Ryan Flanagan

Someone finally said it!

My apologies to everyone who has heard this story before.

Back in the 1970s, two things were true about UWaterloo:

* UW never, ever closed.
* Many faculty members owned farms.

Cue the Great Storm of 1978.

Apparently there is a lot more ad money to be had for video podcasts. Or at least that's the industry wisdom this year.

This was one of the most surprising (to me) lessons I learned when I moved from newspapers to digital news.

Nobody clicks on the clever headline. Our eyes scan right past it to the headline that makes it more obvious what's on the other side.

YouTube video by Betamax King Milk Energy Commercial 1997

Happy 255th birthday to Ludwig van Beethoven! Or as everyone who grew up in Canada in the ‘90s knows him, that guy who wrote the ‘Drink Milk, Love Life’ song.

Tent was definitely not there last year.

We've got so many great grassroots orgs and non-profits in #WatReg and I need your help to highlight them! For an upcoming Citified post, I'm wanting to share short blurbs (3-5 sentences) about your favourite local organization or non-profit. Feel free to share it on this thread or DM me. Thanks!

Too soon, MLB bot!

Any must-see, must-do Vietnam recommendations? I'm going next year (staying in Hanoi / Hoi An / Da Nang).

This is an absolute *must read* by @nickhunebrown.bsky.social on the impact of AI slop in an era where journalism trust is already depressingly low, and why fact-checkers are more important than ever. As a freelancer who agonizes over accuracy and getting quotes right, this was a mind boggling read.

A Marshalls in every suburban big-box complex?

Wow. This'll be the first #CanPL highlight to go around the world.

It's Christmas for #cdnpoli data nerds!

Seeing a bunch of people reporting problems here. Mine is fine so far, thankfully, but it's definitely not just you.

Other Queen songs the #BlueJays could have used as #WantItAll -style anthems, in descending order of appropriateness:

Play the Game
Don't Stop Me Now
The Show Must Go On
Keep Yourself Alive
Another One Bites the Dust
Hang On In There
The Millionaire Waltz
Lost Opportunity
I'm In Love With My Car

I remember 19 innings on Canada Day. Black and silver uniforms. Stieb’s comeback. “It’s not a lie if we know the truth.” Fireworks for home runs. Chasing Shohei.

Good and bad. Happy and sad. As fans we get it all. And now, more, for the highest stakes possible. I’m so excited. #BlueJays #WantItAll

I’ve cheered for Carlos, Doc, V-Dub, O-Dog, Johnny Mac, Ricky, Muni, R.A., J.A., Edwin, Rowdy, Yusei and all the rest.

I’ve read more articles blogs, tweets and posts from @gregorchisholm.bsky.social and @stoeten.bsky.social and @taoofstieb.bsky.social and @bluejayhunter.com et al than is healthy.

I’ve been a huge Blue Jays fan for as long as I can remember (since 1994, just after the last World Series).

I’ve seen good years and bad years. Good decisions and bad decisions. Amazing moments and ho-hum Tuesday nights. Stars demanding to be traded. Fans demanding that other stars be traded.

As Canadian as possible under the circumstances

This is basically catnip for me.

Karsay was traded for Rickey instead, so I wouldn't advise pursuing this 'what if?' path too fervently...

Really enjoyed our time working together at Circle K!

(Postscript: I can tell you how Cambridge got its name, but I can’t tell you what people from Cambridge call themselves. Even they don’t know if they have a proper demonym!)

www.cambridgetimes.ca/opinion/its-...

Voting day came and the results were mixed. Galt’s voters backed Blair, but not by a lot. Cambridge received close to two-thirds support in Hespeler and more than 75% in Preston.

New-city-wide, that meant 58% support for Cambridge and 42% support for Blair, with just over 50% turnout.

So the battle was on: Blair, with the reluctant backing of the largest of the three merging towns, versus Cambridge, which had somewhat more enthusiastic support in the smaller two.

Both names hinted at local history. But which would voters prefer?

The Galt aldermen were firmly opposed to Cambridge, which they said was boring. But they couldn’t find any alternatives they liked.

Finally, a few weeks before the vote, they put forward Blair – the name of a village that had recently merged with Preston. They’d also considered South Waterloo.

Galt, Ont. as seen from the air in 1919.

Galt’s aldermen had a trick up their sleeves: they asked if their recommendation could be a write-in option.

Their thinking was that most voters from Galt would write in ‘Galt’ and the province would reconsider the ‘no Galt’ rule.

The province said no.

A view of a rail car crossing the Speed River in Preston, Ont., circa 1900s.

It was decided that the citizens would choose the city’s name, with each town allowed to put one name on the referendum ballot.

Hespeler moved first, suggesting Cambridge. This harkened to Cambridge Mills, which is what Preston was called before it was called Preston. Preston backed this idea too.

Cambridge was formed in 1973 when the province forced Galt, Hespeler and Preston to amalgamate into one city despite their opposition.

The legislation referred to the merged city as Galt. Hespeler and Preston didn’t like that and persuaded the province that a new name was necessary.

I’ve explained how Kitchener and Waterloo acquired their names, but what about Cambridge?

You might know that it only dates back 52 years, but you might not realize that it contains a nod to local history or that, like Kitchener, it was selected by a vote of its citizens…