Month: November 2007

It just hit me this morning that the music world (ha, I just caught my own pun) that we live in is changing drastically.

Music World across Canada has filed for bankruptcy and will be closing its stores unless someone swoops in and saves them.

What does this mean to all of us? Well, Sam The Record Man shut its doors sometime in the past year. While I never frequented Sam The Record Man (they didn’t have many stores in Ottawa and when they did, they just didn’t have the prices that Music World or HMV do), it had quite the following as my cousin Troy can attest to as he mentioned how he used to find old Metallica imports in the shop down on Younge Street.

Back to Music World, I am pretty bummed that this store is closing shop. I usually hit up Music World in the mall over HMV because they tended to have better prices on their new releases. I also like checking both stores all the time to compare. It was my thing. Now, all I’ll have to go to is HMV. While I enjoy HMV’s crazy combo item sales (like BUY TWO FOR $20!), I felt Music World had more of the music fans working in it. You could talk about an album with the employees and see what they thought.

Where does this put the world of music stores? It’s a strange world we live in where there are reports of CD sales actually increasing due to downloading of music, but in the end, I guess it’s still not enough to help the record shops stay open?

Now we’ll have HMV in the malls and that’s about it. Other alternatives are electronics stores like Best Buy and Future Shop which aren’t that bad when it comes to new releases and they are actually priced great. But what about smaller communities that can’t afford a Best Buy in town? I feel bad for the teens of Kapuskasing who are growing up with downloading because all they have is the craptacular music section at Wal-Mart…the store which bans certain albums from hitting their shelves. Ugh. I always cringe when I go home and peruse their music section. Half of it consists of those 20th Century Greatest Hits packages!

What’s the future in music retail? Well, if HMV eventually caves, I think you’ll see the resurgence of local record shops which will specialize in albums. Sure, it will be more expensive (ack!), but maybe it’s worth it for the personal experience you will get when entering the local music shop. I always enjoyed going to AVE (I think that stood for Audio-Visual Entertainment) in the Model City Mall. The people working there always had some good thoughts on what I was purchasing. I also remember someone telling me how CD singles would be gone within the year. Oh, how wrong you were…how wrong you were.

Side-note Rant – Let’s talk about the Future Shop in Orleans. Newly opened up, this place sucks. I’ve been there twice on ‘new release day’ but they don’t have all their stock out! I had to wait 30 minutes for them to fish out a Pearl Jam DVD that had just come out. I went there last week to pick up the new Beatles Help film and it was nowhere to be found! Argh. Mike also had a hard time when going to purchase an external hard drive which was in the flyer. When the helper (can he really be called that?) said there were none there, we made him look in the database to find out there were 17 in the store. Then when he took off looking for them, we saw him chatting it up with his buddies for 10 minutes! What the heck?

Future Shop in Orleans – shame on you. If you have commercials indicating that customers run to your doors on new release day, the least you can do is have the stock on the shelves and not in the stock room.

Back to the original thought of this posting – I am sorry to see Music World leave. Although I must admit their cataloging system was like a code you needed a decoder ring to break.

Just wanted to send a thanks to those who have fought/do fight in conflict to better our lives.

Thanks to Sara for sending me this time killer. Create your own slogans!
http://www.sloganizer.net/en/

Here’s some of my faves that were generated:
You better get inside Palmer.
The Spirit of Palmer.
Palmer for me!
Oh my gods, it’s a Palmer.
The view on Palmer.
Every Palmer has a story.
Palmerrific.
Always the real thing, always Palmer.

http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/multimedia/2007/11/gallery_saddest_cubicle

Stop yer complaining about your office! There’s now way they are worse than these ones!

My favourite is how they put an IT contractor is a steel shipping container!

Trish sent me this article about a girl in India who had two legs and two legs removed, while keeping her remaining two legs and arms.

While I do not disagree that she probably wouldn’t have the most normal life, I must question (on behalf of X-Men lovers everywhere) if science is interfering with evolution. What would have happened if she had two extra sets of hands? She could do everything twice as fast! It’s a thing of science-fiction, but it’s reality!

Anyhow, I think we should start up a School for Gifted Youngsters so these people don’t feel out of place in society.

Article is here.

I am known in some circles as both stubborn, frugal and a procrastinator.

For example, I still haven’t got that dent in my car fixed. At first, there was a method to my madness in that I did not want to get it fixed right away for someone to have dented it again. But now it’s been six months later. I should really get that fixed.

Another great example of this would be the fact that in my bedroom for the past two years, the only light at night would be my small bedside lamp which definitely didn’t shed any light on what is lurking in the corner of the room.

This is never a big deal to me during the summertime as there is enough daylight in the morning to scour through my dresser to find some matching socks.

But when the winter hits, it is impossible to pull open the sock drawer to find a black sock, let alone any sock at all! It is a mess of fabric inside that drawer which I can’t see and I just feel around for something that feels like a sock, walk over to the lamp to ensure I have the right ones and if not, you’ll find a collection of socks on my bedside table under the lamp because I left them there in frustration.

Considering this happened again the other morning, I finally decided to get off my ass and buy a lamp for the room. After hitting up four different stores with Mike, I finally settled on some four-lamp set from Wal-Mart. They have me by the hair on this one because:

A) The only nice lamps you can find come in sets.
B) I do not want one of those craptacular stand up lamps for $14 that everyone has (including me. I probably have three of them.) I want something that is timeless. Classic. Looks like Keith Richards puked on it back in the 70s.

So I ended up buying this four lamp set and I think the tall lamp is a little crooked but Mike didn’t notice a difference. I also have two lamps that I really have no use for so I guess I’ll throw one of them in my office?

But at least I can find a matching pair of socks in the morning.

If you don’t follow the news on the writers strike, here’s the scoop:

The Writing Guild of America pretty well holds all of the writers in Hollywood. From what I can tell, if you’re a writer, you’re part of the guild. They are striking because their old collective agreement (do they call them the same thing as I have with my union?) doesn’t have any items giving them compensation for some hot-ticket items such as DVD sales or material created for the Internet. Seems to me that whatever they have is pretty archaic! Actually, here is a quote from Canoe:

Writers have not gone on strike since 1988, when the walkout lasted 22 weeks and cost the industry more than $500 million. Source article here.

What’s my stance on the writers strike? Good for them. Heck, they write the shows we love. The least they should get is some of the lion’s share of profits coming from DVD sales or whatever profits are made when the company broadcasts something on the Internet. Let’s not forget about all the content they create for the Internet! I bet TV viewer ship is down over the years but DVD sales are up.

So, what does this mean to you folks out there who like to catch their favourite show on the television?

• Late night shows have essentially went on hiatus and are in re-run mode. No new Jay Leno for you folks.
• Shows like Heroes, Lost, Grey’s Anatomy…down the tubes as far as new episodes go. Sure, they will have some new episodes for the next little while because writers work ahead of time. They’ve probably written another month’s worth of episodes so far. But once January hits, you have to wonder what you will see.

For example, there is talk that an alternate episode will be filmed for Heroes to air as a Season Finale on December 3 if the strike looks like it will run into the new year. Does this suck? Mmm, well, I would like to think that it sucks when an original idea has to be squashed to do outside forces.

Lost has eight episodes written for the new season (premiering in January). Lost is a wildcat anyhow…last season they aired six episodes in September and then waited until January to air the remaining episodes. That was a lame move on their part and they know it…that’s why this season will begin airing in January for the full run. At least, the full run of eight episodes!

That being said, if the strike lasts quite a long time (which is probably going to happen), I recommend the following things considering the winter is approaching:

• Get a hobby. If you have ever wanted to get your hand into wood-working or painting, start it now! With Christmas coming up, you can definitely put a handsaw on your Christmas list. Also needed is some sandpaper.
• Read a little more. Even if it’s ONE MORE book than you’ve read last year, maybe you should sit down and read it. I personally love to read but I find myself reading while on the bus. Take that 30 minutes you would have spent watching Californication and curl up with a book. If you can’t think of a book you should read, go to some of your friends who have similar interests and find out what they recommend to you. I have been introduced to some great reads by my friends Eric, Miguel and Paul. Check out the The Wolfshack for book reviews galore.
• Host movie nights. Everyone loves films so why not get together and watch one! We used to have film nights every week but due to people’s schedules, it wavered for the better part of the year. Bring out the popcorn and bring your thoughts of what film you think everyone should watch! Have themes! Do a horror movie month or foreign film month. You will become cultured and have a great time while doing it.
• If you really want to still watch television there is only one thing you can do. Watch old TV shows! Television has been around since the 50s and in the past decade there has been a resurgence of great, GREAT serialized television shows. You know, the ones where if you jump in the middle, you may be a little lost. It’s like a comic book. Go out and borrow a friend’s DVD collection or download a series that you think may be interesting. Have you ever seen Alias? One of my all-time fave shows (well, up until Season 4 that is) which I highly recommend you should watch if you like a little action, a little conspiracy and a little mythology all wrapped up in a neat package. What about a mini-series? Check out Band of Brothers if you love the war-oriented shows or maybe you’re interested in Canadian politics and should watch the mini-series on Trudeau? The key to accomplishing your quest into DVD watching is to not watch them all in one spurt (although if you are fine with that, great!). Just schedule an episode every day or every couple of days. Before you know it, you will have finished a season of a show and you will have had spare time to do other things around the house or with friends!
• Also remember that just because Hollywood is on strike, writers in Canada are not. Tune in to some great home-grown shows on CBC and elsewhere! I love the stuff that comes out of our great nation like Corner Gas or The Hour (a must-see show with our main man George S.). Heck, try and find an old episode of the Beachcombers while you are at it.

What am I going to do while the strike is on? I’m busy enough with school so I will fill my time catching up on some television shows that I’ve downloaded and those that have been recommended to me (like Weeds). The curse of the Internet is that you download a lot of stuff but never find the time to use it. I feel that way nowadays with forms of media that I purchase – I used to rush out to buy the newest CD, DVD or book that I wanted in my collection. But over the years I noticed that there were things that I spent money on and I just didn’t use yet. So now I buy something that I know I will get around to using within the year. It doesn’t make much sense to buy a new book if you aren’t going to read it within a year because in six months time you’ll find it for a cheaper price (usually).