Here’s how to enter to win free tickets to see Mary Poppins in Toronto:

Visit Mirvish.com and scroll down to see the contest links.

Upload your best summer holiday photo and tell the good folks at Mirvish.com who you had your good times with by by finishing the sentence

“I HAD A JOLLY HOLIDAY WITH _____________”

The lucky winner gets two tickets to Mary Poppins on the evening of November 10, 2011
and select Mary Poppins show merchandise.

Contest closes Sept. 30, 2011

dante beatrix backpack

Britney Spears’ boys have one. So does Halle Berry’s daughter Nahla and Maggie Gyllenhaal’s little Ramona. In short, the adorable backpacks and lunch boxes made by DanteBeatrix are the “it” bag for the kindergarten set. Made from eco-friendly materials, sized
for kids and toddlers, and fashioned in trendy colours with whimsical motifs, these bags are sought after by the hippest mommies and their progeny. Best news yet: they’re now available
in Canada at select children’s boutiques and online at Dantebeatrix.com

culture days

And it explodes in communities across Canada from September 29-October 2 featuring free, interactive creative activities with a focus on hands-on participation and behind-the-scenes insight. Visit CultureDays.ca for information.

• Winnipeg – Visit CKUW 95.9 FM and see how community radio is made, Sept. 30.
• Saskatoon – Dance, write, act and paint at the Dance Saskatchewan building, Sept. 30.
• Toronto – Take a ballet class with the National Ballet of Canada, October 2.
• Vancouver – Go backstage at the Vancouver Playhouse Theatre Company on a tour with the Managing Director, October 2.

barts king sized book of fun

(Past books include The Big Book of Gross Stuff, The Pocket Guide to Magic and The Pocket Guide to Mischief.) Bart’s King Sized Book of Fun is stuffed to bursting with awesome activities, silly jokes, trivia and puzzles – a modern kids companion they won’t leave home without. (Gibbs Smith and Raincoast Books)

People with BDD will shun social contact, miss school, avoid dating and even visit plastic surgeons as a result of their condition.

Body Dysmorphic Disorder Warning Signs

There are several symptoms of Body Dysmorphic Disorder, including:

* Excessive grooming
* Compulsive mirror checking
* Excessive dieting
* Measuring or frequently touching the perceived defect

Marshall Robinson, a research assistant at the BDD Centre says the condition is often misdiagnosed – mistaken for other disorders like social phobia or agoraphobia.

“A lot of people do tend to treat it like subset of OCD,” says Robinson. “In fact, it has more in common with depression.”

The treatments that appear most effective are cognitive-behavioral therapy and promising medications include serotonin re-uptake inhibitors (SRIs) like Prozac and Zoloft.

Having an ever-growing in-box, an eclectic collection of decades old shoes or drawers full of pens that don’t work is one thing. But if you’ve got whole rooms literally stuffed full of possessions, you may have a problem with cluttering or hoarding.

Declutter Your Life

DSM-IV associates hoarding with Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder and defines it as an inability to discard worthless or worn-out things, though they have no sentimental value. But in the textbook Obsessive Compulsive Disorders, Practical Management (Third Edition 1998 – Harvard University Press), Dr. Randy Frost suggests that hoarders do develop a strong attachment to their possessions and also actively acquire them.

“For example,” writes Dr. Frost, “one of our study participants bought and kept more than 30 bottles of shampoo; if her hoard fell below that number, she felt compelled to buy more. Another participant had rooms full of ‘gifts’ that she had purchased over several decades. She did not know to whom she would give them, but they were ‘good buys’ that she couldn’t pass up.”

Dr. Frost’s research suggests hoarding is more closely related to OCD – and it’s difficult to treat.

Case studies suggest hoarders respond to cognitive behavioural therapy when the notion of discarding items is gradually introduced and issues like perfectionism, need for control and fear of decision making are examined.

The Lion King Toronto

The Lion King Announces Toronto Cast for Spring 2011 Shows

• Scar – Will be played by J. Anthony Crane.
• Mufusa – The wise Lion and ruler of the Pridelands will be portrayed by Dionne Randolph.
• Rafiki – Brenda Mhlongo is the wise baboon shaman.
• Zazu – The prim and proper hornbilled bird will be played by Tony Freeman.
• Pumbaa – Ben Lipitz is the carefree warthog
• Timon – Nick Cordileone is the wisecracking meerkat
• Simba, the Lion Prince – Will be played by Adam Jacobs
• Young Simba – The role of “Young Simba” is alternated between Dusan Brown and Jerome Stephens, Jr.
• Syndee Winters is the loyal lioness “Nala.”
• The three evil hyenas are played by Omari Tau (“Banzai”), Monica L. Patton (“Shenzi”) and Ben Roseberry (“Ed”).

Tickets and Showtimes for The Lion King in Toronto:

• The Lion King will play Tuesday through Saturday evenings 7:30pm
• Saturday matinees at 2pm
• Sundays at 1pm and 6:30pm.
• 2pm Wednesday matinees on April 20, May 18, May 25, June 1 and June 8.
• No performances on Tuesday, May 24 and Tuesday, May 31.

Ticket prices start at $20. Tickets are available at the Princess of Wales Theatre Box Office, by calling TicketKing.

Presale tickets are available to American Express Card holders today – February 15 – until February 17, 2011 when they go on sale to the general public.

Glee in Toronto

Glee Live at the Air Canada Centre in Toronto, June 11 – Showtimes are 3pm and 8pm

Presale ticket information is available at Ticketmaster.ca/americanexpress

The answer lies deep inside some of the biggest and most secure vaults in the world. That’s where most of the gold that has ever been mined is sitting right now. Most of the crude oil that has ever been pumped from the earth has been burned. Most of the wheat that man has grown as food has already been eaten. Even most of the silver that has even been mined has been consumed in photography, mirrors, switches, and these days, consumer electronics. The consumer electronics industry uses a tiny bit of silver in every darn thing they manufacture. Most of the silver that has been mined has been used in ways that prevent it from being reclaimed economically. But not gold! For thousands of years, humankind has been extracting it from the Earth, and hoarding it away. People have kept track of where it is.

This gives gold a very unusual property that almost no other substance known to man shares – predictability. Oh, sure, we know how much sea water there is on earth from year to year, but there is no practical way to possess any significant portion of it. The volume of all the gold ever mined and hoarded by humans is quite small by comparison – imagine a cube, about 60 feet (or about 20 meters) per side. That’s it. Through thousands of years of trying, that’s all we’ve come up with. And very little has been lost to landfills. It is very easy for a country, or other powerful individual or organization, to amass a non-trivial percentage of all the gold in the world in a secure, undisclosed location, where they know it will remain safely in their posession.

As such, gold has long served as a perfect “yardstick”. Almost everything else we associate with a quantity of capital fluctuates in quantity. Copper inventories can soar or crash, depending on mining output and consumption. Money supplies can be vastly inflated, causing the market desirability of any given unit of the currency to fall off sharply. The supply of gold, on the other hand, increases at about 1% to 2% a year, and has for decades. There will be no surprises, in terms of how much gold there is. And there is almost no other thing that one could accumulate that that is true of.

And this is the reason why most of the gold in the world is in the vaults of powerful nations, organizations, and individuals.  Anything else they might `hoard`to preserve their wealth would be subject to changes in value as a result of fluctuations in the World`s stockpile.  Gold is predictable.  Gold is stable.  Gold is the gold standard.  In a world where growth is seen as the only thing to aspire to, the value of such stability is easily forgotten.  The US hasn`t forgotten.  Germany hasn`t forgotten.   France hasn`t forgotten.  Russia hasn`t forgotten.  They still hoard unimaginable piles of the stuff, knowing full well that it will provide stability in a volatile world.  Which, of course, keeps the price very high.  The price of gold would drop like a stone if even those 4 countries decided to cash in their reserves.  But they do not.

And so gold remains very valuable.

For a very pessimistic take on the world of money, and the role that a beautiful, distinctive, inimitable, divisible, indestructible, compact, rare commodity with an extremely predictable supply may play in a world where money itself becomes volatile, check out this article by Timothy Wood.

Mary Poppins in Toronto

Chim Chim Cheroo!

The beloved story of the prim nanny and her two lively charges, Jane and Michael Banks, has played to critical acclaim in London’s West End and on Broadway. The lively musical features award-winning classic songs like “Chim-Chim-Cheree” and “A Spoonful of Sugar” and has played on 3 continents to over 6 million people.

Full schedule has yet to be announced.

Mary Poppins Tickets

Tickets for Mary Poppins in Toronto currently only available as part of a subscription series through TicketKing at Mirvish.com