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 19

Nik Wallenda completed his walk across a 5 cm wide cable from the American side of Niagara Falls to the Canadian side. It took him about 25 minutes, and he looked pretty calm during the walk, even fielding questions from his father and an ABC broadcaster. The walk was 550 meters long, and he was just getting peppered with mist from the falls below him. Always the patriotic watchdogs, Canadian officials greeted Wallenda after the walk to inspect his passport, which checked out. "I'm not carrying anything over, I promise, " said Wallenda, completely exhausted. They didn't check out to see if the safety tether was stuffed with narcotics or Philadelphia cheese steaks. Speaking of that tether, it has been a point of controversy, but ABC refused to air a man potentially falling to his death, and I think that's fair. Wallenda went on to say that the tether is extra weight that might throw him off, and although he was initially disappointed about the safety measures, he said it "is what it is." But safety harness or not, he didn't ever come close to falling so it is an incredible feat nonetheless. 

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Well, we're all doomed. Our very own Milky Way galaxy, home to Earth, is on a crash course with the neighbouring Andromeda galaxy in about 3.75 billion years. I'm not saying we should move to another galaxy or anything, but they are thinking that the two galaxies might actually merge and for a super galaxy not unlike some kind of Star Wars or Star Trek scenario. Unfortunately, a galactic merger takes about ten years longer than a corporate one, (two billion years) giving the stars time to realign themselves into new orbits around the super galaxy's new galactic centre. Simulated collision from NASA: CLICK HERE

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An Apple I computer, circa 1976, just sold for $374,500 at an auction in New York this past Friday. The archaic piece of tech history was expected to fetch about $180,000, then doubled when a bidding war broke out between two buyers, then an anonymous telephone bidder phoned in and scooped up the computer. For that price, you could buy 750 iPads, 1880 iPhones or about 650 shares of Apple. The computers were sold at a Silicon Valley computer chain Byte Shop, when the store of Paul Terrell ordered 50 computers at $500 each (retail $666.66) and Steve Wozniak and the late Steve Jobs assembled them in 30 days. The duo also pieced together another 150 to sell to friends and other stores. The Apple I was basically a chipset that had no monitor, keyboard, power supply, casing, but boasted 4KB in memory (which couldn't run a calculator).

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In other tech stuff, Microsoft unveiled their new tablet called "Surface" to go along with their new operating system Windows 8 coming out later this year. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said the new product was the ultimate merger of software and hardware. Ok. The models shown included a kickstand that allows the device to stand up and a cover, that's detachable and equipped with a keyboard. The device is also quite slim, at a mere 9.3 millimetres thick. The tablet is bound to do better than Blackberry's dismal Playbook, and one way they have a good chance of survival is full integration with the Xbox 360, which has sold over 67 million units world wide. Microsoft envisions the tablet as basically the nucleus holding together one's computer, video gaming console and TV. Not a bad idea. Would love to see Apple strike up a deal with Playstation then.. well I don't know what then. It would just be sweet.

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Sir Paul McCartney turned 70 on Monday, and what better way to celebrate his birthday then going over some of the best songs ever written (40ish years ago) by the man himself. Paul has 60 gold albums to his credit, with over a hundred million albums AND singles sold. "Yesterday" from the Beatles 1965 "Help!" album has been covered over 2,200 times - more than any song in history. Did you know Paul McCartney was in a bad before Wings? Old Simpsons joke.. anyways here are my favourite Paul (Beatles) songs in honour of his 70th. Sorry, can't do Wings.

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So, if I'm the only one old enough (or who cares) to remember this, stop me here. But Woody Allen and Mia Farrow got together in 1980, two years after Farrow and her ex-husband adopted an 8 year old Korean girl named Soon-Yi. Woody left Mia for his adopted step daughter in 1992. During this time they had a biological son named Ronan, now 24, who tweeted on father's day "Happy father's day - or as they call it in my family, happy brother-in-law's day." That is.. awesome. I love the Wood-man and pretty much everything he does artistically, whether it's writing, acting or directing, but as a person, he seems to have some baggage.

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I love Family Guy. I do… I know, it's really stupid. Not as well structured as the Simpsons. Not as satirically brilliant as South Park. But something about their sense of humour, just makes me laugh. But, something is wrong with teaming up with Kiss. The two iconic "brands" are coming together for "a line of products." Don't really know what that means, other than there is sure to be Stewie dolls with Peter Criss' cat makeup, and more guest appearances on the show, which has been touched on before, when it turned out that Lois and Gene used to get it on. Kiss have been a self-parody since they got back together in the mid 90s (even tho Ace and Peter left, their make up lives on) and for Family Guy to cross promote with Kiss, and for Seth McFarlane to put out that horrible talking bear movie, "Ted", makes me understand why the quality of Family Guy has declined fairly steadily for the last season or two.

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I just watched the best/worst TV special ever. Although I heard about it through various sources (the Simpsons barbershop quartet episode being the main one), I didn't want to know too much about it, and to spoil the surprise, even though I already knew the ending. I wanted to see it unfold. I'm talking about Geraldo Rivera's opening of Al Capone's vault. As the story goes, Capone moved into a suite the Lexington Hotel in 1928 until his arrest in 1931. In the 1980s, contractors were planning on renovating the old hotel and while they were surveying the building they came upon a series of secret tunnels (apparently one behind Capone's medicine cabinet too). The tunnels connected to nearby taverns and brothel's giving Capone a number of different escape routes. The was also rumoured that a "secret vault" was located beneath the hotel, and sure enough there was. The point of the special was to open the vault and live TV revealing riches, bootlegged booze.. bodies. Who knows what the most powerful gangster in Chicago in the 1930 put in such a vault? So the show starts with medical examiners on hand in case there were bodies on the inside, and agents from the IRS to collect any money that Capone may have left behind (I'm guessing he wasn't big on paying taxes). They finally open the vault to reveal… nothing. There was a bit of dirt, which probably seeped in over the 60 years, and some empty moonshine bottles. Thirty million viewers were left going 'what the hell was that?' as was a stunned Rivera, who just looked at the camera and said that they had "struck out." The special aired in April 1986 and essentially launched Geraldo's career. "My career was not over, I knew, but had just begun. And all because of a silly, high-concept stunt that failed to deliver on its titillating promise."

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