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The Oakville BeaverGuest Column467 Speers Rd., Oakville Ont. L6K 3S4 (905) 845-3824 Fax: 337-5566Classified Advertising: 905-632-4440 Circulation: 845-9742The Oakville Beaver is a member of the Ontario Press Council. The council is located at 80 Gould St., Suite 206, Toronto, Ont., M5B 2M7. Phone (416) 340-1981. Advertising is accepted on thecondition that, in the event of a typographical error, that portion of advertising space occupied by the erroneous item, together with a reasonable allowance for signature, will not be charged To tweet or not to tweetfor, but the balance of the advertisement will be paid for at the applicable rate. The publisher reserves the right to categorize advertisements or decline. Editorial and advertising content of the Oakville Beaver is protected by copyright. Unauthorized use is prohibited.Herb Garbutt, Sports Reporter, Oakville BeaverNEIL OLIVERVice-President and Group Publisher,MARK DILLSDirector of ProductionMetroland WestMANUEL GARCIAProduction ManagerIts official, Im a twit. Or is it Twitterer? Tweeter?DAVID HARVEY Regional General ManagerCHARLENE HALLDirector of DistributionWhatever, in the words of David Letterman, Im now usingJILL DAVISEditor in ChiefSARAH MCSWEENEYCirc. Managerthe Twitter device.ROD JERREDManaging EditorWEBSITEoakvillebeaver.comYes, its taken me a while to get on board because I alwaysDANIEL BAIRDAdvertising DirectorThe Oakville Beaver is a division ofconsidered Twitter to be nothing but useless crap the equiv-RIZIERO VERTOLLIPhotography Directoralent of your idiot friends and co-workers who hit 'reply all' onSANDY PAREBusiness Managerevery e-mail. Except they are replying all to the entire world.RECOGNIZED FOR EXCELLENCE BY:Herb GarbuttBored? Why not tell someone? About 30 people every min-Ontario CommunityCanadian CommunitySuburban Newspapersute tweet about being bored. @hanzycobb: Actually so boredNewspapers AssociationNewspapers Associationof Americaright now. @Evebieber: Bored, really bored. @McJaniel: Booo, Im bored.THE OAKVILLE BEAVER IS PROUD OFFICIAL MEDIA SPONSOR FOR:Ah, the joy of technology. Empowering someone to tell everyone in the world thatthey are doing squat and have nothing to say.United WayHowever, Ive since seen the light. In reality, Twitter is only 99 per cent useless crap.of Oakville(FYI, tracking Charlie Sheens mental breakdown in real time falls into the 99 per cent,ATHENAno matter how entertaining it is). But that one per cent Gold, Jerry, gold.AwardIts proven valuable as a source of information. Instead of checking the OntarioUniversity Athletics site every few days, I now get any new information tweeted to meas soon as its available.In return, and hopefully to contribute to someone elses one per cent, for the pastmonth I have been diligently tweeting Halton sports news to well, pretty muchnobody. I have 20 followers. Of course, a guy with one friend on Facebook liked themovie, but still waiting to see the Facebook light shouldnt complain. My followers break down in the following way:? five trying to sell me anything from energy bars to furniture to Lord knows what-ever chuck69dot is peddling? four pity follows (wife, co-workers)? four unknowns, including Bridgette from Sydney, the lone holdover from myonce vibrant Australian following (just like David Hasselhoff and Germany, I was oncebig in Australia)? five legitimate local sports people/groups (thanks!)? two people from Burlington I can only assume are sitting at home now hitting therefresh button eagerly anticipating my next tweetOkay, so Im no Lady Gaga (9.32 million followers). I cant even rival the cobra thatescaped from the Bronx Zoo (237,000). You would think having thumbs would haveKAREN NEWMAN / OAKVILLE BEAVERgiven me an edge.DOCS ON ICE:But theres no going back, now. I knew I was in trouble as soon as I received this As part of its Physician Recruitment program, Halton Region hosted the annual Docs on Ice tweet: Who else wakes up in the morning and checks their Twitter like its the morningtournament at the Sixteen Mile Sports Complex. With the help of local volunteers, the tournament raises funds paper? Guilty.through a combination of registration fees, sponsorship, donations and special events. Funds raised through Docs If you do want to know whats going to be in your morning paper, the sports pageson Ice Oakville 2011 will support the Alzheimer Society of Hamilton/Halton and will be used to expand the Alzheimer Society Oakville resource centreanyway, you can follow Herb @herbgarbutt. Herb can also be reached at hgarbutt@. From left, Dr. Rob Mascarin, Dr. Pete Kujtan, retired NHL referee and NHL Hall oburlingtonpost.com.f Famer Andy Van Hellemond, Mayor of Oakville Rob Burton dropping the puck, Dr. Len DeBolster and Chair of Docs on Ice organizing committee Dr. David Palmer.Prices rise making vegetables ripe for picking and pilferingo the long list of items that thieves might be tempted to take lore as The Big Broccoli Standoff. Eat And theTimes says that late last month, a posse of pilferers, things like automobiles, credit cards, personal identify infor-your broccoli, my mother said. No, I deeply versed in the ways of trucking companies and the pro-Tmation and electronics, to name a few we are now obligated responded. Youll sit at that table until duce industry, stole six tractor-trailer loads of tomatoes and ato add tomatoes. Thats right, tomatoes.you eat your broccoli and, she need-truck full of cucumbers from Florida growers. To boot, theyAccording to The New York Times, killer winter freezes in lessly reminded, if you dont eat your also made off with a truckload of frozen meat. Well, that lastMexico have caused the price of once humble and unassuming broccoli youre going to miss your base-part I can see. But the tomatoes and cucumbers? Anyway, theFlorida tomatoes to soar, ripening their demand among fruit-ball game.total value of the heist was around $300,000. Thats a lot of and-veggie enthusiasts, and suddenly making them a target for The game was being contested at a green for a lot of red (tomatoes).a ring of sophisticated vegetable bandits. Imagine: prior to park about a block away. As I sat at the Between the success of the theft, and the rising price of theAndy Juniperreading this outburst, you were probably sadly and pathetically kitchen table, staring at the wall and produce, suddenly Florida tomatoes are a very tempting targetunaware that vegetable bandits even existed, let alone 'sophis-not eating my broccoli, I could actually apparently on par with flat-screen TVs or designer jeans.ticated' veggie thieves.hear through open windows the banter and cheers of my team-The only difference, of course, being that unlike TVs andPersonally speaking, growing up as a vocal and devoted mates from down the road. Eventually, the game ended, dark-jeans, tomatoes are perishable and therefore must be solddetractor of pretty much all fruits and vegetables, I fully ness descended, and my father entered the kitchen. He looked pronto, before they rot.believed that these healthy foods (a.k.a. lowly produce) could at my uneaten broccoli and strongly suggested I go directly to The bottom line: thieves are under the gun to somehow sellnot be given away not even to the usually agreeable and my room, without even thinking about detouring by the the tomatoes. And law enforcement officials find themselvesundiscerning family dog who had the good sense to reject every cookie jar for a bedtime snack.playing ketchup (seriously, tell me you didnt see that one com-lima bean and broccoli floret I attempted to stealthily slip her Now you understand why I might be slightly skeptical of a ing). let alone pilfered and peddled for tidy profits.story that involves the theft and subsequent sale of any kind of Andy Juniper can be contacted at ajjuniper@gmail.com,One rebellious night in my youth, my anti-vegetable stand fruit and vegetables. Yeah, right. Still, theTimes of New York found on Facebook http://www.facebook.com, or followed atreached an ugly head that would be become known in family does not print lies. Particularly when it comes to tomatoes.www.twitter.com/thesportjesters.www.insideHALTON.com OAKVILLE BEAVER Thursday, April 21, 2011 6