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I thought this was pretty cool.  Rock 105.3 listener and music aficionado Paully spent some time abroad in the world and while in Barcelona, snapped this photo.  While the ‘Poncho’ in the picture might be a little more slender than myself, I think I’d still take home the happy face for longer hair.

 But what really impresses me that Paully is on vacation 1000′s of miles away and still manages to find time to think about us here at the World Headquarters.

 Thanks Paully!

By a quick glance of this picture it would appear that I know nothing of washing machine repair and yet weeks after this candid photo was snapped, I’m happy to report that my washer and the second rate, if not third rate job I did of insulating the stand pipe are still doing what they should be, namely ensuring I still have clean clothes.

More details will be let loose in my column concerning this in next week’s edition of the Medicine Hat News but my calendar says that another year has come to it’s timely end.

 It was also another decent year for music releases and so in no particular order, here were some of my favorite albums from 2010.

1.JIMI HENDRIX                                    VALLEYS OF NEPTUNE

2.THEM CROOKED VULTURES           SELF TITLED 

3.AVENGED SEVENFOLD                     NIGHTMARE 

4.IRON MAN 2                                         SOUNDTRACK 

5.AGAINST ME                                        WHITE CROSSES 

6.GASLIGHT ANTHEM                          AMERICAN SLANG 

7.TOM PETTY                                           MOJO 

8.ALICE IN CHAINS                                BLACK GIVES WAY TO BLUE 

9.FOO FIGHTERS                                    GREATEST HITS 

10.  SLASH                                                 SELF TITLED

456 years since the Winter Solstice has coincided with a full Lunar Eclipse but that’s what happened just a few hours ago.  I set the alarm for 1:12 AM and by 1:15 I was standing in my backyard in my housecoat and winter boots thinking to myself, ‘I bet it’s a lot warmer in my bed’.

 I’m no professional star gazer and maybe that’s why but I didn’t find the lunar eclipse to be that spectacular.  I took some photos with my cell phone and then with the family camera when the pics didn’t turn out. 

What you see below is a photo of the latest lunar eclipse however I’ve ‘borrowed’ this photo from the mighty world of the internet.

As the stress grows and the time shrinks between now and X-Mas, there’s a few presents I would like to see brought back to the forefront of the giving season, specifically those that don’t require a PhD to assemble said gift. Let’s begin with the Rubix Cube.  A toy that costs less than twenty bucks, doesn’t require the use of diesel powered generators and actually gets the noggin’ juices flowing is worthy of a comeback.  It bridges the generation gap between father and daughter and will fit into the palm of your hand meaning you don’t have to trade off the Sunbird on the Wagoneer.  Of course safety is on everyone’s mind and so if the Rubix is destined for young hands, you can always cover up those sharp corners with some plasticine and now you’ve got 2 incredibly fantastic presents from back in the day. Now if you were still rockin’ a full set of hair when the Green Machine made it’s debut, you can relive those days vicariously through your kids with the new and improved Green Machine.  Featuring a real rubber front tire and controls that still run those hard plastic rear wheels, it’s a toy that has been and will continue to be commandeered by moms and dads everywhere after the eggnog has been put to good use.  Please note this will not make a good gift should your wee lad be surrounded by gravel roads.  This toy never had to make a comeback although it has been reinvented over the years.  Not as complicated as Mechanix and more creative than Mega Bloks, LEGO was the epitome of creating made up worlds before  the SIMS video games series took over our planet.  While some of the pieces were prone to ingestion, LEGO parts have a half life of 2000 years. Consider this good news should the LEGO U.F.O Pack be swallowed up  by the 8 year old monster who lives down the street because patience and dish soap will ultimately make your kit complete and almost like new again.  My sister once gave me a cardboard box and jiffy marker for Christmas and even decades later that was still one of the most entertaining presents I’ve ever received. A couple of notches above the do-it-yourself-tattoo store, otherwise known as the infamous wood burning kit, a big ole’ empty hunk of hard corrugated paper could easily be transformed into a castle and rocket ship, both of which cost a pretty penny these days. If you really want to splurge, throw in some bubble wrap and even Santa would be hard pressed to find a topper, unless of course it’s made legal again to purchase lawn darts.  And now if you’ll excuse me, I have to continue my search for a beginner’s chemistry set.

With a houseful of company, I played the role of good host and got the heck out of Dodge for a while.  Grabbing Dr. Jake (my black lab) and a set of snowshoes, I headed out towards Cypress Hills for some winter solitude.

While there’s nothing fancy about this picture, I just liked it.

And please note the small size of the trees in the right hand corner after I climbed this hill without suffering a coronary.  They’re actually much bigger before I attempted this incline.

Now a picture is worth a thousand words however this picture doesn’t do it justice.  Taken from my back yard, this icicle is almost the entire length of the 2nd storey of my digs (so about 10 feet tall) and is on the girthy side, bordering on dangerous.  It also hangs directly above a hunk of sidewalk that I shovel on a regular basis and should it come crashing down, I’m a goner.

 I haven’t thought of ‘death by icicle’ since Rambo saved the day in Cliffhanger, along with that guy from Days of Thunder. 

If I’m not at the World Headquarters tomorrow, you’ll know why.

I was invited out to Eagle Butte High School last week where I hung out with some of the students where we talked about – you guessed it -radio.

 It was cool to find out that they even offer some extra curricular activities like a radio club which sure beats the ‘tea cozy and doily’ club I was offered back in my days of higher education.

 Of course the first and last rule of radio is that when a photo opportunity presents itself, one must always fly the horns, leaving the tongue maneuver as optional.

It was 1991 and the sequel to Naked Gun had been let loose in the theatres but I was facing some movie mayhem.  It was a rare occurrence that I had secured a date however we weren’t exactly agreeing on what movie to see. Wanting to have my cake and eat it too, I suggested that we check out our picks individually and meet later in the concourse because after all, how much talking goes on in a movie hall anyway? I was given the ultimatum; either risk willing to lose 2 hours of my life to Thelma & Louise or risk losing my date’s phone number.  I still stand by my decision when I say phone numbers are a dime a dozen.  Up until about four years ago, I even had Mr. Nielsen’s phone number after we exchanged digits when we met in a hotel elevator in the nation’s largest city.  Even when not in front of the camera, his persona was a combination of serious funniness after breaking the ice about ‘letting one rip’ in such a small confined area as an elevator.  This was followed by a series of glancing looks my way, only to look away when I attempted to make eye contact with one of the stars of ‘Airplane’.  We were the only two people in that oversized dumbwaiter and then this man invited me to share a drink with him at the hotel lounge and I wasn’t about to say no to Captain Lieutenant Detective Frank Drebin.  Now this was the 90’s and so most of our conversation has long been forgotten, like the majority of my life during that entire decade. We chatted the tiniest part of an afternoon away, and not even on movies or radio or even music but how refreshing it was for Leslie to return back to his roots of Canada. And I can also recall he mentioned that he was just a regular Joe who ‘put his pants on the same way as everyone else, two legs at a time’.  Of course this comment was delivered with the utmost of seriousness, never once admitting to being funny and therein lied Leslie Nielsen’s trademark.  If there was ever a reason to dust off the Betamax machine and it’s fifty feet of wired remote control, it should be to relive the hey days of former comedian great, Leslie Nielsen, who has left this world behind for greener pastures.  Like all great Hollywood funny men, Nielsen was Canadian but it was his ability to deliver funny lines with a deadpan face that made us laugh.  Deemed the Laurence Olivier of comedy, it doesn’t even bother me Nielsen was born in the heart of Rider Nation, especially after having the opportunity to spend a little bit of space with him with a man whose only goal it seemed was to make others smile.