Bieber & The Pop Star Perversion, An Ugg-Lee Merger, the Daylight Savings Time Deficiency, American Politics, Daytime calls, Allen Keys Annoyance, & the JW Halloween Costume Loophole.

This daylight savings time thing really should be all all-or-none effort; it really makes next to no sense for only some provinces, states and cities to do it.  The city of Creston BC (where I played junior hockey) and the entire province of Saskatchewan (where I got my degree, played college hockey, met my wife, etc) don’t participate, why should the rest of us have to have it dark at 4:30 pm?

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The ratio of which American media talks about, prep for, & pre/post analyze polls, to the time they spend actually voting is extremely lopsided towards the former.  Immediately following whatever that mid-term election stuff was, there was already Obama vs Palin polls being taken for a potential 2012 presidential showdown (with Obama winning handily), instead of interest in what the newly elected governors/senate or whatever were going to accomplish.  Can somebody please focus on the present?  Did Jon Stewart Rally For Sanity in vain?? 

The ratio of which American politicians campaign/slander their opponents in commercials to the time they spend doing actual work is about of the same ratio.  Those TV commercials seem to be more about how bad the opponent is and what a horrible job they’ve done, and rarely mention anything about what the prospective candidate is going to do better.  What have we learned? Slander > function?

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Please go away, and don't come back. Cut your hair, and take your teeny bopper girl scout troop with you. Also, leave all your money.

I don’t even know who Justin Bieber is. What I DO know is that I can’t stand him. I hope the “Bieber Bus” somehow ends up in a fiery car wreck along with every Smart car ever produced, all at the same time. No casualties, of course, except for the vehicles.  And Bieber.  Okay, I do know who he is, and I’ll have to give the little …. guy some credit, he can sing.  It’s just the media over-hype/commercialization, and the screaming pre-teen girls that make me want to blow up my TV and stab myself in the ears when I hear that name.  I can’t wait until puberty kicks in, the voice cracks, and this whole charade comes to a grinding halt…

My wife raised an interesting point the other day about the Rihanna-Eminem collaborated songs “Love The Way You Lie” parts 1 & 2, to the tune of whether or not it’s appropriate for Rihanna to sing a song about domestic violence after the whole Chris Brown-domestically-violencing-her incident.  The duet is an interesting juxtaposition, because on the other hand you also have Eminem and his storied domestic dispute history with wife/ex-wife/wife/ex-wife Kim; and how his lyrics have never known any limits in regards to appropriation and are very purposefully presented that way; not all that different than the way Marilyn Manson was hung by the media for in the 90’s.

So then the question becomes, what is the the line between musical artists creating intelligent, insightful music and them creating for pure shock value, creating controversy just to get people talking and to sell records?  Interesting how you usually hear all the hubub right around when one of their albums is about to be released, isn’t it?  And further, as most of us would (at least morally) disagree with the commercialization of young, girl musical artists dressing scantily and singing sexually provocative lyrics (not even written by the artist),  who then is more skanky, the lip-syncing pop star, or the record producer endorsing promoting the act to even younger kids with the sole intention of turning a profit?

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If Ugg boots and Lee jeans merged, you’ve have an aptly named product.  Wordplay, FTW.  Imagine an ugly looking pair of boots sewn onto the bottoms of a low grade pair of jeans creating a one-piece waist-to-toe garment.  You’re welcome, upcoming spring fashion.

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If you’re a telemarketer, or anyone who works for an over-the-phone annoyance business, why are you phoning homes in the middle of the day?  You’re obviously targeting the unemployed, because they’re the only people that would be home during the day while everyone else is working; yet if they’re not employed, they probably can’t afford whatever it is that you’re peddling.  Seems counterproductive, no?  Further, the callers that come equipped with background info (know your address, and other info) and probably even know that you do work during the day; that seems like a complete waste of a call seeing as though you’re almost definitely not home, and even if someone was home, the people that the homeowner would actually want to talk to would  know they’d be out at that time of the day and wouldn’t be calling, so there’s no way it’s someone they’d actually want to talk to,  and thusly it would not be worth the risk of answering a day-time phone call without caller ID or if they didn’t recognize the number.

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There should be a law against manufacturing mechanical parts that require Allen/Hex keys.  If you’re working on a project in your garage/workshop, or wherever, and you encounter that one pivotal screw that requires that oddball L-shaped disgrace tool to remove it, you immediately curse its inventors, and wonder why making the screw fit a Phillips, Robertson, or any other conventional tool was just too much to ask.

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I wonder how many actual Jehovah Witnesses were knocking on doors on Halloween? Seems like a good night to get more than 2 seconds of people’s attention; as you tell the person at the house you’re not actually dressed up, it’s how you dress every day, that you don’t want candy but would like to come in and talk, and then…. SLAM.

Consequently, I’d be willing to bet anyone who dressed up as a Jehovah Witness for Halloween and attempted to trick or treat probably didn’t receive one single piece of candy from anyone.  In fact, I might even bet that the whole Halloween needles-in-apples scandal was probably based on one Jehovah Witness-trick or treat incident.  Thanks guys, thanks a lot.  Stop bothering people.  And if someone does let you into their home, don’t take that as an open invitation for infinite visits.

The Awesomeness and Infuriation of the Goal Song.

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Anyone who’s played hockey before knows that scoring a goal is awesome.  It’s a huge feeling of self-accomplishment, followed by an immediate and obligatory get together to thank

C'est le but! As the French say...

the guy(s) who set you up to score, then group hug everyone on the ice with you, and then skate-by high-fives for everyone on your team’s bench from everyone on the ice.  As you can surely put together, putting that little black puck in the net brings a lot of satisfaction on a lot of different levels.

Besides your home crowd going bananas (assuming you scored while playing at home), the other add-on that can upgrade you and your team’s current state of awesomeness is having what’s known as a “goal-song”.   Pretty self-explanatory; a goal song is the song that gets played EVERY SINGLE TIME after your team scores.  A good goal-song gets your team right pumped up after scoring, and simultaneously drives the other team absolutely nuts and makes them want to destroy the arena’s audio system with their sticks because they’re so tired of hearing it.

I’d like to submit to you, my top 3 favourite goal songs; 2 of them currently being used by both the Blackhawks and Flyers.

The current reigning champion has to be the Chicago Blackhawks’ song;  “Chelsea Dagger” by The Fratellis.  It makes the Madhouse on Madison go, well, mad.  :

On the flipside, here’s how much Chicago’s mortal enemies, the Vancouver Canucks hate hearing the tune:  

Makes home team happy, enrages the visiting team. Check and mate.  Fratellis FTW.

so good.

Next is a song called “Bro Hymn Tribute” by Pennywise.  I have some personal attachment to this song because when I played minor hockey with the Westside Grizzlies, the team from Merritt would always play it when they scored.  When we beat them out for the league championship, we blasted it on our own stereo and piped it through the ventilation system so they could hear it from a few dressing rooms away.  We stole it for our own, and then rode it out to the Provincial Championship we won right after.  Currently, the Philadelphia Flyers are using it.  Great tune.

Which one of the 2 do you think we’ll be hearing more of in game 6(/7) of the 2010 Stanley Cup Finals??

Finally, Kernkraft 400 ‘s “Zombie Nation” may be the staple of all hockey goal songs, across all teams and leagues.

Honorable mention to U2’s “Vertigo” currently being used by the Montreal Canadiens, and The Vengaboys’ “We Like to Party” , which the NAIT Ooks used to play when they scored on us, and it used to drive us (and every other team) absolutely nuts, and Joe Satriani’s – “Crowd Chant”.

What did you think of my list?  Agree? Disagree?  Did I leave something out?  How about some suggestions on good celebration songs from other sports?

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Bad Press, Jackass: The Kanye West and Taylor Swift Swindle.

Since September 13, the most talked about entertainment news story has been the drama of Kanye West interrupting Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards. While hearing the same repeated sentiments of what a sorry excuse for a human being Kayne is, I decided to do a little deeper research into the matter. Without a doubt, it was a dickard move, on Kanye’s part. However, while doing a little digging, there are a few small nuggets of information that I haven’t heard brought to the public’s attention. Let me present a couple of different angles on the incident that you may not have considered.

Kanye West raps and produces under the Roc-A-Fella Records (founded by Jay-Z) label, which is owned by Def Jam Records, which is in turn owned by Universal Music Group. Taylor Swift makes music for Big Machine Records, which has its records distributed by the same Universal Music Group. Intrinsically, Kanye West are “label-mates.”

While I don’t put controversy schemes past Kanye, don’t write off Swift as the innocent victim quite yet, this isn’t her first encounter with hip-hop. She collaborated with rapper T-Pain on a remix of her own song at the CMT Music Awards in June 2009, called “Thug Story.” [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L52emsayp1o ] T-Pain has appeared on more than one song with Kanye, collaborating on songs like “Good Life” (which won a Grammy in 2007), and “Go Hard” (2008). I doubt very much that Kanye hadn’t heard of Taylor Swift before this night. T-Pain raps for Jive Records, who are owned by Sony Music Entertainment, who also happen to house Beyonce via Columbia Records. More on her later…

Everyone talked about how that night at the MVA’s was Taylor Swift’s “moment”, but lets be honest, she only won “Best FEMALE Video”, not “Video of the Year” (which is open to BOTH genders). I mean, sure it’s an accomplishment, but it’s not like she was taking home the award of the night by at any rate. And when did the trophies from an MTV Awards show become so career-altering anyways?

Beyonce “saved face” after Kanye proclaimed her as the deserving winner of the award; and had Taylor come on stage and say her thank-you’s during Beyonce’s own acceptance speech; a classy move [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOIOanr3JOo ].  Oddly, Beyonce and Swift seemed to be wearing the same dress.   Anyone who knows much about music gossip knows that Beyonce is (allegedly) married to Kanye West’s boss, Jay-Z, who just so happens to have just released and touring with his latest album, “Blueprint 3.” Also, Kanye did produce Beyonce’s 2003 album “Dangerously in Love,” as well as 6 Jay-Z albums. Coincidence?

I thought Jay would have been cursing the day that he ever let Kanye West out of the production studio and into the public eye when he heard about the incident at the VMA’s. But while Donald Trump called for a boycott of all things Kanye West, every musician and every news show on TV and radio wrote off Kanye and labeled him as an alcoholic and spotlight nympho, and even The President of the F’n United States of America, Barack Obama, called ‘Ye “a jackass” [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=078BGtKNL1o ], Jigga stepped up to defend Kanye, saying, “He didn’t kill anybody…” agreeing that the outburst was “inappropriate at the time.” He also added Kanye’s “just a super-passionate person… Of course it was rude because it was (Taylor’s) moment but that’s the way he really felt…..I think it was rude but the way they’re treating him… He’s on the cover of every paper…He didn’t kill anybody. No one got harmed.” [http://www.mtv.ca/vma/2009/article.jhtml?id=20490] The only other person I know who has mentioned anything in Kanye’s defence is my friend, Andy Smith, over at “Smithy Blogs,” who wrote this blog http://tinyurl.com/smithkanyeblog that you can read on your own time.

Kanye has since apologized publicly numerous times, and Swift “eventually” accepted the “sorry.” So, how long, would you say, will we have to wait for the duets and album collaborations and guest apperances between them? My guess is that Universal and Sony Music are way ahead of us. In a time where record companies are losing piles of money in CD sales, learning how to profit off of digital downloads, and throwing lawsuits at people who download illegally, is it that crazy to think that two record companies would thrust a few very marketable individuals into the spotlight to generate an enormous media buzz to, in turn, boost sales? Bad press for Kanye, good press for Swift; and everyone’s talking and writing about them both. No press is bad press, right?

Kanye is a jackass though.