Go home

If you're fond of mashups, you might want to know about this: Mark Vidler of Go Home Productions has put his entire catalogue up on the Web for downloading.

(Mashups, as you probably know already, are the result of two or more songs mixed together.)

Elvis lives!

Tonight, I'm listening to 3WK, an Internet radio station, while I vaguely geek about on my computer. While I've been here, they've played two covers of old-school Elvis Costello songs. matt pond PA covered "Green Shirt", and Crosstide covered "(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding?" They're both great versions of great songs.

Rock.

Why punk rock was invented

As I mentioned earlier, I have a secret weakness for early 1970s pop songs. But by the mid-1970s, things get worse. I don't have many favourites from that era, but there are some really awful songs. Here's a few of the awful ones I remember.

You're Having My Baby - Paul Anka and Odia Coates
Yes, you read that right: according to this song, she is having his baby. This song probably did more for the feminist cause than any number of protest marches: how many women listened to that and thought, "His baby?! WTF?"

Don't Go Breaking My Heart - Elton John and Kiki Dee
This song annoys me because there's no real feeling in it: these people don't sound deep enough to get their hearts broken. This song sounds like one of those variety numbers that used to be on a lot of TV shows in the 1970s. It's too bad: Elton can sing like he means it when he wants to.

Afternoon Delight - Starland Vocal Band
Annoyingly fresh-sounding vocals. Just remembering this song makes my blood pressure go up, and makes me want to reach for a copy of "Anarchy in the U.K."

Undercover Angel - Alan O'Day
This song is annoying. Mr. O'Day has a web site (he was the writer of Helen Reddy's "Angie Baby"). That is all I am going to say.

I'm in You - Peter Frampton
It's not Peter Frampton's fault that he became a pop-culture icon and teen heartthrob when his Frampton Comes Alive sold zillions of copies in the 1970s. He's apparently a good musician, and he looks like a cool guy on his official site. But he allowed himself to be packaged and marketed too much, and the result was I'm in You. I seem to recall reading that he regrets having taken this particular musical direction.

Torn Between Two Lovers - Mary Macgregor
Tryin' To Love Two - William Bell
These two songs are both annoying, and go together as kind of a package deal.

You will note that I haven't even gotten into disco yet. No wonder The Clash seemed like a breath of fresh air.

Dave's guide to early 1970s pop songs

I have a secret weakness for early 1970s pop songs. Some of them are interesting or just plain weird. Here's my list of some odd, unusual, wonderfully bad, or awfully bad songs that I either listened to when growing up or found on Rhino Records' Have A Nice Day compilations.

Mammy Blue - Pop Tops
A strangely epic song about... I'm not sure what. For some reason, it reminds me of a ship full of immigrants to the New World, fleeing wartime Europe. And is Mammy Blue his mother? To me, this song is more of an epic tale than "Bohemian Rhapsody". According to a translation from the German version of Wikipedia, this band was originally from Spain.

Softly Whispering I Love You - The English Congregation
Features a female choir and smarmy male lead singer. You can almost hear his sideburns. It's like two completely different songs mashed together.

Venus - Shocking Blue
One of many bands from Holland who reached the charts in the early 1970s. The rhythm guitar is irresistible. Covered in the 1980s by Bananarama.

Indiana Wants Me - R. Dean Taylor
I think I've mentioned this before, but if I haven't: I love this song to pieces. The central character is holed up somewhere, wanted for killing somebody who dissed his girl. ("No one has the right to say what he said about you.") The police have surrounded the building. The song ends with a soaring string section and gunfire.

Coconut - Harry Nilsson
This is just plain weird. You put de lime in de coconut, and drink them both up. Doctor! Doctor!

Amazing Grace - Royal Scots Dragoon Guards
Believe it or not, this bagpipe instrumental topped the charts in 1972. It's probably the only bagpipe song I can listen to. (Someone once wrote: "A gentleman is somebody who knows how to play the bagpipes, but doesn't." I did a Google search, and this was attributed to R. Acket, Oscar Wilde, Nikolai Demidienko and Thomas Beecham.)

Joy - Apollo 100
An instrumental based on J.S. Bach's "Ode To Joy". According to the Wikipedia article, this song has been featured in the movies Boogie Nights and The 40-Year Old Virgin.

Ballroom Blitz - Sweet
This song reminds me of a fun day on the CNE midway. Covered by The Damned (with Lemmy from Motorhead on bass).

How Do You Do - Mouth and Macneal
European hit song that featured the use of the words "na na na na" instead of something more explicit. (Someone has created a MySpace page for them that features the song, if you're curious.)

Ma Belle Amie - Tee Set
Early 1970s hit song by a Dutch band. I sometimes think that they didn't know the English words they were singing, and were just reproducing them phonetically. They have an official home page.

Hocus Pocus - Focus
I've never taken cocaine, but this sounds like the musical equivalent: it's a whole lot of hyperactive guitars and yodelling.

My Ding-A-Ling - Chuck Berry
I seem to recall reading that this song was Chuck's only number one. It's a novelty song that consists of a lot of sniggering penis jokes.

Long Cool Woman In A Black Dress - The Hollies
I only listed this because I remember having a 45 of it when I was a kid. At a certain point in the intro, my friends and I used to pound each other senseless with pillows. You had to be there, I guess.

Day By Day - Godspell
Jesus Christ Superstar - Murray Head
Put Your Hand In The Hand - Ocean
O Happy Day - Edwin Hawkins Singers
There were a lot of songs about God in the early 1970s. Here's four of them. The first two were from the well-known musicals. The third is from a Canadian group with a male and female singer, and rather annoys me. The fourth is from a more traditional choral group.

Spirit In The Sky - Norman Greenbaum
Another song about God and religion, featuring a killer guitar riff that probably did more for Christianity than the sermons of a hundred preachers. Covered, almost note-for-note, in the mid-1980s by Doctor and the Medics.

Brandy - Scott English
A harmless song, which may or may not have been about his pet dog. Covered by Barry Manilow, who turned it into the unlistenable "Mandy". (This is not a value judgment - I defy you to get through the entire song.) Not to be confused with "Brandy (You're A Fine Girl)" by the Looking Glass.

Rock'N'Roll (Part II) - Gary Glitter
The flip side of a British single, this song has no lyrics, just shouting. You've heard this at some sporting arena or other. Glitter, whose given name is Paul Gadd, is currently doing time in Vietnam for sexual offenses against children.

Seasons In The Sun - Terry Jacks
The worst pop song in the history of the universe. According to the Wikipedia article about this song, this started off as a Jacques Brel song, was translated into English by Rod McKuen, and then "lightened up" a bit by Jacks. The article states that the song had been sitting on Jacks' shelf for over a year until a newspaper boy liked it enough to ask Jacks to play it for his friends. That paperboy has a lot to answer for.

Stay Awhile - The Bells
No, I take it back: this is the worst pop song in the history of the universe. Too sugary-sweet to believe. I can listen to about 15 seconds of this, tops, after which I would be willing to cause property damage to make it go away. Both "Stay Awhile" and "Seasons In The Sun" were Canadian in origin, which meant that AM radio stations in Toronto played them both over and over again. I feel sorry for the younger version of me.

Wolf in sheep's clothing?

According to the Globe and Mail, Stephen Harper is sending his environment minister to Paris to participate in a conference on climate change. While there, the minister, John Baird, will be asked to join a UN-based environment organization. Harper also stated that he would be willing to participate in a summit on global warming sponsored by the UN's Secretary General.

The Globe article also mentioned that the Fraser Institute, a West Coast-based right-wing think tank, is about to release a report that doubts whether humans are affecting climate change. They claim that their report is a detailed and balanced overview of the subject.

It is certainly possible that Harper has seen the light (or at least the polls) and now believes that action on climate change is a good thing. But I still have two questions:

• What would he be doing if he had a majority government?
• Is he willing to spend money on environmentally-friendly initiatives such as better public transit, even though such spending would benefit parts of the country that are not likely to vote for him?

In other words, is Harper solely a partisan politician, or is he capable of becoming a leader?


Today, Metafilter has a link to a YouTube video of Long John Baldry and Steampacket performing with Brian Auger and The Trinity. A very young Rod Stewart is on backing vocals. Lots of rocking out and gospel shouting.

Life under contract

I've been a contract technical writer for nearly a year and a half now, and I'm still weighing the pros and cons of life as, basically, a glorified temp.

On the good side:

• I never get stuck in a rut.
• I'm always learning new things.
• If I don't like where I am right now, I know that I'm not stuck there forever.
• I get paid more per hour than I would be if I was full-time.
• If I have to work overtime, I get paid for it, since I am paid by the hour.
• I like the idea of being a hired gun.
• I can take large chunks of time off. (I spent most of this past summer by my apartment building's outdoor pool, or in it. This was very enjoyable.)

On the bad side:

• No job security of any kind. (Mind you, I got laid off from my last two full-time jobs, due to circumstances beyond my control both times. Believe me when I tell you that job security is an illusion.)
• No benefits package. I hope I never need major dental work or expensive pharmaceuticals, because I can't afford either.
• I have to constantly prove myself useful to new bosses.
  
• Unemployment can be really stressful if you want to work but can't find any.
• Watching your bank balance go down can be even more stressful.
• Going for interviews is even more stressful than unemployment or watching your bank balance go down.
• Turning down a potential job lead because you don't like it is even more stressful than going for interviews.
  
• I'm not good at networking, to put it mildly. So looking for work is hard for me.
• A lot of contract jobs on offer are really awful.

I think I would take a full-time job again if the circumstances were right: a short commute, an interesting job, reasonable job security. But in my line of work, the only people who are offering full-time jobs are small startup software companies, and that's not exactly a stable, secure environment. Besides, I don't want to work in a room full of desks again. (People who complain about cubicles don't know when they're well off. I haven't worked in a cubicle of my own since 2000.)

I guess the bottom line is this: sure, a contractor's life is one of uncertainty. But who among us is ever guaranteed anything in life?


Some indie rock bands have the coolest names. Here's a partial list, from collections I've seen lately:

• We Are Scientists
• People In Planes
• Pornopop
• Suburban Kids With Biblical Names
• Be Your Own Pet
• As The Poets Affirm
• Mr. Hudson & The Library
• You, Me, And Everyone We Know
• My Morning Jacket
• The Boy Least Likely To
• Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin
• Small Leaks Sink Ships
• Boyfriendgirlfriend
• Explosions In The Sky
• The Morning After Girls
• Math and Physics Club
• I Love You But I've Chosen Darkness
• The New Sound Of Numbers
• Your Code Name Is Milo

These names are all basically awesome. The music's probably interesting too.

OMG I have a cellphone now, Part 1

So I finally broke down and bought a cellphone this weekend. For me, this is a radical step, as I hate talking on the phone. But I spent a lot of time during the holidays trying to find pay phones - which are getting harder to find because more people have cellphones. It's a perfect example of destructive circular logic. I figured it was time for me to step, tentatively, into the 21st century. Besides, it's probably a good idea to be able to contact somebody right away in case of emergency.

I decided to go with Telus as my service provider for two reasons. One was that some of my friends were already with them. The other was that I'm already using Rogers for my cable service and my high-speed Internet, and I didn't want to be too dependent on one provider: Rogers once mistakenly disconnected my service for a day when someone else in my apartment building defaulted on their cable bill. They restored it as soon as was practically possible, but this sort of thing could happen again. (This is also why I keep my credit card at one bank and my RRSP and savings account at another - if something goes wrong with my credit card bill by mistake, the credit card bank can't just take money from one of my accounts to cover the card balance.)

So I went to Telus's site, and was quickly overwhelmed by the number of phones and service options available. They offer 22 different phones for sale with their PCS mobile service, all of which boast approximately six zillion features each. How on earth was I going to be able to choose between them? Then, I noticed that if you sign a contract, they offer a discount on their phones. If I was willing to spring for a three-year contract - and hey, go big or go home, I say - then I could get a fairly snazzy phone for quite a low price. So I narrowed my options down to the phones that were just a little more expensive than free if you sign their three-year deal.

I eventually went with the Nokia 6265i, because it had lots of gadgets - like all geeks, I love gadgets - and because the online reviews for this phone were generally very good. Okay, that's one problem down and one to go: next, I had to decide what plan I wanted.

Once again, there was a bewildering array of options. I could choose Talk 20, 25, 50, 75, 100, or 150. Or Super Talk 20, 25, 30, or 40. Or Talk To Me 25, 30, or 45. Or Talk Canada 30, 50, 100, 150 or 250. Eek. After a brief whimper and a bit of time lying down (and reading A.N. Wilson's The Victorians), I settled on Super Talk 20. It was the same price as Talk 20, and offered more evening and weekend minutes, which is when I'm going to use the phone if I ever use it at all.

Okay, that was settled. I marched into the local wireless store on the Danforth, and told them exactly what phone and service I wanted. They gave me a long contract to read and sign, and then gave me a choice as to what phone number I wanted. Whee! I've never gotten to pick a phone number before! Logically, I picked the one that was easiest to remember. (Side note: the program that they use to display available phone numbers had an "Asian friendly" option. As I recall, the number 4 is bad luck in China. A friend of mine lives in a condo that is geared to the Asian-Canadian market: there is no 4th or 14th floor, and no fours on any of the suite numbers. This means that the next floor after the 12th is the 15th, as we Caucasians think that 13 is bad luck.)

When I got home, I took out my new phone and realized something: I had used a cell phone so infrequently that I wasn't even sure how you're supposed to use it. No, seriously. This entry is getting long, so tomorrow I'll get to how I figured that out, along with a detailed description of the default ringtones available and why I can't stand any of them.


One quick music note: am I the only one who can't tell Radiohead and Muse apart? Their lead singers sound almost identical. As a general rule, Muse is a bit more intense than Radiohead, so I see it like this: if Thom Yorke of Radiohead had just gotten dumped or was suffering an existential crisis, he'd be Matthew Bellamy of Muse. (By the way: according to the All Music Guide, Muse used to call themselves Gothic Plague, Fixed Penalty, and Rocket Baby Dolls. Cool.)

Uninformed music reviews, Volume 1

Recently, I went out and got hold of some albums by musicians I'd never heard of, in a possibly vain attempt to seem up to date. Here's some comments on a few of them.

I can't help but like a band that calls themselves And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead. (According to the Allmusic Guide, they're named after a prayer to Mayan corn gods.) Their So Divided album is definitely going to be worth listening to a few times. To my non-expert ears, they sound like all of the following at one time or another: Pearl Jam, Radiohead, Matthew Sweet, a crowded restaurant, ELO with bongo and accordion accompaniment, a symphony orchestra getting into a bar fight in mid-overture, Pink Floyd in the Atom Heart Mother era, what Oasis would have sounded like if they had played brass instruments, Blur, My Chemical Romance, and a folk-rock band forced to stay up for 34 hours straight before recording. And that's only the things I could think of. I'm going to have to go back sometime and see if I can add to this list.

The Arctic Monkeys have become one of the most popular bands in Britain. After listening to their Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not album, I'm not surprised. They sound a bit like Oasis - what with the northern accents and all - and they also sound a bit like those old Madchester bands of the early 9os that seemed to be enjoying a never-ending party. They're not bad, but I'd like them more if they weren't obviously having much more fun than I've had lately. Blaah. I don't like it when the music I'm listening to makes me feel old.

After seeing Joanna Newsom's name on some critics' favourites lists, I got a copy of her Ys album. Alas, I lasted about a song and a half before giving up. I just can't endure her singing voice. Sorry.

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah's self-titled album reminds me a lot of the Talking Heads and their More Songs About Buildings And Food. The guitars are doing all sorts of interesting things that blend together, and the lead singer's voice is a bit, erm, adenoidal. I'm going to be listening to this again.

And, while I'm thinking about music, I just wanted to mention that I've fallen in love with Bikini Kill's "Feels Blind". Three chords, feedback, and attitude. That's all you need to be great.


Today's Toronto Star contains the results of a Decima Research poll that named the environment as the issue that was troubling Canadians the most. I'm not surprised. It's 10C as I write this. In January. Did I mention yet that I'm scared now?

Happiness is not losing your keys

I discovered the true meaning of happiness at about 9:30 this morning.

I got to work a little early today, so I decided to sit in a chair in the lobby and read. I didn't realize that, while I was sitting down, my keys had slipped out of my pocket and onto the chair. This happened silently, so I didn't notice that anything was wrong as I got up and headed up the escalator to work.

A half hour later, I noticed that my keys weren't in my pocket. My first thought was that I had stuffed them in my coat pocket or in my knapsack. I'm notoriously absent-minded, so I do things like that. No luck. So I searched all the pockets of my knapsack. Still no luck. Uh oh.

I tried to visualize the scenario. I'd have to go home right away - my building's rental office closes before 5 today. I'd have to go to the rental agents, get them to let me into the building, then somehow get new keys for everything. I don't know whether this would mean that a locksmith would have to come and put new locks on my apartment door or what. Plus there's my safety deposit box key, my locker key, and so on and so on. And, because I'm a contractor being paid by the hour, I'd lose billable time doing this, which would cost me money. This wasn't looking good at all.

Before telling my boss that I would have to leave, I headed down to the lobby to ask the guy at the front desk whether, by chance, somebody had turned in a set of keys. I fully expected him to not know what the hell I was talking about. But, miracle of miracles, someone had spotted my keys on the chair, and had turned them in to the front desk. It was an enormous relief to find my keys again.

To whoever turned the keys in to the front desk: you don't know me, and I don't know you. But, whoever you are: I hope that good things are happening to you right now.


A little mini music review while I'm here: today, I listened to the Dandy Warhols' Thirteen Tales of Urban Bohemia. I find the Dandys fascinating because they seem to be two or three different bands on this album. I think "Sleep" is a really great song because it's kind of atmospheric and melancholy, which you already know that I like. And "Bohemian Like You" is a catchy little single. But those two songs sound totally different. The allmusic.com site is down right now, or I'd check to see whether they had more than one songwriter in the band.

Signs of advancing age, Part XVII

Yet another sign that I'm growing older: I went to wrap Christmas presents today, and discovered that I had some wrapping paper saved up from last year. I even had some left over - I might be able to use it next year too.

A small consolation: most older people don't listen to Clem Snide while they wrap their Christmas presents. Clem Snide is what Wilco would sound like if they didn't bother to get out of bed in the morning: they're so laid back that they're practically bent over backwards. I like them. "Tonight I feel like Elvis looking for his long-lost twin."


Short shameful confession: I have become addicted to Nethack again. Maybe it's because this version is so damn hard: I think I've made it to level 10 once. But, each time, I think I got killed because of some dumb mistake - a mistake I won't make next time, no sir. I probably need a life. Or maybe two.


If I had to reduce my music collection to just one artist, I'd pick Neil Young. Who else can both rock out and write such wonderful slow sad songs? (For some reason, "Star of Bethlehem" always breaks my heart when I hear it.) And he still thinks of himself as Canadian, even though he has lived in California for so many years: he went to the trouble of performing at Live 8 in Barrie a couple of years ago.


Metafilter has a link to a New York Times article which lists 15 questions couples should ask each other before marrying. Question 7 in this list is Will there be a television in the bedroom? I suppose that this is equivalent to Would you prefer watching television to having sex?

Metafilter readers have suggested the following questions to be added to the Times list:

• Let's assume an electric train had departed from Boston at 6:35 am. As it travels en route to Chicago, it accelerates to a rate of 45 miles per hour...
• Bon Scott AC/DC or Brian Johnson AC/DC?
• If Lemmy and God got into a fight, who would win?
• What do you like the temperature of the air around you to be?
• Are you now, or have you ever been, a member of the Communist Party?
• Have you EVER considered letting me win?
• Lennon or McCartney?
• Is the the toilet paper supposed to unroll 'over' or 'under'?

And the make-or-break question:

• Which operating system?

One of those days

You know those days when you feel positive and upbeat and full of energy? This isn't one of those days for me, so I apologize in advance.

I still think that the new spiral fluorescent light bulbs are cool, but I see a potential problem showing up if they become popular: each of these bulbs contains a tiny bit of mercury. This isn't enough to cause a health hazard, but it does mean that you can't just throw your old CFL bulbs out - you have to take them to a special place where hazardous stuff is taken care of. If millions of consumers start buying CFL bulbs, how many of these consumers are just going to throw the bulbs out when they burn out? Will that create an environmental hazard a few years down the road?

The problem is that new inventions sometimes have unexpected uses or consequences. The telephone was apparently originally intended as a broadcast medium, not as a method of person-to-person communication. The development of universal broadband Internet access has accelerated the trend towards outsourcing - if you can send megabytes of files from North America to countries such as India (and vice versa) quickly and efficiently, outsourcing your company's computer needs becomes more practical. And DDT, now considered lethal to the environment, was once hailed as a saviour because it reduced the threat of malaria.


The blank verse spam poetry I got in my email today is hauntingly beautiful, at least up until the ending:

Winds blow sharp, what then?
Silence. Your way of being. Your way of seeing
Allowing me to let your picture form and wake
Are muffled into silence that refuses
Preface to the 1970 Edition
III. Earliest Recorded Northern Explorers: The Greeks and the Vikings
I am sleeping, and dreaming, and wandering along
That open before me? What I see
At four, the spectators leave in pairs, off
Brush the lone giant in that somber pall.
I do not betray you, I still go forward,
Where lamps are lit: these, too,
That desire has ever built, have approached
Microsoft Windows Vista is now ready to download!


I love F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby to pieces. I can't really tell you why. It's set in the 1920s, which helps: I've always been a sucker for that period of history. Perhaps it's the ending:

Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter—to-morrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther. . . . And one fine morning——

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.

I'm getting old enough that I know this feeling all too well. The Great Gatsby is in the public domain: you can check it out here or here.


Lately, I've been on a mission to try to get caught up on what's new in music. I fell behind a bit after emusic.com stopped offering unlimited downloads for a fixed monthly price, but am trying to catch up now. Now, I think I'm up to what was cool about six years ago!

Three different friends of mine have directly or indirectly recommended Sigur Rós, so I got hold of a copy of their Ágætis Byrjun album. (I had to cut and paste to get the proper special characters - I have no idea how this will read on your browser.) This is perfect for a gloomy late fall day: it's atmospheric and it kind of swoops at you.

I like moody, atmospheric bands (as I mentioned already, I've been listening to a lot of Slowdive lately). Given my tendency to feel gloomy lately, I should probably be listening to more cheerful songs - such as "Pop Goes The World" by Men Without Hats, which is the most fun dumb song I know - but fuck that. I'm going to save the cheerful stuff for when I feel cheerful. Besides, I'd rather feel intense emotion, even if it's bad, than feel nothing at all. I get scared when I go numb.

An inconvenient truth

Today might be a good day to write about global warming, as the temperature hit 13C in Toronto. That's kind of unusual, given that it's eight days from Christmas and all.

During the past few years, when Al Gore wasn't attempting to run for President of the United States and either failing or getting ripped off (depending on whom you believe), he's been trying to warn people about the Earth's changing climate and the possible nasty side effects thereof. Here, according to Gore, are the undisputed facts on the subject:

• The pre-industrial concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 280 parts per million. By 1960, the CO2 level was roughly 315 parts per million. In 2005, the level was measured at 381 parts per million. This is the highest total in 650,000 years.
• Mount Kilimanjaro was covered in snow and ice as recently as 1970. As of 2000, the snow and ice is nearly gone, and it may be completely gone by 2010.
• Of the 21 hottest years on record, 20 have been in the last 25 years. The hottest year on record is 2005, in which world temperatures were over 0.6C higher than their 1961-1990 averages.
• In 2005, there were so many hurricanes that the World Metereological Organization ran out of names for them, and had to use letters of the Greek alphabet. Floods and tornadoes are also at historic high levels.
• Global precipitation has increased by 20% in the last century, but deserts have been growing at a faster rate in the last two decades.
• Many houses and buildings built on permafrost in Alaska and Siberia have had to be abandoned, as the permafrost is melting, causing the buildings to collapse.
• The Alaska tundra was frozen over 200 days a year in the early 1970s. This number has now fallen to fewer than 80 days per year.

If this continues, some very bad things could happen. For example, melting polar ice caps could lead to rising seas. If half of Greenland and half of Antarctica were to melt, the seas would rise between 18 and 20 feet. Coastal lands all around the world would be devastated, forcing millions and millions of people to evacuate their homes: for instance, 20 million would be forced to leave Beijing, 40 million would be forced to move out of Shanghai, and 60 million would be displaced in Calcutta and Bangladesh.

Also, the warming oceans could disrupt the Gulf Stream, which is the flow of warm water from the Atlantic Ocean to Western Europe. It's the Gulf Stream that makes Europe a pleasant place to live: Paris is actually farther north than Montreal, and London is as far north as James Bay.

By the way: there is a reference to global warming on Robert Fripp's Exposure album, released in 1979. This album features Peter Gabriel singing a version of his "Here Comes The Flood". The intro to this song includes a recording of J.G. Bennett claiming that many cities near the ocean were likely to be flooded in 50 years or even sooner.

Everybody has a boss

I think I've figured it out: the world is the way it is because everybody has a boss.

The average employee works longer and harder because the boss is demanding more. And why is the boss demanding more? Because he or she has a boss, too. And that boss has a boss, and so on, all the way up to the CEO.

But the CEO is answerable to the company's shareholders. If the company isn't profitable enough, the shareholders will dump the CEO. And the shareholders, too, have bosses. And so on, and so on.

And corporations are competing with other corporations, both here and around the world. Which is why corporations do nasty things that individual people wouldn't do on their own: they have to compete as hard as they can, or they will perish.

Wasn't life supposed to get easier in the future?


Some cool people at Mechapixel have pointed me at a cool online comic strip: A Softer World. Who can resist a comic with writing like this?

i FREEDOM FIGHTER BOMBING love you
whether you reply or JIHAD not
if my GODLESS WESTERN PRESIDENT letters are flagged
our love will outlive us
in their SUBWAY SARIN GAS computers


When listing my favourite cover songs yesterday, how could I have missed Yo La Tengo's "Little Honda"? That was a horrible oversight on my part. Mea culpa. Mea maxima culpa.

What's that smell?

Today's fascinating story: according to the Associated Press, many property owners are protecting their trees from Christmas tree poaching by spraying them with fox urine. This, you might guess, smells rather bad - especially when the tree is brought indoors.

I can't blame the owners of the trees for taking this preventive measure. But I have a question: whose job is it to spray the fox urine? Does this go to the unlucky slob who has the least seniority? Or is there a firm that specializes in fox urine spraying? And who is the even unluckier slob whose job it is to collect large quantities of fox urine? How do you persuade somebody to do that? How do you put this on your resume?


The Torontoist, a Toronto-based blog (as you probably already guessed), recently featured a Cover Song Catalogue. This is a collection of their favourite cover songs (you probably guessed that too). Lots of people are commenting on the list by providing favourites lists of their own, which makes the list even cooler.

Here's my list of favourite cover songs, starting with two I've mentioned here recently. I've probably missed some, so I reserve the right to sneak back here and surreptitiously add songs to the end of my list.

Johnny Cash, "Hurt"
Screeching Weasel, "You Are My Sunshine"
Ramones, "California Sun"
Damned, "Ballroom Blitz"
Galaxie 500, "Isn't It A Pity" and "Ceremony"
Smashing Pumpkins, "Dreaming"
Bangles, "Hazy Shade of Winter"
Cat Power, "Satisfaction"
Devo, "Satisfaction"
Sex Pistols, "No Fun"
Clash, "Pressure Drop" and "I Fought The Law"
Social Distortion, "Ring of Fire"
Shonen Knife, "Suzy is a Headbanger"
Husker Du, "Sheena is a Punk Rocker"
Japan, "Eight Miles High"
Temple City Kazoo Band, "Whole Lotta Love"
Camper Van Beethoven, "Pictures of Matchstick Men"
English Beat, "Tears of a Clown"
Nirvana, "Where Did You Sleep Last Night"


Author Christopher Hitchens has written an article in next month's Vanity Fair titled Why Women Aren't Funny. Hitchens, who is described in Wikipedia as being known for his "iconoclasm, anti-clericalism, atheism, antitheism, anti-fascism and anti-monarchism", once wrote a book that suggested that Henry Kissinger should be tried as a war criminal.

Oh, by the way, I know many funny women. Hitchens is wrong.

Miscellaneous links

I want to rest my brain today, so here's a few of my favourite web sites I've found over the past few months. (A lot of these are via Metafilter.)

• The Newseum is a collection of American news-related artifacts. (This site includes a collection of front pages from today's newspapers.)
  
• I Don't Like You In That Way and The Superficial are handy sources for celebrity gossip.
• The Comics Curmudgeon is a guy who writes sarcastic things about current daily comic strips.
• Mr. Cranky does the same thing for current movies.
• Plan59 is a collection of retro graphics.
• Here's a page that allows you to tune your guitar.
• Funny Farm is a challenging puzzle. (I got partway into this, and gave up.)
• The Canadian Design Resource is a collection of - you guessed it - interesting things designed in Canada.
• Popurls provides links to the most popular pages on the Internet.
• Framing Canada is a collection of photographs from Library and Archives Canada.
• Peter Anspach's The Top 100 Things I'd Do If I Ever Became An Evil Overlord.
• Chewbacca's blog (sadly, not updated lately). A related link is the Uncyclopedia entry for AAAAAAAAA!
• A collection of crossword puzzles, and a collection of Sudoku puzzles.
• Old circus posters.
• A collection of photographs of abandoned buildings.
• Forgotten NY is a website devoted to old and abandoned things in New York City.
• Frank Jump's Fading Ad Campaign is a collection of old painted signs on walls.
• A George W. Bush speechwriter.
• A collection of the best quotes taken from chat rooms.
  
• The Tacky Postcard Archive.
  

By the way: I am now totally into Screeching Weasel's version of "You Are My Sunshine". Just thought I'd let you know.

Does Stéphane Dion like croissants?

The latest mini-controversy in Canadian politics is that new Liberal leader Stéphane Dion holds dual citizenship - he is also a citizen of France. Calgary Sun columnist Ezra Levant, in a column titled Question of Loyalty, wonders whether Dion will be influenced by France when deciding what to do about the "war on terror". Levant describes France as "a country that has taken up the role of lawyer and arms dealer for every terrorist state in the world, even defending Saddam Hussein until the eve of his overthrow". Whoa.

Levant's column doesn't mention how Dion got his French citizenship. According to the Globe, his mother was born in France, and he inherited his citizenship from her. In their article, Dion is quoted as saying, "I'm born like that. It's part of me. It's my mother who gave that to me. And like all sons, I love my mother and I love what she gave to me."

Today's editorial in the Calgary Sun points out that Dion's loyalty is above reproach, but suggests that he should give up his French citizenship if he becomes prime minister. Dion has offered to do this if he has to, and my guess is that he will have to.


Metafilter has a link today to a blog that lists the top 50 music videos of 2006, which looks like a good way to waste some time, if you are so inclined. Short shameful confession: I've only heard of 12 of the bands listed - and even that total is because there are some repeats. I feel out of it.


As I write this, it's -10C in Toronto, and the wind chill is -17. Of course, this isn't anywhere near as cold as it's going to get at times in January and February. While I firmly believe that global warming is a real problem, it's going to be harder to muster up support for climate change policies at a time of year in which the average Canadian is having to wear several layers of clothing to venture outside.

You can't get blood from an urban stone

Sorry - this is about to become a rant. I apologize in advance.

So I was heading home on the Bloor subway today on a very full train that was having trouble getting out of Sherbourne station. The driver's first assumption was that somebody was leaning against one of the car doors, as the train can't run unless all doors are completely shut. After three minutes of slowly sputtering along, the driver determined that there was a mechanical problem. Uh oh, I thought. Sure enough, everybody was ordered off the train at Castle Frank.

Is it just me, or are the subway trains getting older and creakier these days? There seem to be more mechanical problems than there used to be. And many of the TTC's buses are fifteen years old, or older: the buses I used to take to work in 1992 are still in service (I recognize their serial numbers).

Why is this, you might ask? It's because the TTC is underfunded. And why is the TTC underfunded? Because the city of Toronto doesn't have any money. And why doesn't Toronto have any money? Because the rest of Canada hates Toronto, and underfunding us is politically popular. And many Canadians outside of Toronto think that we're all filthy rich, so we should pay for everything out of our municipal property taxes. Did you know that the TTC receives less federal or state/provincial funding than any other transit service in North America?

Listen, I know that we in Toronto aren't perfect. There are some people here who are effete snobs or metrosexuals or rich bankers or (insert other stereotype here). But this city is my home. I was born and raised here. I love it, and would never dream of living anywhere else. And the city that I love is going downhill. The streets are grimier. The infrastructure is creaking. The skyline is being blotted out by condominiums. And Jim Flaherty, the Tory finance minister, is probably going to pay for his planned tax cuts by cutting back on urban spending.

Please. Don't hurt us any more. We're bleeding enough, thank you.


I'm still experimenting with Pandora, and their music range is a bit wider than I thought. There have been some interesting mappings so far:

• Yo La Tengo's "The Pain of Pain" is an almost perfect match for Neil Young's "Barstool Blues".
• Beat Happening was matched with the Ramones. It's all good.
• The Talking Heads were matched with "30 Years In The Bathroom" by The Wonder Stuff. It wasn't a great match, but I love the song title.
• Fat Boy Slim was matched to "Sandwiches" by the Detroit Grand Pubahs. Which is a totally cool song.
• Joy Division matches up with Iggy Pop. But everything matches up with Iggy Pop.

Which reminds me of my favourite Iggy story. A few years ago, he was being interviewed on a Toronto radio station. At one point, the interview went like this:

DJ: So, what do you think of Courtney Love?

(PERFECTLY TIMED PAUSE)

Ig: I'd fuck her.

The final score: Ancient Stooge 1, Radio Voice 0.

Please please please buy this newspaper

The Toronto Star organized an all-out subscription drive in my apartment building today. An entire extended family seemed to be running the operation. The parents were at a display table in the front lobby; the table displayed samples of prizes that new subscribers were eligible to win. Other family members went door-to-door pleading with residents to sign up for a special low-price offer: the first week of papers was only a dollar. The pleading was heartfelt: the girl who canvassed me was desperate to use her subscription bonus money to build up her university tuition fund, or something like that. I still said no, but I felt terrible afterwards.

Later, in a burst of rationalization, I blamed the Star for employing such hard-core sales tactics. These tactics are especially bad if newspaper carriers are still paid the way they were when I delivered the Sunday Sun many many years ago. Back then, the carriers were responsible for collecting all the subscription money themselves, and had to turn most of it over to the newspaper. The amount left over was their pay. This meant that if somebody was never home when the carrier called, or was otherwise reluctant to pony up their subscription cash, the carrier lost money. It's a hell of a way to earn pocket money.

Years ago, when I lived in Waterloo, a community newspaper tried an even uglier approach. Once a week, they delivered a copy of their paper to every apartment in my building, whether the resident wanted it or not. Then, they sent the carrier around to ask for voluntary payments for the paper. The girl who knocked on my door told me that she only got paid if people gave her money for the paper. Yuck. My solution was to give her the money, and suggest that she should keep it for herself as a tip. I suspect that she might not have been allowed to do that, unfortunately.


A friend of mine recently reminded me of a way to listen to new music online: Pandora Internet Radio. The basic idea: you supply them with the name of a favourite song or artist, and their database creates a "station" that supplies you with music that is similar to the suggestion you gave them. The only drawback is that, in my opinion, some of the matches are too close to the original.

But they do allow you to create more than one station and then mix the results, so I'm going to try it. My seed artists, if you want to poke fun at my musical taste, are Brian Eno, Black Flag, the Psychedelic Furs, Fatboy Slim, Galaxie 500, Smashing Pumpkins, Joy Division, Beat Happening, Yo La Tengo, Death In Vegas, the Stone Roses, Slowdive, Toots and the Maytals, Dressy Bessy, Talking Heads, and Camper van Beethoven. (I do listen to some newer stuff, honestly!) We'll see how this goes.

Dry your eyes

Today, I have been listening to The Streets' "Dry Your Eyes". It's about a man who is just discovering that his girlfriend wants to break up with him. He's desperately trying to hold on to her - literally - but she's already made up her mind.

If the authors of I Love You, Nice To Meet You are to be believed, the poor guy in that song didn't stand a chance. One of the authors, Kevin Bleyer, claims that many women break up with their boyfriends without telling them. As Bleyer puts it, "When a woman breaks up with us, she's not actually breaking up with us. The transaction happened long ago. We're simply being debriefed. She's just getting us up to speed." The female half of the author team, Lori Gottlieb, claims, "Women may be guided by emotion, but when it comes to ending a relationship, we're as cold-blooded as Saddam Hussein." (Hey, I'm just quoting, not necessarily agreeing!)


I got this in the mail today:

Hi,

VrAGRA
CrALiS
VALrUM

web address: [deleted]

what we heed to make this prison world a thing of the past.

And I got a new bank scam message that started like this:

Dear Friend,

I wish to accost you with a request that would be of immense benefit to both of us. Being an executor of wills, it is possible that we may be tempted to make fortune out of our client's situations, when we cannot help it, or left with no better option.

Erm... dude, you're supposed to make this sound like a good thing.


In the news today, John Tory, the leader of the Ontario Progressive Conservative party, is calling for a province-wide registry listing houses that had been formerly used as marijuana "grow-ops". I don't see the point of this. Does growing marijuana in a house cause structural damage to the building?


I'm off now to finally bite the bullet: I'm going to update my computer to include all of the latest Microsoft Windows XP updates. This might take ages. When I'm done, my hard drive might be a smoking ruin. If you never hear from me again, you'll know why; tell my next of kin that I love them, will you?

Utilize in the swift attack!

Another day, another wodge of spam. The Debora spam appears to have died down, at least for the moment - perhaps some desperate system administrator tracked the spammer down and shot him. But today I got one message written in German, and another in Japanese. Thanks to Babelfish, and its slightly inaccurate translations, here's what they have to say.

First, the German:

"Why ever more humans does their private Sexfilme show in the InterNet?"

We know why: Because it geil is and one can make also still money. To [URL deleted] at present thousand Germans show, what they find geil and which them make geil and leave themselves thereby from millions InterNet users secretly to observe. "the world to guest with friends" appears there in completely different light, if Susanne from Berlin demonstrates offenherzig its intimate range or if his Mrs. Anna in the Homevideo spoils and vollsaut Peter from Hamburg according to all rules of the art.

Schau you pig-purely on [URL deleted] AND earn money, if you high-load pictures and videos from you.

HERE CLICKING!

I like the Japanese version better:

* The partner who answers your various needs offer *

Mass being on the register such as etching limited opposite support OK & serious sweetheart collection & tele etching limited opposite support stewardess nurse model SECRETARY housewife getting the partner of your ideal thoroughly, please pass the hot night. Both man and woman relief! With free address register possibility! Favorite partner and number exchange and adding exchange freedom! Registration fee, year fee, altogether there is no introduction charge and a withdrawal from membership charge!

[URL deleted]

< Perfection no charge >

Being to issue after the registering the free ID free pass instantaneously, you can utilize in the swift attack.

Yes! Utilize in the swift attack!

I have a new pet peeve: people who stop at the top of an escalator while they try to figure out where to go next. Um, this isn't good.

And, today, I saw an SUV with two women in the front, each of whom was using a cellphone to talk to somebody else. Weird.

And Johnny Cash's version of "Hurt" may be the greatest song in the history of the universe. Prove me wrong.