I kinda agree with vanmega. Just today I was saying to M² that Pitchfork is quickly becoming the web version of The O.C.. They seem to’ve become more interested in being cool than in talking about music.

A guy named Rony Abovitz, blogging from the World Economic Forum in Davos, makes some very good points, though the second post contains a glaring error: to say that “the US is the only country in the world that contains citizens from all parts of the world, living freely in a working democratic state” (emphasis mine) is incorrect.

Last Sunday, Giants’ tight end Jeremy Shockey caught a 15-yard pass across midfield and danced and pranced like he’d won the Super Bowl. It was weird and pathetic.

from KeepMedia

One of the funniest things I’ve read in a while. Sample:

25. Dr. Phil
Crimes: Not a doctor. Not wise. Offers troubled souls nothing but the sweet feeling of surrendering control. Only reason for prominence is that Oprah just couldn’t support her show by herself anymore. Offers troubled simpletons meaningless slogans that resonate for a maximum of five days before they realize they already knew that shit and they still can’t stop whatever compulsive behavior got them onto his show in the first place. Is almost certainly regularly involved in some unspeakable depravity that he can’t stop and which caused him to fabricate his public persona in a frantic attempt to convince us he’s normal.

Smoking Gun: Both presidential candidates were forced to submit to his pedantic bullshit in some bizarre new soft focus emasculation ritual to get slack-jawed housewives to vote for them.

Punishment: A lifetime of guest spots on Springer.

I bought Worlds Apart this morning. I’m currently listening to “The Rest Will Follow” for the fourth time. My god, this song is good. It’s going to take everything I’ve got not to listen to it again today.

We are all of us so capable of
The greatest acts of hate and the worst acts of love.
I wonder sometimes what’s the matter with us all.
And I know how the best will fall
And the rest will follow…

If you rent three movies, all of which are slow and/or depressing, and you feel the need to rent a fourth movie — action-y, dumb — to break the dreariness up, don’t let it be The Rundown (imdb | rotten tomatoes), no matter what Roger Ebert says. And don’t let one of the three be We Don’t Live Here Anymore (imdb | rotten tomatoes) either.

New Trail Of Dead disc out tomorrow. I’m so excited I can hardly stand it. Metacritic kinda likes it, but Pitchfork…not so much. I wonder if they’re just trying to recover from the 10.0 they gave Source Tags And Codes? By the way, as of this blog entry Pitchfork hadn’t published the review yet, but their page naming scheme isn’t exactly rocket science…

Also coming out tomorrow: Low‘s The Great Destroyer (which I’ve ordered) and season 2 of The Wire. I may be (cough, cough) sick the next few days. (cough, cough)

By the way, today’s post title comes to you courtesy of a distinguished gentleman named JBenum. It’s a very long story.

I often miss living in the Maritimes.

But not today.

I’m linking to TimmyD’s post on The Plummet Onions, wherein he takes a quiz to find out what kind of religion he probably could/should belong to. I felt the need to take the quiz as well. My findings (which are pretty close to TimmyD’s…not surprising, as we’re brothers):

1.	Secular Humanism (100%)
2.	Unitarian Universalism (99%)
3.	Liberal Quakers (84%)
4.	Nontheist (78%)
5.	Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (78%)
6.	Theravada Buddhism (69%)
7.	Neo-Pagan (62%)
8.	Taoism (46%)
9.	New Age (45%)
10.	Bahá’í Faith (43%)
11.	Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) (40%)
12.	Reform Judaism (39%)
13.	Christian Science (Church of Christ, Scientist) (36%)
14.	Mahayana Buddhism (36%)
15.	Orthodox Quaker (34%)
16.	New Thought (30%)
17.	Mainline to Conservative Christian/Protestant (29%)
18.	Jehovah’s Witness (27%)
19.	Sikhism (26%)
20.	Scientology (25%)
21.	Jainism (22%)
22.	Seventh Day Adventist (18%)
23.	Hinduism (15%)
24.	Eastern Orthodox (13%)
25.	Islam (13%)
26.	Orthodox Judaism (13%)
27.	Roman Catholic (13%)

I find it amusing that I am twice as likely to align to Scientology than to Roman Catholicism.

Johnny Carson dead at 79 (from the CBC)

Argh. We need to give the Toronto-based media something to keep them occupied, or they’ll keep reporting on how bad the weather is.

Seriously, guys, it’s Canada. It’s January. It’s gonna be cold. We know this. Wear a scarf. And 15-30 cm of snow? Really not that much. Go talk to people in Newfoundland or the BC interior or Nunavut if you want to hear about snow. Honestly, the rest of the country is still making fun of Toronto for the storm that caused Mayor Mel to call in the army. We don’t need to add fuel to the fire.

Suck it up.