Damn you Jen... I'm addicted to Rate My Kitten.
Somebody stop me before I rate again.

And then Frank put me on to Summarising a band's career in one sentence.. it's horrendously organized but fun.

The new Exclaim magazine came out this week (with even the timely update of Michael Moore's Oscar win) and they informed that the ex-east-coast supergroup the Superfriendz (Matt of The Flashing Lights, Drew and Charles of Neuseiland) are getting back together.
This... is awesome. The SF are my favorite Canadian band ever... maybe.

Also, apparently both the Who's Robert Townshend and Massive Attack's Robert Del Naja have been cleared of all charges relating to the huge child pornography bust. Of course, it's easier to continue to demonize them then say you're sorry, no?
Ah, the media taint...

1)
Takin ya all the way back to Tuesday on this one.
Walked in to our falafel hut on Queen West, and into the middle of a shouting match between a toothless paintsplattered dude and the high-pitched-voiced Ali Baba dude. Apparently the toothless painsplattered dude lives upstairs from the joint, his heat got shut off, and he was none too happy, so he went into the restaurant's kitchen (which, might I add is highly illegal in food-safety-land) and started arguing with the dude in charge, in this case high-pitched-voice guy.
Then the toothless paintsplattered dude started with a string of slurs and expletives and told the high-pitched-voice guy to go back where he came from and that he was going to get the cops, and the high-pitched-voice guy said he should go get the cops, and the toothless paintsplattered guy stepped out of the place saying he was going to do just that.
The high-pitched-voice guy was flustered.
His assistant, pleasantly innocuous guy just wanted to ignore the whole thing.
Then toothless paintsplattered guy showed up with the bicycle cops (I love those guys in their cool yellow jackets and their Officer's helmets... they ROCK. Seriously. I'm glad they're around.)
Anyway, they came in to diffuse the situation, and much yelling from high-pitched-voice guy, toothless paintsplattered dude and bikecop1 abounded (scaring one customer away, no less). Bikecop2, well, she just looked bemused by the whole situatiion. Meanwhile, pleasantly innocuous guy didn't know what the menu actually said and forgot the falafel.
The best part was when bikecop1 stuck his hand in the penultimate "talk to the hand" style on toothless paintsplattered dude's face to get him to shut up.
The funny thing is, everyone seemed to know Gus, the landlord, except, well, Emma and I. It was interesting.

2)
A kerfuffel (fuffle?) across the street from my window saw a plain clothes cop and a bike courier sitting atop some ripped-jean-shirt wearin dude, slappin the cuffs on him whilst people waiting for the streetcar watched, ignoring the streetcar when it showed up. As the dude with the hurt arm stood up and walked away there was much discussion between the plainclothes and some other dude who kept pointing to his lip. Eventually the guy who kept pointing to his lip calmed down, and the cop uncuffed the ripped-jean-shirt wearin dude (who now that I think of it, looked exactly like Bob from Twin Peaks). (Twin Peaks is awesome). Once the cop uncuffed the ripped-jean-shirt wearin dude, the other pointing at his lip dude got all in ripped-jean-shirt wearin dude's face, and began pointing at his lip again. And then the two guys hugged (seriously) and the plainclothes began to walk away. As the plainclothes walked away, the ripped-jean-shirt wearin dud started after him, to which the pointing at his lip dude started yelling "NO NO NO (pause) NO"
Anyways, walking... well, stumbling actually... away from the scene like two bosom buddies, they disappeared from sight (ie. Jimmy's on the corner).

3)
the 7-11 with the gas station a half-block away is gone. Seriously, it was there on Tuesday. Now... no pumps and the store is empty. Just... vanished.
Too weird.
Emma and I think it's cause they stopped carrying Jones Soda.
I've never seen anything close up and clear out that quickly before though. *shrug*
Wacky times on QW.

if you're a comic geek like me, well, then you'll get this...
if not, well... sorry

Carla has a dislike for Bowling for Columbine, and her points are valid, and this article tearing apart the film are pretty impressive arguments about why the film isn't really all it seems.
I'll agree that Moore has a slant, he doesn't leave the visuals at impartial, and his edits come together to formulate a point... if skewing the footage's original intent.
I can see how some people can see it as a bitter pill but when there are so many people out there bringing the world down, it's really nice to see someone take a chunk out of them for a change... because typically the people that stand up for the underdog are, well, too clean, too big of wimps and too much pussy.
Moore knows how to rally a cause, and he gets people to think by using humour. I shrug at the right-wingers who don't get it, and I shrug at the lefties who get it a little too much. It's crafty, and a little shady, and at time a little flagrant.
However. there are too few Michael Moores in this world, and too many GWBushs, Jeffrey Skilling (Enron), Roger Smiths and Charleton Hestons... people with louder barks and bigger bites.
I found it interesting rereading Adventures in a TV Nation (recapping Moore's short-live mocujournal), specifically at how Moore was willing to admit the beneficial aspects of some companies' heads, and even in some aspects deliver some fairsidedness.
But tear down Moore's work, fine, but dismissing it is doing everyone a disservice. There are so few people that are capable of driving home the words of the little guy to the masses that tearing him down is almost counterproductive.
Bowling for Columbine had a message, and it was highly effective at getting its point across, even if the means by which it did so don't uphold to the scrutiny of journalistic standards. NEWS FLASH... Moore is a filmmaker, not a journalist. He's out to entertain as much as educate. I wonder if he asked to have his film be placed in the documentary catagory? I, for one, still feel it is the best film I saw last year, "documentary" or not...
Blame the academy if you have a problem. Don't blame Moore.
I have seen documentaries that just leave the camera on, without narrative, and you know what: they're boring! The narritive and editing of documentaries lead to storytelling, and a bending of facts to create "factual fiction"... some more factual, some more fictional. It's evident, at least to me, what is honest in a film, and if you sit and believe everything you read, watch or hear then you're as much at fault as the deceiver. Just like this dude's breakdown, I believe about as much of it as I did Bowling for Columbine, because this guy wears his righty-whities on the outside of his trousers.
And, as I always do, I encourage people to see the movie, and read this guys article... and take everything with a grain of salt. Just take it in, think and have your own opinion.
Carla's right. I'm right. Because in opinion land, there is no right or wrong, just right and left.

My Review of Bowling For Columbine
Carla's Review

my darling emma wants me to blog the story of the cat taking a dump in the catbox which I was telling her with grand gusto last night, but well 1) I can't remember the fine details anymore and 2) the explicit hand gestures and body movements that must accompany such a telling do not translate so well across the written word.

So, I'll direct you here where our favorite Accordian Guy regails us with the inner workings of music production studios and an introduction to some of the intricacies of the accordian-as-instrument-rather-than-chick-wooing-prop.
Which reminds me I need to bus the Atom and His Package tunes over to Joey, because I think that Mustache TV would sound awesome on accordian.

As Emma mentioned recently, Jeremy thinks she looks like the Philadelphia Cream Cheese lady.

I tried looking her up, knowing that I'd seen her elsewhere before, but searching for "Philadelphia Cream Cheese lady" didn't yeild much result. I had remembered seeing her in an episode of Made in Canada, so I hopped over to TV Tome and began perusing the list of guest stars.

Lo and behold, there she was, Linda Kash, Second City alumnus and costar in many of the Ernest films with Jim Varney.

But the question is, does she look like my girlfriend?

I'm notgoing to dare put a side by side photo, but, hey, all the links to pictures are below... heh.

Meanwhile, I came across this thing which gives you a listing of those people who appeared in those commercials you may have seen, and you can organize by actor or company. Kinda neat, if a little low on content.
I did find out that that dude from the Crispy Crunch commercials I saw on the street last week has an actual name: Christian Potenza

schools
Bookfair Murders
More Bookfair Murders
Bookfair
Eye article

Living in the big smoke you're bound to get your share of wrong numbers, I know I've had mine, including the brilliant "we have no hot water" series of '01 wherein not one but two different people from a filing company on Bloor Street called in to complain that they had no hot water.
But today, today I have my new all-time favorite. Someone from FIDO cellular phone services was calling to give the person 20 minutes of free airtime (calling a land line to give a cellular customer free airtime... novel).. but the kicker: the guy's name is, get this, CHEWY FUNG.
Ain't that a blip.
Awesome man.
From now on, if anyone says Chewy Fung around me, I'm throwing my arms up in the air and saying CHEWY FUNG!
Good thing there wasn't a "Gus" tacked onto the end of that... hehehe.
(not to mention I am chewbaccaATsaunaDOTorg

clickit

So there's a reason or three why I don't normally host parties.
Reason a) being that in the past my circle of friends consited of different people I knew from different places that really didn't gel together too well
Reason b) being that people don't normally show up
and reason c) being that I fret too much for the enjoyment of my guests and wind up not having a good time myself.

But *almost* all that changed this weekend. I invited many friends off the GTA-Blogger list to come crash at Queen West Sunday evening for a most informal Oscar party (I had heard through the grapevine that some people do this). Now, of course, my friends (those that have known me for some time) were all like "dude, you totally don't dig award shows, especially the Oscars because they don't mean jack squat, and they're just gratuitous ass patting and really serve no other purpose than but to say 'look at us, we are important only because of this statuette'."

It's true I did used to say such things in my more activist days, but those days of three weeks ago are far behind me and it was high time to start living Toronto up New York style. Wait... that's not right.

Really, it was a last minute plan. There was a Röyksopp concert, people said "we should have an Oscar party" and I said "I'll ask Emma" and Emma said "do I have to do any work" and I said "nope" and she said "alrighty" and I said "cool" and I sorta dawdled on it for a few days until tuesday when I wrote up the invites and sent them out forgetting some key points and key people which Emma reminded me about and really I felt bad and sat around waiting for the RSVPs to trickle in.

Which they did. By Friday there were seven Yeahs and seven nays with subsequent Yeahs turning into Nays and sadly no Nays into Yeahs, but some Yeahs into Noshohs by the big day which was okay because they were kind enough to write, the sweet, sweet sweet bastards.

Come the weekend I was all jazzed up to go shopping, pick up a fresh tank of propane from Hank at Strickland (aka Home Depot)as we're having a BYOM (bring your own meat) party, some Jones Soda from Costco, and some booze from ye olde booze place.

Well, friday was a pain as cash was tight as was time and we got to costco just at 8:30pm when it closed (oops) so we zoomed over to homer deport and picked up a canister of the explosive juice... which was a might more expensive than i thought it would be, but hell, a can of propane lasts at least 3 months so it's worth the little bit.

I had to begrudgingly work on Saturday, and after 12 trips of biking during the week (having not biked since October) nelly, I was fatigued. But I kept on truckin'. Saturday we had the Liz over for lasagna and a hair dye, as well as the ever addictive Trading Spaces and perhaps the even more addictive What Not To Wear (seriously). Whoops, didn't get out.

So sunday saw another journey to the mysterious Costco where there was nary a case of Jones soda to be found, but yet they had packages of 5 Canisters of Pringles for $5!!! So, along with two of them, plus a crate of the creepy Orangina (thanks to carla for introducing me to this nugget of orange juice meets perrier combo in the stylin bottles) and an 8pack of 35mm 400 Kodak for emma an the toy camera craze ("did you buy me a new lomo to go with it" she asks...)

Upon returning home, it was time to clean up the dust bunnies and do some industrial grade mopping and other assorted cleaning tasks (unfortunately the heaping stack of laundry waited until today). The place smelled pine fresh and I realized I forgot the booze, so it was a hop skip and normal paced walk down to the alcohol district for some fine Finnish "Finlandia" Vodka (the only kind, of course Gary will now probably inform me that Finlandia is actuall not made in finland, but anyway) so that night we could make "screwdrivers in a bottle" or something wicked.

Emma decided to make cushions while Graig made photocopies of the "You Pick Your Oscar" sheet (because apparently I told people there would be this little competition and a prize at the end... wait for it).

New to the Sauna family, Jen was first on the scene with veggies and doughnuts and some meat for the barbee, which i torched up... soon Jeremy was in the hizzie with fresh Krispy Kreme (booya) and dinner was served. Liz was back again for a repeat engagement with some Vanilla Coke, and Josie lobbed a sweet strawberry rhubarb pie (which she was right, did make a good breakfast) our way.

The evening was fun, the flickering between mocking Joan Rivers and mocking CNN's war coverage, and some serious question-your-manhood dissing of women's dresses, and of course, the Michael Moore thing... oh, and Eminem sneaking a definite upset over the stodges like Paul Simon and the other folks who decided to show up.

So of the Guess the Oscars, Jeremy one with an impressive 12 correct, taking home his fabulous prize (picture coming soon).
And now, sleep, because after the gang left, we realize Trading Spaces was on AGAIN (until 2am...oops)

Michael Moore's acceptance speech

On behalf of our producers Kathleen Glynn and Michael Donovan from Canada, I'd like to thank the Academy for this.

Thank you very much.