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Monday, September 11th, 2006
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2:17 am - So I have a MySpace page....happy?
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I finally broke down and got a MySpace page. I decided I didn't have quite enough things to waste my time on over the internet, so here goes nothing.
Since MySpace has a blog feature on it, I'll post the same stuff both there and here. As for my Livejournal page...well, there's no point in having three blogs. I'll keep the page up to stay in touch with some of my LJ friends, but otherwise, that's it. Sorry, LJ community, it's been a slice.
And now, the grand unveiling...
www.myspace.com/shukvision
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| Saturday, September 9th, 2006
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2:44 am - Football!
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Football!
My predictions for the already-started NFL season...
AFC East
Patriots, Dolphins, Jets, Bills
AFC South
Colts, Jaguars, Texans, Titans
AFC West
Broncos, Chargers (WC), Chiefs, Raiders
AFC North
Ravens, Steelers (WC), Bengals, Browns
NFC East
Giants, Redskins (WC), Eagles, Cowboys
NFC South
Panthers, Bucs (WC), Falcons, Saints
NFC West
Seahawks, Cardinals, Rams, 49ers
NFC North
Bears, Vikings, Packers, Lions
Super Bowl is Panthers over the Patriots
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| Monday, September 4th, 2006
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7:06 pm - Idlewild and Hootie
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Outkast are one of the few rap acts I genuinely enjoy, and their new album (a soundtrack for their film Idlewild) is, unsurprisingly, genuinely fun. It's not quite what I expected, since given the film is a period piece set in the Depression, I kind of expected more of a 1930's feel to the music. Sort of like hip-hop, but with more of a classic jazzy feel to it. A few tracks are tinged with a ragtime feel, but overall it's basically a hip-hop album that is taken in a lot of weird musical places. So, basically, it's an Outkast album.
I submit that Big Boi is the more talented of the Outkast duo. Here's my take on it, and since Outkast are from Atlanta, I'll stick to Atlanta sports metaphors. Andre 3000 is like Michael Vick. Immensely talented and capable of bursts of genius (Hey Ya = leading his team to the first ever playoff win by a road team at Lambeau Field), but seemingly unable to fully bring everything together for a complete season/album. Big Boi, on the other hand, is Tom Glavine. Nobody will ever get too excited about Tom Glavine, and attention is often drawn to his more unique teammates like John Smoltz or Greg Maddux. But when push comes to shove, he's consistent day in and day out, and in his own way, is just as creative and 'out there' as his counterpart. I found the Big Boi songs to be generally more interesting than Andre's on Idlewild, though this disc doesn't have the direct split between the duo that Speakerboxx/Love Below did. Frankly, there are so many co-authors and co-producers on songs that you could argue that Idlewild is more akin to 'Outkast & Friends.'
Favorite song after one listen: Call The Law
I also recently got Panic! At The Disco's album (meh) and a Hootie greatest hits album, which I enjoyed immensely. Goddamn, Hootie were a good band. Why did everyone suddenly decide they sucked about halfway through 1996? They were even responsible for the most dated episode of Friends ever, when the gang are all excited about tickets to a Hootie concert. Seeing that episode now is like seeing an episode of the Dick Van Dyke Show where Dick refers to black people as 'negroes' or something.
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| Thursday, August 24th, 2006
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12:03 am - Weird People I've Encountered
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I'm walking down the corridor at the Rogers Centre behind a guy in a suit, who is continually flipping a coin. I never got a chance to see the guy from the front, so I don't know if it was in fact Two-Face.
I'm standing in line at Pizza Pizza last night behind a guy who I thought was one of the guys from Sloan. It might not have been him, though, since he didn't react at all when I started humming 'Money City Maniacs' (minus the opening siren part, of course -- that would've been just weird to hear some dude start making a siren noise out of nowhere when all you want is a delicious slice of pizza pie).
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| Sunday, August 20th, 2006
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11:23 pm - CawFuL
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First off, who picked Tiger Woods to win the PGA by five shots? THIS GUY.
I've been in the midst of an e-mail battle about the CFL between some of the Gazette lads, and the basis of the argument is this: the CFL sucks. On the anti- side is Ravi, a native Edmontonian, rabid Eskimos booster and possibly the only CFL fan on the Western campus. Also, kind of on Ravi's side is Denomme, who argues that hating the CFL is somewhat un-Canadian.
I hate the CFL. I think it is a complete waste of time. I have not watched more than five minutes of a CFL game since the days when Rocket Ismail wore Argos blue. I have no particular bias against minor league sports (since I love minor league baseball), but the CFL and the incessant hype of it on TSN makes my skin crawl. For example, at least minor league baseball has no illusion that it's important -- it's got frickin' minor league right in the name. But the CFL has idiots like Dave Schultz who pretend it's the most major sport on earth. I find it hard to be interested in someone like a Milt Stegall when he would be hard-pressed to be the fifth receiver on most NFL clubs.
As for the patriotic aspect, well, part of being a Canadian is being cool with shame. An American has it drilled into their heads since birth that "America is the greatest country in the world," and thus many USAers have to defend various parts of their national heritage (the non-metric system, the right to bear arms, pointless wars in Iraq) because they feel that what they do is right because they're number one. Not in Canada. We're ok with admitting that some things are just kind of silly and letting them be. It is this humility that makes us awesome, not actually saying we're awesome.
So that's why I think the CFL is bush league. Sorry, Ravi.
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2:55 pm - Shushes on a Plane
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For the first time in my life, I was actually shushed in a theatre. During SNAKES ON A PLANE. What, did they not want to miss a second of the intense dialogue? Even better, it was a 10-year-old girl and her mom who did the shushing. I got my revenge during the film's surprisingly graphic sex scene in the plane lavatory; let's just say the parents and 10-year-old were shifting uncomfortably in their seats.
Anyway, the movie was ridiculous. And great. There was actually applause when Sam Jackson dropped his legendary line about getting the muthafuckin' snakes off the muthafuckin' plane. I think the movie needed a gratuitous celebrity cameo from, like, Christopher Walken to really put it over the top.
Oh, and the cause of the shushing was a debate between Matt and I about whether or not Kenan Thompson was Goldberg in the Mighty Ducks movies. I was right (he wasn't), though since Kenan was in D2 and D3 in another role, Matt gets partial credit. But he's still wrong.
current mood:  moody
current music: On the 309, Johnny Cash
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| Tuesday, August 15th, 2006
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11:02 pm - Ryder? I don't even know her
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I hate the Ryder Cup.
Well, that's actually not true. The Ryder Cup (and Presidents' Cup) is actually a lot of fun to watch and is one of the biggest events of the year in golf. What I actually hate is the fact that golf announcers treat qualifying for the tournament as a matter of life and death.
For the uninitiated, the Ryder Cup is a bi-annual 12 vs. 12 team golf matchup between the USA and Europe. The 12 player on each team are split into various combinations for two best-ball pairs matches on Friday, two alternate-shot pairs matches on Saturday, and the final Sunday when the dozen Americans are randomly paired against the dozen Europeans in head-to-head matches. Each team has a captain, usually an older golf star, who arranges who plays with who, and selects two golfers as "captain's picks" to join the 10 men who qualified through a points system. The event is incredibly tense because it's the rare case in golf where these guys who are trained to play for themselves have to bond together as a team.
The thing about it is, over the last few weeks, golf announcers have treated the major storyline in golf as qualifying for the Ryder Cup, which it isn't. The British Open was three weeks ago. The PGA Championship is this weekend.* The Ryder Cup is important, sure, but it's not the be-all and end-all in pro golf.
Now, the other storyline about the Ryder Cup is that the USA is in a huge slump. The Ryder was originally a USA versus Great Britain format and then a USA versus Great Britain and Ireland format, but these were scrapped since the States won virtually every time. In 1979, the format changed to the Americans versus Europe, and since then, Europe is 7-6, including four of the last five. As a result, there is a lot of hand-wringing by pundits and announcers that some of the players that are currently set to qualify for the Cup for the States are making their first Ryder appearances, and thus don't have the "experience" necessary to handle the Ryder Cup pressure.
This is, frankly, idiotic. Perhaps part of the reason there's so much pressure is because everyone is saying that these guys are underexperienced. It's kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy. Team Europe always looks like they're having a ball, always seem to have a few colorful characters (i.e. Jesper Parnevik, Ian Poulter, Darren Clarke) on the team, and as a result seem to play a lot looser. They're just a lot more fun to watch.
Also, part of the reason the USA has lost in the last decade is because so many of the so-called Ryder veterans (i.e. Davis Love III, one of my least favourite golfers and probably the most overrated PGA player of the last two decades) have sucked it up in recent years. Getting new blood in should be a cause for celebration for Team USA, rather than cause for a lot of pissing and moaning.
In any case, that concludes my post about golf, which I'm sure about two of you found exciting. On the bright side, it's not another post about my deodorant.
* = ok, the PGA may not be all that exciting since everyone agrees that Tiger Woods is going to steamroll everyone. My call is Tiger by five shots.
current mood:  chipper
current music: Norwegian Wood, the Beatles
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| Monday, August 14th, 2006
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9:25 pm - Mark Hates the Movies
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One of the major hyped scenes in Clerks II is "the Star Wars vs. Lord of the Rings" debate. Essentially, it's Randall (representing Star Wars) against the nerdy Christian kid working at Mooby's and the short guy from Alias (representing LotR), and it's a classic Kevin Smith-deconstructs-pop culture moment.
There's just one problem: the scene came off as stale as day-old bread. It wasn't particularly funny, or insightful, or even overly clever -- 10 years of shows like "Hey, Remember the '80's" have made riffing on pop culture commonplace, rather than something original. The scene just seemed unnecessary, which is also the word that basically sums up Clerks II as a whole. It was ok, but it just sat there.
If there's a movie that summarizes the cinematic summer of 2006, Clerks II is probably it. This has been the worst summer movie season in recent memory, largely because virtually every movie (even the few I liked) have been entirely unnecessary. Like most summers, it's been a wasteland of sequels, but even by sequel standards, originality has been lacking.
MI3? It will take more than a generic action movie to get me to look past the baggage that comes with any Tom Cruise movie. Confession: I haven't actually seen it, but come on.
Superman Returns? Mmm, I guess the franchise needed an update, but not an update that is 80% taken from the Christopher Reeve series.
Pirates of the Caribbean II? Haven't seen it yet, it's probably entertaining, but....was a sequel needed? Were that many teenage girls clamouring to see Johnny Depp again? (actually, according to the box office, yes)
Da Vinci Code? The most interesting thing about the movie was when I heard that the producers of 24 bid for the rights with plans on adapting it to the season of the show. It was funny since I even said to Trev during the movie, "This would be loads better if it was Jack and Chloe running around Europe." It would've been even better if, had the novel's plot been followed, Chloe would've ended up being the descendant of Christ. Dammit, can't this still happen? Come on Dan Brown, have a soul.
Miami Vice? I liked it, but Bill Simmons put it best: "When I say the movie had nothing to do with the TV show … I mean, the movie had NOTHING to do with the TV show. Here's what they had in common: A white cop named Sonny Crockett teams up with a black cop named Rico Tubbs to crack a drug case in Miami. That's it. Everything else was different."
My current top five for the year stands at A Prairie Home Companion, Ricky Bobby, V for Vendetta, and Strangers With Candy. You'll notice that this is just four flicks, since I genuinely can't think of a movie I considered better than ok in the rest of the summer. Anyway, my fab four are all very good movies, but guess what: still no totally original ideas. All of these movies are adaptations (ok, Ricky Bobby isn't technically an adaptation of anything, but it's still a general continuation of Will Ferrell's comic persona).
By this point, the fall will have to have some jaw-droppingly good films, or else 2006 will be a near-total writeoff. At that point, I'll start my campaign for the Borat movie to win Best Picture.
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| Wednesday, August 9th, 2006
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12:32 am - Things I noticed on my way home from the stadium on Monday evening....
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As I walked across the bridge that leads from the Rogers Centre across the train tracks and towards John Street, I noticed (for the first time in the literally hundreds of times I’ve walked that route) that there are arrows on the glass sides of the bridge reading “This way to the CN Tower.”
If you need help finding the CN Tower, I'm not sure a simple sign can help you with your problems, brother.
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I passed a street artist selling sketches, and my eye was struck by one particular piece. I first thought it was a photograph, since everything looked so perfect. It was a gorgeously-rendered likeness that clearly took hours to perfectly capture every nuance. The subject? The Trailer Park Boys. Hey, I almost bought it for my brother.
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I passed a crowd in front of the Toronto convention centre that was there for some type of Canadian Idol taping and/or promotion. They were carrying signs and screamed on cue whenever a TV showed their favourite Idol hopeful on-screen. I was struck by the crowd’s diversity --- normally you’d expect a bunch of teeny-boppers, but it was women and men of all ages, colours and creeds. Perhaps Canadian Idol is truly the thing that has brought our country closer together than the railroad or mutual loathing of Spain invading our fishing territories. Remember that? When there was actually some suggestion of a war? That would’ve been the lamest war ever. That would’ve been like seeing two old people have a walker fight….actually, wait, that would actually be pretty awesome. I demand that someone make a series of internet-exclusive ‘Walker-Fight’ videos. I’ll even settle for a video that shows former Expos star Larry Walker battle current Padres infielder Todd Walker. Or, Chuck Norris battling a bottle of Johnnie Walker Red.
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I passed two joggers, both men in their early-to-mid-forties. The one guy was running backwards and tearing a strip off of his buddy, who was moving at a pretty good pace (certainly faster than I could run), and yet obviously not in the league of his backwards-running abuser. The exact quote was, “Move, goddammit! Fuck! Run fucking faster! Fuck!”
These two ran by just as I passed the Idol crowd, which, while not as teeny-bopper filled as I had previously suspected, still had loads of kids in it. Good times. Hopefully the second jogger didn’t pull a Vincent D’Onofrio-in-Full Metal Jacket and gain bloody revenge on his tormenter.
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I passed an ice cream truck...well, I stopped, actually, and got one of those red-white-blue popsicles. Is there a consensus name for these things? I’ve heard everything from ‘Rocket Pops’ to ‘America Pops.’ Here’s my idea: I say we just call them….delicious!
The previous paragraph was paid for by the red-white-blue ice popsicle marketing board.
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I passed the big sports clothing place near Union Station that I somehow can’t remember the name of though I’ve been by it literally hundreds of times. I was looking for a Toronto F.C. shirt, as it may be the one soccer-related garment I’m willing to plunk down some money on. I don’t want to buy a team jersey, since then that implies I’d have to care about the team. Only a singular kind of loser buys a team’s jersey just because they’re good, or because it seems hip. I remember in sixth grade, when Paul Haggis’ nephew showed up with a Montreal Canadiens coat literally within two days of their winning the Stanley Cup. He then had the audacity to claim that he had always been a fan, and just “never talked about it.”
Then again, he was Paul Haggis’ nephew, so maybe I could be working in Hollywood right now if I had been the guy’s pal instead of tormenting him all throughout grade school. C’est la vie.
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| Wednesday, August 2nd, 2006
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6:54 pm - The Dalton Brothers!
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found these clips on YouTube, and U2 fans will get a real kick out of them. They're from before a U2 show in Los Angeles circa 1987. I love how Edge looks like Kip from Napoleon Dynamite.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SXnPQF45dU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9AVlqpHBE7Q
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I've been trying to post pictures of my trip, but Livejournal apparently charges for photos. F that noise.
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Heath Ledger? I can dig it. Guy's a good actor, and can be creepy as hell. Hurk made a good comment last night about how, in order to escape the inevitable Jack Nicholson comparisons, Ledger essentially has to make Joker "the kind of guy who would kill 4,000 children while laughing his head off." In short, they made to use the homicidal Joker from the comics rather than the rich man's Cesar Romero that Jack played.
I love how I've made two posts about this upcoming Batman movie in the last month. Can you tell I'm excited?
current mood: nerdy
current music: U2, Twilight
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| Tuesday, August 1st, 2006
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4:38 am - Peanuts and Crackerjack
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Baseball Road Trip ’06 is in the books, and after careful review, it topped last year’s excursion to Pittsburgh/Cleveland/Detroit. We weren’t hampered by rain like last year, we avoided Detroit, and with two more folks on the trip, the amount of fun was increased by 50%. On the downside, there were no continual jokes about a baseball player being a pedophile, nor were there any late-night creations of a talking pie. It's a long story....
Chicago was pretty cool. My co-worker/boss Jordan said it was a lot like Toronto, and I’d tend to agree, except that the city has a tougher sheen. Chicago seems like TO’s streetwise, smart-alecky older brother, the Bart to Toronto’s Lisa, if you will (while London is like Maggie….it sucks! BWAHA HA HA HA HA I’m not funny). Chicago’s mystique comes from a lot of little details, like the elevated train system that is incomprehensible if you wanted to change lines or transfer, or the free trolley service downtown that has multiple lines no longer in existence but are still on the schedule. It’s things like these that create the city’s overall attitude of “We’re a pretty good town, but if you don’t like it, fuck you.”
After a phenomenal dinner at Harry Caray’s on Wednesday (I ate a 23-ounce steak so good I could’ve eaten another directly after), we spent the next day just wandering around Chicago’s downtown and not really getting anywhere, aside from checking out Millennium Park and standing at the base of (but not going up) the John Hancock Building and the Sears Tower. Funny story from the Sears Tower: a homeless guy ostensibly ‘helped’ us by telling us the entrance to the building was on the other block, though we weren’t looking for it in the first place. Then he gave us some ‘free’ postcards of the city, and went into a spiel about how he’s living at the Chicago men’s homeless shelter and etc. Then he pauses and says to me, “You know who you look like?” Not having a clue where this is going, I decided to descend into the theatre of the absurd and answered “Michael Jordan?” He goes “No, the TV cop,” to which Scott replies the correct answer of Kojak. Just unbelievable. Now the beggars are even scoring points off of me. Hey homeless guy: when you’re asking someone for money, go for a flattering comparison, rather than a reference to the admittedly ugly Telly Savalas. I would’ve docked him points for the dated reference, but then again, it’s quite possible this guy hasn’t owned a TV in 20 years.
Anyway, we got back to the hotel and then off to the ballpark. I’ll do another post rating the ballparks later this week, but I’ll just say that anyone who ever sort of likes baseball must see a game in Wrigley Field at some point in their lives. Hell, even if you don't like the game, being in those stands amongst a packed house on picture-perfect evening was an absolutely magical experience, and I’m not the kind of guy that uses ‘magical’ in a sentence very often. It's an odd feeling to realize that someone sat in the exact spot you were 90 years ago and was still probably bitching about the Cubs' crappy starting rotation. Comiskey Park (a.k.a. US Cellular Field if you want to be a corporate whore) was also better than expected, though it was paling in comparison by the end of the trip.
On Friday, we headed off to Milwaukee. I actually felt giddy driving into town, though that may have been due to Meat Loaf’s Paradise By The Dashboard Light (one of my personal top 10 songs of all time) cranking it on the radio and resulting in a van-wide singalong. Our plan was to take a tour of Miller Park due to the fact that we had an afternoon to kill before the game, and Trev was interested because he wrote an engineering paper about Miller Park in undergrad. Amusingly, the topic of his paper was the stadium’s design flaws, but c’est la vie. Miller Park is a perfectly lovely park, despite its comical vagina shape, and a great place to watch a game.
Now, here's where I start complaining. At Comiskey, the in-stadium souvenir stores didn't have any old-school Sox jerseys with the likes of Shoeless Joe or Ted Lyons on them. No problem -- that was kind of a pipe dream anyway. Plan B was the Fergie Jenkins Cubs throwback jersey. We stopped in front of the largest Cubs merchandise store in Wrigleyville and while they had jerseys for past Cubs stars like Ernie Banks, Ron Santo and Ryne Sandberg, there was no Fergie to be found. Even worse, the clerk responded to my query with a comment of, "Who's Fergie Jenkins?" Just....awful. If you own a Cubs memorabilia store across the street from Wrigley Frickin' Field itself, this kind of ignorance in your staff is unacceptable. It's like going to a bar and having the bartender not know what goes into a rum and coke.
But anyway, onto Plan C -- the Paul Molitor Brewers throwback. Unlike the Cubs and their multitude of Hall-of-Famers, the Brewers have really only had two truly great players in their history that are immediately identified as Brewers. These two are Robin Yount and Paul Molitor, and since Molly also helped the Jays win the 1993 Series, he was a no-brainer. Surely, the Brewers in-stadium memorabilia store would have a Molitor throwback, right?
Well, of course not, or else I wouldn't have spent three paragraphs bitching about it. They had a few Yount jerseys, but no Molitors. Inexcusable. So, the great jersey hunt of '06 was concluded in failure. I guess I could've bought a Carlos Lee jersey, since Lee was dealt from Milwaukee literally as we were standing in the store. I could've gotten an instant collector's item, provided that Lee goes on to have a Hall-of-Fame career -- and if the retro jersey industry suddenly collapses within the next year.
Jerseys aside, we left Miller Park for a tour of the nearby Miller brewery. Now, I'm not a beer drinker, so this held no particular appeal for me, but it was still interesting to see the process of just how much damn beer gets processed in a given day. The answer, by the way, is 500,000 cases of Miller's various brands. The complex is the size of your average university campus, which was kind of stunning given the size of the Labatt plant in London takes up just a city block. I figured it was because at least two or three of the Miller plants are used to calculate just the right amount of fluid to water down the beer with.
The tour began with a 15-minute video about Miller's history that had us all cracking up in its sheer lack of ironic self-awareness. My favourite part is when a guy was shown sitting at a bar, and the voiceover goes, "There is a time in every night out when things go from good (shot cuts to a hot woman giving him the eye from across the bar) to great. This is called (dramatic pause) Miller Time." If Josef Goebbels had made promo videos for breweries instead of Nazi propaganda, this would have been his handiwork. Some Simpsons writer must have taken this tour, seen the early 1990's version of this video and then gone home to write the "Homer and Barney tour the Duff plant" episode.
After the tour, it was into downtown Milwaukee for the now-traditional Appleby's dinner, and then back to Miller Park for the game. A note on Milwaukee: it's a lot like London, except its downtown is even more deserted. Seriously, we were there at 4:30 in the afternoon, and there was nary a car or pedestrian to be seen until we hit the highway. Is beer so prevalent in Milwaukee that everyone is taking an early happy hour, or what?
The previous night at Wrigley, a lot of people left before the end of the game, which was a thrilling 5-4 Cubs victory. We scoffed at these obvious fairweather fans who would leave at the end of a close game -- and then ate crow since we left Milwaukee after seven innings with the Brewers and Reds tied 3-3. The boys wanted to get a head-start on the eight-hour drive home, so there was some logic to it. The bright side was that we got to listen to the last two innings on the radio, and thus heard legendary announcer Bob Uecker call the Brewers' bullpen blowing the game in the eighth. Uecker is not quite at the same level as he was in his Major League (the Tom Berenger/Charlie Sheen classic) heyday, and he was sadly bereft of profanity as he was at the godawful play of the Cleveland Indians. Nonetheless, since we began the trip with Major League on the van's DVD player, it was only fitting that Uecker's dulcet tones ended the trip. Jeff and I also delivered a stirring duet of the Laverne & Shirley theme song, and I wonder just how many years it will be before nobody gets that reference. Five? Ten? Hell, do you have any idea what I'm taking about?
Next year....St. Louis/Kansas City/Cincinnati? Philly/Baltimore/D.C.? Or, my personal favourite, the Boston/New York/Cooperstown jaunt? Or, if I suddenly get rich in the next year, we'll just rent a bus like Tom Hanks and hit up all the parks alongside Ron Howard and Dennis Miller. I was sorry we didn't end up next to them in Milwaukee, actually. It would've been great.
"Hey Tom, I love your movies!"
"Hey Ron, I loved Arrested Development!"
"Hey Dennis, I'm going to get popcorn, would you stand up so I can get to the aisle?"
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| Monday, July 24th, 2006
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10:59 pm - Bashed Out
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Well folks, the Great American Posting Bash will have to come to a premature end. It just dawned on me that since I'll be away from Wednesday to Saturday in the USA, I won't have computer access, thus ending my month-long posting streak.
You'd think this would have occurred to me when I first started, but then again, the whole Bash thing was something that made sense early in the morning when I was suffering from insomnia, so I couldn't logically be expected to follow through. It's like expecting a recently unfrozen caveman to understand corporate law, like Phil Hartman -- what do you think, he'll just immediately grasp the complexities of our legal system? Hell no!
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| Sunday, July 23rd, 2006
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3:57 pm - Cabbie on the Street
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Cab drivers have a pretty good racket going. I took a taxi home from the ballpark last night because I wanted to get home quick and go out to meet the gang at my corner pub. As we’re driving, the cabbie gets a call on his cell phone and starts chatting away to his buddy. Naturally, since one cannot really drive and talk at the same time, he slows down. I’m forced to sit there in increasingly annoyed silence since, dude, WTF?
He is capitalizing on the natural politeness of people to not interrupt someone on the phone. Pavlov would have a field day with the way phones have conditioned us in many different ways. When you pick up a phone, you instinctively say hello, or, if you’re Mr. Burns, ahoy hoy. When you hear a phone ringing, you actively have to force yourself to not pick it up.
Cabbies already prey on the natural inclination of people to not know where they’re going. I was once in a TO cab that took an overly circuitous route to the Eaton Centre, when even I (who was a bumpkin tourist at this point in my life) knew a shorter way. In matters like that, however, I have no problem in openly giving him directions and being a back-seat driver. If you’re going to try to rip me off, I see no reason to be civil, jerk store.
I’m glad I didn’t tip much of anything. The way I see it, the extra money I spent for the extra few minutes his gabbiness cost me can pay his damn phone bill.
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| Saturday, July 22nd, 2006
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9:29 pm - GAPB #12: Crime and Punishment
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I love it when a plan comes together.
I also love it when I finally come up with a suitably cool ending for a cool premise I thought up for a crime novel. I can now officially start writing the thing, and hopefully it turns out well. Hell, I just hope it turns out, as opposed to the several unfinished and – in hindsight -- pretty lame material I’ve tried to write in the past. My inability to write hard-boiled material is likely due to the fact that I’m about as hard-boiled as a…uh…a really soft egg?
This is what I’m talking about. Raymond Chandler could spin analogies so witty that it would make you want to take off your pants. Agatha Christie was an elderly British mame, and yet she was the greatest mystery writer of all time. Then again, she was also anti-Semitic, so she wasn’t all peaches and Poirot stories.
But now I have my ending. Perhaps this is the first step towards my becoming the next great crime/mystery novelist. I can take my place along such modern masters of the genre as Lawrence Block, Joan Hess or Gregory McDonald. Or, failing that, I’ll simply have to write true-crime stories. Given my laziness for research, however, I’ll end up just committing crimes and then writing my memoirs from prison. My memoirs will likely start after a lengthy forward about how to live with being someone’s shower bitch, since, as I said earlier, I’m as hard-boiled as a really soft egg. I would be eaten alive in prison.
Speaking of being eaten alive, the previews for Miami Vice bite. I love Michael Mann and all, but the brilliance of the old TV show was in its innate cheesiness. It would be like if the makes of the Brady Bunch movies (two of the more underrated subversive comedies of our time, btw) had decided to play them straight. That would’ve both blown and sucked at the same time.
A ‘real’ Miami Vice movie would feature…I dunno… let’s go with Ashton Kutcher and Wilmer Valderrama as Crockett and Tubbs, spouting cheesy one-liners. That’s a movie that I would’ve gladly missed since I know it would’ve been bad. But with the real Miami Vice, I’ll probably end up seeing it out of respect for Mann, and I’ll likely end up disappointed.
Also, speaking of cheesy TV, I caught the opening credits of 90210 on TVTropolis the other day, and was shocked to learn that Sex And The City’s Darren Star was also the creator of 90210. A quick check of IMDB reveals that Star also created Melrose Place to boot.
I nominate Darren Star for first-ballot induction into the men’s wing of the Woman Hall of Fame. Sure, it’s not like he’s come up with any good shows, but think of how much water-cooler conversation and enjoyment he’s created for the ladies over the years. Darren Star, I salute you.
Back-handed compliments aside, I’m sure Darren Star could come up with a great ending for a crime novel, so I shouldn’t talk.
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| Friday, July 21st, 2006
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9:07 pm - Great American Posting Bash #11: Beyond B.O.
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Well, I’ve got a lot of work to do at the park today, and I’m a wee bit strapped for topics. So, I’ll talk about my deodorant.
I recently made the switch to Right Guard anti-perspirant after two years using various brands of Old Spice. The reason? The Spice was causing a rash under my arms, much like how Spice Girl Geri Halliwell probably caused many a rash in more sensitive areas during her glory days in the late 90’s.
The Right Guard was recommended to me by my old pal Dave, and also in a pop culture sense by Hulk Hogan in his “anything less would be uncivilized” ad campaign for the company back in the early 90’s. Dave made sure to specify the difference between a deodorant and an anti-perspirant – whereas my Old Spice covered up the stench of my body odour, the Right Guard would merely keep me from sweating. After sweating so much in the sauna that is Toronto over the last week, I will gladly put up with a little bit of B.O. After all, I can avoid B.O. by simply not moving around much, and given my Dude Lebowski-esque status as one of the laziest men worldwide, that shouldn’t be too hard.
So, I bid you a fond adieu, Old Spice. You served me well, but it was simply time for a change. No hard feelings – I hope that someday we can go out for lunch, and we can catch up without any lingering resentment. I’ll even pick up the tab. Deodorants rarely eat much, anyway. In a related note, if you had rubbed Gandhi under your arms back in the day, he would’ve rid you of the stink of British imperialism.
current music: Lone Ranger theme music
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| Thursday, July 20th, 2006
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7:25 pm - Mark Bueller's Day Off
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The website gives its reporters a day off if the team plays a long, uninterrupted stretch of home games, so I had yesterday off. Ironically, it was on the day when Shea Hillenbrand was essentially kicked off the team. Geez, of all the days to miss....
Anyway, I had a nice day at the house. Went grocery shopping, did some reading, and went online for a bit. My living room is actually really nice – a lovely cool breeze flooded through the comically-large main window, so I was able to sit in comfort.
That evening, I went off to Lori’s for an evening of (deep breath) Canada’s Next Top Model and So You Think You Can Dance. Now I know what you’re thinking. “Mark, clearly spending so much time interviewing half-naked guys in a clubhouse has turned you.” Not at all. It was more a reason to hang out with Lori and her crew (including the legendary Brian Wong), since Tuesday was her birthday. Also, keep in mind that I don’t have any TV at all in my house. It was good to see something, anything, sent through the ol’ cathode ray.
Anyway, Top Model was ridiculous. I’m not a fan of reality shows where I have no idea what goes into the judging, and so my layman opinions end up holding less water than a sieve. The final three girls were all nothing to write home about looks-wise, and the problem was compounded when the photogs and stylists shot them and put them into outfits and makeup that made them look worse, rather than better. Then, the judging panel looks at the photos and critiques the girls on how they posed – but the girls had no input on that! It was the photogs and shoot directors that posed them! Argh!
Man, I’m way too wound up by this show for someone who doesn't care. Anyway, the girl who looked kind of Marilyn Manson defeated the girl who looked normal. I personally know about 90 women who would’ve just destroyed on this show. Hire me as casting director for the next one, CityTV. Not just so I can improve the calibre of contestants, but also because, well, casting models is just a pretty frickin' sweet job.
The dancing show was more entertaining, since everyone was clearly talented but you could still tell which ones were better than others. You could tell that all of the dancers are those peppy, annoying kids that got on your nerves in high school drama class, but still, they were pretty talented. There was one douchebag, a Russian guy, whose main dance move was to continually rip off his shirt at the end of his routine. It’s actually rather a canny move, since they stay on the show due to viewer calls, so obviously he wants to stand out as ‘the hot guy’ and get the horny-teenage-girl demographic working for him. On the downside, he’s a douchebag. And even though Rocky told us all that if he could change, we all could change at the conclusion of Rocky IV, America just isn’t ready to embrace a Russian as a pin-up. Well, except Anna Kournikova, but men will throw away all national rivalries when confronted with a pretty girl. This is why we need to get the Hezbollah leader’s son to fall in love with the Israeli PM’s daughter. This is what happened in Romeo & Juliet, and that ended well!.....wait…..
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| Wednesday, July 19th, 2006
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12:02 am - Who Are The Ad Wizards Who Came Up With This One?
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I have to hand it to the marketing people at 7Up. I was on the Toronto subway yesterday, sweating through another brutally humid afternoon. I get onto the transfer car at Bloor-Yonge, and every single ad on the train (probably 15-20 in total) was for 7Up. The taglines all read things like “It’s getting cooler already,” accompanied by a shot of a crystal-clear 7Up in a tall glass of ice.
Unlike Homer and the clown college billboard, there was no delayed reaction for me: I was instantly hooked. By the time the train got to Union Station, I would’ve gladly killed for a sip of a 7Up. It was the first thing I looked for at the station variety store. The punch line? I don’t even really like 7Up.
This is the power of captive advertising. It plays on your basest instincts while stuck in one place – in this case a crowded, sweaty subway car filled with people with varying degrees of body odour. Just imagine how dangerous such ads would be if put in the wrong hands. If it was a subway car full of, say, NRA ads, you could have a massacre on your hands. God bless Canada’s stringent gun laws! That gun registry was a great idea after all!.......(crickets chirping)
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| Tuesday, July 18th, 2006
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12:09 am - GAPB #8: The Herbie Post!
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Another all-sports entry today. Also, my 53rd post on this board, a.k.a. the Herbie Post. Ah, the Love Bug. Dean Jones may be America's finest actor....or not.
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You know what’s underrated? Being a major league pitcher. These guys are able to toss a small spherical object at speeds of as much as 100 mph with pinpoint control into a zone that is only a few square feet large. Keep in mind that the throwing motion is in itself contrary to the natural motion of the shoulder, so with every single toss (even a soft toss game of catch you play in the backyard), you’re doing something you shouldn’t be doing with your shoulder. And these guys do it dozens of times per week for years upon years.
I really had no point to the previous paragraph. I’m just really impressed by pitchers. I think throwing a baseball is the most impressive thing in pro sports. I’m not being paid by, say, Justin Speier, to say this.
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Hey, the Maple Leafs are acquiring defensemen and grit! Hey, all of them suck! Hey, they’re overpaying Bryan McCabe by at least $2 million! Sure, he was the best Toronto defenceman last year, but that’s like saying you’re the best-looking kid in the fat camp. Players like Mike Peca and Gary Roberts (when he eventually signs) are a good step, but the Leafs are still missing on a key ingredient to any hockey team: TALENT. The Canes and Lightning had loads of gritty veterans like Glen Wesley, Brind’Amour and Andreychuk for their Cup runs, but they were really powered by young stars like Staal, Ward, Richards, Lecavalier and St. Louis. The one bright side of the team this year will be that with Maurice in charge, we’ll get to see if younger players are actually good, since they’ll finally get a chance to play. It’s a nice change from Pat Quinn’s apparent belief that you’re only a good NHL player if you’ve already played in the league for 10 years.
Sigh. The Leafs never fail to discourage me. I seriously think it will be a Red Sox/White Sox or (dare I say it) even a Cubs-esque drought before a Cup parade goes down Yonge Street. I guarantee it doesn’t happen without a change in ownership.
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Also, somewhat related to the Leafs, I’m not a fan of when people play the “my team has more championships” card when discussing favourite teams. When I get into a debate about, say, the Leafs and the Habs, the Montrealer too often falls back on the “Hey, 24 Cups” argument like it’s a denouement as gripping as a Johnnie Cochrane closing statement. Using championships to say why you like a team is like saying that Jurassic Park is your favourite movie, and when someone asks why, you respond with “Hey, $200+ million gross worldwide.”
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| Monday, July 17th, 2006
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7:35 pm - GAPB #7: Jersey Devils
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Just a few weeks away from the Chicago/Milwaukee baseball road trip, and I’m excited. Since I picked up a Roberto Clemente Pirates jersey in Pittsburgh last year, I’m considering starting a collection of baseball jerseys from each city I visit, with each jersey displaying a name of one of the club’s all-time greats. So, on this trip, I might see if I can find a Paul Molitor Brewers jersey, or a Fergie Jenkins Cubs jersey, or a White Sox Shoeless Joe Jackson jersey. Unless the Sox don’t have Shoeless Joe jerseys available due to the Black Sox scandal, which would be understandable but still kind of crappy at the same time. Then again, I don’t think the Sox even had uniform numbers or names on the jerseys back in 1919, so it could be a moot point.
What I should do is ask for a throwback jersey for one of the club’s obscure Hall of Famers. For example, former White Sox starter Ted Lyons was one of the best pitchers of the 30’s and 40’s, but nobody’s ever heard of him today. I should just go into a U.S. Cellular Field memorabilia store and raise hell over the lack of Lyons jerseys. What would the clerks say? I’d have an airtight point. It would be shameful if a team’s own store didn’t have the jersey of one of its greatest players. Then again, Comerica Park doesn’t even sell home Tigers jerseys, which dumbfounded me.
Of course, if I actually got a Ted Lyons jersey and wore it around, I would run the risk of people thinking I was wearing a Steve “Psycho” Lyons jersey. And frankly, I’d rather wear a Zidane jersey through Little Italy than be considered a Psycho Lyons fan.
current mood: enthralled
current music: Jerk It Out, by the Caesars
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| Sunday, July 16th, 2006
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6:48 pm - GAPB #6: Heat Heat Hot
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It is filthy hot in Toronto. It’s an oven. I read somewhere that London is actually the most humid city in Canada due to its location right at the nexus of where the pollution from Detroit, Cleveland and TO can blow in, not to mention all of our own junk that we blast into the air. At least in London I have the air conditioning, whereas here I get to go back to my room that I’ve come to know as ‘the Tomb’ in these last couple of days. Trying to sleep in a tiny room in the back of the third floor of a non-air conditioned house is bruuuuuuuuuuutallllllll, my friends.
My one little desk fan just isn’t enough. I sleep with it on all night, and since the cord isn’t very long, I now sleep curled at the foot of my bed like a cat so I can be at the closest possible point to the cool air. It’s frickin’ ridiculous – I have been reduced to a literal animal state due to this heat.
Just to top things off, the Rogers Centre roof has been open for the past three games, since while it is humid as hell, we’ve had bright and sunny days that have been ostensibly perfect for outdoor baseball. And during these two afternoon outings, the Blue Jays have played TWENTY-FIVE INNINGS against Seattle. That’s right, TWO extra innings games – 14 on Saturday, 11 on Sunday.
Is there a bright side? Well, I’ll get to make another trip to Honest Ed’s, since I’m seriously considering buying a second fan. I had never ventured into Ed’s before, in spite of all my years visiting TO, though my parents took me to his restaurant as a kid. The store is…well, it’s a junk store that sells stuff for low prices. No sense in dressing it up, I guess. I got a bathmat to replace that one that was ruined by our toilet’s feces-infested overflow two weeks ago, and the price was very reasonable.
Another bright side to the heat is that by the end of this homestand, I’ll probably have lost a bunch of weight…water weight, that is. I’ve been sweating like Nathan Lane eating a corndog. By the time you see me next, I’ll be as shriveled as the guy from Thinner.
BTW, the ‘brutal’ reference is a shoutout to a heckler that attended the July 2 Jays/Phillies games. This heckler had the exact same taunt for each Philadelphia player every…single….time… a Phillie came to bat. It was “Hey, Howard! You’re brutal, Howard! You’rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrre BRUTAL!” Occasionally he stretched out the ‘bruuuuutalllllll’ part for variety, but it was nonetheless a monument to human stubbornness. And Philadelphia won that game 11-6, too, so it’s not like they were actually playing in a manner that deserved a constant bashing.
BTW, I can’t believe I just dropped a ‘Thinner’ reference in the year 2006. What a beauty!
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