"A million monkeys banging on a million typewriters for a million years will eventually reproduce the entire works of Shakespeare."

Last week my employer stuffed me in a box full of styrofoam peanuts, cut out some airholes and shipped me to Halifax. Depite the colder weather there are certainly worse places to be (last summer I was swatting mosquitoes in Winnipeg), so I decided to stay the weekend and discover a little more of Canada.

I had never driven to Prince Edward Island before and had no idea what to expect. I forgot my iPod so once out of Nova Scotia I was entertained with the sweet sounds of New Brunswick's unique brand of country music... en français. I crossed the Confederation Bridge into PEI and I found that someone in Charlottetown obviously has a sense of humour, because they named their own radio station SPUD FM. Cute.

Oh ya, the bridge. It's a 13 kilometre marvel of engineering completed 10 years ago, linking the two provinces with a ribbon of concrete. What they fail to mention on MapQuest is the $40.75 toll they ding you with on the return trip. That's a helluva lot of quarters.

There are three methods of payment available: Cash, credit or debit. If you have none of the above, there is another alternative: It involves Rocco the toll booth guy ordering the driver to get out of the car, grab his ankles and to "Do it for PEI". Based on the toll charges, it turns out that this is actually the least painful way to get off the island.

I'm hoping that someday Rocco accepts my invitation to come live out in the GTA so that I can return the favour. Once he starts paying McGuinty's Health Premium he'll know first-hand what it's like to "Do it for Ontario".

Against my better judgement I let my friends convince me that it would be a good idea to toss myself out of an airplane at 10,500 feet.

There were several levels of protection in place to ensure the enjoyment of all parties involved. First there was the brown outfit that the staff selected for me, acting as camoflauge in the likely event that I soiled myself while exiting the aircraft.

In case the first parachute didn't open the pack contained a backup, and if that one failed too, I was provided with a leather helmet which was sure to cushion the impact of my body dropping out of the clouds at 54 metres per second.

Failing all of that, there was the mountain of waivers I signed so my family could focus on my funeral and not have to deal with distracting litigation.

They sent us up with the latest in aircraft technology. The bullet holes in the side demonstrated that the fuselage could withstand an attack by the Red Baron, and only the finest duct tape was used to hold the rest together. From outside the plane I yelled "Contact!", gave the propeller a spin to kickstart the motor, and we were off.

While playing to the videographer who jumped out with me, I kinda forgot to pull the ripcord when we reached 6,000 feet. Good thing for the instructor attached to my back, like Yoda on Luke Skywalker. The bad thing about deploying the chute was the two harness straps passing through a sensitive area, making my voice go falsetto. I almost felt like undoing the buckles, flapping my arms and testing the limits of that leather helmet.

That didn't happen, of course, and everything went as planned. If I do this a next time however, I'll be sure to heed the advice of my instructor: "When the people look like ants, it's time to pull the cord. When the ants look like people, it's too late."

Words to live by. Literally.

Right now fires are raging through Greece, killing or displacing inhabitants, decimating forests and threatening ancient landmarks.

Part of the plan to stop the fires involves airplanes dumping water on the infernos in an attempt to snuff them out. It's not working however, and may even be making things worse.

Because y'know, you should never pour water on Greece fires.

"Turkey Split in Bitter Struggle", read the headline. The article written in the Toronto Star today began as follows:

"The possibility of an observant Muslim president is pitting Turkey's deeply secular military and civilian establishment against its religiously oriented ruling party in a fundamental struggle over national identity."

When I initially clicked on the link I was expecting to see a story about a Thanksgiving dinner gone awry. I have really got to be more informed... this is how wars start.

Clumsily the neaderthal lumbered after the rabbit, but it was no use. It was too fast and his knuckles kept scraping the ground. He fashioned a spear from a nearby stick but his aim was terrible. Even if he did manage to catch a slow and defenseless (yet tasty) animal, he would have no means to cook it, for he had not yet discovered the secret of fire.

He gave up on meat and roamed the forests around his cave in search of fruit or vegetable, but nothing around him was edible and he kept pricking himself on the sharp thorns. He would go hungry again tonight.

... at least, this is how I've been feeling until my parents got back last night from their vacation in Trinidad. Hooray for food!

While out west over the Easter weekend I thought about checking out Vancouver Island. The alternative was staring at the walls inside my hotel, so it wasn't that tough of a decision. The trip was very educational. Here is what I learned from my excursion:

Between bus and ferry trips it takes four hours to go from downtown Vancouver to downtown Victoria.

The speedometer of the brand new Subaru Impreza from National Rent-a-Car in Victoria goes up to 190 km/h.

The top speed of said car is 195 km/h.

The directional signs pointing to tourist information in Nanaimo were probably an April Fool's joke. The joke isn't funny.

Gas attendants in Nanaimo can miscalculate the distance to a destination by up to two hours. Possibly the same individuals that erected the signs.

Circumference at the base of the tallest tree in Cathedral Grove: 9 metres

Number of bars in Ladysmith: 4

Number of bars in Ladysmith showing the hockey game: 1

Population of Ladysmith: 4177

Population of non-white people in Ladysmith (upon my arrival): 1

The universe nearly collapsed on itself today.

While channel-surfing in my hotel tonight I found Rita MacNeil doing an Easter special from Cape Breton. I suppose CTV was lacking some Canadian content (according to rules put forth by our beloved government), and were desperate to fill the airtime. And fill they did.

I hadn't seen or heard from this folk singer since "Rita and Friends" was cancelled back in the 90's. I daresay that in the ten years that passed since then, that woman has managed to become even more immense. Even the slightest movement caused sweat to glisten on her jowls.

Watching this spectacle I became disoriented, and it started to appear as if my living room was being sucked down some giant drain. To my horror I realized what I had done; I was watching Rita in widescreen format, and the resulting combination must have broken the laws of physics and caused a rupture in the space-time continuum. The universe was folding in on itself, and I had to act fast.

Desperately I grabbed for the remote and flipped for dear life, searching for some safe haven. Finally I landed on Pussycat Dolls Present: The Search for the Next Doll, and space and time were restored to a balanced state.

We all owe you one, MTV.