Willie has been a great help over the past however many years, but in this day and age of information technology and never ending consumer consumption, we really don’t need the albino rodent’s prognostication (“Six more weeks of winter, or early spring.”)

To find out what the weather is really going to be like all I have to do is visit any neighborhood Canadian Tire or Home Depot.  Sure it may be February but the selection of snow-blowers is almost gone.  Hey, but check out that shinny new lawn tractor.  Wow!  Just what I need … in February.

Willie, whatever it was you said it would be this year, staying winter-like until the 16th of March, or spring arriving – as usual – on the 20^th – 21^st, its information we can pick up at any area Walmart.  Hey, that’s it!  How about a “Wiarton Walmart” festival?  Do they have one up there?

The wish could be for yourself or for someone else you know.  Just post a brief explanation as to what your wish is and why you want it and you may be a lucky winner!

Share a “pay it forward” moment and maybe we’ll reward you with something too!!

Beginning January 11, 2010 at midnight ET, MONOPOLY fans can visit www.monopolyvote.ca to cast votes for their favourite Canadian cities to help create a new MONOPOLY Canada game board. 65 great Canadian cities have been pre-selected for the top 20 city vote and Canadians are invited to cast their ballots for 3 of these great cities each day of the vote, which will be open until February 7, 2010. The city that receives the most votes will be placed on the highest rent property traditionally held by Boardwalk.

The 20 cities that receive the most votes will be part of MONOPOLY history as the first cities selected to be on the Canadian game board through a consumer vote. However, two spaces on the board will be reserved for cities that are nominated through a wild card vote, which means any city in Canada can be nominated for these property spaces. Once the top 20 city vote is complete, the top 10 nominated wild card cities will also be put to a vote and the wild card winners will occupy the low-rent property spaces traditionally held by Mediterranean Avenue and Baltic Avenue.

The wild card vote will take place from February 8, 2010 until February 21, 2010.

Canada’s Mike Weir didn’t qualify for the SBS Championship on the Plantation Course at Kapalua.  But he could have.  Weir finished 2^nd to Dustin Johnson at the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am, where the final round was cancelled due to weather, eliminating his shot at a spot in the season opening event.  The good news is this years US Open is at Pebble, go Mike go.

Canada’s Stephen Ames won the final regular event of the 2009 season, the Children’s Miracle Network Classic, and will carry Canada’s hopes in Hawaii.

Let’s face it, all anyone is really talking about in golf circles is you know who.  In the past decade he elevated the sports popularity – as both a game to play, and a game to watch – to levels never believed possible twenty years ago.  The Athlete of the Decade will come back and chances are that the roars will be stronger than ever.

Tiger Woods is so rich that he owns lots of expensive cars. Now he has a hole in one.

What’s the difference between a car and a golf ball? Tiger can drive a ball 400 yards.

Tiger Woods wasn’t seriously injured in the crash, but he’s still below par.

What were Tiger Woods and his wife doing out at 2.30 in the morning? They went clubbing

Tiger Woods crashed into a fire hydrant and a tree. He couldn’t decide between a wood and an iron.

As for Rachel Uchitel, she first hit the headlines during the 9/11 attacks.  She was photographed in a distraught state searching for her fiancé, who had been working in the south tower of the World Trade Centre when it was hit by a plane.

She has been linked to many married celebrities, but says she will never kiss-and-tell.  Step-aside John and Kate …

If you watched our segment, you would find out that I am totally FOR capital punishment. Some of you may disagree with me and that’s ok.  I’d like to hear your views.  Are you for it or are you against it?

For me, at one point, I suppose you could have called me a fence sitter.  I was neither for it or against it.  I was indifferent I suppose but on May 5th, 2006 my friend Shelley Atkinson’s husband, Constable John Atkinson was shot and killed in the line of duty here in Windsor.  I no longer was a fence sitter anymore. 

As I sat through the trial of his killer with Shelley and her family all I could think of was how unfair life really is. How Shelley would no longer have her husband and best friend any more and Mitchel and Nicole would never have their daddy by their side.  I was all of ten feet away from Nicholas Brennan, the man who shot and killed John and destroyed the lives of his family, friends, collegues and all the people who loved him. There was not one part of me that thought, “I wonder if he can be rehabilitated” or “we should be lenient on him”.  All I thought was “why should you continue to live when you never gave John that chance”. It was hard not to want to lounge over the bench and pummel this man and I, for those who don’t know me, am not a violent person.  Yet every part of me wished him harm and every part of me hurt for my friend. I have never loathed someone so much as I loathed this man, a man who I would otherwise would never have met.

As far as I was concerned…the moment he chose to pull that trigger and end John’s life, was the moment that I feel he no longer should have that right to breath.

Granted, I am emotional about this and it does hit too close to home for me to have a more balanced opinion on this. I understand that my emotions have got the better of me and I can’t see past the anger and resentment I feel for Nicholas Brennan.    Still having said all of that, I am more and more convinced that we are far too lenient on criminals.

I know to some an “eye for an eye” may sound barbaric in this day and age but the crimes that these criminals partake in are also barbaric and can not and should not go unpunished.

Will it bring back John if Nicholas Brennan was no longer a part of the human race?? We all know that answer. Will it bring comfort to the people who loved him and miss him terribly that Nicholas Brennan is gone?? Maybe it will. I don’t know.  What I do know is that my friend and her kids will never see him walk through the door again.  And while they lay their heads to rest each night they will lay there knowing their hero, their protector is no longer there while the man who stole their dreams still gets to live and we get to pay for him to live, eat, sleeep also knowing that he may possibly be allowed to walk free at 35, roughly the age John was when he took his life.

I make no appologies for what I am about to say…Capital Punishment: For or Against?? I’ll quote a line from one of the people who posted on our facebook page. 

 Darren and Brad wrote: “Flick the switch” and “Fry Em”…….I think that about sums it up!

Today’s blog is simple. I want to know what makes you happy? Does getting a raise at work make you happy? What about hearing someone you love say “I love you”? What does it for you?

I would love to hear your stories so please share them with us!

Thanks

Houida

The President called the West “a jackass” in an off-the-record comment during a CNBC interview.

Sunday night at the MTV Video Music Awards, the rapper jumped on stage during Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech and declared her award should have gone to Beyoncé Knowles.

West appeared on Jay Leno apologizing and saying “It was rude, period….I’m just ashamed that my hurt caused someone else’s hurt.” He went on to say, “I need to, after this, take some time off and just analyze how I’m going to make it through the rest of this life, how I’m going to improve.”

My jaw is still on the ground and I am honestly trying so very hard to pick it up right now but am having a hard time doing that.

So here’s my question to all you ladies out there.

Is this something that is common place?? Do women really do this? Have you done this?

Am I missing something here? Does the ring matter more than the proposal itself? I understand that one may have a preference over one type of ring versus another but seriously, if it’s not what you want do you tell him as he’s down on bended knee, “I love you too honey and yes I’ll marry you but not until you get me the ring I want”

Help me out here! Am I wrong in telling my girlfriend that her behaviour is just over the top shallow?

I would love to get some feed back on this one!

Jaycee Lee Dugard was trapped in an nightmare for almost two decades and no one was able to save her from the horrors she had to endure any sooner. Almost two decades??? How is it possible that no one saw the signs and no one suspected anything? I will not listen any more to apologies from law enforcement officials or neighbours or anyone for that matter saying they did their best. Are you kidding me? An 11 year old little girl is kidnapped, held captive, raped, gives birth to two children fathered by her alleged captor, lives in conditions most of us could not fathom and some officials are saying they did their best?? Tell that to Jaycee Lee Dugard and her family and tell that to her step father who was under suspicion for kidnapping her that horrible day.

I know people make mistakes and law enforcement officials and departments are no stranger to mistakes as we all are. I do not fault them entirely for what happened to Jaycee nor do I fault the community she lived in entirely. I do, however, fault our judicial system that let a man walk freely when he had already been convicted of kidnapping in 1976 and convicted of rape in 1988. What more do we need to put someone like that away? How did neighbours not see the signs and insist on doing something about it? How did law enforcement departments not monitor him more effectively, how did his parole officers not know something was going on, how did her alleged captor’s wife allow him to do the things he did to this little girl and not do something to stop it and most importantly how did we all fail to protect and save Jaycee Lee?

We are all at fault here. Each and everyone of us in some small way failed to protect her. How many times have we all been at a mall and watched a child scream as a parent dragged them off. Can you be certain that the person dragging them away was their parent? How many times have we looked at our neighbours behaviours and thought to ourselves, they’re just odd or it’s none of my business? How many times have you turned a blind eye to things because you’d just rather not get involved?? For almost two decades numerous people inadvertently turned a blind eye to Jaycee Lee.

I know many of you may think differently than me but this case also brings up the way in which we punish criminals. We are far to lenient in our society. We don’t punish criminals severely enough or long enough for the crimes they have been convicted for. A woman I spoke to yesterday said “it’s a crying shame what happened to that little girl”. No. No. No. It is not a crying shame. It is a tragedy! A tragedy that could have been avoided in my opinion. This should never have happened and gone unnoticed for 18 years.

Until we start punishing convicted felons accordingly, we will fail to protect and save others who could end up being victimized because we, as a society let someone like Phillip Garrido, the man now being charged with her abduction and rape, free. In my opinion, that man should never have had the luxury to walk freely among us after being convicted on charges of rape and kidnapping years before.

Not a day has gone by since Jaycee Lee was found that I don’t think of how the rest of her life will forever be altered. She will never have a normal life after having gone through what she has for all those years. She was even quoted as saying that she felt bad for bonding with her captor. How sad that she, the victim, feels bad.

As a mother, I can’t help but cry for her, for her family,for the people who know and love her and for us, as society who must demand changes to ensure that this does not happen again. We owe it to ourselves, to our children and to our community. We owe it to Jaycee Lee..