news feeds march 31

--

"The Internet: It's like never leaving junior high." Ya think? Janet Sternberg, a communications professor at Fordham University in New York says "The Internet and digital media have produced this Peter Pan effect where we never grow up, we're like perpetual children, we never have to be responsible for anything - we keep this juvenile mentality. We say whatever's on our mind. Restaint is one of the signs of adulthood, and our whole culture is celebrating a lack of restraint." Great article dealing with grownup kids around the Internet. Click HERE to read on. 

--

What does an actor who has played in damn near every style of film supposed to do when you've done it all? Look for a genre you have played in obviously. That's right: Clint Eastwood slated to direct a film adaptation of the hit musical "Jersey Boys." I definitely didn't see that one coming, but after Jon Farveau, who was originally attached to direct, backed out Clint has shown interest in taking the reigns. The Dirty Harry star has been interested in directing a musical for sometime now, trying to remake the Kris Kristofferson/Streisand clunker "A Star Is Born" with Beyonce playing the lead role. The project didn't get off the ground for a variety of reasons including Beyonce's pregnancy and the lack of a suitable leading man, and even though Beyonce has dropped off the project, Clint is still keen to get it done and may work on it once the Jersey Boys adaptation is complete. 

--

In West Philadelphia, born and raised… The original (O.G.) Aunt Vivian (the better one) Janet Hubert says she is tired of fighting with the Fresh Prince himself, Will Smith. Hubert spent three seasons as the mother on the hit 90s sitcom, and portrayed Vivian as a much stronger and more intelligent mother figure than her replacement. But her and Smith never got along; she even went so far as saying Smith made her life a living hell. After twenty years of fighting she just wants to make peace with the rest of the cast. "I would say to him, we need to heal this. You've done some things, you've said some things, that were totally untrue and you know that they were untrue. I've said some things that I probably should have never said… I'm tired. Aren't you tired Will?" She was also asked by TheGrio.com if she would participate in a reunion and she said 'absolutely.' This is a far cry from her comments in when Will posted a picture on Facebook of the cast hanging out in 2011 where she told TMZ "There will never be a reunion, as I will never do anything with an asshole like Will Smith. He is still an egomaniac and has not grown up. This constant reunion thing will never ever happen in my lifetime unless there is an apology, which he doesn't know the word." I just love that show. That is all.

--

It has been five long months since the San Francisco Giants captured their second World Series in three years, but have no fear, baseball is back tonight. The season kicks off with the Texas Rangers at Minute Maid Park playing their new divisional rivals, the Houston Astros. The 'Stros made the jump to the American League after spending their entire existence in the National League, giving Major League Baseball's six divisions an even five teams a piece. Houston also changed their uniforms, resurrecting the old colour scheme from the Astrodome era. I dig them. That is the only game this evening but don't worry, on Monday there are some great games lined up with 24 teams in action. The Red Sox and Yankees renew pleasantries at Yankee Stadium, the Champion Giants kick off their season against the Dodgers in Los Angeles, the Cubs are taking on the Pirates in Pittsburgh and the Phillies are in Atlanta to challenge the Upton brothers and the Braves. Blue Jays kick off their season in Toronto on Tuesday night against the new-look Cleveland Indians. 

Want to go to a game? Concession stand prices can add up more than the ticket itself pretty quickly. Hot dogs at a Mets game? $6.25. At the Reds stadium? A buck. Four dollars for a twelve ounce glass of beer in Cleveland or 16 ounces for $8. Here some good info on the cheapest and most expensive ball park foods (check out the $23 hotdog at Arlington Stadium in Texas). Check out the story HERE. 

--

The Toronto Maple Leafs are looking pretty sharp. Since they have burned me so many times I don't want to be overly optimistic, but cautiously so. First off, they are fast. They looked so good in the game against Ottawa last night it was crazy, a convincing 4-0 win, and are currently riding an 8 game point streak. Other than the now ridiculously stacked Pittsburgh Penguins, the Leafs have one of the most prolific offences in the last couple weeks, with two lines playing exceptionally well. The pairings of Lupul/Kadri and Kessel/van Riemsdyk have been carrying the team offensively. Lupul has tucked in seven goals in his five games since returning from injury, scored a coast to coaster against the Canes, and looks just as unstoppable as he did last when he was among league leaders in scoring before being injured. Nazem Kadri is finally playing the way Brian Burke figured he would and currently sits sixth in league scoring including last nights 4 point performance (and second hat trick of the season). With a dozen games remaining things are looking pretty good for some meaningful hockey in the spring, but if they want to make sure they get in there they better play meaningful hockey until the season ends and the big dance begins.

--

Going to see Bad Religion with The Bronx this evening. Should be a killer show.. Bad Religion is always one of my favourite bands to see live and The Bronx should be great as well, having just released their stellar fourth album. Here's a song or two:

For those who are into some P&V in your music, check out Heavy MTL's card this year. Pretty not bad. Here's the official lineup for this year's festival, which is happening on August 10-11 at Parc Jean-Drapeau in Montreal:

Avenged Sevenfold

Rob Zombie

Megadeth

Godsmack

Danzig with Doyle

A Day To Remember

Children Of Bodom

Mastodon

August Burns Red

At the Gates

Amon Amarth

Machine Head

Steel Panther

Gwar

Of Mice & Men

Finntroll

Baroness

Wintersun

Obey the Brave

The Acacia Strain

Halestorm

All Shall Perish

Cryptopsy

Augury

Unexpect

Oceano

Within the Ruins

Structures

Blackguard

Slaves On Dope

Havok

--

news feeds nov 5

The election down south is just a few days away and the race is too close to call. Obama and Mitt are neck and neck going down to the wire. Not that it matters, and it shouldn't sway voters, but Obama is getting way better celebrity backers. If you listen to what any celebrity who isn't schooled in such affairs, and don't take it as opinion, well, just.. good luck. I'm not saying that nothing good comes out of it though. Will Ferrell will do anything to get your vote. Jay Z has 99 problems and a Mitt ain't one. I don't live in the U.S. so I don't care all that much, but since they are right in our backyard (or front yard?) what happens down there will affect us somehow someway eventually so I have to care just a little bit. I don't know the fine print of the candidates platforms, and I couldn't make valid arguments one way or another for either candidate anymore than the candidates themselves can find a solution to the perpetually slumping American economy. I'm just saying, if you can give Bush eight years, you can give Obama the same.

--

Canadians get to revel in the release of the latest polymer bank note, the $20 bill! On Wednesday, the Bank of Canada will begin circulating the new $20 bill, the most widely circulated of all bills in the country. In late 2012, the Bank of Canada issued the $100 bill as a polymer bill first, ahead of new $50 note unveiling in March. The 10$ and $5 bills will be issued in the new format by the end of 2013. There has been criticism of the new bills. They do not tear, that comes as advertised, but they do appear to melt, or fuse together, like if you have two notes in your wallet and you sit on the bus or something. Just don't roll like a hustler. There is also reports of optical lens in bank machines not picking up the new bills, dispensing money unknowingly to super stoked and potentially dishonest customers, causing major headaches for some retailers. The bottom line is it doesn't look like Monopoly money anymore. It looks like plastic Monopoly money. 

--

Gross and inappropriate alert.

Want to bone Justin Beiber? Who doesn't? At long last, a Biebs sex doll is on the market. The plastic, bi-sexual (really?.. it's a doll) blowup sex doll was made by Pipedream Products and is available for purchase on Amazon, prices ranging from $20-$138. The description is the best part since you can't make this stuff up: "When he's not busy beating up paparazzi or beating off, he's up to his high-tops in hot Hollywood tail! But the Beave-ster doesn't have this effect just on women - he turns straight men gay faster than you can peel his skinny jeans off! So what are you waiting for, inflate this lil' pricks ego even more and have your very own Beaver bash!" Justin's name is actually used, it is cleverly disguised as Just-In Beaver, I'm just going to assume to avoid legal issue. Ya, so… ya. Enjoy?

--

Phone photographers, at long last, Instagram is available on your desktop in the way of actual profiles. You still have to take the pictures from your phone, but others can view your photos from any device. Instagram said it will be launching profiles for all users in the next week with your (or my) address being http://instagram.com/[user name]. "We're launching Web profiles to give you a simple way to share your photos with more people and to make it easier to discover new users on the web, " the company said in a blogpost. Instagram was launched in 2010 and currently has 100 million registered users. On September 6 this year, a deal that had been in the works since April finally closed, with Facebook absorbing Instagram, and its thirteen employees for a $1 billion cash and stock deal. The program allows you to upload photos from your phone, then apply a filter to it, all while confining it to a square shape similar to the Kodak Instamatic and the classic Polaroid photo with the white border. 

--

Have you lost weeks of your life to Civilization 2? If not, you might not want to read on due to the degree of nerdiness. Anyways, I played this game for hours at a time in my early teen years, on the family's first (at least fully functional) computer, a Pentium I with a whopping 75MHz clock speed. Didn't matter, the game ran, and I could stream albums with my Real Media Player. Wow, did the Real Player ever sound like crap. I listened to Offspring's "Smash" and Propagandhi's "How To Clean Everything" about a million times while playing until the early morning hours. Then I just stopped playing for whatever reason (girls), and didn't play it for probably ten years until I saw it floating around a newsgroup, so I immediately downloaded it. There have been many a sequel to Civilization II, played 'em, but for some reason CIV2 hass the perfect mix of simplicity of graphics and complexity of game play to make it my favourite. There is a gentlemen over on tumblr who has been playing the same game of Civ for 10 years. He swears that he does have a life, and has other games on the go, but always goes back to check out his game that he has played all the way until the year 3991 (the game stops keeping score/ends in 2020 if you don't land your spaceship before then). He goes by the tumblr handle Lycerius, and said his world is down to three nations, dwindling resources, and is severely polluted from all the nuclear wars. "Peace seems to be impossible. Every time a cease fire is signed, the Vikings will surprise attack me or the Americans the very next turn, often with nuclear weapons. Even when the UN forces a peace treaty. So I can only assure that peace will come only when they are wiped out. It is this that perpetuates the war ad infinitum." The war has been going on for 1700 years (in game time), and the constant nuclear bombardment has melted the worlds ice caps over and over making it impossible to farm on. Game creator Sid Meier had this to say of the gamer: "There's no way we could have tested for this. I can't say that we ever though anyone would play a game of Civ for that long. It's exciting a fan of the series would dedicate 10 years to playing one continuous game." Once he is done wiping out the wretched American and Viking civilizations he plans to rebuild the World. "My goal for the next few years is to try and end the war and thus use the engineers to clear swamps and fallout so that farming may resume. I want to rebuild the world. But I'm not sure how." 

--

Bad Religion's sixteenth full length, "True North" is slated for a January 22, 2013 release through guitarist Mr. Brett Gurewitz's Epitaph Records. The pre-sale is up on the BR site and they also released a track from the album as well. "True North" has 16 tracks so fast, melodic punk rock with not one of the track eclipsing three minutes. Bad Religion's last album was 2010's "Dissent Of Man." In other Los Angeles 1980's punk band news, the Descendents have a documentary coming out chronicling the bands history. It covers the bands early surf rock days as a three piece, the bands Milo-led lineup, the break up/re-group as ALL, then the reformation of the last (and classic) Descendents lineup. The band has released six albums as the Descendents, eight as ALL, and one as Tony All (original Descendents bassist Tony Lombardo's songs with Stephan, Karl and Bill as the backing band). Here's a trailer for the documentary "Filmage: The Story Of the Descendents/ALL":

--

Seminal New York indie band Texas Is the Reason is set to play at Lee's Palace in Toronto on March 8, 2013. The band reunited earlier in the year to play the Revelation Records 25th Anniversary Show apparently sparked something in them and have lined up eight shows, most on the east coast omit shows in San Francisco and Los Angeles to close out the mini-tour. The band formed after Norm Arenas left former Youth Of Today vocalist Ray Cappo's project Shelter and teamed up with former 108 drummer Chris Daly to form a group that would leave behind the macho attitude and the religious preaching (Shelter and 108 were both Hare Krishna hardcore bands) of their former projects. The band released one full length "Do You Know Who You Are" after which the were heavily courted by major labels. Tension mounted within the band and they dissolved on the eve they were supposed to sign their first major label contract. Daly went on to play in Jets To Brazil and Arenas DJ'd in Chicago for a few years. Here's a song from their first EP:

--

There is still a hockey lockout on. One year ago today, Tyler Seguin sniped his first career hat trick at the ACC against the Leafs scoring three goals of irony as the man he was traded for, Phil Kessel, sat on the bench watching. Bruins 7. Leafs 0. Compared to that score, the lockout doesn't hurt so much.

--