Maj. Andrew Olmsted was stationed in Iraq and was a prolific blogger.  He wrote an entry, left it unpublished and asked a friend to publish it in the event of his death.  Maj. Andrew Olmsted's unit was ambushed earlier this week and he became the first 2008 casualty in Iraq.

Yes, 2007 went by awfully quickly, but I'm more concerned with how we're burning through this decade.  How can we be hitting 2008 already?  Didn't we just say goodbye to the 90s?  2008 is awfully late in this decade and I still don't know what we're calling it. Do we

I went for a run this morning.  I almost didn't live to write about it. While running South on Jane toward Bloor, I had just come to the realization that my leg wasn't better and I wasn't going to make it through the planned 6k.  As we passed a store

I can't grow a decent beard.  It grows out, but it's not thick enough to look right.  I've never been happy with it and that's why I almost never go more than two days without shaving. Since I've been hibernating, I'm on my third day of growth.  I was just

I haven't worked since Christmas Eve.  From Christmas Eve until this morning, I didn't leave the house.  I was hibernating. A bug of some sort got into our home and both my daughter and wife were sick.  I felt under the weather too, feeling really tired and not at all

Al just wrote me about First Sounds, a blog written by Derry, a former Deaf Mute who had his life changed by a specialist who did an implant surgery giving him the ability to hear and speak. Al does a far better job describing First Sounds. Hi Mike,It's Al,

Both kids got awfully spoiled yesterday.  James got Transformers and Hot Wheels while Michelle got Baby Alive and Cinderella.  As I sit here on Boxing Day, fresh from nine rounds of golf with James, it's pretty clear which present will bring the most joy to this household.  That would be

Santa came.  I've set up the Wii and I'm loving it.  We're all loving it, but I'm really loving it.  Everyone is coming over for food and drink so I wanted to pop online quickly and wish everyone a Merry Christmas. So Merry Christmas!

Happy Festivus everyone! For those who don't know what Festivus is, I've summarized it below in three easy to follow steps: "Get the pole out of the crawl space". Or go out and buy one. Remember, it should be aluminum, due to the "very high strength-to-weight ratio". Remember, "it requires

Almost a full year ago, I declared blogging was going to be all about me in 2007.  I was only going to write about what I wanted to write about.  I was going to write the same content whether 40 people were reading or 40,000 people were reading. I

Thanks to the magic of time travel, I've already seen my kids open their gifts from Santa on Christmas morning.  This is video of little James and Michelle opening their Nintendo Wii.  You might hear Nintendo 64, but I assure you, James is saying Nintendo Wii. Sure it's an oldie,

Sometimes I forget that with great power comes great responsibility.  As I alluded to yesterday, I've done a number of things intentionally so that I rank highly in Google for topics I write about.  Sometimes this isn't such a good thing. Back in 2004, like many kids who grew up

In Fight Club, a most excellent movie I've seen dozens of time, Tyler Durden says "The things you own end up owning you."  At this time of year, we all go into zombie mode and accumulate stuff.  We're not buying stuff for ourselves necessarily, at least not directly, but we're

A few months ago I wrote about my memories of Inner City Angels Balloon Day.  Yesterday, Jane Howard Baker, the Executive Director at Inner City Angels, chimed in with a comment that answered a few of my questions. Hi Mike,Inner City Angels halted the balloon race in 1990 (last

I am 33 years old.  I've accomplished a little bit here and there, I've produced a couple of great kids, and I've got a few more tricks up my sleeve, but others have accomplished so much more at this age. For a dose of humility, check out Things Other People

Those of you who also frequent torontomike.com know there have been technical issues over there since Thursday.  I knew there would be a natural curiosity as to what the heck was going on, so I tried to keep everyone up to date with this posting.  Now it's time to

In June I wrote about Jill's Squamous Cell Carcinoma with a T2 tumour.  Although she recognized me once at an Argos game, I only knew Jill through her comments on this blog and then her own.  I followed her fight online as she wrote about the difficult ordeal and today

Sometimes an Internet meme spirals out of control and becomes so pervasive I intentionally won't reference it.  This has happened a couple of times over the past several months so I'm going to combine the two in one quick and dirty entry. Tay Zonday's "Chocolate Rain" was everywhere all summer

I alluded to a certain blog's birthday yesterday.  It was five years ago today I wrote the first blog entry on this site.  You can read that initial stab at this blog thing right here. When I started blogging, it was merely a writing exercise to keep me sharp.  I

Some of you are here wondering what happened to Fred Patterson's blog www.torontomike.com.  At this moment in time, it's tagged with a lovely "This Account Has Been Suspended" notice. The outage is temporary.  We're in the midst of negotiations with Fred's host and hope to have this resolved

I'm not sure what you do in this situation.  A certain blog I know and love is having a birthday tomorrow.  What's the proper etiquette in this situation?  Do you buy blogs birthday gifts?

Thinking about Punch-Out, I searched YouTube for some footage of the NES classic game from my youth.  I found this clip of someone knocking out Mike Tyson in the first round.  That's something I never did..

Tonight I went to HMV at Yorkdale to help Santa cross the Wii off his list.  I paid with my Visa card, but it wouldn't go through.  The system told the clerk to call Visa.  I knew I had room on the card, so I just waited patiently while the

I mentioned the child formerly known as Sweet Baby James is looking forward to a Nintendo Wii from Santa this Christmas.  I haven't actually been able to find a Wii, so I'm hoping someone out there has a suggestion. Does anyone know anyone on the inside?  I know stores are

At first, I resisted.  Then, I surrendered.  Then, I was finished with Facebook where it's nothing as it seems, or was I? The Toronto Mike Facebook account is still being updated, usually on a daily basis.  Facebook makes it easy with their awesome interface and I've recently discovered their slick