Boxers or briefs? Everyone's favourite sex columnist Dan Savage is running the "My Man Sure Looks Hot in His Tighty-Whities Contest". Casual perusal of the contestants leads me to wonder – is this Beck?

MuchMoreMusic is running VH1's “Top 90 Videos of the ‘90s” special, which besides making me feel old, makes me very angry indeed. It’s not so much the predictably dull and crap selections so much as it is the inane commentary which is so bad it’s not even good-bad. Along with the obligatory musician interview snippets there are three house experts from Time, Rolling Stone and uh...VH1. They are all 30-something yuppie men with absolutely nothing new or interesting to say but the absolute worst of the three is Rolling Stone’s Joe Levy. Resembling Ben Stiller to a frightening degree Joe varies his comments between buttkissing the musicians and making “witty” comments on the videos that feature scantily clad women (and I’m afraid there are a lot of them in the list). On Aerosmith’s “Crazy”: “When is this movie coming out? Because I could watch this for 90 minutes noooo problem.” On Billy Idol’s “Cradle of Love”, which features a teenage girl coming over to a yuppie’s place and dancing around like a proto-Britney, he says if Billy Idol’s music really makes these things happen we should make Billy a hit again. Dream on, dickhead.

Which Osbourne are you? I'm Jack: "You may worry that you're a nerd, but, dammit, people like you."

It's good to be back blogging (and thanks too all of those who welcomed me back -- it makes me all warm and fuzzy inside) but one downside to being MIA for nearly a year is that I have no idea whether the links I find are new or not. So bear with me if I rave on about something that was, like, soooo 6 months ago.

Having got that out of the way, I think I'll be spending a lot of time at Tiny Mix Tapes Gone to Heaven. It's got bloggy update bits but also loads of reviews, lists and features. And like the title suggests the cult of mix tapes figures heavily. Joy! (Via largehearted boy)

Looks like I left Dublin too soon because it seems I missed the best gig ever -- Iggy Pop gobbing the Corrs!! The above-linked thread on I Love Music turns into a rather bizarre debate on the appropriateness of cheering on this sort of behaviour. Puhhleaase...It's Andrea Corr, fergoshsakes!! She'll no doubt run crying to the Irish media and the RTE Guide will have a cover story in a month on how she's recovering from her "trauma". That SM:TV Corrs sketch where Ant, Dec and Cat sit around dressed as the Corrs stroking their hair talking about how beautiful they are may be played out but that doesn't make it any less true.

Soul Crusher. Sounds like a X-Men villain. A mutant with the ability to leech another mutant's latent desires and talents. Yes, that sounds suitably convoluted.

It seems nothing signals you've surrendered to the soul-crushing capitalistic machine like the 9 to 5 job. It's one of the most universally derided concepts in popular culture – right up there with the mother-in-law and Scrappy Doo. When there are songs about 9 to 5 hell by people as diverse as Dolly Parton and the Ramones it must be bad, right? Well, at the risk of losing what remains of my admittedly tenuous student bohemian image I must confess that I quite like 9 to 5 jobs.

Maybe it's because after doing journalism for 4 years I know how life is if you don't have that 9 to 5 blanket. Like camping or extreme sports freelancing is fine if you have the right personality for it. But for the rest of us it can be exhausting. I like the feeling of doing something worthwhile at work but I also like to be able to leave it at the door at 5 and just enjoy the weekend.

Ah, but there's a catch in that last statement – doing something "worthwhile". Notice I didn't even bother to wish for a decent wage. I may have succumbed to soul-crushing conformity but I never said I was naive...

I was looking around on Google for some Barbapapa sites and came across Darby's Litterbox. It has its own Barbapapa site (complete with downloads of the fabulous theme song) but the rest of the site is also interesting with pages on things as diverse as cocktails, anime and librarians. Oh, OK. And cute kitty pictures too.

Jarvis Cocker weds in an "idyllic" village in Northern France. Oh, how this would've broken my heart if this had happened when I was 16. Which nicely ties in to my albums-I-think-are-crap-but-I'm-willing-to-reevaluate theme today. I wasn't too hot on We Love Life my first few listens. But I found it made much more sense listening to it whilst snivelling on the floor from a broken heart after 8 plus glasses of wine. Uh, not that I recommend that listening technique to everybody out there...

However patchy that Supergrass album is it can't compare to the new Sloan record, Pretty Together, which I bought yesterday. Sheesh, what a pile of crap. And I thought Between the Bridges was bad. At least that record had TUNES.

I thought I sold Supergrass' second album In it for the Money last year but today I found it in a "CDs to sell" box in my basement. The past little while I've been running into people who swear the album is incredibly overlooked and underrated. In my experience I found it a pretty turgid listen apart from a few good songs (hence its place in the "to sell" box). But I was happy to find it again and I'm going to give it another chance, just for the heck of it. I played a bit of it today and the songs didn't seem as bad as I remember but it'll take a few spins before I'll pass judgement. I seriously doubt it'll be all that much better than the last time I heard it but at least it'll stop me from spending more money buying something new...

"Burn them all, Ralphie, burn them all!" Surely some of my Irish friends could use this t-shirt.

"You really should've had sex with that innkeeper's daughter." Such was my friend Sarah's pronouncement as we watched The Wicker Man on video tonight. It was my first time seeing it and I really wish I hadn't known as much about it beforehand. Seeing the film cold with no previous knowledge of what to expect must be a serious head trip. If you have no idea what I'm talking about then go and rent the movie right now. Don't even bother reading the back of the videocase! Just put it on and enjoy the ride. Now if you'll excuse me I've got to track down that fabulous soundtrack...Oh, and happy birthday to meeee...

I hate The Vines. I really do. Do we really need another Nirvanawannabe this late in the game? Although I guess grunge will soon be retro, it being 10 plus years since Nevermind and all. So I hate the Vines. And yet I can't stop playing "Get Free" really loud and screaming along. Life's just unfair sometimes...

I've been back home in Canada for about 3 weeks after spending a year in Ireland. Being away for so long I realised the internet I knew so well when I left would be practically unrecognisable when I got home. On that point was right -- most of my bookmarks and nearly all the links on this site are out of date and badly in need of an update. But before I came home I had also prepared myself for a different Halifax. I knew from my experience away that Dublin could change radically in just 3 weeks, so surely after a year Halifax would be different...


But on that first night home as I settled down to sleep in my old bed I knew that nothing had changed. It was scary how easily I slid back into the old routines -- washing the dishes after supper, late night music downloads and web-surfing sessions, answering music-related crossword puzzle clues for my mother (ELO, the answer is always ELO). Even though I still look right-left instead of left-right while crossing the street readjusting to right-hand lane driving hasn't been a problem. No, apart from getting some Thai and sushi restaurants Halifax hasn't changed much. It's me who's different.


Looking back over the writings on this site and Full Fathom Five it's like I'm reading it all for the first time. That author was a different person, a different lifetime ago. But here I am anyway -- sitting back in front of the same computer I composed most of those words in the same house where I grew up in the same town I was born. It's like I've been catapulted back into the past, forced to live my life over again.


It was claustrophobic at first and I went a bit Brian Wilson last week -- sleeping in until noon and then wandering aimlessly around the house in my pajamas trying to write the perfect pop song (at least Brian had some success with that last bit). But I think I've gotten the moping out of my system and I'm ready to move on.


I don't know where Full Fathom Five or Pearls fits into the scheme of things yet. I still need an outlet for writing but these sites carry the baggage of the "old me". A friend in Dublin found these sites and had a good chuckle. It's easy to see why. It's like having your high school yearbook on the web for the world to see. But it's the closest thing on the net I have to a home so I'll be staying a while yet.