Large Fierce Mammal

In a previous LFM article titled Kitchen Knife Technique I exposed you all to the teachings of Chad Ward, author of An Edge in the Kitchen. Today’s post introduces some exquisite knife work using what many of us would regard as an unlikely tool – the Nepalese khukuri. (more…)

“Earth Hour 2010” occurs today, 27 March 2010, from 8:30 PM to 9:30 PM local time. That means wherever you are.

First taking place in 2007, Earth Hour is organized by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) for the stated purpose of raising world awareness of climate change by encouraging people and businesses to switch off all non-essential lights and appliances for those magical sixty minutes as an individual means of being, even if only for a short time, part of the solution instead of the problem. (more…)

It’s been said that God invented whisky so the Irish wouldn’t take over the world. So far it’s worked.

I’ve always appreciated a good toast, tastefully delivered, no matter how ribald the content, but the Irish are an odd people. Their toasts are full of statements like, “May you die in Ireland”, which for most nationalities would be a good reason to stay the hell out of there, but for them reflects on the rough history known by many of their countrymen and women, far away from the Old Sod.

The Irish are like Newfoundlanders in a couple of respects; first, it’s hard to find one you don’t instantly like; and second, all you need is one to complete a party. (more…)

At left – Actress Kim McGuire in the role of “Hatchet Face” in the 1990 John Waters movie Cry-Baby. The movie postdates the events described here. My utterance had nothing whatsoever to do with Ms. McGuire’s characterization.

I know it will be hard for most of my readers to believe, but I sometimes succumb to a capricious urge to fuck with people. This goes back to childhood when I used to experiment on my sister, but that’s a story for another article.

Here’s an example of what I’m talking about. (more…)

The daily dose of sunlight is obviously longer now than it was a month ago, but this fact notwithstanding, I’ve noticed in my travels that a lot of you are singing the blues of “seasonal affective disorder”, apparently to explain why you’re still the same pissy bitch you are at every other time of the year. Don’t despair. Spring is coming, complete with all the trimmings Mother Nature holds in store. Here’s a reminder, courtesy of film maker Christopher Hinton and the National Film Board of Canada. (more…)

A few years back I did a fictional RCMP Air Services 70th Anniversary paint job on the beautifully modelled deHavilland Tiger Moth that was created and made available to the world of virtual aviation by Messrs. Warwick Carter and Garry J. Smith. The  nose art that appears in the screen shot above is decidedly not regulation on real world RCMP aircraft. (more…)

I grew up in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia in a time when most families made their own versions of every day food staples that we now simply go to the supermarket to buy. One of those was the pickled herring delicacy locally referred to as “Solomon Gundy”.

Making Solomon Gundy requires herring that has been cleaned and with the tails and heads removed, and a marinade consisting generally of onions, vinegar, sugar, salt, and whatever amalgam of herbs and spices the maker considers appropriate. Some people poach the herring first while others marinate it raw leaving it to “cook” in the acidic bath. Some pickle entire fillets while others pre-cut the herring into bite sized pieces, and for some leaving the skin on is the only way to go while others skin the fish.

I was once very intimate with the process. When I was 15 years old I got a summer job with what used to be called National Sea Products just outside Lunenburg, standing for eight hours at a stretch, in a shed built on a concrete wharf protruding into Lunenburg harbour, skinning pickled herring fillets and packing them in a neat, radial pattern in large wooden barrels. (more…)

Every word in the following article is the personal opinion of its author, but every statement made within it can be supported with authenticating documentation. The author regards public safety and security, particularly that of his own clients, as matters not to be trifled with in these troubled times, and sincerely hopes that the brutal honesty of this review will encourage Safe Harbour Security to improve its business practices and quality of service before something really bad happens.

I’ve been a security professional since 1981, and started the company called Whynacht Security & Survival in 1983. Beginning in 1984 I started offering alarm monitoring services for my clients through my own emergency operations centre in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, and over the period from 1984 to 2001 I grew that facility into what became known to the world as “Central Dispatch”,  encompassing not only the monitoring of alarm systems, but also dispatching for the Lunenburg-Mahone Bay Police Service, five Lunenburg County fire departments, and an assortment of municipal public works departments. Central Dispatch had an incredible reputation and seriously kicked ass. (more…)

The following story has recently been declassified and can now be released to the public.

Back in my second year at Dalhousie University I was living in the men’s residence, Howe Hall. At the beginning of that year we started finding cockroaches everywhere. I had none in my room, but caught a couple in, of all places, the dining hall. Complaints from the residence council to the Dean of Men had little effect because his official position was that the university had measures in place to control vermin and the odd bug was inevitable. Never mind that this was an unprecedented infestation.

Anyway, I hatched a plot and asked everybody I knew to catch every roach they found and bring it to me alive. By the end of frosh week I had a bumper crop that was transferred to a large brown paper envelope I had acquired for the purpose. (more…)

It wouldn’t be The Season without the Queen’s annual Christmas message. I just finished watching her 2009 broadcast on, of all things, YouTube. Who knew Buckingham Palace had a YouTube channel? (more…)