Hypocrites 1; Telus 0

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You may remember me talking about how Telus is now selling porn via their cellphones. Well, they bowed to pressure from some customers and the Catholic church — who, let’s face it, really are the moral yardstick by which we should measure ourselves — and stopped the service.

Russell Smith weighs in with a logical, sensible response. Not that I expect his column to change many minds; sense and logic haven’t exactly carried the day thus far.

The way I see it: you can hate porn, or you can love porn, or you can admit that (as Smith points out) the definition of what’s porn and what isn’t is fuzzy at best. What I don’t understand is how you can argue that porn on cellphones is somehow more evil or damaging than on TV, computer screens, magazines or phone lines.

.:.

I just finished my uncle’s WWI book; I don’t know exactly why, but this time around I found it even more engaging. Maybe it was that The Guns Of August provided such a good introduction, or maybe I could just keep all the place & officer names straight this time. Anyway, I blasted through it in record (since I started the MBA, anyway) time. I’ll start Paris 1919 today since I’m home on sick leave.

By the way, the best line from the book was the very last:

“When he read the peace treaty, Marshal Foch burst out, ‘This isn’t peace! This is a truce for twenty years!’ The Treaty of Versailles was signed on June 28, 1919. Twenty years and sixty-seven days later, Great Britain and France declared war on Hitler’s Germany.”

[tags]telus, cell phone porn, russell smith, WWI, treaty of versailles[/tags]

My Nomad's current playlist

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  • besnard lakes . “for agent 13”
  • bloc party . “i still remember”
  • broken west . “down in the valley”
  • champion . “keep on”
  • cinch . “get up and get out”
  • hands . “so sweet”
  • kristin hersh . “in shock”
  • loney, dear . “i am john”
  • pablo . “wall street”
  • prids . “let it go”
  • silversun pickups . “lazy eye”
  • talking heads . “sugar on my tongue”
  • wrens . “13 months in 6 minutes”
  • youth group . “sorry”

[tags]nomad, playlist[/tags]

By the left…quick March!

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The first week and a half of March is looking pretty sweet:

  • March 2: Black Snake Moan and Zodiac hit theatres
  • March 6: the new Arcade Fire album Neon Bible drops (officially, anyway; I’ve already listened to it, but I’ll still buy it)
  • March 9: 300 comes to theatres

Of course, there are more good movies (like Sunshine) and albums (like Ted Leo‘s Living With The Living) coming later that month, and then comes the sports fiesta — March Madness, NHL playoffs, NBA playoffs — during which I become one with my TV. Besides, it’s usually starting to feel pretty spring-y by late March/early April, and spring’s my favourite time of year.

[tags]black snake moan, zodiac, arcade fire, 300, sunshine, ted leo, i love march[/tags]

Congestion: media & traffic

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I used to think John McCain being the American president wouldn’t be too bad, but between his continued support for the Iraq war and his recent statements about overturning Roe v. Wade, he’s become as unpalatable as the other candidates. OK, maybe not as unpalatable as Sam Brownback, but unpleasant nonetheless.

And I, like most people, am shocked to find myself agreeing with something that Newt Gingrich said:

“Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich on Friday said the early kickoff to the 2008 presidential race was ‘stupid’ despite a recent poll putting him in third place among Republican candidates.

‘I think the current process of spending an entire year running in order to spend an entire year running in order to get sworn in in January 2009 is stupid,’ Gingrich said at a news conference for his new book, ‘Winning the Future.'”

Amen. Or something.

.:.

Once again, the topic of a congestion charge for driving in downtown Toronto has been raised.  This time we get the hilarious input of CAA spokesperson Faye Lyons:

“In our view, this is just another tax on the already overburdened motorists.”

Absolutely. Overburdened motorists are tragic figures in today’s society, what with how they’ve been forced to shell out tens of thousands of dollars for a comfortable vehicle in which they can ride to work alone. I mean, c’mon, what do you expect them to do? Car pool? Work closer to home? Take public transit? I ask you, sir, have fascists taken over? Is that what’s happened?

Ahem.

Obviously I’m all for this idea. I do think you have to be careful about how you charge people living downtown but still have legitimate needs for a car (families, for example) but if you make the charge a flat fee — say, just over twice the price of two TTC metropasses — I think that’d be fair.

[tags]john mccain, sam brownback, newt gingrich, toronto congestion charge[/tags]

Which reminds me: Le Gourmand is selling whisky-filled chocolate now…

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Guinness Marmite? My brother is going to lose his mind.

.:.

Bought three DVDs today. Well, I didn’t really buy them; I sort of won them, kinda-like. Anyway, here’s what I picked up:

  • Brick
  • The Departed
  • Heat (special edition)

Between the special edition sound level and my fancy-pants stereo, I can actually hear what the hell Jon Voight’s saying in this movie. Speaking of Heat, every time I watch it I’m amazed by how many good actors are in it: Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Val Kilmer, Jon Voight, Tom Sizemore, Natalie Portman, Dennis Haysbert (President Palmer!), Amy Brenneman (Judge Amy!), Ashley Judd, Ted Levine (Buffalo Bill!), Mykelti Williamson (Bubba!), Wes Studi (Magua!), Diane Venora, Danny Trejo…plus Jeremy Piven (Ari!), William Fichtner, Hank Azaria (Moe!), Henry Rollins, Tone Loc and Xander Berkeley (Mason!) in bit parts. Amazin’.

[tags]guinness, marmite, brick, the departed, heat[/tags]

"Do you feel bad about this?"

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We just got back from watching Little Children (imdb | rotten tomatoes).  It was good. Very good. It was good enough that I think it’ll take a few days for it all to sink in. There were a lot of things under the covers that need to marinate, and I try not to decipher things while I still watching a film. This one’ll still be catching up with me two days from now, like In The Bedroom did.

[tags]little children, todd fields[/tags]

CBGB & a CBB

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I slept for 11 hours last night. That’s about 4 hours more than I usually sleep, even on weekends. I’m pretty sure it’s because I’m getting sick; I feel like ass today, all stuffed up and headachy. My back isn’t bothering me yet, but it was pretty bad last night. This weekend could be a boring one as I really want to get this healed up.

.:.

Last night we went to C’est What with some friends, caught up, had some food and a drink or two, took a stroll by the new condo,  and went up to the Danforth for some dessert. Not that I needed any after the chocolate brownie bomb I had earlier in the day, but I soldiered on for the sake of comraderie.

[tags]c’est what, le gourmand, chocolate brownie bomb[/tags]

Facial recognition software has not yet reached the maturity phase

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A friend sent me a link for some online facial recognition software and I’ve been playing around with it. I’ve uploaded several pictures, and so far it’s told me I look like the following people:

I kind of wished they’d loaded up Bobby from King Of The Hill. I wanted to test the theory.

Oh, and on the attempt that said I resembled Daniela Pestova, it said my wife looked like Elijah Wood. I don’t know what’s worse, that I look like a Czech supermodel or that I married Frodo of the Shire.

[tags]myheritage, facial recognition software[/tags]

Giant little animals

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Working from home today so that the pulled muscle in my back can heal. The chairs at work just seem to reverse any healing progress it makes at night, so I’m giving it a day off. So far so good.

While I work I’m listening to a mix I made last night of my favourite 20 songs from last year. Well, sort of…I spent about 20 minutes figuring out which songs should be on there, and it might change slightly if I took more time with it, but cost/benefit and all that. I also kept it to one song per artist; otherwise Regina Spektor and Band Of Horses would’ve had multiple entries.

Here ’tis:

  • amy millan . “hard hearted (ode to thoreau)”
  • and you will know us by the trail of dead . “wasted state of mind”
  • asobi seksu . “red sea”
  • band of horses . “monsters”
  • camera obscura . “razzle dazzle rose”
  • cold war kids . “hospital beds”
  • heartless bastards . “blue day”
  • hidden cameras . “awoo”
  • jeremy enigk . “damien dreams”
  • ladyhawk . “war”
  • mates of state . “fraud in the 80’s”
  • mercers . “use for abuse”
  • mogwai . “we’re no here”
  • neko case . “john saw that number”
  • raising the fawn . “carbon paper”
  • regina spektor . “field below”
  • swan lake . “all fires”
  • tv on the radio . “wolf like me”
  • viva voce . “we do not fuck around”
  • yeah yeah yeahs . “cheated hearts”

.:.

We’ve opted out of our organic delivery service. There was nothing wrong with the food, but we just weren’t eating our money’s worth. I guess I’m not a very good vegetarian yet…

[tags]best songs of 2006, green earth organics[/tags]