Yes, but I TYPE like Jack Kerouac.

I read an Associated Press article by Jake Coyle on the Washington Post's website about the popularity of a site called I Write Like which allows people to paste in a few paragraphs of text, compare it to a database of works by about 50 authors, and then tell them which author's style the software thinks they resemble.

Coyle writes that when others tried it out, I Write Like thought one of Mel Gibson's obscenity-laced phone tirades directed at his ex-girlfriend Oksana Grigorieva positively Margaret Atwoodian, while Margaret's writings turned out to be Steven Kingian, a distinction shared by Herman Melville.

I uploaded a few examples of my own (that's not) writing (that's typing) and got a different result every time. I write like Stephen King; I write like Charles Dickens; I write like James Joyce; I write like Kurt Vonnegut. It's good company, even if I turn out not to write anything like my homegirl Peggy Atwood. I'm relieved that none of my writing samples came back - as other people's have - with the alarming words, "You write like Dan Brown."

It could have been worse: "You write like the guy in your legal department who drafted the boilerplate Master Software Development Agreement With Intellectual Property Rights."

Shadows.

Originally uploaded by Brian Bjolin

Last weekend, near Dundas St. W and Chestnut St., Toronto.

In Which I Welcome Myself Home.

It's my first Canada Day at home in eight years. It seems only appropriate that I might enumerate a few of the many, many, many things that make me glad to be back.

So, without further ado...

Top Ten Reasons I Moved Back To Canada:

10: It snows 362 days a year in Canada.
9: The only occasion one ever has to think about Sarah Palin is to fill space in some stupid list.
8: Overwhelmed by the irreconcilable incongruity of America: so many cops, so few Tim Hortons.
7: Canada's late-night tv host wars were settled long ago. All hail George Strombopolous!
6: Don Cherry on Hockey Night In Canada is a much more reliable source of bizarre outfits than peopleofwalmart.com.
5: Having successfully ousted President Bush, I must now do the same to Prime Minister Harper.
4: I will need medical care in 10-20 years, so I am getting in line now.
3: On Canadian tv, they show boobies [note to self: get a tv].
2: I received an email from HM Queen Elizabeth II promising me cash if I helped her with a certain banking transaction.
1: It's my home and native land, yo.