MY GOD. Why aren't more people listening to the Dears?! More on this later. I have to finish listening to the album.

Lovely day, lovely day
I skipped the gym today and instead went downtown and blew my hard-earned cash on records! There was plenty to choose from but I ended up picking up stuff by The Dears, Idlewild and the reissue of Apocalypse Dudes by Turbonegro. It felt good driving home blaring "Don't Call Me Motherfucker, Motherfucker" out the windows while the neighbourhood kids looked on.

Nice to see the Dixie Chicks defending themselves. But did they have to do it naked?

American Idol ruminations:

Carmen is booted! Justice at last.

I am not a violent person but I have a strange desire to punch Clay in the face, especially when he closes his eyes and gets that weird trying-too-hard-to-be-humble look on his face. Ugh. Just go to Broadway already.

Maybe those acting classes have finally paid off for Kelly Clarkson. She seemed genuinely surprised that her album was number one in the charts. Gee! What a shock!

SARS, SARS, everywhere SARS - I woke up this morning to find an irate e-mail from my cousin in Toronto regarding comments made by Nova Scotia's health minister advising people against travelling to Toronto. My parents were in Toronto two weeks ago near the height of the initial "outbreak". I have a friend presently in Toronto and another who has just returned from visiting herfamily. I am not worried. Although that's not to say I wasn't a little paranoid when I came down with a cold this week less than 10 days after my parents returned home. ;-) In a bizarre way, Americans were lucky the war with Iraq was on. It postponed the SARS hysteria (SARSteria?) in the media for about a week.

Oh, and I really need to finish that CD for Noah.

The blahs end NOW!
I've lost my self confidence in the past few months and it's all my fault. I haven't written blog entries. I haven't written songs. I haven't written stuff for newspapers. All I've written is stuff for work and that doesn't count.

I've done a bit of drawing for at a continuing education art class but that's all over now. So here I sit, feeling crappy and sorry for myself. Well, enough! From now on I will force myself to write something -- anything -- on this blog, however dull my life is. Nobody has to read it (and indeed, no one does read this, apart from Googlers). I just need to write it.

I'm presently listening to "Ring Ring" by Abba. It's appropriate. Our protagonist is feeling blue because her man won't give her a call. Wake up, Frida! The jerk isn't going to call. You have to get up off your Nordic tushie and do it yourself.

So, what did I do today? I went back to work after being sick for the past few days. By the end of the day the combination of florescent lights, computer screen and dark skies outside left me rather woozy. I came home and watched the episode of Smallville I taped from last night. It was rather "meh", apart from the introduction of the Continuity Sheriff.

Then I watched the last episode of The Sopranos third season. We broke down and rented the series on DVD because CTV was taking so bloody long to show them on TV. My mother, of all people, has become worryingly addicted. I think I may have to do an intervention.

And now American Idol is almost on. And I'm beginning to see the root of my problem here -- too much TV!

Ralph Nader is coming to town next week to talk about no fault insurance. Andrea and I are planning to go. I am considering proposing marriage to Ralph. But he probably gets that all the time.

"Protest" drinks target Muslims I'm not sure what to make of this. Are drinks like Quibla-Cola and Mecca-Cola really alternatives to the American colonialism of Coca-Cola or just cheap cash-ins?

Betrayed by S Club! Is the BBC certain those are distressed S Club fans in the first picture? Because it looks to me like a hen party about to go very, very wrong after too many Jell-O shots.

Classic! CNN left some pre-canned obituaries of the usual death pool suspects (Bob Hope, Reagan, the Pope, etc.) lying around their website. What's even better is that the mockups use the Queen Mum's template, giving the impression that Dick Cheney was the "UK's favorite grandmother"! (Via Kill Ugly Radio)

Ticked off

I wrote to Newsworld this week to complain about its introduction of the insidious "news ticker", that horrible stream of useless information that crawls across the bottom of the television screen. The Globe and Mail's television columnist, John Doyle, said on Monday he'd received a "deluge" of e-mails from angry viewers. A CBC official told him that the tickers (or "crawls") are "value-added" information for viewers. It's there as reassurance to the viewers that they aren't missing any important news.

Give me a break.

If something is so desperately important that I should know about it while watching something else, then break into the program and tell me. If not, let me watch the news in peace. I've never read anything on a ticker that couldn't wait 10 or 15 minutes to be told in a proper news report.

Most news networks loop the same report all day long. Nothing much changes. The ticker doesn't provide "value-added" information; it provides the illusion that something important is happening. It also takes away from power of the story that's being told in the main part of the screen. I was watching a story on the war the other night on CNN when the ticker gave me the oh-so-important news that Toni Braxton is to star in a broadway musical. It's grossly inappropriate and insulting.

That's my j-school student analysis of tickers. On a purely aesthetic level, they're just plain ugly, irritating (especially Newsworld's) and are riddled with typos and grammatical errors.

I understand that the networks are trying to retain viewers who are turning to the internet and other media for their information. But if I wanted an internet-style news experience I'd go online. When I want to watch television news I turn on the TV. Simple as that. Making the television viewing experience more irritating is NOT going to attract more viewers.

Phew! OK, I finally updated my big list o' blogs. I went through every link to see if they were still valid and/or updated. What a trip down memory lane. Oh, the heady days of '00 when I didn't have a job and could update my blog three times a day with useful links and pithy commentary...*sniff*
Now that I have made the first step, I will try to update more of Full Fathom Five in the coming days. If I still remember HTML, that is...

I saw an short interview with Nickelback earlier tonight on MuchMoreMusic where the singer made an impassioned speech about how they don't suck because they sold 8 million records. Or something. Oh, and don't make fun of them because, like, it's their life maaaan. Oh, but they don't care what critics say. No, really!!

I had a good rant on the evil of TV news "crawls" but it will have to wait for tomorrow because I forgot it at work. So I'll just state that I was disappointed no one covered "We Didn't Start the Fire" on last night's Billy Joel theme night on American Idol. ("JFK blown away! What else do I have to saaaayy!!!") Oh, well. Marine Josh's shouty version of "Piano Man" was funny enough, I suppose. I should just be happy nobody butchered "She's Always A Woman To Me", a song which I admit I quite enjoy.

Celine Dion Dreams - "A forum for fans dreaming about Celine Dion" Really…what else is there to say?

Rolling Stone lists the 50 Uncoolest Records. Carpenters, Bread and Klaatu, oh my! I only own two* (Sparks and Weezer) but have my eye on many more. The Neil Diamond record looks wonderfully demented. If RS made more lists like this maybe I'd actually buy the magazine. Or at least consider it a legitimate music mag.
*OK, and the first Barenaked Ladies record too. But everyone owned that album when I was in junior high...

Don't hang the DJ - Morrissey makes compilation CDs for you and me.