Apaprently today (March 21) is International Poetry Day.

I'm not sure who sets up these days — according to Twitter, it's also International Hoodie Day? — but in my opinion, poetry doesn't get enough respect.

It's all prose these days. And longer prose is better. Just ask anyone trying to publish a book of poems or short stories.

Oddly, I suspect that a well-crafted poem could actually have more resonance in these days of text messaging, status updates and the aforementioned Twitter.

Maybe these days it's more Vancouver and Montreal, but when I was heading to university, all the people my age were talking about moving to Calgary.

Getting out of Brandon — as soon as they could — was just assumed, and the city of Calgary was said to be the place where the grass was greenest. I'm not sure if it's still the case, but for a while, all of my friends talked about how they would run into each other at Calgary Hitmen games, which they would regularly attend when the Wheat Kings were in town.

These days, though, I have certain evidence that Brandon is better than Calgary.

To wit, I offer the Tale of Two University Student Presidents.

I admit it -- I howled when anti-cell phone laws came into effect and I had to put my phone down while I was driving.

Of course, I follow the law (mostly), but I still think it was a stupidly big hammer being used on too small a nail.

(Hint: If "distracted driving" is the problem, then ticket "distracted driving." Cell phones aren't always distracting -- it may be illegal, but it is absolutely not dangerous for me to quickly check a text message after I pull up to a light that's just turned red.)

Anyway, this week and next, Brandon police (as well as Winnipeg police and the Mounties) will be targeting distracted drivers in something they are calling Operation "No Phone Zone."

I had a couple of minutes this morning and thought I would take a look at just how warm it's been this January.

It seems like every day has been above normal -- and not just a little bit above normal, but melty and rainy.

Sure, most years we get some sort of January or February melt, but this is pretty ridiculous. Luckily, I found a way to graph precisely how ridiculous it is, over on the Environment Canada site: |

I've recently become a convert to cast iron pans.

It's not quite as easy to use as a Teflon-based non-stick coating, but I have read too many scare stories recently that link those artifical non-stick coatings to cancer.

And I'm terrible about heating up empty pans and thinking I can get away with the occasional use of a fork -- both no-nos with non-stick coating.

So experimenting with cast iron has been liberating. I can scrape with a metal spatula to my heart's delight, and treated properly, it is just as non-stick as any Teflon.

Let me be clear right from the start: I think the taxes I pay are a bargain for the services I receive, and I would like to pay MORE in taxes so that this city can do even MORE for me.

News broke late last week that city council is going to re-consider the budget, but I hope they don't re-consider it to death.

I've been disappointed in how they are handling the public debate -- especially in the online echo chamber of this eBrandon thread -- and the budget isn't perfect, but overall, I like it.

Here's why: I can afford it. The city needs it. And we should have done it years ago.

In trying to tamp down all the hullabaloo about the city of Brandon's proposed budget, newly hired analyst Nathan Peto presented a few graphs and charts at Monday's city council meeting.

You can take a look at a slideshow of his numbers here.

From his numbers, we are led to conclude that Brandon's municipal budget is decidedly middle-of-the-road, that it is eminently reasonable, and that we aren't doing anything that should raise alarm.

Part of the city's job is, of course, to do exactly that -- to come up with the best possible use of city tax dollars, and since every other city in the world is trying to do the same thing, it's likely that they'll all kind of look the same.

So, we need a name for the park at First and Rosser?

A petition has been circulated to name it after former landowner David S. Weiss. City council is to debate naming it after longtime councillor Erroll Black. And the vaguely perjorative name "Battery Park" has been kicked around for a couple of years, too.

Possible names for the park was the subject of Monday's poll, but when the Brandon Sun posted the story on Facebook and Twitter, we asked for other suggestions. Here's a collated list (many came from history blogger Christian Cassidy):

David S. Weiss Memorial Park -- named after a longtime landowner in the area, who ran Brandon Scrap Iron and Metals Recycling (Skunk and Junk). Weiss also served as a Brandon alderman, but was partly responsible for the land's contamination.Errol Black Park -- named after the venerable former East End city councillor.Battery Park -- a tongue-in-cheek response to the longtime practice of breaking car batteries at that site, but also perhaps a tie-in to the suggestion below.Cannon Park, Memorial Park, Veterans Park or Shilo Park -- complete with a military piece, perhaps a howitzer, some citizens have suggested that it's past due for Brandon to honour its military ties.Joe Hall Park -- The park features a huge hill, perhaps Hall's Hill? This early-20th century hockey legend grew up in Brandon but died of influenza while playing for the Montreal Canadiens in the (cancelled) 1918-19 Stanley Cup finals.James Ehnes -- perhaps Brandon's most currently famed musical export.Rhoda Power Tenant -- Brandon's first female city councillor (they called them aldermen back then)Fred McGuinness -- A longtime newspaperman and then memoirist, McGuinness has a lengthy list of accomplishments.Other suggestions already have something named after them:

The other night, like many nights, I was thinking about having a nightcap before tottering off to bed.

I like having a nightcap for a couple of reasons -- and I'm not talking about a glass of wine, or a beer, I'm talking about a drink. A mixed drink. Something that takes at least a little bit of effort, a bit of craft, even a bit of skill.

That's part of what I think defines a nightcap, even more so than any alcoholic content.

It's the process or deciding on something to make, crafting it simply yet sophiticatedly, and then sipping it that really relaxes me, and gets me wound down from a stressful day.

I guess I knew that it wouldn't be forever.

But, boy, what fun while it lasted.

Earlier this week, I posted what I thought was the best police press release I had seen in a while. RCMP from St.-Pierre-Jolys (not really our area) had cracked the Case of the Missing Cattle.

Turns out that there hadn't been a cattle rustler -- but maybe it was some rustling in nearby trees that tipped off the Eastman rancher that his missing cows had just gone wandering. They were found in some bush, about a mile and a half from home.

This is perhaps the best police press release I've seen recently. |

Because both I and my girlfriend work downtown, I spend a lot of time in Brandon's core area. It ain't perfect, but there are loads of great little quirks and I keep discovering new ones.

One of those quirks popped up when the city started its traffic loop experiment in the summer.

Ninth Street and 10th Street were converted to complementary one-way streets (one northbound, one southbound) so that drivers could drive round-and-round in a circle that included Princess Avenue and Pacific Avenue.

As I posted back then, an inadvertant side-effect of the new streets was that, for the first time in Brandon, two one-way streets would intersect at a lights-controlled intersection. And that means that left-turns on red would be allowable.

| There's been some interesting community discussion on Brandon Transit recently, which is excellent, because I think it's been neglected in this city for too long.

Firstly, the city is poised to slash bus fees almost in half, although they're also eliminating the costly and inefficient paper transfer system, so some riders will have to pay twice for a single ride.

(This is one of three suggested options, and although that appears to be the one the city favours, it won't be decided for sure until the budget.)