Longer than 140 Characters

The entitlement generation meets the Netflix price hike

2011-07-12T17:18:00.000-07:00

I was speaking with friends yesterday (actually on an upcoming epsiode of the Justice Pals Podcast) about how the general reaction to George RR Martin taking a bit of time writing his books is a perfect example of the sense of entitlement of the asshole generation behind us. And then this happened today. Netflix changed their price scheme which will cause a certain set of subscribers to start paying more in a couple of months, should they decide to continue subscribing to those plans. And the internet took a shit.

Now, I'm a 33 year old man, so I don't mean to get all "in my day" or "you kids today don't realize" or "GET OFF MY LAWN!", but let me tell you how stupid you kids are.

In my day, we had to go to the video store and see what was available in stock. We'd then borrow a VHS tape, at much lower quality than a DVD (don't even ask how it compares to a blu-ray), and then take it home. Hell, I remember a time when we had to rent the machine to play the damn thing. What you kids today don't realize is that we would have to pay individually for each tape we rented. There was sometimes a subscription fee, but that was just so they'd let you pay more to take out movies. Even as recently as a decade ago, the idea that you could pay 8 bucks and watch as many movies as you wanted in a month would have sounded pretty crazy.

Point is, this is a new thing. Nobody's quite got it figured out, as you can see with studios reluctant to let their movies be released to unlimited streaming services, and with telcomms trying to drive down bandwidth limits so customers will buy their overpriced on demand offerings. So while these greedy jerks try to sort themselves out, you're still getting a hell of a deal on unlimited HD movies-- a service that didn't exist when anyone old enough to pay for it was even born yet.

Now the point about you, you little entitled twats, is that you think the world owes you everything. You're the same assholes who come to my comedy shows and ruin them because you can't tell the difference between heckling and a youtube comment thread (and don't know that you are funny in neither scenario). You're the same idiots who rioted because the Canucks lost and you were drunk and your dentist father can buy you out of this and you're not really that bad because you didn't successfully light a cop car on fire. And you're the same pricks who criticize an aging science fiction writer not because his books aren't awesome, but because you feel he owes you more stories than he's given you.

Your generation worries me with your expectation that everyone else owes you whatever you want just because you want it. You're dickholes. Now, GET OFF MY LAWN!

On the Tragic Closing of Videomatica

2011-05-06T11:09:00.000-07:00

There is a great uproar in Vancouver this week as the news of the impending end of Videomatica spreads. I see a lot of talk of how much people "loved" that place. Interesting that they put it in the past tense. Do businesses thrive on fond memories?

Truthfully, I may have rented from Videomatica once in the ten years I've lived in Vancouver. I was certainly more disappointed with the closing of Happy Bats, another independent video store with a shorter history, which closed to more limited fanfare recently. As much as I miss Happy Bats (their well-stocked Blu-Ray selection was what kept me coming back), I have to recognize that they were destined to close, and that if their average customer spent as much money as I did there, they would have closed sooner.

I wonder how many of the people mourning the loss of Videomatica have Netflix accounts now. Or, more to the point, I wonder how many of them have been in the store in the past year. The past five years? The past decade? I think the likelihood is that the vast majority of them will only now be missing the sign as they go past it. The nostalgia is great folks, but the nostalgia will live on without the flailing business. And the nostalgia was always going to outlive the business.

In all of the disappointment, I'm not hearing or reading anyone claiming they are now going to have trouble finding movies to watch, or finding out about movies they may have otherwise missed. And if they are, then they're most likely spreading the word of their disappointment on facebook or twitter, using the exact tools one might use to spread the word of movies others may have missed.

Point is, while the business of watching movies is changing to bigger hands, and that sucks, the joy of watching movies and sharing the experience with friends is getting easier to come by. So stop whining. The same technology that's putting video stores out of business can and should be used for the good of movie lovers. And if you hate losing a business so much, then why weren't you spending your money there?

Top 5 Pop-Culture-Inspired Things I Can't Stop Myself From Doing Impulsively

2010-10-21T18:54:00.001-07:00

"I'll explain everything to the geeks!" claims The National in song. I will not. You have to figure these out for yourselves (although geeks will likely do the same as at least one of these).

5) When I hear or see the word "exterminate" (or extermination or any of its roots), I must say "EXTERMINATE!" in a rising tone in a slightly robotic voice. I'm terrible at doing the voice, but that doesn't stop me.

4) If I hear of a riot, or see news of a riot, I must say, "Let em riot. We're Sonic-Fuckin-Death-Monkey!"

3) When I hear the words, "the greater good," I have to repeat them in a monotone.

2) When I hear the word "abide," I have to say, "The dude abides." I know. A little populist. What can I say?

1) When I hear the song Carribean Queen by Billy Ocean, I must scream "THE CLEANSING RAIN!"

Like TV? Watch this!

2010-09-29T13:45:00.000-07:00

Okay, so I watch an uncomfortable amount of TV. I can admit it. But I don't want all that TV watching to go to waste. Here's a bunch of shows that premiered this year, and my take on how good they are.

Louie - The worst thing about the TV and film industry is when the execs demand changes and it sucks the life out of the show. Or they make what is clearly the wrong choice. See: Conan O'Brien. It's refreshing to see what seems like the opposite of that on Louie. Looks like FX just went, "Hey Louis CK, here's some money and a time slot. Do what you want." I don't know how close to the truth that is, but it's resulted in a show that is unlike anything else on tv. It's not quite a sitcom, not quite a sketch show, and not quite anything that will rake in any amount of money for the execs, but it's pretty great.

Rubicon - I watched the first two episodes when they arrived in a pair along with the beginning of the new season of Mad Men. The AMC hype machine had been working pretty hard on this, even giving a sneak preview of the first episode attached to the finale of Breaking Bad on my DVR. The first warning sign that Rubicon was going to be kind of bad was a bit of dialogue that went something like this-- "He used to be late all the time. He was late to meet his wife and daughter at the World Trade Centre and was on his way out of the subway when the first plane hit. He's never been late for anything since."

That was the moment in Rubicon that elicited the greatest emotional response from me, and that was anger at the shitty writing. A couple thousand people died on 9/11. From the number of people in TV and movies in the nine years since who have had personal stories about those they'd lost, you'd think the entire city of New York had been destroyed. Someone reminded me recently that there was a train crash in one of those episodes. That I had forgotten anything had happened at all speaks to Rubicon's level of emotional resonance.

The marketing for this is pretty terrible. AMC runs ads of the actors talking about how great it is. We know they like it. Even if they didn't, they're getting paid to say they do. And none of them seems particularly smart. Also the tagline, "Not every conspiracy is a theory" does not work in any language. Conspiracy theory is a pair of words that go together to mean something. The word conspiracy has it's own meaning that has nothing to do with the word theory. It's like if Smuckers advertised by saying, "Not every jam has traffic in it."

Terriers - FX is a weird channel where Fox inexplicably chooses to put good shows it's not going to cancel because their first two great episodes didn't get great ratings (more on that later). The Shield, Justified, Sons of Anarchy, and Louie are a few favourites. (On the other hand, there was Nip/Tuck which should have been cancelled after about half of its run). Terriers sounds like it shouldn't work-- it's the story of an ex-cop turned private investigator an his ne'er-do-well partner who get in over their heads when they stumble upon a murder. But it's pretty great, thanks in no small part to Donal Logue who I've wanted to see in more things since he was the comic relief in Blade. And he and Michael Raymond-James have a great chemistry with a constantly shifting status dynamic.

Nikita - So, some writers saw a few episodes of Dollhouse, rewrote them, and branded them as being based on something else. The most ridiculous thing I saw in the slightly more than one episode I watched was when Nikita was buying weapons from some high-class arms dealer in his penthouse suite and used one of them to rob him. Because he keeps them loaded as he's selling them from his penthouse suite. Because he's stupid, and I'll be honest-- so are you if you like this show. Sorry.

Boardwalk Empire - Yeah, it's as good as you've heard. I'm just hoping Michael K Williams gets a little more screen time because he's had about a line and a half so far.

Lone Star - One of the more promising shows of the year, and Fox cancelled it after two episodes. That's what they do. They comission great shows, and rather than let them build an audience by word of mouth or stellar reviews, they cancel them if they don't pull in ad revenue immediately. Meanwhile, 24 went on 5 seasons after it was any good. Idiots.

The Event - Here's a show that reeks of network exec tampering (that is, if there was anything good in there to begin with). It looked kind of promising after one episode, despite being the latest nebulous title, big cast, secretive plot, way too beautiful cast, Lost rip-off. It lost me after the second episode though, when it started making too many left-field revelations. Personally, I think creative people should make the show they want to make, but if they're going to keep ripping off Lost, here's what they need to do: Make it look like nothing's too odd at the beginning. Build that comfort for a bit while you DEVELOP SOME FUCKING CHARACTERS and then drop some weird science. Lost had something a little odd and threatening in the first episode that was weirdly non-specific, took a bit of time to establish the flashback routine, and then gave you a mind-blowing fourth episode where it revealed that Locke was in a wheelchair until the plane crashed on the island. The Event just keeps throwing weird shit at you. And speaking of flashbacks, if that's how you're going to tell your story, come back to one particular time period. This thing's jumping all over the place with all these characters so the audience never has an anchor, and therefore never really gets to care about anything, or any one of these model/actors.

Raising Hope - This kind of came out of nowhere and is fun and a bit dark. The crazy old lady is its one sitcom thing I've seen too much of, but it gives that the nice touch of letting Cloris Leachman have these occasional moments of lucidity where she is aware of her surroundings and reminds everyone of how disappointing they are before dropping into crazy mode again. It also features the underused Martha Plimpton and Garret Dillahunt. And the wonderful Kate Micucci, who should be a way more gigantic star than she is.

Running Wilde - Okay, the reunion of Will Arnett, David Cross, and Mitch Hurwitz is not the second coming of Arrested Development. On the other hand, it's certainly not the Run Ronnie Run to Arrested Development's Mr. Show either. And it brings Peter Serafinowicz to North American audiences, which is good for everybody. I remember not being too impressed with 30 Rock at first, and I think this show has the potential to build into something that good. That is, if Fox doesn't cancel it within a month.

No Ordinary Family - Oh, how I wanted to like this show. Casting Michael Chiklis and Julie Benz as your leads has to work for your show right? Not if you don't hire any decent writers. The wonderful thing about superheroes is their origin story. And boy did they ruin that on this show. The family's super powers arrive when their plane crashes into a South American river while on vacation. Never mind that they're in a plane on a sight-seeing tour at night in a storm. That's dumb, but not the worst of this. The worst is the plane crashes, the family swims to the shore and huddles together in the wildnerness of the rain forest, and then the next shot is them walking in the front door of their home after the vacation.

Um... really? Even if this wasn't an origin story, you kind of want to see them get out of this jam. As it stands, the audience is left to wonder why they even bothered going. And with the origin story, there are countless missed opportunities. They use their new powers to fight off the dangerous wildlife. They meet a lost tribe of people who have worked to keep civilization away from their magical river. They stop an evil logging company from destroying endangered species. Anything but they go home and gradually discover that they can do things.

And then there's the powers. Some pretty standard stuff. Dad's super strong, Mom's super fast, the daughter reads minds, and the son's super... smart? Being smart is not a super power. I think the writers just ran out of cliches. I honestly thought for a while in the pilot that the son's power was being super mopy. Turns out that's the whole family.

Bonus mention - Better With You - Not worth putting this in the main body of this thing, because I only made it through about two minutes of this, but imagine Cloverfield, but instead of all these rich urban assholes getting eaten by a jerky camera-shy monster, they get to go on living and exploring the foibles of their uselessly entitled lives. That's what this show is. If you like it, take a good hard look at your life, because you should be a better person than you are.

Bonus bonus mention - I forgot about Justified, because it started so long ago. But that's a good one too.

How much does Gary Bettman hate hockey?

2010-03-01T15:45:00.000-08:00

It's nothing new to say that Gary Bettman is a greedy prick. I've never seen him make a public appearance without being greeted by a steady chorus of boos. He deserves it and we all know it. He's not the Commissioner of the NHL because he loves the game, but because he previously had a history of making wealthy sports team owners wealthier. I wasn't aware of him when he worked for the NBA, but one can assume he had a healthy distaste for basketball too. There is one thing we know he does love, and that's crisp green American cash.

Gary Bettman is the Jeff Zucker of sports. Zucker hates TV (why else would you decide to put more Jay Leno on it?) and Bettman hates hockey. This is why Gary Bettman wants to keep the NHL out of future Olympic competition. Okay, Bettman's hatred of hockey is not his motivation-- he's been very clear about that. But it certainly plays into it. His motivation is the same as Jeff Zucker's-- he loves money and wants as much of it as he can get.

Bettman's argument is that losing NHL players to the Olympics for two weeks means that the NHL loses two weeks worth of income. Now, he's a shrewd business man. After all, you don't get to where he is by only having a chubby for big bucks. There's got to be some skill involved. I can only assume there is some logic behind his claim, but I don't see it. You see, olympic break or not, every team plays 82 games in the regular season. That means no matter how they're scheduled, every owner receives all the ticket sale, advertising, and merchandise revenue they can hope to get their hands on every year. So the NHL isn't losing money because of the olympics, it just isn't necessarily receiving all the extra money that's in play thanks to the olympics. Let's be clear about that.

After yesterday's thrilling Canada/USA gold medal game, one can only assume that at least a few of the far higher than usual number of viewers may have been turned on to watching hockey. It was like a global billboard for the NHL that the NHL didn't have to pay for. Seems like that's a good thing. I'm just trying to be on Gary's side here for a second, because I couldn't give a shit if the NHL gains a few thousand more fans. I like the ones who already exist. And they deserve to see the quality of hockey we saw yesterday when the olympics come around once every four years. It's amazing to take a couple of teams full of elite players and have them play for stakes that clearly hit home. It's the fans I want to see pleased. But Gary Bettman has no interest in pleasing the fans. Obviously.

Assuming Bettman succeeds at keeping NHL players out of Sochi (excluding at least Alexander Ovechkin, arguably the best player in the game and someone who clearly won't be kept out of the games when his home country hosts), what does he stand to gain? The NHL continues uninterrupted (except for the all-star break), and as shrewd money-grubbing imp Bettman is surely aware, not having to compete with olympic ratings because of the time zone difference. I guarantee the NHL players who don't jump ship to play for their country don't have their heart in the games they do play in the NHL for those two weeks. But I don't think this is happening. I don't think the players will be kept from playing in the next olympics. This is all a ploy by Bettman to try to gain a little extra revenue. He's bluffing by saying he'll withhold the players from the games until he gets some delicious money, and the only reason anyone believes him is that he has shown time and again how much he hates the sport of hockey.

Chat Roulette is a depraved cesspool

2010-02-07T22:45:00.000-08:00

I gave chat roulette a try tonight for the first time. It's a difficult thing to approach, being randomly matched with strangers around the globe for a video chat, especially since about ten percent of them are wanking. It could just be that time of the evening.

You have to steel yourself for chat roulette. I went in at first like every other bored person with my camera pointed at my own quizzical expression looking to find the magic. That is a poor way to find the magic. Most people skipped right by me until some Jersey Shore types called me a fat fag. I needed a new approach.

My next attempt was a picture of Edward Cullen, bending and reflecting the screen. If anyone stuck around for long enough, I'd tell them I was a sparkly vampire. It was a step in the right direction, but fell apart when one guy accused me of trying to pick up teenage Twilight fans. I couldn't see how anyone would perceive this choice as anything but that. I mean, you hold up a picture of a 100 year old vampire in love with a school girl, and it's pretty much an invitation for To Catch a Predator to visit.

My third attempt took off a little better with this:

My dinosaur robot is pretty keen to tell people they're awesome, except for the guy who told me his AIBO is better because it pees. My dinosaur robot wants him to reevaluate his priorities. Now that I've got a dinosaur robot to hold the attention of people who I meet in chat roulette, I need a hook. Certainly screaming "NO!" at every dude who's wanking is a good start, and expressing thanks to those who are not is nice too, but what does my dinosaur robot really bring to the world of on-line strangerdom? Also, should he use a silly voice, because that hasn't happened either. I feel like he needs a back story or something too. Some people wanted to know his name, age, what he's been up to today, etc. I hadn't thought any of this through.

Maybe he just needs to keep it simple. My favourite exchange of the night was this:

"You're a pretty awesome robot dinosaur."
"And you sir, are a pretty awesome dude in a tuque."

Avatarded

2010-02-06T22:37:00.000-08:00

So I just read this:

AVATAR-COMPLAINS-OF-OSCAR-SNUB-BLAMES-SELF-FOR-GAME-CHANGING

To paraphrase, the producers of Avatar think the reason they didn't get any Oscar acting nominations is that the academy is too dumb to recognize acting when they see it. This is the problem. That they didn't "educate" people enough on how the movie was made.

Arrogant fucking morons.

They have overlooked the possibility that every one-note dumbass uninspiring performance in this bloated compu-turd is so bland that even SANDRA MOTHERFUCKING BULLOCK deserves more recognition for her work this year.

Or it could be that people don't understand how movies are made. Who am I to say?

Ticketmaster update

2009-09-19T11:54:00.001-07:00

Well, look at my surprise.
(You can't actually look at my surprise-- I'm not posting a picture or anything).

After that last note to ticketmaster, they sent me a whopping refund for $8, even more than the convenience charge I had to pay. While I still don't like the exorbitant service charges they add to my purchases, at least they deal with complaints. I'm going to have to go back to hating on Best Buy, who has ignored two emails in a row despite a $70 premium service package I paid them to keep my computer running smoothly (and where, because they don't have a monopoly, I can and will never shop again).

Dear Ticketmaster

2009-09-15T14:32:00.000-07:00

(I sent this to ticketmaster's customer service today. Let's find out if the company that monopolizes the ticket industry A) provides some sort of refund to smooth over the problem, B) issues an empty apology, or C) ignores me.)

I tried to pick up my tickets today at the kiosk in The Bay at Oakridge Mall. The computer system was being upgraded in the middle of their operating hours and I was told to come back in half an hour. When I did that, the clerk was not making eye contact with me or the girl in front of me in line. After a few seconds he just put up a sign that said "Back in 10 minutes". When I asked if that meant we still couldn't get tickets, he replied, "Maybe 15 more minutes" (still no eye contact). This came as a surprise to me and the girl in front of me who apparently didn't know she would have to wait. So I left and I'll have to go back again another day.

My question is, where in this experience am I getting the value of having paid a $5.50 "convenience" charge? This seems entirely like an inconvenience to me. Or perhaps more to the point, how does your company define "convenience", because driving out of the way to be treated rudely by the outlet operator and not get my tickets doesn't fit the definition in any dictionary I'm aware of.

Shaun Stewart

Update: It was A. They refunded me $8. Nice going, ticketmaster... this time.

2 Girls 1 Cup: My reaction

2009-06-30T18:02:00.000-07:00

Okay, I'm almost 2 years behind on this, but I finally watched the phenomenon known as 2 Girls 1 Cup so I could show you my reaction:

Twilight: some questions

2009-05-02T10:22:00.000-07:00

These are directed at the film-makers. Not sure who to blame for this awful, awful movie, but until Rifftrax can provide commentary for the book, I'm not reading it, and I don't want to just assume it's as bad. (It probably is).

-Why does your protagonist never do anything right? At all. For instance, sure, she's weaker than the vampires-- she can't help that, so if she's going to confront an evil vampire holding her mother hostage, why not take some good vampires with her?

-While we're on the subject, you can't just throw in some good vampires without explanation. This also goes for vampires that sparkle in the sunlight and have reflections. They're not vampires. Call them something else. I realize there's not a question here.

-Why give the protagonist's boyfriend, clearly displayed as if he is an ideal man, all the classic hallmarks of an abuser? What are you trying to tell your target audience of teenage girls?

-Why is Edward Cullen still in high school? He could easily pass for a 20-year-old. Give him a job at the lumber-yard-- he'd be good at it and it would give him the illusion of a normal life. He's what, like 100-and-something years old? If he's in high school he's either reall stupid or really creepy. I'd belive both those based on the movie-- it's just that you should explain that.

-The Cullens are "vegetarians" because they only eat meat? Couldn't have found a better way to word that?

-That high-kick baseball pitch was ridiculous in a non-endearing way, and I think you know it.

-Why did a 1500 mile road trip pursued by an evil vampire take 3 seconds of screen time? Not that I think this bloated corpse of a movie should have been longer.

-Why did this vampire bother chsing Bella so far. He seriously couldn't find another human to eat at incredibly smaller risk and effort?

-Why would you ruin a perfectly good Iron & Wine song?

Justice Pals Interviews

2008-11-18T20:55:00.000-08:00

Once again, I am posting something that isn't a top 5 list. I'll probably have to change the blog's name again. Instead here are a couple of videos. First, The Eric Fell Interviews: Part 1.

And now my response, which I recorded long ago and have just now gotten around to posting:

Hello again, isn't news stupid?

2008-11-15T22:07:00.000-08:00

Wow, this top 5 stuff has gotten easy to ignore. But hey, check this out. In a CBC story today about iPod thefts in Toronto, this photo is displayed with the caption, "Digital music players like this iPod are in high demand amongst thieves, according to Toronto police."

Are you kidding me, CBC? iPods like this one are not in high demand by anyone. If I was a thief and robbed someone because I saw their earplugs and wanted their iPod, I'd beat them up for insulting me by still having the iPod 1G. Hell, even my video iPod isn't at risk of being stolen, and it has a colour screen. I hope to Christ this isn't a recent photo.

Corporate Gross-out!

2008-09-19T09:32:00.000-07:00

Read this article. Just watch how the asshole representing corporate America digs himself deeper and deeper with every response to the situation he's gotten himself into. Now go back to your day. Thank you.

Non sequitur of the day

2008-08-07T21:15:00.000-07:00

This just happened. After playing a game of soccer at Douglas Park, I was opening my car door to get in. Another car pulled up behind my back.

Lady in Car: Do you watch Lost?
Me: Sure.
Lady in Car: Who's the guy with the long blond hair? The kind of tough guy.
Me: Uh, Sawyer?
Lady in Car: SAWYER!!! Thank you so much!

And then she drove away while typing a text message on her phone. I am now accepting theories on what was going on with her.

Top 5 Pleasurable Experiences Best Done in Private

2008-07-30T23:12:00.000-07:00

5) Talking along with your favourite movies

I can do this with High Fidelity, UHF, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and most of Old School. Best not to do it with guests though.

4) Chewing grapes with your mouth open

It makes for a really bad annoying chewing sound, but a really great inside of mouth feeling, especially when the grapes are quite cold. Give it a try, but not when I'm around.

3) McDonalds

Look, I know you do it sometimes. I don't want to see it, I don't want to hear about it. In fact, forget I brought it up.

2) Giving the toilet a quick scrub with the brush

You know how that ring forms at the edges of the surface of the water after a couple of days? The liquid environment of the toilet bowl makes removing that visible blemish so quick and easy. Count it as a chore, and get on with your day.

1) Rapping along with Wu Tang Clan

This especially applies to white guys in their thirties like me. I'm listening right now. "My hip hop will rock and shock the nation, like the emancipation proclamation." I like it, I know the words, but I respect the fact that I'd look like an idiot if I did this in public.

Hockey Night in... oh shit

2008-06-10T19:52:00.000-07:00

Since my last Hockey Night related post, CBC's negotiations for the song fell apart and CTV swooped in to snatch it up for TSN. The Canadian papers today all have stories that feature very self-congratulatory quotes from Rick Brace, CTV's head of sports. While I didn't think it was so bad that the song wouldn't be used on CBC anymore, I think it's terrible that we'll be hearing it on TSN, where Canadian hockey coverage goes to get pushed down the stairs and urinated on. This is like Two and a Half Men using the opening music from Seinfeld. The brand recognition is there, but it's still going to be a shitty show. CBC's hockey broadcasting hasn't been without its flaws, to be sure, but even Bob Cole and Harry Neale struggling to remember their own names in their twilight years have nothing on the stark idiocy constantly spewing from Pierre Maguire and Glen Healey. Now I have to associate the classic jingle with those morons? I was expecting it would just get picked up for ads for some terrible beer. That I could live with. This is just a damn shame.

Top 5 Replacements for the Hockey Night in Canada Theme

2008-06-09T09:58:00.000-07:00

Okay, it's a great piece of music that we all remember hearing since we were kids (except for those of us old enough to be watching HNIC before 1968. But hockey will live on without it. Unless of course you ask the idiots manning the facebook groups trying to keep it around. (I'm going to digress a bit here before I get to the list).
Just this morning, Ronnie B of Halifax proclaimed:

"I cant believe they would even consider it, Gary Betman should be ashamed and CBC as well. What do they want to substitute it with the star spangled banner, if they change it ,I'm boycoting Satday night hockey, It's a part of hockey heritage."

Where do we begin, Ronnie B? First of all, the role of the Commissioner of the NHL does not include the job of choosing jingles for the various programs that broadcast hockey games. You're an idiot.
Next, the theme was not O Canada, nor was it La Marseillaise, nor God Save the Queen, nor any other national anthem, moron.
You're not alone with this threat of a boycott (or with your atrocious spelling, which I'm sure is shared with a number of the people who support your cause), and the suggestion does betray a lack of sense on your part. You're saying that while you would normally watch a two and a half hour hockey game for the thirty second jingle that preceded it, you will no longer do so if that jingle is replaced? Maybe the problem isn't with the jingle. Maybe the problem is that you are an idiot.

Okay. Here's the list.

5) All by Myself

	Celine Dion - All By Myself

	Found at skreemr.com

Naturally, it would have to be the version recorded by Canadian icon Celine Dion. It would encourage people to watch the game together. The opening video would be of Keely Hrudey and Scott Oakes holding hands and running through a meadow. You know that's what they do in the off-season anyway, right?

4) Halo Theme

	O'Donnell/Salvatori TotalAudio - "Halo"

	Found at skreemr.com

If you were to go with the aggressive alpha music instead, I'd go with this one. And it's already associated with violent entertainment.

3) Where the Streets Have No Name

	U2 - Where the Streets Have No Name

	Found at skreemr.com

Half the teams use this as their warm-up skate music anyway.

2) A bunch of idiots whine about bullshit

This as yet unrecorded piece of experimental music would be created by me taking a microphone out and asking people what they think about the HNIC theme being changed and then mxing their responses into a cacophony of blubbering bullshit.

1) Sanford and Son Theme

	TV Theme Songs - San..>

	Found at skreemr.com

Just imagine this song playing to start the game off. It would sweep the world of sport and be used for every game everywhere once people realized how great it was.

Podcastic

2008-06-03T17:53:00.000-07:00

The Justice Pals Podcast is now finding its way to the internet once a week. At this point, it's more or less a beta-test version of the podcast it will eventually be while we try out some things and see what works. That's why I'm doing this with a blog post instead of an aggressive facebook message campaign... for now.

Check it out by subscribing to justicepals.libsyn.com/rss or searching for Justice Pals in your iTunes. Send us messages at justicepals@gmail.com.

We will also answer any questions or give any advice sought at that email address.

As you were.

Top 5 Combos

2008-05-12T20:01:00.000-07:00

5) Coffee and Cigarettes
Good enough to get a Jim Jarmusch movie named after them. Honestly, back when I used to enjoy cigarettes, I didn't drink much coffee, and now that I drink a lot of coffee, I never smoke cigarettes. But I have fond memories. Particularly when fighting cold and/or tiredness.

4) Malkin and Crosby
I'm cheering for the Penguins now that Montreal's been knocked out. These two are making it worth my while.

3) Pot and Animation
Whether it's Adult Swim, Ninja Scroll, Power Puff Girls, Akira, or South Park, something about animated drawings clicks with the psychology of being stoned. Oh, I forgot to mention Clone Wars. Especially Clone Wars.

2) Mos Def and Talib Kweli
Go get the Black Star album. I don't know why you haven't already.

1) Beer and Hockey.
Watching, not playing.

Scuby Snax!

2008-05-07T20:52:00.000-07:00

So, a couple of years ago, I answered the door to my house to be greeted by a man with a sword. Yes, a sword. He was looking for one of my roommates. She was a friend of his girlfriend, who was hiding from him because he beat her up. We called the police around after he left (luckily, the roommate he was looking for wasn't around at the time and he went away without having to use the large sword he was carrying), and they knew him the moment we mentioned his name. Scuby. Well, the old charmer's back in the news again, and another former roommate just sent me this link. Thought I'd share.

Top 5 Reasons not to Blog today

2008-05-05T13:02:00.001-07:00

5) GTA IV
4) GTA IV
3) GTA IV
2) Laundry. And that's already a break from GTA IV I wish I didn't have to take.
1) Seriously. I just got it today. I've got catching up to do.

Top 5 Movies About Music

2008-04-28T16:20:00.000-07:00

5) Once

It's the music that makes this one. It doesn't have much of a plot, but is almost like a dramatized documentary on how people come together to make good music. And it's got really good music.

4) Scratch

This one is a documentary, on a very different sort of music. With all the great hip hop you hear throughout this movie, you'll be nodding your head to the beat for a good while after it's done.

3) 24 Hour Party People

I'm still not the biggest fan of the Manchester music scene explored in this one, but the movie's good enough to make me care about it. And sure, enjoy it a little. Steve Coogan takes this from good to great.

2) This is Spinal Tap

You've seen the movie. You haven't? Go to the video store. Now. For the rest of you, watch it with the DVD commentary. Trust me.

1) Tenacious D in the Pick of Destiny

One of my favourite movies, but not for everybody. Also, I forgot to put it on my Stoopid movie list.

Top 5 Reasons not to go to the Gym

2008-04-21T15:40:00.000-07:00

I've heard it said that once you make a habit of working out, you come to enjoy it more. I've been trying to build this habit for almost three years now and I hate it. Every day off I plan on going to the gym, and then try to talk myself out of it. Here are my best excuses. Feel free to use them yourself.

5) Playoffs
I've been getting a lot of mileage out of this one. How can I go to the gym when I need to be home in time to watch the puck drop at 4pm every day? March Madness was great for this. Those games started early.

4) Laundry
Can't go to the gym if your gym clothes aren't clean. I've never consciously not done my laundry so I wouldn't have to go to the gym on a particular day, but I've had it happen enough that I wonder if somewhere deep in my brain I am purposely setting this roadblock for myself.

3) My initial member fee has been paid
They do a thing where your initial fee is huge and you can pay it all at once, or spread it over a couple of years with your monthly fees. I took a couple of years and now that I have a smaller monthly fee, it's way easier to just say no to fitness.

2) Forgot my iPod
Can't work out without a podcast or some sort of music to listen to. This one's good for getting all the way there and then finding out you've got a perfectly good reason to just head home and call it a day.

1) I need to write a blog entry instead
Worked for me today.

The response from EA Sports

2008-04-17T11:37:00.001-07:00

Hi Shaun,

Thank you for contacting EA Technical Support. I'm sorry to hear you are experiencing difficulties with NHL 08 for the Xbox 360, and apologize for any inconvenience. I understand you have been unable to update your rosters, but have been disturbed by the in-game advertising?

Roster Updates for the console versions of most of our sports games can be found and downloaded once you log in online to play an online match. You can use either the Quick Game or the Lobby to choose an opponent and you should get a message telling you that you will need an updated roster to play. From there, you can proceed with the download which will be saved to your console's memory for both online and offline play. Unfortunately Technical Support does not have information regarding the nature of the updates or the scheduling of their release, as those are details known only by the developers of the games themselves. The best source of information on updates would be the news section in the online lobby. Nonetheless, once an update is available, you will know when you go online with your game.

For the Xbox 360, this will require an Xbox Live Gold Membership for online play, as Silver Memberships are only able to play online for the first month of the service. For more details regarding Xbox Live accounts, please contact Microsoft at 1-800-4MY-XBOX (1-800-469-9269).

In Technical Support, we address issues regarding error messages, crashes, and other problems in game performance such as freezing. We unfortunately do not have details regarding aspects of gameplay or the design of features that are included or excluded from the game itself. Decisions and information on these matters are handled by the game's designers themselves.

While you can submit your comments and suggestions through this interface, there is no full guarantee that they may reach the best parties concerned with the issue or topic. What I can recommend would be for you to also post your comments, suggestions and any other feedback to our official forums at http://forums.ea.com which are regularly reviewed by our games' developers.

Again, I’m sorry I can’t help you out directly with this particular concern, but please don’t hesitate to contact us if you ever have a technical problem or question. Should you require further assistance about this or any Electronic Arts games in the future please visit our website and review our extensive Self Help knowledgebase (http://support.ea.com).

Thank you,

Jon M
EA Technical Support

So I posted my original note on their forum board. We'll see if that can elicit an actual response rather than having someone reiterate my problem to me and then suggest I just send it out to the internet at large for help. On the forum post I made, I suggested that someone who could answer my question might give their email address to the tech guys.

Dear EA Sports,

2008-04-16T15:39:00.000-07:00

First of all, I apologize for sending this to technical support. This category is the closest one I could find to the reason for contacting you. If necessary, forward this to someone who can help answer my incredulity. Here's my problem:

I recently purchased NHL 08 for the XBOX 360, thinking how great it was to finally be able to get this game which comes out every year with completely unreasonably early roster settings. Players signed to new teams in July are still on their old teams come the September release. So the first thing I did when I got the game was to go into the option to update my rosters. Turns out, so I'm told in a message box, "An XBox Live membership limitation does not allow you to use this feature."

Well, that seemed wrong. I mean, I thought updated rosters would be included in the fifty dollars I was spending on this game. Maybe even just doing it once upon registration. But no, no updated roster for me. The best I can do is shuffle some players around before I get down to my dynasty. Annoying, but not infuriating.

Oh, but the fury was just around the corner. Playing the other day, I noticed something. There were ads on the boards, as there are in any hockey arena. But these were new ads. Ads with people in bright workout clothing. Ads for Koodo, which did not exist when this game was released. Yes, my bandwidth was being used to try to sell me something I don't want or need.

Allow me to reiterate. I can not use the bandwidth I pay for to update my game to the time I bought it, but you can use my bandwidth (which I pay my internet service provider for) to advertise on the same game. How is that at all fair? Are Electronics Arts and Microsoft so poor that they need to take third party advertising and still charge for services that should be free?

Clearly I feel that updated rosters should be free. You know what else you should throw in? A manual that explains how the game works. I'd love to know what's going on with the scouting system in this game. It doesn't make sense, and there has been no indication in the manual or anywhere on your website of how it should work. Sure, you can go on the forum and have a bunch of people give you their best guess, but nobody who actually made the game seems to want to comment. That's the most frustrating gameplay point for me, but trust me, there's plenty more. Like why do you have an AI that has opposing manager's offering me trades and then denying the trade when I try to accept it? Or why was Curtis Sanford the "best roster" pick for two weeks in a row while Roberto Luongo sat on the bench, when Sanford's rated at 73 and Luongo's rated at 95?

But mostly, why are you taking money from advertisers to upload images to my system, but not allowing me to update my rosters without paying for Microsoft's premium service?

Sincerely,

Shaun Stewart

Top 5 Sensitive Rock Songs I First Heard From the Television

2008-04-14T14:56:00.000-07:00

(If reading on facebook, you'll need to go to the original post to listen to the songs)

5) Coldplay - Fix You
first heard on: The OC

	Coldplay - Fix You

	Found at skreemr.com

While it could hardly be said that this song introduced me to Coldplay, it is the one that I occasionally hear and think, "Maybe I should give their new album a chance." I guess since they have a new album coming soon and I still have yet to try their last one out, this song marks not only the death of Caleb Nichol, but the death of my half-hearted interest in Coldplay. That said, I do hear their new album is going to be amazing.

4) Oren Lavie - Her Morning Elegance
first heard on: an ad for Chevy Malibu

	Oren Lavie - Her Morning Elegance

	Found at skreemr.com

This is the one from the the ad where cars are being put together on a coneyer belt around people who are living their lives. Cheesy ad. Decent song.

3) Damien Rice - Delicate
first heard on: Lost

	Damien Rice - Delicate

	Found at skreemr.com

This is from one of my favourite moments in Lost. It was what Hurley was listening to when the batteries ran out on his discman. I think if I was a plane crash survivor on a remote island, my greatest worry would be having this happen. Of course, we've since discovered there's plenty of Geronimo Jackson and Mama Cass to be had on the island.
If I ever do a list of Top 5 albums I'm embarrassed to listen to when anyone else is around, O, the album this song came from, will be on it. It's good, but good god, is it sappy.

2) Yael Naim - New Soul
first heard on: MacBook Air ad

	Yael Naim - New soul

	Found at skreemr.com

All I can say about this is that it is the catchiest damn song of the last year.

1) Nick Drake - Pink Moon
first heard on: Volkswagen ad

	Nick Drake - Pink Moon

	Found at skreemr.com

Thank Volkswagen for introducing our generation to Nick Drake, who as I understand it, didn't get the greatest amount of attention from his own generation. Since this ad aired in 2000 though, he's been all over the "Greatest of all time" music lists, and deservedly so. He was most likely an influence on everyone else on this list.

Look at my package!

2008-04-14T14:04:00.000-07:00

The weekly top 5 is coming in a couple hours, but first, have a look at this.

My mail arrives at the landlords' place upstairs and they bring it down to my mailbox once they sort it from their own. Usually they only get to guess what I'm receiving. Today, thanks to the US Postal Service customs declaration sticker, they and everyone else who handled it didn't need to guess. And since they all get to know, why not the readers of my blog?

(click on the picture for a closer look)

This after I'd held out for weeks in anticipation and went in with the scissors two days ago. Still, I've taken it for a test drive, and the GroomMate Platinum XL certainly does the trick. My ears and nose are now bare like a Hollywood starlet's nether regions.

Top 5 Sci-Fi/Fantasy Movie Appearances by Old Men

2008-04-07T14:00:00.000-07:00

5) Ralph Richardson in Time Bandits

Ah, the time-honoured tradition of taking a respected actor and turning him into a floating head. Brando's not making this list though. Olivier is, but not for Sky Captain.

4) Richard Harris in the Harry Potter Series

While Richard Harris has passed on, the Harry Potter series continues with Michael Gambon having taken his place inside that extensive wig apparatus.

3) Orson Welles in The Transformers Movie

The first Transformers movie that is. Orson Welles played Unicron. No, Unicron, the giant robotic orb, not the mystical horse. Not the best way to end a prestigious career. Well, better I suppose than this:

2) Alec Guinness in Star Wars

While Sir Alec made a handful of movies and lived a couple of decades after the Star Wars Trilogy, it's said he always bemoaned the fact that he was known primarily for this role, which he apparently hated filming.

1) Laurence Olivier in Clash of the Titans

Sir Laurence had a few more films before he died nearly a decade after this one, but this was probably his loopiest. That's alright. Zeus never struck me as entirely on the level anyway. I suppose King Lear would have been loopier as a character, but Titans was the loopier film.

Top 5 Stoopid Comedy Movies

2008-03-31T17:18:00.000-07:00

5) Run Ronnie Run

While Bob and David explicitly disowned this movie, and it very clearly fails to live up to the standard set by Mr. Show, this is a pretty damn fun romp through stupidity, and a good movie to start this list off. Just so we're clear. This is a list of dumb-ass, morally bankrupt, intellectually challenged movies that I like.

4) UHF

My friend and I rode a bus into downtown Victoria to see this in the theater when it came out. And then my parents bought me the video that Christmas. I watched it every day for about a week. I'm not sure if it's the nostalgia that makes me still like it, or some sort of mental disorder, but I still get a kick out of it.

Supplies!

3) Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters

Adult Swim shows are only ten minutes long, because they tend to focus on a bunch of silly things that happen and avoid building much of a story. So when they take that to feature length, they make a really unclear story with unclear stakes and an unclear solution to aim for. With the story so muddled it becomes a series of non sequitur sketches, and damned if it doesn't all work out for them.

2) Pootie Tang

Okay, so ATHFCMFFT seemed muddled, but then I remembered Pootie Tang. I have to describe this movie as charmingly awful. None of it should be funny, but I've watched it over and over again. I knew a guy who worked at Blockbuster in Kitsilano, and he said Gordon Campbell rented it from him once. Nothing to say about that, but I suppose it's worth noting.

1) Old School

When this came out on DVD, I bought it and my roommate and I watched it repeatedly, skipping through to our favourite parts. We spoke in some sort of Old School-inspired language, to the point where another friend had a kid who would greet us by saying, "You're my boy, Blue!"

Top 5 Things I've learned from the opening weekend of March Madness

2008-03-24T16:05:00.000-07:00

(Facebook readers will not see photos unless they go look at the source post)

This is my first March Madness. I joined a pool so I could force myself to care, and it's been pretty dang fun so far. I've noticed some things...

5) It really is madness.
64 teams getting whittled down by single elimination to one winner sounds pretty nuts, but it really is crazy when you sit down and watch it unfold. Keeping track of 16 games in one day requires a lot of beer to help a guy keep track.

4) The commentators hate my team.
I made my picks using a mixture of AP Poll results and die rolls. I came up with Miami as the winner. I have since developed an entirely new method (still based on die rolls and AP Poll results) that I'll have to use next year. But for this year, I've got Miami and everybody who talks about basketball on TV seems to think I'm dead wrong. Now that I've seen them almost blow a game, I'm beginning to doubt their chances too.

3) Cheerleaders help.
We hockey fans don't get to see a lot of this. Occasionally an arena has cheerleaders that come out and line up the stairs, but it just doesn't work. Having a bunch of college girls in impossibly short skirts sitting at the end of the court who jump up and down and scream a bunch every time the play stops works.

2) Arkansas will let just anyone play for them.
Look at this. Some stoner walked into the gym apparently thinking their were auditions for an indie folk band that day and they just threw a uniform on him and sent him out to play. Now he's a center.
1) The Score has their own Pierre Maguire.

There he is. His name is Tim Micallef and he's every bit as teeth-gnashingly annoying as good old Pierre Maguire, who spends most of his time working for TSN. He's a different kind of annoying though. I mean, first there's the soul-patch. You're a sportscaster, not a coffee-shop guitarist, Tim. Although, I admit, I don't know what he does in his spare time. Maybe he plays guitar and reads poetry in coffee shops on his day off, in his skull-smashingly annoying voice. Again, different type of annoying from Pierre Maguire. While Pierre's voice has more a quality of belonging to a mental patient who keeps adjusting pills throughout the game, bouncing from over-excited screaming to confused mumbling, Tim's got a consistent growl that makes him sound like a trucker who just woke up from a three-day beer and weed binge and is trying to cover up the fact that he doesn't understand anything around him by never shutting up. Like Pierre though, at least three quarters of what he says tends to be utterly stupid.

Top 5 Douchebag moves by Jack Thompson

2008-03-17T16:24:00.000-07:00

With Bully under renewed attack by teachers' unions (I've played it-- it's fun and features a fair amount of tomfoolery and heaps of shenanigans, but calling it any dangerous level of violence of only an indication that you've never seen the game and only dislike the title), and a new Grand Theft Auto on the way, let's take a look at the actions of Jack Thompson, video gaming's most ridiculous foe.

5) Homphobic, cowardly, and just wrong.
While campaigning for the position of Dade County State Attorney, he handed his opponent Janet Reno a note reqesting that she check a box to confirm that she was either heterosexual, homosexual or bisexual. She responded putting an arm on his shoulder and saying, "I'm only interested in virile men. That's why I'm not attracted to you." Zing. His response? Pressing battery charges against her for touching him. The charges were rejected and Janet Reno won the election. Seems like the actions of a crazy person right?

4) Hey you bastards, let me help you.
After hearing that Electronic Arts was interested in taking over Take Two (the company responsible for RockStar, who makes Grand Theft Auto), Thompson volunteered to help out with the process, apparently thinking he'd help out with cleaning up Take Two. Apparently he also forgot his criticism of EA's The Sims 2, which he claimed contains "full frontal nudity, including nipples, penises, labia and pubic hair." It doesn't. EA said no thank you. This guy must be super crazy, right.

3) My stupid plan backfires, so I do nothing.
I've known people who work with computers, and they seem to like a challenge. They also like taking a bit of passive aggressive anger out on stupid people even if it takes a bit of work (blogosphere anyone?). So if I was Jack Thompson, I'd have to be crazy to write an open letter to the video game industry promising to donate $10,000 to a charity of Take Two's CEO Paul Eibeler's choice if someone would make a game in which a man who's son has been killed by video gamers goes on a rampage at a video game fair, and assassinates a character modelled after Paul Eibele. Of course a number of people made their version of the game, the most popular of which being "I'm Okay- A Murder Simulator." Jack Thompson declined to make the promised donation, because he's a douchebag. Or maybe crazy. Someone should look into that.

2) More homophobia, oh and...
In 1990, still stinging from his loss to Janet Reno, Thompson accused Switchboard of Miami, a social service company (suicide prevention hotline, counselling services, information, etc.) of which Reno was a board member, of placing homosexual education tapes in schools. Crazy right? Switchboard thought so and had the court order him to undergo a psychiatric evaluation. He passed. So he's not officially crazy. He is in fact, just a fucking douchebag.

1) Another massacre, another chance for me to shine.
Thompson shows up in the news after every high-profile USA shooting related killing spree and blames the latest video game. Sometimes it turns out after the fact that someone involved has in fact played video games. Sometimes not. Thing is, I have searched to find anything about Jack Thompson's views of guns and their wide-spread availability, you know, down there. Nothing. Guns don't kill people. Video games kill people.

Top 5 Things I've Stumbled Upon

2008-02-25T14:35:00.000-08:00

Everyone knows about StumbleUpon, right? It's an add-on for firefox (if you're not using firefox, then shame on you) that takes you to a website based on a list of things you like and the popularity generated by stumbleupon's users. It's a great way to fill those last ten minutes you've got before you need to leave the house and you don't have time to get into a magazine article or finish the level of Bioshock you're on.

5) So You Gonna Light That Pipe?

(Click on it to make it bigger)

4) Why Can't I Own a Canadian?

A little too easy, but still pretty damn funny.

3) DHMO.org

Requires a tiny bit of Grade 9 level science to enjoy.

2) Guess the Dictator/Sit-com Character

Try to stump this program, which asks yes or no questions to figure out which dictator or television (not necessarily sit-com) character you're thinking of. It will be right most of the time, and usually gets it before you think it will. And, since its database is generated by the people using it (the "users" if you will), it tends to stay pretty up to date with new shows (maybe even new dictators).

1) Ball Droppings

Forgive the unfortunate name-- this program is ridiculously addictive and fun. Wish you could play music but don't have the time to learn an instrument or the money for Guitar Hero? This has a simple interface that lets you create your own little masterpieces. Just go get it and try it. It sucks me in for long periods of time, and has made me late for work on more than one occasion.

Top 5 Short Songs

2008-02-18T12:06:00.000-08:00

After the long song list last week, I kind of have to do this list this week. Plus this one has a higher chance of having people stick around to listen to the songs, all of which last less than two minutes long.

5) Funki Porcini - Last Night Over Norway

It's just a sweet little number that serves as a transitional piece on "Fast Asleep", which I have used as a transitional piece on various mix cds I've made. Much like their other great short track (and a strong contender to be on this list), "Snip and Lick".

4) White Stripes - Fell in Love with a Girl

	The White Stripes - Fell In Love With A Girl

	Found at skreemr.com

How could I do this and not have this song on here? (Much like how could I do last week's list and not have Paranoid Android on it-- but in that case I didn't. I make the rules.)

3) Blind Melon - Skinned

	Blind Melon - Skinned

	Found at skreemr.com

A fun little tune about a serial killer. Yay!

2) Why? - Women Eye, "No." (No mp3. Shame.)

Nice, concise, quick storytelling.

1) Rheostatics - Record Body Count (No mp3 for this one either. Can anyone tell me how to do a little clandestine song posting?)

A fun little tune about a suicide. Short songs are dark.

Top 5 Songs Over 6 Minutes Long (again)

2008-02-12T15:02:00.000-08:00

So, this is weird. I posted this yesterday, and today it was gone. It wasn't on my blogger site where I originally posted it, and it wasn't on facebook where it should have been imported. I thought maybe I forgot to post it properly, but it wasn't in my drafts either. I found it in my google reader though, so I must have posted it, and then some angry hacker who hated the choices I'd made took it down. Or something. So now it's back, and improved with links to entire songs instead of iLike pages with thirty second clips.

Some artists make every track a 12-minute epic that packs a bunch of little songlets into one big epic track (I'm looking at you, Shpongle). Those can be good (yes, Shpongle, I like what you do), but the focus of this list is the long tracks from people who don't typically do huge long tracks but have turned in tremendous tunes that can outlast my short patience. Or that my short patience can outlast. I don't know the right way to form that sentence-- you decide.

5) Sunset Rubdown - Shut Up I am Dreaming of Places Where Lovers Have Wings (7:23)

	Sunset Rubdown - Shut Up I Am Dreaming of Places Where Lovers Have Win

	Found at skreemr.com

Some songs have a bar or two of acoustic guitar before the drums kick in. There's a little bit of percussion in this one before the drums come in just past the 5 minute mark. That's a long intro. But when the drums do come in and this one gets loud, it's a great final two minute stretch to the song (and the album).

4) Patrick Watson - Shame (7:28) (sorry, no mp3 clip)

A big doo-wop ballad with some spacy guitars and the occasional sound effect. This is the stand-out track of Patrick Watson's first album, and it has a wicked bridge right before the end.

3) Eric Bachmann - Man O War (6:24)

	Eric Bachmann - Man O' War

	Found at skreemr.com

This is one of those ones that I didn't really notice was so long until I looked at the time ticking down towards the end once, long after I'd listened to it the first time. It's a quiet acoustic guiter track that makes economic use of some piano and some "la la las" in the background. And Eric Bachmann howls a couple of times. It's pretty gorgeous.

2) Squarepusher - Iambic 9 Poetry (6:55)

	Squarepusher - Iambic 9 Poetry

	Found at skreemr.com

This mixes beautiful music with intricate song architecture. It opens with a simple bassline that is added to with some drums. Every few bars there's a little shift in the way the instruments are played. It eventually turns into a vortex of sound that makes for a totally satisfying listen.

1) Iron & Wine - The Trapeze Swinger (9:32)

	Iron & Wine - The Trapeze Swinger

	Found at skreemr.com

This song defies logic by being so good and so easy to listen to over and over again when it's really just the same verse melody repeated for nine and a half minutes. There are a few extra instruments thrown in for some verses, but it's pretty much the same tone and experience all the way through. And it's so damn good in its simplicity.

Update on most anticipated of the year

2008-02-08T15:23:00.000-08:00

A quick look around the internet today seems to suggest that production of Battlestar Galactica has in fact been postponed, rather than totally dismantled, and is expected to resume to get the damn thing finished by the end of they year. I don't know how confirmed this all is, but all the talk of it possibly just ending in the middle of the final season seems to have disappeared, so that moves up to number one to knock the new Wolf Parade album off the list, as great as I'm sure it will be.

Top 5 Canucks moments in the past few seasons

2008-02-01T18:12:00.000-08:00

While we wait for the Canucks to get out of this ridiculous slump they're in right now, here are a few great moments to remember lately.

5) Kesler vs. Iginla, February 3, 2006

Neither of these two are known as fighters, but it was pretty awesome to see Kesler only in his second NHL season go up against Iginla the big veteran. And it was a pretty action-packed one that lasted over a minute. When they came together, I remember thinking Kesler was about to get his ass handed to him. It may not be so exciting to watch now, but at the time it was amazing to watch.

4) Sixth Longest NHL game in history, April 11, 2007.

The guy who made this video sums it up at about the 23 second mark. What a way to start a playoff series that was a much-hyped battle between Luongo and Turco. After giving up 4 goals each in the first three periods, they went almost another four periods before Henrik finally scored the winner-- early on the 12th of April.

3)Matt Cooke scores with 5 seconds left to keep the Canucks alive, April 19th, 2004

So that was amazing. Too bad Gelinas scored a minute and a half into overtime to knock the Canucks out. Watching this again makes me miss Jovanovski.

2) Henrik Sedin fires a no-look pass to Daniel in the slot, Daniel scores, whenever.

I tried to find one of these all over youtube to no avail. But it happens, and when it does it makes you believe all those "Unsolved Mysteries" stories about twins with psychic powers.

1) Luongo's shutout streak, November 25-29th, 2007.

The video is the end of the third game. When Luongo is on his A-game, he's ridiculous to watch, as Canucks fans all know. Those three games were great because they saw not just him doing an amazing job, but the entire team as well. Let's hope there's more of that coming soon.

Top 5 Anticipated Events of 08

2008-01-28T11:02:00.000-08:00

I'm going to start off with two hopefuls. These are two things I'm hoping for. One is a new Postal Service album. It's been rumoured since the summer of 2006, and there are people out there expecting it to arrive this year but I'm not holding my breath. Far more potentially frustrating is the completion of Battlestar Galactica. They have 11 of 20 episodes finished, and everyone has been sent home because of the writers' strike. This is the final season and seeing it come to an end has been one of the most anticipated TV events for me for the past couple of years. And it might not happen. Ever. Imagine the rebels arriving at Endor to find the Death Star's shields up, and then the credits roll. That's what this is like.

5) Wolf Parade - Pardon My Blues (March or April)

After a few members spreading out to focus on Sunset Rubdown, The Handsome Furs, and Johnny and the Moon, they've all come back together and recorded another album. I liked their first one. I like their side projects. Seems likely I'm going to enjoy this.

4) The Dark Knight (July 18)

Batman Begins was a great reimagining of the Batman character, based in more reality than most comic book adaptations are usually comfortable with. This one should prove to be pretty great too, especially now that Christopher Nolan's got one under his belt and should be even more comfortable with directing this franchise. And Maggie Gyllenhaal instead of Katie Holmes sounds just fine to me (as long as I don't have to spell it again). Let's see, does that cover everyone involved? Oh yeah. A quick look around the wikipedia site suggests that the only affect Heath Ledger's death will have on the movie is a shift in the marketing campaign. His performance as the Joker was already one of the big draws of this film, but the fact that it is to be his swan song will certainly raise expectations. He certainly did great work before this, so hopefully Nolan's done a great job with him in this one. No pressure.

3) The Wire final season (in progress)

If you watch television shows, but you don't watch The Wire, stop what you're doing. Watch The Wire. It's about halfway through its final season now, and by the time you get caught up, it will be finished. And you'll thank me. This show has the best characters (written and acted), the best writing (story and dialogue), and the best realism mixed with mythic hyperbole I've ever seen on TV.

2) My thirtieth birthday (May 8)

I'm just waiting to see if this is the one that sets of the "What am I doing with my life?!?" panic. Seems like that should have happened by now.

1) Lost Season 4 (starts this Thursday)

Okay, okay, I just said The Wire was the best show ever, but Lost gets the number one spot? That's because Lost is more highly anticipated. The Wire is going to just be good to the end. Like a fine wine or a box of Reese Puffs cereal, you know it's going to be more deliciousness. I'm confident Lost will continue to be delicious, but the flavour keeps changing. And with all the questions that keep coming up, we now know that they are going to be answered over the next three seasons. I can't wait to see where this show goes next. Also, while this season has the same potential problem as Battlestar Galactica, there are two more after it, so while the season may be incomplete, the series is going to come to a close eventually.

Top 5 Concerts I saw in 07

2008-01-21T10:41:00.000-08:00

5) Sunset Rubdown at the Plaza Nightclub

First of all, let me say this: The Plaza nightclub is the worst venue for live music in the city and no one should ever book good music there. At this show, I went early enough to watch the opening act (Johnny and the Moon), and stood in the rain for half an hour while they played. I had my ticket, bought weeks before, in my hand. I don't know if they were trying to pull some sort of line-up outside generates buzz for the event kind of bullshit or if they were just incompetent, but I only got to see the tail end of one song by Johnny and the Moon. And then while Sunset Rubdown was playing, some cokehead idiot near me was trying to pick up this hippie chick who was clearly trying to enjoy the show by telling her he didn't care for this band, but the openers were pretty good. Because that's the sort of person who goes to the Plaza. And they don't know the difference between whatever bullshit eighties night is happening and when a band is in town and there are people there to see that.

Second, let me say that Sunset Rubdown is the most awkward bunch of people between songs. There was a lot of shame-faced apology for technical problems that I never noticed and most of the banter was haltingly spoken and ended mid-sentence.

Third, when they actually play music, it's like a whole different group of people and they take you out of that shitty nightclub with their total commitment and huge talent. This is my favourite new band (well, new to me anyway) of the year.

4) Patrick Watson at St. James Hall

(This video isn't from the actual show-- couldn't find one of those)

Speaking of venues that may or may not be great, I wasn't so sure about this one. I actually showed up late for this and missed the opening act. I tried to give someone my ticket but no one wanted it. I was expecting a big open space with a bar at the back, but went inside to find a church. No here's the thing about music shows in churches-- if you can get past the uncomfortable seating (I found an empty one-seater pew in the balcony), the sound tends to be great. And the sound certainly was excellent for this show. Patrick Watson is an amazing front man. I don't know if I've seen him compared to Jeff Buckley in print anywhere, but his voice definitely has a quality that reminds me of Jeff Buckely's, and much like Jeff Buckley on stage, whenever he's not playing music, he's acting like a weirdo juvenile idiot. In a good way. Lots of weird noises and silly voices. The band is amazing too, and they play great expanded and embellished versions of all the songs.

3) Bjork at Deer Lake Park

I have wanted to see Bjork in concert for over a decade. I was worried that she was a little past her prime at this point in her career, but she proved me wrong. There's always that little taste of religious experience when you see someone you love do a show for the first time, but I'm pretty sure this show was genuinely amazing. And Bjork was backed up by a horn section dressed in suits that may have been made of fluorescent garbage bags, so that helped.

2)MIA at Commodore Ballroom

The thing about MIA live is that she's not a brilliant singer and obviously hasn't been trained in proper breathing techniques and pitch control. So she's shouting more than singing, but she whips the audience into a frenzy anyway. And then she lets a whole bunch of them on the stage.

1) Tenacious D at Queen Elizabeth Theatre

I was almost too late to see him, but this was the first time I got to see Neil Hamburger live. So that was awesome. As for The D themselves, holy shit, what a lot of work went into this show. This was approaching musical theatre as opposed to a straight-up rock concert with all the set changes, scripted entrances, and various appearances by Lee (not his real name) in different costumes, but it rocked the fucking socks off of any other show ever. That's the great thing about Tenacious D-- as funny as they are, they rock hard. They truly rock. They don't do a parody of rock, they are an amazing rock duo. And by God, you must see them live sometime.

Top 5 Movies of 2007 I Wish I'd Seen By Now

2008-01-14T11:55:00.000-08:00

I used to see a couple of movies a week in the theatre. Now I do about one a month. While I'd like to make an authoritative list of the best movies of the year, I'll have to settle for the ones that look like they're really super. (Incidentally, the top 5 movies I did see this year were Hot Fuzz, No Country For Old Men, Knocked Up, Ratatouille, and Death Proof).

5) Transformers

When the original teaser for this was released, I was pretty excited. Right up until the moment the title was accompanied by the words, "A Michael Bay Film" below it. That took all the joy of this upcoming movie right out of me. I've since realized that Michael Bay's mindless action style might be just the right thing for a movie based on a decades-old line of toys, and that I shouldn't have avoided this one. I've wanted to see a live-action transformers movie for a long time. I'm going to have to get to this eventually, even if it is as lame as most people seem to think (I say most people, even though I do know a few who liked it, so who knows?).

4) Juno

This looks a little too clever for its own good. I tend to like that sort of thing. Plus, I don't see Dwight Shrute in enough movies. And I don't see Jason Bateman in enough good movies. Or J Jonah Jameson for that matter. At least, not this year.

3) Once

I do love a good music-based film, though usually not a musical (I just watched Dreamgirls last night, and those moments where people are singing at each other when they should just sit down and have a talk always get me a bit miffed). By all accounts, the music in this movie is really excellent, and I haven't heard anyone say they don't like it. What am I waiting for? I should see this. And number two, which falls into the category I just said I don't like...

2) Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

Finally, we get to see a movie in which Tim Burton, Johnny Depp, and a barrel of white make-up team up. It's about time.

1) There Will Be Blood

Come and listen to a story about a man named Daniel
A poor mountaineer, barely kept his family fed,
Then one day he was shootin at some food,
And up through the ground came a bubblin' crude.

Oil that is, black gold, Texas tea.

Well the first thing you know ol' Daniel's a millionaire

Or something like that. Only instead of uprooting to Beverly Hills, he becomes some sort of mad psychopathic killer. After a late-2007 stellar turn by the Coens delivering what I'd say is their best movie yet, I'm hoping Paul Thomas Anderson has done the same, and it sounds like he has. And in fact, according to many people he's outdone "No Country For Old Men" with the year's best psychological squirmer.

Hey GM!

2008-01-09T15:56:00.000-08:00

While my little brother has taken the wind out of my sails as far as that stupid Ford ad goes, GM continues to run their even stupider ad. It opens with text that says, "It's our time to talk." Sorry, make that, "IT'S OUR TIME TO TALK."
One might think they would follow that with speech. Nope. No talking. Just text displaying some sort of savings numbers for buying new cars, accompanied by drums and horns that would not sound out of place in a Lord of the Rings heroic death scene. It does not make me want to buy a new car. If I did want to buy a new car, I would not come away from the experience of having seen this ad feeling more informed and wanting to buy a GM car.

It does make me want to slay some orcs.

Hey Ford!

2008-01-08T19:53:00.000-08:00

You know how you're still airing that ad in which Sidney Crosby asks (to epic pounding music):
"Is this the year somebody scores 50 in 38" (37? 36? (from Ovechkin and someone else))?

Every team has played more than 38 games now. The highest number of goals by a single player is 34. This is not that year. I know there's a writer's strike, but come on. Step your game up, giant corporation who should be on top of this shit.

Top 5 Albums of 2007

2008-01-07T12:50:00.000-08:00

New Year's resolution: make a blog every week that organizes my favourite things into top five lists. Music, films, sports plays, childhood memories, whatever. We're starting things off with the best of 07. Here goes.

Last year I did a top five of "Albums I discovered in 2006" or some fool concept. This year I was on top of music. I was all over that shit (not so much with the films, and I'm going to have to come up with another fool concept for that next week), and I can safely say that these are the very best albums released in 2007. With a few possible exceptions. I never heard that Panda Bear shit, but I hear it's quite something.

5) Radiohead - In Rainbows.

I haven't heard this properly yet-- in full glorious cd digital sound. Just on the 160Kbps mp3 that was originally released (I encode at 192, thank you very much). Despite its digital inferiority this album is quite something. It's got a little bit of all the best moments of Radiohead's past all mixed in, from the murky acoustic guitars and strings of "Faust Arp" to the vaguely Autechre-ish electronic-sounding bass lines of "All I Need". This is one of my favourite Radiohead albums yet. I can't wait to hear it in crystal clarity.

Highlight Song: Videotape

4) Arcade Fire - Neon Bible

It's been so long, I almost forgot that this album was released this year. It sucks to release album number two when album number one was hailed as some sort of musical revolution. And let's face it, Funeral was a hell of an act to follow. So while it took some time to get through the fact that this wasn't quite the same as Funeral, it became clear that this was a far cry better than a whole lot of other albums (every one this year except for three, by my count). I used "My Body is a Cage" as my alarm clock music for months. This may have made me a moodier person.

Highlight Song: (Antichrist Television Blues)

3) Sunset Rubdown - Random Spirit Lover

I got into Sunset Rubdown's previous album right before this one came out (much like I got caught up with Sopranos right before the final season started). Always fun to be freshly excited about something right before that thing reaches some sort of peak. This album is certainly some sort of peak. It's hard to pick specific moments I like in it because it's all this big mess of beautiful sound. There should be more albums that constitute a big mess. You can hear how they've tried to make each song flow into the next, to varying degrees of success. Somehow these flaws add up to some sort of perfection.

Highlight Song: Winged/Wicked Things

2) LCD Soundsystem - Sound of Silver

I resisted LCD Soundsystem until this album came out. And then I felt like an ass for doing so. This is strangely sonically consistent, but emotionally eclectic. The same wonky bass and garage drums are put together for the trashy party of "North American Scum", the smoky lounge of "New York, I Love You But You're Bringing Me Down", and the teary requiem of "Someone Great". Well, maybe not, but it all feels the same, even if it feels different.

Highlight Song: Someone Great

1) MIA - Kala

I have to admit, I wasn't that excited for this album. Looking forward to it, sure, but just as another bit of distraction until something better came along. But I'm totally in love with it. This album is my girlfriend-- no, fiance. I love it that much, so why shouldn't I marry the damn thing? It's so much funny, and so morally questionable ("All I wanna do is and and take your money!"). And it's borrowed so much-- no stolen so much from previous music, but it's all so perfectly original and unique. Seriously, try making an MIA station on Pandora and see if you get anything that comes close. Many artists have tried to import "world music" to the west (Coldcut, Paul Simon, Bedouin *gag* Soundclash), but no one has ever done it this well.

Highlight Song: Paper Planes

Peter Travers is an idiot: further evidence

2007-12-22T07:12:00.000-08:00

Here is a line from Peter Travers's review of "Walk Hard":

...a spoof of every musical biopic from "Ray" to "Walk the Line,"...

Anyone who has seen these two movies knows that these are the two most similar movies in cinematic history. "Walk the Line" was just "Ray" with white people. They are more similar to each other than "Blade Runner: The Director's Cut" was to "Blade Runner: The Final Cut". Every musical biopic from "Ray" to "Walk the Line" is "Ray" and "Walk the Line". Idiot.

Top 5 Songs over 6 minutes

2007-11-15T15:24:00.001-08:00

Some artists make every track a 12-minute epic that packs a bunch of little songlets into one big epic track (I'm looking at you, Shpongle). Those can be good (yes, Shpongle, I like what you do), but the focus of this list is the long tracks from people who don't typically do huge long tracks but have turned in tremendous tunes that can outlast my short patience. Or that my short patience can outlast. I don't know the right way to form that sentence-- you decide. Included are some 30 second clips. What can you do?

5) Sunset Rubdown - Shut Up I am Dreaming of Places Where Lovers Have Wings (7:23)

Some songs have a bar or two of acoustic guitar before the drums kick in. There's a little bit of percussion in this one before the drums come in just past the 5 minute mark. That's a long intro. But when the drums do come in and this one gets loud, it's a great final two minute stretch to the song (and the album).

4) Patrick Watson - Shame (7:28) (sorry, no mp3 clip)

A big doo-wop ballad with some spacy guitars and the occasional sound effect. This is the stand-out track of Patrick Watson's first album, and it has a wicked bridge right before the end.

3) Eric Bachmann - Man O War (6:24)

This is one of those ones that I didn't really notice was so long until I looked at the time ticking down towards the end once, long after I'd listened to it the first time. It's a quiet acoustic guiter track that makes economic use of some piano and some "la la las" in the background. And Eric Bachmann howls a couple of times. It's pretty gorgeous.

2) Squarepusher - Iambic 9 Poetry (6:55) (don't watch the terrible glo-stick video in the link)

This mixes beautiful music with intricate song architecture. It opens with a simple bassline that is added to with some drums. Every few bars there's a little shift in the way the instruments are played. It eventually turns into a vortex of sound that makes for a totally satisfying listen.

1) Iron & Wine - The Trapeze Swinger (9:32)

This song defies logic by being so good and so easy to listen to over and over again when it's really just the same verse melody repeated for nine and a half minutes. There are a few extra instruments thrown in for some verses, but it's pretty much the same tone and experience all the way through. And it's so damn good in its simplicity.

How I came to find myself sitting directly behind Mathieu Garon in GM Place tonight

2007-11-14T22:54:00.000-08:00

Subtitle: The next great Canadian underdog sports story.

So it came to pass that Allen and I discovered that a friend of ours worked for Smirnoff Ice doing promotions in bars that could lead a person to winning some tickets to Canucks games. And so Alex (the friend in question) told us she would guarantee we could pull off a win in these contests if we showed up. And so she ended up being sick the night in question and we had to go the contest alone (after a bit of difficulty in figuring out exactly where it took place...

Sitting in the bar at a quarter to five, our chances were looking good to win the Smirnoff Ice score some goals contest. Lord knows what it was actually called. The details of the contest were these: A person could buy a bottle of Smirnoff Ice to make themselves eligible to shoot some balls into some holes at the bottom of a cardboard net mock-up. There are hoels of varying sizes worth 1, 3, 5, and 7 points. A person gets three shots. They score the cumulative total of those shots.

The strategy we employed was to sit back and watch to see who else would play, and what the score was to beat. A sports bar is not a busy place at a quarter to five on a Wednesday night, and we sat without competition for a half hour. Eventually some lady played and scored one of her three shots in the one hole. I decided to go first between myself and Allen. Easy, I thought. Just score one in the five point hole (The three and the five were about the same size but the five was on the left side, and I shoot left-handed, so the five was my easiest shot aside from the one). I was stonewalled by the cardboard cutout three shots in a row. My third shot careened off the stick and missed the net entirely like Raffi Torres's would hours later.

Allen stepped up to play. I counselled him to take it slow. All we need is a couple of one shots. Just aim for onezies, I said. He aimed for the one and missed. The next shot, I did not watch his stick, but the cardboard goal. I watched his shot go into the impossibly small seven point hole. That's it, I thought. We've won the tickets and should order some dinner and hang out until game time. He missed his third shot. No matter.

How did I get this far without mentioning the Smirnoff Ice girls, who were awesome, and as I'm sure their job description requires, uniformly hot. The Smirnoff Ice girls were genuinely happy for us, because Allen is a good-looking guy, and I'm,... Well, I was with Allen.

So, some young dudes (by young, I mean fake ID young) came and tried some slapshots to defeat us but were turned away. And then an older dude stepped up. He claimed to have formerly been an NFL player. I don't know if I believe that, but whatever he was, he draind a five shot without really trying. And then another, wining the tickets that we thought we had. And then another, just because he was a dick.

Allen and I sat dejected. Moments earlier, we were riding a high of thinking we had definitely won some tickets. Now we were deciding whether we should follow the Smirnoff girls to their next location which would surely be more busy as it was getting closer to game time, and thus more of a challenge. We did.

Our strategy now was to play first in order to know sooner if we'd lost so we could have time to grab some beer on the way home to watch the game on tv. Allen went first. We decided we'd go straight fivezies this time. Drop as many as we could. Allen scored one five out of three. I took my turn, missed the first one, scored a five on the second, and went for one more to round our chances up a bit with a ten and missed. We were looking pretty good with a five though. The Smirnoff Ice girls joked that we would have to have a shootout to decide the winner between the two of us. We took seats next to the net and watched.

There wasn't a lot of competition. Some older dudes came and slapped the puck hard. The advantage of this venue was that despite the higher number of competitors, the competition was drunker because it was later. They didn't realize that you just have to line the ball up and give it a nudge (as if it was so easy). This skinny dude in black pants, black belt, and a black shirt came to play. He missed his first shot by a lot and I was making a joke, the general gist of which was to call him Johnny Cash, but the entirety of which was forgotten because as I was saying it, he drained a seven-pointer. I immediately started timing out the trip home in my head.

The man in black missed his third shot. I didn't think it mattered because he had already beaten us. The Smirnoff girls looked almost as disappointed as we did, but were good enough to let us know that we could play again if we bought another bottle of Smirnoff Ice. I was ready to give up, but decided to give it another go. I walked over to the bar, asked for a glass with some ice, and poured my half-finished bottle of Smirnoff Ice into it and wlaked back to declare I had bought another one. It was a transparent ruse, but the girls let it go.

I got zero points on my next three shots.

Allen decided that it was my attempted cheating that kept us from scoring so he went and bought another bottle to play again. He scored one five-pointer, but missed the other two. The Smirnoff Ice girls were amused by my facial expression as I watched the ball bounce off the cardboard. Total disappointment can be cute.

I thought we were out of time by now, but the Smirnoff Ice girls let us keep going (God bless their souls) so I went and actually bought one more. I tried to let Allen take my shots for me since he had enjoyed greater success, but the girls would not allow it. They did rub me for luck. My first shot bounced off the cardboard. I decided to make a late-game change in strategy. So far, I had been using the very end of the stick to flick the ball toward the target. Now I just slid the stick gently along the ground and internally watched the ball go in the hole in my imagination. The ball went in the hole in the physical world too. 5 points. One shot to go.

The pressure was a bit much. I put the stick down and stood back. I'm not sure if I was affected more by the alcohol in the Smirnoff Ice I'd been drinking (oh, did I forget to mention the Smirnoff Ice girls were giving us extra samples too?), or by its irrationally high sugar content, but I was not feeling right. I took a breath, picked up the stick, and drained another five-pointer. 10 points. 10 beats 7.

There were more shooters. Some tiny dude came in with his four lady-friends and had four chances to win, each time having it explained to him that he had three shots to beat ten points to win, and each time aiming for the one-point hole. And for that matter, cheering each time he gained a single point. I think he got three points for his twelve shots, and somehow thought that made him eligible for the tickets. It didn't.

I saw the man in black while I was going to the bathroom. I asked him if he was going to give it another try. He said he had to now. I shrugged and said, "Yeah, well... okay." He was so rattled when he tried again, that he didn't hit a single shot, and watching the net, we couldn't even tell which hole he was aiming for.

Allen and I watched the game. We got to see a shootout. And now we're diabetic.

The end.

Fall TV Post-View

2007-10-16T10:39:00.000-07:00

Subtitle: I should have gotten this out there much sooner.

Okay, so you're looking to watch some tv, but you're a few weeks behind the times? It so happens that I like to force my critical opinions on people via the internet. This can be mutually beneficial. So here's what I think of all the newer shows and seasons of shows so far.

Sunday

Robot Chicken and Frisky Dingo have been back for new episodes since the Summer. Robot Chicken continues to be a bunch of fun, but its hilariousness factor has been reduced by the fact that they seem to be reaching for more blast from the past kids shows to spoof. It's had a good run, and I'm thinking it might be time for Robot Chicken to die. Frisky Dingo on the other hand, is even better this season than last, and it's always been great. If you haven't been watching this so far, get on the bittorrent and do some watching. There are 21 episodes so far, and they're all only 10 minutes long. Getting caught up with this show would be a solid afternoon's entertainment.

Dexter is also back for its second season, and it's going for a new plot direction this year, and one that they could have waited a few seasons for. I like it when shows go for the meaty plot line early. And I really like Dexter.

Monday

Weeds and Californication are still around for a few episodes from their summer runs. Weeds has gotten a bit lame, and I'm kind of hoping they're going to wrap things up for good soon, because I have to keep watching and it's overdue for a conclusion. I mean, it's not as bad as the last season of The OC, which I also felt compelled to stick with to the end, but it's gotten weak. Californication, in its first seaon, is not something I can recommend. But if you like the idea of David Duchovney as a smarmy emotionally conflicted asshole writer (and Evan Handler finally getting a decently sized role in something), well then, you're probably already watching.

Heroes is back. Ho hum. I will watch this to the end, and probably hate myself for it.

Aliens in America is new and very funny. A Muslim exchange student in the midwest. What's not to love? I worry that the schtick will wear off fairly quickly, but it's been great so far.

I also watched one episode of Chuck, before realizing that Monday nights are too crowded, and I can watch it on Tuesday nights when it's funnier and called Reaper.

Tuesday

Reaper. A guy working in a dead-end hardware store job finds out at the age of 21 that his parents sold his soul to the devil when he was born, and must now work to put escaped souls back in hell. It's clever and fun and I also worry that this one will use up everything its premise can offer before it ends. But it's good for now.

Pushing Daisies airs a day early here in Canada. And it's the best new show on TV without a doubt. A guy lives his life with the power to bring people (and anything else) back to life by touching them. The next time he touches them, they die again, this time for good. And if he lets them live for longer than a minute, something else dies. Twenty minutes into the first episode, I thought, "What this show needs to match its whimsical charm, is to have him bring back to life someone he loves, but can never touch again." And then that happened. While I like Lost, if those writers wrote this show, you'd spend the first three seasons trying to figure out what his powers were and where they came from (this one shrugs this question off), and would end its final episode by having him bring his childhood sweetheart back to life. I'm starting to like things more that get to the point quickly (Like The Host, anyone? Okay wrong blog post).

Wednesday

Bionic Woman is a piece of shit. It took me three episodes to decide it was never going to not be a piece of shit. Well, two and a half. I couldn't get through the third one. I really wanted it to get better, since it shared a producer and various cast members with Battlestar Galactica, one of the best shows ever. It may even have killed my Starbuck crush, although we'll see about that when BSG comes back for its final season next year (and Starbuck is some sort of reincarnated magic lady).

And Sarah Silverman's back. If you're not aware of Sarah Silverman by this point, you won't like her show. If you're already watching, chances are you love it.

Thursday

My Name is Earl, 30 Rock, The Office. If you watch TV, you watch these shows or some combination of them. This night is Sitcom University

And that's all I watch these days.

Thank you, Bionic Woman

2007-09-27T19:04:00.000-07:00

We may never have had the opportunity to witness the following gems in a television show or movie had the first episode of Bionic Woman not given them to us:

1) Sub-plot. Friction is caused between the central character and the younger sibling they take care of since their parents' death when the central character experiences a near-tragic, life-altering event that must be kept a secret.

2) A child sees something extraordinary out the car window that Mom is too busy dealing with her day-to-day shit to notice, and when the child tries to bring it to Mom's attention, Mom says, "Sweetie, what have I told you about making things up?" Where do they come up with this stuff?

3) Dialogue.
"Who else have you shown this too?"
"Just you."
"Keep it that way."
And this turns out to be the wrong thing to do.

4) The central character escapes from the custody of a top-secret government organization that knows everything about her in a dramatic chase scene that ends when she arrives at home, where nobody is looking for her.

Everybody, check your extremities

2007-09-14T23:58:00.000-07:00

This was a bit weird when I read about it a couple of weeks ago. Two instances of human feet found inside shoes around Vancouver Island. Well, not weird that feet were found inside shoes, but that feet were found inside shoes and no body was attached. Usually there's one of those too.

Now this is happening in Eastern Canada. So I'm just going to put this out there-- when you take off your shoes, take your feet with you.

Unemployment, etc

2007-09-06T00:11:00.000-07:00

Sheesh.

Almost two weeks into my unemployment and my patience is starting to wear thin. So far, the least favourite things have been the restaurants who tell me to come back at another time to talk to the manager, and when I've gone out of my way to get to a meeting they don't even look at my resume before telling me they're not hiring right now. I swear it's not me, or my massive neck tattoos.

An indication of my own stupidity is that I only today started checking craigslist. Why did I not do that before? There's so much good stuff there.

But the worst by far is the interviews with people who are younger than me and are the reason I don't go to Granville Street on Friday and Saturday nights. Good interviews are out there to be had. I've had some enjoyable conversations with friendly people who seem actually regretful that they can't give me a job right now and promise to call me if anything comes up. The results remain to be seen.

The worst interview of all was today. Is this the sort of thing that could make trouble for me? I'm going to post the actual place this went down. I'm never going to take that job anyway, so here goes. It was at Cactus Club on Broadway. Now first of all, don't ask me what I was doing applying for a job there. It was hot this afternoon-- my judgement was affected. I figured despite the fact that Cactus Club is everything I hate about restaurants, I might as well drop in because I had an extra resume on me and I was in the area.

One thing I will say for Cactus Club-- the waitresses are all hot. Hot in that "If you ever touched me you'd end up in jail or beaten up by my weightlifter boyfriend" kind of way, but hot nonetheless. That made the few minutes it took to fill in the application form a little more bearable.

But then there was the interview. The floor manager was a 30-ish metrosexual fuck with pin-stripe pants, a pastel shirt and tie combination, and Dane Cook stubble. Among the stock questions he asked were, "What made you want to work here at Cactus Club?" I lied with something about loving the atmosphere rather than saying, "I saw it out my car window and thought, 'Well, what the fuck?'"

After about five minutes of inane corporate banter, he let me know that "This is the way it works here. If we decide to hire you, for guys you start out on the Expo Line (what the fuck does that mean? I'll never know), which pays $8 an hour with no tip out for about six months, and then we'll consider moving you to a bartending or serving position."

I was out on the sidewalk within five seconds of this statement, and it didn't sink in until I was out there just how shitty a deal that was. Especially since I'm walking in there with five years of restaurant experience. Six months of minimum wage and no tips? In a way I should thank him. He was trying to make me feel like I was fifteen years old again.

So tomorrow I hit the places that are actually looking for people. And I'm going to do my best to stick to my original plan of not applying anywhere that's part of a corporate chain.

Favourite thing all day

2007-08-24T01:58:00.000-07:00

In a day that involved a lot of good things, this was my favourite, which I found now just before going to bed.
Some scary facts about dihydrogen monoxide.

I don't want to say Torontonians are stupid but...

2007-08-22T09:37:00.000-07:00

Well, read this article from the cbc.

So, groups of people in Toronto saw posters advertising a camp where children aged 8-12 could learn to throw grenades, fire AK-47s, and negotiate minefields and started tearing them down because they didn't realize they were fake. And one of them gave her name to the CBC. It's Sarah Heywood. Sarah Heywood, you are an idiot.

Top Five Ninja Tune Tracks

2007-08-14T17:41:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I've done top 5 of anything, so I'm going to jump in with a very difficult one. There are at least 20 songs floating around my brain that deserve to be on this list, and these are the ones I'm going to have to settle on. I'll probably bitterly regret not having Amon Tobin "Sordid", DJ Food "Turtle Soup (Wagon Christ Mix)", Fog "Check Fraud", Treva Whateva "Singalong", and many others as soon as I'm done (See that? I cleverly listed a few extras without putting them on the actual list so I could feel better about things. I'm smart.).

5)DJ Vadim - The Terrorist, from USSR: Life from the Other Side. DJ Vadim is so great at making so much sound from such little noise. Most of this track uses only a slow but heavy drum beat and that weird scratchy synth. And of course Motion Man's lyrics. But it sounds so full. This was released in 1999, but I seem to remember hearing it more often after 9/11, and all the "us versus the terrorists" rhetoric that came with it. It seems like a fitting anti-Bush anthem now: "I am the terrorist! T-E-R-R-O-R-ist!" Maybe that's just me.

4)Mr. Scruff - Get a Move On, from Keep it Unreal. Unlike Vadim, Mr. Scruff uses a lot of noise. On this one there must be samples from at least half a dozen jazz records. And then that beat. There has never been a more danceable beat. Daft Punk, Fatboy Slim, Chemical Brothers-- they've all used this beat or a very similar variation of it. Mr. Scruff is the only one I've heard who's matched it with the sound of a cartoon jazz band.

3)Coldcut - More Beats and Pieces (Daddy Rips it up Mix), from Let Us Play. Have you ever been in a club and heard a bunch of samples all jumbled together, piling on top of one another, and then it all slows down and the Peter and the Wolf theme plays and then continues with a beat while it gets all scratched up? That's this track. I bought this album with Aphex Twin's "Come to Daddy" EP and Funki Porcini's "Love, Pussycats & Carwrecks" (see below) in what was probably the smartest day of cd purchasing in my life.

2)Kid Koala - Tricks n' Treats, from Scratchcratchratchatch. Again, you may or may not have heard this in a club. Charlie Brown and friends are out trick or treating in a sample from "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown". Everywhere they go, all the other friends get great candy while Charlie keeps getting rocks. Drop a beat, scratch what Charlie's saying over and over again, and "I got a rock" becomes "I gotta rock." Genius. And no, this was technically not originally released by Ninja Tune, but it was re-released on cassette tapes (not cds because of all the sample clearance issues), so it still counts.

1)Funki Porcini - Purrfect, from Love, Pussycats & Carwrecks. If you ever have a really bad day, download this song immediately and listen to it. Trust me. You'll be right as rain in eight minutes.

Star Wars Physics

2007-08-11T02:49:00.000-07:00

I was watching some Star Wars Clone Wars tonight, and something bothered me. In the space battles, there was laser blaster fire going every which way. Naturally, one living on the planet such a battle was orbiting would feel at risk of getting hit by stray fire, the same way when people celebrate by firing bullets in the air, people die. That shit's gotta end up somewhere.
But a lot of that blaster fire is heading out into space, which means it's got, I don't know, say a million to one chance of flying through space unimpeded forever. But what about the one laser blast that end up reaching a galaxy far, far away thousands of years in the future. If a laser blast hit some kid taking a space-trike ride around his planet's double moons a million years later, a million light years away, where no one even knows about the galactic conflict from which that blast originated, would the blast hit him with all the force it would have had if he been at the site of the battle?
I honestly don't know what science has to say about this.
This reminded me of something that has always bothered my about the blaster fire since I was a kid. If you fired a laser gun, you would see a continuous beam of light from the moment you held the trigger to the moment you took your finger off. You would not see a blast that would fire from the gun and fly to its target. Sure, a more worldly child may have wondered how Princess Leia's breasts looked so perky in Episode 4, and yet never jiggled. I was bothered by the lasers.
At last, at nearly thirty years of age, I have reached a conclusion that justifies this. Maybe I'm slow and everyone's already figured this out, but just maybe I've just discovered something important. It's all about light sabres. Light sabres show that in the Star Wars universe, technology has been harnessed that can contain light. Of course a laser sword would be the same as a gun-- the beam would extend to the nearest impediment, and one would do a lot of damage with it, whether or not they wanted to. But a light sabre only extends the light a certain distance where it ends and is contained.
The Star Wars blaster therefore, forms light beams into concentrated bolts like those that extend from light sabres, and fires these bolts, rather than firing beams of light. These are pieces of assembled light particles, and therefore behave as particles, which are fired from the blasters as if they were solid objects. That's why they travel slower than the speed of light, and why they don't appear as a steady beam.

Just sayin

2007-08-09T19:28:00.000-07:00

It's Pride Week...

2007-08-02T12:17:00.001-07:00

And no, that is not me on the cover of the Ultimate Pride Guide.
I am going to airbrush that picture so the tattoo says "Tits" and then use it as my lavalife profile picture.

Vancouver's Strike: Bullshit in Stereo

2007-07-27T12:31:00.000-07:00

Apparently the hoops are open again at Kits Beach, so my rage is subsided on that front, but boy are both sides of this disagreement fighting hard to not have me on their side. Here are the biggest shovel-loads of bullshit from each side.

From City Hall:
Seems they were ready for this strike having been through one before. With the biggest issue being garbage collection, they were well aware of how things worked last time this happened (back in 2000). When the garbage started to pile up, people would take their garbage to empty unused lots so that it wouldn't be clogging up their alleys. The solution? Put fences around any obvious dumping places. The message? You created it, you live with it. The ridiculous lack of foresight here is astounding. One would think that if the strike goes for a couple of weeks, everyone involved would want the garbage all gathered together to more easily clean it up when it's all over.

From the union:
I was joking with friends the other night about how gross English Bay will be over the next couple of weeks after hundreds of thousands of people gather and no one cleans up after them. Seems City Hall showed a rare display of good sense by organizing volunteers to clean up the day after the first show. The union thinks this is some sort of violation of their rights. Why? Apparently they are absolutely fucking retarded. These are volunteers. They are not getting paid to do your job, they are doing it because they don't want to live in squalor. Your beef is with the people who employ you, not with everybody in the city. If you wants us to support you (and believe me, I'd prefer to support your side), don't act like everyone who wants to live in a clean environment is your enemy. That makes us want you to start making minimum wage because you're not smart enough to deal with any larger sum of money.

This week on John from Cincinnati

2007-07-23T19:14:00.000-07:00

1) Deadwood ex-pat sighting when Trixie showed up.
2) Zack Morris vs Dylan McKay, the ultimate battle of early nineties teen idols. Too bad they dressed the same.

Garbage, I can take...

2007-07-23T18:16:00.000-07:00

I'm putting this picture up here because I think this situation is damn stupid. There's the strike happening in Vancouver, and it's my natural inclination to side with the workers in this situation. My employment history has always had me on that side of the fence. But to me, a strike is refusing to do your job until the people in power allow you to be fairly compensated. A strike should not include going out of your way to punish people who have nothing to do with your cause. So here are these devices blocking the use of the basketball hoops at Kits Beach. If the hoops fell into a state of disrepair and the strike was still happening, I would be fine with them not being fixed. But this is just a dickhead move that makes me not want to support the workers at all.

Murphy vs Mencia, take 2

2007-07-20T12:36:00.000-07:00

So I put up this long post the other night, and then decided it wasn't anything I wanted to share with the world so I took it down, but then realized there were parts of it that I wanted to share with the world, so here is the revised edition:

First of all, take a look at this video, which is quite funny. It's actually not the video that you really need to see, it's the comments below (for those of you who don't want to invest the time in watching the video, it's Morgan Murphy parodying the whole "Carlos Mencia steals jokes" thing that's all the rage on youtube right now by intercutting a performance by herself that she claims was taped in 1923, with Mencia's performance of jokes that were very obviously his first).
There are numerous different people debunking her claim that the video was shot in 1923 like they're having their Sherlock Holmes moment. This is what mainstream comedy fandom is made of. And it makes me a little bit sad, but a little bit smugly superior.

Found Magazine

2007-06-16T01:24:00.000-07:00

If you've never visited found magazine (foundmagazine.com), you should. This went up a couple of days ago and I think it's my favourite one yet.

06-07 Hockey: The end.

2007-06-07T16:10:00.000-07:00

Well, that's that. I personally would have picked Giguere as the playoff MVP, but hey Neidermayer (or Needa-mayer, as Bob Cole calls him) wasn't so bad. Actually, in a perfect world Daniel Alfredsson would have won the Conn Smythe, but he wasn't on the winning team. He would have been the easy pick if the Senators hadn't fallen apart in the final series.

Now that hockey's over, I've picked a new sport for the summer. Geographically, CFL was the top choice I had lined up, but then I noticed that baseball's playoffs end a little earlier. Also, with baseball, I don't have to pick a team and stick with it, which means I can just watch whatever game's on when I want to watch a game and make my choice from there. I had made this decision this morning before I went to the gym and watched Curt Schilling come within one out of a no-hitter, and that cemented my choice. It's been a while though, so I need to figure out which teams are good and who the players are. This should be fun.

Learn from my mistakes

2007-06-05T12:11:00.000-07:00

If you see a 1kg tin of Maxwell House coffee on sale at Safeway, and it's like the best deal on coffee you've ever seen, don't buy it. Maxwell House coffee tastes like shit. And I don't mean that in a general "It's really bad" sense-- it literally tastes like shit. I went to a high school in a rural area and the aroma and taste of Maxwell House coffee is just like when the farmers would fertilize their crops. With manure.
The one silver lining to this cloud is that it's been a couple of months since I bought this coffee and I'm almost done. The first week or so I could barely choke it down, but now I've gotten used to it and it doesn't seem so bad. In about a week when I finish it and can buy some good coffee again, that coffee's going to taste like getting a blow-job from God. This time I mean that in a general "It's really good" sense.

Hockey Bullshit

2007-06-02T19:30:00.000-07:00

Chris Pronger should be suspended for the rest of the playoffs. Just sayin.

Playoffs Round 4, and other hockey news

2007-05-24T13:50:00.000-07:00

After being disappointed by how easy it was for Ottawa to beat Pittsburgh and New Jersey, I was loving it when they went up three games to nothing against Buffalo. Let's hope they can keep up their 5-game-win playoff series streak to knock down Anaheim. And let's hope that something other than an injury to Ray Emery brings a stop to Anaheim's strategy of running the goalie. Like maybe Corey Perry tries to jump on the goalie, misses, gets spun around, and cracks his spine on the cross bar. A little morbid? Yeah. But so is spending the playoffs sending your forwards up to crash full force into the guy who can't take his eye off the puck every game. I thought it might just be people over-reacting to a few instances on Luongo since he's Vancouver's star player, but then watching them do it to Hasek through that series changed my mind. I want to see Anaheim get crushed almost as much as I want to see Ottawa win the cup. Two birds. One stone.

Also, let's hope Ryan Kesler steps his game up over the next three years since he will now be paid an average of $1.75 million per year for that time. He only got half a year in this season to try to prove he was worth the $1.9 million the Flyers earned for him (from Vancouver), but his performance wasn't convincing. He could still have a breakout star-making year coming, and I hope it's coming soon.

This Week on 24

2007-05-22T17:20:00.000-07:00

Okay, no dramatic reveal about Josh's true identity, but this week's explosive season finale did have a bit of fun with real time. That's the thing about doing a show in real time-- people can check things out and verify how accurate the show is. Let's look at some travel times.
It took the boat carrying Josh 16 minutes (not 20 as Nadia would have us believe) to get to the oil rig 6 miles offshore. Assuming the beach was at the closest point on the shore to the rig, that meant it was traveling at 22.5 miles per hour. I don't know boats. I could buy that a terrorist dinghy with an outboard motor could do that sort of speed.
It took Jack and Bill 11 minutes to do the exact same trip by helicopter. Now, Bill said it had been a while since he last flew, and they were traveling into the wind, but that puts their trip at an average speed of 32.7 miles per hour. That's about 54.5 kilometres per hour. I would pass someone driving that slowly on a city street. I'm not so sure I buy that.
Now, we don't know where the two F-18s were coming from for the air strike, but it took them 25 minutes to get to the oil rig. I've been to an air show and seen fighter jets fly, and it seems like it would take two F-18s a lot less time to get somewhere 6 miles off the California coast near Los Angeles.
It took 14 minutes to fly the helicopter back to CTU in Los Angeles from the exploding oil rig. One would think Bill would be easing up on the speed since Jack Bauer was hanging precariously from a ladder for most of that trip, but that includes the time it took Bill to turn around and look for Jack after he let go (actually it was 14 minutes from the time the helicopter left the rig to the time we see Bill and Josh walking into CTU, so it takes slightly less time to get there depending on how long it takes to land the helicopter, get out, and enter the building). Considering it took twelve minutes to get from CTU to the beach in the first place, that would place that rig quite close to Los Angeles indeed (just think of the triangle those points would make-- it's almost equilateral, which doesn't make any sense as far as each point's location goes.).

My strong math geek sense is telling me I should never watch this show again, and I'm actually considering giving next season a pass (although not just because of this week's missteps-- I'm actually getting a bit tired of the constant terrorist attacks on this alternate universe America. Although I would miss old Jack.).

This week (and next week) on Lost

2007-05-17T14:50:00.000-07:00

I may be grasping at straws hoping that there are people who read my blog and watch Lost and played pc adventure games in the early nineties, but did anyone else think of Space Quest 4 at the end of this episode? In that game, Roger Wilco travels through time to Space Quest 10, where he ends up the captive of a bunch of sexy ladies in their underwater lair with a moon pool. Just like Charlie. Anyone?

Also, I think we'll get to see Locke beat the shit out of Ben next week. And the Other aren't going to stop him.

This week on 24, no hold up, make that in general on 24

2007-05-15T16:52:00.000-07:00

Josh is Jack's son, right? It's just that about 20 episodes ago, the first time we saw Jack and Josh in the same room, someone said something about Josh's father and Jack had a weird pause. It was about as subtle as an Oscar/Buster moment on Arrested Development. It's just that since Jack's brother (who is ostensibly Josh's real Dad) was killed early in this season, the whole idea seems to have been dropped. Now I think they're going to make it some huge reveal at the end of the season, like nobody could have seen it coming because they left a 20-episode gap between the time they were really obvious about it without being explicit and the time they come out with it.

And I think that's bullshit.

This Week on Lost (Spoiler-free)

2007-05-11T15:29:00.000-07:00

Ben's dad is Uncle Rico! No wonder Ben's so creepy. Imagine having a dad who's always ruining your life and eating all your steaks.

Also (totally unrelated), 28 Weeks Later is getting better reviews than its predecessor. I was all set for it to be a big piece of shit. Now I have to begrudgingly see it, and I'll probably enjoy it too. Asshole filmmakers.

Playoffs Round 3

2007-05-07T23:47:00.000-07:00

Round three doesn't actually start for another three days, but hey, round two's over, so let's look at what's been going on. First of all, the most exciting round two series was not Ottawa vs New Jersey as I expected. That one was surprisingly one-sided. The best one was one the one that I cared the least about as far as the outcome was concerned, and that was Buffalo vs New York. So much drama, last minute plays, upsets, whatnot. That was some good hockey. It's just too bad it was playing on TSN, but we'll get to that in a moment.
First of all, goodbye to the Canucks. Actually, I said goodbye to the Canucks after they gave up a two-goal third period lead in game four to go down 3-1 in the series. I wasn't even cheering for them in game five. I just wanted it to be over. Not that I was cheering against them. It was like having a twenty year-old with cancer that's just been hit by a car. You don't want it to die, but you have to accept the fact that its time has come.
Now, top three things I hate about TSN:
1) Pierre McGuire- Yes, he does say the occasional insightful thing, but he has a gratingly awful voice, and most of the time he's spewing bullshit like, "How do you spell larceny? M-I-L-L-E-R." It doesn't look that bad when it's typed but when you hear it from Pierre coming all over himself to shout the words, you just want to punch the tv.
2) Gillette fusion power play facts. Those ads are ridiculous. If you haven't seen them, they go like this: horrendously edited clips of someone scoring a power play goal, meaningless power play statistic (like "In the 2006-07 season, eight times as many goals were scored on the power play than by the team killing penalties". No shit. And hockey is played on a sheet of ice. Thanks for enlightening me, jackass.), more disorienting clips, voiceover saying, "Get on the power play with Gillette Fusion." I hope the people responsible for that ad campaign never get hired for anything ever again and they have to live the rest of their short lives in excruciating pain.
3) Jeremy Roenick. When you watch a game on TSN there's some idiot meathead player ready to talk utter bullshit all through the intermissions. During the regular season it was Tie Domi. Now it's Jeremy Roenick. I'm expecting Sean Avery to make an appearance soon.

Conference finals match-ups:
Detroit vs Anaheim: I've recently watched a couple of basketball games and found them to be fairly entertaining. If I had known the western conference was going to end up in a contest between these two teams, I'd probably have watched more basketball. Between the two, I have to go for Anaheim. Barely.
Ottawa vs Buffalo: On the other hand, there's this matchup in the East which promises to be very exciting. Of course, I felt that way about Ottawa vs New Jersey, so it remains to be seen how great this series really is, but I have high hopes. And of course, I'm rooting for Ottawa to not have their usual playoff collapse this year.

Unrelated to anything

2007-05-02T17:10:00.000-07:00

This is the easiest way for me to put a picture online. Please ignore this.

I just about completely freaked out...

2007-05-01T17:23:00.000-07:00

...when I just read that Arcade Fire is doing a show at Deer Lake Park the day after Bjork's show at the same place. I thought it would be sold out for sure, but I've got a ticket now. Lucky me. Everybody get a ticket, who's coming with me?

Playoffs Round 2

2007-04-23T23:37:00.000-07:00

Okay, time for my picks (once again, they're not predictions, just who I want to win) for the next round of the NHL playoffs.
First of all, I should mention my favourite series of the first round. I'm unfairly biased in favour of Vancouver/Dallas so that one doesn't even count (although it was pretty damn delicious), and I really wanted to see a hell of a series from Pittsburgh (give em a couple of years and they will be much more entertaining in the playoffs), but the one that I really enjoyed watching was New Jersey vs Tampa Bay. Something about the way those teams matched up against each other made the games really exciting, not to mention the way the series as a whole went back and forth in momentum.
Okay, round two:

Buffalo vs New York Rangers: Geez, which of these teams do I dislike less? Actually, I kind of like Buffalo, and since I was cheering against them last round (though certainly not betting against them) it's their turn for me to like them. Plus, it's always fun to see a team go down after sweeping their previous opponent.
New Jersey vs Ottawa: Context is everything. Last round I really wanted to see Pittsburgh beat Ottawa, and I really wanted to see New Jersey beat Tampa Bay. Now I really want to see Ottawa beat New Jersey (even though it'll kill my chances at getting anywhere in my hockey pool).
Detroit vs San Jose: I want San Jose to win because they're not Detroit. That said, I'd love to see Vancouver knock Detroit out. There are no circumstances under which I could actually in good conscience cheer for Detroit though, so I have to cheer for San Jose.
Anaheim vs Vancouver: My beard says Vancouver.

From the camera

2007-04-19T13:36:00.000-07:00

I have a few pics from the Seattle trip a couple of weeks ago that I just got around to putting on the computer, and only two of them are worth showing:

The peaceful co-existence of Jenny Craig and Tim Horton in Surrey.

Nice going to whoever did this.

And the guys who made the movie we were down there to see. It's almost as good as the one Eric got except that it's grainier, farther away, and I'm not in it.

Also, this is a new video I made today. I figure I've had so much fun with the John Mayer stand-up video, I might as well do another piss-take of a popular singer. Except while John Mayer is a talented guy who makes shitty music, James Blunt makes shitty music and has no discernible talent whatsoever. Rather than embed the video here, I'm going to link to its youtube page, because I expect the comments should be a lot of fun.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2IkabFOCNk

Enjoy.

Hockey!!!

2007-04-12T01:47:00.000-07:00

When I sat down this afternoon to enjoy the first day of playoff hockey, I had no idea I'd be in for an 8 1/2 hour viewing. That was some good stuff though. I may have felt differently if the Canucks had lost in the fourth overtime period.
Anyway, rather than make playoff predictions, which would require more knowledge on my part, I'm going to take a moment to state my playoff preferences for the first round, which require only opinions, of which I have many.

Buffalo vs New York Islanders. This is the easiest of all the series to predict, so I'm going to say I want the Islanders to win because it would be such a huge upset.
New Jersey vs Tampa Bay. I want New Jersey to win this one, mostly because I like Martin Brodeur, but partly because I just don't like teams that play in areas where there is no natural ice at any time of the year.
Atlanta vs New York Rangers. Rangers, also because Atlanta is too hot for hockey.
Ottawa vs Pittsburgh. Normally I'd say Ottawa in any Eastern Conference matchup, but Pittsburgh has the best underdog quality being a team full of young up-and-comers, so in this case, I'd like to see Pittsburgh win. That seems doubtful after their performance tonight, but we'll see.
Detroit vs Calgary. I can't imagine any circumstances under which I would cheer for Detroit. That would be like cheering for Creed, and why would I even be at one of their shows in the first place? So yeah, I'm going to have to go with Calgary.
Anaheim vs Minnesota. Anaheim, but only because Minnesota has been Vancouver's biggest rival this year and they should be punished for it.
Vancouver vs Dallas. Vancouver. Because that's where I live.
Nashville vs San Jose. Ooh, two no-ice places. I'm going for Nashville though, just for the underdog factor. Given the season they had this year, I guess they're not entirely underdogs, but they would have been considered underdogs at the beginning of the year, so uh, yeah. That's what I'm going with.

Playoff Beer'd

2007-04-11T00:35:00.000-07:00

I just remembered the excellent playoff hockey tradition I started last year-- to never not have beer in my fridge while the playoffs are on. Lucky thing I remembered tonight, or else I may have gotten off to a bad start tomorrow.
Also, I'm growing a beard for the Canucks this year. Since I shaved my chin a few months ago, and that's the only part of my face that can grow hair, that's where I'm going to do it.

Also, on a totally unrelated note, if you see the ad for Hot Fuzz on the TV these days, look away and plug your ears. There are bits in the ad that you will want to not see until you are watching it. I hate it when they do that.

Wanted: Roommate

2007-04-05T12:19:00.000-07:00

My brother is heading out of town for the summer (May to August), so I'm looking for someone to live here for that time, or for some significant portion of it (at least three of those months).
The place (for anyone who doesn't know) is a spacious (seriously, quite spacious) basement suite a five minute walk away from Oak and 49th. It's a quiet neighbourhood and the landlords often give us freshly baked food. It can be furnished or unfurnished to your taste (it's so spacious, you could keep all your stuff packed in boxes in the living room-- I'm telling you, I'm not screwing around with this spacious thing), and the rent is negotiable, but we pay $650 each. We're willing to drop that figure to something in the range of $500 if it's someone we know. So any friend or friend of a friend looking for a place to live this summer, send me an email if you've got it or a facebook or myspace message.

Hot Fuzz

2007-04-03T12:47:00.000-07:00

I got to go see a pre-release showing of Hot Fuzz last night in Seattle, and that shit is fantastic. I enjoyed it more than Shaun of the Dead. Did I mention Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg, and Nick Frost were all there? If you pop over to Eric's blog, you will see a picture of him with them and me inches out of frame. As soon as we have access to some of that Blade Runner photo-editing technology I will fix it so you can see me.

Anyway, Hot Fuzz is opening in theatres here on the 20th, and you should go see it.

When bad advertising goes good

2007-03-29T00:30:00.000-07:00

So there was this ad that was on all the time. There's a couple making out in a car, you hear a police radio, and the woman in the car gets out to reveal that she is in the police uniform. Apparently she pulled over the guy in the Kia because his car was so sexy she had to have him immediately.
Shitty ad.
I remember reading in the paper that someone was offended by it. I can't remember why exactly. I mean, I was offended by how lame it was, but I don't know why anyone would be offended by the content. Something like people think it's saying female police officers can't do their job, or maybe women in general have no control over their urges or police officers in general don't do a good job. Whatever.
Thing is, I saw it again tonight. Only now, you see the people making out in the car, but there's no police radio or any indication that any police officers are involved. After a couple of seconds of making out, a message comes on that says something like "And now the ending that won't offend anyone" and then there's a shot of a goat eating some grass, and some weird happy music. So awesome. It makes up for having to see the lame original version for so long. They could have just pulled it, but they made it better. Self-referential advertising. Sweet.

Beers I Love part 2

2007-03-21T23:28:00.000-07:00

And tonight's beers were:
Grolsch. Continental Europe seems to produce a lot of these styles of lagers that don't seem to come from anywhere else. They're not really my thing, but I'll get a Grolsch from time to time because it comes in a cool resealable bottle.
Wychwood Hobgoblin. Tonight was my first time trying this one. This is sort of the peach cider of British Ales. If I knew a teenager who was just trying beer for the first time, I'd give them this because it bridges the gap between cherry cola and beer. I'm filing this under guilty pleasures, and I'll probably drink it again sometime.
Phillips Amnesiac Double IPA. I've just opened this one. It's got more hops than a character from Watership Down. Sheesh. Other possible endings to that sentence:
... a London bus.
... a steroid-fed toad.
... both the Mario Brothers put together.

I think I made the right choice.

Beers I Love

2007-03-21T18:04:00.000-07:00

I have to come clean about something: I know nothing about beer. Really. I can distinguish between a malty and hoppy flavour. I think I have a fairly intuitive sense about whether I'm drinking, say an ale or a lager, but I really don't know the difference. I just know what I like. I wasn't going to continue these "Beers I Love" posts because of that, but I keep finding new ones and I keep wanting to share. I just want to make sure I'm not trying to sound knowledgeable. Just fanatical. I do have to concede to Jason Jones's character in his Molson ads that Canadians don't know shit about beer. Hell, if Molson Canadian is anything to stake some sort of national pride on, then we've got nothing. Luckily, we do have a lot more and a lot better beer to offer.
Last week I tried two new ones and one old favourite while watching the Canucks nearly lose to St. Louis. And then I was to lazy to do a post about them. That's what happens. So I'm going to recap those, and then I have three more for tonight (two old favourites and one new) that I may or may not get around to later.

Cannery Brewing Naramata Nut Brown Ale. I've noticed lately how many good Canadian Nut Brown Ales I've had. There are a bunch, and I thought it might be a Canadian thing. Turns out, it's something we got from the British, who have been making Nut Brown Ales since before Canada had white people in it. Apparently the most popular is made by Samuel Smith. Well this one's really good too.
Fuller's ESB Champion Ale. Now I knew that British people have been awarding various honours to beers and that's something I'm willing to let them keep. This bitter really is extra special.
Tin Whistle Peaches & Cream Fruit Ale. I think beer connoisseurs would hate this one. According to ratebeer.com, it's got a 27%. Oh sorry, double checked that, it falls in the 27th percentile, which isn't quite as bad. Anyway, beer snobs hate it. I love it. I drink it all the time. So there.

Mailing list

2007-02-24T00:42:00.001-08:00

I have created a mailing list with which to inform people about upcoming shows. Send me a message with your email address if you want to be on it.
Oh wait, this is blogger, not one of those social networks. Uh, well, if you know how to contact me, do so.

John Mayer strikes again!

2007-02-23T02:05:00.000-08:00

The John Mayer Stand-up video (I'm too lazy to go searching now to provide a link, so I'll provide do-it-yourself directions instead-- go to youtube and search for "John Mayer Stand-up" and look for a picture of me) has broken the 2000 view mark now, and with that achievement comes another-- I now present the award for "Stupidest Thing I've Read All Week" to youtube user weonk for the following gem:

you could have put a little more effort into your laugh track... or preferably have noit had one at all...

Again, my laziness prohibits me from going back to the page to tell you how I responded, so if you're that interested, go see for yourself.

Upcoming gigs

2007-02-22T11:57:00.000-08:00

These are in the section with the same title on my myspace page, but people keep telling me they want special notification for this stuff, so here you go:
Thursday, March 1 I will be doing stand-up at the Sylvia hotel.
Tuesday March 13, I will be doing improv at Cobalt Softcore Comedy.

And as usual, you can always find me at Chivana on Monday nights.

It's so easy! Happy-go-lucky!

2007-02-19T12:55:00.000-08:00

I've been meaning to link to Yatta for a while. I've had the video since you had to use Kazaa to download videos (apparently some people still do), but hadn't checked to see it on youtube. Anyway, now it's got subtitles, and while I can speak no Japanese, its translation is almost exactly what I'd expected.

Ha ha! Facebook!

2007-02-18T03:31:00.000-08:00

I resisted facebook for a while. Well, since last Tuesday, when it was first explained to me how awesome it was. But the main thing was that I was already having to copy and paste my blog from the blogspot one to the myspace one, and now joining another on-line social networking community was going to bump that to yet another series of copying pasting, and going through to make sure all the links still linked. Well, turns out facebook will just take things from blogspot and put it right there in my facebook notes. Well done, facebook. Well done indeed.

Beers I Love

2007-02-14T20:44:00.000-08:00

What with it being Valentine's Day whatnot, and me not really loving people as much as I love delicious beer, I've decided to share with the world the beers I was enjoying through the Canucks' big victory over the Wild tonight.
First, there's Cannery Brewing's Blackberry Porter. I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure this is one of the ones we go back for over and over again towards the end of the Great Canadian Beer Festival every year. Naturally, it's hard to remember what goes on at the end of this event since the beginning, middle, and end of the event all involve a lot of beer drinking. At any rate, the mixing the flavour of blackberries with the flavour of a good porter is a great idea, and this beer proves it.

The other one I enjoyed during the game tonight was the Tin Whistle Brewing Co's Killer Bee Dark Honey Ale. Most honey flavoured beers I've had have been lighter beers, so it seems like it could be a bad idea to make a dark honey ale. I thought I'd give this one a try anyway, since Tin Whistle makes another favourite of mine (which I will get to at a later date), and it's surprisingly awesome. Very malty and sweet, this is a very dark and flavourful beer. The honey flavour is secondary to the dark ale flavour, but it's there and it's terrific.
Finally, one I haven't gotten into tonight, but I bought a bottle and it might just be my favourite beer, St. Peter's Lemon & Ginger Spiced Ale. I don't need to describe it. Just think about what it probably tastes like from its name and then tell your imagination it's twice as good as you think it is. That's what it is. This seems to only come in from time to time, so I'm saving this bottle for a night when I've been working hard and I need some refreshment. That's what it's best for.

This week on 24

2007-02-06T03:58:00.000-08:00

Turns out Cy Tolliver is the Vice President. When Cy Tolliver shoots his buddy in the face, it's no hunting accident.

Morris O'Brien was kidnapped and transported to the set of a shitty CBC comedy.

And Farmer Hoggett is back to being evil again. I imagine he'll switch sides a few more times before this 24 hour period is up.

More fans of shitty performers

2007-02-02T02:29:00.000-08:00

I'd like to draw everyone's attention to my most viewed youtube video. It has had over 1600 views and continues to gain attention. Here's how it came to life:
A few months ago someone posted something over at comedycouch about how they heard John Mayer was doing stand-up. So I made this fake video of what I though his stand-up act would be like so I could link to it form that forum. I'm always linking to youtube videos from other places just because youtube's a good place to post shit for free. And then I forget that youtube's got it's own life going on and when you post a video called "John Mayer Stand-up" people are going to go to youtube looking for some John Mayer stand-up and they're going to find me. Apparently a lot of them have, and a few of them are angry at me. It's like that thing with the Dane Cook fans. Fortunately for me, people who get angry at this sort of thing are the stupidest people in the world, so I get a lot of unintentionally funny comments on my youtube. Enjoy.

Greater connectivity inc.

2007-01-31T16:43:00.000-08:00

I found myself downtown with about an hour to spare yesterday so I bought myself some things. Let me tell you about two of them.
The first the the game "Brain Age" for my Nintendo DS. It's actually less a game than a mental training program. It has a series of mental training exercises and then it measures the progress you've made on the brain age scale. The ideal brain age is 20. The higher it goes, the stupider you are. After getting not a great amount of sleep the night before last, and then running around dressed like batman with a baby hedgehog in his trousers and then watching hockey and drinking beer for a few hours, I got home last night and took my first test. My brain age last night was 66. That shit was not so good. I was hoping for early thirties at the worst. Well I did some exercises after work today and then did the test again, and my brain age this afternoon is 30. The little Japanese man in my DS seemed very impressed.
I also bought a USB cable that connects my phone to my computer. This means I'm going to make a whole ton of ringtones at some point, but for now I have pictures from my phone on my computer. They're not the highest quality, but I'm going to share a few here. First of all is a picture of Kid Koala at Richard's on Richards. He had a large stack of paper behind him that he'd flip up to reveal things previously written or drawn or to write or draw new things while he played music. You can't read it but the one behind him here he'd just flipped up to reveal the words "Make some effin' noise!"

Next is a picture of a truck I was following in my car. I took the picture because I don't understand how the company's name corresponds to the company's slogan.

And then of course, there's the chicken nugget shaped exactly like a thingy!

Beers I Love

2007-01-08T00:05:00.000-08:00

In September, the best liquor store in the city became my neighbourhood liquor store. Shortly after this, I started emailing Craig every couple of weeks to tell him about some tasty new beers I'd been trying from the huge selection at this store. It's just occurred to me that there may be other people out there who want to hear about delicious beers. So I'm going to share it with the world when I try a new beer and it's really fantastic. This shall be the first of many blog entries by this title.

Today's beer is Howe Sound Brewing Company's Nut Brown Rail Ale. It caught my eye because it (and the other one beside it, also made by Howe Sound Brewing) was in a 1 liter size bottle. Big bottles always get me excited, and these ones are awfully large. And full of delicious beer. This is how much of a gourmet beer drinker I am. I didn't rinse the glass after draining it of raspberry vodka and 7up and before filling it with this beer. So I thought the hint of sweetness may have been a hint of lemon/lime/raspberry. As it turns out, the sweetness was still there when I refilled the glass after rinsing it. Ah sweetness. Sweet and nutty. And in 1 liter portions. I'm giving the other Howe Sound Beer a try next time I'm in-- I think it's called Garibaldi Honey Pale Ale, but I could be wrong.

End of Year Top Fives:

2006-12-30T04:01:00.001-08:00

It's 3 am on December 30th. I'm too tired to continue playing ps2 hockey and not tired enough to sleep. I should watch an episode of Sopranos. I'll do this instead. My two top five lists to round out the year.

List #1:
Top five albums of 2006. That's not to say the top five albums released this year, but my favourites throughout the year. Most of them are older.

5) We're going to start with one that's not just not released this year, but isn't even new to me this year. It's the Hymie's Basement's self-titled album that will probably be the only one they make under that name, but let's hope for future collaborations between Andrew Broder and Jonathan Wolf (aka the frontmen of Fog and Why? respectively). This has been one of my favourites for a long time, but usually gets knocked off the top five list thanks to Fog's Ether Teeth being at the top. I figure it's this one's turn now. I almost ran up onto the stage and hugged Kid Koala when he played 21st Century Pop Song at Richard's on Richards last month. Up to that point I thought I was the only one who loved this album. Apparently Kid Koala does too. And so many more people should.

4) Fishscale by Ghostface Killah is a fantastic album that was released this year, and I bought it because it had a really high metacritic score and I had some money to spend. It makes me wish I was listening to Wu Tang in the mid-nineties instead of DC fucking Talk. I mean it makes me wish this more than I normally do. I love how there are a whole bunch of producers (like MF Doom, J Dilla, and Just Blaze to name a few) but it all fits together perfectly into this gritty blaxploitation LP that fell out of the seventies and landed in the whatever it is we're in now. And it makes me dance when I'm listening to it on headphones and no one's looking.

3) I got really excited when I heard Joanna Newsom was releasing a new album. And then I bought it and was looking at the back cover and realized there were only five tracks, so they must be long tracks, and it's probably wanky. And it is. But then I listened to it a couple more times. And then bits of each of the five songs would get in my head unexpectedly. Right now I'm at the point where I listen to Ys at least once a week. That might not be much for some people, but I'd say, taking into consideration that I probably put time into listening to a full album once a day, and I try to keep in touch with everything in my large cd collection as much as I can, that's a pretty heavy musical commitment. Most of my favourite albums are ones I had to listen to numerous times to start to appreciate (Ether Teeth comes to mind again (last time I mention it--promise)), and this is certainly one of those.

2) For some reason I didn't get into Kanye until I while after Gold Digger was popular. And then I had Late Registration for a while, but that is not the album that's dropping into number two here. The College Dropout is. I did not need multiple listens to get into The College Dropout-- it took moments for me to fall in love with this album. It's just packed with juicy goodness from start to finish. I regret sleeping on Kanye. It was a bad move.

1) The longest lasting album love-affair I've had in a while has been with The Mouse and the Mask. It seems like it should be stupid. A hip hop collaboration with a bunch of adult swim character sketches thrown in. Wait a minute. It seems like it should be the awesomest thing ever. It might be. And let's face it: Danger Doom is way way better than Gnarls Barkley. Search your feelings-- you know it to be true.

List #2:
The top five people I'd fight in 2006:

5) I guess I'll start with the most recent. I'd fight the cop who gave me the left turn violation ticket the other day. Or whoever told him it was his job to sit on the side of the road and fine people who would continually drive up to him after comitting the same offense because it was the most logical way to serve the purpose of the rule they were breaking. I'm going to fight him (or "them") in 2007 when I dispute a ticket for the first time. I'm not sure how this is going to go for me. In my mind I see myself making an impassioned speech about how the law needs to account for situational context and we need law enforcement that understands the purpose of the law and then being crowded by reporters on my way out of the courthouse who want to congratulate me for bringing precedent-setting changes to the legal system, but as I understand it, it's usually just showing up and finding out the officer didn't and getting to leave without paying. Even if he does show up, I imagine the legal system will be just as dismissive of my opinion as he was in the first place.

4) I'd fight the people who are supposed to be in charge of making my computer compatible with itself. There are so many little things you have to check, and I know they do this on purpose. I bought a video card this year. I didn't realize that PCI-E was not compatible with PCI, but having bought the card, I figured why not just go ahead and buy a new motherboard for fun. But then my CPU wasn;t compatible with that so I had to buy another one of those, because I wasn't about to go back and switch both the other things. Somehow a sound card presented itself as a necessity and I ended up not having the wad of cash I was saving for a rainy day that I wanted. I figure I could fight a whole bunch of computer technicians at once and I'd feel a lot better about things.

3) I would kick my car's ass if it wasn't so much bigger than me. Motherfucker must have cost me a couple of thousand dollars this year, and that's not including insurance or accident repairs. That's just stuff breaking down and needing to be replaced. Granted everything will eventually be replaced and covered by warranty and things will be alright, but until that happens my car sits outside my house quietly mocking the lazy dependency its created in me and thinking of new ways to fuck up.

2) I'd fight Shaw Cable. Just for being so smug.

1) This is number one, so you know I wouldn't just fight this guy. I would fight him to the death. James Blunt. And not for "You're Beautiful." Don't get me wrong-- "You're Beautiful" is a steaming stinky pile of musical shit. It's "Goodbye My Lover" that makes me want to harm him so much. I just looked up the title of the song so I could put it here. So far I've known it as "James Blunt Warbles the Same Pathetic Whiny Melody Continuously for Four and a Half Minutes." There's no excuse for this kind of behaviour. Wait. I don't want to fight James Blunt. That would be like fighting the cop who gave me that ticket. I want to fight whoever told James Blunt he should start a music career, whoever signed him to a contract, whoever produced his record, whoever decided that people should hear it on the radio, all the fans who actually like it, and the little girl who woke up from a coma to the sound of a James Blunt song (seriously, look it up). Okay. And James Blunt.

Conversation I just had with a police officer giving me a ticket for turning left at a temporary no left turn sign:

2006-12-27T16:42:00.000-08:00

(Note: I normally politely apologize and accept the punishment when I get caught doing bad things, but this cop was sitting at the block around the corner and had three cars ahead of me getting the same ticket. I had to say something.)

Me: You know, if I had done anything dangerous or reckless, I'd just accept this, but don't feel this is warranted.
Cop: So you feel the sign applies to everyone but you.
Me: No, I was going to drive right through, but since there was no oncoming traffic I figured it wouldn't be a problem.
Cop: Well, it is a problem.
Me: Not really. The purpose of the rule is to keep traffic from getting backed up, but since there was no traffic, there was no problem. What I did caused no one any harm, danger, or even inconvenience.
Cop: So if you came to a red light and there was no traffic around you'd go right through?
Me: That's not really the same thing.
Cop: It's exactly the same thing. That's what the sign is there for.
Me: What are you here for?
Cop: This is what I get paid for.
Me: Must be satisfying. Merry Christmas.
Cop: Christmas is over.
Me: Very warm of you. Good thing we're not policed by robots, hey?

Douchebag.

Upcoming events:

2006-12-06T23:27:00.000-08:00

Thursday, December 7:
I'll be getting my new computer stuff (hard drive and dvd drive) and spending most of the day setting up my system until I go to work. I wanted to spend today doing that as it was my day off, but my order won't be ready until tomorrow. I also may have to call a tow truck to save my ass if my car overheats, but I'm hoping that any problems with my car's cooling system are all in my head, and I didn't need to pull over in a swank neighbourhood today and yank the cap off of my radiator and spew coolant all over the street. We'll see.

Friday, December 8:
More of the same. Probably continuing with various program installations, having finished all of the driver installations on Thursday. Possibly picking my car up from wherever it's getting repaired, should that problem continue.

Monday, December 11:
I'm calling this the Shaun Stewart Urban Improv Anniversary Show. I will be a one-year-old improviser. I'm not expecting gifts, but it would be a good time for everyone to come down and watch how I've improved, and to see if I really am potty trained (I am a fast learner).

Monday, December 18:
Special Urban Improv show benefitting the Children's Wish Foundation, and granting the wish of us childish improvisers to share the stage with Will Sasso. Helping the kids is all well and good, but seriously, Will Sasso's going to be there. He's in one of my favourite X-Files episodes. This, as well as the SSUIAS are both, as usual, happening at 9pm at Chivana. Did I mention you get a free drink with your ticket if you show up before 8:30? Because you do.

My new Avatar everywhere

2006-11-30T18:30:00.000-08:00

Thanks to Jeffrey Yu for this. I need to host it here to use it though. Here goes.

Pity the Pho

2006-11-28T01:16:00.000-08:00

There's a Vietnamese restaurant near my house. I hadn't really tried Vietnamese food until Dan suggested we go for some a couple of months ago, and it was good. So now I've got this one near my house, and damn is that good stuff. I've gotten better at ordering the food, eating the food without spilling on myself or hurting myself by popping a slice of pepper in my mouth without noticing, and eating all the tasty bits before I'm too full. This is a Pho Hoa dish, one from the chain that has a location near my home.

And this is the one that has the best name of any restaurant ever. If only I could find a picture of the gas station in Vancouver that advertises "Fried Chicken Donut Sandwich" on its sign. Is that on Broadway somewhere? I want to go get a picture.

This week on Dexter

2006-11-20T17:27:00.000-08:00

Dr. Lovey-pants it is. I was hoping it would be a slower reveal, but they just came out and showed him chopping up bodies.

Why I love Metacritic:

2006-11-16T16:27:00.000-08:00

The Metacritic blurb for the movie "F*ck":

Steve Anderson's documentary examines the four-letter word of its title in great-detail. We're still waiting for the sequel, "Frak."

Longer than 140 Characters

The entitlement generation meets the Netflix price hike

On the Tragic Closing of Videomatica

Top 5 Pop-Culture-Inspired Things I Can't Stop Myself From Doing Impulsively

Like TV? Watch this!

How much does Gary Bettman hate hockey?

Chat Roulette is a depraved cesspool

Avatarded

Ticketmaster update

Dear Ticketmaster

2 Girls 1 Cup: My reaction

Twilight: some questions

Justice Pals Interviews

Hello again, isn't news stupid?

Corporate Gross-out!

Non sequitur of the day

Top 5 Pleasurable Experiences Best Done in Private

Hockey Night in... oh shit

Top 5 Replacements for the Hockey Night in Canada Theme

Podcastic

Top 5 Combos

Scuby Snax!

Top 5 Reasons not to Blog today

Top 5 Movies About Music

Top 5 Reasons not to go to the Gym

The response from EA Sports

Dear EA Sports,

Top 5 Sensitive Rock Songs I First Heard From the Television

Look at my package!

Top 5 Sci-Fi/Fantasy Movie Appearances by Old Men

Top 5 Stoopid Comedy Movies

Top 5 Things I've learned from the opening weekend of March Madness

Top 5 Douchebag moves by Jack Thompson

Top 5 Video Game Stories

Top 5 Internet Flame Posts I've Received from Strangers

Top 5 Things I've Stumbled Upon

Top 5 Short Songs

Top 5 Songs Over 6 Minutes Long (again)

Update on most anticipated of the year

Top 5 Canucks moments in the past few seasons

Top 5 Anticipated Events of 08

Top 5 Concerts I saw in 07

Top 5 Movies of 2007 I Wish I'd Seen By Now

Hey GM!

Hey Ford!

Top 5 Albums of 2007

Peter Travers is an idiot: further evidence

Top 5 Songs over 6 minutes

How I came to find myself sitting directly behind Mathieu Garon in GM Place tonight

Fall TV Post-View

Thank you, Bionic Woman

Everybody, check your extremities

Unemployment, etc

Favourite thing all day

I don't want to say Torontonians are stupid but...

Top Five Ninja Tune Tracks

Star Wars Physics

Just sayin

It's Pride Week...

Vancouver's Strike: Bullshit in Stereo

This week on John from Cincinnati

Garbage, I can take...

Murphy vs Mencia, take 2

Found Magazine

06-07 Hockey: The end.

Learn from my mistakes

Hockey Bullshit

Playoffs Round 4, and other hockey news

This Week on 24

This week (and next week) on Lost

This week on 24, no hold up, make that in general on 24

This Week on Lost (Spoiler-free)

Playoffs Round 3

Unrelated to anything

I just about completely freaked out...

Playoffs Round 2

From the camera

Hockey!!!

Playoff Beer'd

Wanted: Roommate