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Regarding last week‘s Waterloo0 Chronicle and the story Prepara tion is the Key When Weather Turns Ugly. While I appreciate your attempt to provide information for citizens about what to do in a thunderstorm, this article does not provide good information. Some of the information is conâ€" tradictory (it says if you are in a car with a metal roof you should stay there, but later it says to avoid being in a car}. Some of it is dangerous (it advisâ€" es you to avoid being in a mall durâ€" ing a thunderstorm, implying that if you‘re caught in a mall during a storm, you should leave). In some parts the article goes too far ("stay away from outside walls and doors" and "go to the basement or ... a closet"}. When have we had a storm in Waterloo that was bad enough that Iadmil it. It‘s all my fault. Everything. This valuable confession, squeezed out after 30 years of hanging around with the same woman. She is, of course, widely considered by those who know us â€"and even those who just have heard the stories â€" to be considerate, charming, thoughtful, patient and very understanding. I MEA 0 0y esns I, of course, widely consider her to be those things as well. It‘s just better that way. Bad person that I am, I have been Thz responsible for many terrible things over _ [ the years. | That would include, but would not be restricted to, a number of different sceâ€" narios. It is my fault when someone sits on the toilet, without the seat down. (My suggestion that you wouldn‘t back up your car without looking behind you? Not well received.} Again. when the lawn is not watered on the right night (because, I assume, I am the only person with the massive physical strength required to turn on the tap). I am used to those things, and indeed BJ welcome the awesome responsibilities BO that have fallen into my area, as husâ€" band, father, protector of all, poop picker upper, etc. This is the life I have happily chosen, and I will continue to stand on guard, and take whatever blame I must when tragedy, as small as they might be in my mind, befalls anyone in my house â€" even those who can‘t look behind them before they sit down in the bathroom. But I may have to draw the line now. Why? Because now they‘re moving into my area. This comes about because of a pleasant Sunday afternoon spent on the golf course with my boss, his partner and my wife. _ letme say at the outset, there are some very wonderful things about playing golf with your wife, especially when she is just starting out in the game. First of all, they don‘t know all the really stupid golf clichés. "Get in the hole!" "You da man." It‘s a pleasure to not hear some of those things now and then, although [ think most of us who play the game use them more as parody than anything else. That‘s nice, but the best part of playing with my wife is she thinks everything I do on the course is Storm story deserves a second look Leaving an ‘awful‘ legacy â€" _ Miniâ€"roundabouts not i â€" needed in Northlake residents should hide in closets? Finally, the article doesn‘t deal with common problems: it should say that golfers should stop using their clubs at the first hint of lightâ€" ning. And it should deal with questions about telephones, water taps and whether electrical appliances should be unplugged. it should also mention stormâ€" related hazards such as downed electrical lines. â€" lt‘san important topic and 1 think this story deserves another look. Iam writing this letter as a conâ€" cerned resident in the Northlake Area neighbourhood. I would like to voice my opinions in regards to the proposed traffic calming on Northlake Drive and surrounding streets COMMENT spectacular. She oohs and aahs when a drive is hit a decent distance. If I get a chip within 30 feet of the hole, it‘s a great shot. Mn ul e oo se Which is, of course, a far better reaction than the guys I usually play with. These are not people who are particularly good for your selfâ€"esteem. In fact, if you can‘t handle a large amount of goodâ€"natured abuse about your game, your manliness, your weight or any one of a list of things, then you‘re betâ€" _ . ter off not playing with us. Women w | â€" don‘t understand that, but it‘s some kind of bizarre, maleâ€"bonding thing a we do. Ruth Haworth Waterloo in her. However, she still asks for advice, which is OK. On the downside, more things have become my fault. Miss a putt? "You could have told me it was going to go that way!" Hit the ball too far? "I told you that was the wrong club!" Am 1 bn;efi;.n(érfi Upset? Not at all. I think it‘s the natural evolution of the golfer. â€" â€" _ Within a short time, I am sure, she wili soon be taking responsibility for those shots. And when that happens, she will move on to the nirvana of golfâ€" _ She can pass along the same bad advice I‘ve been giving her, ensuring another generation of awful golfers. _ ‘llâ€"s:;)nlce to know, when it‘s all said and done, that you will have some kind of legacy. Brian Bourke, a member of the 105.3 KOOL FM mommg crew, can be reached by email at bbourke@koolfm.com. So whenever I play with my wife, or one of my daughters, it has been a day to inflate the old ego. "I wish I cauld do that," 1 will hear. "Can you teach me?" And, like so many golfers before me, despite the fact 1 do not play the game for a living (although some would disagree}, I am more than happy to share the insights, technical tricks and lessons that have allowed me in just a couple of years to reach a level of mediocre athletic suckiness Anyway, now that my wife has been playing for a couple of years, she has lost some of the sense of wonder my aweâ€"inspiring shots used to bring out L can count on my fingers the number of vehicles that actually make a legal stop each day at these intersections. Not to mention the buses don‘t slow down and stop. The sad thing is that I bet most of the people speeding and not obeying the traffic signs probably live on these streets. According to the City of Waterloo 15 per cent of the traffic is driving faster than 66 km/h. With all the kids in this neighbourhood someâ€" one is going to get seriously hust. Only oneâ€"third of the Northlake residents stated in the survey that they would like or that they would support the proposed miniature roundabouts. Whatever happened to majority rules? That means twoâ€" thirds of the people do not want or do not support the miniature roundabouts and the city is still thinking of proceeding? _1 do not know how this will make things better at all. They need to slow down traffic, not speed it up. Laurie Castro Waterloo _ Fruit looking mighty â€" different these days r ] ~to my delight, mangoâ€"nectarines arrived at my grocery store last week. This sweet, juicy and slightly fibrous hybrid has a delicious case of multiple personalities â€" the taste of a mango and the colour and shape of a golden nec tarine. Plus, these Californiaâ€"grown beauties offer fiber along with vitamins C and A. Sadly though, the mangoâ€"nectarine season is brief, just two or three weeks. Fortunately for fruit lovers like me, there are several other exotics appearing on supermarket shelves. The plumcot is a 50/50 biend between an apricot and a plum, created by the lowâ€"tech method of planting the two seeds together. With the smell of an apricot and the flavour of a plum, this sweet, juicy chinâ€"dripping hybrid was invented by American botanist Luther Burbank in the early 1900s. The pluot, a similar hybrid fruit, was developed in the ‘90s by American biologist Floyd Zaiger. A more complex blend of a plum and apricot, created through cross pollination, the pluot is a fleshy, soft, oval fruit that bears a strong resemblance to plums, but have a more sweet flavour. The smooth skin ranges in colour from yeltow to purple, with n one handsome speckled variety e humourously m;’rkmed as “dir?osaur N 1\“5} BV JB And if you thought crossing a plum with an apricot is the same as crossing an apricot with a plum â€" then, like me, you‘d be mistaken. I learned the latter process results in a different hybrid fruit, and another recent coinage: the aprium. An aprium is twoâ€"thirds apricot and oneâ€"third plum. Looking more like an apricot, it has a smooth, plumâ€"like skin with an intense, tangy flavour. Along with the pluot and aprium, "“Wxifi‘)“‘“ Zaiger also created the lowâ€"acid peach, which tastes sweeter than its forebears, and developed many of the resolutely firm white nectarines that have become grocery store staples. Now in his 80s, he‘s still hard at work on the next generation of plant breeds, with their most promising invention being the peacoâ€" tum â€"said to combine the best of peaches, apricots and plums and taste similar to fruit punch. Zaiger says that if all goes well, we may be slurping them by summer 2008. 1 w hm 1 & EN Mipe on en in the spirit of Zaiger, cartoon bozo Homer Simpson of The Simpsons accidentally created the tomacco (haif tomato, half tobacco}, after he "planted a little bit of everything" and fertilâ€" ized his tomato and tobacco fields with plutonium. The result is a tomato that apparently has a dried, grey tobacco centre â€" described as tasting terrible by many characters including Ralph Wiggum: "Eww, Daddy, this tastes like Grandma!" In the show, the foul tasting tomato had everyone addicted after one nasty bite. In a strange "life imitates art" scenario, the tomacco became a reality in 2003 after Rob Bauer of Oregon, inspired by The Simpsons episode, successfully grafted a tomato plant onto the roots of a tobacco plant â€" made possible because both plants come from the same plant family. The plant produced fruit that looked like a normal tomato, and testing proved the leaves contained small amounts of nicotine. The tomacco plant bore fruit for 18 months until it died due to uncoâ€"operative weather. One of the tomatoes was given to a Simpsons writer, and another was sold on EBay. According to Bauer, nobody ever suffered any apparent ill effects from eating a tomacco. And while there are several legitimate hybrid fruits out there, some only wear the guise. The "Grapple" is commercially marketed as an apple that tastes and smells like a grape. Priced at $5 for four apples, the product is created by soaking a Fuji apple in artificial grape flavouring, according to the ingredients listed on the label. I‘ve also seen Asian pears marketed as "appleâ€"pears" because they have the juiciness of pears and the roundness and crispness of apples, however, they are not hybrids of the two, but a true pear. Oikiie dintahin isnn Ssd So if any evolutionary fruit geneticists are reading this, I‘m requesting a cherry the size of an orange â€" without the pit please. Or maybe a strawberry the size of my head. Grapple with that. Marshall Ward is an artist and independent filmmaker. Email is welcome at mward@wlu.ca. WATERLOO CHRONICLE * Wednesday, August 1 t Simpson of The MARSHALL 2007 + 9