- M&M Uptown opening at King & Church. We suck so bad at cooking these days that this could actually be a helpful option. http://is.gd/utmt #
- Wow. Beautiful out there right now. #spring #aboutdamntime #
- It’s great to open all the windows on warm days like this, but thanks to my smoking neighbour our place now smells like Marlboros. Thx dude. #
- holy hannah (niece shoutout!) it’s nice outside. doing a final couple of things and then off to see cbgb’s new back patio. #
- Picking up beer. Yay summer. #
- Back yard. BBQ. Beer. Cheese. Sunshine. Friends. Best Saturday ever. #
Month: April 2009
Today's tweets
- Getting up before 5am is a suck. #yawn #
- Reading @plasmatron’s setlist reports has me all giddy, wondering what I’ll hear in two weeks. I can haz “My Father My King” encore? #
- Deli breakfast down my neck. Let the second half of the day begin! #
- @shaiza But very in line with their current window display. And it got people talking! To wit: you tweeted for the first time in months. 🙂 in reply to shaiza #
- RT @FakeSteveHarper: It would be nice to gain the ~10k followers I need to pass @pmharper. Someone get that done for me, ok? #followfriday #
- Promo email from Porter Airlines. No text, images don’t load, ‘contact us’ and ‘unsubscribe’ links broken. #emailmarketingfail #flyporter #
- i think i’ve found my brother’s early christmas gift: http://is.gd/ukN4 #
- Done, heading home. Maybe there’s something to be said for getting to work crazy-early… #
- “What we don’t know could fill a truck. What we don’t know cannot hurt us.” ♫ http://blip.fm/~4wq3u #
- This Bill Moyers interview with The Wire writer David Simon is exceptional. http://is.gd/t4le #
- @spotlightcity We ended up going more pubby. Jason George. in reply to spotlightcity #
- Note to self: if you want to stay awake past 11, don’t get up before 5. I. Am. So. Old. #
So it goes.
As I write this Boston is running away with game four against Montreal, and is about to sweep the Canadiens out of the playoffs. This isn’t unexpected — the Bruins finished first in the east, Montreal eighth — but it’s certainly disappointing.
Had Montreal been healthy and played well they might’ve stood a chance against Boston, but they weren’t and they didn’t. Tonight Montreal was missing Andrei Markov — their best defenseman, leading scorer and best player overall — and three more top-seven defensemen: Mathieu Schneider, Francis Buillon and Patrice Brisebois. They were also missing top-line winger Alex Tanguay and #2 center Robert Lang, who’s been out for months. With a roster full of spare-part defensemen and discombobulated lines, they stood no chance. Boston rolled four lines at Montreal who just couldn’t keep up, couldn’t get to loose pucks, couldn’t get the puck out of their own end. Part of this was due to Montreal not consisting of, or playing like, a playoff-worthy lineup of late, but some of it was also due to the kind of systemic breakdown that a good team like Boston can grind you into.
And so Montreal will slip into the postseason with a whimper, and tomorrow the Montreal dailies and sports blogs will cry that this is not how the famed centennial season was supposed to go. A season which started with so much promise and faded so badly in the second half, which hosted an amazing all-star game but saw the coach fired shortly after, which ended with a team virtually unrecognizable from the potent weapon that began the season. I remember watching an exhibition game against Detroit when the Canadiens and Wings looked like sure locks to meet in the Stanley Cup final. How things change.
Let’s go Canucks.
"Kids had never been attacked in this kind of way"
Yesterday marked the tenth anniversary of Columbine, the familiar title given the killings at the Columbine high school in Littleton, Colorado. CNN yesterday ran a piece about the release of a new book — Columbine, by Dave Cullen — which I’ve been meaning to pick up. The big draw of the book for me is that is tells the real story of what happened and debunks many of the myths which sprung up in the immediate aftermath. Among them:
- There was a group of kids at Columbine called the Trench Coat Mafia, but Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold weren’t part of it.
- The killers did not target jocks (those wearing baseball hats, as it’s sometimes reported) or black kids. There was no discernible pattern to their killing.
- Harris and Klebold, though clearly unstable and dangerous, were not outcasts or loners, nor was their rampage apparently caused by bullying.
- Cassie Bernall, reported to have been killed when she replied to the killers that she believed in god and subsequently made a martyr by evangelical christians, in fact said no such thing. Another student was asked whether she believed in god; she answered yes, was shot and lived.
The first three myths are explained by psychologists in the CNN article as being persistent because they were (irresponsibly) reported immediately after the killing, and are convenient for people to believe because they point to Harris and Klebold being misanthropes, different from everyone else, conveniently monstrous. People don’t like to think that normal people can do terrible things, so they cast them as evil. While not logical, this is understandable as a coping mechanism.
The last myth, though…that’s the one that gets me. By the fall of 1999 it was well established that the rumour about Bernall was false, but her parents still earned royalties from a book about her death called She Said Yes released in Aug 1999 (and reprinted several times) and earned $3,500 per speaking appearance in the years since. Misinformation is one thing; exploitation another.
Even I adore ya, my Victoria-aaa-a-a-a
According to Richard Florida’s latest in the Globe, I’m living in the wrong city.
MID-CAREER PROFESSIONALS (Age 29-44)
1. Ottawa-Gatineau
2. Calgary
3. Whitehorse
4. Yellowknife
5. Iqaluit
6. Edmonton
7. Guelph
8. Victoria
9. Toronto
10. Montreal
Hmmm…#9, and behind some cities that I really have no desire in which to live. Also, the older you get, the better an option Toronto is for you, according to Florida: It’s #2 for families with children, #1 for empty-nesters and #2 for retirees. It doesn’t even show up in the top ten for single people. Not that I am, but that ranking says something about the city, or at least Florida’s perception of it.
I suppose I’d have to buy Who’s Your City to know exactly what criteria Florida uses. I suspect growth potential of the economy plays a large part (otherwise I can’t imagine Whitehorse-Yellowknife-Iqaluit going 3-4-5), but there are likely specific industries centered around Toronto and Montreal that would skew the scores for some people.
Anyway, having just gotten a taste of Ottawa winter (and having lived there for an entire humid-ass summer), I don’t think that #1 rating’s gonna sway me.
Spring, motherf*ckers!
Sunny. 19 degrees. First patio of the season. On beer #2. I am more than a little bit happy about this.
My favourite songs of the year so far
In random order:
- neko case . middle cyclone
- the von bondies . chancer
- dan auerbach . heartbroken, in disrepair
- john frusciante . unreachable
- the heartless bastards . be so happy
- …and you will know us by the trail of dead . ascending
Thoughts? What am I missing?
Komisarek vs. Lucic, part II
Beginning Thursday night, for the 32nd time in their history, the Montreal Canadiens and Boston Bruins will face each other in the Stanley Cup playoffs. This is as storied a rivalry as exists in sports — TSN recently listed some of the more memorable meetings over the past forty years — and I’m more than a little bit excited about it.
That said, I give Montreal almost no chance to win. Boston finished first in the east, miles ahead of the Canadiens. The Habs sucked after the all-star break, and seemed to turn it around before struggling down the stretch when the Leafs cheap-shotted their leading scorer and best defenseman Andrei Markov, knocking him out of the lineup. The Bruins owned the Canadiens this year.
But…when these two teams meet, it can always get crazy. Last year the roles were reversed — Montreal #1, Boston #8 — and it took Montreal all seven games to finish them off. Their final regular season game, last Thursday, was a classic and went to overtime before Boston won. In the past few years Montreal beat Boston as both an 8 seed (2002) and a 7 seed (2004). So I think the odds are against them, but if Alex Kovalev and Carey Price can turn it on, Montreal could pull off the shocker.
Final note, courtesy of Joe: the Bruins have some awesome tv ads:
"Death is the road to awe."
Over the last few days, in between spring cleaning and sucking back Cadbury easter eggs, I’ve watched a few movies in an attempt to rescue our PVR from the crushing weight of so many hours recorded:
The Last Winter (imdb | rotten tomatoes) started off reasonably well by building tension in a remote Alaskan oil field, but to borrow a phrase from Western Canadian hockey fans: holy man did it ever die. It took a nose dive of truly epic proportion right around the time that [spoiler alert, but it’s so ridiculous that you wouldn’t believe me anyway] the giant ghost moose showed up. Yeah, you read that right. I guess it might’ve been an elk or caribou, but it was definitely some kind of giant green ghostly quadriped with antlers. I think they tried to pass it off as Windigo, but…yeesh. Not even Connie Britton in her underwear could salvage this. I am stunned that it scored 79% on Rotten Tomatoes.
Similar pattern for Hancock (imdb | rotten tomatoes) which started off funny and kind of interesting, then got dumb, then got cheesy. Will Smith had lots of good lines at the beginning but then…droop mope yawn boring.
Fortunately The Fountain (imdb | rotten tomatoes) didn’t follow the same pattern as the other two films. Actually, it didn’t follow any pattern. I’m still processing it, to be honest, and I think it’ll take me a few days to figure out whether or not I liked it. It certainly felt like an accomplishment, to weave those three stories together so tightly…I just struggle with whether the stories were good. Whether they should have been woven together. I also struggle with how Hugh Jackman seems to constantly act as if he’s on a broadway stage, in that over-enunciating, shouting for the back of the house, bare your teeth kind of way. Anyway, that’s a different topic. I guess the fact that it’s stuck with me for several hours says something. Those other two films faded like like a fart in the mist.
Good timing, Black Angels
Because I’ve had so little time to peruse new music (pro tip: say the phrase “peruse new music” out loud…it has a certain quality) my IN tray is filling up. Here’s what I should be getting to but amn’t:
- asobi seksu . hush
- bishop allen . grrr
- black angels . passover
- bob mould . life and times
- elliot brood . ambassador
- fanfarlo . fanfarlo
- gaslight anthem . the ’59 sound
- great lake swimmers . lost channels
- mirah . (a)spera
- thermals . now we can see
- tindersticks . waiting for the moon
- william elliott whitmore . animals in the dark
Anything there I should skip? Anything that should jump to the top of the list?
Skirl | Dan Dickinson 