Category: News

50 Ft Clerkie

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

As miserable a day as it was to be outside here in Toronto (especially if the TTC strike forced you to walk to/from work through the smog), it could be worse: you could be in Indonesia. Earthquakes, bird flu, angry volcanoes…even breakway country East Timor’s suffering through some bloodshed right now. Makes some 42 degree heat and a transit strike seem pretty tame, no?

.:.

Angels Twenty has posted Tracy Bonham‘s cover of the PJ Harvey song “50 Ft Queenie”. If you know the PJ song go have a listen; I heard Tracy play it live a few years back and I nearly wet myself. I think I was the only person in the crowd who knew what song it was, so it was a private euphoria.

.:.

Today at The Movie Blog I find a phrase that I never expected to read: “Clerks 2 Gets 8 Minute Standing Ovation At Cannes.” Did not see that comin’.

Still on Cannes, I can’t wait to see The Wind That Shakes The Barley, the Ken Loach film that won the Palme D’or.

[tags]ttc strike, smog, tracy bonham, pj harvey, cannes, clerks 2, wind that shakes the barley, ken loach[/tags]

Hooray for bullshit

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

Two good bits of news from Spacing today: the City of Toronto finally plans to go ahead with the Bloor Street revitalization they’ve been talking about for years (while we’ll have moved downtown by the time it’s completed, I still work up here), and they’re also (finally) going ahead with the Union Station overhaul. Hopefully this means no more being crushed when you take the escalator down to the platform at rush hour. Actually, being 6’2″ / 220 I’m less concerned with being crushed than I am with crushing some tiny Korean lady.

Regarding the Bloor Street sidewalk work, I echo what Torontoist is saying: hopefully the lack of a bike lane is just an oversight. Take Make The Tooker.

.:.

And now, two bits of news from the Toronto Star: the (c)Raptors lucked out and won the #1 pick in the NBA draft lottery last night (though there’s no clear #1 this year), and Alexa Ray Joel lucked out and got her mother’s looks. Actually, on second look, she does kind of look like her father…but I guess there’s enough Christie Brinkley in there to make it work. Thank god. Not a big fan of the music, but at least it doesn’t sound like the usual American Idol excretions.

.:.

I’d love to see the Freakonomics guys take a run at bullshit claims like this:

“Smokers’ rights advocates say 1,000 businesses will go bankrupt and thousands of people will lose their jobs as a result of Ontario’s new anti-smoking legislation, set to take effect in a week. ‘At least 4,000 businesses will be impacted,’ Edgar Mitchell, of the Pub and Bar Coalition of Canada, said at a news conference in Toronto Wednesday. ‘Possibly 2,000 will have severe difficulties and as many as 1,000 will be forced out of business. Yes, some pubs and bars can adapt, but it’s a damned hard road.'” [via CTV]

Setting aside for a second that — on the very day that Heather Crowe died of lung cancer from the second-hand smoke she inhaled working in a bar — this asshat wants us to put the business interests of 1,000 bars (a venture with a high failure rate under any circumstances) ahead of the health of the tens of thousands of citizens who’d pass through them…where the hell did he get that nice, round number? What’s he basing the figures on? What research shows this? Has he found another market that underwent these changes and matches Ontario’s? Has he extrapolated it from the earlier municipal bans and restrictions imposed in Ontario? And if so, I’d love to see his numbers; there’ve been considerable research findings to the contrary.

Paging Steven Levitt…

.:.

I find this little doodad fascinating, addictive and frustrating all at once. Blame boing boing.

.:.

I got a 90% on my marketing assignment. I was convinced that an entire paper of bullshit didn’t merit anything better than a C-, but I guess this mark makes sense. Talking out of one’s ass never get anyone fired from a marketing job.

.:.

I worked through some of my music “inbox” today, checking off the new Concretes (yech…except for “You Can’t Hurry Love”), the new Magneta Lane (killer, as expected) and the new Final Fantasy (only two good songs: “This Lamb Sells Condos”, which is a Toronto in-joke, and “Many Lives -> 49mp”, which he played last year the Arcade Fire concert and freaked us all out, what with the shouting into the violin and all). I started into the new Pilate disc, which seems ok, if a little bland.

[tags]bloor street, union station, tooker, raptors, alexa ray joel, american idol, freakonomics, ontario smoking ban, marketing, concretes, magneta lane, final fantasy, pilate[/tags]

"I think I'll leave it at that."

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

SmartEconomist [free subscription required] estimates that the Iraq war has cost between $750 billion and $1.27 trillion, and could cost another $380 billion to $1.4 trillion…even if it stopped today. By their reckoning, $1.27 trillion would be the “moderate” estimate.

.:.

From MSNBC: Even ringtones can be racist sometimes.

.:.

From the Star: this pollster has a pretty skewed view of our prime minister:

“The Canadian and U.S. leaders could not be more different…Stephen Harper is a genuine intellectual, brilliant in his understanding of issues. I think I’ll leave it at that.”

Still…while few Canadians would consider Harper a high-grade intellectual, he’s right about Bush.

.:.

Farewell, Veronica Mars. [warning…if you haven’t seen the season (series?) finale and you care at all, don’t read that article. spoilers abound.]

[tags]economics, iraq war, racist ringtone, stephen harper, dubya, frank luntz, veronica mars[/tags]

Breakin' shit down

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

From Cinematical: Mara Leveritt’s book Devil’s Knot about the West Memphis Three has been optioned, and could be made into a feature film. Regardless of how well (or how poorly) the film is made, it can only help draw attention to their cause. Here’s hoping it gets made and more people become interested in finding the person who really killed those three kids.

.:.

The head of Homeland Security in the US has declared that the media will henceforth be embedded with government agencies during natural disasters. Presumably this will be to keep the public from seeing and hearing the, you know, facts about what’s actually going on. [from Antonia Zerbisias]

.:.

It’s been a nervous couple of days for us pet-owners. One of our cats — Michael, the smaller/stupider one — ate some string on Sunday night. About eight or ten inches worth, which can be fatal to cats (as it gets bunched up in their intestines). A couple of phone calls and a visit to the vet later, he seems to be ok, but they told us to keep a very close eye on him as things can turn very quickly. As such, we’ve been practically in the litter box with him for the last couple of days, and have found ourselves doing unpleasant things like breaking up his shit to see if there’s string inside (there is). This, I have decided, is a sad state of affairs. The things we do for our kids…even the furry ones.

Anyway, he seems to be ok for now. Fingers crossed.

[picture from QuestionableContent]

.:.

[tags]west memphis three, wm3, devil’s knot, homeland security, chertoff, cats[/tags]

How I plan to deal with selfish, dimwitted assholes

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

Let it be known: if ever I see some fuckwit throw a puppy out of a moving car and into a river — like this mouth-breathing shitbag did — I’ll make it my life’s work to track him down, spit in his face and piss on his foot. If I were a more violent man I’d bring along a softball bat and break his dog-throwing arm.

I wonder if he did it because he’s so incredibly cruel that he doesn’t mind throwing a dog into a river to drown, or if he’s just so stupendously ignorant that he doesn’t know what else to do with an animal he doesn’t want or can’t care for. Either way, he deserves to wear some of my piss.

.:.

[tags]assholes, puppies[/tags]

"Copy!"

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

A few days ago Malcolm Gladwell wondered what all the fuss was about concerning this Harvard student committing plagiarism. His closing comment was classic: “Calling this plagiarism is the equivalent of crying ‘copy’ in a crowded Kinkos.”

Today he responds to criticism of that post, and defends himself (ever so gently) by coming up with a great point, this one equally quotable: “That’s what a cliche is: its what we call plagiarism the sixth or seventh time around.”

I recommend reading both posts. Actually, I recommend reading all Gladwell’s posts.

.:.

[tags]malcolm gladwell, kaavya viswanathan, plagiarism[/tags]

Cat Power, bunny suits and War Pigs.

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

Jane Jacobs, dead at 89. The world is a less reasonable and intelligent place without her.

.:.

In the kind of news that — presumably — Ms. Jacobs would have been happy to see, Toronto has opened its first New Mobility Hub near Exhibition Place. Bike lockers and a wireless hotspot at the center of a GO Train station, two streetcar lines, a bus route and a pedestrian walkway. Putting a few of these around the city, mixed with a few carpooling services, could really make a difference for commuters. I don’t think it’ll get people out of their cars en masse, but it’s a start, and a good one. Find out more at movingtheeconomy.ca.
[via Spacing]

.:.

Two links from Wired‘s Listening Post blog: a video clip of the Flaming Lips and Chan Marshall singing Black Sabbath‘s “War Pigs” on Austin City Limits, and a short article about the weird new Pepsi ads with Jimmy Fallon and Parker Posey (I haven’t seen any with Eva Longoria) dancing nuttily around city streets.

.:.

The Canadiens survived a crazy ride last night and beat the Hurricanes 6-5 to take a 2-0 series lead, heading back to Montreal. While I’m happy their up two games, and I like their chances, I won’t get too confident. It wasn’t that long ago — 1997, I think? — that the Canadiens were up two games on the Rangers heading home and they lost the next four.

I’ll celebrate when they’re in the second round.

Pirates & poison

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

Check out this Movie Blog post about a new Warner Brothers pricing scheme (which they found at Gizmodo). Frustrated with the popularity of $3 pirated DVDs in some Asian markets, they now plan to sell legal copies for $1.50. So can someone explain to me why I’m getting charged $25+ per disc? I know, I know, they charge what the market can bear, blah blah etc. That’s fine. But don’t turn around and bitch to me about how online piracy — which might…might…account for a 5% downturn in business — puts the poor stuntmen and set designers out of business and then turn around and mark your product down 94%.

Apparently if we were to download 19 movies and pay full price for the 20th, Warner Brothers could bear it. Makes it hard to feel sorry for all their whining…

.:.

This doesn’t make me happy: Toronto Star: 2,4-D said to cause cancer. Growing up on a farm I was around 2,4-D all the time, but my dad was licensed to use it commercially and watered it down. I suppose it freaks me out more than a whole army of suburbanites obsessed with the color of their lawns have been able to buy it off the shelf for years now and dump it into their front yards and patio plants with abandon.

By the way, it’s the 20th anniversary of the Chernobyl meltdown.