Can anyone in Centretown lend me a pair of walkie-talkies

For Saturday morning? Just wondering.

There are a lot of Free TVs out there these days

The above picture of two televisions on Bronson Avenue was taken this past Sunday afternoon. Here are two things about the photo that you might find surprising:

1. I did not make a u-turn and pick up the TVs.
2. Whoever put them out couldn't wait 6 days until Saturday, May 29 and try to sell them for a few bucks at the Great Glebe Garage Sale.

Are you going to the GGGS? Say hi if you see me. I will be there with Manon following my usual schema.

A Cake to take you to the Stars

If you are throwing a party for someone who has negative feelings about aging, I can tell you that an excellent way to prod them towards a more celebretory frame of mind is to make them a cake that looks like a spaceship.

However, I cannot tell you how to make such an awesome cake. You would have to ask the lovely Manon.

After the Razzle

We had our last showing of On the Razzle last night and I'm surprised to admit that I'm going to miss it. Surprised because I didn't think I was going to enjoy being in the play. As a member of the band, I had five very brief appearances, two of which weren't actually appearances because the band played behind the set where the audience couldn't see us.

For most of the play, I sat upstairs with other cast members, talking, reading old New Yorkers, or singing along with Dean, our banjo player, who will try to play any song anybody mentions. (This could result in a raucous sing-along like when Neil Diamond's Sweet Caroline was suggested, or something less inspiring when it was Britney Spear's Baby One More Time.)

This turned out to be an excellent way to spend an evening. That it ends with bowing in front of a couple hundred of applauding people is icing on the cake.

If you get a chance to be in the band for a play, I recommend taking it. As for being an actor, I can't say. All that memorizing seems really hard. Plus the vocal warmups before the show look and sound silly.

• My Flickr Set of backstage photos

Go see On the Razzle

Guess what! I am in a play this week at the Great Canadian Theatre Company, Wednesday through Saturday.

It's Tom Stoppard's On the Razzle and it's this year's lawyers' play. In past years, I've ignored the casting calls from the County of Carleton Law Association, but this year they specifically asked for musicians to play in the brass band called for in the play's script. As far as I know, I'm the only lawyer in Ottawa who actually belongs to a brass band, so I thought it would be churlish not to offer my services.

I passed my audition, perhaps because I played Will Your Anchor Hold, an upbeat hymn from my old Salvation Army tunebook and a favourite of my grandfather's.

Here are some reasons you might like to see On the Razzle:

• With 29 cast members, it has a lot more people on stage than you usually get to see at the GCTC;
• There will be a reception after each performance;
• On the Razzle is a funny play with lots of clever word play and nothing horrible happens to anybody;
• Money raised by the performance is going to the GCTC and the very worthwhile Immigrant Women Services Ottawa;
• The $100 ticket price gets you a $50 tax receipt;
• Your photo could wind up in the society pages of the newspaper; and
• The play is set in and near Vienna during a craze for everything Scottish.

On the Razzle by Tom Stoppard

CCLA/GCTC Lawyer Play Fundraiser May 13-15, 2010 at 8pm

Irving Greenberg Theatre Centre, 1233 Wellington St. W (at Holland Ave.)

Tickets: $100 with $50 tax receipt (preview May 12, $35)

Box Office: 613-236-5196

Facebook Event Page

Detoxing the House

My name is David Scrimshaw and I am a hoarder. But yesterday morning, I went down in the cellar with Manon and filled two bins and a bucket with old paint cans. It was easy for me to part with the spray cans because they are empty. I didn't feel so good about the wall paint cans that I could feel stuff sloshing inside, but then I realized that they were getting so rusty there is a distinct possibility of the cans rusting through before I ever actually use the paint in them.

So then with the bins in the car along with two empty propane cylinders and a book to read while waiting in line it was off to the one day household hazardous waste depot on the other side of the Queensway.

Guess what. I didn't need the book. Norman Street between Booth and Rochester was dedicated to the depot and was swarming with cheerful volunteers in white disposable coveralls. One volunteer directed me in, another asked me for the first three letters of my postal code (full points for compliance with privacy legislation) and and a bunch more emptied my bins and gave them back to me within about a minute.

And nobody gave me any attitude or even teasing about how dangerous looking my paint cans had gotten.

It was all so easy and efficient that it made me want to go to somebody else's house to find more hazardous waste I could drop off.

There are plenty more household hazardous waste depots coming up this year. You can find them at this link on the City's website.

And here's a link that will work for other Canadian cities besides Ottawa.