Lately, I’ve been following the tweets and Facebook updates from the folks out at Beau’s with mild trepidation. You see, on Wednesday, the award-winning eastern Ontario brewery announced the release of its limited edition “Bogfather” beer. They’ve only committed to releasing 1,000 bottles of the latest edition in their Wild Oats series, and when I […]

Let’s all send warm thoughts Eugene Haslam’s way. The well-known owner of Zaphod Beeblebrox and recent city council candidate had been dropping hints over Twitter for the past few weeks that he’d been hospitalized, and on Tuesday Haslam revealed the reason behind that hospital stay: complications from a stroke. Turns out Haslam fell ill in […]

Some of you might be thinking, hey, how can you call this the second part of the SUMMER music preview when, past 48 hours notwithstanding, it’s been cool and rainy nearly every day for the past six weeks? To which I answer: because we already called the first part a summer music preview.  You do […]

Full disclosure: I’m not, and probably never will be, a strict vegetarian. While I really do respect those who make an ethical decision not to consume animals or animal byproducts, I’m just not that strong. What can I say, the price of my soul is about equal to a pound of locally-butchered bacon. However, as […]

My relationship with nature is, shall we say, complex. I love conservatories, biospheres, insectariums – essentially anywhere I can observe its multifaceted wonders from a plexiglass-mediated distance, safe in the knowledge I will not be stung, injected with venom, or impaled on a tusk. Even trees kind of make me uneasy (those knife-sharp branches could […]

Okay, before I get to part one (i.e. May and June) of the summer music preview, permit me a quick indulgence: SLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN!!!!!!!!! Ahem. So, where were we? About to discuss the next two months of live music in the nation’s capital – two months that, just coincidentally, happen to include a FREE concert by the […]

Good news, everyone! Ottawa’s favourite band named after the nut of the common oak, The Acorn, has announced plans to release a new record this summer. No Ghost, the follow-up to 2007’s Glory Hope Mountain, is scheduled to hit the shelves of your friendly independent music retailer on June 1st. From the folks at Paper […]

Trying to put Toronto’s annual Canadian Music Week in terms the average Ottawan can relate to is, I’m finding, not the easiest thing I’ve ever done. CMW’s sort of like Bluesfest – that is, if Bluesfest were spread out across dozens of venues, ran until 4 a.m., and sneered at the mere suggestion live music […]

Sometimes I wish nature were more like a reality show. If it were, I would mount a vigorous Internet campaign to vote off the sunless doldrums of January and February, resigning them to the celebrity weather trash heap with other such has-beens as torridly-humid July and October of Incessant Freezing Rain. (Another plus: the inevitable […]

This was announced Tuesday, which in blog-time is pretty much the 18th century, but it’s still important: Ottawa-West Nepean MPP Jim Watson is bidding farewell to provincial politics in exchange for a shot at Ottawa’s top job. Blog readers over 30 (what, they exist – and I’m going to be one in just under four […]

We at the Apartment613 Society for the Appreciation of Maritime Feats have long been impressed by the great lake swimming of Tony Dekker and his bandmates. Who can forget the time in 2007 when – carrying a mandolin, a slide guitar, and a single snare drum on their backs – they managed to traverse the […]

Start at the easternmost fringes of Hintonburg, head up through West Wellington Village, and you should realize the area of the city is a veritable United Nations of cuisine. Going from memory, I can think of restaurants that highlight the tastes of Chile, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Lebanon, Mexico, and the Southern U.S. – and I […]

What’s that, you say? Political intrigue in Ottawa? I know, it’s shocking. The smelling salts are in the cabinet on your left. To be fair, however, most of Ottawa’s political scandals are of the federal variety. So when the mayor is charged with allegedly offering a parole board appointment to one of his right-leaning competitors […]

Readers who went to Bluesfest in 2008, back me up here: whether you love or hate him, the mere fact that Snoop Dogg graced Ottawa with his presence was the highlight of last year’ s festival. I would guess that of the bands I saw play, at least 50 per cent mentioned that they were […]

I’m a bit surprised by this Obama fellow. I mean, who would choose to discuss policy with our stodgy political leaders over spending a night with Jill Barber at the Black Sheep Inn? (Not me – but then again, I don’t run the world’s largest economy. Yet.) The sultry Port Credit, Ont. singer-songwriter actually takes the […]