news feeds feb 28

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No, this is a good idea... for reals! A fool-proof plan. Australian billionaire Clive Palmer, with more money than brains, has decided to build an exact replica of the Titanic and in 2016 it is set to sail from Southampton, England to New City, the original Titanic's planned maiden voyage. Palmer claims that by 2016, the Titanic II will be the safest cruise ship in the world (Umm… didn't they say that about the last one? I believe the word 'unsinkable' was also a word mentioned to describe the first ship). Palmer commissioned a Chinese shipyard to build the replica in 2012, and while he won't say how much money he has invested in the product, he has noted that he's gotten offers of up to one million dollars to be on that first ride. Bring extra life boats and don't skimp on the Buoy-O-Buoy life jackets. Just sayin'

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The Oscars, the Rolls Royce of awards shows, took place on Sunday evening with 'Argo' taking home the biggest prize of the night winning Best Picture of the Year. The film pulled off the rare feat of winning Best Picture while its director, Ben Affleck didn't even receive a Best Director nom (that award went to Ang Lee for his adaptation of "Life Of Pi"). Daniel Day-Lewis won Best Actor for his portrayal of the the title character in Steven Spielberg's "Lincoln," while Jennifer Lawrence took home the Best Actress statue for her turn in David O Russell's "Silver Linings Playbook." The other acting awards handed out went to Christoph Waltz (Django Unchained) and Anne Hathaway (Les Miserables) for the Best Supporting Actor and Best Supporting Actor respectively. "Argo" also won for Best Adapted Screenplay while Quentin Tarantino won his second writing award for Best Original Screenplay for "Django Unchained." To be honest, none of the winners were a shock, taking any dramatic elements away from the show, but the fellow who was taking the brunt of the slings and arrows was host Seth McFarlane. Put yourself in Seth's shoes. He is a guy who created a show about a talking dog and a homicidal baby. And you ask him to host a show for a bunch of stuffy 60 somethings (70-80 somethings) and now you are upset because he sang a song about boobs, ripped into George Clooney (RE: dating minors) and Scarlet Johansson's exposed boobs on the internet during his aforementioned song. I'm just saying Hollywood, you get what you deserve. You wanted him to host and now he's offensive and sexist. Tell us something we don't know.

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Did anyone watch the "Amazing Spiderman" franchise reboot? It was good, despite being completely unnecessary since it covers most of the origin story told by Sam Raimi's "Spiderman" (2002). I didn't despise the earlier films, in fact, I thought the second one was brilliant. However, I was never really a fan of Tobey Maguire, nor did I like the idea of having Peter Parker's first girlfriend Gwen Stacy used to make Mary Jane jealous in the third film instead of including her right from the start. Geek problems. Anyways, whatever, the new incarnation shows a Peter Parker, skateboarder and science geek coming to grips with his new powers. Andrew Garfield was great as the title character, while Emma Stone was adorable as Gwen Stacy and Denis Leary plays her curmudgeonly father, the chief of police. Uncle Ben and Aunt May are played by vets Martin Sheen and Sally Field, who can generally make any film better except for "Soapdish". In the sequel, Jamie Foxx will play the main villain 'Electro' while Paul Giamatti will portray 'Rhino,' It has been confirmed that Chris Cooper will play Norman Osborn (played by Willem Dafoe in the Raimi trilogy) meaning all three of the villains have an Academy Award to their credit so if they can't beat Spiderman they should be able to act better than him.

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The Toronto Maple Leafs have won some games here and there and find themselves right in the mix of things in the Eastern Conference with almost half the season behind them. Bright spots for the Leafs in the (almost) first half include backup goaltender Ben Scrivens filling is admirably, and at times spectacularly for injured starter James Reimer. In Reimer's absence Scrivens picked up two shutouts and is among the league leaders in save percentage and goals against average. Another bright spot is former franchise goat Nazem Kadri, who leads the Leafs in scoring, and recorded a hat trick in this evenings 5-4 overtime win against the Islanders in New York. The team does have some flaws. They can't seem to keep a lead in the third period, or if they do they cling on by the skin of their knuckles. Goaltending, a major question mark coming into the season, has been excellent but the defence has sprung a leak in the last two outings, giving up 9 goals, way above their season average. And what is going on with Phil Kessel? He's looked uninspired the last two games, and not only that, he has been turning over the puck way too much, more than once leading to goals. Leafs should expect Jofferey Lupul and Matt Frattin back in the lineup soon which means the Leafs will probably have to sit two of their three tough guys, all of whom have been playing great hockey, and not just by fourth line standards. Don't kid yourself, Colton Orr, Fraser McLaren and Mike Brown (not to mention Mark Fraser and Dion) have made the Leafs one of the toughest teams in the league due to their penchant for fisticuffs. Leafs are off until Monday when they take on the Devils.

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Here's some shows coming up:

Bob Mould March 1: Horseshoe Tavern

Deftones (with Periphery) March 1: Kool Haus

Every Time I Die (with The Acacia Strain) March 6: Opera House

Teenage Bottlerocket (with The Queers) March 6: Horseshoe Tavern

Texas Is the Reason March 8: Lee's Palace

Fuckface Unstoppable (Bam Margera) March 13: Opera House

Coheed & Cambria March 21: Sound Academy

Protest the Hero March 22: Hoxton

Grade & Choke March 23: Mod Club

Lucero (with Shovels & Rope) March 26 & 28

Bad Religion (with Against Me!) March 31: Kool Haus

REVIVAL TOUR Featuring Chuck Ragan, Dave Hause, Rocky Votolato, Jenny Owen Youns, Toh Kay April 1: Lee's Palace

Today Is the Day (with K.E.N. Mode) April 13: Lee's Palace

Parkway Drive April 16: Phoenix

3 Inches Of Blood (with Goatwhore) May 3: Opera House

The Breeders May 11: Danforth Music Hall

Integrity May 25: Wrongbar

Cannibal Corpse (with Napalm Death) May 31: Phoenix

Bad Brains June 13: Phoenix

Agnostic Front June 15: Hard Luck Club

Warped Tour July 5: The Flats

At the Gates August 9: Phoenix

Bad Religion's "True North" release shows in Toronto & Los Angeles:

london times

Londontown. This post has been a long time coming but hey, hey, what can you do? So what did I take away from a week spent in one of the world's leading financial and cultural capitals? Mainly, that a week isn't enough to scratch the surface of what London has to offer. Most days were spent walking around the endless winding streets and gazing in awe at the buildings older than the country of Canada itself. The city, original settled by Romans some 2,000 years ago, has been through several rebuilds, starting with the Roman settlement being burned to the ground by the Iceni tribe. The Romans heavily planned rebuild peaked at 60,000 people around 200 AD. Roman rule collapsed in the early 5th Century and London was abandoned. Anglo Saxons, who had a settlement west of the Old London City moved within the Roman walls to shield themselves from the constant attack from the Vikings. By 1300 AD, London had grown to 100,000 people but in time over-population and disease became rampant, not to mention much of the city was destroyed by the Great Fire Of London in 1666, which took ten years to rebuild. Onward and upward.. London became the world's largest city from 1831-1925 despite losing over 20,000 lives in two major cholera epidemics in 1848 and 1866. 

London's "Tube" rail network is celebrating it's 150th anniversary this year. It has 270 stations and over 250 miles of track which ranks it the fourth largest transit system in the world (behind Seoul, Shanghai and Beijing). The area it covers is quite extensive and puts Toronto's subway to absolute shame. Toronto's transit cover 69 subway stations despite being the third most trafficked system in North America (behind New York and Mexico City). I suppose subway stations are a product of their time since Toronto's definitely shows that it was born in the 1950-70s, and London's, at least the core of the city, was built 100+ years ago. The entryways have lavish gates and fencing, and channels of underground hallways to connect to whichever of the 11 different lines you intend to board. Despite the map looking like a plate of multicoloured spaghetti, it was surprisingly easy to navigate with excellant signage everywhere. The cars themselves weren't the tallest… not so much a problem for me but if you were any taller that 6'2" you could develop a neck problem. I also never thought I'd every say this about any city's transit: I preferred the buses. As it turns out the double-decker bus isn't a novelty. Virtually every bus there is a DD, and not only that, all of them were hybrid. It shows some foresight among the London Transit Authority to replace a fleet of some 8,000 old buses with hybrids. It, obviously, had to be of astronomical cost but good for themselves, the riders, the city and the environment for years to come. The buses really have a major presence on the road, and since I saw two gas stations the entire week it seems that transit is the way to get around. It is also a good way to check out some of the city without a dude in the front telling you irrelevant stories in a jovial voice. 

I didn't see Buckingham Palace, or Picadilly Circus other than in passing. Oh, and I missed out on the museums. It happens, though I did see the outside of some of them (that counts right?). A walk along the Thames from the London Bridge to the Tower Bridge was pretty awesome, with a little jettison to the Borough Market at closing time (they still close up as fast as closing time as here). The London Bridge itself, which the song about it falling down is the extent of my knowledge on the subject, was pretty cool since there is apparently a new London Bridge and an old one which in fact fell down. There had been early bridges during Roman rule, one of which was destroyed by a tornado in 1091 then the rebuild was destroyed by a fire in 1136. They weren't joking around the third time as Henry II commissioned a new stone bridge which was 26 feet wide and about 800 feet long and by 1358 has over 138 shops along it. They had a major fire on the Northwest side in 1633 but ironically it saved the bridge from being completely devastated by the Great Fire of London. The were over 200 buildings on the bridge some reaching over seven stories high, but unfortunately by the end of the 18th century the bridge became decrepit and highly congested, sometimes taking over 60 mins to cross during peak hours. The London Bridge of the 19th century was better built for transportation, and by 1896 became the busiest point in London, but still one of the most congested. Surveyors found that the bridge was sinking an inch every 8 years and soon enough the bridge had to be replaced. In an interesting twist, this incarnation of the London Bridge was put up for sale and in 1968 the bridge was sold to an American. Missiourian entrepreneur Robert C. McCulloch purchased the bridge for almost two and a half million dollars. He believed he was buying the more famous tower bridge but, piece by piece, the bridge was sent over to Lake Havasu City, Arizona and rebuilt. The Modern London Bridge was built between 1967 and 1972, but the pillars of the previous bridge still exist and sit just east of the new one.

Abbey Road was pretty awesome. A heavily trafficked road where people don't seem to mind risking their lives to recreate the Beatles famous "Abbey Road" album cover. While risking life and limb to get a shot I was amazed at all the graffiti on the wall, and noted a couple of them were pretty recent. As it happens, there is so much traffic and graffiti at the studio that they have to repaint the white wall every couple months so all of them are recent. And that thing is covered. Not only did the Beatles record all their album there, it also recorded every Floyd album from their 1967 Syd Barrett led debut "The Piper At the Gates Of Dawn" to 1975's "Wish You Were Here," as well as albums by Connie Francis, The Shadows, The Buzzcocks, The Alan Parsons Project, Rush, Duran Duran, Radiohead, Oasis, Bush and U2. Pretty cool spot in an unassuming building (pretty plain for such a historic place). Abbey Road Studios almost got demolished in 2010 to make way for luxury condos but the studio was saved, and was declared as a historic site by the British government, halting any proposed alterations to the building. You can check out the camera thats pointed on the famous crosswalk 24/7 HERE.

Ghosts. Pubs. Ghosts in pubs. I wanted to check out a ghost tour, since given London's ridiculously long history if there is going to be spirits anywhere it would be there. I found a couple good ones on the googles only to find out that there wasn't another tour planned until the evening of the day I left. So that was bollocks, as the kids say over there. Fortunately, the googles also steered me to some other ghost walks centred around pubs that where near to where I was staying for the week. The first one wasn't the most interesting, something about the owner of the business who often looked upon his patrons from on a rocking chair from the second floor and had been seen many times since his death. The pathway to get to the pub was much more interesting and spooky than the pub itself. The next spot was Charterhouse Square where it said that it was once a plague pit where 50,000 victims of the 'Black Death' are said to be buried. Some of them would have still been alive while thrown into the pit of the decaying bodies and people who walked to square at night have long report that they heard anguished screams as they relive their final agonies. In the nearby Charterhouse School, kids were dared to go to the square at midnight and put their ear to the ground to listen for the spirits howling underneath the grass. Not to mention the spirit of a monk that roams the grounds of the Charthouse, London's only surviving Tudor townhouse. 

"At night when the surrounding streets fall silent, a shadowy monk is said to drift aimlessly about the cobblestone courtyards, parts of which survive from the days as a monastery. He shares his weary vigils with the headless spectre of the Duke of Norfolf that comes striding down the main staircase, on which he was arrested, his head tucked neatly under his arm." 

Ya. Anyways the last pub was pretty neat. The Sutton Arms is tucked away (as most pubs seemed to be) in a narrow street and has a beautiful bow-window frontage has a small but warm interior and is haunted by a red hair old gentleman in old fashioned dress named Charley. He has been sitting alone in the corner of the pub on many occasions and even appeared suddenly to a couple girls while they were having a lunchtime drink. He appeared, smiled, then disappeared. In 1997, a friend of the landlord who was staying upstairs in one of the rooms above the pub was looking in a mirror and saw a reflection of a red haired man smiling at her. She turned around and no one was there. Dun dun dun. I was hoping the bartender would humour me when I asked of the ghost and she was quick to mention "Charley" by name. She said she had never come in contact with him but knew people who had. She said the basement was really creepy and I asked if I could see it… She said yes, then mentioned it to her husband/bar manager who now lived upstairs and he said no chance. As I drank a delicious glass of lager, crying in my beer, she suddenly came up and said 'alright let's go downstairs'. It was freezing, but pretty run of the mill stuff, cobwebs, wind tunnels, just hundreds of years old. She did show me two old lithographs that were in the basement and always said they creeped her out. It one of those pictures that the eyes follow you no matter where you go. I don't like them. They are creepy but naturally, I had to take a picture despite being weirded out. The woman just look furious. As for the one with the gentleman with no face and a killer moustache I just wonder why a bike like that would even exist. I mean, how unpractical is that? Here's some pictures from there basement of a 200+ year old pub:

Anyways, thats about all I guess. Beatles, walking, rain, double decker bussing and warmish beer. Pretty much what you would expect from London, but wow, you could spend years in that place and discover new things every day. So many curvy narrow roads clearly built for horses, completely devoid of city planning, and just an absolute zoo, I can't say I've visited a city that rivals it other than New York City (no disrespect to other faves San Francisco, Chicago, Portland and Boston) and look forward to exploring it more one of these days!

Feel free to check out my lovely tour guide's photo's here.

news feeds feb 16

The world got a little more Armageddon/Deep Impact-y yesterday. A meteor blast hit the Russian city of Chelyabinsk and surrounding areas injuring more than 1000 people, costing more than $33 million US, and blew out most of the windows in over 4,000 building making the freezing temperatures at night feel all the more cold, you know, being windowless and all, has made the window repairs one of the most pressing items to repair. But to be honest, I'm sure most of the folks are content to wrap up in a few blankets and be thankful to be alive. The meteor packed a punch of approximately 300-500 kilotons of energy (the Hiroshima nuke the Americans dropped was 15 kilotons). NASA reported that the meteor was the largest recorded since 1908, where an asteroid entered the atmosphere and exploded, which knocked over 80 million trees to the ground in an area of 820 square miles in northern Siberia. If you haven't seen the video you should def watch it!

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Nipples. Maybe its just simple fundamental difference between the US and Canada. We aren't too weirded out by nips in the Great White North… we have a nude beach in Toronto, and both men and women are allowed to walk around topless. No big deal. In North Carolina however, a Republican state representative is trying to introduce House Bill 34 which would make it illegal for women to bare their breasts, even in a accidental or wardrobe malfunction scenario. Women who are worries about showing too much cleavage should use pasties, or some kind of double sided tape. Depending on the intent of exposure women could face up to a six month sentence for an 'errant areola,' whereas more mundane exposure results in a 30 day sentence. Fortuantely, there is an exemption made for breastfeeding, allowing the breast to be exposed is it least appealing sexual state." Rep Rayne Brown said "there are communities across this state, there's local governments across this state, and also local law enforcement for whom this issue is really not a laughing matter" despite the utter hilariousness of the whole bill. 

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Amidst the shocking case of Oscar "Blade Runner" Pistorius (the feel good story of the London, Olympics) Monty Python/Fawlty Towers funnyman John Cleese tweeted 'Oscar's defence will be that he was absolutely legless at the time." It caused a major uproar on the social networking site leading to him to lose more followers than Mel Gibson or say, Stephen Baldwin (if he had any to begin with). As it turns out, what seemed really, really inappropriate is only mildly inappropriate since 'legless' turns out to be British slang for drunk, and therefore it's pretty damn 'punny' when you think about it. People were in an uproar, but personally, I don't think the Olympian merits much compassion if the charges against him are in fact true. One of my favourite Python bits:

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The decay of the Star Wars franchise may have begun with Episode I. Not that it was a terrible movie, more than a terrible character or two, with too much CGI but it was overall semi-enjoyable. Fortunatly, Episode II and III were much better. The Disney purchase of Lucasfilm may have been the final nail in the coffin. It's not like I won't watch the new series when it comes out but then Disney has announced they will be doing some stand alone Star Wars films, focusing on characters of Han Solo, Yoda or Boba Fett. Horrifying idea. The stand alone spin off that seems to gathering the most attention is that of Obi Wan Kenobi, a role that Ewan McGregor would be more than willing to reprise, going as far as coming up with a potential storyline that would take place between Episode III and IV. On the plus side, Harrison Ford is now in negotiations to reprise his role as maverick smuggler/hero of the rebellion Han Solo. He hasn't officially signed on, and word has it the negotiations could take months to finalize, but how bad ass would that be?

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The Grammy Awards were handed out, I don't know, sometime recently. Who cares. As it turns out the big winner was Katy Perry's boobs. Ellen approved!

 

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The Toronto Maple Leafs put together an impressive string of games while I was gone, which makes me want to stay out of the continent just so they have a chance in hell of making the playoffs. The Leafs currently sit in sixth place in the Eastern Conference with 35 games to play, and hopefully they can survive without goaltender James Reimer who got injured in the 5-2 beating the Leafs laid on the Philadelphia Flyers. Reimer had put up numbers that ranked with the leagues best, but back up Ben Scrivens has been great as well. The Leafs defence corps has tightened up, shaving nearly a goal per game of their team goals against average under the tutelage of Coach Carlyle. The Leafs main problem has been putting the puck in the net, and as their 3-1 loss to Carolina proved, their lack of strength/size down the middle. James Van Riemsdyk, Matt Frattin (who is now injured for a week or so), and Nazem Kadri have been doing most of the scoring, while sniper Phil Kessel sits on just two goals for the season (but has added 9 assists). The Leafs play the Senators on Hockey Night In Canada tonight 7PM EST start.

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Video for the title track from Bad Religion's stellar new album "True North":

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london town

Hanging out in London for the week. Hopefully something news worthy happens or at least I hope I'm scared by the ghost tour! Old city, old spirits everywhere I'm sure! Beautiful city, beautiful buildings and super nice people. But say, what is the point of the two pence coin really? Pretty much nothing considering its value is about 3 cents Canadian.. Anywho, Cheerio!