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Dwayne Wade coming to the Bulls. Obviously I may be wrong, but this doesn't look like a sensible move on the Bulls' part. It reeks of desperation.

Well, perhaps, though there are a large number of people who think that citified raccoons are a breed apart from their country cousins, and city raccoons do not appear to be much bothered by coyotes.

Maybe I should title this - Raccoon problems? Advice??? The raccoons in the Riverdale neighborhood have definitely gotten out of hand. I have seen them up on the upper deck, and in fact trying to figure out the screen door. They seem to have no fear of humans, and will just look at me for a bit and saunter away. What kills me is that we are more careful than anyone else on the block about the food scrap bin. (We actually store everything in a downstairs fridge and take it out 30 minutes before the garbage men come in the morning. It's a total pain and means scrambling in the morning. On the positive side, we have had almost no bins knocked over.) However, it appears that the raccoons have made a nest under my lower deck and use that as a launching pad for forays into other yards for food. I'm totally sick of it. Raccoons are so out of hand in Toronto that City pest control won't respond at all, usually not even to reports of a rabid raccoons! You are on your own to pay for private pest control, but apparently the humane laws here say you can't remove a raccoon more than 1 km from where it was picked up. That makes no sense to me, since you can't just drop it in someone else's yard. We do have some train tracks nearby though... If I could get away with it, I would definitely poison them, since the ones in my yard are huge and have lost whatever fear of humans they had or should have. I actually don't feel safe, and I thought they were going to come up after me, as I was out painting the upper deck this evening. What I will do is tear down the lower deck and cover the backyard with paving stones. Most likely they will move on after that. I still might need more pest control in the meantime, so any advice is welcome.

I didn't really care for the ending of Blackass. Also, the morals of the main character just get worse and worse as the novel progresses, sort of like The White Tiger, though in that case you knew from the beginning that the narrator was amoral. I got just a few pages into In Between Dreams and found out it crossed one of my thick red lines (that cause me to abandon novels). There are some things I simply am not willing to read. I guess I'm glad I found out right away without wasting any more time. Of course, now I have no idea whether I will read her second novel, though I am certainly leaning against it. Anyway, Darwin has finally reached the Galapagos, so I'll just try to wrap that up.

I don't know his middle name, but A.X. Cohen or something along those lines. One of the Simpsons/Futurama writers has to go by David X. Cohen, because there already was a David S. Cohen in the Writers' Guild! David S. would have used his actual name.

No, one of them has to do something to distinguish himself (or herself) from the other. This is one area where I strongly agree with SAG -- you can't have two performers using the same name.

Nearly done with Blackass by A. Igoni Barrett. It's in the good but not great category. I should wrap it up this weekend. I'm then going to launch into In Between Dreams by Iman Verjee. (She has her 2nd novel dropping in August, though it may already be available in the States. The Kindle version is already out. I want to see what I think of her first novel.) Then the library is sending me Han Kang's The Vegetarian, which won the Booker International Prize. Still slowly making my way through The Voyage of the Beagle. I'm just about at the chapter covering the Galapagos Islands (finally!).

It's an absurd and totally avoidable situation, and the trumpet player has made no effort to resolve it (and he did come to the scene second), so I really don't have any sympathy for him. This doesn't really matter for session players, though it can still lead to confusion, but I don't think it is right for two headliners to be using the same name.

I'm not doing too much at the Toronto International Jazz Fest. However, I did go see the Avishai Cohen Trio, who were quite good. (This is the more famous bass playing Cohen -- apparently there is also a trumpet player by the same name...) They are playing Montreal tomorrow (or Sat.) if I am not mistaken. I guess I'm just a bit cranky at the moment, but these two now have a lot of recordings and they get all jumbled up. Would it really have been too much to ask the newer artist on the scene (the trumpet player) to come up with a different name or use an initial or something? It doesn't serve anyone's purpose to not be able to tell the two apart -- especially on digital downloads where the instruments aren't listed! Out of principle, I am going to ignore the trumpet player and his recordings.

Yeah, that I would go to -- or the music of Benny Golson.

I'm fairly sure that was intentional -- that she wanted to write a thriller (rather than a psychological thriller like Alias Grace). I recall that a fairly recent work (The Penelopiad) had quite a bit of depth to it. I do think she was inspired by eXistenZ where characterizations are tissue-thin.

I just finished Margaret Atwood's The Heart Goes Last, which is sort of a SF thriller in a near-future where the economy of the U.S. Rust Belt has completely collapsed. To try to find some sort of stability, the couple at the heart of this novel sign up for an experimental town where everyone spends one month in a suburban-type house and then the alternate month as a prisoner. As if this weren't enough, there is more double-dealing throughout the novel. It was quite entertaining, I must admit. There are perhaps a few nods to The Prisoner, though I thought thematically, it reminded me more of eXistenZ. Also reading Blackass by A. Igonibo Barrett. The novel is inspired by Kafka's Metamorphosis, though in this case a Nigerian man is transformed into a white man on the morning he is to go off on a critical job interview. Apparently, the only part of his body that is still black is his posterior (hence the title). I like the writing style and the pacing so far, so I expect this is a case where the conceit enhances rather than detracts from the overall novel. I've also gotten 3/5 of the way through Darwin's The Voyage of the Beagle.

I would never have expected the season to end the way it just did, though probably the Warriors lost game 5 due to Green's suspension. He is definitely going to have to find a way to play with passion but not quite so out of control, since it arguably cost his team the title.

I finished up Edgar Mittelholzer's A Morning at the Office. It was ok, though not quite as amazing as some of the reviews had made out. I don't think it could quite decide between being a sociology (or anthropology) tract and a novel... I'm quite disenchanted with Savyon Liebrecht's A Good Place for the Night and am on the point of abandoning it. In addition to being extremely downbeat -- not one but two stories feature the murder of young woman -- I don't know that I have ever come across a book written by a woman that so thoroughly fails the Bechdel Test. There does not appear to be a single female character that isn't spending her entire time fretting about her husband or boyfriend.

Feel free to merge if I just missed this, but I didn't see another thread. Gordie Howe has passed away at the age of 88. http://www.cbc.ca/sports/hockey/nhl/gordie-howe-1.3628425 Perhaps not surprisingly this news is generating a lot more headlines in Canada (and Michigan) than in the rest of the US. He had been recovering from a recent stroke, with some success, but it seems the toll was just too much for him. I really wasn't following hockey during his glory years; in fact I wasn't alive when he was winning the Stanley Cup in the 50s. Almost everyone would agree he was in the top 5 NHL players of all time and definitely the greatest player for the Detroit Red Wings. From all accounts, he was a really nice guy off the ice, but someone you just didn't want to face off against on the ice. RIP

I didn't make it in the Fringe lottery, but I did have a piece in a local cold reading series and have submitted several more. I'm just back from a very effective play called Instructions (to Any Future Socialist Government Wishing to Abolish Christmas) by Michael Mackenzie. The best way to describe it is watching a hedge fund manager circa 2008 brought to his knees (literally). So it is rewarding in that respect. Mackenzie knows how to draw on Greek tragedy, but I've probably already said too much. I also saw Arthur Miller's Incident at Vichy, which I've been intending to see for a long time. The production was incredible.

I don't think this has been mentioned before - Dutoit The Montreal Years (Decca) 35 CDs - most but not all of Dutoit's recordings with the OSM on Decca. It's going for about $75 US on Amazon and about $100 Can on Amazon.ca http://www.amazon.com/Montreal-Years-35-Box-Set/dp/B017V92WX0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1464949620&sr=8-1&keywords=dutoit+decca In this case, I am going to pass, as there were really only a few performances that caught my eye, and I can pick and choose from them. Also, our library has a lot of these. There are a few other relatively recent box sets where the Canadian price is actually the bargain, particularly when currency exchange rates are considered. I'm about to place an order for Yuri Bashmet Complete RCA Recordings https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B01B17C4LI/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_S_ttl?_encoding=UTF8&colid=17IN2YRCH3JCX&coliid=I3D9VGQ491KI9F I'll probably order the Malcolm Arnold Complete Conifer Recordings (Vernon Handley is the one conducting all the symphonies on this set) https://www.amazon.ca/Sir-Malcolm-Arnold-Complete-Recordings/dp/B01B17C4TK/ref=pd_cp_15_1?ie=UTF8&refRID=5TCD58NVR5MEJ8HJE4M7 I'm quite torn on the Andre Previn Conducts Vaughan Williams, as I literally am missing only one disc from the set (Symphony #5 and Tuba Concerto), but I'll probably succumb just to consolidate the other discs and save some shelf space. https://www.amazon.ca/Conducts-Vaughan-Williams-Symphonies-Concerto/dp/B019STIIHA/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1464950168&sr=1-1&keywords=previn+vaughan+williams I've got most of these Hilary Hahn Sony CDs, so I'll pass, but it's still a pretty good deal: https://www.amazon.ca/Hilary-Hahn-Complete-Sony-Recordings/dp/B0129YC7NC/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1464950283&sr=1-1&keywords=hilary+hahn

Still working through Darwin's The Voyage of the Beagle, but it is pretty slow going. I'm also reading Brigid Brophy's In Transit, about a traveler stuck in an airport. Like O'Brien's Night, it is another book clearly inspired by Joyce and other High Modernists. It tries to dabble in absurdity, perhaps a bit like Flann O'Brien, but it tries too hard. There is a 10 page section where the narrator forgets what sex he/she is, which doesn't work at all. I suppose I might change my mind, but for the moment it is not recommended.

That is certainly a truism, but not true in my case. I still rate Dostoevsky and also Turgenev above Tolstoy. Demons is definitely an under-rated novel in my opinion. I didn't mind the Garnett translation of Crime and Punishment but didn't have much to compare to (in my teens). I will be tackling Crime and Punishment in the P&V translation (and probably comparing to Garnett) in a year or so. I don't remember the epilogue, but I'm looking forward to it.

I have to admit, this looked a bit like spam (spam, spam, spam, spam, spam!), but Towel Day is legit (if a lot more celebrated in the UK than the US). I actually had a towel with me all day today, but probably won't have room in my bag tomorrow. I may have to settle for a washcloth. I actually introduced my son to Hitchhiker's Guide this spring, and he certainly enjoyed it. I'm trying to find a bit of time to start rereading it myself.

This year I could definitely have used a time machine to place some bets on these crazy finals. Thunder up 3-1. No way would I believe that! I wouldn't have believed the Raptors would tie the Cavs either. I suspect the Cavs will still move on, though maybe it will take all 7 games. It's looking like Golden State is completely rattled, and I am having a lot of trouble believing they will prevail. Anyway, with said time machine, I'd also like to lay out some money on Leicester City and maybe the Republican nomination race as well.

Well, sure if you pledge not to prosecute a case and then get someone to waive their 5th Amendment rights and another prosecutor tears up the deal, you probably can make a case. I know it sounds like I am a Cosby apologist, but this is totally shabby, and will almost certainly be reversed upon appeal, if Cosby is actually convicted.

Saw High Rise on Saturday. I liked some aspects of it. Other aspects were messy or even incoherent. I totally lost why they broke into an apartment on the 27th floor when none of the characters (at least that I recall) lived there. It was pretty astounding that one can of paint covered a two or three room apartment and so evenly considering the walls were raw concrete ... I think that they did do a reasonable job of capturing the tone of the book. Now whether the book was actually such a stone-cold classic that it needed to be made into a movie is another question. Anyway, just a huge number of films coming up at TIFF - a combined Hitchcock/Truffaut retrospective and an Eric Rohmer retrospective through the summer and early fall. I'll have to pick and choose, trying to focus on films that aren't easily available or that I really, really want to see.

They eventually go to the computer, but the problem is that the scan size is set on the machine. I've figured out a few options, but for a book that is 8.8 x 11.5 (and quite a few books are just slightly over letter size), you have to scan it as B4 and then ask it to crop the figure, and then you probably need to erase some of the margins, etc. When with the Xerox, you just type in 8.8 x 11.5. It's not just the fiddling with the settings, but it takes 3 times as long (since B4 is huge) and is extremely wasteful of electricity. (The file size is also too large, though that is less of an issue.) I'm super annoyed, as there doesn't appear to be any way around this. It's definitely a lot slower scanner. I'm hoping that there are lots of other complaints and that the contract is broken, though that is unlikely. I will make a note if I move high enough up the foodchain here that there will be no more HP machines ever!

This is probably a bit esoteric, but my workplace just switched over from Xerox to HP printers or rather all-in-one printers, since they also scan and could theoretically be used to fax as well. I actually do a lot of scanning, and often am working with irregular sizes (like 10.2 inch x 11.4 inch for example). Xerox has an extended menu where you can set the image size to the 0.1 inch, so essentially total control over scan size. As far as I can tell, HP (or rather the HP 880) only allows a bunch of pre-set sizes, like 8.5 x 11, legal, A3, A4, A5, B3, etc. I think you are supposed to then set it to crop the rest of the space out, but it doesn't work at all. It's a total nightmare. Has anyone encountered this and have a solution? Or is there no solution, which is my great fear? The manual is completely unhelpful, spending the entire time discussing how to add addresses to the CC or BCC fields, and not once discussing the details of page size (or even the difference between PDF, TIFF and MTIFF). Based on my experience (now and in the past), I would never get another one of these HP all-in-one machines, but sadly it is not my decision to make. Any help would be appreciated.