The Globe and mail reports that the recording industry isn’t really hurting so much after all. They attribute the good fortune to “anti-piracy campaigns, consumers’ frustrations with the glitches of file sharing, lower CD price tags and a popular crop of new release”. The latter two: maybe. The first two: laughable.

The president of HMV Canada nails it: “When there’s good-quality music, people will buy.” While I rarely buy CDs from HMV due to high cost and shite selection, it’s hard to argue with that sentiment. I have no problem paying $15-20 for a good CD, nor does anyone else I know. I know some pretty big music fans, and most of them are computer-savvy enough to download music, and not one of them thinks that downloaded music is a substitute for buying the CD.

I refer the CRIA to something John McClane said in Die Hard: “If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem. Quit bein’ part of the fuckin’ problem and put the other guy back on.”

If you know what I mean.

While economists aren’t often publicly given over to humour, especially as part of their job, I have to appreciate Bank of MOntreal’s Sherry Cooper, who at least has the occasional quirky headline. For example, today’s is “Cdn CPI: Far From The Adding Crowd”. How many people would just throw Thomas Hardy in there for fun?

Tired of listening to people having loud, annoying cell phone conversations? Download these and carry them with you.

Oh, Stanzi. Stanzi, Stanzi, Stanzi. You told me to add Blue Crush (imdb | rotten tomatoes) to my ziplist, because you love it so. Quel mistake. It was like Karate Kid with skinny girls. Only good feature of the movie were the visually impressive waves, and they might’ve been the best actors too. Sad. But we’re all allowed a crap movie now and then.

I keep listening to Green Day‘s American Idiot and Movement by The Gossip. Oh, and the song “Mystery And Misery” by Rainer Maria is my favourite song this week. Love that fuzzy guitar.

Man, first the shaky lady, and now Better Living Centre points us to the Sun’s j’accuse regarding the lady who gives out stickers on Yonge Street. From now on I’m only giving money to beggars who are clearly falling-down drunk.

Is it me, or does the redesigned Pitchfork look terrible? They’ve plugged the page with so many ads that when you use the FireFox adblock extension (as I do) it just leaves great gaping holes in the page. That means they’ve a) built the design into the ads, or b) built the holes into the design.

To make it worse, there’s still no RSS feed (short of scraping it myself). So each day I go to the site (it’s one of the handful that I still read with a browser), quickly scan for anything interesting and then bolt as quickly as possible. It looks that bad.

…well, for Eye magazine anyway. John Sakamoto is taking his Anti-Hit list elsewhere. Their not-so-subtle hint would suggest it’s The Star, so I’m hoping my Saturday subscription gives me access to it. It’s one of my must-reads each Thursday.

I just drank half of one of these. Observations:

1. Dumbest name ever. Sounds like a Mexican nickname.
2. I feel as if I might die / fatten / lose teeth at any moment
3. It’s about the same as the espresso brownie as far as fat & calories, so really…if i feel the need to kill myself i’m gonna use the brownie

Yet another night of dining out and hanging out with friends, though again the night itself was pretty low-key. We braved the cold with G&C to have Indian at Bombay Bhel on Eglinton. Pretty tasty; the butter chicken isn’t as good as, say, Banjara, but it was pretty damn delicious nonetheless. It’s been a while since I had a big feed of Indian food.

Noticed yesterday morning that American Apparel is opening a store in my neighbourhood in February, which is good news. Thing is, AA has become pretty trendy; hopefully that doesn’t mean they’ll be changing their styles or jacking their prices. I’ve been in love with their t-shirts for too long to switch now.

I watched Searching For Bobby Fischer (imdb | rotten tomatoes) over the past week. I was completely wrong about what to expect; I don’t remember the movie being released and for some reason thought it was a documentary. It wasn’t, but in the final scene I was again surprised to find out that it was based on a true story. I found the website of the kid (the main character) right after I watched the movie. Weird.

Anyway, the movie itself was terrific. The same cliches as a sports movie, but with a necessary softening that comes with using chess as the subject. Lots of great actors, and some in tiny bit parts (William H. Macy, Laura Linney, Dan Hedaya, etc.), made it feel authentic enough that I never felt as if I were watching a lecture or a monument.