Across parts of Southern Ontario, residents have been dealing with something more unsettling than a single blackout — repeated power flickers, short outages, and sudden longer shutdowns that disrupt work, damage electronics, and leave households wondering what’s really happening to the grid.

In this episode of The Ordinary Effect, we break down the real causes behind these interruptions, from environmental stress on power infrastructure to the hidden risks they pose inside your home. You’ll learn why brief outages can sometimes be more damaging than long ones, how voltage instability affects appliances and electronics, and what practical steps homeowners can take to protect themselves — including surge protection, backup power options, and how whole-home standby generators actually work.

We also examine the communication gap between utilities and the communities they serve, and why transparency matters when essential infrastructure becomes unpredictable.

If your lights have been flickering, your clocks resetting, or you’ve wondered whether it’s time to invest in backup power, this episode will help you understand what’s happening — and what you can do about it.

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Large cultural events are designed to feel familiar. They assume a shared story, a shared history, a shared idea of what “belongs” at the center.

In this episode of The Ordinary Effect, we slow down and examine what happens when that familiarity is interrupted.

Using the Bad Bunny Super Bowl halftime show as a lens, this episode explores how images like sugarcane fields, small homes, standing boxers, lineage across generations, and a child shaped by immigration policy challenge the idea of who gets to be ordinary on the world’s biggest stage.

This isn’t about controversy or taking sides.
It’s about visibility, endurance, and why unfamiliar stories often feel “political” simply because they disrupt what we’re used to seeing.

Because sometimes the most unsettling thing isn’t disagreement —
it’s realizing that what feels new to us has always been ordinary to someone else.

Things we all notice — but rarely talk about.

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As winter lingers, many of us feel a quiet heaviness — cabin fever, isolation, and emotional fatigue that we rarely talk about. In this episode of The Ordinary Effect, we explore why long winters shrink our world, why our brains reach for comfort and escapism, and how constant digital noise can blur the line between soothing and numbing.

Rather than seeing winter as something to “power through,” this episode reflects on patience, self-compassion, and the idea that hope doesn’t disappear in winter — it simply goes dormant, waiting for the slow return of light.

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