Cursed Old Navy. Their latest ad — you know, the one that rips off The Go-Go’s “Our Lips Are Sealed” — plays every morning while my wife watches Breakfast Television, and it’s been stck in my head for two days. I’ve been trying to blast it out with decent music on the Nomad, but as soon as the earphones come out it comes slipping back, all slimy and grating.

I don’t want to resort to my two sure-fire methods of getting rid of it — a pyrrhic victory to be sure — but I may have to. My sure fire methods, by the way, are as follows:

• hum the intro to “My Charona” — you know…duh duh DA DA duh DA duh DA duh duh DA duh duh duh DA DA duh DA MY CHARONA!! — over and over
• if that doesn’t work, sing the chorus of “We Built This City On Rock and Roll”. this, truly the nuclear option, should only be used in extreme cases.

That last one was taught to me by a guy named Dean a few years back and hasn’t failed me yet, though I worry for my own sanity when I do use it. Recovering usually involves some strong whiskey and a few leeches.

My boss (also a student of politics) and I were discussing “conservative” politics the other day, and how it means something very different in America than in the rest of the world. Historically conservatives have stood for smaller government: lower taxes, fewer social programs, less interference in commercial enterprise, etc. However, in America it has come to mean something very different. Traditionally Republicans have been considered the more conservative party, but Republicans today are no longer “conservatives” in the political sense. Rather, they are pro-life, anti-gay, pro-religion (Christian, specifically) and, to a lesser extent, pro-war and pro-gun.

As such, it seemed to us that every issue seized upon by American conservatives gets twisted into those main talking points. Debate over judicial nominations becomes a debate about “godly” versus (one assumes) “godless”; school science classes become a debate about evolution versus “intelligent design”; every address by an elected official, no matter the subject, ends with “God Bless America”; same-sex marriage is cast as an affront to God; and so on. There is little room for reasoned debate; arguments are defined as “holy” vs. “unholy”, “godly” vs. “godless”, “moral” vs. “immoral”, “with us” vs. “against us”, etc. They ask themselves, “If God be for us, who can be against us?”, but they seem to find a different answer than the left / progressives / liberals / whatever you choose to call them.

It’s nothing new; fifty years ago McCarthy was attacking godless communists and having religious language inserted into the pledge of allegiance, and many schools still didn’t teach evolution. I’m just baffled that it’s gone on so long, and that it hasn’t seemed to catch on in Britain or Canada. Why not? Or has it, and I’m just blind to it?

Sorry about the brevity and vapid content of my recent posts. The confluence of work & school have (rightly) cut into my blogging time of late. Shortly I expect to rant about politics & work (which, really, are kinda the same topic). Stay tuned.

Speaking of politics, if you need something to read you could always head over here.

The new Nine Inch Nails disc (metacritic | pitchfork) is good. The new Spoon disc (metacritic | pitchfork) is gooooooooooooooood.

I read the Globe today for the first time in months.

I thought I’d miss it.

I don’t.

She’s back.

Not a week after Purolator failed me so badly with my copy of With Teeth (which I’ve finally started listening to this morning, by the way), they’ve made up for it by delivering season 3 of Six Feet Under, a day before it’s released to stores. Not that I’ll have a chance to watch it any time soon, but it’s nice to have it in my hands.

Breakfast this morning with Mr. & Mrs. CBJ, then watched Canada lose to the Czechs. I can avoid the unavoidable for a few more hours, but I have to start that accounting assignment sometime. Might as well do it tonight while Nellie watches 3 hours of Survivor.

I’m eating some little Japanese sweets called (I think) Shiroi Koibito. Whatever they’re called, they’re good. I’m wishing now that I’d stuffed some in my pockets yesterday to have with the wine.

On a related note (ahem), weight is still 220. I’m hoping that by Tuesday I’ll have the time & energy to get back on a treadmill.

Last night, post wine festival, we opted to just relax and watch one of the Zip movies on hand. Smoke (imdb | rotten tomatoes) is one that I’ve wanted to see for years. It had the expected great performances by Harvey Keitel, William Hurt, Stockard Channing and Forest Whitaker, and very early career roles by Harrold Perrineau and Ashley Judd. There’s more plot & story than I had expected; for some reason I thought that it all took place in the cigar store, but that wasn’t the case. In fact, pretty much the whole movie takes place in conversations, two people at a time. There’s not that much more I can say about it, except that you should see it.

Oh, and have some wine on hand; it’s just that kind of film.

Whew…thatsalotta wine! Together with Mr. & Mrs. CBJ and a friend of theirs, we hit 14 of the 21 Sante locations: Chapters, Dinah’s Cupboard, Birks, Jeanne Lottie, Lovecraft, Paper Things, Pepper Mill, Simone Marie, The Cookbook Store, The Kitchen and Glass Place (I didn’t forget those last two names; that’s really what they’re called), Thomas Kinkade Gallery, Travel Choice, Whole Foods and Williams-Sonoma.

What did I learn? Well:

• I like pinot noir more than I thought.
• If you stand still long enough in Yorkville, you’ll see a couple of famous people. Bob Hoskins walked by us near Whole Foods, and I think Jamie-Lynn DiScala (Meadow Soprano) walked by us too.
• I like dessert wine more than I thought
• If you hang around a wine festival long enough, you’ll run into the Modern Mod
• Belgian chocolate + ice wine = DROOOOOOOOL
• Always hit the jewellery store early on. If we’d visited Birks at the end of the trip, after several glasses of wine, I might well have walked out with one of these bad boys.
• Thomas Kinkade’s paintings are kind of freaky, especially when they turn the lights down
• If you stand still long enough in Yorkville, you’ll see a procession of models. As we were standing there 7 goregous young girls in designer clothes walked by, trailing after some guy with a camera. It was a bit surreal.

It was an entertaining enough way to spend the day, even if the crowds did get a little out of hand toward 5:00. But we were happy to get home, relax and get some food in our bellies. Plan for tonight: relax. No booze, just junk food and some movies. And (sigh) accounting.