Maggie Siggins, author of A Canadian Tragedy: Colin and Jo Ann Thatcher, had this to say about Colin, the just-paroled murderer, on CBC Radio's As It Happens:

He's living in Regina in a half-way house, which is where I live ...

I didn't know that Maggie had recently done time. But I'm delighted she's out and that her and Colin are trying to rejoin society! :)

The accompanying text:

Edge Designs is an all-women-run company that designs interior office space. They had a recent opportunity to do an office project in NYC. The client allowed the women of this company a free hand in all design aspects.

The client was a company that was also run by all women execs.

The result?

Well, we all know that men never talk and never look at each other, and never laugh much in the restroom. The men's room is a serious and quiet place.

But now, with the addition of one mural on the wall, let's just say the men's restroom is a place of laughter and smiles!

Laughter and smiles? Men's washrooms are a place of business. Serious, serious business that requires a great deal of concentration and attention to the matter at hand (hence the quiet). And nobody will use the one with the camera in front.

(Thanks, Harvey!)

I tried to give my mom a call this evening.

I looked up Edmonton's weather conditions on a website. The current temperature is -19 C, and is expected to drop to -22 tonight.

That will be the daytime high in Edmonton next Tuesday and Wednesday, with overnight lows of -33 and -35 expected.

Today's daytime high in T.O. was +8. We are expected to stay in positive double digits through to next Thursday, with next Wednesday having a predicted high of +14.

Since I once lived in Regina,  I looked up the temperatures there. Wednesday's overnight low is predicted to be -40.

As one of my buddies who still lives there recently put it, "Yeah, but we're tougher than you latte-sippers."

You would have to be, wouldn't you? :)

Personally, I don't mind living in a place where one can enjoy a late-November espresso outdoors without risking death by hypothermia. :)

Check out the promotional video for the UriLift, the answer to the problem of rampant public urination by hard-drinking men. (h/t to Herr Speicher)

This NYT story looks at the case of a New York state corrections officer who got punted from a gym -- under police escort -- for grunting while lifting weights.

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From the NYT:

CHANCES are that in the last week someone has irritated you by standing too close, talking too loud or making eye contact for too long. They have offended you with the high-pitched shrill emanating from the earphones of their iPod or by spreading their legs unnecessarily wide on a packed subway car.

But what makes you feel hostile toward “close talkers,” as the show “Seinfeld” dubbed people who get within necking distance of you when they speak? Or toward strangers who stand very near to you on line? Or toward people who take the bathroom stall next to yours when every other one is available?

Communications scholars began studying personal space and people’s perception of it decades ago, in a field known as proxemics. But with the population in the United States climbing above 300 million, urban corridors becoming denser and people with wealth searching for new ways to separate themselves from the masses, interest in the issue of personal space — that invisible force field around your body — is intensifying.

IPods playing too loud, eh? Which reminds me of this TTC meltdown.

For the Russian plutocrat in a hurry, there's nothing like a faux motorcade with flashing blue lights to make the hoi polloi get out of your way.

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Tofino, B.C., on the west coast of Vancouver Island, used to be a hangout for hippies and surfers. Real people logged the forests and fished in the ocean.

But with movies booming in Vancouver and the little town only a 35-minute flight by Lear Jet, the Beautiful People have discovered it. And land values are a-soarin'.

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Two of the drunken frat boys filmed in a motorhome sequence in Borat claim they were duped and are suing 20th Century Fox and three production companies.

Did I mention Borat made $26.5 million last weekend? :)

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