Panasonic RQ-84 Karaoke Songmate with cassettes and 8 tracks

In Value Village, Cornwall, Ontario, Dec 9, 2014

Looks like new! About the size of a stage amplifier. I've read that it dates to 1974, but it can't be that old, from looking at the paper label still attached to the front. It has two 8 tracks, one for play and one for rewind, and cassettes for recording so I guess the backing music was on the 8 tracks, surprisingly, since 8 tracks were being replaced by cassettes by the mid 70s. It has the original mike, and it appears to be unused! Karaoke bars didn't really become popular in Canada until the 1980s, so I wonder how this came to Canada. It has a CSA sticker on the back, which means it had been approved for sale in Canada, so maybe it was a demo item that had been sent here and was never used.

Bobby Curtola, mentioned in the comment below, was a Canadian teen idol rock star in the early 1960s. He became an entrepreneur operating many ventures in his later years. There is a reference here to him running a karaoke studio at Expo 86 in Vancouver.

Grand juries in Canada

Grand juries, of the same type that gave the controversial decisions in the Ferguson and Staten Island police shootings, used to be used in Canada, the last one in 1984. In Ontario they were 24 person juries that in addition to deciding whether to send someone to trial would do things like checking on how the county jail was being administered. I was in a old courtroom in Ontario (maybe in Woodstock, but I've been to lots!) that had two jury boxes, with 12 places each, and the bailiff said that it was for when different juries in two trials would hear the same evidence, but it must have been for when they had a grand jury hearing. They were phased out in favor of preliminary hearings in front of a judge. Grand juries are supposed to have the problem that they would send almost everybody to trial except police officers, since the jurors did not have any legal experience that would tell them whether a case should go to trial or not, and, except for police, they think anyone before them were likely guilty.

Scots Jacket

Vendor said it was 100 years old - label was from Glasgow. Probably something that a band member of the local Glengarry Highland regiment wore.

MCHAFFIE FLEA MARKET
5070 County Road 31 (Bank Street)
Morrisburg ON

Snowy Owl

Snowy owl (Bubo scandiacus)

On utility pole by old Highway 2, Ontario, at Morrisburg Airport, next to Upper Canada Golf Course, Morrisburg, 3.45pm, November 30, 2014. Bird was camera shy when approached on foot, but I got fairly close (15m) in car.

Double Crested Cormorants, old Galop Canal, near Iroquois, Ontario

Cormorants roost on buoy, old Galop canal, near Iroquois, Ontario. These are fish eating birds.

The Round Church (really an octagon) Dalhousie Mills, Ontario

St. Andrew's United Church, called the round church, really an octagon. 21873 Round Church Drive, Dalhousie Mills, Canada - the interior walls that seem to have been added later make the layout of the interior of the worship area of the church rectangular.

Rusty and the grow light with strawberry flowers

Cats always find the sunniest places in the house!