Home Activities for Albertans

With warmer weather just around the corner, these first days of spring are probably the end of a long stretch of time spent inside. If you’ve had your fill of depressing news and social media, here are a few considerations for this final stretch of cooler weather.

We’ve put together a list of 5 activities you can do inside that might just be some of the most enjoyable things you’ve done in a long time.

1. Play Poker

When you’re sat at home doing nothing, it can be tempting to do things that are unproductive and add little value to your life. Why not spend some time doing something that could be the complete opposite, by signing up to an online poker site?

If you’re savvy enough, you could use your free time to get the better of your online opponents and win some real cash. If you’re not an experienced cards player, why not look for a low-stakes game with ultra-cheap buy-ins? There are tables as low as $0.01 so you don’t need to worry about your bank balance whilst you’re playing, you can just relax and let go of all your frustrations.

(Play poker from the comfort of your own home, wearing your pyjamas if you want!)

2. Rearrange Your House
After Christmas we hastily put away our decorations and move all of our furniture back to how it used to be in November. Unfortunately, relatively few of us take the time to revaluate our living spaces – a week at home is the perfect opportunity to do just that.

Spend a day on each room and start with the Marie Kondo approach of getting rid of anything that you haven’t used in the past 6 months and anything that doesn’t give you joy. Then think about how to create feng-shui in each room.

Is your TV taking up too much space? Does your dining table feel hidden away in a corner? Move things around, optimise your space and you’ll start to feel a lot better about your home.

3. Download Warzone

After a couple of hours of moving furniture around and rearranging your rooms you’ll want to sit down and relax. What better way to do that than by playing one of the most popular video games of the past decade?

Warzone is the free to play Battle Royale game that took the world by storm in March 2020. Millions of players from all around the globe spent hours upon hours fighting it out in the fictional city of Verdansk. That map has since gone, replaced with a brand new Pacific island style map – Caldera. The new map offers a whole host of exciting places of interest.

There are also new guns, perks, operators and vehicles to try out on Warzone’s latest incarnation.

(The official launch trailer for the new Warzone map.)

4. Better Yourself

It’s a pretty safe bet that you’re not doing your dream job, the one that you envisaged yourself doing when you were a child. None of us really are, after all, which child would daydream about working in an office or filling out spreadsheets?
This week at home could be just the kick-start you need to begin down the road of doing your dream job or following your passions. Did you used to fantasise about being a famous author as a child? If you did, spend a couple of hours a day practicing your writing skills.

Read articles by famous authors, look up guides on how to write fiction, search through YouTube for creative writing tips and then start penning your own stories. It doesn’t have to be work related either, maybe you want to be stronger and fitter. Replace the dead time you spend doom scrolling every morning with 10 minutes of push ups and sit ups. Start a couch to 5K running plan, go for walks out in nature. Whatever it is you think you need to do to better yourself, use this free time to do it.

5. Catch Up on Culture

Bettering yourself is a great idea, but it needn’t take up all 24 hours of the day. When you’re not reading, exercising or working you could be using your free time to catch up on all the great culture that you missed from 2021.
Some of the best films of the decade were released last year, some of which you probably missed out on because of work. Make up for that now and watch the latest of Wild TV, a streaming app for hunting enthusiasts or grab your favourite snacks and enjoy The Power of the Dog, the critically acclaimed western psychodrama on Netflix.

(This film, featuring Benedict Cumberbatch was arguably the best release of 2021.)

Read Klara and The Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro on your Kindle, or read the harrowing All the Young Men by Ruth Coke Burks. Open up Spotify and dive into all of the music that you missed out on last year, look out for the latest releases from your favourite band.

Do all this and you’ll come back to the office after your week off as a cultural guru!

Todayville Content Team

www.todayville.com/

Todayville Content Team works with a wide variety of clients to develop compelling content solutions. Our experienced team develops strategic campaigns that use video and storytelling, digital advertising and social media to help our clients position and distinguish themselves in the market.

Follow Author

The bizarre story of Taro Tsujimoto

Also Interesting / 1 week ago

60% of Canadians gamble each month – why the industry is going from strength to strength

Also Interesting / 1 week ago

Can Crypto Help You Budget?

Also Interesting

The bizarre story of Taro Tsujimoto

Published on March 28, 2025

Todayville Content Team

The National Hockey League (NHL) has seen its fair share of strange moments, but few compare to the bizarre and hilarious tale of Taro Tsujimoto, a player who never existed. His “selection” in the 1974 NHL Draft remains one of the most legendary pranks in hockey history. If you want to wager on actual players, making the 1xBet app download is definitely a great idea.

In the 1970s, the NHL Draft was a much less glamorous event than today. It was a tedious process conducted over the phone, with teams calling in their picks. The 3 biggest highlights of what happened during that year’s draft were:

the draft dragged on for hours;
there were multiple rounds and teams selecting unknown prospects from obscure leagues;
frustrated with the monotony, Buffalo Sabres general manager Punch Imlach decided to have a little fun.

As the 11th round approached, Imlach instructed his team’s representative to draft Taro Tsujimoto, a supposed forward from the Tokyo Katanas of the Japan Ice Hockey League. The name sounded authentic enough. The league officials, unfamiliar with Japanese hockey, accepted the pick without question. By downloading the 1xBet app you will also be able to wager on great NHL teams too.

A small problem

There was a small problem with all of this, as 2 things didn’t exist: Tsujimoto and the Tokyo Katanas. Imlach had completely fabricated the player as a joke, taking advantage of the NHL’s lack of verification. When it comes to NHL wagers, there is no better platform than the 1xBet Canada site.

For weeks, the league listed Tsujimoto as an official draft pick, and even some newspapers reported on Buffalo’s mysterious new Japanese prospect. Eventually, the Sabres admitted the hoax, and the NHL was forced to retroactively erase the selection from its records.

Despite being a fictional player, Taro Tsujimoto took on a life of his own. Buffalo Sabres fans embraced the prank, and over the years, his name has become a cult legend in hockey culture. Some fans even wore jerseys with “Tsujimoto” on the back. The joke persisted so much that when EA Sports released NHL video games, players could occasionally find Tsujimoto in the game’s draft pool as a hidden Easter egg.

More than just a prank, the story of Taro Tsujimoto highlights 2 things: the quirks of old-school sports management and the creativity of one of hockey’s most colorful executives. Today, with the draft process being highly scrutinized and broadcast live, such a prank would be impossible. But Tsujimoto’s legacy lives on as one of hockey’s greatest inside jokes. What is not a joke are the great rewards that a platform like the Canadian 1xBet site can give you.

Also Interesting

60% of Canadians gamble each month – why the industry is going from strength to strength

Published on March 26, 2025

Todayville Content Team

When it comes to regulating gambling, Canada has a somewhat relaxed approach. The Canadian Gaming Association oversees the industry, but it’s up to individual provinces to enact and enforce any laws relating to online casino gaming, sports betting, traditional casino gaming, and other forms of gambling.

Canada’s online casino gaming laws are not totally clear, but individual provinces are starting to put this right. Ontario was the first and did so when it launched its own regulated igaming market in April 2022. Now some other provinces have followed suit, creating a safer igaming environment for players in those provinces. Below is a look at gambling in Canada compared to other parts of the world, at gaming laws in Alberta compared to other provinces, and at the future of the Canadian, US, and UK gambling industries.

Canada: a forever love of gambling

Gambling in some form or other has always been popular in Canada. Way back in the 1990s, research found six in ten Canadians (60%) gambled every month. Additionally, four in ten (43%) spent between 1 and 20 Canadian dollars on gambling. Fast forward to today and the Canadian gambling market is worth 14.2 billion US dollars as of January 2024, according to data on the website of consumer and market data company Statista.

It seems Canada enjoys wagering just as much as two other countries that love a gamble: the US and the UK. Data on the Statista website shows that 49% of US adults took part in gambling activities in 2023. Fifty-six percent said their attitude towards gambling had relaxed, compared to the 50% of 2019.

The UK returned similar stats for the same year. Forty-eight percent of adults reported engaging in gambling activity. Online casinos generated the most gross gambling yield in 2023, but it was the nation’s National Lottery that people played the most.

Alberta: following Ontario’s lead

The regulatory developments in Ontario have triggered movement in Alberta. In May 2024, Bill 16, the Red Tape Reduction Amendment Act, made it through the process and later received Royal Assent to become law. The act removes the monopoly of gaming by a single government entity and will allow private operators, licensed by Alberta’s provincial regulator, to provide online gaming services in Alberta, meaning players will have a choice of more than one Alberta online casino to play at.

The regulation transforms Alberta into one of the more liberal provinces when it comes to online gambling, others being Quebec, Ontario, and British Columbia.

Several provinces, such as Novia Scotia and Northwest Territories, have no provincially regulated online gaming sites. Some also restrict betting on horse racing and/or other types of sports betting, obliging citizens to use international betting sites for freedom from caps and betting on as many events as they wish.

What lies ahead for the Canadian, US, and UK gambling industries?

Canada’s appetite for gambling is clear, and the industry’s online sector is beginning to thrive. Ontario has enjoyed vast success by creating its own regulated market, one which, in just its first year, saw Canadians place billions in wagers and the industry itself generate more than a billion in total gaming revenue.

Canada can expect to see other provinces follow Ontario’s lead and allow private operators to provide services in the province under license. The purpose of the regulation is player protection. Any province that develops a regulated market will focus on this, so there will also be regulations around the advertising of gambling services.

The US

Gambling online is the future for the US, too, although states are slow to legalize it. As of September 2024, 38 states had legalized sports betting, following the US Supreme Court’s ruling that states could regulate sports gambling directly.

Despite allowing sports betting, some states only permit in-person betting, and only a few states allow online casino gaming. Operators believe online casino gaming is the future of gambling.

The UK

In the UK, the use of artificial intelligence (AI) will get bigger and bigger. Companies have realized AI can enhance players’ experience and are embracing it more and more. For instance, sports betting websites can use it to crunch data and provide iGamers with stats and other data to make better betting decisions. They’re also understanding they can use AI to prioritize content players are likely to be interested in and to personalize their offerings and services to players’ preferences.

Canada enjoys gambling as much as America and the UK. Although laws around igaming are more of a grey area in Canada, some provinces are clearing the issue up by creating regulated markets and experiencing great success. As time goes by, more are sure to follow.