information that would have been useful 5 minutes ago

Did you ever see someone trip on the streetcar or cut themselves in the kitchen, and after they've done it you say "Ooh, be careful!"

How useless is that? That's a warning that would have been useful about a minute ago. It's like someone falling off a roof and then you tell them "Ooh, you should be careful up there" as they wait for the ambulance to show up.

Somewhat different is someone consoling you after you've been dumped, broken up with someone, or left at the altar. "That guy/girl wasn't right for you, they were a jerk." In that case, yes, it's true and you could have be told that weeks or months ago, but would you have listened? No, probably not, because you would have given the same reply as the guy on the roof who you warn ahead of time to be careful: "I know what I am doing."

No one wants to be told they have bad judgement, but I think recognizing it is a step in the right direction. Or at least keeps your feet on the roof.

Read More

voices in your head

I've been chatting with a friend after she saw the Stranger Than Fiction trailer, and we got to talking about inner monologues.

Tell me about your inner monologue:

• Is it a type of voice, male or female?
  
  
• Does it just go "la-la-la I'm so pretty" all day?
  
  
• Does it have an accent?
  
  
• Does it sound like an actor?
  
  
• Does your voice sound like Samuel L Jackson somedays: "I want these mutha#*@$ing TPS reports off my mutha#*@$ing desk right now! And where's my mutha#*@$ing coffee?"
• If it sounds like Zach Braff, then you probably watch a lot of Scrubs.
  
  
• Does it sound like Marvin the Paranoid Android? (seek help)
  
  
• Does it sound like Carrie Bradshaw from Sex In the City? (seek help and a Cosmo)
  
  
• Does it sound like a musical? (seek funding)
  
  
• Does it encourage you, criticize you?
  
  
• Or do you just hear a song or theme music all day?

My inner monologue sometimes slips outside: I ask whether that was my inside or outside voice. "I can't believe I have to spend time with this idiot .... oh, was that my outside voice?"

I think my inner monologue changes narrators a bit. Someday's it's Tom Waits (eccentric and gravelly). Sometime's it sounds like Ian McKellan, but lately I get a lot of Ian McShane/Al Swearengen from Deadwood. I think I'd go batty if it sounded like Dennis Miller or Ray Romano.

My friend on the other hand has a chatty monologue, who can go from demure to lunatic in a minute, and "curses more than an entire platoon of military boys". Which sounds like Helena Bonham Carter in the movie Fight Club.

Who's in your head?

Read More

That 70's Job

Today is Staff Appreciation day at work. As a treat we get to dress like it's the "1970's". I keep having flashbacks to the scene in Office Space where they announce they are "letting" the staff wear Hawaiian shirts on a Friday. On top of that is:

Me + 70s shirt = Me being called Fez all day




I wonder if I can justify Office Space as a training film in my workplace? Oh well, back to my T.P.S. reports and my lava lamp...



Yes, that is John C. McGinley (Dr. Cox from Scrubs) in the interview scene.

Read More

Life can't get any Stranger Than Fiction

I hear a voice, a voice no one else hears. And it says "Go see Stranger Than Fiction".

The voice also says clean my plate and tip generously. My narrator used to be a waiter.

Stranger Than Fiction is one of a handful of movies I look forward to seeing this fall. It stars Will Farrell in a not so typical Farrell role. Farrell plays an IRS agent named Harold Crick, who starts to hear a voice. The voice is narrating the minutiae of Harold's life, and it's the voice of the author (Emma Thompson) who thinks she's merely writing a book. She's convinced she needs to kill off her main character in order to finish the book. Harold is the main character, and he reacts understandably upset when he hears the words "imminent demise". Things get weird.

I enjoy existential comedies and the trailer reminded me of some of the funnier bits in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Groundhog Day, two of my favourite movies that balanced comedic actors with existential insecurities and dire consequences. Dustin Hoffman seems to be channeling the existential detective he played in I Heart Huckabees. Tony Hale (Buster from Arrested Development) and Queen Latifah have parts, and Maggie Gyllenhaal seems to be The Love Interest (yep, she's a favourite too). And the soundtrack? It's scored by Britt Daniel from one of my favourite bands, Spoon. This film seems to be playing a lot of my favourites.

Stranger Than Fiction opens November 10.



Apple - Trailers - STRANGER THAN FICTION

Read More

'Boondocks' Not Coming Back in Foreseeable Future

'Boondocks' Not Coming Back in Foreseeable Future:

"Because Aaron McGruder has made no statement about whether he'll resume or end 'The Boondocks' comic strip, Universal Press Syndicate announced today that newspapers should not count on it coming back in the foreseeable future."

“It was obvious that Aaron would not be able to meet his original six-month target of returning ‘The Boondocks’ to newspapers… His Sunday strips needed to be in by mid-September to meet newspapers’ deadlines of publishing ‘The Boondocks’ by the end of October. We had to consider the newspapers currently running ‘The Boondocks’ reruns and expecting its return. It was unfair to keep them guessing any longer.”

The story.

McGruder took a hiatus from the strip last year in order to recharge his creative battery. Now it looks like he's not coming back at all. This may be the end of the comic strip, but McGruder continues working on the Boondocks cartoon, which has been renewed for a second season. That's a shame, as I enjoyed the comic strips more than the cartoon.

Read More

Will Garrett Morris play Danny Glover?

The Sisyphus-ian Sisyphean Law & Order franchise moves ever onward and, in an upcoming episode, manages to play to two of its strengths: deliver timely storylines that play on real world events, and provides comic actors with a chance to show they can play dramatic (a highlight in the past year or so was Martin Short's creepy turn):

"Law & Order" taps Chevy Chase for "Mel Gibson" role
The "SNL" alum will guest as a celebrity who goes on a religious diatribe after police stop him for DUI, and arrest him with blood-soaked clothes.

www.tvtattle.com

Read More

well that didn't suck

I spent Friday night getting my urban-fix as I met friends for dinner in the Little Korea area of Toronto. Spent some time wandering through the huge Korean supermarket on Bloor by Palmerston, and dinner at Korea House. The food portions are huge, but the price is great. We split a bottle of soju, which is pretty much a bottle of sweet potato vodka. A wander through some nice College St. neighborhoods, a stop in at Soundscapes record shop and I was back in the burbs.

Saturday was a good day. I went to visit some old friends in Peterborough, which I enjoyed more than I thought I would. Well, i knew that visiting Greg & Mich would be fun, but Peterborough has some nice places to hang out. Alas, we couldn't track down a karaoke bar, but we did check in at the town's only martini bar, The Saphire Room. Really nice space which reminded me of the smaller lounges I enjoy in Toronto. The drink menu had some depth to it and the bartenders were quicker than I thought they'ld be with the more complicated cocktails. There seemed to be several bachelorette parties wandering through the downtown too, like some universal constant: wherever there are bars that serve "Slippery Nipple" or "Sex on the Beach", there will be a bachelorette party and a bride-to-be with a tiara and an inflatable penis.

It hadn't occured to me that Peterborough is a university town until I got into the downtown area. It reminded me pleasantly of Guelph, with it's preserved downtown buildings and lines of boutiques, bars, second hand book shops, and mom & pop stores. Also the $2.75 drink night at the Trasheteria would have surely rekindled some fond memories if we had gotten our second wind.

The Trasheteria has two locations I know of, one in Peterborough and the other in Guelph. Most of my early bar-going experiences were at the Trasheteria in Guelph, where Retro 80s nights went hand in hand with my first Rye & Ginger. Nostalagia rather than common sense urged me to try the Peterborough Trasheteria for old time sakes.

"Greg, we have to got to the Trash! Come on! If they're playing Bauhaus we just have to go!". Greg was willing to take me up on that condition, but there were no strains of "Bela Lugosi's Dead" to be heard, so we moved on down the road. Perhaps another time.

The only downside to the night was the perplexing behaviour of the cabs who would drive around with their top lights on even when they had a fare. They must have been passing us by so they could go to Trent University for larger fares.

Most of my previous Peterborough experience was marketing a cottage life magazine at the Peterborough Fair and Tractor Pull, so it was nice to experience more to my tastes.

Read More

where it's at

I'm bopping through work today. I had plenty of sleep. I'm still cracking up remembering the season premiere of The Office last night (That kiss! Both of them! Gaydar! BWAHAHAHAHA). I'm slightly caffeinated with a nice buzz. I've been reading Anthony Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly with great amusement: it's part auto-biography, part expose of restaurant kitchens (I am never ordering fish on a Monday again). I'm humming along with The Clash's "Police at My Back", and looking forward to a night out after work, followed by another night out tomorrow with old friends.

Just thought you should know that things are pretty good right now.

Read More

Elmo... TO THE EXTREME!!!!!!

Parents, might as well start to line-up for the hot Christmas toy now. In honour (or as an excuse) of the 10th anniversary of Tickle Me Elmo, a new toy named Tickle Me Extreme Elmo was unveiled from its cloud of secrecy. Not content to merely laugh, this Elmo has a damned fit, not seen since I imitated the dialogue between 2 cats in heat to Michelle and she punched me to shut me up, just so she could get her breath back.

TMX Elmo (yes, really its name) slaps his knee, rolls on the floor and clutches his tummy as he stop just short of pissing himself with laughter. I can already picture my 4 year old god-daughter imitating TMX Elmo on Christmas Day. Nothing says Christmas like trying to stop a child from pounding the floor with laughter during grace.

Why is it necessary for Elmo to be Extreme? Extreme is such a 90s type of marketing phrase. Does Elmo pound back Red Bull and Mountain Dew, go bungee jumping and the hit the skate park? Is he snorting a line of cocaine off of Big Bird's beak and then driving to Vegas with Oscar the Grouch, whilst imaginary bats and Snuffalupgus chase them across the desert?

I anxiously await all manner of inappropriate videos of this doll in action to hit YouTube.

CNNMoney.com: Top-secret Elmo revealed! Fisher-Price's 10th anniversary of the Sesame Street doll is a hysterically laughing, belly-clutching, floor-thumping extreme version of itself.

Read More

Out, damned semi-colon! Out, I say!

The band from "Rock Star: Supernova", faced with an injunction forbidding them from being called Supernova, will henceforth be known as Rock Star Supernova.

I imagine the creativity that went into creating a new band name will be reflected in the quality of the song writing too.

Read More

How to Comment or otherwise tell me to shut the hell up.

I noticed this on a blog I started to read this week Moviepie Musings and thought I'd use it to remind people how to comment on posts without registering with Blogger.

1. click on the "comments" hyperlink at the bottom of the blog entry on which you'd like to comment

2. type your comment into the text box

3. when asked for your identity, simply select "other" -- this opens two new fields: one for your name (or handle or however you'd like to be identified), and one for your website's URL (if you have one or feel like putting one in...it's not necessary)

4. then click "publish your comment" and presto! you did it! hooray!

It's quick, easy and completely anonymous (i.e., in case you're worried, we can't trace you or anything). So, please, comment away!

Read More

Evangelline Lilly isn't covered by this policy is she?

"Lost"bans skinny dipping

Producers have reportedly forbidden Josh Holloway, Matthew Fox and Dominic Monaghan from swimming in the buff, out of concern for their image.

If producers really wanted to protect the public image of the Lost cast, they ought to take away all their driver's licenses while in Hawaii and hire a chauffeur/body guard for each of them.

Read More

The Mixtape Story mixtape

In support of The Mixtape Story, here is the playlist I used. On second look, perhaps "Soul Meets Body" by Death Cab For Cutie was a mistake in "the mixed message" sense. Maybe I should have put in some Tom Waits or Interpol to take the edge off...

The Mixtape Story playlist:

1	The Dandy Warhols - Bohemian Like You
2	Stars - Ageless Beauty
3	The Arcade Fire - Wake Up
4	Badly Drawn Boy - Another Pearl
5	K-OS - Crabbuckit
6	Christine Fellows - Souvenirs
7	Spoon - The Way We Get By
8	Wilco - Outtasite (Outta Mind)
9	Calexico - Not Even Stevie Nicks...
10	The Dears - No Cities Left
11	Feist - Inside and Out
12	Death Cab for Cutie - Soul Meets Body
13	Aimee Mann - Satellite
14	Controller.Controller - Silent Seven
15	Beck - Girl
16	Phoenix - Everything Is Everything
17	Modest Mouse - Float On
18	Clem Snide - Moment in the Sun
19	Jason Collett - All I've Ever Know
20	Alejandro Escovedo - Wave

We'll try something to keep you kind readers coming back here. I know I haven't been posting in a regular or timely matter, as life has gotten a bit busier over the past month. Every Monday I'll try to post a new mixtape/playlist, each about a compact disc-length compilation. I'll leave it up about a week and then put a new one up. Here's the The Mixtape Story playlist.

All posted songs were purchased, and I have personally contacted every person who downloads them to make sure that they already own a copy of each song. All tracks are posted out as a fan, and I hope you will be a fan too. If you like anything you see here, please support the artist and buy it and see their shows. Any music that is posted here is for evaluation purposes only. If anything needs to be taken down email me and i'll make it happen.

Read More

Holy Matrimony!

All the best to my friend Nicole this weekend as she takes a leap into the nuptial pool.

All right, in English, one of my best friends is getting married this weekend. It's a small affair, mainly family, so I'll have to settle for sending my best wishes and planning an Autumn roadtrip to Ottawa to help celebrate once the dust has settled from the whole thing. The wedding itself sounded like what a lot of weddings miss out on: fun and celebration. Too many bridezillas, parental interference and 16-person wedding parties out there for my tastes. I think weddings should represent the couple getting married. If the groom has made 6 groomsmen, guess who he's spending most of his quality time with outside of the office.

Nicole went with the above cake topper, which suits her and Mr. Nicole's personalities. I sent along this suggestion for a cake-topper I found on Accordion Guy's blog:

Note: I've seen this noted topper called "Drunk Groom", but I think it should be "Reluctant Groom": note the fingernail marks he leaves in the icing. I wish there was a CSI division that deals just with cake. CSI: Entemann's. CSI: Dufflets. Mhmmmm cake.

Read More

the odd intention aka The Mixtape Story

I was out on a first date with a girl back in the spring. We stopped in at Soundscapes record shop on College St., and I was talking about all the music I liked. She wasn't familiar with many, which was fine, as her tastes tended more to the "adult contemporary" part of the radio dial. She or I, I can't recall, suggested putting together a CD of some of songs I recommended for her. I had walked right into promising someone a mixtape on a first date.

Now, I make mixtapes all the time. I use them to promote bands I like, to turn friends on to music they may not have heard but would like. Most of the bands don't get to much commercial airplay, but deserve to be heard by a larger audiene: I'm pretty sure every mix disc I ever made has at least one Spoon song on it. So to me, this was just another music sampler disc. It wasn't planned as a mixtape:

mixtape as defined by Urban Dictionary

A homemade music compilation (usually on cassette or CD-R) that contains all your favourite tracks. Often you give such a compilation to the guy or gal of your fancy in hopes that it will help you win their heart.

There's no way that girl can say no, I made her the greatest mixtape ever!

She called on her way down for the second date and said she was looking forward to listening to the CD I promised. The honest truth was I forgot until she mentioned it in the call. I picked the songs and burned it in the 30 minutes it took her to come down. I burned about 20 songs that I liked, some cool music that may have gone unnoticed on commercial radio: some Dandy Warhols, some Feist, the mandatory Spoon song.

The songs were sort of random, nothing particularly romantic, no songs with "Love" in the title or anything like that: just good music. I wasn't trying to seduce her with a mixtape, letting her know what a sensitive guy I was, like some cheese-eating emo boy. It was only a second date after all, we were still early into the "getting to know you" stage.

We were talking on MSN Messenger during the following week and she mentioned how she loved several of the songs, and how some of them spoke to her about us.

There was an "us"??? She was reading more into it than I had ever meant; if I had meant for a disc to be a "mixtape", she would have known it.

I wasn't trying to win her heart. All I had wanted was for her to stop listening to Nickleback.

Read More

the odd observation

from a date I had a few months ago:

After a kiss my date asked: "Have you only kissed women shorter than you?"

??????? i wondered what the "tell" was; must have had something to do with applied pressure. it wasn't like i rested my drink on her head or something...

Read More

the odd compliment

"My mom thinks you're nice. She said you looked at (the women at your table) with interest but not like a predator."

Read More

does bad mean good?

Me: ...and the suit that Randy got made for him is supposed to be great.

Friend: I thought he didn't like it.

Me: What gave you that idea?

Friend: His MSN Messenger signature said the suit was "ill".

The Urban Dictionary definition of "ill"

Read More

This could make top five musical crimes perpetuated by Broadway

I love the book and movie for Nick Hornby's book High Fidelity so much, but the thought of a High Fidelity musical, with original tunes raeplacing the soundtrack that was so necessary for that book and film, makes me vomit in my mouth a little.

My Top 5 John Cusack Movies:

1. High Fidelity: a main character who is an asshole, and freely admits it. I thought Rob was a pretty realistic character: a guy could identify with the recognizable record crate full of male neurosis and insecurities. One of the few book-to-movie translations that worked for me. Plus a killer soundtrack.


2. Say Anything - the ultimate date movie, so much so that most of the women I know think this should be number 1 on the list. Gives hope to every guy that they can date outside of their league. That "holding the boombox outside her window" scene is a classic. Writer-director Cameron Crowe was at his best with Cusack, so maybe they should collaborate again. Piven points*

3. Grosse Pointe Blank - another killer soundtrack, a fun off-beat movie that plays a lot better than the basic concept "hitman goes to his ten-year high school reunion". I loved the chemistry between Minnie Driver and John Cusack, and extra Piven points ("Ten! Years!") Rumours of a sequel have floated about for ages.

4. The Grifters - one of my favourite dramatic performances, John is a con artist, who gets entangled in a battle of with his mother and his girlfriend, who are also both con artists or grifters. Definitely not played for laughs. You can taste the desperation in this character based film, and it taste like copper pennies.

5. One Crazy Summer - a sentimental favourite. It's a goofy, lightweight "how I spent the summer" teen comedy. I remember it as the movie that made my laugh out loud during one of my first trips to visit my mom after my parent's divorce. It gave me laughs, I give it loyalty in return. The finale of the centers around a regatta in which the everyman teens must beat the rich snobs at the yacht club. A young Demi Moore as the love interest and a return of Curtis "Booger" Armstrong as Cusack's best friend (the two were great in Better Off Dead, which would be #6 on this list). Was Curtis Armstrong used only whenever Jeremy Piven isn't available? Nope, cause Piven's in this one too.

*Just how many movies have John Cusack and Jeremy Piven appeared in together?

One Crazy Summer (1986)
Say Anything (1989)
The Grifters (1990)
Bob Roberts (1992)
The Player (1992)
Gross Pointe Blank (1997)
Serendipity (2001)
Runaway Jury (2003)

Was Piven sick or just booked up when High Fidelity was made?

A close second are the Tim Robbins/John Cusack collaborations:

The Sure Thing (1985)
Tapeheads (1988)
Bob Roberts (1992) (Cusack/Piven/Robbins) trifecta
The Player (1992) (Cusack/Piven/Robbins) trifecta
Cradle Will Rock (1999) (Robbins directing Cusack)
High Fidelity (2000)

Read More

'Idol' singer Clay Aiken may serve Bush

I don't know what it is, but the headline on this article on the CTV site made me laugh in an out of context, "not that there's anything wrong with that" type of way. Then I read further and find President Bush has a committee for the purpose of helping people like, well, George Bush:

'Idol' singer Clay Aiken may serve Bush

Clay Aiken is in line to be named to the President's Committee for People with Intellectual Disabilities, the White House said Wednesday. more...

Read More

Why can't Ben Affleck be this funny in movies?

This is one of the weirder videos I've seen. It's a clip of Ben Affleck being interviewed a few years ago by a Montreal reporter named Anne-Marie Losique. I should say attempts to interview, as he proceeds to flirt and pawing the reporter as she has a giggle fit and doesn't really attempt to get the interview back on track. Looked like foreplay a little bit. Not the classiest display: I don't think Ben's drunk (he realizes he goes over the line as he makes a Cerebral Palsy joke), just being a goofy jackass and flirty in a bad French accent. Tres professional on Ms. Losique's part. Brian Linehan would never act like that. Mind you, Ben is less likely to paw at Brian Linehan.

Read More

Massive Attack Out, BSS Returns to The Island

The UK band Massive Attack, slated to headline the Virgin Music festival in Toronto this Sunday, have had to pull out of the show, citing Visa problems. When I heard they cancelled I just assumed they heard their biggest fan in the world Nicole couldn't make it, on account of the whole getting married in a week thing.

Broken Social Scene have been added to the V-Fest line-up in their place. Broken Social Scene look to be finishing up a great summer of festival shows. Their performance at the Lollapalooza festival in Chicago was a highlight of the event.

From Toronto Star.com:
The snag has forced the band to cancel the first four dates on the North American tour, including Toronto, Montreal, Detroit and Chicago. The cancelled stops will be rescheduled at a later date.

People who purchased tickets to the weekend event with the expectation of seeing Massive Attack can get a full refund at the point of purchase until noon on Sunday, organizers said.

Broken Social Scene will fill the Sunday time slot of 9:45 p.m., said Rebecca Teal, a spokeswoman for V Fest promoters Emerge Entertainment.

"This was out of our control," she said. "Obviously, it was a blow, but replacing Massive Attack with Broken Social Scene is pretty huge," Teal said. "They’re a fantastic band."

The addition of Broken Social Scene is a coup for the local outfit, which will probably play in front of the biggest crowd of its career.

The weather should smile favourably on the V Fest this weekend, as sunny skies and temperatures expected to hit a high of 25C on Saturday and 17C on Sunday.

Tickets, available at Ticketmaster and are $57.50 for a one-day pass and $104.50 or a weekend pass. Included in the price is the $7 ferry trip.

Concertgoers can visit the Star's special V-Fest section for set times and the full lineup.

Read More

How stupid is a hedgehog?

There's was apparently a rampant increase in the hedgehog mortality rate due to the McDonald's McFlurrys, those tasty ice-cream and candy concoctions that are served in a large cup. It seems hedgehogs in England have been sticking their heads into littered cups with leftover ice-cream. They get their heads stuck and can't extracate themselves, ending up ironically straving to death. After pressure from British Hedgehog Preservation Society (sounds like a group from a Monty Python skit), McDonald's has redesigned the McFlurry container so that hedgehogs will no longer be endangered by their own unceasing hunger for frozen dairy products.

Good for the hedgehogs, but if they were being outsmarted by McFlurry cups, maybe that was just natural selection culling the herd...

Hedgehogs have finally humbled burger giant McDonald's after years of campaigning, forcing the company to redesign its killer McFlurry ice-cream containers.

Up to now the opening in the container has been large enough for hedgehogs to get their heads into for a lick of the left-over dessert -- a trap they have then been unable to withdraw from, so dying of starvation in untold numbers.

But from September 1, the wide-mouthed opening in the lid of the McFlurry containers will be reduced in size, making them too small for the sugar-loving animals to get their heads into.

Read More