He-Man Fans of the World Unite! Man-at-Arms' site is a part of a campaign to erect Eternia and Castle Grayskull from the '80s cartoon He-Man here on Earth. He doesn't seem to have much else to say, but sign the guestbook and let him know what resources you would be willing to contribute.

The fabulous Jejune.net has moved and looks better than ever!

OK, on to the usual pithy blabber you come to expect from this blog. From what I could gather Martin Jay's lecture basically said that attempts to have a more visceral aesthetic enjoyment are essentially hollow and worthless. Well, I could have told him that. Instead, he referenced a music video but was unable to come up with the name of the artist. Since the crowd was made up of students and academics who only touch TVs to watch PBS documentaries I had the privilege of informing Jay that it was indeed the famous Robbie Williams he was talking about. So there.

Quite appropriately we snuck out of the lecture to catch the visceral aesthetic experience that is The Exorcist. The new footage is stunning (I screamed at the spider walk. I. Screamed.) though the ending was way too cheesy compared to the original. As for my friends, I think I have scarred at least one for life. THE SOW IS MINE.

First things first...Pierre Trudeau has died, one of my country's most influential leaders. Love him or hate him, you had to admire the guy. I have no doubt Chretien will try to exploit this for his own benefit in the upcoming election but in my eyes Trudeau's passing marks the end of the old Liberal party.

In much the same way I consider myself a Catholic but don't feel close to the present Church, I still consider myself a Liberal deep down. It's just that the current party in no way reflects their old values or even what they set out to do in their first mandate. Unfortunately, things don't look likey to change anytime soon as long as Chretien clings to power and the conservatives remain in disarray. And without a strong leader Canada will continue to rot from the inside out. RIP, Pierre.

Po-mo critical theory dude Martin Jay is lecturing tonight, but I have to leave early as I've got free tickets to the Exorcist re-release. That means I won't be able to hang around like a philosophy groupie and get him to autograph my copy of Downcast Eyes. Maybe I'll invite him along to the movie...

Uncensored Brothers Grimm Fairy Tales Lots of eating babies and cutting off of limbs. Rock! (Via kerplink)

Swiped from Scrubbles, some truly odd tales from Olympic history. A surprising number of them involving cases of mistaken gender identity. Eww.

Globe and Mail critic Alan Niester wades through all 25 discs (50+ hours!) Pearl Jam has issued of its last tour:

"Sunday 2 p.m. to 6 p.m.Hahnn and Nürnberg, Germany, shows dominate theafternoon. Have now heard Corduroy 12 times. Could easily take over from Eddie Vedder, if needed."

My idea of hell is being locked in a room and forced to listen to Acadian folk music for eternity. But this ranks a close second.

Almost twenty-four hours until my honours requirement thesis thingamabob is due. I have about a page written. Q: Why am I surfing the net and downloading punk tunes from Napster? A: Because I can.

Green Day are back. Now Blink-182 can finally go away.

Backstreet Boys action figures. "Nick isn't just a musical artist, he's a martial artist as well." Okaaaayy...(Via Millie)

Zeppelin Backwards! Learn about hidden odes to the Prince of Darkness in "Stairway to Heaven".


But Led Zep aren't alone! Apparently Michael Jackson, Pink Floyd and the Eagles are all backmasking secret messages too. Actually, the Eagles clip from "Hotel California" is pretty convincing. As if you need any more evidence that song is pure evil...

I'm excited about The Exorcist being re-released with previously deleted scenes. I think it was a crime the dialogue with the priests on the staircase had to be cut from the original for the sake of "pacing".
Here's the story of the real life event that inspired William Peter Blatty to write his book. Beware them Ouija boards. And here's an excellent fan site for the movie.

Just finished watching High Fidelity for the first time. Yes, I was one of those people who used "they've ruined the book" as an excuse to hide the fact I couldn't find any friends to go see it in the theatre with. It was a pretty faithful adaptation, though I felt the bit with the guy in the record store telling Rob and co. they are "elitist" was unnecessary and condecending towards the characters. That scene underlined the point Tom (and now Fred) made: the movie isn't really about music.

Still, I can imagine all my friends watching the flick and saying "that's sooo Kathleen" all the way through. To prove the point, I own about 75% of the music played in the film. Mix tape, anyone?

Iron Man movie in the works. Call me crazy but I never liked Iron Man (or any of the Avengers aside from Hawkeye for that matter). He was a rich guy with a fancy suit. Big deal. The only interesting aspect of Tony's character as far as I could tell was his struggle with alcoholism. But you think that's going to make it into the movie? I think MADD would have something to say about that.

I'm testing out a new design so if things look a bit wonky it's for a reason.

Radiohead is Back (Gonna Make You Move) "The A is for 'attitude,'" says Ed O'Brien. "Kid A is, like, a young, hip-hop dude with a lot of energy and a cool attitude.The album is his story."

Martha Stewart and Rhino Records want you to "turn up the volume, and have a noisy, horrific Halloween!". CD includes helpful advice from Martha, including a recipe for "rustic-looking caramel apples". Uh, no thanks. Food is just something I prefer not to be "rustic-looking".

The History of Tom Baker's Scarves I had to make a friend a CD with Dr. Who music, hence the sudden interest in case you're wondering.

Tired of the usual stock market clap-trap? Want to invest in something you love that is guaranteed to pay off in the long run? How about Marvin Gaye?

Bah! How can I be vanilla??

Vinyl flower pots Warning! These pictures might not be suitable for the sensitive record collector. There are other vinyl-related tips as well but none of them involving actually listening to the music. I mean, why would you wanna do a thing like that? (Via inside the cinema)

Here at pearls we are committed to completely revolutionizing cross functional total
linkage to allow us to holisticly communicate corporate paradigms
while maintaining the highest standards. Generate your own mission statement. (Via CRACHEL)

The Second Coming Project: "Time is short! We must have a fertilized Jesus zygote no later than April of 2001 if Baby Jesus is to come to term on the predicted date."

Thesis angst. On hiatus until I sort it out. Ciao.

Barenaked Ladies battle Napster with "Trojan" downloads As if listening to their music wasn't painful enough.

Good Or Bad: Part 17 Here's your chance to voice your opinion on the ever-controversial iodized salt.

So now that I've got a new home I find out people liked the old one better. Tom thought it was "elegant", bless 'im. I promise I'll try and make this place look less run-of-the-mill, but it might take some time.

So many top tens, so little time.

Whee!! Canada wins the gold in the first Olympic men's triathalon! Oops, didn't mean to spoil that for all you Americans who are getting the 12 hour-delayed footage. Not that you'd see the race anyway. I'm sure the Yankee propagandists over at NBC will find a way to gloss over the victory anyway.

In case you hadn't heard, Australia's Ian Thorpe has big feet. Say no more!

Yes, I trade MP3 files. Whaddaya gonna do, arrest me? Urp!

Huh. Well now my changes are showing up. Must be a cache/reload thingie. Whatever.

And now it starts. How the hell do I add links to the side of this template? Grrrr...

Well Blogger finally made it easy for FTP-challenged types like myself to create a blog. I've been unhappy with my page at editthispage for a while now, so I hope this page will be better. It'll allow me to post throughout the day and (hopefully) have more control over the design. The only bad part being I'm going to have to change all my links, as well as everyone else. It's a bummer, I know but I hope it will pay off in the long run.