Geez, what a beautiful day. We were up early so that we could hit St. Lawrence Market before the crowds got too bad, walked past the hole, ran a few other errands and called Dad with belated birthday wishes before settling in to watch an episode or two of Six Feet Under.

A three-day weekend, accounting assignment (practically) done, beautiful weather…I’m in a pretty happy place right about now…

The item which has lived on my Soulseek wishlist the longest is undoubtedly Body Of Song by Bob Mould, and tonight for the first time ever it showed up. The disc, long talked about, is due out in July but I guess this is just the first copy.

It’s a bit of a moot point; I plan to order an advance copy anyway. I had been a tiny bit wary after Modulate, but the word all along has been that this was something of a return to older form for Bob. So I’ll download it, but unless it’s a complete turkey I’m a-buyin’ it in two months anyway.

The L Word.

I await your laughter.

If you’re a TTC rider, welcome to the best site ever.

[via]

S’matter, Stephen Harper? Ass hurt?

Here’s how the system might work: at the store, someone buying a new DVD would have to provide a password or some kind of biometric data, like a fingerprint or iris scan, which would be added to the DVD’s RFID tag.

Then, when the DVD was popped into a specially equipped DVD player, the viewer would be required to re-enter his or her password or fingerprint. The system would require consumers to buy new DVD players with RFID readers.

[via]

I’m embarrassed to live in the same city with these people.

And Ian Pierpoint, senior vice-president at market research company Synovate (though he lives in Vancouver, not Toronto) drops what might be the most loathsome phrase I’ve heard in weeks: “why spend $700 if no one knows you spent $700?”. Mr. Pierpoint, I do believe you have jumped up your own ass.

I read too much. The sad thing is, I don’t even read normal books anymore. I keep buying them, but I haven’t read one in months. Here’s what I’m always reading:

daily:

• 8-10 web sites (just the ones I feel compelled to read that don’t have news feeds)
• Email from 6 accounts (I have more, but those are the accounts with regular traffic)
• ~120 news feeds (in four main groups: entertainment, general, news & politics; there’s a fifth group with hundreds of feeds that I don’t read, but filter using keyword watches)

weekly:

• Eye Weekly
• Now Toronto
• the Saturday Star
• 100 pages of whatever textbook I’m currently working on

monthly:

• Esquire
• Spin
• Stuff (the British gadget magazine, not the crappy American lad mag)
• Playboy (before you mock…this was a gift from my wife, along with Spin and Stuff, and cliche though it may be, the articles are surprisingly good. last month there was an in-depth examination of the origin of life & science vs. religion, an collection of final thoughts from Hunter Thompson, a short story by Chuck Palahniuk, interviews with James Spader and Vitali Klitschko and a look at stranger-than-strange Pentagon projects. then again, it also featured “The Real Desperate Housewives”. So, fine, it’s not The Economist.)
• Toronto Life

By the way, this doesn’t include what I read at work, which involves half a dozen sites, about fifty news feeds that update every three hours, and god knows how many emails bearing god knows how many attachment.

How, in the name of all that’s holy, could anything in my profile make Ticketmaster think I want to go see Pop-Tarts Presents American Idols Live?

Speaking of transmission-ripping, my Nomad just served up the following four-song set:

1. Blink 182 – “Dammit”
2. Stan Rogers – “Forty-Five Years”
3. A Perfect Circle – “Judith”
4. Bruce Springsteen – “The Line”