The Life of Brian

As I Always Say – Will I mean it this time?

Brian Mahoney — Thu, 10 Sep 2026 21:02:33 +0000

I remember writing a poem decades ago where I asked the question, “What does it take…” That one rambled on about a motel room, a scent of perfume and a dent in a pillow. But the sentiments in that poem are exactly what’s making me say that to myself again. What will it take to get me back to writing?

A year or so ago I had another very short-term muse, this time I think the inspiration will last a lot longer. For one thing I have more to write about and for another, it’s a completely different feeling that’s pushing me on. I was thinking this afternoon about how I used to avoid writing when I was in high school. If I was comfortable in a relationship, I didn’t feel inspired. Who does? There are better things to do than pine over something that was lost. Well, something is certainly lost this time. I want to get those feelings out, mainly because I’m confused about them.

While I don’t write much now, except for the charity where I volunteer, I am reasonably creative on RedNote, the Chinese social media app whose proper name is Xiaohongshu. Although I’ve practiced saying that many times, I still forget how to pronounce it properly. That aside, I’m fairly popular there for no other reason that I can identify except that I’m just me, no flash, no dash just me honestly sharing my life, boring as it is to my followers on Instagram! I asked AI yesterday if having 24,000 followers on RedNote meant anything. Seems it does. Turns out I’m a ‘mini-influencer’. Yes, go figure. Posting there cures any ‘I have to create’ guilt and now writing will eliminate any remaining guilt.

So, what’s next. I’ve already written some stuff that I’ll post tomorrow. I want to purge any personal details that might indicate who I’m writing about as well as clarify that what I’m trying to say isn’t interpreted in any way other than the meaning I’m trying to inject in my words. If that makes sense, great. If not, stay tuned, drop back in a day or two and see if it gets any clearer.

Thanks for reading. Comments are always welcome.

Brian Mahoney

September 10, 2026

Midnight Taxi, Japan and ‘Just Be Yourself’

Brian Mahoney — Wed, 22 Jul 2026 16:00:48 +0000

One of my Christmas 2025 gifts was a short novel, ‘The Full Moon Coffee Shop’, by Mai Mochizuki. My youngest daughter knows me well, knows I’m very interested in Japan plus she’s also a writer. I guess that means she knows a thing or two about good books. No giveaways here, simply saying read it if you get the chance. The story stuck in my mind for months.

Moving on to this week, I discovered that Amazon Prime has several NHK dramas, series that are not on NHK World. One of these is ‘Midnight Taxi’. The instant I started watching it, the Full Moon Coffee Shop popped into my head. If you read the book then watch the series, you’ll know what I mean. Each episode is only 15 minutes but I’m quite sure you’ll binge watch a few at a time, maybe all of them in one sitting. I have no idea how many episodes there are and I really don’t want to check. Why? Because I don’t want to discover that there is an end to the series. I want it to last forever.

If you know anything about Japan, you already know some of the mystery that surrounds the island country. Both the novel and the TV series I’ve mentioned tap into Japan’s mystery beautifully. Anime has built many of its own series on this mystique as has manga, ancient fables and movies. Think back to ‘Ugetsu’, for instance. Lafcadio Hearn brought yokai into our everyday lexicon, ‘The Snow Woman’ fable is an example of this.

A younger me would have loved to visit Japan, spending some time in the outlying areas while soaking up the spooky-ish atmosphere that seems to seep out of the ground like spring water. A brand new thought just sprang into my brain about Shintoism and its link to all of the life that is around us; life as well as death, I suppose.

As for just being yourself, maybe you should try it. Being yourself doesn’t mean speaking without a polite filter, to me it means speaking without a fake filter. A bit of pretending now and then is fine but when you act like someone you’re not, sooner or later others will be able to spot it. For some reason I’m popular on RedNote, a wonderfully fun social media app from China. When people ask me where this popularity comes from, I have to draw on the fact that I’m just being myself. It may not work for you but I’ve had pretty good success with it all my life, from relationships to work and now, social media in China. As a matter of fact I got my last freelance job simply by being me. That’s another story that I might share but it doesn’t fit here.

Those are my thoughts for a Wednesday noon hour. If you enjoy my words, if you feel compelled to say something, please comment below. Thanks for reading.

Brian Mahoney July 22, 2026

Finally! Enough Procrastination Already!

Brian Mahoney — Mon, 06 Apr 2026 17:51:25 +0000

Nearing my birthday, with not much else to do on a holiday Monday, I decided to do something that I’d been putting off for over a year. My old version of this site is still on my other hosting company’s website. I toyed with all the different ways to back that one up as well as my war diary site but got stuck on the complexities. Sometimes I just can’t handle complex details or situations. I would rather take a nap, let’s put it that way.

Yesterday wasn’t the day, even though I was determined to get ‘er done. Today seemed better and here I am writing this while the second HUGE zip file is download in FileZilla. The diary site was about 1.6 gigs, the old brianmahoney site is only about 650 megs. FTP is very slow and I suppose there are ways to speed it up but I’ll leave well enough alone. I won’t renew that hosting account. It’s due May 10 so I didn’t actually leave this to the last minute, just close to it.

It was so bad last year that I renewed my subscription because I couldn’t handle the mental stress of backing up the WordPress installations. I’m not sure what made today different but it is, or was.

Finally, I’m nearing 20,000 followers on RedNote. Expect a post when I hit that magic number, hopefully before my birthday. Yay me, right? Hey, at my age these little things keep me going. Wait until you’re as old as I am, then you’ll know. And I really do hope you all get this far in your life. When I go back and think about how often it could have gone south, I’m surprised and happy that I’m here writing to you. Cheers!

Brian Mahoney

April 6, 2026

I Feel a Poem Coming On – (It’s been a while….)

Brian Mahoney — Tue, 31 Mar 2026 16:56:23 +0000

I had a very interesting and fun weekend at the annual anime event at Momiji. This year was totally different, full of events and classes plus some superb anime outfits worn mainly by the attendees. For some reason, and I wish I knew why, I seemed to be the only volunteer to take part in the fun of dressing up as an anime character. Both Saturday and Sunday saw Ash Ketchum wandering around with his iPhone snapping pics and videos. That was me, yeah the old guy who still takes pleasure in having fun. The rest of the crew wore red happi jackets, fine but just not the same as being someone else. Coincidentally, 2026 is the 30th anniversary of Pokémon, a fact that I learned on Sunday morning…from the Costco magazine, believe it or not. I had another outfit planned but stuck with Ash because of the anniversary.

About the poem. There was a volunteer at Momiji who I hadn’t’ seen in over a year. She’d been off on a trip to visit her parents and it was great to hang out with her for a bit. I expect she’ll be at future events too. We get along well, have similar interests in Japan and China so it’s cool. I was happy to see her again, obviously.

That meeting made me think of another volunteer I met last summer. Similar circumstances, a shared interest, fascinating conversation…pretty much the same as what happened Saturday. Last year’s version of the story ended when I made the mistake of asking her out for a coffee, however. I’m not sure how that simple request was any worse than sharing phone numbers but maybe I don’t know the implications of ‘let’s go for a coffee’. We’d already ‘gone for onigiri’ after all so coffee didn’t seem like the next step in anything. It was simply a way to continue a conversation about Japanese movies. So the poem might be titled, ‘Girls and coffee don’t mix’ or something similar. I’m nearing 20,000 followers on RedNote and I usually sing or tell jokes to celebrate the event. Maybe this time I’ll simply read a bittersweet poem about what might have been a cool friendship.

Two things the anime event gave me include a new appreciation for the intensity of the anime fandom as well as a source for next year’s outfit. If you know Doki Doki well, you know where. And a third learning experience was ‘Demon Slayer’. Yesterday was day one of the journey to becoming a Demon Slayer devotee. I was surprised at how good it is but I shouldn’t be. Most of the costumes on the weekend were from that series. I’ll have to watch more of it before I decide but right now, the old trainer with the goblin mask, Sakonji Urokodaki, seems fitting for this old dude. I think I’d have to tone down the goblin mask a bit, though. (If you know, you know.)

Thanks for reading this set of observations. If you feel compelled to comment, go right ahead.

Brian Mahoney

March 31, 2026

Best Big, Fat, Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies – Baking ‘bakes’ if very satisfying.

Brian Mahoney — Mon, 23 Feb 2026 19:30:19 +0000

Before Christmas, I decided to once again bake some treats for my neighbours and friends. Off to Costco I went to get supplies. Unfortunately, I caught a cold, didn’t feel like baking at all and ended up making some tarts and very basic oatmeal raisin cookies. Baked treats but not the classy, complicated ones I was planning.

Now it’s getting close to spring and I’m in the mood again. Today’s effort was chocolate chip cookies for some of the staff at the senior’s home where I volunteer. I’ll only be able to supply 15 of the staff with these HUGE cookies but I just might have time for a second batch. (The first batch weren’t as chewy as I’d planned. Blame it on 17 minutes in the oven instead of 15, I think.)

Here’s the recipe, in case you want to test it out on your own. The source seems to be All Recipes, probably found by one of my daughters. Maybe cut the 1/4 cup called for down to about half that and adjust baking time accordingly. Here you go!

Best Big, Fat, Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies

2 cups all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
1 cup packed brown sugar
¾ cup unsalted butter, melted
½ cup white sugar
1 large egg
1 egg yolk
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
2 cups semisweet chocolate chips

Gather all ingredients. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C). Grease cookie sheets or line with parchment paper.

Sift flour, baking soda, and salt together; set aside.

Beat in egg, egg yolk, and vanilla until light and creamy; add flour mixture and stir until dough is just combined.

Stir in chocolate chips.

Drop spoonfuls of dough 3 inches apart onto the prepared baking sheets.

Bake cookies in the preheated oven until edges are golden, about 15 to 17 minutes.

Cool on the cookie sheets briefly before transferring them to a wire rack to cool completely.

That’s it. Good luck. Keep your eye on your oven.

Thanks for reading.

Comments are welcome.

Brian Mahoney

February 23, 2026

Dread and Anxiety? – This might help.

Brian Mahoney — Mon, 12 Jan 2026 19:55:22 +0000

A short time ago, over Christmas to be exact, I had a reasonable bad cold that left me with a lingering cough. When the other symptoms, you know the nose and throat junk, left I was finding myself full of anxiety and dread in the late evening. Admittedly, the Xmas season isn’t as nice for me as it might be for you. My wife died on December 29th, 2019 and for my family, it’s a very bittersweet time of year. Jane loved Christmas way more than I did and I think she knew that 2019 would be her last one. I truly believe she willed herself to live a few more days because of the time of year.

OK, back to dread. I think I found the answer to my particular problem, something called ‘post-viral syndrome’. The symptoms fit: fatigue, sleep disturbance, brain fog, etc. Right now I can’t find the source that listed anxiety as a symptom but it was. Extreme anxiety, probably coupled with the time of year.

Many of you readers are in very tough situations in your lives. Some are caring for family members, some have high-stress jobs and some of you can’t really explain why you experience anxiety or dread but I’m sure almost everyone does. I explained my situation to my daughter, the eldest one, and she came up with a link to an NPR podcast. I’ll post that link below as well as the link to the original podcast that is discussed in the first link. You’ll sort it out, I’m sure. Check out the NPR pod first then if you want more info, head to the second link. Good luck! I hope this helps someone.

If you dread baking but want to show up somewhere with something you made yourself, check out my wife’s recipe for Raisin Loaf. It is unbelievably simple. Seven ingredients, all of which are probably in every home in Canada. No fat at all, just whatever you use to grease the pan.

Raisin Loaf

2 C flour
1 tsp salt
3 tsp baking powder
1 egg
1 C brown sugar
1 C raisins
1 C milk

Add one after the other, mix then grease or flour a loaf pan and bake for 1 hour @ 350 F.

I used a Pyrex (glass) loaf pan. Metal pan might affect cooking time.

Links:

Thanks for reading! Feel free to comment and share.

Brian Mahoney

January 12, 2026

Happy New Year! – Let’s gallop into 2026

Brian Mahoney — Wed, 31 Dec 2025 20:42:45 +0000

Gallop refers to the Year of the Horse, of course. 2025 was eventful for me mainly because of RedNote but there were other high points too. The news that I will FINALLY be a grandfather tops that list. I only wish my wife was here to share the joy that we all feel.

While 2025 may not have been as creative a year as possible, I did manage to nab a finalist position in a poetry contest. The fact that the poem that placed was written 45 or 50 years ago shouldn’t matter, should it? It wasn’t the best of the bunch but the judges at RedNote liked it. I thought my ‘World at Bayview and Eglinton’ was better but hey, I’ll take the plaque and the gifts as well as the recognition.

What will 2026 bring? Certainly not peace although that is what we all want. It’s a tough time in many countries and I have to say thanks to whoever made sure I was born in Canada. There is no place like it, believe me.

Well, just a short note before I start cooking my New Year’s Eve dinner. Nothing special, tortellini and Alfredo sauce, Kale salad and maybe some ‘lightly’ battered chicken pieces. Tomorrow is back to tofu, rice/quinoa and veggies, my standard evening meal. I’m def a creature of habit but it keeps me sane-ish.

Happy New Year, crew! Thanks for reading.

Brian Mahoney

December 31, 2025

Jane’s Oatmeal and Raisin Cookie Recipes

Brian Mahoney — Sun, 21 Dec 2025 18:12:57 +0000

I made a bunch of baked goods for the staff at Momiji Health Care Society here in Toronto. For me to say that they’ve changed my life is an understatement. They have given me a goal, a purpose and a wonderful sense of family, both with the staff themselves and with the residents of Momiji and with other volunteers.

Here’s a simple recipe for delicious oatmeal and raisin cookies that was a family favourite when my wife Jane was alive. My kids and I have carried on making them, often with tears in our eyes and a catch in our throats as we remember her. Feel free to share this with your family and start your own traditions. They’ll live on after you’re gone, I guarantee.

Tip: I use quick oats but my kids say that steel cut or overnight oats work betters. For quick oats, allow longer baking times or make smaller bit size cookies.

Merry Christmas 2025, Happy Holidays and thanks for reading.

Brian Mahoney

December 21, 2025

Recipe: Cream together: 1 cup of margarine, 2 cups packed golden sugar brown sugar. Set aside for now.

Sift together: 1 1/2 cup all purpose flour, 1 teaspoon each of baking SODA, salt and cinnamon.

Stir in 1 1/2 cups of seedless raisins.

Add dry ingredients to margarine/sugar mix and stir well.

Add 3 cups of oats and 1/2 cup of water.

Mix well until oats are well incorporated.

Drip well-rounded teaspoon onto a greased baking sheet.

Bake 10-15 minutes @325 F. Cooking times vary, depending on the size of the batter drops and the type of oats use. Feel free to experiment.

Let’s Write, Right! – Yes, it’s been a while.

Brian Mahoney — Mon, 08 Dec 2025 20:12:26 +0000

A new PC, a complete overhaul of my basement office as well as the weather have gotten in the way of posting here. But I’m still a minor star on RedNote, over 1,000 new followers this week plus some kind of offer from RedNote itself about ‘long term collaboration’ with me. They think my videos are ‘thought-provoking and impactful’. Hmmm, it’s just me being me! Still, it’s fun to be recognized.

I spent the morning trying to get Windows networking to ‘network’. Co-Pilot tried to help but after hours of fiddling, I almost gave up. Finally, I asked ‘her’ if there was a 3rd party way to network PCs and sure enough there is. Actually there were three but the one I chose, LAN Share, is open source meaning it’s free. Bonus, it’s simple! Download it to all of your PCs, in my case that would be six plus some laptops and a Mac Mini, then share away. It’s fast, reasonably intuitive and safe. Oh, and fast!

As for the weather, Toronto is in a cold snap now but that’s expected, I think. We wish for warmer weather but I think secretly most Canadians love the cold, especially when it’s sunny. At least I do. My morning walks are shorter now, fewer days of Intervals or ‘Japanese Walking’ though. That’s thanks to my fear of slipping on the black ice that’s on some of the streets. But I figure that 4 km in -12 temps isn’t too bad for this old-er guy.

Last thing today, I made baked beans yesterday. Believe it or not, the package of Navy beans that I used had to be at least two years old. But they soaked and softened perfectly then 15 hours in the crock-pot made them extremely tasty. That crock-pot has to be 40 years old but it still does the job. I have a newer one but for baked beans, I only trust my wife’s old one.

Thanks for wasting your time reading this. If you feeling completely wild and free, leave a comment. Right now, I’m off to design a Survival in Grand Theft Auto 5 Online. Yes, I’m multi-talented but I can’t multi-task. It’s win/lose situation.

Cheers!
Brian Mahoney

December 8th, 2025

Xiaohongshu Lifewriting Festival – Finalist Award Arrived

Brian Mahoney — Mon, 01 Dec 2025 21:39:26 +0000

I was honoured to receive the attractive medal and a few gifts this morning from RedNote, aka Xiaohongshu. RedNote is more or less the same as Tik Tok in China; maybe similar to Instagram too. For maybe 20 years I’ve been using Chinese social media apps such as QQ, WeChat. Meipai, etc. When the lady who cuts my hair found out this she suggested RedNote. I joined in September last year but it was until February this year that I started to post. Thanks to the reaction to my simple posts, I wish I’d joined earlier!

As it sits now, I have over 13,000 followers and over 60,000 likes/comments and saves. Believe me, there are thousands of accounts with much higher numbers than mine but hey, I’m 73, a foreigner and my posts are anything but mainline. I just talk. Walk and talk, sometimes. From time to time, depended on how much sake I’ve had, I also sing; off-key and maudlin songs but I sure don’t mind making a fool of myself. I really think that this is what endears me to my ‘fans’. (I even have a fan club in Shanghai!)

A few months ago, I guess because of my poetry posts, RedNote asked me to enter some unpublished poems in their A Day in the World contest, specifically asking me to read them in my posts. One sunny afternoon this fall, I recorded seven new poems and posted them, tagging them for the contest. There was some back and forth after that, various requirements to ensure that the poems were mine and hadn’t been published anywhere else. Add to that profile photos and biography and an explanation of the poem that made me a finalist. Great people there and wonderfully helpful, the same as most of the people I’ve met on RedNote.

The end result was that I was named a finalist and was offered a trip to Shanghai as well as accommodation. I had to turn that down, unfortunately as I am terrified of flying. When the final results came in, I didn’t win anything but even being a finalist was fun. A week or two ago they asked for my address in order to send me my ‘medal’. Well, it arrived today! See the photo below. Thanks to everyone involved, although they will never read this anyway.

Lastly, if you don’t know anything about China, don’t believe what you read in the papers or see on TV. China is a pretty cool place, all in all, full of wonderful people who have the same sense of humour, the same hopes and dreams as you and I.

Thanks for reading. Comment if you feel like it. Say hi anytime.

Brian Mahoney

December 1, 2025

It’s big, quite heavy and will soon find a place on one of my bookshelves.