Here is a Comprehensive Review of the Getzlaf Triple Berry Waggle Saskatchewan Roughriders Breakfast Cereal

You thought I was kidding, didn't you? Man, you really don't know me at all.



Yes, the last time I was out Virden way, I saw this in the Co-Op for the first time; the idea of this being a real thing made me laugh, and its proceeds go to helping children not die, so I bought a box and brought it back with me. Why not, right? One can't help but be a little bit curious about what it might taste like, especially given a name like 'Waggle'.

Saskatchewan Roughrider-themed cereals are apparently an ongoing theme out west in Rider Nation (Virden, Manitoba being far enough west to count); this -- I am just learning all of this now -- this is the third straight annual player-branded Saskatchewan Roughrider cereal, behind Andy Fantuz's Fantuz Flakes in 2010 and Darian Durant's Dari-Os last year. With Fantuz having since moved to the Tiger-Cats, and with all three players expected to play in this week's upcoming Riders-Ticats game, media have dubbed the contest "the Cereal Bowl". Sports are great, man.

Interestingly, I've yet to encounter Winnipeg's franchise foodstuff while out and about around town; either the original product run wasn't a large one or the barbecue chips are just that popular, because they seem to have disappeared as quickly as (alas) their namesake did.

Amateur rebranding exercises aside, of course:



we're never winning a grey cup ever again, are we

But enough preamble! Let's get down to business, and by 'business' of course I mean 'looking at the box and then eating the cereal'.

Manitoba Links Weekly: Dunnottar Sewer Surfin', Nine is Early Enough, Stop Fighting With Your Lady, and You'll Never Guess What Winnipeg Leads In (ManLinkWeek 41)

I hope you will humour me a bit of self-promotion, before we begin; it's been quite the interesting week or so. Seemingly everybody I know has already brought this up in person, but -- yes, I was in in the Free Press over the weekend, and yes, I had a really good time. Many thanks to David Sanderson for conceptualizing and hosting the event, and to the rest of the panel of experts as well.

That past weekend was a busy one for me, as I covered in this previous post; a lot of you probably don't check this site more than once a week (because, to be fair, my updates here as late have been about one a week), so I thought I'd take the time now to mention it. At the very least, this being a Manitoba feature, I figure that the following video is worthy of inclusion:



Let's see, what else? Ah, yes! I ran the soundboard for this week's Winnipeg Internet Pundits all by myself, like a big boy, without shattering the equipment or burning the studio down -- and those were my metrics of success (to give you some idea of my confidence going in), so, hey! Success.

And (and), I know I haven't really impressed this upon you lately, but I write weekly columns for Uptown. So if you haven't swung by there or picked a physical copy up lately, I wish to humbly suggest that you may find it worth your while do so.

BUT ENOUGH ABOUT ME. Let's fire up some ManLinkWeek!

A Big Weekend, in Pictures: Fireworks and a Parade in Oak Lake, the 28th Annual Brandon Folk Festival, a Moody Manitoba Morning, and Other Westman Shenanigans (56k Modems Beware)

Fair warning: there are about twenty megabytes' worth of pictures in this post. I realize that for most of us modern-day downloadin' folks that's barely a blip, like maybe three or four decently-encoded MP3s, but still. Fair warning!

As you'll see shortly, there is a lot more in this post than I was actually expecting to see when I left town Thursday evening. Longtime readers will recall that my father lives out in Oak Lake, off the highway between Virden and Brandon, and Oak Lake is generally not an overly busy destination.

As an example, here's what the hustle and bustle of downtown looked like when we went out the next day:





Not your fancy Virden city-living, to be sure, and Oak Lake residents like it just fine that way. Let me (re)introduce you to a couple of them, not because they're crucial to the story, but because they're adorable:

Manitoba Links Weekly: Brandon Crime as Fringe Play, Grass as Redevelopment, Deep-Fried Pizza Pops as the Lede, and Online Reader Comments... on Paper? (ManLinkWeek 40)

Your eyes do not deceive you; what you see here is blurry cellphone footage, taken yesterday in the wild ("the wild" in this case being the Maryland Tim Hortons between Portage and Broadway), of an online reader-comments section grabbing a pen and forcibly crossing itself over into the print edition. Behold -- the future of publishing!

Now, before we launch into this week's cornucopia of content: I didn't want to devote a full segment below to them, because they've already appeared many a time in this feature already, but holy shit, the Winnipeg Blue Bombers. I split my time tonight between typing this post out and watching them lose again, so they're still on my mind right now, but from the way their year is shaping up so far I can see that I'm going to need to pace myself. So let's say instead that I'll, uh... I'll let you know if they win. (And you'll note that's an 'if'.)

On to ManLinkWeek!

Manitoba Links Weekly: Summer is Here and Everything is Happening (ManLinkWeek 39)

Hello and welcome to another vaguely-weekly installment of everybody's at least second favourite local link bonanza; it's time for ManLinkWeek!

My apologies for the delay on this post; my week, thus far, has been a maddening one. Those of you who follow me on Twitter are aware of my ongoing... escapades with Visions Electronics, and how I had thought that would make for an interesting blog post when the whole affair was over. Well, as of this writing, the whole affair is not over -- don't even get me started, right now, just don't -- and this is time that I am not getting back.

Anyway, it turns out that simmering frustration, thirty-five-Celsius weather, and the skin-scalding gusts of a five-year-old desktop computer make for a potently poor writing environment when combined. So, heck with it! The last few ManLinkWeeks have steadily skyrocketed into hashtag-longreads territory, and on days like these you should be aiming to minimize your computer time (or maximize its efficiency, whichever) and get outside sooner.

Thusly, please find a crop of links below; the repeat Slurpee championship is an honourary mention, although after thirteen straight years of it I'm not sure what discussion topics remain unmined.

The Brent Bellamy piece on the James Avenue Pumping Station is an honourary mention as well, having been featured in a segment of this week's WIPs; you should definitely add it to the reading list below if you have the time.

WHO AM I KIDDING NOBODY HAS TIME FOR ANYTHING

LET'S GO, GO GO GO GO

Manitoba Links Weekly: This Doesn't Look Like Anything, the Public Tap Dries Up, and Not-92.9 KICK Not-FM (ManLinkWeek 38)

I don't even know where this week has gone, man. Holiday Mondays are really discombobulating.

If you'd missed it, I put up some parade photographs from Canada Day in a tiny village over the weekend; they're very cute! You should check them out.

Also cute, and tangentially related to Canada Day: the Free Press put up a weekend gallery of cat pictures, if you're into that sort of thing, I mean. Are pictures of cats still popular on the internet? It's hard to keep track of this stuff.

On to ManLinkWeek!

Up-to-the-Minute Breaking News: Ponemah, MB Canada Day Parade Adorable (56k Modems Beware)

Happy Canada Day to one and all!

I'd hoped to have a new installment of the Slurpees & Murder Record Club for the occasion today, but it'll have to wait; the record in question is still in the city, and I am... not.

In the meantime, then, I hope that a substitution will suffice -- so please find below, for your consideration, a gallery of pictures from the cute little community Canada Day parade in Ponemah earlier today.