a couple things and soap names

Not feeling any better about roads in Toronto. Just a short while after Toronto's waterfront eyesore Gardiner Expressway was shedding concrete from its underside (SEE HERE), two lanes have been shutdown on Hwy 401, the busiest highway in the GTA, because extreme heat caused the asphalt to buckle. A contractor was called to the scene to repair the stretch which re-opened the lanes just a couple hours later. What dries that fast that can handle that kind of weight? Toronto has been in the midst of a heatwave for a few days now, with temperatures at 33.8 degrees celsius feeling closer to 40. The heat, smog and humidex advisories have been lifted today but, believe you me, it's still hot as hell.

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Men aren't that complicated. We just (usually) like beer, sports, a nice car, nice house, maybe a couple other little toys and that's that. Not too ridiculous right? Well, CNN listed some of the more extravagant toys that people have bought to play around with. Oracle (not sure what that is) CEO Larry Ellison has purchased a nice little vacation spot, about 98% of Lana'I, Hawaii's sixth largest island. No big deal, since Richard Branson owns a $53,000 per night private getaway known as Necker Island. Jeff Bezos, founder of amazing has been working on the world most extravagant model kit, a full functional rocket. Unfortunately for Bezos, it failed its test launch last year, but apparently his space team has located the actual engines from the Apollo 11 spacecraft, which should help this project get off the ground. Mark Cuban's entry is move of a record setting type scenario. His private jet, not new to the rich and famous, was purchased online for $40 million making it the largest e-commerce transaction of all time. I hope it was a secured server. This did make it into the Guinness Book of World Records. Paul Allen (not the one from American Psycho), co-founder of Microsoft owns the world's largest yacht, at least among tech moguls. It is 7 stories and looks like a Holland America cruise ship. Except Allen's has more staff. The other Microsoft cog Bill Gates made a $31 million of an original da Vinci manuscript. Apparently, the manuscript is just the tip of his rare items, as its reported he paid more than $30 million on a Winslow Homer painting. The Google founders are clearly military geeks, and own a Dornier Alpha fighter jet, which costs them $1.3 million to keep in a garage (?) over at NASA. Michael Dell of MSD Capital, acquired 185,000 vintage photos from renowned photogs for $100 million. The collection includes work by 103 photographers with pictures take of key moments in World War II to portraits of famous people like JFK and Gandhi, between the 1930s and mid 90s.

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Woody Allen has been making essentially the same movie for forty years. That's either a bad thing or a good thing, but there is a report out that the Woodman doesn't appreciate his fairweather fans who may just be familiar with "Annie Hall" and "Midnight In Paris" then dismiss the rest. He feels all his movies has the same kind of charm, and that if you like on of his films you should like most. Key word is definitely most. For every "Midnight In Paris," "Vicky Cristina Barcelona" and "Match Point" there's a "Cassandra's Dream," "Whatever Works" and "Melinda, Melinda." But we have to be used to this pattern by now. The 70s boasted his best work, with "Bananas," "Sleeper," "Love and Death," ranking up there with his late 70s output of "Annie Hall" and "Manhatten." But remember "Interiors" (never the Bergman-esque "masterpiece" he likes to think it is). It was pretty subpar, as was the ridiculously uneven "Everything You Wanted To Know About Sex But Were Afraid To Ask." The 80s started the real hit and miss with some genuine throwaways like "A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy" "Another Woman," "September" and "Zelig" (which isn't that bad, just hard to watch more than once). But peppered among those were classics like "Stardust Memories," "The Purple Rose Of Cairo," "Hannah & Her Sisters" (maybe the only Woody movie with a genuinely happy ending) and "Crimes & Misdemeanors." The 90s featured the brilliantly obscene "Deconstructing Harry," "Mighty Aphrodite" "Husbands & Wives" and "Sweet & Lowdown" and the terribly dull "Shadows & Fog", the overrated "Bullets Over Broadway", the dreadful "Alice" and "Everyone Says I Love You." So ya, point being, since about 1980, or thirty years of his 40+ year career has been hit and miss. The hits are usually bullseyes though, and if the premise of the movie appeals to you and you know what to expect from a Woody movie you will not be let down. After already writing and directing two films that are love letters to their respective cities (namely "Mahatten" and "Midnight In Paris"), he has his third such film slated for release, a tribute to the Eternal City, Rome called "To Rome With Love." It is made up of four vignettes (not intertwining - in fact not all in the same time period) and stars Jesse Eisenberg (as this films Woody stand-in), Ellen Page, Penelope Cruz, Ellen Page, Judy Davis and Woody himself. It opened in Italy a while back, New York and Los Angeles tonight and coming everywhere else (select theatres I'm sure) soon!

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Charlie Sheen as president of the USA? Let's hope not, unless you want the American capital relocated to Las Vegas. No, but seriously, it's in a movie. "Machete 2," a movie that screamed for a sequel, cast the crazed star as President, in a ridiculous cast that already include Jessica Alba, Danny Trejo and Mel Gibson. This puts the film in the lead for the "craziest and drunkest set to work on." Everything is coming up Sheen, as his show "Anger Management" is set to debut June 28, and he has just filmed a new movie co-starring with Bill Murray. Robert Rodriguez to me is dead. I think it happened with the Spy Kids franchise, but you can't tell me that "El Mariachi," "Desperado," (El Mariachi's Hollywood counterpart), "From Dusk Til Dawn" and his segment in "Four Rooms" weren't freaking brilliant. And that alien takeover teacher movie "The Faculty." That was fun too. Anyways, good times with the Sheener to be had.

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Ever wondered what your name would be if you were a soap opera actor? Me neither. But it was on CNN so I put mine in and I'm actually kind of pleased with the results. So from here on in I'm known as STERLING NORTON. Get yours here: SOAP

I remember those name generator site so I found a couple other with much more mixed results:

Pirate Name: Snifflin' Isaac Teach

Porno Name: Pud Banger (no homo)

Mafia Name: Tony the Bookie 

Mexican Wrestler: Surfer Grande

I'll just stop now. Those were all on the same page (HERE) so I did them all at once. Don't judge. 

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news feeds june 10

Well duh. Obama held a press conference to declare the the American economy "is not doing fine." While he said the private sector was doing good, where they were seeing weakness "have to do with state and local government, oftentimes cuts initiated by, you know, governors or mayors who are not getting the kind of help that they have in the past…" Yada yada. Does it really matter? Holding a press conference to declare an obvious point seems pretty redundant, and of course Mitt Romney wasted no time commenting on the president's statement by asking if the president was "really that out of touch." Sounds like he's pretty in touch, since the economy is basically a nightmare. But you know, another six months of spending on their respective campaigns leading up to the election will help. 

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Can't make this up. Here's ten uses for a tampon in the wild (the Swiss Army Tampon) by artofmanliness.com. I'll just list them since they are all awesome and no jokes are required, because who are we kidding, this story is a walking punchline. #1: Medical Bandage. A tampon is perfect bandage because they are well packaged in waterproof sleeves and by design are ultra absorbent. Accounts of this use for the hygiene product dates back to World War 1. #2: Water Filter. It is able to filter out sediments and floating particles, but it probably won't knock out "biological, chemical or heavy metal threats." Cool. #3: Fire tinder. Cotton burns like wild fire, and when the dry cotton fibres of a tampon are pulled apart and hit with the slightest spark it will burn beautifully. Apparently adding chapstick, or vasoline to the cotton you have an even better firestarter. Ok! Next #4: Straw filter. This looks like a large marijuana 'bat' shaped cigarette, but you can filter water from a puddle with it. You won't be stoned, but you won't be thirsty either. #5: "Wick for improvised candle." Alright this gets a little "Survivor Man" but apparently you can make a candle out of animal fat and fresh "mussel shell" (Alright then). I knew the strings on the end of those things had another use. #6: Cordage. Ummm "The string attached to a tampon is a cotton twisted cord typically made up of several 4-6" pieces of twine. Though it's not much, it is useable cordage." So in the example of this use on the website, they have a trap set up to catch you dinner. I'm a vegetarian so unless is can gather a crop of broccoli, they may be useless. And it's not enough to hang yourself. Just an FYI. #7: Blow Dart Fetching. Whatever that means. Apparently tho, the blow gun has been around for thousands of years, and the tampon cotton can make a perfect feather (or "fletching") for the end of your dart for a blow gun. "8: Blow Tube. Ya, so instead of sucking in like #4, you blow out, usually to revive coals from the previous evening. Not too sure what the difference is from just blowing on the coals and blowing on the coals through a tampon, but apparently there is. #9: Waterproof Match & Fire Tinder Case. When you are in a damp, wet situation, in the woods, with a tampon you can keep your fire starting tools like matches and tinder dry by using the waterproof packaging. Fold it over, use the tampon string to tie it up! And #10: Fishing Bobber. "Make the bobber with the tampon package/sleeve by folding over and tying off the top to create a little bubble that will float you bait." You for once don't have to feel bad about combining the terms "fish" and "tampon" in the same sentence. Cheap joke, I know. Next time you are out buying your water purification tablets and SPAM for your survival kit, will you include a box of tampons?

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$8.64??

Are you sick of the food prices in Toronto or wherever you are? Take a look-see at what's going on in Nunavet right now. Or at least it has been brought to our attention now. Thousands of Inuit have been pictures of food items along with their price tags to show how ridiculous it is to get food in Canada's newest territory. A case of ginger ale will run you $82, while a head of cabbage could run you $20. Over 10,000 people have joined the Facebook site called "Feed My Family" which accounts for over a third of Nunavut's population. They also are among Canada's poorest with half of the adults in the territory make under 20,000 per year, and a three person family, a mother, father and child spends up to 500-600 per week on groceries. Pretty weak.

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Tommy Chong is fighting prostate cancer. The 74 year old stoner claims he started noticing the symptoms while he was in jail for selling drug paraphernalia eight years ago, and since he noticed the symptoms when he was clean then "it's not because of the cannabis". In fact, he now used pot as a cure. Chong no longer smokes marijuana but he ingests hemp oil in the evenings. "I'm taking it as a medicine," he said noting "So legalizing marijuana means a lot more to me than just being able to smoke a joint and not get arrested." Tommy Chong and his partner Cheech Marin released several comedy albums in the 70s before hitting the big screen in 1978's "Up In Smoke", the first in several adventures of the pair. After the duo broke up, Chong found a regular gig as Leo from seasons 2-8 of Fox's That's 70's Show. Listen to Cheech & Chong's "Earache In My Eye" below!

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After getting a bum deal in a botched overtime call the other night, the Toronto Marlies bowed out of the Calder Cup final without a whimper, losing 6-1 to the Norfolk Admirals. It actually was  a pretty close game until the third period, but Norfolk proved too dominating, tough and determined to be denied the championship in the minimum four games. With the Marlies trailing 3-1 in the third, Toronto had a power play with just over nine minutes left and Marlies coach Dallas Eakins pulled goalie Ben Scrivens for a 6-4 advantage.. it was a gamble, and Norfolk tucked in an empty netter to go up 4-1. At that point all the cards had been laid on the table and Norfolk tacked on a couple late ones to pad the score. It is Norfolk's first AHL championship in their 12 year history. The NHL playoffs got a lot more interesting after the Devils beat the Kings in their game four matchup in Jersey Saturday night. All the pressure is now on Los Angeles with game 6 slated for Monday night. LA will be in deep trouble if they lose at home in a clinching game for a second time.

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LOSING! Could Charlie Sheen get any cooler? Atfer taking in some game four action in Los Angeles, the rockstar from Mars was denied re-entry into the Staples Centre after sliding outside of a smoke. So, what do the Devils do? They tweet to Charlie Sheen: "We'll treat you w/courtesy & common sense @CharlieSheen come to the game tomorrow we have a great staff & a smoking gallery." Still no word weather Charlie took in tonight's game in Newark since I'm writing this at 7am and he's probably still out. WINNING!

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