Live Blogging the VMAs!

Let's admit it: the MTV VMAs are never about the music.

They're all about hype, flash, gats, hos and parties up the ying-yang.

And with Sean Combs/Puffy/Puff Daddy/P. Diddy/Diddy hosting the festivities this year, expect the fashion to factor in with the passion.

So here we go with the 2005 MTV Video Music Awards, "live" from Miami, FL... (all times Atlantic Daylight Time)

21:22 - Ciara and Missy Elliott in tha hizzle when I tuned in. Presented Ludacris who set us up the bomb.

21:27 - This year's host, Diddy (2.5) declared that this edition will be classy, yet "anything will happen". Funny, since there seemed that the network has implemented a tape delay to filter out those damn swear-words. Thank God Much has provided its viewers with a discliamer!

21:30 - Ex-Elf Orlando Bloom and femme-fatale Kirsten Dunst take to the stage to present the award for the "Best Rock Video". Noms: Wheezer, the Killers, Green Day, Foo Fighters, My Chemical Romance. I'd take the Killers anyday. They choose Green Day instead. Billie Joe was grateful that MTV still recognised rock.

21:40 - After a commercial break, Grandmaster Flash has the crowd up on its feet. Diddy was about to present the next performer when some bimbo started yelling his name. Grandmaster Flash in turn cranked out some old school. Diddy eventually broke it down, eventually getting joined on stage by Miami's godfather, Luke.

After a quick interlude by MC Hammer, Jessica and Ashley Simpson took to the stage to present the award for the best R 'n B vid. For a couple of ditzcases, they looked hot. What do I know about R 'n B, except the Moonman went to Alicia Keyes, who also looked tasty-hot. Inverted Oreoes, anyone?

21:48 - Jessica Alba and some guy from the Miami Heat - I don't care who he is, 'cept that he eventually got joined onstage by Shaquille O'Neil - presented Shakira 'longside Alejandro Sanz. Why am I thinking that Shakira is wearing wayy too much clothing? Come to think of it, so was Jessica.

Commercial break comment 1: take my word for it - Jason Statham is the new coolest man in movies. I loved his style in "Snatch" and "Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels". I didn't see the original "Transporter", but by the look of the trailer, I'm heading to see "Transporter 2". Serious.

22:00 - Usher takes to the stage to present a sample of clowning and crumping - a fusion of robot dancing and breaking. The Best Dance Video nominees: J Ho, Missy and Ciara, Shakira, Ciara, Destiny's Child. As a sympathy vote, Destiny should take it. Nope - it's Missy amd Ciara.

Why do I suspect that Ciara looks like a name for a prescription drug? "Sorry, doc. I don't think I could get it up for my woman. What can you get me?" "Well, there's this new drug called 'Ciara' that will keep you 'up' as long as you like." "Cool, doc. Hook me up."

22:06 - Eric Roberts takes to the stage to present R. Kelly's "Trapped in the Closet". Started with the video then cut right into a live lip-synch. No too freaking easy to sing an entire opera by one's self. My question is: WTF, R?

Conclusion: this is one way to ruin a good tune.

Second conclusion: R. Kelly's recent release may be ambitious, but it ain't "The Wall".

22:19 - Diddy tells the story about how he got around to calling himself "Diddy". Who cares, Sean.

Joel Madden and Hillary Duff - the new "Jay Z and Beyoncé"? I don't think so, eh? - present the Killers, live from a South Beach hotel. Good to hear a live band on an awards show. Ended with fireworks... cool.

22:27 - Li'l Kim and Jeremy Piven (who?) arrive on stage. Kim will be doing some time for conspiracy, but for now, the Best Rap Video award has to be given out. Fiddy and the Game? NEIN - Ludacris gets his Moonman.

22:38 - Diddy promised some surprises tonight. He did deliver Hammer. Now he has resurrected B.I.G. and brought Snoop Dogg 'longside for the ride. Good interlude, dudes.

22:42 - Common and Johnny Knoxville got on stage. Common did a little rough freestyling, then went to present the MTV 2 award to Fall Out Boy.

Have I mentioned the fact that I couldn't stand emo? Well, if it's supposed to be "emo"-tional, why are these guys whining? Shouldn't this genre be known as "whine-o"? Just wondering...

22:52 - Fat Joe takes to the stage to present some Latino "reggaeton" rappers. This genre mixes some salsa, hip-hop and good ol' 'maican dancehall. A nice diversion from the prefab pablum. Too bad each performer only had roughly 30 seconds to stru their stuff. The last performer, Daddy Yankee, had one of his vids nominated for the MTV 2 award.

Best Hip-Hop: Missy and Ciara, Common, Kanye West, Snoop and Pharell, Nas and Olu Dara. My pick - either Snoop or Kanye. They chose Missy and Ciara - AGAIN! WTF, MF?

22:59 - Pharell from the Neptunes/N.E.R.D. presents Coldplay. Chris Martin did the usual rockstar move of jumping into the audience to sing the rest of "Speed of Sound". I went out to have a cigarette, afterwards.

23:27 - "Comedian" David Coblenz (?) gave his routine about paranoia and violence, then joins Snoop for Best New Artist. I knew that the Killers would take it, so that was a no-brainer.

Since my smoke-break too a little longer to complete, I may have missed quite a few things.

Diddy soon appeared to award the $100 000 (U.S) "Diddy Fashion Challenge" to Snoop and Gewn Stefani. Gwen once said that she wouldn't appear at the award show because the organisers couldn't giver her time to perform, but I guess she changed her mind.

23:32 - Slutty Desparate Housewife Eva Longoria presented slutty diva Mariah Carey. 2 words come to mind: pearl necklace. 'nuff said. Boh!

23:44 - Li'l John and Paulina Rubio were on hand to present the award for the Breakthrough Video. U2, Sara MacLachlan, Missy Elliott and Ciara and Gorillaz were nominated. I loved the mood of the Gorillaz tune, so they won. Noodle accepted for the group. Not bad for an animated player.

23:47 - 2 members from Black Eyed Peas present Fiddy Cent. He'll be starring in his own film, "Get Rich or Die Tryin'" in the fall, so what's a little cheap plug to boost the box office? A whole bunch of f-bombs were bleeped out, even though a couple slipped through. Oh well - gotta love Fiddy.

Commercial break comment 2: "Undiscovered"? By my standards... unwatchable. Another annoying tween chick-flick. Wake me up.

Back to Miami...

23:58 - Diddy bigs-up glam-punks My Chemical Romance. Nice quick set, eh?

00:02 - MTV's Viewer's Choice Award gets presented by Li'l Bow Wow and THE Paris Hilton. Green Day, Snoop and Pharell, Shakira, My Chemical Romance and Kelly Clarkson... Green Day got it. No accounting for taste right here.

00:11 - Jamie Foxx decided to bring on Destiny's Child for their swan song appearance to present this year's Best Video. The noms: Snoop and Pharell, Kanye, Green Day, Coldplay, Gwen. Green Day got it.

00:17 - Kelly Clarkson - that "American Idol" chick - closes out the show with "Since You've Been Gone", barefoot and rawking out. I'm waiting for a wardrobe malfunction somewhere. But it's great to hear her sing live. And wet. Yeah. Wet.

Conclusion - after all that it was said and done, Green Day was the proverbial "Band of the Hour". Here's hoping that Clutch will be the next big thing next year!

BOH!

"The Smoking Gun" Asks:"Can You Be The Unabomber"

Those crazed goombahs at "The Smoking Gun" has invited us mere mortals to take a portion of a test that Ted Kaczynski took to determine his craziness in the Unabomber case.

The higher the score, the more likely that you might set fire to something or someone.

My score's 20. That makes me normal - at least in someone's eyes.

Y-2-Dray Alert:Find Alicia Ross!

This young lady here is Alicia Ross. She lives in a small town just outside of Toronto called Thornhill. The town actually sits centred on top of the T-dot, and like the Berlin of the Cold War is split between two political entities by Yonge Street: the township of Markham on the east side; the city of Vaughan on the west. Alicia lives in the part where I used to live, Markham, and went to the same high school I went to, Thornlea Secondary. Right about now she has gone AWOL for more than 6 days. There has been talk that she has been abducted.

As a former Thornhill resident, I feel that it is my duty to let everyone know about this, just because.

The impact on her friends and neighbours has been, if not devastating, then at least worrisome. One of her former schoolmates wrote about memories and the effects of her disappearance in the Toronto Sun today.

There is so much more to say about Alicia Ross. She loves the outdoors, white-water kayaking and Pink Floyd. She keeps herself in tip-top shape and she has a habit of sucking her thumb. The list describing Ross, written by her friends, fills up every inch of a piece of paper...

"Put it this way. We have a group of friends the world is jealous they don't have, and now we're minus one of the crew."

The Globe and Mail's Christine Blatchford views the situation through Alicia's mother's eyes in her column:

(Alicia's mother, Sharon) Fortis is a bit of a thing -- she comes to my neck and I'm about 5 foot 4 -- but she is remarkably fierce. Yesterday, she was having a reasonably good day; Julius and Andrew, the couple's second-oldest, were not.

You see, in the details, if not in the main event, God is kind, and allows someone in the family to be strong each day.

This is how it goes, when one of your children has just . . . disappeared. There are minutes when your heart swells with optimism you pray is not ridiculous and hours when you cannot contain the terror.

(...)

She believes Alicia is alive, as the parents of missing children must believe. "Everyone who phones," she said, "says, 'We know she's alive. We don't know how or why, we just do.' " Mrs. Fortis believes it because "the whole nature of the scenario of a girl like this," she said, "I don't think anyone would want to harm her. It's someone who would just want her."

You've read the effects on the ones Alicia loves and by whom she is loved. Put yourself in their shoes.

And this is where you come in.

If any of you people who check into this site have seen Alicia in any way, shape or form, no matter where you are, call the York Regional Police hotline at 1-866-287-5025, or CrimeStoppers at 1-800-222-TIPS(8477).

For the sake of the god you worship, help out.

And if you're reading this, Alicia, please call home.

Well, This Ain't THAT Bad.

Turkmenistan's nutso president, Saparmurat "Turkmenbashi" Niyazov, has issued various decrees in the past banning everything from opera and ballet to long beards and gold caps for Turkmen G's.

Yes, the Turkmenbasher is surely without a doubt one piece of work. But at least he did the rest of the civilised world one big favour.

He has outlawed lip-synching.

Niyazov has ordered a ban on lip synching performances across the tightly controlled Central Asian nation, citing "a negative effect on the development of singing and musical art," the president's office said Tuesday.

Tell us something that we decadent Westerners don't know.

Under Niyazov's order, lip synching is now prohibited at all cultural events, concerts, on television - and at private celebrations such as weddings.

Translation: Ghastly Simpleton is now considered an enemy of the Turkmen state.

The good news: if you can neither play nor sing, don't fake shit.

The bad news: those who do neither may resort to bad karaoke.

Oh, what the hell... 'tis a small price to pay to encourage creativity.

BTK Killer Does It Hali Style

Hack up a whole bunch of people. Get sentenced to 10 consecutive life terms. Wind up as a tv movie of the week.

BTK sick-fuck Dennis Rader did his filthy little dees in Wichita, Kansas, which is no doubt a prairie city. This CBS-sanctioned exploitfest is currently wrapping up production in Halifax, Nova Scotia, which is no doubt a nice, decent Maritime city - with some exceptions, of course.

Some people have qualms about Hali, with its mainly hilly topography, posing as Wichita. But if you look around, you'd find some pretty good places that would pass as "Anytown, USA". After all, this is one of North America's oldest cities, whose original immigrants included United Empire Loyalists booted out of the 13 colonies by revolutionaries.

But Hali, like the rest of Nova Scotia, is varied, and I am quite sure that some parts of the city could pass for Wichita.

Let's hope that in spite of numerous distractions of the intoxicating kind that production on this latest criminal cash-in gets done on time and under budget - I don't care about the hack job but I'd surely love to know what they've filmed.

A Quizilla Moment

I may not be blond...



Which Reservoir Dog Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

Neither is Michael Madsen, but he still fucking rawks.

BOH!

What Killed Suzie Marie Pena?

(Courtesy of Michelle Malkin.)

A few weeks ago I was shocked and saddened by the killing of a toddler by LAPD during a hostage incident involving her illegal-alien father.

Loving daddy-dearest Jose Raul Pena held the cops at bay for almost 2 hours, using little Suzie Marie as a Kevlar-vest substitute. Of course, it should also be noted that he was firing a stolen pistol and that he was either dealing in or using some of that healthy yéyo prior to or during the standoff.

Obviously, the kid didn't stand a chance in the crossfire: not all police forces can have access to a Barett .50 cal. Shit happened and now L.A.'s finest are under the proverbial gun yet again (remember Rodney King? Sure, you do...) with finger pointing everywhere. The activist industry over in SoCal went into overdrive attacking the cops over anything and everything from excessive use of force to racism.

Now this is where things managed to get a bit too interesting, since an autopsy found that Suzie Marie had some of that white stuff in her system.

What does that say about the environment in which the kid was raised? What does that say about her mother who would lead a crusade against these "baby-killers"? And what does that say about those who thought that the late Mr. Pena was such a saint?

At the same time, I find it very hard to rationalise the actions of a reprobate deportee. Had he simply surrendered, none of this would've happened. But he fired away for quite some time, wounded an officer and would up dead alongside his daughter.

And I bet that just as many people feel sorry for the "responsible" mother who lost her child, they should feel equally sorry for the man who had to make his own life/death decision - the one who wore the LAPD uniform.

Had he hestitated a little more before shooting, he would've been dead. If I were in his position, I'd choose survival over martyrdom and fire my waepon at the person trying to kill me - and deal with the consequences later.

And right about now, he's probably feeling like shit over poor Suzie Marie Pena. But at least he survived, if only to face the repercussions over an arrest gone horribly awry.

If the cops aren't checking into these various issues, they should. As many have noted, a good defence requires a better offence. And the lifestyles of the Pena-Loez family would be a great place to start, since...

For it turns out that the real “brutality” against baby Pena even preceded her father’s decision to use her as a human sandbag. (...) Add the cocaine poisoning to the multiple fathers that have contributed children to Lopez’s family, and you have a portrait of classic underclass dysfunction.

So sad. So terrible. So there you go.

You Too Can Be A Grail Character...

Like moi!

The Killer Rabbit of Caerbannog
That's the most foul, cruel, and bad-tempered rodent you ever set eyes on!

I could've been that French guard, but who am I to argue?

LGF: Kids Never Learn, Eh?

Back to work bashing Liber-idiots, Terror-fascists and their Apolo-jerks.

You have probably read stories about "Palestinian"© teens being busted for trying to nuke bomb "visit" some public place in Eretz Israel.

So some poor lad gets caught by the army and you'd expect him to be remorseful about his delusion. Right?

Well...

Abdel Kareem Mohammed Abu Habel agrees with Israeli critics who say that next week's disengagement from the Gaza Strip and parts of the West Bank will do nothing to stop Palestinian terrorist attacks against Israel. (... snip ...)

The only peace he wants "is to get back all our lands," meaning the entire state of Israel.

"We don't want the Jews on this world," he said.

Well, I'll be damned if that ain't remorseful.

One must realise that the current batch of criminals "freedom fighters" are a legacy of certain Arab leader named Hajj Amin al Husseini, who in the 1920s was the Mufti of Jerusalem and encouraged anti-Jewish riots and terror throughout British Palestine. Eventually, he sided with Hitler during World War ver 2.0 and was given the opportunity to carry out the Final Solution in the Middle East.

In a nutshell, for most of you armchair Mideast diplomats, the whole war isn't about "Palestine"™: it's all about the Jews who made it prosper.

And when you bring religion into the mix, watch out - it gets uglier to the max.

Meanwhile, say a prayer for little Abdel and hope that Adonai with smite him with some sense, manners and respect.

Shabbat Shalom.

Damn. Another Post-Long-Weekend Tuesday - Another Week.

A few litttle things to get off my chest on a wonkey Tuesday afternoon...

1. Am I imagining things, or has Haloscan gone retarded on me?
   For those who want to be in the know in the unholy blogsphere, the company is responsible for the comments section and trackbacks for each of my evil posts. Strangely enough, some of my posts have single comments that have nada in them.
   And then there is one anonymous poster who should come out of the shadows with this inspiring comment...
   

   you are a dum fuck that doesn't know shit about this city... better not to get involved in stupid shit by spreading shit about people you have no fucking idea about.

   Excuse me, my fine literate little humanoid, but what post are we talking about?
   Yes... unfortunately, while Haloscan can track posters' IP addresses (and I know that you're living somewhere in the HRM, kid - show up, Brat!), it's unable to attribute the post on which the comment was based. In other words, I have no clue what that brat was ranting about.
   So I'm back to looking for another way to maintain comments and trackbacks. While I may stay with Haloscan for the next little while, I might consider checking out other services like TypeKey, then I'll make my decision there and then.
   So for now, take your best shots.


2. Two out of three ain't bad: the Halifax Regional Municipality more than made up for last month's fireworks-free Canada Day weekend but holding not one but 3 big honking firework displays. I managed to see 2 of them - the MacDonald Bridge's 50^th anniversary display on Saturday, and Monday's in-harbour blowout. As was expected, everyone was satisfied.
   Yes, I do have a soft spot for things that generate oohs and ahhs. Let's hope that the weather gods will be a little more generous next year.


3. Another take on Star Wars: from the same band of lunatics that gave you "Troops" comes "I.M.P.S. - The Relentless", a multi-part fan-film series about the men and women in the best damn job in the Galaxy, the Imperial Forces.
   I'm just blown away by the production and the storyline of Chapter 1, which introduces us to the Relentless Battle Group and the people who work there. Note certain references to other fabled sci-fi series in one tense scene. And the music kicks ass!
   I'll save you some of the trouble of going to the site and have you click right here to download.
   In short, I just can't wait for Chapter 2 to show up. In the meantime, I'll give props to the creators and the participants of this project.


4. And speaking of props... check out this interesting Québec-based hip-hop site broadbeat.ca, created by Domenic Morissette, a.k.a. ElKiMo. If you have Internet Explorer, Winamp and a decent proficiency in French, you're all set to go. Currently, the internet t.v. side of the site is into reruns, but as soon as ElKiMo returns from Naval Reserve training, there will be some new schizznat to check out. Big up, AB Morissette!

And so... there you go. And I didn't bash any liberals this time.