I don’t usually play the lottery, but if the prize money gets high enough I’ll pick up a ticket. A couple of weeks ago the prize was $90 million so I got a quick pick (which means the numbers are automatically generated). I just checked my ticket yesterday (I knew I hadn’t won the main prize) and was struck by my numbers. For this draw there are 52 numbers (1-52), so if your first number is a 44 you know you’ve got the back end covered! This ticket was the equivalent of the numbers being 1-2-3-4-6-8-9.  I don’t think I’ve ever had a ticket like this before.

Buttface toys on sale at Wal-Mart. You squeeze them and they vibrate (what’s called a “butt dance”) and make fart noises (they are labeled as “fart certified”). Choose between Chester Cheeks and King Toot.

Price rolled back to $30. Regular $40. For something you may smile at once before it gets tossed in a landfill. We’ve got to do better.

Over the last couple of years I’ve posted pics of some of the standout Halloween yard decorations. There were some more good ones this year.

I had a pic of this set-up in 2024 and thought it was quite busy then. Well, they’ve added even more to it. There’s a lot going on.

I never saw The Nightmare Before Christmas but I recognized this character as Jack Skellington. What I like about this display is that Jack’s ghost dog Zero is also included.

The standout is this giant Frankenstein’s monster. There’s actually a motion sensor built in to it, so when I’ve been walking by this week it comes on and Frankie’s eyes light up and he growls and waves both his arms up and down. Impressive. This second pic shows more of the yard.

Or an old leaf. Lots and lots of them. ‘Tis the season. At least living in a condo I don’t have to pick all these up. Even if they do always build the pile in front of my house.

Seeing as Halloween is coming up this weekend I thought I’d post this pic of a full moon that I took while out for my morning walk a couple of mornings ago. It almost looks like a daytime shot, but actually it was hours before sunrise.

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone! Or at least to those of you living in Canada. If you live in the U.S. you’ll have to wait until Christmas Eve. I think that’s when they have theirs scheduled. I don’t know why they don’t space things out a bit more..

Saw these neat-looking virtual reality bubbles in the mall the other day. They’re the product of a company called Inscape out of Nova Scotia. I think they have race car and flight simulators. That sort of thing. The problem for me is that I’m so bad at videogames I don’t think it would be worth it. I used to always crash and burn in games like Turbo and Pole Position, which I suppose most readers of this blog will have never heard of but they were the big racing games at arcades back in the day. Things have come a long way!

Moving in day! At least for the house on the left. There’s a bit of a story with regard to the house on the right. A few months ago there was actually a fire in it, caused (I believe) by a wiring problem. It caused some damage inside and you can still see scorched siding at the back. I don’t know how much work they have to do to replace the stuff that’s been done but it really put them behind schedule.

After all the bin pics I’ve posted, I just realized I’d never done an action shot. Well, here’s one getting emptied on garbage day.

Last week was busy, and it ended with a long walk. The highlight was a stroll downtown on a beautiful sunny day. Here are some highlights. Some of these pics can be enlarged if you click on them.

There used to be a big Best Western hotel just a block down the street from where I live. It was torn down and the plan was to build student housing in its place, as the location is just across the road from the University. But that was ten years ago. They did tear the hotel down but there’s just been a hole in the ground ever since. At least it fills with rainwater and gives a nice fenced enclosure for geese to rest.

Proceeding down Gordon Street we find the Guelph Lawn Bowling Club. You may not have known Guelph had a Lawn Bowling Club. Now you do. In the background you can see our famous covered bridge. To the right (not in the picture) is the Boathouse, which is an eatery where you can get an ice cream cone and then sit and watch the geese and ducks on the river (which we’ll return to).

This is the splash pad in front of City Hall. Kids can cool off in it in the summer. I never have business with City Hall (if I can help it) but I pass by it often.

I had a bunch of errands to do downtown, and these were made more difficult by the fact that the main square, which is called St. George’s Square, is currently under construction. A lot of construction. To get to Scotiabank, where I was heading, I had to wander through a maze of walkways surrounded by barricades. What a mess!

I was tired out by this time so I went to sit for a while in the main branch of the library. This gentleman seems to have had the same idea, but was even more tired than I. Note the poor condition of the carpet. Given that this branch is going to be closed down when the new main library opens I guess they’re not worried about keeping up appearances.

I posted a picture a while back of the construction on the new library, which is just a block away from the old one and only a stone’s throw from St. George’s Square. This is what it looked like then.

And this is what it looks like now. They’re coming along. Lots of construction in this town.

I had to head to a lawyer’s office next and passed by the display window of a toy store where a Guelph Monopoly game was being sold. I had to go in and check it out. Nice conversation piece, but Monopoly is one of the worst board games in the world. I don’t know how it ever became so popular.

A few weeks ago the fabulous Fraggle posted an AI mock-up of Guelph that surprised me. Some of the landmarks were there but they were in the wrong place, or incorrectly rendered. One such location was the Albion Hotel. Well, here is the real place. First opening in the 1860s (under another name) there are a lot of urban legends associated with its history, including a visit from Al Capone during Prohibition (there was a Guelph connection, supposedly). Recently renovated, just last month it was listed for sale for $1. You can’t tear it down because it’s a heritage site so I’m not sure what’s going to happen to it.

The kids were back in school this week, and they were greeted by this cheerful, and maybe overly optimistic sign, at Central P.S.

Directly across from my lawyer’s office is the Guelph Civic Museum. I’ve only ever been in the gift shop. Some day I’ll go through it. I’m not a fan of the glass and stone effect.

My lawyer has been with the family for decades. He’s semi-retired now. The flowers in his front window looked like they could use some attention, but the office has a real old-school charm.

On my way back home I had to take a picture from the bridge overlooking the Eramosa River. In the summer you often see people in kayaks and canoes paddling about on it. But on this day it just looked peaceful.

And that’s a wrap. Hope you enjoyed this quick tour of some of the sites about my hometown. According to my phone I put in 30,000 steps so I was bushed when I got back. I’m not the man I used to be, as the song says.