Saturday, July 31, 2004

More Info on the Greenland Shark!

Canadian Geographic Magazine: Maps, Travel, Photography, Geography Contests, and Canadian Geographic Magazine Subscriptions: More info in the "Shark of the Saguenay" and why it's not good eats.

The Saguenay Shark!

I was watching a show on the Discovery Channel Friday afternoon about the search of the Greenland shark in the Saguenay and St. Lawrence rivers. The search of the great shark of the Saguenay is right here in the link above. A graceful, scary creature indeed!

Thursday, July 29, 2004

Tuesday, July 27, 2004

Chick-flick Springer

For those who think that Jerry is a little too hardcore, there's always Mr. Maury Povich. He's your touchy, feely, nurturing kind of guy who seems concerned about all those single mothers trying to find their babies' daddies.

Awwww...

Then Maury would drag their sorry punk asses out onto the stage. Never mind that most of them look like gangbangers, failed MC's or flaming Metrosexuals with an over-inflated self esteem issue. And what was the mommy on when she had the child conceived? How could she not really know who the child's father is? And why does it have to take Maury to get a paternity test done on those punks? And why does it take so fucking long to get it done? And why are there no honky, middle-class WASPS on any of his shows? Don't they get same problems like these sad-assed welfare cases, or are they too good or less entertaining for that kind of stuff?

Never mind that in the end, those punk-asses who were found not to be daddies of said abandoned babies go "Boo-Yaka Sha!" while the poor suckers who were real daddies go weepy eyed and make up with their abandoned sex-partners.

Awwww...

But not only does Maury look after single mommies, he also takes care of all these out-of-control teen girls who dress like prostitutes. Oh no... we're not talking about 16 or 18-year olds: we're dealing with 12-to-14-year olds. Watch their mommies cry about why or where they went wrong in raising their brats. Watch Maury try to deal with them. Never mind that virtually none of them come from well-to-do families - they all seem a bit ghetto-ey. Then watch the brats get shipped off to boot camp where - miraculously enough - they transformed from juvenile delinquents to role models for America's youth almost overnight. Thank you, Maury!

Awwww...

As an added bonus, Maury puts his caring ways to work when he invites a whole slew of bikini babes onto his show. Nothing wrong there, except that some of these babes may be - horror of horrors - MEN! See the studio audience go apeshit over determining which one's a dude and which one's a dame. Then see the reaction on their faces when the true gender gets revealed.


PUKE...

So, if you can't handle Springer, you won't be sorry when you tune in to Maury.

Awwww....

Now: back to our lives.

JER-RY! JER-RY! JER-RY!

Jerry Springer :: The Official Site: I thought that by monopolizing the Web's bandwidth, I might hasten the arrival of the Apocalypse.

I forgot about Jerry.

A long time ago, he was tackling some pretty serious issues - White "supremacy", poverty, domestic strife, social injustice. All of a sudden he brought in the mutants, inbreds, aliens, freaks...

Are they all real? And if they were, did they feel any shame in exposing all the dirty laundry to an unsuspecting, worldwide TV audience?

And who are we to judge everytime we tune in?

Shame on Jerry.
Shame on them.
SHAME ON US!
(And your mama, too!)

Monday, July 26, 2004

The Devil Makes Work for Idol Hands

AntiMUSIC is full of commentary, especially those from a certain Chuck DiMaria who does his best to dissect the best and worst in the music world in his "2 Cents" column. Why is this man not on MTV? If you want to know, check out his column on Paula Abdul (she never really moved me back then in the Reagan Years - she doesn't really move me now: that's consistency in my books).

You remember Semisonic, don't you?

Semisonic: that name evokes memories of a bar emptying out at "Closing Time", when all the sad lonely lads scrambled to get a date - any date; when inebriated patrons struggled to finish their last-minute purchases; when the hardcore nightlife soldiers discussed in slurred tones their next plan of attack. Those were the days. As much as I don't want to relive them, I would always cherish them.

Awww... fuck it... might as well do it this weekend.

Toronto Tonto Goes For Soda In His Rock 'n Roll Duty

Incredible as it may seem, but one of my high-school idols has joined Toronto's classic rawk station Q107 as afternoon DJ. Kim Mitchell, once and future frontman of oft-revered madcap group Max Webster as well as ace solo artist, has thrown his hat in for the job.

Not that he has to nowadays, since a hat does offer a frontline protection from harmful UVA and UVB rays that might pound down on an unprotected (read: pretty bald) head. But getting a legend from Can-Rawk's early days to host a drive-home show is no mean feat, and may raise the station's profile a little higher in the long run.

Might as well go for soda. Hear's to you, Kim, from one of your biggest fans.

Come to Afghanistan - and drink the WATER!

CNEWS - Canada: French want to buy Canadian military-bottled well water in Kabul: Say what you will about our military and our technology, but I think we might have a good thing going on at Camp Julien.

Sunday, July 25, 2004

Kiddie Porn is NOT a victimless crime!

In many ways, I've always believed in the freedom of expression and the freedom to see and experience it, even if some forms may not be morally acceptable.

But what about child pornography?

Is there a difference between seeing an artistic or candid nude of a young girl or boy, and seeing a kid get sodomised?

Either way, that above statement can generate a lot of heat.

Veteran Toronto rawk DJ John Derringer effectively offers his 2-cents on the issue in one of his columns for the Toronto Sun stating that child pornography has its own victims. The porn collector in this case was a doctor who got sentenced to house arrest for amassing a huge collection of images and videos, not of juvenile nudes, but of kids being raped and degraded. (You have to read the rest to figure out this logic.)

It appears that the law is not only going after the producers of such filth, but also any viewers as well. What was really worrisome is that according to one lawyer, even a single click can get you into major shit. So if I were to accidentally click on some link or image and wound up on one of many "underground" child porn sites, my ass would be grass.

But, civil and personal liberties considerations aside, imagine a type of medium that can not only titillate the senses, but can also incite a person to act out his/her darkest desires. Imagine an art form that can, after exposure for a certain length of time, make a person's id bust out with a vengeance without any "subliminal" urging (ie. the 2 kids who created a suicide pact after listening to some Judas Priest records). Imagine getting a person hooked on all the most addictive, illicit pharmaceuticals available for a considerable amount of time that the addict would not only want more of the shit, s/he would go to any lengths to either seize the source or make the substaces himself/herself. Apparently, child pornography can do just that.

You can't believe it? Ask 10-year-old Holly Jones from Toronto.

Ask some Belgian girls.

Ask Courtney Sconce, a 12-year-old from Rancho Cordova, California.

Ask Peter Gagnon's daughter's friends.

Maybe you should just click here instead.

End of lesson.

Hmmm...

So far in my travels, I've surfed over to various sites featuring personalities that I feared were missing in action. Well, I've stumbled upon a Manga website called Saturnalia, which detailed the travails of a cop in the somewhat distant future. It's a good read and makes you want rethink your relationships between you, your fellow man/woman, and your PC.

My Kind of News Site...

Broken Newz - Satire News with the fresh scent of mint: and you thought that the Onion was the only show in town, eh? Give this site a shot.

This Joke's for YOU!

Killing Joke: they were goth-metal wayy before Amy Lee and her boys in Evanescence came over and screwed it up for everyone. Interestingly enough, there seems to be 2 official websites: the one linked above and this one. The only difference: check your address bar in the browser. And give them your respect and support.

The Sinisters - Are they still alive?

The Sinisters Official Website: The band is either punk-metal, metal-punk or something more sleazy and agressive. Maybe agressively sleazy. Sleazily agressive? Whatever - those rocking muthafuckas can incite riots, fights, moshing and general mayhem anytime and anywhere they play. See them before they drop dead!

The Metal Queen Jazzes Out (gracefully)

Lee Aaron . net - The Official Lee Aaron Fans' Site: as you've probably have noticed by now... I've been surfing the web for artists who have gone MIA (missing in action for all you slow learners). Lee Aaron (neé Karen Greening) was the reigning Metal Queen during the Reagan Years. This, plus the fact that she hailed from Belleville, ON, was the selling point for all her albums and performances during that period.

But like the rest of us born-in-the-60's types, she grew up. Now a parent, she decided to take the jazz-pop route. Sorry dudes... soon Avril© will be walking down that road. That's not bogus: that's a fact.

Debbie does Broadway

Official Deborah Gibson Website: Deborah... as in DEBBIE (sure fooled you with the title, you sick pervs!)... as in DEBBIE GIBSON, teen diva of the Reagan Years. The only difference between her and Britney©, X-Tina© and Avril© is that not only she wrote her own tunes... she had a little more contol over her image and career. The lady's still at it.

(Yeah... that title looked a bit porno... come to think of it...)

Saturday, July 24, 2004

Martika does "Oppera"

Oppera . Net the Official Home of Oppera: according to the online encyclopedia Wikipedia, the "Toy Soldiers" singer has found a new home with some guy by the name of Michael Mozart. If you still have no clue who Martika is/was, click right here.

Ever wondered whatever happened to... JANE CHILD?

Jane Child Online: SHE'S ALIVE! SHE'S ALIVE! Ex T-Dot pop-diva now resides in LA, CA (as in Cali, you hoser). Her most recent offering is "Surge", on sale online.

I thought she'd have fallen off the face of the earth after hordes of teeny-boppers rampaged onto the modern music scene, but at 37, she's still looking good. If it wasn't for her, Alanis Morrisette would still be a disco diva, and millions of young women wouldn't be setting off airport metal detectors. That's a fact!

So what happened to Len?

Karen Bliss's Lowdown: Insider Canadian music news: I couldn't get that "Steal My Sunshine" tune out of my head - one of the best feel-good hits out there.

Take the skinhead bowling... Hollywood Actors and Democrat Politics

Toronto Sun Columnist: Coren - Show biz politicking: I never agreed with anything coming out of the mouths of performing artists. But it seems that the Left screams louder than the Right. Where's the Centre, for fuck's sake?

"Water under the bridge..."

Toronto Sun: NEWS - Words of mass recrimination

They say that hindsight is 20/20. Sometimes, it can be quite damning.

But I would like to add a little extra to this piece of commentary made by vet journo Peter Worthington:

  1. Never underestimate your enemy's intelligence: what if, at the time the initial report was released, there really were WMD's being mass produced? And that the reason they weren't found in Saddamite Iraq is because they were movevd somewhere else. Ever thought of that?

  2. Never rattle your sabre more times than necessary: Dubya huffed and puffed, and puffed, and puffed, and huffed and puffed again. By the time he came around to blowing Mr. Hussein's Baathouse down, the mad scientists may have had the opportunity make all these evil weapons disappear. Hmmm...

  3. Never procrastinate: the UN's resolution on Iraq's WMD was in effect for 10 years, yet nothing was done. Why?

  4. Never make a resolution you can never follow up: see above.
  5. If you have to start a war, make sure that you learn how to win the peace before you work on winning the war.

End rant.


Friday, July 23, 2004

For those who wanna know... War Child

"War Child" is an organization dedicated to making everyone aware about the effects of armed conflict on children.

Check them out and think about pitching in.

"How about this heat?"

In about an hour's time I'll be heading out to the Fleet Club to do some Karaoke and down some drinks.

But before that... here are a couple of random thoughts:

  • The CRTC recently denied broadcasting licences to RAI International, Fox News and HBO and granted one to Arab-World newsnet (and occasional al-Qaeda mouthpice) Al Jazeera.

    If I am not mistaken, the CRTC's main perogative is supposed to be "vested with the authority to regulate and supervise all aspects of the Canadian broadcasting system, as well as to regulate telecommunications common carriers and service providers that fall under federal jurisdiction." Yet there are some pundits who are concerned about the commision taking on a more ideology-based slant in their decision-making: the CRTC has managed to clock block Fox, RAI and Spanish network TVE from broadcasting, refuse to renew licence to Quebec City's CHOI-FM because of some politically-incorrect jokes uttered on their morning show, AND YET give licences to Al Jazeera and other networks.

    Whatever happened to freedom of expression in this country? Is the CRTC trying to regulate broadcasting standards or are they moving into the realm of thought control? So much for them being "an independent agency responsible for regulating Canada's broadcasting and telecommunications systems." With Psycho Paul Martin's government veering towards the Hippy Dippy Left, changes are heading our way.

  • Speaking of Paul Martin - shame on those who gave him a minority victory! The previous election was about change but I believe that there were people who preferred more of the same.

    And what about the sponsorship money that was squandered on all those pro-Liberal ad companies in Quebec? I wonder if any of it really got put to good use during the election. Naah!

  • My feel-good hit of the Summer at the moment: "Get Your Hands Off My Woman" by the Darkness. Rock on Justin Hawkins!

  • On my mind right now... where can I get tickets to Britney Spears's wedding? Sign me up.

On that note... I'm off drinking.

More explicit stuff here!


Monday, July 05, 2004

So this is where I come in...

Well... for the umpteenth time in a row, I decided to get into the blog racket. As the webmaster of my own page, I've been doing my version of blog since 1995. That's a long time.

So, what next for me? Well, I'll still run my site over at 50megs.com, even though it's a bit of an expensive proposition (at least for an amateur like me) and that once in a while the server would act up when I try to issue exotic code.

So sit back and enjoy the evolution of next level of Y-2-DRAY madness! Just visit my site for more detailed rants.

Respect Everywhere.