the story behind Kingpin: How One Hacker Took Over the Billion-Dollar Cybercrime Underground in Wired. Kevin Poulsen, the author of the book, is a senior editor at Wired.com. Even in its short form, the story was fascinating. A lot of that has to do with Poulsen's background. He was a hacker. He understood the people and motivations

Gary Mugfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12373692715883477861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7135378.post-73094899150329797372011-08-16T05:44:00.000-04:002011-08-16T05:44:54.141-04:00

I'm a full series behind in reviewing Robert J. Sawyer's work, but time has not diminished my respect and admiration for the whole Neanderthal Parallax trilogy, especially the opening volume, Hominids. The Parallax part of the trilogy name comes from a parallel world. The Neanderthal, from the fact that 'over there,' in the battle for survival,  Neanderthals won out over Homo Sapiens Sapiens (

Gary Mugfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12373692715883477861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7135378.post-85312932707210439902011-08-15T22:14:00.004-04:002011-08-15T22:19:34.336-04:00

There are two sub-genres of fantasy that are always a tight-rope act as far as I'm concerned: magic and vampires. The problem is, it's always too easy to 'invent' new rules on the spot to get your hero/heroine out of whatever inescapable spot you've written them into. Rules are important and too few authors don't spend the effort to explain their rules early on and then keep to them during the

Gary Mugfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12373692715883477861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7135378.post-81173365512032864612011-08-14T00:42:00.000-04:002011-08-14T00:42:21.045-04:00

I hate cats. Yet, I read mysteries involving cats and enjoy them for the most part (Carole Nelson Douglas and Lillian Jackson Braun produce good mysteries that employ felines). I have pined for a long time for authors to get with it, and produce the like for man's best friend, dogs. Thank you Spencer Quinn. You've produced the doggie equivalent of Douglas's Midnight Louie series. Dog On It is the

Gary Mugfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12373692715883477861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7135378.post-68628374319429334132011-08-13T23:45:00.000-04:002011-08-13T23:45:09.232-04:00

I looked for Mike Resnick's Starship: Mutiny in paperback or ebook form for a long time. Patrick had gotten audio versions of this book and the next two books in the series and pronounced them as good as Jack Campbell's Lost Fleet books. Which is pretty fine praise. And Patrick was right. The stories are not too dissimilar between The Lost Fleet and the Starship series. An interstellar war going

Gary Mugfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12373692715883477861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7135378.post-60297287846456895922011-08-13T23:24:00.000-04:002011-08-13T23:24:53.734-04:00

I like Jim C. Hines' work. I raved about his first book in the Jig The Goblin series last July and there's another favourable review of the second book of that series coming up later this month. And here is the other series-starter he's famous for, The Stepsister Scheme. It's the lead-off to the so-called Princess novels. (The fourth and concluding book in that series was published not long ago).

Gary Mugfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12373692715883477861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7135378.post-65384145000948814222011-08-13T22:57:00.000-04:002011-08-13T22:57:14.616-04:00

I'm late, I'm late, off with my head. Would four reviews, however small do as a replacement penalty? Thank you for your leniency. I gobble up just about anything Malcolm Gladwell writes these days. I steer away from any analysis involving racial differences for reasons I've stated before. But anything else, my response is, "Please more, sir." And that love affair began with his most successful

Gary Mugfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12373692715883477861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7135378.post-87806480957881212772011-08-10T23:30:00.000-04:002011-08-10T23:30:57.361-04:00

It is said that hero is often measured by his enemies. Lincoln Rhyme has been dueling with the Watchmaker from his bedside for a few years now. And readers are very much the better off for the battles between the two. They certainly create the very best of the Rhyme books by Jeffery Deaver. So, it's not surprising that the latest Rhyme-Watchmaker battle, The Burning Wire, is good. Good enough to

Gary Mugfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12373692715883477861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7135378.post-70027514859349919882011-08-09T02:48:00.000-04:002011-08-09T02:48:29.232-04:00

If you've read my TV rankings you know I love the caper shows, the ones built around heists. I can tell you the moment I fell in love with heists up on the screen: watching really young Shirley Maclaine and equally young Michael Caine in Gambit, a 1966 heist movie that featured a perfect caper. Well, almost the perfect caper. And, almost a perfect movie. Not the best of the genre, but one I

Gary Mugfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12373692715883477861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7135378.post-24704720393903019992011-08-08T16:23:00.000-04:002011-08-08T16:23:06.707-04:00

There's been a long and rich history of covering songs in the music industry. Maybe the most successful was Whitney Houston's "I Will Always Love You" which covered a country ballad version originally by Dolly Parton. But there are a host of others, including covers by the original singer themselves. I think Neil Sedaka spent most of the seventies doing upbeat versions of his earlier songs, to

Gary Mugfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12373692715883477861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7135378.post-66761366005128395462011-08-07T06:26:00.000-04:002011-08-07T06:26:00.169-04:00

I'm stuck on the horns of dilemma. I promised a review of the latest Stephanie Plum book by Janet Evanovich, Smokin' Seventeen. And I said I'd be trotting out five-star reviews this month. And Smokin' Seventeen is not a five-star book. Closer to three than five, in fact. What to do, what to do? Well, since I've reviewed the last three books in the series in a timely fashion, I guess I have to

Gary Mugfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12373692715883477861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7135378.post-24746939202657576592011-08-06T00:35:00.000-04:002011-08-06T00:35:01.200-04:00

There once was a team in the NBA that strived to shoot as often as possible, as quickly as possible. Actually, there's been several, but the most recent team to give a try and come close to the  fairy-tale finish of winning the holy grail of the sport, a world championship, were the Phoenix Suns. And, as it happens, the last time 'Phoenix' and 'title contender' were uttered in the same breathe

Gary Mugfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12373692715883477861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7135378.post-20554425386666725032011-08-05T01:34:00.000-04:002011-08-05T01:34:06.489-04:00

Last week, I pondered the preponderance of outfield talent in the Toronto Blue Jay outfield, a fact I thought would never come to fruition at the start of the year. Back then, the local heroes of the diamond seemed ready to trot out an outfield of Travis Snider, Rajai Davis and Juan Rivera. And it got worse quickly as Davis got hurt and Corey Patterson was inserted into centre field. Yuck! I

Gary Mugfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12373692715883477861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7135378.post-33679156350881415162011-08-05T00:17:00.000-04:002011-08-05T00:17:01.486-04:00

The Fifth Witness, Michael Connelly's fourth entry in incredibly enjoyable Mickey Haller series of legal thrillers, is a book for the times. Torn, in part, from the financial headlines of the last three years, the book shows that something of a good eduction can be obtained from reading fiction. Connelly takes great pains to take the pain out of explaining the nasty business of home foreclosure

Gary Mugfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12373692715883477861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7135378.post-60375755259562592722011-08-04T19:02:00.000-04:002011-08-04T19:02:02.760-04:00

Regular readers, or make that, the regular reader in Europe, will be familiar with the travails of my annual renewal of the license stickers for my car. I've had my car break down in the Ministry of Transport parking lot (numerous times) resulting in car-tows (numerous times). I've been sick enough that I placed the newly-purchased sticker on the wrong car. I've arrived with the form from the

Gary Mugfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12373692715883477861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7135378.post-7694570691373347842011-08-04T00:16:00.000-04:002011-08-04T00:16:22.768-04:00

It's going to be a movie in a theatre near you not too long from now. If you're my friend Patrick, you probably won't be going, because it can't possibly represent the whole book. But I have to admit, I'm looking forward to seeing Oscar nominee (and sexy blue X-Men) Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss, the start of Suzanne Collins' wildly popular novel, The Hunger Games. This review will also serve as

Gary Mugfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12373692715883477861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7135378.post-65892483228387304252011-08-03T03:09:00.001-04:002011-08-03T03:09:00.248-04:00

Keigo Higashino's The Devotion of Suspect X is my new favourite book. I tell everybody I know to read it and so far, everybody has the same complaint that I do. Why aren't the other books in the series been translated into English? The mystery takes place in Tokyo and matches the wiles of a high school math teacher with an assistant professor, nicknamed Detective Galileo. The whole series is

Gary Mugfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12373692715883477861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7135378.post-1215900465559176882011-08-02T02:21:00.000-04:002011-08-02T02:21:00.208-04:00

Don't even think about reading this book if you haven't watched at least the eighth and final season of  the Monk TV series. It's probably a good idea to read at least some of the preceding ten books in the Adrian Monk series by Lee Goldberg. Assuming you've had all that fun (and I dearly loved the TV series and continue to love this book series), then read ahead in this review. You've been

Gary Mugfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12373692715883477861noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7135378.post-42900838752036045712011-08-01T01:44:00.002-04:002011-08-01T01:44:00.255-04:00

I'm envious of anybody who can write about both sides of a skirmish and have the sides each think the writer was supporting their side. I think Bill Carter's done that with his latest investigation into the phenomena known as Late Night TV. Carter's original examination, The Late Shift, detailed how Jay Leno won the coveted spot as successor Johnny Carson over David Letterman. I read SO many

Gary Mugfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12373692715883477861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7135378.post-82742683040513160952011-07-31T03:39:00.000-04:002011-07-31T03:39:37.102-04:00

I've got one editor stomping his foot at me to write. I've got companies wanting me to write program code. I've got books to read and TV DVD's to watch. Naturally, I've decided to get out a bunch of five-star book reviews over the next four and a half weeks. Really, I've got 106 books listed as five-star entries in my Calibre database and I've only reviewed 26 of them in this blog. So, I'm

Gary Mugfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12373692715883477861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7135378.post-26049457381647965472011-07-28T16:16:00.001-04:002011-07-28T16:16:00.075-04:00

If you're going to retire and want to go out on a bang, it's hard to argue with the denouement of Bob Watson's pro lacrosse career. Earlier this year, Whipper Watson led the Toronto Rock to the National Lacrosse League championship, avenging last year's final loss to the Washington Stealth. For Watson, it was a chance for a ring for his other thumb, having earlier lead the Rock to five titles.

Gary Mugfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12373692715883477861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7135378.post-5932559606681608772011-07-28T00:17:00.001-04:002011-07-31T03:52:41.167-04:00

Today's trades by the ever-interesting Alex Anthopoulos have certainly created a most surprising situation in Toronto. The Blue Jays now have too many outfielders of decent quality!! That was my concern earlier this year when I contemplated an outfield of Travis Snider, Rajai Davis and Juan Rivera. I just shuddered thinking again of the defensive inabilities of that particular trio would have

Gary Mugfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12373692715883477861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7135378.post-78584439937060177932011-07-26T04:03:00.002-04:002011-07-26T04:11:37.558-04:00

Danny Ioannidis, The Golden Macedonian, pulled me out of retirement for a day of pairs play at the North American Bridge Championships going on this week (and last) in Toronto at the Royal York and the Sheraton Hotels. And, while the results showed we topped the C Flight in both the opening Open Pairs and the Education Foundation Pairs last Thursday, the fact is Danny and I had our first below

Gary Mugfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12373692715883477861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7135378.post-80285310537493839452011-07-24T18:07:00.001-04:002011-07-24T18:09:48.832-04:00

My search for a tablet/pad has taken more than a year to come to an end. But the end is in sight. Within a month (not THE month), I will finally buy a tablet to add to the computer population here at the Castle of Confusion. A while back, I basically came to the conclusion that I would await the arrival of the Samsung 10.1 Galaxy Tab come hell or high water. I didn't want an Apple iPad2 for

Gary Mugfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12373692715883477861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7135378.post-80103881461019139782011-07-19T05:20:00.000-04:002011-07-19T05:20:30.133-04:00

... a mixture of the best and the worst. First, the BEST! An early start with nice words from an editor for my novel. Later, a relatively peaceful and quiet mid-day. Birthday treats in the form of TWO serving containers of lemon tarts (no meringue, naturally). And then I scored pretty good in the gift department, with the O'Neills doing the presentation. Another of the APC Pro 1000 Back-UPS was

Gary Mugfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12373692715883477861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7135378.post-70198060887716347092011-07-18T00:13:00.000-04:002011-07-18T00:13:22.618-04:00

The ten shows that made my day when they were on the air. Not necessarily the best ten shows. Just the ones I watched and got the most enjoyment out of.  Dontcha just love the tortured syntax of that last line? Without further ado, my Top 10 (in reverse order): #10 Burn Notice (#6 2009-10, #6 2008-09, #5 2007-08) It's tough on heist shows, even when disguised as spy romps, to introduce new

Gary Mugfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12373692715883477861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7135378.post-4436183665420873272011-07-16T04:09:00.001-04:002011-07-16T04:09:00.097-04:00

A day to go before the day before my birthday and the official end of the 2010-2011 TV viewing season. Continuing from yesterday’s countdown with the 20-11 ranked shows in giving me entertainment over the last year. #20 The Mentalist (#15 2009-2010) I wanted to award this show a higher honour. Afterall, shouldn’t there be something for nailing Red John? Assuming Bradley Whitford’s Red John was

Gary Mugfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12373692715883477861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7135378.post-81071884151720565102011-07-15T06:17:00.000-04:002011-07-15T06:17:01.002-04:00

Well, it’s the time of the year when I look back fondly at what entertained me on the television (and the internet) over the last year. As usual, the list is in reverse-order and today’s posting covers shows 25 through 21. As always, I make no claim that this list is the last word in what’s best for the last TV Season. Just what I found entertaining. Your mileage may vary. When I threw all the

Gary Mugfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12373692715883477861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7135378.post-65267401889787624382011-06-24T16:29:00.000-04:002011-06-24T16:29:23.791-04:00

I have a problem with Firefox 4.01. It crashes. Randomly. With an error that something like less than two percent of all Firefox users encounter. And Mozilla can't identify the cause and, as a result, fix it. My main hope was that with the release of v5 earlier this week, the deck chairs would have been re-arranged enough so that the cure would occur through serendipity. Well, to this moment, no

Gary Mugfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12373692715883477861noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7135378.post-42150871666939521712011-06-22T12:31:00.000-04:002011-06-22T12:31:32.445-04:00

The NBA Draft is 30 something hours away when I write this. The Toronto Raptors, in need of anybody who thinks defence first, and who might turn into an NBA All-Star, have the fifth pick. And I think the team should (and will, if given the opportunity) select a player who won't play for them this upcoming season. Jonas Valanciunas. Why? Well, the team isn't going to go from dog days to top dog

Gary Mugfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12373692715883477861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7135378.post-56937157501010796722011-06-13T03:55:00.000-04:002011-06-13T03:55:29.713-04:00

Much is being made today of the juvenile antics of LeBron James and Dwayne Wade. First, there was the little celebration in Game Two that was JUST a tad premature. Up 15 and dancing seemed to spur on the Dallas Mavericks who managed to come back and win the game, en route to actually winning the NBA Championship last night. And there was the equally juvenile mocking James and Wade were caught on

Gary Mugfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12373692715883477861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7135378.post-51932830985033091982011-06-06T23:31:00.001-04:002011-06-06T23:31:00.223-04:00

Being out and about 'cuz I had a visit with the guys in the white coats, and their enforcers, physiotherapists, I came perilously close to buying an iPad2 today. General cheapness, a hatred for being told what to do and too much work and too little time to do it all combined to rescue me from my potential giving in to the dark side of Steve Jobs. The morning started with word that Kno had put

Gary Mugfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12373692715883477861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7135378.post-40913827511253135792011-06-01T00:31:00.001-04:002011-06-24T16:39:14.040-04:00

Of late, too many conversations I have on the phone include this, "I think I have a virus on my computer..." Arrrggghhhhh!!!! Well, mostly, they are correct. And nervous I'm going to come through the phone and shake them silly. And yes, as Archie Bunker was fond of saying, I have to just 'STIFLE!' A good percentage, I fob off onto Patrick and he's dealing with them, plus his own legion of

Gary Mugfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12373692715883477861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7135378.post-23694480799991632402011-05-23T10:17:00.000-04:002011-05-23T10:17:33.500-04:00

The internet runs on passwords. And you need a password SYSTEM these days, thanks to the less than stellar minds at the Sony Playstation Network. Well, Sony and the other security-challenged sites that have fallen before them. The trick with a SYSTEM is that it has to be something you can easily remember, yet complex enough to create passwords that are hard to break. PLUS, you have to revise

Gary Mugfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12373692715883477861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7135378.post-31568536706623620402011-05-20T08:39:00.000-04:002011-05-20T08:39:40.819-04:00

May I suggest, AGAIN, an alternative to the current morass that is the inter-league play arrangement in Major League baseball. The last remaining person who likes it is Bud Selig, and I'm not so sure he actually IS holding out. Certainly, any arrangement that foists two-game series (like the Tiger, Ray and Red Sox series of the past fortnight) on fans is NOT a good idea. Anymore. So, I offer a

Gary Mugfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12373692715883477861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7135378.post-34253095160798351832011-05-17T18:57:00.000-04:002011-05-17T18:57:55.779-04:00

[WARNING: LONG POSTING AHEAD, RAMBLINGS AND A HOW-TO INVOLVED] THE RAMBLING PRE-AMBLE We all depend waaaaay too much on email for communications these days (well except for Angela and the rest of the tweet/SMS/IM-obsessed teens). I don't tweet (too limiting, since I'm the Verbiage King ... never send a 140 characters when a full page of ruminations will do) and I don't have a cell phone, so none

Gary Mugfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12373692715883477861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7135378.post-68173748388386110782011-05-14T06:38:00.000-04:002011-05-14T06:38:07.578-04:00

A little late, but what the heck, it's not like anybody expects Blogger and Blogspot to be up ALL the time. Or do you? At any rate, this blog was written during the Blog-out. I've changed the references, but I can't guarantee Sun Media still has Steve Buffery's post still available. Steve Buffery's post Thursday should be read by everybody. And by some people twice. Although, I suspect a year

Gary Mugfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12373692715883477861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7135378.post-3430738827288994952011-05-08T20:00:00.000-04:002011-05-08T20:00:24.079-04:00

Not having a Twitter account, on account of my having a severe case of pleonasm, here are some thoughts that might have been tweets ... if I could have edited myself even more. So, here's some sports, magazine and food observations, ending Mother's Day with an ode to the greatest woman who ever lived. Was it THREE decades ago that I stood in a cold Varsity Arena in Toronto talking to the

Gary Mugfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12373692715883477861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7135378.post-10242498348873501692011-05-06T10:06:00.000-04:002011-05-06T10:06:45.931-04:00

Any reader here will know how low my opinion of Chris Bosh has dropped. I was ALWAYS in favour of trading the guy cuz I thought he was over-rated. But I thought he was a good guy and a fringy all-star. Third team all-star. But, of course, his actions last summer more or less revealed just how shallow he was behind the clever wit. And his play this year evidenced itself pretty well. The Miami

Gary Mugfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12373692715883477861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7135378.post-19717263767396368112011-05-04T20:51:00.001-04:002011-05-04T20:51:00.745-04:00

It's been a couple of days and I still find myself thinking ahead to a bleak future. I share some ancestry with CBC pundit Rex Murphy, but I don't share his calm, as he dismissed anti-Stephen Harper zealots on Strombo the other night. He thinks people who think the worst of Harper and what he calls the Secret Agenda are working as fervently on their fiction as is Margaret Atwood. While I respect

Gary Mugfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12373692715883477861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7135378.post-31914670057964684442011-05-01T13:11:00.000-04:002011-05-01T13:11:39.137-04:00

Come Monday night, Peter Mansbridge will be telling me how I will feel for ohhhh, about the next two years. The most dreadful words he could say, of course, are Conservative Majority. That's when I do what I can to hit the lottery and move out of this country, one that has lost its way in casting its lot with the worst possible man to lead the nation. Or ... we might have another

Gary Mugfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12373692715883477861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7135378.post-46879206199011046222011-04-28T23:43:00.006-04:002011-05-01T12:41:51.665-04:00

My Christmas tree came down tonight. Christmas concluded for me when the folks finally made it up to Brampton last week to drop off PJ's and Peanut Butter Cookies, plus get their Christmas swag. That closed Christmas. And tonight, Angela and Megan took down the tree ... which, for some reason, they kept referring to as The Easter Tree.  They'll be putting the tree back up in about seven and a

Gary Mugfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12373692715883477861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7135378.post-79560161267084480422011-04-27T12:43:00.000-04:002011-04-27T12:43:00.253-04:00

I haven't checked this out on Quincy, which runs Win7 and Firefox 4.0, but I have to admit to being a bit angry about a recent downgrade upgrade from The Electronic Frontier Foundation for the MUST-HAVE security add-on HTTPS-Everywhere. At least, I had to do some finagling to stop version 0.9.5 of the add-on for my Firefox 3.6x version running on Popeye, the WinXP machine from making my life

Gary Mugfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12373692715883477861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7135378.post-89329567390174107142011-04-14T14:08:00.000-04:002011-04-14T14:08:42.717-04:00

Carlos Delgado officially retired yesterday and talk of his Hall of Fame chances commenced immediately. I think it's a stretch to say he's border-line to become a member of baseball's hallowed hall. But it's not inconceivable that he will be enshrined. He's one of my absolute favourite human beings on this planet and even the crusty old baseball writer's cabal would admit that. In fact, it might

Gary Mugfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12373692715883477861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7135378.post-37663709760540169032011-04-07T11:45:00.000-04:002011-04-07T11:45:53.714-04:00

I've been going through my Freeware Installer Disk, doing some updating, some pruning and some documenting. I really believe that it's quite possible to run a full and rich Windows computer using just freeware and open source software. Being a power user, I've got more than a few paid applications, but I'm not the normal profile. Not even close to one. One of the programs I decided to prune away

Gary Mugfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12373692715883477861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7135378.post-20425290651988459922011-03-27T13:35:00.000-04:002011-03-27T13:35:23.693-04:00

Well, the easiest answer is ... like too many of us, unemployed. Certainly a work stoppage does threaten the NBA. Which might or might not be a bad thing for the Toronto Raptors. The new landscape come fall (or whenever) might turn Toronto's pending salary landfall into a bonanza. The Raps will be under the cap and have some pieces that might combine with just the right incoming talent to become

Gary Mugfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12373692715883477861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7135378.post-29125677590386233142011-03-24T11:47:00.002-04:002011-03-24T12:21:28.642-04:00

I visit a lot of sites daily. Right now the total is 130. Add in links on those pages, the total goes to maybe 175. Google Reader checks another 80 or so sites, multiple times a day. While I scan over the Google Reader headlines, I click on maybe another 80 a day in total (George Strombolopoulos accounts for a good half-dozen a day himself). So, rounding off, maybe I look at 250 sites a day.

Gary Mugfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12373692715883477861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7135378.post-83097200485931621092011-03-21T19:59:00.000-04:002011-03-21T19:59:16.342-04:00

I got rid of Bell Canada last week, the culmination of about a month of maneuvering to get that carbuncle off my back-side. I despise Ma Bell to the point that the unremitting villianess of the book I am writing is called Belle Rogers. (That Rogers is the last name is no coincidence, but in the battle between the ultimately unlikeable and the astounding awful, I've chosen to keep Rogers rather

Gary Mugfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12373692715883477861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7135378.post-2759613322150607622011-03-15T03:48:00.000-04:002011-03-15T03:48:01.184-04:00

Stop me if you've heard this before ... Duke will win the NCAA Men's Basketball Championship early in April. And they'll beat my perennial final four pick Kansas in the final. And Ohio State, a past champion, and the good-this-century Pittsburgh Panthers will also be in Houston for the Final Four. All four teams enter the tournament as number one seeds, which was a curse ... until last year. So

Gary Mugfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12373692715883477861noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7135378.post-27622933657670584692011-03-14T11:25:00.000-04:002011-03-14T11:25:00.612-04:00

Last week, the Toronto Star's website ran a story about a new soft helmet to be worn by baseball pitchers. It was modeled by a young lad who fractured his skull when a pitch he threw came back at him courtesy of a line drive off a metal bat. This helmet is a prototype and will be available sooner or later, although sooner equates to about two, maybe three years. Sooner than sooner would be

Gary Mugfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12373692715883477861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7135378.post-47411429996812555252011-02-22T11:42:00.000-05:002011-02-22T11:42:23.005-05:00

I remember waaaaay back to the dawn of my eReader age (it was 11 months ago), I pooh-poohed the Kindle due to a lack of page numbers. I looked at the Sony PRS-300 before giving it to Dawna. Seemed IT had page numbers. The Kobo's I gave my Mom and AJ had page numbers (although I thought they were footnote numbers first). Later, after trying the Kobo for about six weeks, I discovered I wasn't

Gary Mugfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12373692715883477861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7135378.post-67381143988126423432011-02-22T10:33:00.000-05:002011-02-22T10:33:05.248-05:00

Here's hoping Karma has a heap of ill luck awaiting Carmelo Anthony, James Dolan and Isiah Thomas. Break a leg Carmelo. As I once wrote to Baron Davis, the author of a similarly distasteful exit from a team, REALLY, BREAK A LEG. You're a jerk and a stupid one at that. Do you REALLY think your 'handling' of your selfish trade demand TO the Knicks was better than Chris Bosh's polite (but

Gary Mugfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12373692715883477861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7135378.post-72756439869411221522011-02-19T19:35:00.000-05:002011-02-19T19:35:18.119-05:00

We're headed for an election. It's not declared as of yet, but I got a call out of the blue from the local Conservative Party today wanting to talk. A curt, "I don't talk politics." ended the phone call, although the political operative was cordial in ending the phone call. I lied. I'm mad as hell. Now, I don't actually say to anybody, friends, family or the rest of the population of Canada who

Gary Mugfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12373692715883477861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7135378.post-60485191164642604092011-02-17T12:00:00.000-05:002011-02-17T12:00:13.966-05:00

It looks like a mere 65 million dollars, spread out over 5 years, is enough to make Jose Bautista a Blue Jay for most of the rest of this decade. There's an option for a sixth season at the average stipend of $13M. Which means the then 36 year old Bautista will have banked more $80M in his Blue Jay career. And there might still be some gas in the tank even then. Wouldn't be a shock at all if he

Gary Mugfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12373692715883477861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7135378.post-27982722794952231842011-02-16T18:36:00.000-05:002011-02-16T18:36:26.704-05:00

Tonight's the night that Chris Bosh comes back to town with the Miami Hated Heat for a 'showdown' with the Toronto Raptors. And he brings with him a bag of mixed feelings, a trait shared by a lot of fans. He's going to get booed hard. And long. Vince Carter-despising long. And, if I was in attendance, I'd probably give it a good belch of air during the introductions and the first time he touched

Gary Mugfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12373692715883477861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7135378.post-26492085088322895292011-02-16T18:13:00.000-05:002011-02-16T18:13:59.163-05:00

But not because my native lack of patience is rising to the fore. In fact, I WILL wait patiently for a little while longer. But not much longer. Cuz the tablet of my dreams will soon be coming to the Castle of Confusion to join my merry little band of computers. The tablet wars reached another level with the Mobile World Congress over in Barcelona the past week. I'm starting to think that there

Gary Mugfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12373692715883477861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7135378.post-88183114352099313262011-02-07T09:57:00.000-05:002011-02-07T09:57:55.414-05:00

Down south of the border, Americans were treated to a variety of good (and some not so good) commercials during last night's Super Bowl. Here in Canada? We got a bunch of propagandist claptrap from the Conservative Party and/or the Government of Canada touting the accomplishments (sic) of head honcho Stevie Harper and the downfalls of liberal head Mike Ignatieff. Overlooking the fact that most

Gary Mugfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12373692715883477861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7135378.post-62231978315527999762011-02-02T11:50:00.001-05:002011-02-02T12:57:40.272-05:00

I don't NEED a tablet computer. Heck, I'll be spending too much time this month setting up Quincy, my new nifty main desktop computer to replace Popeye (who gets the secondary job of doing backups and other housekeeping chores on my network .. replacing Nuklon ... which seems headed to become a media server down beside the big TV in the living room). That replacement process and my ongoing

Gary Mugfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12373692715883477861noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7135378.post-40596434468330575572011-01-30T08:08:00.000-05:002011-01-30T08:08:20.261-05:00

I wanted to comment at the Toronto Sun on today's Steve Simmons column at the web-site. Turns out, you have to log into Facebook to comment. It's a cheap tactic to drive the Sun's Facebook site numbers. Well, nuts to that. Steve takes on the lunacy of last man standing at the All-Star Draft, his expectations that the Blue Jays are due for a worse year than last and his hesitation to label Ben

Gary Mugfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12373692715883477861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7135378.post-71148023346471427292011-01-29T19:15:00.000-05:002011-01-29T19:15:41.305-05:00

I was reading a column by a noted SF writer who shall remain nameless because he's so right wing and idiotic about it, I feel constrained against giving him any publicity whatsoever. Plus, I'm more than a little ashamed of myself for reading his column during my Saturday stroll through websites I only visit once a week. This week, he wrote about keyboards and his own family's keyboarding history

Gary Mugfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12373692715883477861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7135378.post-61818125614891532492011-01-27T07:30:00.000-05:002011-01-27T07:30:46.879-05:00

With Wayne Gretzky, one of the two greatest hockey players who ever laced on the skates, stories are aplenty. Many of them were told yesterday on the occasion of the Great One's 50th birthday. So, I'm a day late with this story and best wishes for Gretz as he heads into his second half-century. Gretzky was hardly unknown in these parts as he was growing up. He was a regular participant in the

Gary Mugfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12373692715883477861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7135378.post-45908277642333241442011-01-22T08:19:00.001-05:002011-01-22T08:23:47.694-05:00

Vernon Wells is gone and some idiots have hit the web, all demonstrating a complete and utter ignorance that brings shame to Toronto Blue Jay fandom. The common rant, replete with spelling errors, is that Wells was an overpaid bum, usually with a bunch of other scathing innuendo thrown in for bad measure. Here's a fact. Vernon Wells has been fairly well underpaid in his Blue Jay career. I'd cite

Gary Mugfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12373692715883477861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7135378.post-24682197144481160812011-01-20T09:51:00.000-05:002011-01-20T09:51:22.111-05:00

I tried, I really, really tried. But I just can't commit to using Google Chrome as my main web browser. I have a fully tricked out Chrome 8 working and portable test versions of Chrome 9 and Chrome 10. But there is just TOO much missing to make me switch. And as for Firefox 4, coming out next month, the answer is nooooooo. Let's figure out why I'm not making the switch to FF4. First, if I wanted

Gary Mugfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12373692715883477861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7135378.post-58483304068450640382011-01-20T08:47:00.000-05:002011-01-20T08:47:36.048-05:00

One of the last vestiges of the Ricciardi/Godfrey regime of the Toronto Blue Jays is the atrocious logo and those awful, let's do black like everybody else, uniforms. And it's just not me that decries the logo. Jim Caple, the ESPN Page 2 columnist, ran down the logo's in an article at ESPN yesterday. And he has particular scorn for the Jays' logo. Read all about it at ESPN. Now, I have to say

Gary Mugfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12373692715883477861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7135378.post-48080289070068272442011-01-15T07:45:00.000-05:002011-01-15T07:45:42.917-05:00

I continue to be utterly contemptuous of the decision-makers at Molson's and HydroOne that created this idiotic attack on citizens from Hamilton to my backyard and beyond in the middle of winter. The lack of forethought on DOING the transfer of these humongous vats to the Molson's facility in Etobicoke at this time of the year has to rate high on the scale of stupidity run amok. And the inability

Gary Mugfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12373692715883477861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7135378.post-77469116107105220212011-01-15T07:35:00.001-05:002011-01-15T07:35:46.270-05:00

A month of psychological terror has come to an end. No longer will I wonder if tonight is the night HydroOne, the gawdforsaken travesty of an electrical monopoly will suddenly, and without adequate warning, turn my power off, leaving me without light and warmth. All so Molson's, the brew king, can haul their gigantic overseas-made vats past my backyard while travelling from Hamilton to Etobicoke.

Gary Mugfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12373692715883477861noreply@blogger.com0