Both the new Coldplay and the new White Stripes will arrive next week whilst I’m away. Oh well, it’ll leave me something nice to come home to on Friday.

Something very weird happened today. My wife got an email announcing the death of one of her cousins. She wasn’t that close with him, so she’s ok, but…does that seem weird. I mean, as entrenched as I am in the electronic world, it still seemed a bit odd to send a mass email letting cousins, aunts and uncles know about a death in the family.

This Salon article called The Atheist has been sitting in my ‘to read’ bin for weeks now, and I’m finally getting ’round to it. My god (ha ha), I love Richard Dawkins.

You delve into agnosticism in “The Ancestor’s Tale.” How does it differ from atheism?

It’s said that the only rational stance is agnosticism because you can neither prove nor disprove the existence of the supernatural creator. I find that a weak position. It is true that you can’t disprove anything but you can put a probability value on it. There’s an infinite number of things that you can’t disprove: unicorns, werewolves, and teapots in orbit around Mars. But we don’t pay any heed to them unless there is some positive reason to think that they do exist.

Believing in God is like believing in a teapot orbiting Mars?

Yes.

I agree with Antonia Zerbisias: today’s minute-by-minute salivating over the Karla Homolka near-appearance was embarassing to watch.

I’m on the last song of my first listen through The Woods. All the hype is deserved. Trail Of Dead, take note. This is what great bands do after they release an ass-kicking, critically-lauded album: they find a new way to kick our ass. See also: Radiohead.

And yes, I’m putting S-K on the same level as Radiohead.

I moved into my current apartment nearly three years ago. One street over there’s a bloody great hole in the ground (aka, the Thunder Pit) that’s meant to eventually become a condo building. I had a look at the sales centre back in 2002, when we were kind of in the market ourselves; they were way overpriced and had shit layouts, so we took little interest. But they told us that construction would start that fall. And start it did; backhoes and trucks carted enough dirt to make the afore-mentioned bloody great hole…and it suddenly stopped. No trucks, no construction, nothing…for two and a half years.

This morning, for the first time, machinery showed up and began working; since they last visited some grass — even the odd tree — has started to grow, garbage has been dumped inside, etc. Man, if I’d bought way back then, I’d be pissed.

As it is, I now get to enjoy the lovely sights and sounds of constant construction practically outside my window for the next year or two.

Check out the Hillside Festival lineup: The Arcade Fire, Stars, The Weakerthans, The Hidden Cameras, Apostle of Hustle, Cuff the Duke, Gentleman Reg, Lowest of the Low, Sam Roberts, Sarah Slean, more. Guelph Lake. $30-70 at www.hillside.on.ca. July 22-24. [via]

Even if I wanted to truck out to Guelph to see it, I’ll be in NS that weekend. In truth, I’m much more pissed about missing Spoon this Sunday.

In better news, Rainer Maria‘s in town two weeks from now supporting Copeland.

I’ve recently begun jonesing for another suit; my old black Boss has just lost its shape, and doesn’t look right anymore. My guy from Harry Rosen called to see if needed anything, and I’m considering picking another one up. I’ve also thought about going to Trend Custom, purportedly the only bespoke tailors in Canada (or Toronto, at least).

But God help me, I really want a suit from Thomas at English Cut, especially now that he’s considering ready-to-wear and it’s less than what I usually pay.

Just a few days after watching a documentary about the life of Jack Johnson, and expressing my disbelief at just how racist our society was a hundred years ago, I get a reminder that we’re still hardly beyond it.

I got my hair cut today, at the same little barbershop I always go to. Today there was a different guy there; the two who usually cut my hair — Nick and Ralph — are great guys: polite, friendly and funny. This new guy was a little old Greek man, probably about 70. He chattered on incessantly the whole time, as barbers do. He talked about coming to this country, about how The Beatles inspired shaggy haircuts and drove him out of the business, about how warm it’s been this week, and about his kids. And it was while discussing his daughter — a teacher at a high school in Scarborough — he mentioned “how many problems they have with…” — at this point, he glances around the room and drops his voice — “…the black people”.

It weirded me out. Made me feel guilty for being the one he was talking to. I suppose I should have said something, but I always tend toward just letting shit slide. Easy for me, I suppose; I’ve never felt particularly discriminated against. Anyway, he’s an old man; would it have changed his mind?

I couldn’t wait to get away from him. I gave him my money, said goodbye to Nick and left.