It is hardly like Gene Kelly dancing into your heart in Singing in the Rain. That was small screen stuff. Today, everything is big. The screen is big. You are encouraged to sit close to it in wide seats that lay back to let you see everything. The scenes surround you. The sound embraces you. It’s like having a woofer in your pants. You feel the music. You smell the actors. You are part of the action.

But. Damn but that is a big “But.” What you think is the smell of the actors’ greasepaint is really just the smell of liberally salted, stale popcorn and rancid butter. There is something about that stadium seating system that makes people nauseous. It could be a problem with the optic nerve. The proximity of the colors changing and moving could have a dizzying effect and be disorienting the moviegoer. It is quite likely. You can also get a similar effect from being too close to 60+ inch plasma television screens.

You will hardly be forgiven if you go to the movies and throw up on the people in front of you. The theatre owners could post your picture at the box office. You can be banned for life from the local Galaxie Movie theatre.

Something has to be done. Some of us need to sit back further. Can they make those theatres in different sizes? Can they make the screen smaller? Do we have to wait for that big screen stuff to get to DVD? Should theatres offer Dramamine suppositories?

Stop laughing. This is a serious topic. Going to the movies is the last of the great levellers of mankind. The movies hardly belong just to teenagers. They might be the best customers but Tuesday is for seniors. And mums and dads go to the movies. In all parts of the world, movies cut across financial levels and reach IQs above and below the average. They are appreciated by children and by academics. They make gigglers think and the sad happy. They explain, teach, amuse, entertain, expand knowledge and understanding, plum the depths of our love and affection and despair and raise our hopes, admiration, affection and devotion.

But, just maybe, that was in simpler times.

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Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to [email protected]

We read Toronto’s Mayor Miller does magic accounting if needed,

If Babel’s mayor should disappear, that magic will be appreciated.

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Liberals have a right and left wing, it’s how they operate,

But if it’s time to get things done, they have to cooperate.

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With the burgeoning success of condominium living in Ontario, you would think that the government would do something about how badly condominiums are run. Maybe the government looks on it as a survival of the fittest or law of the jungle approach. It is in hopes that if the problems become too serious, a better board will get elected.

Fat chance, bad boards beget badder boards. Last year this condo had a pro-active board. It was getting the job done. It had gotten rid of the old property management and brought in a new broom. It was cleaning up. It did responsible planning. It stood up for its owners. It was preparing to sue an engineer who had needlessly cost the board more than $350,000. It provided leadership.

All the detractors needed to do was to tell lies about what was going on and to slander the leadership and the pro-active board lost its leader in the annual elections. Without its leader and floundering, the replacement board wasted the previous efforts. Planning was ignored. Budgets were forgotten. Tens of thousands of dollars invested in condo business were wasted.

Just one example of what this board did (or more technically correct: did not do) was what happened at the west door of the building. The west door is the only door to the building that can possibly accommodate a person in a wheelchair or using a walker. This problem was becoming more serious as time went on as the asphalt at the west entrance was sinking and it was creating a serious step for people coming in the door. Residents were provided with a door opening transmitter (for $50) but handicapped visitors to the building had no way of negotiating that door without physical assistance from another and more agile person.

With a substantial budget set aside for the purpose by the previous board, design considerations already in the works, the new board had the task of completing the fix to provide proper access to the building. It was a high priority project. Yet this incompetent condo board could not get the job done.

To add insult to injury, someone decided to use a sheet of aluminum to cover the growing gap between the building and the asphalt at the door. This created an angled ramp that the strongest person in a wheelchair could not roll up while still trying to hold open a heavy door.

Welcome to the idiocy of condominium la-la land.

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Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to [email protected]

It’s that twit McGinty’s turn to make big promises to the voters,

His HST will screw seniors, this time go screw General Motors.

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It would be pleasant to barbecue, this bright sunny day,

But could we keep those cold, mean March winds at bay?

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Mr. Flaherty’s budget delivery seemed to be just a little bit flat.

But there’s never been a pot-pourri that smelled as bad as that.

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While enjoying the bright sunlight flooding the clutter of my den, it is the reminder that winter is not over that depresses. The Olympic glow fades gradually with the passing days. The ice huts still mar the beauty of the frozen Kempenfelt Bay. Icy barriers warn off the wary driver from access to puddled sidewalks. It is a false spring.

It must be a false spring in Ottawa also. A fractious House of Commons has resumed in raucous session. The Speech from the Throne Wednesday was a litany of promises of the righteous right. The banal comments from the Opposition were predictable and spurious. It is unlikely that the ice has gone from the Rideau Canal. There are more days left for the national capitol skaters. There are fewer days left for Mr. Harper and his motley crew. He has loaded the Senate with hacks and has-beens in hopes of passing more so-there legislation to please the Wild Rose malcontents of Alberta.

But then, we are struck by the firm hand of Jim Flaherty, master of the castle treasure. He emerges occasionally from deep in the castle keep to breath some pure air, buy shoes and propose the spending of the nation.

Flaherty proposes a budget that is a pot-pourri of slogans, slanders and sloppy accounting. The voters are offered the carryovers from the carryovers as the inadequacies of his budgeting processes are exposed. His lack of foresight, his lack of economic planning, his lack of imagination and his right-wing ideology have prevented him from offering anything but small solutions to our big problems. There were no answers for the problems with Employment Insurance, a pittance for families, no solutions for daycare and no help for our suffering environment.

But there was some help for friends in business. Reducing regulation spells a future of litigation as industry runs rampant in the tradition of Michael Harris’ Ontario.

And where is Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition? They are hiding behind the curtains of the House of Commons, in fear that their negative attitudes should accidently cause an election. They are fiercely sure that they do not support Flaherty’s machinations. They are fiercely sure they will not support his solutions. They live in fear that they will accidently bring down the government. They are, as a collective, as disgusting as Mr. Harper’s crew of rednecks.

God, is it not great to be a Canadian in this false spring?

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Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to [email protected]

Mr. Harper took two months off for his government to recalibrate,

Now he wants our national anthem fixed so that we can celebrate.

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Our parliamentarians have returned to the Ottawa lair,

Now just oust Stephen Harper and do it with some flair.

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