So, I was driving down the road, when

The day after Mrs. Ottawacker's birthday has been a day of quiet recrimination - mainly about why I ate the second piece of birthday cake when I didn't even want the first. Some things are stronger than I.

In the morning, chastened, I drove down to Staples to return via Purolator a hasty Amazon purchase. I found a box of 7" records in the basement, worse for wear, and had decided to "look after them". I bought new inner sleeves, a record cleaning kit, and a couple hundred outer plastic sleeves. They outer sleeves were the problem. They were crap. So back they went.

I miss records. The thrill of buying a 45 as a kid was second to none. At one stage I had decided to get the number one record for every week of my life. A noble idea - and one I wish I had followed through on. Unfortunately for me, I decided this the week that Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody" shot to #1 in the UK. That was 1975. It stayed there for about 8-9 weeks and was replaced eventually by Abba (if I am not mistaken - "Mamma Mia" was the offending song). I had a raging crush on the blonde one from Abba, so I bought that one too. Then it was Slik - which I hated, and so didn't buy... I wish I had, Midge Ure was the singer. My streak of buying Number 1s therefore ended at 2. 

That is still more successful than the amount of consecutive days I am spending on my writing.

Other than that, I couldn't help but notice our local lawyer had installed a rocket launcher on his roof. I remember when Ottawa was boring.