I got this little guy at the 2025 Pinoy Festival last month. It was going to be a gift. I clipped it to my key holder so it wouldn’t get lost and, well, I don’t want to give it away! Every time I see it I smile.
Cool duck!
Stanley Park Loop and South False Creek Ride
I thought I was going to get rained on, but I got lucky.
Gods Behaving Badly by Marie Phillips
Set in London, it tells the tale of the twelve gods of Mount Olympus living in a rundown flat as their powers wane.
— Gods Behaving Badly, Wikipedia
Gods Behaving Badly was a tasty, fast snack. I read it in a single sitting and it hit the spot. No new story takes for me (though it might have had in …
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She Came to Me
Composer Steven Lauddem is creatively blocked and unable to finish the score for his big comeback opera. At the behest of his wife, Patricia, formerly his therapist, he sets out in search of inspiration and finds much more than he bargained for.
— She Came to Me Website
A romantic dramedy with messy characters. These people have troubles. At first …
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What Moves the Dead
What Moves the Dead, by T. Kingfisher (Ursula Vernon), is a retelling of Edgar Allan Poe’s classic horror, The Fall of the House of Usher. There’s an added character or two, an explanation for Roderick and Madeline’s demise, and a few genuinely creepy scenes involving hares and mushrooms.
The beginning was the fun, the middle a bit slow, …
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Nettle & Bone
Nettle & Bone is a 2022 fantasy novel by Ursula Vernon, writing as T. Kingfisher. The novel has been described as a dark fairy tale.
Wikipedia
Nettle & Bone was a delightful read. Though the material and themes are darkish to dark it has an underlying humour and optimism that I found greatly satisfying. If I tried to describe the …
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Dale and the E-Bike: A Beginning
This February I took the plunge and bought an electric assist bicycle. It’s something I’ve been thinking about for a few years, but wasn’t motivated enough to actually do.
Thanks to the coaching, cheerleading, and persuasion of two friends I finally did it. I made the purchase!
After 3 months of riding between rain showers I can emphatically say, I …
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Enola Holmes Review
Enola Holmes was a fun watch. I have my quibbles, but they are more than offset by the enjoyable bits.
Millie Bobby Brown plays Enola Holmes, the movie’s namesake. She’s the very younger sister of Sherlock and Mycroft Holmes. The movie is based on the first book in The Enola Holmes Mysteries series by Nancy Springer.
When Enola’s mother …
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“The Skin We’re In” Review
The Skin We’re In by Desmond Cole is a year-in-the-life memoir documenting “a year of black resistance and power”. Which is to say, a year of bad to tragic things happening to people who deserve better, have tremendous resilience, and are working to make things better.
This book was a hard read. I had to put it down every couple …
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The Wall Street Parklets: Trinity Street
Vancouver’s Wall Street parallels a portion of Burrard Inlet’s industrial waterfront and has a series of parks — well, parklets really — giving a view of the working port and North Shore. Nothing like the Wall Street of New York Financial district fame. At around two kilometers long, one end starts around New Brighton Park and the other at Dundas and Powell Streets.
One of the parklets near me is at the foot of Trinity street. The maps refer to it as the Park Site at Trinity Street. I prefer to call it the Trinity Street Parklet. While it doesn’t have a destination view, it’s a nice to place to walk to, hang out for a bit, and watch the world go by.
© OpenStreetMap contributors
And here’s the Trinity Street Parklet in the real world. I haven’t seen much use of the swing set but the benches can be well used on a nice day. And well, yours truly and a friend may have played on the swings waiting for a bench to clear.
