This is a story of two men on road trips toward Woodstock, New York in 1986. This is not the Woodstock made famous by a music festival; that was actually near Bethel, 90 km. away. This Woodstock, including nearby towns Bearsville and Saugerties, was the sometime home of Bob Dylan,
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Saskboy's Abandoned Stuff: Plague Update: From The Past
It’s January 27th, 2022, but you’re reading this in the future. I’m writing this after my intended bed time, having just helped a friend learn how to purchase an NFT. I guess you’ll know how that turned out. It was a pretty standard day working from home. The dog got
Continue readingBob Broughton's Blog: Book review: George Harrison: the Reluctant Beatle, by Philip Norman
There are some stories I never get tired of hearing. One of them is the formation of the Jefferson Airplane; how they were rehearsing twelve hours a day and seven days a week, because they knew that they were creating something brand new. The early history of The Beatles is
Continue readingBob Broughton's Blog: Thoughts on the 60th anniversary of the Kennedy Assassination
I was 13 years old, and in band class when the announcement came over the PA system that President Kennedy had been assassinated. Ever since then, I have paid an above-average amount of attention to the facts and theories surrounding that assassination. I used to love listening to a good
Continue readingBob Broughton's Blog: Book review: Open, An Autobiography, by Andre Agassi
The obvious question here is, why have I written a review of a book that was published 14 years ago? The answer is, it’s the best sports book I have ever read. I am not alone in this opinion. It reached #1 on the New York Times Best Seller list, and was
Continue readingBob Broughton's Blog: Book review: Not On My Watch, by Alexandra Morton
This book (available here) was written by a remarkable and courageous woman, Alexandra Morton of Echo Bay, British Columbia. It has 335 pages (not including notes), but it took me a long time to get through it. That’s because it contains several stories. Two of them are Morton’s personal history,
Continue readingBob Broughton's Blog: Mini-series review: The Offer
Paramount celebrated the 50th anniversary of “The Godfather” by creating an excellent mini-series about the making of the film, available on Paramount+. It is essential viewing for fans of 1970’s blockbuster films. The central character is Albert Ruddy (portrayed by Miles Teller), a film producer who had a success with the
Continue readingBob Broughton's Blog: Book Review: The McCartney Legacy, Volume 1: 1969–73
By Allan Kozinn and Adrian Sinclair I’ll address the obvious question first; is five years of Sir Paul McCartney’s life really worth 672 pages? Yes, it is. If I were given the job of cutting out some extraneous material, I wouldn’t be able to cut more than five or ten
Continue readingSaskboy's Abandoned Stuff: 2023
It’s a new year. I’ve been blogging for over 21 years now. Sudden writer’s block at 83,000 words. Tempted to just write “and they we were all killed by a giant meteor,” the end. — Alex Kenna (@AlexKenna9) January 2, 2023
Continue readingScripturient: Just a reminder…
During this 2022 municipal election campaign, I will also be posting on my campaign website blog with short pieces about local issues, events, policies, elections, and my vision for Collingwood. During the campaign, I remind my readers who care about local issues and politics to check my campaign site at
Continue readingBob Broughton's Blog: My COVID-19 quarantine diary
My trip to the Northwest was originally planned for July 2020. I bought a Mexico City to Vancouver ticket from Aeromexico in February 2020, which was before the pandemic started. I postponed it a couple of times. Then, Aeromexico told me that I had to make a specific booking by
Continue readingBob Broughton's Blog: How “Peter Gunn” influenced Steely Dan
I recently read Eminent Hipsters, and autobiography by Donald Fagen of Steely Dan. I highly recommend it if you are a fan of his music. Like any music biography, it goes into musical influences. In Fagen’s case, there was a major surprise; one of his major influences was the black-and-white
Continue readingMind of Dan: Coming in Hot
Snow Geese – Richmond, BC
Continue readingMind of Dan: Watcher in the Snow
Great Blue Heron – Richmond, BC
Continue readingBob Broughton's Blog: A refuge for migrants in Celaya, Guanajuato
ABBA House is a shelter for Central American migrants located in Celaya, in the Mexican State of Guanajuato. It is one of 57 such shelters in Mexico. It has been in existence for five years, and provided food and shelter for 25,000 people during that time. ABBA House serves both
Continue readingMind of Dan: The Biggest Threat to Democracy
If you had asked my what the largest issue facing humanity was a few years ago I would have said climate change. I don’t think this is true anymore. This isn’t because climate change has diminished in importance, it hasn’t; it’s because our inability to act on climate change is
Continue readingBob Broughton's Blog: Why “mansplain” is an obscenity
The word “mansplain” is one of those English-language fads that I hoped would quickly go away. It’s hasn’t, and there seem to be some people fueling it. So, I will “lesbi-splain” why this is something that is wrong, and should be opposed. It recently came up in a Facebook dustup.
Continue readingSaskboy's Abandoned Stuff: How Bad Is WordPress’s Block Editor? Bad.
I have over 2 decades experience editing websites. 18 years of writing blogs, from Angelfire, to CMS systems like WordPress. And the latest update to the editor is mystifying. Who wants it? I wrote a blog post just a few minutes ago. I tried to find where to tag it,
Continue readingMind of Dan: Banff Panoramas
Bow River Athabasca Glacier terminus In the Alpine
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