Try as I might, I just cannot get myself to like Audioslave.

I don’t know man, the NHL is starting to get me excited again. With all the signings and trades, especially by teams like Calgary, Edmonton, Columbus, Pittsburgh and Florida — teams who simply couldn’t have made those deals a year ago…thank you, salary cap! — it’s become exciting again, and this is only the buildup. Even the always cynical (but always funny, and usually right) Mighty MJD is getting into it.

Now let’s see if all the rule changes and league parity deliver results when the season starts.

[btw, thanks to PC for pointing me to MMJD in the first place.]

In between some other very good songs (“Long Slow Goodbye” by Queens Of The Stone Age, The Dandy Warhols‘ “Country Leaver”) my Nomad has dropped a couple of blues classics already this morning: “If I Had My Way I’d Tear That Building Down” by Blind Willie Johnson and “Terraplane Blues” by Robert Johnson.

We went to our condo design centre tonight to start picking out our finishes and shit. I nearly wept. How many colours of tile, how many styles of countertop, how many stains of cabinetry can one look at before going completely batshit insane?

Me, I’d pick all standard stuff. But I’m not really running the show on this one, if you know what I mean. But when we get to equipping the condo’s “entertainment district”, then papa’s in charge again. Plasma? Gimme. Wireless surround? Gimme. TiVo (or Cdn equivalent)? Gimme.

Phhhh…as if we’ll have any money left…

My goodness, my Nomad’s being nice to me…two of my favourite songs in a row: Tom Waits‘ “The Fall Of Troy” and Ted Leo‘s “The Ballad Of The Sin-Eater”.

Every time a Joe Satriani song comes on, I know I shouldn’t like it, but I do. Especially “Crushing Day”…hell, anything from Surfing With The Alien.

Ah, shredding guitars from 1987…how you shame me.

[update] The next song the Nomad played was “Jump Around” by House Of Pain. It’s like it wants me back in high school…

[update2] Aah! Now it’s playing “Daniel” by Juliana Hatfield. This is getting creepy…my Nomad’s making it personal!!

Hello, brand Canada.

According to the Anholt-GMI Nation Brands Index, which measures perceptions on Tourism, Exports, People, Governance, Culture & Heritage and Investment & Immigration, Canada ranks #2 worldwide.

[via]

I like Alan Cross’s daily podcast. It’s 60 seconds of inane & fascinating rock and roll chatter from a guy who can probably dispense about 60 years worth.

Strange…I’d never heard of IRN-BRU until our recent trip to Edinburgh, so I assumed it was an exclusively Scottish [ahem] delicacy. But I just saw a pile of it in our local grocery store.

And in the same visit, I had a common Maritime myth shattered (or at least modernized): King Cole tea in Toronto. I’d always thought you can’t get it outside of Atlantic Canada (since that’s what the ads used to say), but there it was…boxes of it.

Things change. Economies globalize. Tastes travel.

Shit, I guess when we live in an era where bank tellers discuss Jeff Jarvis’ problems with Dell in a Toronto food court, it’s time to acknowledge that the world has shrunk.

There’s just nothing that prepares me for the day like Tricky‘s cover of “Black Steel”.