Awesome: Stephen Colbert’s plundering of the Hockey Night In Canada theme song.
Awesome: Bigger sidewalks on Bloor. (Less awesome: lack of bike lanes)
Awesome: watching Portugal play football. Since I cheer for no particular team I just like watching skill, so the game today was like watching a group of painters at work.
Awesome: the weather. Perfect. An ideal June day.
Awesome: being 95% done.
[tags]stephen colbert, bloor street, portugal, euro 2008, toronto weather[/tags]
Sometimes my Zen, which is usually on random, starts playing a song I don’t recognize. I often figure out what the song is, or at least which artist is performing it, within a few seconds. I was stumped on this one for a while though, even though it was a really good song. Usually the ones I don’t know are throwaways from the depths of an otherwise good CD. Finally, once the chorus hit, I realized it was “Boys Wanna Be Her” by Peaches. I don’t remember downloading that or putting it on the Zen, but hey…I’m glad I did. It’s almost as good as “Lovertits”.
Speaking of music, I finally listened to the entire new Death Cab album. It’s good, but it didn’t blow me away. Not that I was expecting fireworks, but because the first song I heard was the 8-minute version of “I Will Possess Your Heart” I think my hopes got up a little too high. Meanwhile, 59.59 by The Sian Alice Group wasn’t great. I like droning melody as much as the next shoegazer, but I think there were only three songs worth listening to again.
Finally, finishing off the topic of music for the day (probably) is word that the CBC will retire the Hockey Night In Canada theme song. Naturally, this rumour has prompted great wailing and gnashing of teeth from coast to coast to coast. Personally, I think the song sounds dated and I have no more love for it than, say, the theme to Mr. Dressup or the nasal magnificence of Rex Murphy’s voice. However, given the recent proclivity of CBC Sports producers to pepper HNIC with gawd-awful versions of Elton John‘s “Saturday Night’s Alright (For Fighting)” (Nickelback? For the love of all that’s holy…), I fear what they’d end up with. I suspect the devil I know, in this case, is better than the devil that CBC would almost surely choose.
But for fuck’s sake, retire Don Cherry.
[tags]peaches, death cab for cutie, hockey night in canada, don cherry[/tags]
reading: The Angel Riots by Ibi Kaslik and Strategic Management: An Integrated Approach by Charles Hill and Gareth Jones. Eye Weekly and Now Magazine every Thursday. Toronto Life once a month.
listening to: Saul Williams by Saul Williams, though any minute now I’ll move on to Death Cab For Cutie‘s Narrow Stairs or Visiter by The Dodos.
watching: almost nothing. I’m paying only marginal attention to sports (go Pens! go Celts!), The Office and 30 Rock are done for the season and The Shield hasn’t started yet. All that’s on right now is Battlestar Galactica, and even that’s on 2-week hiatus.
scanning: 190 news feeds, averaging about 509 articles per day. Of course, these are only my personal-interest feeds; I have just as many work feeds. I mainly skim the headlines here, and pay attention to maybe 50, flagging 5-10 to read later.
browsing: 6-7 websites per day. I rarely have a need to visit particular websites now (see ‘scanning’, above) but a few are applications (e.g., Google Analytics) or snapshots (e.g., the weather) that don’t work in an RSS channel. There’s also Bruce MacKinnon’s editorial cartoon every day which, despite my best efforts, I cannot wrangle into a Yahoo Pipe. Again, this is personal-interest only; there’re other work sites.
running: 3-4 times per week, 3 miles at a time. On a treadmill. Half flat, half slight incline.
eating: penne with sundried tomato pesto. Well…an hour ago, anyway.
looking forward to: our rockies/BC trip in June; Euro 2008; visiting Nova Scotia twice in August, once to visit with family and once to wrap up the MBA.
wondering: why the hell I started writing this blog post in the first place.
[tags]angel riots, ibi kaslik, toronto life, saul williams, death cab for cutie, narrow stairs, dodos, visiter, google reader, bruce mackinnon, yahoo pipes, euro 2008[/tags]
Nice day so far. We slept in until about 10:00 (following yet another delicious, spur-of-the-moment dinner at Fieramosca last night), had a bit of breakfast and watched last night’s episode of Battlestar Galactica (gripping! exciting! sing-songy!) on the couch. The morning’s rain cleared off shortly after that, and off we went.
And whooooooeee, is it ever nice out there. Sunny and warm, but with a nice breeze too. We had lunch on the patio at the Jason George (well; I had lunch; Nellie’d already eaten her leftover pasta) and it almost got a little too warm. Also: when is smoking going to be banned on patios in Toronto? Whenever it is, it can’t come soon enough.
After lunch we walked along Front Street to Staples to pick up a filing cabinet (the one we ordered earlier in the week having been canceled for lack of stock). We checked out the eee PC laptop (tiny! adorable! sufficient!) that I want to get, but didn’t buy one, just getting a small desk/cabinet combo for Nellie. We brought that home and went back out to enjoy the day a bit more. Now Nellie’s happily putting together her new furniture and looking forward to dinner. See, I made the mistake of reading out the new beers on tap at C’est What (courtesy of Bartowel news) and once she heard “Church-Key Cranberry Wheat” her mind was made up.
[tags]fieramosca, battlestar galactica, jason george, staples, eee pc, c’est what, bartowel, church key cranberry wheat[/tags]
From Torontoist: Vanity’s Fair. I don’t know David Topping (though LinkedIn keeps telling me I should) but anyone who starts a story this way must be a decent guy:
Canada’s talented children have gone unexploited for far too long, an injustice that Universal Music has finally seen fit to remedy.
According to Hollywood Reporter, the label has “joined the search for Canada’s version of Miley Cyrus,” and, with YTV, has created a new TV talent competition called The Instant Star, designed for children 15 and under. The winner gets a record contract, fame, and, presumably, a shot at pubescence.
I, for one, feel that Canada could really do without a Miley Cyrus. Hannah Montana, though…we need us one of those.
I’d like to say that was the most disturbing TV-related thing I saw/read today, but…well, WIVB (a CBS affiliate in Buffalo, NY) pretty much wins. Poor Nellie just wanted to watch How I Met Your Mother, but WIVB was busy showing 2.5 hours of some wackadoo with a pistol sitting on a bridge. I was amazed to hear that families had come from all around town, sitting on the grass, waiting to see said wackadoo shoot someone (or be shot himself). It was also entertaining to read the [ahem] coverage on their website, rife as it was with spelling errors (click the image on the right for more detail) and amateurish reporting. To wit: “Apparently, one of the police sharp shooters took a shot of the gentleman and police have pulled the guy from the vehicle.”
What was really disturbing was the breathless excitement of the reporters. I’ve never gotten this fascination the American news media has with any kind of criminal possessed of a license and set of keys. If this guy had never gotten in a car, had instead just hung out on his front lawn with a .38, no one would notice. OK, well, the cops might notice, but the news media wouldn’t have choppers circling overhead while Burt the janitor updates the web site. However, because this guy gets in a car, news anchors instantly go from six to midnight as visions of white Broncos dance in their heads. In no time at all, Janitor Burt had created a banner ad pointing to live streaming video of the standoff and a Google Map showing the location. He’d also uploaded a pile of amateur pictures and opened up the comments, which range from “this is absolutely ridiculous, this guy is charging his phone. if i miss How I met your Mother I am going to be super pissed at this guy” to “Shoot the white trash in the croch”.
What’s the emoticon for “the human race is doomed” again?
[tags]torontoist, the instant star, miley cyrus, wivb buffalo, how i met your mother[/tags]
I’ve gotten a couple of hits from people Googling whether President Roslin’s character was wearing a Q-Ray bracelet on Battlestar Galactica last week. Yes, kids, I saw it too. Not sure what the significance is; maybe they’re pointing out that even fictional humans on TV can be duped by marketing and superstition.
[tags]q-ray bracelet, president roslin, battlestar galactica, bsg[/tags]
From the Quill & Quire’s blog: Mommy’s New Rack.
In the latest sign of the impending apocalypse, ABC News has posted a story about a new children’s book called My Beautiful Mommy, written by the Florida-based plastic surgeon Dr. Michael Salzhauer. The book is an attempt to explain (and to justify) plastic surgery to children.
My soul…it weeps.
“Why are you going to look different?” asks the daughter of her mother in the car ride back from the doctor’s office.
“Not just different, my dear — prettier!” exclaims the mother.
On the outside, maybe.
Actually, not even then. The wonder that is high definition has made it very clear which actors and actresses have had work done, and it just never looks good. Latest exhibit: Mary McDonnell, who’s acquired a Joker-grade rictus for season four of BSG.
[tags]plastic surgery, mary mcdonnell[/tags]
It’s a very Montreal day: St. Urbain bagels for breakfast, the Canadiens game on TV tonight. Of course, that could be any Saturday, but it’s even better during the playoffs.
.:.
While I sit here and catch up on news and such from the past two days, I’ve been poking through my music inbox and seeing what’s what. I’m a little disappointed in the newest Black Keys disc Attack and Release. Part of what I loved about their previous albums was the lo-fi fuzzy blues; the new one is more advanced musically, but less interesting to me.The new R.E.M. isn’t great, but at least it has some crunch. I don’t mind it so far. (metacritic: black keys | r.e.m.)
Recently it’s stopped making sense to me that the album format even really exists anymore. Albums were really only a convenient format under which to release music; they were just groupings of singles before becoming ends unto themselves. Now that the album is no longer necessary, it’s only a matter of time before the increasing popularity of iTunes, etc. makes the album format irrelevant and we just consume individual songs, like we did 60 years ago.
.:.
We watched the season premiere of 30 Rock. Very funny. My love for Tina Fey (Girlfriend du jour!) is really getting quite alarming. It’s distressing, to be honest with you.
[tags]st-urbain bagels, montreal canadiens, black keys, r.e.m., itunes, 30 rock, tina fey[/tags]
Big sports night tonight: the Habs close out the season against the Leafs. The Raptors try to reverse their recent slide. Toronto FC is hoping to score a goal. And the Final Four semifinals are played, giving me at least an indication of whether I’ll have a 50-50 shot at some pool money come Monday evening.
The NHL sprint into the playoffs is high drama; Washington’s playing just to get in (and I hope they do) while Montreal’s playing for top spot in the conference. Depending on how they do tonight and how Pittsburgh does tomorrow, Montreal will end up against either Philadelphia or Ottawa in the first round; obviously I’d prefer Philly; though the Canadians have throttled the Sens in their last two matchups, Ottawa seems like a more dangerous opponent.
Not that I’ll be able to pay a lot of attention tonight. I have a marketing assignment to write.
[UPDATE: the Habs beat the Leafs, finish first in the east and will play the Bruins in the first round, which is good, since Montreal was 8-0 against them this year. The Washington Capitals won and they’re in…in fact, they’re 3rd in the conference. Stupid southeast division. The Raptors continue to suck it hard. Ditto Toronto FC. Kansas won but UCLA lost, meaning I’m out of the money, but Nellie still has a shot at 2nd if Kansas wins.]
.:.
Battlestar Galactica started off pretty strong in last night’s season kickoff (I think Nellie was right when she said they blew their special effects budget in the first ten minutes) but drifted a little. I’m so very tired of Baltar.
[tags]nhl playoffs, montreal canadiens, toronto raptors, toronto fc, battlestar galactica[/tags]
[tags]logitech wireless mouse, montreal canadiens, ottawa senators, battlestar galactica, spring, constantines, kensington heights, income tax return[/tags]
