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I went to a friend’s house last night to eat pizza, drink beer and watch a coupla dvds. While we were eating the pizza, we flipped through the channels and were forced to stop at YTV and watch the spectacle before us. “Forced”, by the sheer oddity and spectacle of the show that was airing. It was an episode of The Powerpuff Girls, a cartoon I enjoy whenever I happen to watch it with my son (when he happens to watch it), that was presented as a musical. It was the trippin’est thing I’ve seen in a long, long time. Very “Hair”ish and psychedelic in style, with a Jack Black-type villain and lots of way-out songs and lyrics. A total “what the f&*%” trip for the kids, I’d guess. For us, too, for that matter. A pleasant surprise.
We then turned our attention to Rock and Roll High School. This is a movie that I wanted to see for a while. It revolves around a group of clean-cut 1979 era high school kids try to keep the evil principal from eliminating rock and roll from their school and their lives. Some good stuff in the movie, some pretty lame stuff, all surrounded by tons of tunes from The Ramones. It was like a 1950’s teen rebel movie infused with a punk attitude.
Next up was Ichi, the Killer. Very violent and very sado/masochistic. A Japanese flick about gangsters who take pleasure and pride in inflicting pain and having pain inflicted on them. While most of the violence was over-the-top, a couple of scenes did make me squirm, which was good. Interesting and somewhat disturbing, that while most of the violence against men was over-the-top, the violence against women was more rooted in reality.
Some pretty cool, interesting visuals, but the main thing about the movie is the extreme violence. Worth watching if you’ve got a stomach for it. On the Internet Movie Database, a user’s comment sums it up pretty well: “Snuff film for cowards”.

Currently, critics are climbing all over each other, each clamoring that they were the THE apostle who first wrote the scripture claiming Franz Ferdinand as the saviour of popular music. While the band is fantastic, and you should go find their album right now, they are too ‘of the moment’ to be taken seriously as the band that will save music.

There needs to be a science behind the claim. In steps Dr. David Thorpe with a very scientific method to determine exactly who might just be our Rock’n’Roll Saviour.

The results of his science are shocking, but perhaps, accurate. I’ll not divulge the results here, but if this saviour does pan out, I hereby claim myself to be a Rock’n’Roll Atheist.

Meantime, on this day of Irish celebration, go and seek out the fantastic music of Scottish phenoms Franz Ferdinand.

I’m a fan of the Lego stop-motion genre of film-making. My son and I have even produced a couple of short Lego films, and if I had more web-space, and/or was more comfortable in my knowledge of how to do so, I’d offer them up for you.

I came across a link for what is, by far, the best Lego movie I’ve ever seen. It’s a close-to-shot-by-shot reproduction of Michael Jackson’s video “Thriller”. It’s a little blurry, but it’s good.

You can download it here. The site is in German, and you have to scroll down near the bottom to find the download link. I’m not sure how big the file is, but it’s definately worth it.

There is a television ad that is airing now. I believe it is advertising a van (maybe it’s a car?).

———
Doorbell rings, mid-40’s man answers the door. At the door is his cool 1980’s self, come to the present to see what the hell happened to him. He’s so square now. He’s so not cool. He’s —
–wait a minute, a van (car?) has pulled up and a woman gets out and starts taking groceries out of the back seat.

This sight of this lovely vision stops 80’s guy in mid-rant. Is he excited about the vehicle, or the woman, obviously his future-wife?
Now, what I noticed right away (and this may be a character flaw on my part) was the rather large behind on the woman. Not fat, but very J-Lo. A big bottom. This size of this bottom cannot be an accident, I think to myself. It is definately big enough to not be an accident. An ass like this can only get into an ad on purpose.
But why would they want a big-assed woman in the ad?

80’s guy runs over to vehicle, looks in the back, where the groceries are, and I believe his only comment regarding the vehicle is a too-excited “Big backseat!!”

…he read on the screen at the movie theatre. Movie cost for 2 adults, 1 child: $25.50. Snack purchases cost: approximately $20.

Piracy, indeed.

…he read on the screen at the movie theatre. Movie cost for 2 adults, 1 child: $25.50. Snack purchases cost: approximately $20.

Piracy, indeed.

On what date will the temperature at Charlottetown next reach +10C or higher?

I’m going on record as saying Friday, March 19th will be the next day that the temperature reaches +10.

What say you?

Sometimes little things amuse me to no end.
Just finished reading the rehash of last week’s The Apprentice at the very funny Television Without Pity. Or was it PlanetSocks? Either way, both are very entertaining sites that present often sarcastic, always funny recaps of recently aired television programs. Sometimes the recaps can be upwards of 15 pages long. (They often go into minute details of observation)

The Apprentice is a ‘reality’ program where a group of business people vie against each other for what is apparently the creme de la creme of business life: a job working for Donald Trump. (personally, I’d prefer a job *not* working for Donald Trump, that is, where the job is ‘not working’). Anyway, one of the most annoying contestants was a woman called Amarosa, but she got fired last week. The little thing that amused me to no end was that the recapper continually calls her “Assorama” instead of Amarosa.

I wish I had thought of that.

If you’re interested, check out the Survivor recaps too. Pretty entertaining.

I completely understand why people can’t stand curling. To the uninitiated or uncaring, it must seem like the most utterly boring sport on television.
But I absolutely love watching it. If you know, or care, about what’s going on, it’s an incredibly nuanced and subtle sport. It can be incredibly exciting, if you know what you’re watching.
Granted, I only watch the major tournaments, can’t be bothered with those skin tourneys they televise over the winter. The best curling, by far, is the Brier, which is happening this week. The curling here, on average, is far superior to the world championships where the quality of teams is more inconsistent.
Being an Island boy, I always root for PEI, of course. And, except for last year’s Scott tourney, am always disappointed by the results. However, last night, with PEI completely out of the running with a 1-and-whatever record, I found myself cheering for Newfoundland to beat PEI in a close, high-scoring game. This is the first time I can recall wishing another province’s team would beat ours. Why? I really like the NL team, and they’re right in the hunt for top spot.

So, go Newfoundland! You’re what PEI would be, if PEI had a sense of humour.

Anyone who saw the incident must agree that Todd Bertuzzi should be penalized for his actions. The question is, of course, to what extent.
Hockey is the toughest, most demanding team sport going. The challenge is this: how to let the game unfold in a competitive way without the rules getting too much in the way of the inherent physicality of the game?
Because it is such a tough, physical game, it’s expected that tempers will flair on occasion. There must be strict and stern policies in place to ensure that the players understand the penalties for violations out of the ordinary; for flairing tempers. I believe that the NHL has, over the last number of years to, failed to adhere to, and enforce, these policies in any meaningful way.
It comes down to the basic philosophy of officiating. I think it’s natural for the players to try to get away with whatever they’re allowed to get away with. Because the league is too worried about the repercussions of over-enforcing even the basic rules of the game, sticks have been getting perpetually higher, constantly hovering around opponent’s faces, forever hooking without getting penalized. Checking from behind that sometimes gets called, many times not.
If the most basic rules are being broken, unchallenged, then how in the world would the officials dare to enforce more flagrant fouls? I believe this is a mentality that has, subconsciously, entered into the game.
It all leads up to Todd Bertuzzi, on the losing end of a 9-2 game, losing his sense of reason momentarily and blind-side-sucker-punches the player who hurt his teammate a number of games ago. They both fall to the ice, others jump on, and it’s a free-for-all of mayhem.
Yes, it was premeditated. Yes, it was wrong, and yes, he should be penalized severely. I think he should be suspended for the rest of the season, including the playoffs. I think he should get the same charges brought against him as were brought against McSorley a couple of years ago. He should not get jail time.
I blame Bertuzzi for doing what he did. But I also blame the NHL for allowing a game-atmosphere to exist in which such an action can enter into the mind of one of its players and be acted upon without thought of penalty. If it’s a given before-hand that such an action would result in a year long suspension, the punch never would have happened.

Side note. I just watched the Bertuzzi apology on TSN. It’s pretty clear that the guy is pretty devastated at what he did. The worst thing about the press conference though, was whenever the teary-eyed Bertuzzi moved his hand to wipe away a tear, a thousand cameras clicked, looking for tomorrow’s newspaper photo. His hand goes down, silence from the cameras. Hand goes up to wipe his nose, a thousand clicking cameras. Hand down, silence. I found that sound to be sickeningly invasive, even in such a public forum as a press conference.