The two events Ticketmaster saw fit to headline in this week’s “don’t miss it” email: Bon Jovi and Fifty Cent.

It’s impressive how bad they are at this.

After years of crunching data, [two MIT PhD grads] have devised a computer program that listens to a song, then predicts how humans will react to it. As much as I don’t want it to be true, of course it is.

But is it becoming a self-perpetuating phenomenon? If record companies are releasing songs according to this software, and we all know that for the most part people will listen to what’s popular rather than what’s necessarily “good” (by which I mean it should show actual musical ability and hopefully some degree of innovation), so will customers react well to the MIT-predicted music simply because it was predicted (and therefore popularized)?

In addition to the twisted ass* I appear to have a giant bruise on the back of each arm, a deep bruise on my chest and about a dozen little bruises & cuts on my forearms from where the hobbits** like to slap and poke.

Good thing basketball’s so fun.

Games like that, where it’s the big guys against the hobbits (or Team Asia vs. the world as they put it) usually follow a set pattern: the first few times I get group-slapped I don’t say anything; about half the time I can force it up and in and anyway. The next few times I’ll call fouls. But as the goes on I start to get frustrated and it kind of gets taken out on them. I won’t call fouls, I’ll just throw somebody out of the way. I figure if the reason they’re slapping at me is because I have 6 inches and 60 pounds on them then it’s only fair that I be allowed to put that to good use, right? Anyway, the first game like that ended with a flurry of swarming, slapping and grabbing, which led to me throwing a couple of guys out of the way to get my own rebound and stick it back for the win. We lost the second game like that, I think partly because they backed off and I played kinda loose & jovial; maybe I need to be half-pissed to play well.

*great name for a band, eh? “Tonight, live on stage: Twisted Ass!”
** anyone under 5’8″

Oooooooh yeah yeah yeah. I agree with Stylus: “Possum Kingdom” by The Toadies is a perfect pop moment.

[via Largehearted Boy]

I was discussing the Gloria Gaynor song “I Will Survive” with T-Bone yesterday and she posited that every woman in the world, at one time or another, has listened to that song over and over again after a breakup, and that’s why it’s become such a women’s anthem that makes them go all retarded at bars. That issue — how anyone can find disco uplifting, let alone comforting — aside, it got me thinking…disco singers almost never actually wrote their own [cough, cough] songs, so who *did* write it?

It turns out the ultimate women’s anthem was written by a couple of dudes named Dino Fekaris and Freddie Perren. So not only is it musically laughable, it wasn’t even written with an authentic woman’s voice.

Ladies, if you want to listen to a song that helps you through a tough time, play “Untouchable Face” by Ani DiFranco. That should speed the healing. Christ, even “Everybody Hurts” would be better than some disco shit that a couple of guys wrote, no?

If BILB2 goes ahead, and they manage to get both Parminder Nagra and Keira Knightley to return, I’m throwing a giant party. Roses for everyone, soaked with my joyous tears.

The same goes for my wife if Ewan McGregor and Michael Vartan are cast in a movie about Greco-Roman wrestling.

Playing basketball tonight I managed to sprain my ass. I don’t know how exactly. It was weird.

Well, it looks as if the NDP is going to yank the carpet out from under the Liberals. That’s fine; if there’s substantial doubt about the country’s faith in the sitting government they should be given a chance to choose a new one. Of course, anyone who thinks that any other government would be less corrupt than this one, especially after holding power for the better part of two decades, is niave in that quaint Canadian way. But Harper is hoping for a punishment vote, and that could be what he gets. So be it; the Liberals can hardly expect otherwise.

Regardless of your political stripe, though, you have to at least feel a bit proud of the fact that the public — fuelled by bored media and desperate tories though they may be — holds the government accountable and will soon force it to dissolve. The same, sadly, cannot be said of our neighbours to the south, where fewer than 40% of Americans approve of the job their president is doing, and yet despite political scandals far more egregious than anything the Gomery report revealed, there’s no indication their administration will change tactics, let alone give the citizens another chance to choose their leadership.

Last night we watched All The Real Girls (imdb | rotten tomatoes), which I can easily say was my favourite of the three David Gordon Green movies I’ve seen. There’s something utterly charming and alluring about Zooey Deschanel in the film, or at least, there was in the first half. Not so much in the second, which I guess is the point.

I thought it combined the best of George Washington and Undertow without falling into either of their traps. Worthwhile if you’re into that atmospheric, nuancey thing.

Also last night: I’m not quite sure what to make of the live episode of The West Wing. Like most other people I wish real political debates could be like that (reasoned arguments made by intelligent people, no ridiculous time limits), but I don’t know exactly why NBC did it. There was no benefit…other than it just being a stunt.

And what was with Ellen DeGeneres shilling for Amex? In lieu of commercials they just had Ellen rambling on and on for two or three minutes before eventually slipping into an Amex One infomercial, as if it had just come up in conversation. She actually looked embarassed to be doing it. Too bad; it took away any credibility the live WW episode had of being an authentic TV moment.

Ha. CityTV has taken out a restraining order against bare-chested santa-hatted all around crazy man Zanta. I guess there was too much nuttiness in front of their cameras.