The Revival has been a part of Toronto’s Little Italy neighbourhood on College Street since 2002.  It’s housed in a seemingly century-old brown-bricked building on the southwest corner of College and Shaw Street; practically next door, on Revival’s east, is a tiny mall with a twenty-four-hour Metro and Tim Horton’s; Shaw Street, to the west, […]

I no longer in retail, and I don’t regret it.  But I do. In October 2011, I began working at the Liquor Control Board of Ontario–widely known as the LCBO, for the full name sounds like it’s pulled out of the Prohibition Era that the LCBO was created to end–a job that started at 14 […]

Last year, close to 33 million Americans had their TVs tuned to the Oscars and watched in shock as presenters Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty flubbed the presentation of the Oscar for Best Picture.  Dunaway and Beatty, who were given the wrong envelope by the TV producers, hesitated before declaring La La Land the winner.  As […]

I started going to the gym 15 years ago, when I was an overweight university student.  At the time, I applied for a summer student job at the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC), who required me to undergo a physical before offering me a position.  In his report, the TTC’s doctor wrote, “Healthy but clinically obese.”  […]

A Real Conspiracy On a May 16, 1997, gathering at the White House, then-U.S. President Bill Clinton made an apology to victims of a top-secret forty-year study that left lasting scars.  Speaking directly to the handful of living survivors, including a 110-year-old man, Clinton acknowledged that the U.S. government “…did something that was wrong — […]

I don’t think that I’m inherently conservative, so it’s interesting that many songs I listen to are older.  I’m certainly not opposed to listening to new releases, and I do keep up to date with trending bands and the newest fads, but when it comes to songs that I play on repeat, they’re hits that have […]

When news of Playboy founder and publisher Hugh Hefner’s death broke three days ago, I mentioned it in passing to a woman about ten years younger than I.  “I didn’t realize it was still cool to keep a harem,” she quipped sardonically.  She was, of course, referring to the fact that Hefner, right up to his […]