I'm Moving

I'm moving to WordPress. Thanks Slopmaster.

The Nuggets/Knicks Brawl: My Take

The Nuggets' Carmelo Anthony received the largest of all the suspensions handed out over this brawl. That's a friggin' shame. After his teammate (Smith) was rushed to ground by the Knicks' Collins, Smith was surrounded by opponents. The first of the Nuggets to arrive in the scrum was Carmelo Anthony. He was nowhere near the play, but ran to be a teammate. He ran to defend his team's honour.

Carmelo Anthony is one of four top tier players to come out of the LeBron James sweepstakes (a.k.a. the 2003 draft). During the last off-season, James, Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh all resigned with their respectives teams for three year deals. 'Melo re-upped with the Denver Nuggets for five years. He showed then as he showed this past weekend that he wants to be the captain of his team. By getting in that fight, he has said to his team and their fans "Get on my back boys! I'm climbing this mountain and I'll carry all eleven men if I have to!"

But Carmelo Anthony is going to be suspended for 15 games because he has the image of that of a thug. Oooh, he appeared in a rap video, lock 'em up and throw away the key, right. Wrong! The NBA does not like Carmelo Anthony because of his image and will use any excuse to hamper his ability to be a product of the NBA. He doesn't fit the smiling image the NBA wants to produce. The NBA likes the funny adverts from LeBron and the always laughing Shaq and the humble smile of Dwayne Wade. But, if Drew Gooden got in a fight, would LeBron come a runnin', I don't know. What I do know, is that when a Denver Nugget is pushed, Carmelo pushes back.

Fifteen games, bah! The only thing Carmelo should get is a 'C' stiched on his jersey and a small team only ceremony after practice. The man's a teammate, a captain, a leader, not a thug.

Weekend Re-cap: Fat Fat Fatty Fatty Fat Fat

Friday

I have to stop going to Popeyes. I ate so much food. I just dumped all the food onto one plate. I just sat there and looked at the pile of food. It was a mountain of deep fried food. I ate it all. This was a sick amount of food.

Saturday

I was still stuffed from all the Popeyes chicken from the night before so I just sat around the house, did some laundry, nothing exciting.

With Bob out of town, I pretty much had nothing to do so I called up the Wonder Twins. The three of us went out for dinner. Yes, more food. I can't stop eating. This is not good. The food was good.

After dinner, we sat around and watched a bunch of How I Met Your Mother reruns. That's a funny show.

Sunday

I put on some Looney Tunes DVDs and ran a bit on the treadmill. I am finally getting back to my exercises. I can't afford to keep buying new pants every six months because I continue to expand. I also turned down the potatos at dinner. Gotta do something about this gut.

Went to the Promenade shopping mall in the afternoon. I remember when that was one of the nicest malls around. Now, its a dump. You know those stores that pop up at Christmas time. They sell things like calendars and lame board games and other crap like that. They usually inhabit a mall location that would otherwise be vacant due to the previous tenant closing down. Promenade had at least three of these stores. Which means at least three vacant stores after Christmas. What a dumpy mall. Its still less of a dump than Hillcrest Mall, but for how much longer?

Juice came by before dinner and we put up the Christmas lights on one tree in the front yard. See yesterday's post for a really lame photo montage.

Juice Lights A Tree

Juice putting up the string of lights on one of the trees in my front yard. Juice said he really likes the photo because you cannot make out who he is due to my poor photography.

Here's Juice admiring his work.

Juice leaves the tree, his work is done.

We later noticed that all the lights were on one side of the tree so we took down all the lights and did it again. This is the only usable photo I took of the completed tree. Besides, it was getting nippy outside.

Assholes, Blogger Beta & The R.A.Q.

Assholes

Let me get this out of the way, I'm an asshole. But I try to give complete strangers the benefit of the doubt and not give them too much attitude.

Yesterday, I was running around like a chicken with its head cut off but I did manage to stop by the local Wendys for a little lunch. I walked in there and saw the little maze thing empty. You know that little maze they make you walk through to order. There was one guy placing an order and another guy way off to the side just sort of standing around looking around the restaurant. When that first guy got his order, the nice young lady working at the register asked me "Can I help you?" I knew she was talking to me because she gave me the usual smile she gives me and she looked right at me.

This second guys says out loud "Number one!"

I say to him, "I'm sorry, I didn't know you were in line, please go ahead."

"Well you saw me standing right here!" This guy muttered with quite a bit of attitude.

Well of course I saw him, I saw him standing off to the side, making it obvious to me and the people working at Wendys that he wasn't in line, otherwise why would the lady working the register ask to help me.

Friggin' asshole.

When I get back to the office, still muttering under my breath about that asshole I open up the sandwich wrapper. I had to just sink my teeth into my lunch. Wendys messed up my order. I ate the fries, drank the coke, took one bite of the sandwich and threw the rest of it in the garbage. Let the rats eat it.

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Blogger Beta Blows

Try to say that three times fast.

I'm not the first to rail against Blogger Beta but I'm going to join in the festivities. Earlier today, or maybe last night, I don't remember, I tried to comment on this interesting blog I was reading and it wouldn't accept my submission. Rawbean has posted in her blog that she had a similar problem. So it can't be just me. I even tried posting anonymously and it still wouldn't let me.

Boo Blogger Beta, boooo!

Slopmaster Tales has moved to wordpress so I might take a good hard look at that service.

I guess what I'm trying to say is DON'T USE THE BETA!

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R.A.Q.

R.A.Q.?
Recently Asked Questions.
Oooooohhhh...

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Rawbean wrote re. "Weekend Re-cap: The Entish Are Coming ":

Who are the twins?

Bob offered an answer:

I am going to blow your mind... what if I told you the "wonder twins" aren't actually twins!?!

Thanks for the effort Bob, as you are the furry blue monkey in this photo... Actually, the Wonder Twins are a couple of friends of mine who aren't actually twins. They're boyfriend/girlfriend or husband/wife or something like that. I just couldn't think of a better handle to use for them on the blog. I think Wonder Twins is the best handle I'll ever think of for them. I never seem to see them seperate from each other. And, they have this habit of changing into gay fog clouds and shit like that. They are also useless in terms of heroics when seperate. As I was being ravaged by the tree last Friday, Zan (male?) could do nothing to save me.

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Bob wrote re. "Usual Tuesday Morning Post - Bob, You Must Read This!":

Do you still enjoy watching Nip/Tuck and Sopranos?

The Sopranos: maybe the show has lost its edge or maybe its because I know you like it; but I am less interested in the show. Nip/Tuck was much cooler before you started thinking Christian Troy was all cool and shit. Boy am I glad you don't watch The Simpsons.

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Miss Ash wrote re. "Usual Tuesday Morning Post - The David Bowie Christmas Gift Guide":

David Bowie makes me tingle :)

Not a question but a good point none-the-less. And it got me thinking. A 1920s British telephone booth might be kinda pricey. I've seen replicas of similar booths sell for well over a thousand dollars. I imagine a copy of Ziggy Stardust on 8 Track would probably be a bit cheaper. Other Bowie titles on 8 Track are available on eBay for less than ten bucks. And 8 Tracks are cool.

JP Breaks The Bank For Wells

I just heard that the Toronto Blue Jays offered Vernon Wells a seven year contract worth $126,000,000. That's alotta cheese. Also included in the offer was an 80' yacht, a mansion, 7 harem wives, a pair of new shoes, an autographed Roy Halladay game used baseball, a bowl of spaghetti, a gift certificate for Blockbuster video and an I Heart Toronto bumper sticker

Sources: unconfirmed

Avatars, Teenage Wildlife & Metal

I found this photo on the Signs of the Week blog (link on the sidebar, funny stuff if you haven't checked it out yet). I'm not sure what the sign is supposed to mean. It probably means "Cut out the peeing around here," but I think it's funnier if the sign means "Peeing here will result in a brutal castration." Or maybe it just means "Cut that out." Or maybe it's an accuracy and timing game. You see, what if these giant scissors came down from the sky and opened and closed like some mini-golf hazard and you had to try to get the urine in between the scissors.

The more I look at this picture trying to think of funny things to write, the more I cringe thinking about a giant pair of scissors suspended in mid-air in front of my weiner.

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Yahoo! Avatars

So, I've been fooling around with the Yahoo! Avatars and I have come to a bunch of conclusions.

Conclusion One: Everyone looks Asian. No matter how you change the face, it always looks Asian. Even the very dark skinned faces look like dark skinned Asians. Don't get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with looking Asian, but I'm not Asian.

Conclusion Two: Not enough plus size options. I'm a hefty guy and I'm proud of it!

Conclusion Three: Too many weird locales and not enough normal locales.

Conclusion Four: Yahoo! has made the Avatar application different for the Canadian version of Yahoo! I am sick and tired of getting watered down versions of things just because I'm Canadian!

So, here's me, if I was an Asian guy in a high rise office. Notice the skinny broad in the background walking away from me. See, even in an avatar, I repel the ladies.

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David Bowie & Teenage Wildlife

I've been going through one of my Bowie-binges recently. I've took Scary Monsters and put the disc on random. Or I've put all of Bowie on shuffle when listening to my iPod. Inevitably, I've always ended up on the tune Teenage Wildlife. Is that a wicked song or what? I love the lead guitar on that track. Turns out it was played by Robert Fripp of King Crimson fame.

Last night I learned that Bowie recently played a part in the film The Prestige. I've never been a fan of Bowie as an actor but this role I've got to see. Apparently he plays Nikola Tesla. Which due to the name association with my favourite rock band, has become my favourite inventor. Oh yeah, the guy invented the radio. I think that's pretty darn cool.

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Metal

No not the hard stuff, the really hard stuff. I finally saw Metal: A Headbanger's Journey, the 2005 documentary about heavy metal music and its fans. This was a really interesting film. And not just because you, the viewer, get to see Ronnie James Dio stand shoulder to er wrist with a couple of guys (I knew he was short but damn is he short) but you also get to see Dio tell a bunch of Gene Simmons jokes.

Seriously, this was one of those films you watch in one shot without realizing 90 minutes has gone by. It doesn't go into too much depth about the origins and roots of metal (darn) but it does offer a bit of explaination towards many of the misconceptions of metal. I loved the part with the interview of the 13 year old girl talking about how metal allows her to be different from everyone else then the camera changes to a shot of a lineup of people who all look identical to her. So metal allows her to be different, it just isn't a requirement. The part where Alice Cooper was likening black metal to Spinal Tap was hilarious too.

This movie allowed me to be both entertained in terms of comedy and in terms of some really good music. Now I know which record I'm missing. I still have to get Ace of Spades.

Well, what do you know? The internet is a great place to get tunes. Thank you Apple for making iTunes.

Usual Tuesday Morning Post

Coffee break time at work which means a couple of things: one, a bagel; two, a tea; and three, me writing about what I saw on television last night.

Bob, You Must Read This!

Why don't you watch The Class? Okay, yes I know, you've answered this question before. But, you do watch a lot of television. What's one more half hour show? I know you record each episode of How I Met Your Mother; The Class is on right after it. Just keep your PVR or DVD-Recorder or whatever it is that you use to record television running for another half hour on Monday nights. That's what I do!

Actually, my real reason for wanting you to watch the show is as follows: once you (I mean you Bob) like something, I can't like it as much anymore. Therefore, you can stop me from watching it by watching it yourself. Take Scrubs for example. I loved it, then you said you loved it too. Now I feel guilty everytime I watch Scrubs. I feel like I shouldn't be watching it anymore. I need you to help me not watch The Class anymore.

Christmas Shopping For Both Sinners and Saints

I did some more Christmas shopping last night. It's official, I've gone over budget this year. Not by much, just by a smidge. And I've still got one gift left to get. Then that's it. I don't care if the Pope visits on Christmas Eve, he ain't getting squat from me. No that's not true, I'll probably get him a little Garfield doll with suction cup hands to put in his Popemobile. I know what you're all thinking: the Jesus doll with the suction cup hands is a better idea. But he's the Pope, don't you think he gets about a million little Jesus dolls a year. Gotta think about this kind of thing if you find out the Pope is visiting.

As for the Christmas shopping that I did last night, I decided to try one of those power centres in Woodbridge (pronounced wooda-bridge). I was a bit baffled. If you walk from store to store, you cannot actually see the stores name. Their is this covered walkway and the sign is above the walkway. Therefore, I could not see the name of the store I was looking for. I could have just looked through the window but that didn't work. I was looking for HMV and I saw this store with a bunch of video games in the front window. So I walked by it. Turns out, it was HMV. Since when did HMV start selling video games. When I went in there I noticed they weren't just selling the games, but the systems too.

In the store, under the Bowie header card, only one copy of Ziggy, no Aladdin Sane, no Station, no Scary Monsters. How are people supposed to buy Bowie's best records if the stores don't carry them? Especially at Christmas time, nothing makes a better gift than some good ol' David Bowie.

The David Bowie Christmas Gift Guide

Here is a list of Bowie gift ideas. Not gifts for Bowie, but gifts for people in a Bowie theme.

• For the uninitiated - Best of Bowie (or any other Bowie greatest hits package.)
• For the initiated - Scary Monsters.
• For the person who always wears headphones - The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars
• For the angry intellectual - Diamond Dogs
• For the computer nerd - an Earthling mousepad.
• For people who like the colour pink - an A Reality poster.
• For the person who still's stuck in that retro fad - Let's Dance.
• For Disco Stu - Young Americans.
• For the really obsessive fan - a British telephone booth (red K2 series).
• For people who don't like David Bowie - a swift kick in the ass.
• For the tree huggin' hippy - a charitable donation to Amnesty International.

Weekend Re-cap: The Entish Are Coming

Friday

I took the Wonder Twins out for dinner. But first I had to pick them up. While walking through the parking lot at Fairview Mall, I crossed this wooded boulevard. On this boulevard was a leafless tree. a tree that attacked me. This one branch had two small limbs that went straight for my head. If I wasn't wearing glasses, the darn thing would have blinded me. It knocked the glasses clear off my head and it spun me half around. Damn leafless trees. Someone oughta caught these things done and make some paper.

Dinner was Milestones in Scarborough. I'm not a big fan of the food there. Actually, I don't like much about that restaurant. The ambience, the service, the prices, the attitude; just not the type of restaurant with which I would like to give my patronage.

Saturday

I finally got Fatal Racing to run properly on a newer machine. DosBox has been unable to run this game at a decent rate. This time I tried Microsoft Virtual PC. I installed FreeDos on the virtual machine with the hope of running either Fatal Racing in FreeDos or installing Windows 98 on top of the FreeDos. Neither seemed to work. Fatal Racing would not start in FreeDos and the Windows 98 installer kept telling me it required 16MB of RAM. I put 96 MB on the virtual machine. I don't understand why it didn't work. Out of desperation I double-clicked the FATAL.EXE and the program just ran. But without sound. That was weird, my old Windows XP machine would not run the game at all. To get the sound to run, I installed the most recent version of VDM Sound. Now the game runs perfectly.

Tried to do some Christmas shopping in the afternoon but I didn't really have any inspiration. Outside the LCBO, I walked around trying to find my car. I knew I had parked in between a couple of huge SUVs but I couldn't remember where in the parking lot that was so I ended up just walking around pressing the remote control button hoping to hear my car beep. In my utter distaste for all things social (I don't know why but I was in a foul mood) I went to Popeyes and picked up a lot of food.

Sunday

I had this idea to do some Christmas shopping at Yorkdale, but at the earliest possible moment. I got there around 10:30AM. I actually found a parking spot that was close to an entrance to the mall. Shway. I found some interesting stuff for certain people. Everybody else is gonna get gift cards. This year I added a new store to my pocket full of Christmas cheer. Welcome the den of heroine chic and overpriced beetlejuice clothes, H & M.

When I got home, it was time to wrap the gifts. Boy am I lousy at wrapping gifts. And the wrapping paper I used is sort of see through. It's that Ikea brand Julen. If you look closely you can kind of see through it. What's the point of wrapping paper if it doesn't properly conceal the gift.

I'm No Charlie Brown

Found this and thought it was absolutely bitchin' so I stole the code from Televisionary. He is the specific post I stole it from: I'm No Charlie Brown.

Six Reasons Why Penguins Are Better Than Ewoks

6. Penguins taste better in tempura sauce.

5. Feathers are easier to clean than muppet felt.

4. Regardless of how many Star Wars nerds are out there on the Internet, I don't see any operating systems with Ewok logos.

3. Ewoks can be quite troublesome, mischeavous and sometimes, yes, annoying.

2. Penguins is practicaly chickens.

1. Tuxedo, loin cloth. Tuxedo, loin cloth. 'nuff said.

Seeing People Out of Context

Yesterday at the Microsoft launch, I ran into a person I regularly saw while working at this video rental store whilst working my way through college. This gentleman named Philip came upto me towards the end of the launch party to offer me his extra drink tickets. He didn't come upto me because he remembered me, I was just the closest person to him at that very moment. I just sort of stared at the guy. Hey, you're the tech guy at Hollywood right? It had probably been about four years since I've seen this guy. We did our little catching up. What have you been doing? This is what I've been doing. Blah blah blah. It's surprising to see people that you haven't seen in years but you've always had a good relationship with.

Today, as I was getting some stuff out of the van at work, some guy comes upto me to ask if I have any jumper cables. Canpar, Dave. It's me, from Splash. Another person I haven't seen in years. Before working at the video store, I was working in this warehouse doing all the shipping and receiving. So I was always meeting people in the delivery business. Dave was the guy who drove the trailor for Canpar with which my company hired to do most of the deliveries. I saw this guy five days a week until I quit my job to go back to school.

What are the odds of seeing two people out of context in consecutives days? And for the reasons of which I saw these two people. The first was just looking for the closest person to give something away as quickly as possible, the other was just walking through an industrial parking lot trying to find someone who might have jumper cables. I turned down the drinks tickets as I wasn't even going to use mine, but I did have jumper cables. My van doesn't like to start on certain days.

Essential 50 TV on DVD Sets

A couple of critics have compiled a list of the top 50 TV on DVD sets. Of the ones on the list, here's the condensed version. By condensed version, I mean the ones on the list I actually agree with. By agree with, I mean the ones on the list I own.

• Chappelle's Show - Season Two
• Friends = Season Two
• Police Squad - Complete Series
• Sopranos - Season One
• The Simpsons - Season Four
• Late Night With Conan O'Brien - The Best of Triumph the Insult Comic Dog
• Black Adder - Complete Series

I was very surprised to see Black Adder on the list. It pleases me greatly to see others are appreciating one of the finest television programs ever filmed. I would have chosen season three of Sopranos instead of season one. I also would have put some Newsradio on the list. Truly one of the great under-appreciated sitcoms.

Read the complete list yourself and see what else the writers may have missed.

Sources: TVShowsOnDVD, Minneapolis - St. Paul Star Tribune

Ready For A New Day

This post was generated by a tool.

Ready for a new day? I sure wasn't! And neither were the presenters. I went to the combined launch of three new Microsoft systems: Windows Vista, Office 2007 and Exchange Server 2007. A bunch of what I saw reeked of unpreparedness.

The products I saw that I was unable to see completely due to unpreparedness for the presentation:

• Telephone access to the Outlook Calendar can be finicky when recogonizing the user's voice.
• I/O can be problematic without the proper permissions. Generally this is not an issue for a home machine, but it should definetely not be an issue when you're trying to present it to three thousand people.
• Notepad had to be used to bypass security issues involving implementing snippets of code. You shouldn't need Notepad when you've got VIsual Studio 2005.

There was this one really neat thing. Now a programmer can create Word and Excel documents without actually having a copy of Word or Excel. The actual Word documents these days are actually ZIP files containing XML documents. Using Windows Explorer, the user can view the individual components of the Word document as XML files. Really neat. Office suite applications can now be modified programmatically. Super neat.

As for the look and feel of Vista. The gadgets are just like widgets on Apple's OS X. The visual interface makes use of 3D graphic cards which doesn't really do anything for business apps, but will force people to upgrade more than just memory to get their existing PC to run it.

As for Exchange Server, I didn't see much of it because I stayed in the developer conferences. Most of what I saw was with Visual Studio and the new extensions for use with Office.

As for the swag, it was pathetic. So if anybody wants a time limited beta trial of Microsoft Forefront, I got one that I'm not planning on installing.

1984 Is Alive On AM Radio

This afternoon I was listening to the John Moore Show on CFRB 1010. A popular show on a popular radio station. The host John Moore was interviewing Dee Snider and Mark Mendoza from the rock band Twisted Sister. You may remember them from the early '80s with hits like We're Not Gonna Take It and I Wanna Rock. They were in town promoting their new Christmas album.

The interview meandered, as interviews sometimes do, to how the band was influenced by Arnold Schwarzenegger and how he eventually used one of their songs in his campaigns. During this part of the interview, someone broke into an Arnold impersonation. Right in the middle of this impersonation I could hear some sounds in the background, muffled by not being right in front of a microphone. That is very uncommon on radio. The muffled voice was very masculine and I distinctly heard the word "brother." It was Hulk Hogan! He was crashing the interview!

The Twisted Sister interview dissolved into a series of anecdotes about how Hulk Hogan and Twisted Sister first met. This was the best five minutes of radio I have ever heard. And I've heard myself on the radio talking up The Musical Box.

Weekend Re-cap: Now With More Mellotron

Friday

I did very little. I relaxed and went to bed early.

Saturday

Took the car for spin in the afternoon. Went down to the DVD store. In there Juice calls me up. Let's make reservations for a restaurant. It took some time and help to get those reservations first. I thought Baton Rouge was a good idea but they didn't have any openings until 8:00. With the show starting at 8:00, I had to find another place. Seeing as how this all happened at DVD Wave, the sales associate opened up a browser window for me and offered a suggestion, Cielo, an Italian restaurant. The reservations were for between six and seven. But between Juice being late and a whole mess of traffic, we didn't get down to Dundas Square until quarter to eight. The Musical Box started at eight. So we skipped dinner and went straight to the show.

At the concert, it was me, obviously, Juice, Juicette and [I'll think of a handle later]. Me and Juice, seen this show a whole bunch o' times. Juicette was introduced to Genesis by Juice but didn't really absorb to much of it. [I'll think of handle later] strikes me as the kind of guy who is open to trying music that many would consider odd, weird or out-right silly. But before the show, Juicette said that there are a couple of Phil Collins songs she likes. We all just looked at her and snickered a bit. We really shouldn't have but we couldn't help ourselves.

The show itself, another amazing performance. Could have used more taurus pedal. No performance of More Fool Me though. But because we skipped dinner, we were very hungry. And look what's across the street, Baton Rouge. The meal was wonderful, as usual, but by this point Juice wasn't feeling well so we cut the night short and all headed home.

On the way back to the car, we passed by the Wolf & Firkin. The bar had some noise pollution and passers by could here the music. When we walked by it was Billie Jean. I made some comment about how I should only be stepping on the bricks that light up. Everyone laughed at the one. Finally people are picking the humour. Earlier in the night, someone had mentioned that I was the only one who was laughing at Juice's jokes and I was the only one laughing at my jokes. Slowly, slowly people are getting the humour.

In the car ride home, the radio was tuned to AM 640. The show was called A View From Space. It was just this guy talking about the Manson murders and the Process Church. All the while this guy was mispronouncing every single name. I swear he must have called him "Charles Madson" at least half a dozen times. Really interesting show though. The car ride got real quiet throughout this show and eventually Juicette asked if I would like to change the radio station. This guy on the radio had just described the Sharon Tate murder, a very gruesome and sadistic murder. My response to Juicette's query: Oh no. Don't change the channel. I'm loving this! Whooops! What kind of sick freak am I to say I'm loving this when asked about whether or not to listen an account of an unjustified slaughter of an eight and a half month pregnant woman. I immediately corrected myself. I'm not loving this. I uh, err, ugh, I am finding this very interesting but you can change it if you'd like.

Sunday

I knew I was supposed to do something. I just could not remember what it was. Eventually, I called Bob and asked him if we had plans. He said we were supposed to go to something called the 400 Market but because nobody else was interested, he was calling it off. 'kay.

For dinner, I picked up Popeyes and headed over to Juice's place. He was feelin' better. I brought him back his Xbox. After dinner we played some Gauntlet game. Pretty simple game, third person view of two characters just choppin' the shit outta some goblins and such. Pretty fun game.

Obviously, I Have No Life

Showtime

The Los Angeles Lakers got off to a pretty good start this season. Going into last night they were atop their division; a pretty good division with the likes of the Phoenix Suns and the Los Angeles Clippers (yes, them, remember, they're good now). But the Lakers have been better than the lot of them. What's more amazing is that Kobe Bryant missed the first couple of games recovering from knee surgery. When he finally made his debut, he was not the same Kobe Bryant we all saw last season. Not having worked out properly in the off-season, Kobe and his knee were a bit off. The rest of the team has picked up the slack though to keep the team afloat.

Meanwhile, in a different division, the Utah Jazz have been tearing up the league. Going into last night's game, the Utah Jazz had the best record in the NBA so far. Wait, the Jazz. Since when do the Jazz have that good a team. Well they do. There is finally a lot of talent on that team and they still have Jerry Sloan to coach it.

Last night these two teams faced off in the Staples Center in front of the Lakers usual star-studded crowd. These two teams could have played in an empty barn and the Utah Jazz would have still left seeing stars. The Los Angeles Lakers topped the best team in the NBA, the Utah Jazz by thirty points; final score 132 to 102. Oh yeah, the game high scorer was Kobe Bryant.

Ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce to you, number twenty-four from Lower Merion High School, Kobe Bryant! He is back! He didn't just lead the team in scoring, he violated his opponents. Nine for nine from the field including two from beyond the arc. A perfect ten for ten on free throws. That's thirty points. And that was just the third quarter of the game. Kobe finished with fifty-two points. Kobe Bryant is back. The knee must no longer be an issue. He was a one man show again. Driving and dunking all game long, defending bigger guys like Kirilenko; he did it all again. Back is the man who dropped eighty-one, back is the man who single-handedly outscored the Dallas Mavericks, back is the single most dominant player in the National Basketball Association; Kobe Bryant is back and the league is left standing there in awe, again.

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Scrubs

The NBC sitcom Scrubs made its return for what most likely be its last season last night. The show has lost its edge. It was lost at some point last season and I seriously doubt it will ever get it back. Still it was a funny episode but the quality is not there anymore.

I think it is that the show has become predictable. Maybe because I have got used to how the writers plan things out or maybe just because they have lost the ability to surprise me. The whole flag thing, I knew what was going to happen. I just had to sit there at home and wait for it.

A couple of random thoughts on last night's episode:

• I don't like the new 'do on Cox.
• Not enough of the Todd.
• Don't give Janitor emotions other than hate. He should remain a peripheral character.
• The music is getting worse. I mean Audioslave, my God, they suck!

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The Musical Box

Tomorrow night, The Musical Box performing Selling England By The Pound live at Massey Hall. I listened to a bunch of tunes again this morning: Cinema Show, Watcher of the Skies, Firth of Fifth. Mellotronatastic!

I hope they still have that Phil impersonator. When he's there they do More Fool Me.

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Make Your Own Funny Headline

I've come up a new game, it's called Make Your Own Funny Headline and the rules are simple: find a news article online somewhere and link to to it, but make the link text the same as the headline but change one word. For example: Single massive hemorrhoid wiped out dinosaurs: study. Yes, I am aware that it is quite lame. But you see, I haven't slept much lately. By lately, I mean the last six or seven years. The lack of sleep has given me this sort of reoccuring delerium in which I can be amused by my own idiocy.

The Musical Box: Two Nights Away

This upcoming Saturday night I am going to see The Musical Box at Massey Hall. The band will be performing Selling England By The Pound. This will be the, well I've lost track of how many times I've seen them so far. I know I've seen The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway three times, Foxtrot twice and I know I've seen Selling England at least twice. So I guess I've seen The Musical Box at least seven times, but very likely eight or nine times already.

Right now, I'm just getting pumped up for the show. Broke out the vinyl the last couple of nights.

TV Wars

Another post about television, damn right! Currently, here in The Canada, the three major networks have come up with an idea to make more money. They want to charge the cable and satellite companies a fee to broadcast their signals. Shouldn't it be the other way around. Broadcasters reach a much greater audience by being on cable and satellite systems. It makes more sense to me if the broadcasters pay a fee to the distributors.

Rogers Communications Inc. has stated that they would directly pass the cost to the consumer as a seperate line item on the monthly bill. Ultimately, I, the consumer, expect to end up paying for this fee. The cost of doing business always filters down to the consumer. That's capitalism. I am glad to see that the cable company is at least putting up a front of resistance to the broadcasters and making the consumers aware of where the money is going.

Ideally, if this proposal goes through, I would love to see cable and satellite companies make these broadcasters an optional package. Currently, these channels on offered on the basic package along with the local (local to me being western New York) affliates of the major American networks.

I know for my own part, I do not watch these three Canadian networks because I don't like their programming. The only shows they air that interest me are originating from American networks. Global and CTV rely on ratings (and double signals) from shows they simply purchase from the States. CBC primarily airs programs it has produced itself or has been produced in Canada. But the CBC is funded through tax dollars. If I had to choose whether or not to pay to watch these three channels, I would opt out. The only time I sit down to watch these channels is when they double broadcast a program originating from the States and the CRTC allows the Canadian broadcaster to double their signal.

One more thing on this matter, what if I put up a pair or rabbit ears to watch these three broadcasters? Are they going to charge me for picking up signals being sent through the airwaves? I don't want to watch these channels and if something happens where I will need to watch these channels, I'm breaking out the rabbit ears. Or I'll just wait for the DVD.

Sources: Globe and Mail