Old as dirt. Twice as gritty.
Asylum for me
For over a year, Jim and I kept our television unplugged and unwatched. Not one movie or TV show played before our delicate eyeballs. Upon our return to the...
Oh no! Mercury's being bad
We live in perilous times, and never more so than now, with Mercury pulling a retrograde number on us. The retrograde Mercury gig, well-known among...
Winter is a meme
So, you’re looking out at the sunshine, and when you see the words ‘winter is a meme’, you’re thinking, “Umm, no . . . no thanks....
How to write a column
So, you’ve been thinking about writing a column. You’re muttering, “That Jo Slade, what a bunch of garbage she writes. Each lousy word is like...
The dog ate my column
Okay, so I had a 2000-word column ready to go today, OMG it was a beauty. Best work I’ve ever done, actually. It was a story of hope and beauty mixed with...
Keeping abreast of Lori
Here we are, at a downtown sidewalk café for early-morning fried eggs and beer. My companion, the now-famous columnist and radio personality Lori...
The Castanet conniptions
I did something this past week that has all but destroyed the peace and tranquility of a large group of people. Did I murder someone? No. Did I rob them blind?...
The neighbourhood catwalk
For the past five years or so, I have enjoyed the occasional and highly questionable pastime of sitting in the car (or on a bench or at a sidewalk cafe) to...
Kristofferson
There are two kinds of interviews one might possibly conduct with singer/songwriter/actor Kris Kristofferson. One is real, the other not so much. My goal is to...
Ina gadda da craft beer
When I first met Jim, which was something like 100 years ago (oh, close enough. . . it is ten years shy of 1/2 of that) (that sounds complicated, but...
The full hipster
I am not a hipster. I’m far too old, too uncool, and really, just too tired. But that doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy them. What exactly is a...
A poundkeeper's story
One day I get a call from an elderly lady about a little dog on the loose. We went - there was this tiny little Shihtzu, scared to death. We couldn't get...
Word-smartaleckiness
My daughter, Heather, likes to torment me by sprinkling the following two terms throughout email messages: ‘forsure’ and ...
Minds untucked
So, I belong to a secret group on Facebook. The group is set to secret because it is filled with extremely inappropriate, offensive, rude, insulting,...
I swear
It’s sad but it’s true: I sometimes swear like a trooper, or maybe it’s more like a sailor. In fact, I could make a sailor blush with the...
Online lunacy
I tend to think I’m crazy, but have come to realize that I have serious competition in that department. The Internet is chock-full of absolutely crazy...
Mouldering bookmarks
Today’s column is about organization, specifically organization of your browser. Not to show off, but my browser bookmark organization is second to none,...
When I grow up
When I was a kid, I sometimes wondered what I’d end up doing when I grew up. The decades passed, and each decade brought the same question back to mind,...
It's boosterism, baby
You’ll have to excuse the wet spots all over this column, they are from the tears I’ve shed since learning the painful news today. Please keep calm...
Sound of music
Sound of music, sound of talking, sound of cards shuffling, sound of silence; these are a few of the sounds in our house these days. The missing sound? The...