Blog-ocracy

This is apparently the first ever democratic blog...everyone gets a say.

That's better

I think this new layout works. Although is it to death metal? Will I ever be happy with the look of this thing?

My friend went to Ireland...and all I got was this crummy rant

I have returned from the Emerald Isle with gifts, pictures and a significantly lighter wallet.

I thought a lot about what I’d be posting when I got home and frankly I kept coming back to this – Europe is better than North America.

I’m sure on a number of levels we out-do them. I noticed they don’t have cookie cutter strip malls everywhere like we do. Which means you’re not guaranteed a Boston Pizza every fourth highway exit. But things that really matter – as a society we should be embarrassed.

Where to even begin? How about the efficient, clean and inexpensive public transit.

A friend joked with me that visiting Northern Ireland was like traveling back in time 20 years (a self-deprecating remark about their slow travels toward civil unity). But on this issue I had to disagree with him. The buses were clean and new and they arrived…on time. The trains were fast and inviting and they didn’t charge you $200 for a 2 hour round trip.

The minute I stepped on to the lush double-decker bus that would shuttle us into Belfast city centre I immediately pictured the smelly, rumbling, exhaust-spewing mess that pass for TTC streetcars. Envisioning their 70’s faux wood-panel interior and stained red seats I suddenly felt shame. Such deep shame.

But the truly astonishing part was that they were on time – all the time. If the schedule read 4:06 – then damn-it the bus came at 4:06. Every time I’ve taken the TTC in the past few months it’s been late – ranging from 5 to 20 minutes.

Oh, and you don't need exact change, the bus driver will make change from a $20 right there on the spot...imagine that on the Queen St. car at 5:00 pm...holy shit it would a riot.

I don’t necessarily have the answers to why the TTC, GO and Via are all so poorly run, but the bright minds at the top need to examine these working models a little closer.

What else…oh I know! Borders.

Why is it that while driving between Northern Ireland and the Republic – two separate countries, there wasn’t even so much as a road sign to signal our move from one country to the next? The only telling factor was that the speed limits are posted in km instead of mph.

You can travel through 4 different European countries and never be asked for a passport. Yet I can’t drive an hour to Buffalo and shop at Target without three forms of ID, personal references and a cavity search? Seriously!

I know this gets said a lot – but honestly…fuck you America. Get over yourself.

I won’t even touch on the vacation topic, except to say that they look at us like slave labourers – what with our 2 and 3 weeks of holidays.

While I appreciate that land-mass and infrastructure plays a large part in why our two continents operate differently, I would suggest that we could learn a lot from how European countries do things. We could be more efficient, more communal and get better vacation time if we would just learn from our European neighbours.

PS – I hate this blog’s layout – expect it to change soon. Gay cowboys have more masculine looking blogs than this.

Irish eyes are smiling

Newly married, and still glowing with all that love and luster that comes with matrimonial bliss – I’ve frankly been too happy lately to be an angry, fist shaking old man. So happy in fact, that I’m at a loss to use this space for it’s usual pointed critique of the social and political surroundings…aka – my frothing bat-shit-crazy melt downs.

Next week sees myself and the missus off to Ireland for our honeymoon. So this post I’m gonna switch it up and offer some recommendations for you, my sole reader.

Cool website/ interweb feature – Stumbleupon

This is probably the coolest thing I’ve seen on the web since Two Girls, One Cup…just kidding. It’s honestly a great tool and an absolutely awesome way to piss away hours on the internet.

The premise is simple enough. It generates web pages depending on the topics and interests you choose. Here’s how it breaks down – you sign up for a profile, and select interests from a big list of things including, photography, humour, girls, cups, etc…then once you’re done, you download the little toolbar – which installs itself into your browser – and you’re off.

You just hit the Stumble button and it starts bringing up pages based on your profile. I’ll warn you now though…you will get roped in and constantly be wondering what’s coming next.

www.stumbleupon.com

Cool new album from a cool band – Wolf Parade, At Mount Zoomer

While I usually leave music suggestions and critique to my good friend Sniffy Von, I do feel the need to pass on this suggestion.

When I first sat down with Wolf Parade’s last album Apologies to the Queen Mary, I didn’t really know what to think. It was chaotic; the vocals were like yelps fighting against instruments that sounded like they were being forced to their very limits. And yet it was that same chaos that two or three listens later made it so unforgettable.

This year’s follow up is much easier to sink into upon first listen. It’s a trim nine songs and is complete with the same attacking sound and emphatic melodies, with lyrics fired at you like bullets from a machine gun. But there’s also a real nuanced subtly that wasn't quite as apparent the first time around. It's perhaps a softer side to a band that might have been discounted by non-indie fans as noisey.

Stand-out tracks: Soldier’s Gun, California Dreamer and Fine Young Cannibals

Cool New trend – being a traitorous bastard!

Hey Mats. How are you? It's been a while.

So listen, didn’t I see you the other day talking to that Bob Gainey guy? What was that about?

I know we’re on a break, but I thought you were just “thinking things over,” and then I see you with him?

Listen, I don’t think I can do this anymore. I need a definitive answer one way or the other. You either stay here or you go off with him.

Seriously – dude – you wanna play in a new city fine, but Montreal? Really? Why don’t you take a big steamer on your old jersey while you’re at it. That’s cold Mats – just cold.

Just remember, when thier fans burn down your house because you lost/won the game for them – don’t come crying to us.

Hope this works out for you and doesn’t ruin the last years of your career.

for examples see: Curtis Jospeh

hmm…seems I got a bit of a rant in there after all. Feels kind of good.

Toronto I love you, but you're bringing me down

7 Cops. That’s how many it took to bring me down the other morning. Seven of them! On a sunny June morning the only way to stop me in my tracks was seven of Toronto’s finest.

What was my crime?

“Your bike doesn’t have a bell or a horn,” commented Special Constable Dick Head.

Oh that’s right, I was handed a $100 ticket for failing to equip my bike with that ever important and life saving device – a bell (or a horn). Because when it comes down to living or dying – I choose to live, and I choose a bell!

Toronto – you’re fucking killing me!

I wish to God I was making this up, because that alone would be bad enough. But five officers stood around on this morning while two handed out tickets – as if for moral support. So officer D. Head and his six friends milled about snickering under their breaths, and of course “solving crime.”

Maybe I’m wrong, but weren’t 8 people shot in Toronto this past weekend, in three or four separate incidents? Perhaps the guy putting together the schedule could have pulled three or four cops away from this whole “bell” epidemic that’s sweeping the city and put them to finding people with guns.

But of course that would take away from Toronto’s love of punishment. Gosh, this city certainly loves to be punitive.

Parked 2.5 meters from a fire hydrant instead of 3? $100 ticket.

Your parking sticker is two inches out of place? $30 ticket.

No bell or horn on your bike? $100 ticket.

Here I am trying to help the environment, keep my car off the road, looking like a tool in my bike helmet and riding in the proper bike lane – but that’s just not good enough. You know what Toronto – sometimes you’re everything that the rest of this country hates about you.

But maybe I’m wrong – maybe Toronto just has my best interest at heart. Maybe the next time I almost get hit by a car instead of swerving out of the way, I’ll just ring my bell frantically…that should send a clear message.

Or maybe it just makes the cyclist easier to find after a crash – just listen for the honking goose sound when they’re pulling apart the wreckage.

Buyer beware

I'm fuming mad, pushing a bike across College St. in the hot afternoon sun. Sweat is pouring down my forehead and I can feel it pooling under the shoulder strap of my bag. Plus every third or fourth step I catch my foot on the bike pedal and trip a little, exacerbating my white-hot rage.

This was the scene the other day as my cheap, Canadian Tire Supercycle mountain bike came apart underneath me like Hilary Clinton's presidential bid, peddling furiously but going nowhere.

Looking down I notice the rear gear housing wobbling uselessly and in a way that made it clear I would be spending the next 45 minutes pushing this useless green frame home (uphill no less). The funniest part is that I had only purchased it a month and a half ago…hilarious right?

So as I made my way home in the heat (did I mention how hot it was?), my mind turned over a number of different scenarios featuring me, a lead pipe and the bike's designer – all of them bloody…all of them satisfying.

The point is I am still continually shocked with the outrageously poor and shitty way most things are constructed nowadays. I say nowadays as if I have some 50-year benchmark to measure against, but the fact remains most products these days are absolute shit.

When I opt for the cheaper model of something, I naively imagine that it's cheaper because it has less features or is painted an embarrassing green colour. I don't naturally assume that cheaper means it has an expiration date attached to it like eggs or Chad Kroeger's haircut.

I realize that getting worked up and acting surprised is as pointless as…well as that shitty bike, but it's my blog so fuck it…did I mention how hot it was?

Hip to be square

To take full advantage of the gorgeous weather this weekend, me and the missus headed down to Kensington Market for a spot of shopping and culture.

Also, I needed a reason to put pants on and stop playing Grand Theft Auto for a few hours and the promise of rubbing shoulders with the elite hipster crowd was enough motivation for me. And God knows if there was ever a bastion for the uber-cool it's Kensington.

A strange bunch these hipsters, what with their irony and tight pants. They're not defined by a style of music or even a trend in clothing but more by their complete dismissal for everything you like and think is cool. They are an enigma wrapped in a riddle - except they hate riddles and think enigmas are super-lame.

They're into bands you've never heard of, and – usually because they're complete shit – never will hear about. Everything they do is based around irony, but with an over-arching air of apathy and superiority. Basically they try really, really hard to seem like everything they do is effortless and end up coming across as total dickweeds.

Now I'm often described as "opinionated" and "disagreeable" by a small, minority of people, but if I hate something you like it's probably because it's stupid. Meanwhile, a hipster hates something you like purely because you like it – hate is their natural posture.

Also, any trend that you now partake in or came in contact with – they started. Like the second-hand thrift store t-shirt fad from a few years ago? Well man, they got there first and their t-shirt was funnier and more ironic than yours.

I'm actually wondering at what point this latest round of Walmart brand ironic tees will become so painfully uncool to hipsters that they'll actually be considered cool again. My God – that's more irony than anyone can stand. I fear the world would simply collapse in on itself leaving an over sized scarf and bits of beard where a hipster once stood.

I also wonder how one becomes a hipster. Like Fight Club, it seems like the first rule is – you do not talk about being a hipster. In fact, if you asked them, they would even tell you they hate hipsters.

But overall I think my favourite thing about them is how much work they put into their identities. Frankly, you almost have to commend them, because being that smug is a 24 hour job.

When they're not searching blogs and websites for the next trend (don't bother looking for these sites, you've never heard of them…only hipsters have), they're researching bands and haircuts and finding ways to make themselves look as disheveled and unkempt as possible. Because more than anything, they want you to believe that everything they do takes no effort.

The truth is, that mullet was no happy accident...it was groomed and honed to perfection. And the stinky looking dude with the mustache? He didn't just wake up with that on his lip - he's been developing it for a while.

The point being that they work doubly hard to look like they gave their entire persona no thought...which is kind of ironic...don't you think?