The cold night air swept in through the partially open doorway, chilling me through my modest t-shirt, as the Greenpeace volunteer yammered on about bears and whales. I could hear the clatter of my wife starting on dinner, snug and cozy back in the kitchen, no doubt reflecting on my rotten luck. “Sucker,”she was probably…

For some reason, I’m at my most prolific while driving. Forget sitting in an office, parked in front of a laptop. Give me my Q7 and a nice long drive. Case in point - after agonizing over this script for days, I wrote five pages today while motoring around the city. No phone calls or…

Pursuant to yesterday’s Olympic tirade comes word out of Montreal that, after 30 years, the city has finally paid off the cost of its Olympic stadium. Congratulations to all those who helped make Opération Elephant Blanc such a rousing success.   The news didn’t do much to inspire the dogs who are clearly resting up…

The Winter Olympics are coming (God help us)! Only four short years before we can once again thrill to world-class displays of athletic prowess in events such as curling, the bobsled, and the skeleton. Move over football and baseball. Here come sports that the every day individual can relate to. What child hasn’t dreamed of…

I read online today that a woman in Canada presently holds the record of “second oldest living woman” at 115 years. These milestones always make me think back to my own grandmother who passed away at the ripe old age of 112, remaining lucid to the very end, always firm in her belief that she…

Incredibly, in spite of what some have described as my “alarming eating habits”, I’ve managed to shed 10 lbs since leaving for my Asia trip. And I accomplished this without the benefit of working out. I owe it all to The Snake Soup Diet. It’s an amazingly quick and easy way to lose weight. No…

I woke up at 3:00 a.m., this despite the fact that my alarm clock was not set to go off for another five hours. I lay in bed, patiently waiting for sleep to overtake me, all the while thinking: “Okay, if I fall asleep now, I can still salvage another five hours.” And later: “Okay,…

I’ve always been a firm believer that you can’t teach someone to be a writer. Sure, anyone can be taught the basic mechanics of writing, but talent is something you don’t gain from a book or by attending a couple of seminars taught by the guy who scripted Airbud IX: Check-Mutt. A class in creative…

I still haven’t quite got the hang of this “sleeping” thing. I thought I did. Two nights ago, I fell asleep at 10:00 p.m. and didn’t wake up until 10:00 a.m. Twelve hours, uninterrupted! Now THAT is how the professionals do it! Unfortunately, last night’s session wasn’t quite as successful. I fell asleep at 11:00…

“Every time I try to get out, they keep pulling me back in.” A phrase that could apply to a gangster struggling to go straight, but would really be more appropriate to a television producer trying to enjoy some time off between seasons. When the doorbell rang this morning and I spied the courier through…

Evidently 14 hours of sleep isn’t going to get me back on track. I went to bed at 2 a.m., woke up at 4:00 a.m., and never fell back asleep. I’ve lost all sense of time - exhausted by mid-afternoon, alert at midnight, famished at 5:00 a.m. To be honest, I haven’t felt this disoriented…

I woke up this morning feeling refreshed, revitalized, and downright ravenous for breakfast. How easy was that? Here I’d been, worried about the effects of the time-change, imagining I’d be sleeping all day and awake all night, my internal clock thoroughly screwed. But I’d powered through. Even though I was exhausted, I’d refused to allow…

With the possible exception of a cold forest floor on a rainy night with the deranged serial killer closing in, an airplane is probably the last place you want to be sleeping. It’s too bright, it’s too noisy, and the seats are possessed of these unfathomable bumps and indents that seem to target the unlikeliest…

Good news! I`m able to squeeze in one more blog entry before leaving　Japan thanks to my foresight in bringing along my laptop, the convenience of the airport internet lounge, and good old-fashioned Air Canada incompetence that has seen our flight delayed by three and a half hours.We had intended to wake up early this morning…

There’s a lot to be said for leaving your fate in someone else’s hands. More often than not, it means you’ll suffer less research, preparation, and planning with the added bonus of having somebody else to blame if something goes wrong. Conversely, those who choose a more proactive approach have the satisfaction of knowing that…