A long weekend has come and gone. Labour Day simply snuck up on me from behind and whisked by, nearly unnoticed. After fifteen years thinking of Labour Day as merely the day before school began, and then another five years treating it as the transition between school and work terms, this is only the second time Labour Day has actually been a holiday for me.

Unexpected holidays are nice, but after it's done, you always feel like you could have used it more effectively. As well, as a contractor, I can't help viewing it as just another day where I don't get paid.

Craig has some wonderful things to say about the work involved in creating travelogues:

"You'd think it'd be easy wouldn't you?
Step 1: Do Amazing Things.
Step 2: Write about Amazing Things.
How hard is that? Very, very hard. SPU, now SPU can write mad travelogues, travelogues that take hours to read, travelogues that eat up entire workdays, travelogues that make you hate SPU very, very much."

Ah, gee, thanks man! I know that whenever I can eat up someone's entire workday, I've done a good job. Think of the work-related stress it caused you to avoid! It's better for your overall well-being, and will make you a happier person in the long run! I should start a crusade against work-related stress by going on more trips, writing more travelogues, and thereby saving more and more people from hazardous workdays. A new goal in life...

Little things make a big difference. Joy is its own catalyst; giving a person some will, by nature, cause it to grow and spread further. That's what this endeavour sought to do. There are some wonderful people around town, and now there are many more happy people because of it.

You may have noticed that this post is a day in the future. I assure you that this is due to my incredible powers over nature and space-time, and not - as some may propose - my inept ability at setting the clock on my computer.

This weekend was full of Big things. The first was that I handed over the biggest cheque I've ever written. In exchange for most of my life's savings, I got the first 2004 Saturn ION Quad Coupe that rolled off the assembly line. It was a giddy feeling to get my very first brand new car, and they added to that by presenting it in big game-show fashion. The car was parked in the showroom and draped in a big cloak until they unveiled it in a big show as all of the staff gathered and applauded.

So after a long wait, I finally got to drive my new car home, and then left it sitting there all weekend as I immediately hopped into my friend's van and made the big haul out to Renfrew Country for big white water rapids in big yellow rafts. We spent two days rafting the rapids and jumping off of cliffs, getting very wet in the process. On the first trip, we were on a twelve-man boat with some big people, some of whom could not paddle at all, but on the second day, we got a six-man raft for some big splashy fun. And, nobody drowned, so the whole trip was a big success!

It's a very sad day in the Maple Leaf nation. Toronto's son, Doug Gilmour, has hung up his skates after 20 years in the NHL. The man that brightened the eyes of every Leaf fan after a hopeless stretch under the fist of Harold Ballard, the man that carried the team on his scrawny shoulders during the exciting campains in '93 and '94, the man that holds more respect and adoration than any other in this city will not make another appearance on Leaf ice.

It's a terrible shame that his career has come to an end with a freak knee injury after playing only four minutes as a returned Leaf, but at least he finished his career with the team he held so dear. Every fan of the time will forever remember the tying goal and winning assist against the Red Wings, the wrap-around goal on Curtis Joseph, and the sunken eyes and exhausted look of the man that never said die, never let up, and always had the Killer instinct.

Maple Leaf management has a lot to prove now. The first act of young John Ferguson Jr as the newly appointed GM was to officially end any speculation of The Killer's return this upcoming season. What a horrible way to start a new job. Alienating the icon of your team's entire fan base is not a way to endear yourself to them. He has just insulted everyone that pays his salary and supports his team, and there is, of course, only one way that this act can be forgiven. Obviously, that is a Cup win this year, but with the current lineup on defence, that doesn't look too promising. Should he fail the test throughout this year, expect a revolt. No executive's job should be safe.

Quinn, Dryden, Peddie, Ferguson - take note. You are all officially on probation.

OK Ferguson, signing Joe Nieuwendyk is a good start to redeeming yourself. A great player, a great guy, and a GTA native that desperately wants to play for his hometown team. This is good.

Don't think it gets you off the hook yet, though. We've still got our eyes on you.

I often find myself amazed at how far television executives are pushing the reality TV craze. From living on deserted islands, to playing out your worst fears, to being tricked into thinking you must choose between love and money only to find out that your fate is in the hands of someone else who must choose between love and money, thus making the past three weeks of hardship solely a tool for the audience's amusement.

I think there can only be two plausible reasons for this fad. One possibility is that the television-watching public is finally starting to become fed up with the cookbook sitcoms, the predictability of the soap opera storyline, and the overpaid egos of the phony Hollywood starlets, that they are now starting to realise that real life is where things that really matter come about, where the relevant drama unfolds, and where the experience of witnessing and participating in these stories actually mean something to you. The next logical step is for these people to start switching the TV off and putting what they've learned into practice.

The other, more bleak, reason is that viewers have sunken so low that they have come to believe that everyone else's lives are much more interesting than they're own, and feel they are safer just staying in where nothing can harm them and instead choose to let others live real life for them in their place.

I fear to guess how many people use the second reason.

Kevo was kind enough to provide the first photo of my new vehicle. Unfortunately, the photo cannot convey how the stereo suffers no distortion at extremely loud volumes; a fact that the salesman at the dealership was very eager to demonstrate.

Outgoing Toronto mayor Mel Lastman has said some awfully dumb or inappropriate things during his 34 years in politics, most famously his quib about being boiled in a pot in Mombasa. However, he has had a few shining moments of intelligence, the best of which concerned "Toronto - Discover the Feeling", Metro Council's new city slogan idea in 1984:

Mothers certainly won't want "Discover The Feeling" plastered all over the fronts of their teenaged girls' T-shirts.

It seems Toronto's weather is nothing to fret about. A recent Environment Canada compilation ranks Canadian cities based on their weather patterns, and Toronto breaks the top-10 rankings in only five categories, reaching no higher than 5th place in high humidex.

Does that bother me? Not one bit. The other cities can keep their frigid winters, rainy weather, and severe thunderstorms. I'll stick to our mild extremes, thank you very much.