I found this when looking for things for the show. According to London’s Telegraph (a newspaper) if you have the last name Morgan, Kidd, Teach, Racklam, Bonny or Read you have pirate blood in you. They say that those names can be traced back to some of Britian’s most famous pirates. Just thought you might want to know! Perhaps years from now people who have the last name Bush or Cheney will also be considered to have “pirate” blood in them.
It’s 30 degrees today. Perfect day to head to a beach and take in the eye candy or just enjoy summer as it gives its last kicks. Only problem is that the beaches around here are now officially closed. Yup no lifeguards on duty or water testing to make sure it’s safe where you swim. How stupid is this? I don’t know the official procedure in closing beaches down for the summer but I have a feeling that somewhere in a book it says ” Beaches close on August 29th” Because some pencil pushing yes man was hired to implement such things so it is written so shall it be done! I find this is happening more and more…if it’s written somewhere in a book that’s how it HAS to be done…no questions asked. What ever happened to a little thing called “common sense”? I say this because “common sense” would tell any tool thinking of closing beaches today that because it’s going to be 30 for a few more days perhaps leave them open. This is only one case of “because it’s written in this book we have to do it this way” things that happen in life. Perhaps the only thing that’s more aggravating than doing something because it’s written is not doing something because it’s not written. So I propose a new addition to all jobs everywhere in Canada…this one is simple…”Common Sense over rules anything you may or may not read in your job description”! Think of how nice life would be if people had to actually use common sense! It’s been a while since I threw you a bone for reading my blog and I do appreciate you taking the time to see what’s got me ranting for the day so the word commonsense will get you Platinum Nation Points
1- Cops putting Support our Troops on cruisers - The police are going to put those ribbons in support of our troops on their cars. While I think the whole magnetic ribbon thing is overdone it’s a good cause and supporting our troops doesn’t mean supporting a war. Anyone who puts their life on the line for their job has my support.
2- Movies opening this weekend - The line up includes a new Mr Bean Movie and the Sam Jackson movie Champ. I didn’t talk about them because who really cares. Both movies will suck. Now next week will be worth going to..Rob Zombies version of Halloween opens!
3- Brain May finishes doctorate - He finally handed it in on astrophysics! It’s not really news until he says now that that’s over he’s going to make music again.
4- Kiss Army is back - They’ve started it up again! For a fee online you can be a card carrying member of the Kiss army. Reason I didn’t talk about it..I didn’t play Kiss and I really dislike Gene Simmons
5- Spin Rage - Apparently this is a new word used in health clubs by people who use stationary bikes. The person who’s on the bike gets upset when they’re asked to get their arses off the bike and starts a fight. Reason I didn’t talk about it- Funny story but I want the video first!
6- City Picking up syringes - A guy in Ottawa is having problem with drug users leaving there syringes around his neighborhood. He’s been picking them up so that kids don’t prick themselves on them. He’s asked the city to pick them up to which they’ve replied NO! I didn’t get to this because it’s a pretty heavy topic to be talking about headed into your weekend…wouldn’t you rather hear our intern rock army leader Tiffany talk about how she “sucks up a storm”
7- Dress for Success in the Sun - Normally these articles don’t interest me because I think their full of $hit. Because I’ve been asked to shed my “dirtbag” image for tomorrows live on location broadcast from Scotiabank Place (10am-2pm) it caught my eye. After reading the thing it made no mention of how stylish a white fadora with a nice sportcoat outfitted with skulls looked so i still think articles like that are BS.
I’m off to intro Trooper at Super Ex..hope to see you out…if not hopefully tomorrow at Scotiabank Place!
When getting ready to do my show everyday I run across a ton of stories. Some of them make it onto the show and others get left behind. The ones that get left behind aren’t un interesting or anything it’s just that I may not be able to get to them. So I thought from now on I’d post stuff that got left behind from each show. Here’s a few from today.
1- Pride poster’s torn down- Apparently someone is tearing down the posters for pride week. This wasn’t a story for me until the article in the Metro said that the organizers were considering the tearing down a “hate crime.” Then it caught attention. While I think tearing down someone’s poster for an event isn’t very nice I would hardly consider it a “hate crime.” Perhaps if the posters had been defaced with derogatory remarks I would classify it as a hate crime.
2- Google Sky - They’ve come up with a new Google Earth type site only this one will focus on stars and stuff in the sky. It will be called Google Sky. I understand google earth. The point of it is to visit places and see areas of the world that I may never get to. The reason I think Google Sky is dumb.. I can walk outside and see the same damn thing they’re going to show me on the computer.
3- A new study shows that people in their 70’s and 80’s still having sex as much as young people. The reason I didn’t talk about this is because what else can I say about it other than EWWWWWW!
4- Texas Rangers beat the Baltimore Orioles last night in baseball 30-3. Reason I didn’t talk about it…who really cares about baseball? Hockey season is only a month away!
5- Playboy is launching their own networking site - It’s going to be like myspace or facebook. The reason I didn’t talk about it - There won’t be any nudity on the site. If you’re Playboy isn’t that the reason people buy the magazine or visit the website? Oh yeah..I forgot..we’re all just reading the articles!
6- Million Dollar Birthday Present - A man in North Carolina gave his wife a million dollar birthday present. He won Saturday’s Powerball draw and waited until Tuesday to put the winning ticket in a box and gave it to his wife. Reason I didn’t talk about it. I want to win the lottery and am jealous also it’s a happy sappy story…that’s not my thing!
7- Vancouver was voted the most livable city in the world - According to Economist magazine Vancouver is the best place to live in the world based on low crime rates, low terrorism threat, great transit system etc etc. Reason I didn’t talk about it. Bull$hit it’s the best place in the world to live. This magazine should take a trip to the nation’s capital!
Look for more stories tomorrow that got left behind!
8- Toddler Taser - There is a product out there called the Toddler Taser. It’s not what you think. It’s made for parents to use on people who may approach them while they’re with their baby. The reason I didn’t talk about it - It’s really not that interesting other than the name. However the company that sells this product is very strange. If you want to see something truly absurd check this site out
www.bulletproofbaby.net (wait for the site to load and watch the demo in the bottom right corner)
Apparently people feel the need these days to have a baby carriage that is resistant to machine gun fire!
If you use facebook you may find the following post offensive, either that or a breath of fresh air. I use facebook. It does have some good points to it. You can stay in touch with people who you normally wouldn’t talk to, find people from your past, keep up to date with events happening in your circle of friends and best of all maintain that “delayed” form of communication. You know what I’m talking about..the “conversation someone starts with you that you really don’t want engage in, but you feel good that they wrote you conversation.” That’s where the fun stops on facebook though!
I’ve noticed in the past few months the site is being littered with ego maniacs who simply use the thing to make themselves feel better. I’ll run through a few of my pet peeves.
It’s nice to talk to people from your past about what they’re doing now. When I’m asked “what are you up to?” I usually respond with a “living and working in Ottawa..you?” (I am very proud about my job but I think it’s a little ego centric to write back a response like “I’m on air at the biggest and best F-ing rock station in Ottawa and quite possibly Canada”) I actually feel bad for those in my past who need to write every minor detail of anything good that’s happened in their life since we last talked. Really? You’re life is soo good that you need to tell me all that? I think there should be certain etiquette to the “what’s new?” question. Keep it to where you live and work, if you’ve got kids and if you’re married. Once a person has that information they can decide what else they want to know.
I’ll try to keep my frustration about people in the media on facebook to a minimum. There are some in my line of business who’s ego’s are soo fragile I think when they wake in the morning if someone doesn’t tell them that they are the center of the universe and that they are the most special butterfly in the world they will be on the brink of suicide all day. You know the ones I’m talking about. The ones who add you to their friends list when you don’t even know who they are. So these fragile little flowers add everyone that they can come into contact with so that they end up with what appears to be thousands of “fans”. When the “fans” ask the obvious, “Who are you?” they just simply delete them. The sad thing about people in the media on facebook is that this is only the start. There are some who have set up their own “Fan Sites!” That’s right! The person who is the subject of the “fan” site creates the site themselves, and then proceeds to beg people to post on it so that they appear even more popular. In general it’s safe to say that if you’ve created your own “fan club” we all know who your biggest fan is…YOU!
Now I know you may be thinking that CHEZ has used facebook in the past. In regards to that we didn’t do it for notoriety or fans…we did it for the people who wanted to know when we would all pee on Jeff Brown’s jersey as well from time to time we post where we’ll be broadcasting from live so that you can show up get bonus codes and maybe score yourself a deal on whatever store we’re at. You see the difference here? One is all about the individual the other is all about the actual “fans”.
Now if you’re not using facebook and your thinking “why on earth would you ever want to join this thing?” it’s simple…Everyone’s doing it man! You gotta try this stuff…yup it’s just like every other addiction out there. You get in for your first hit and then you just keep coming back for more!
Sorry for my delays on the blog but with the ever constant sleep deprivation while covering the morning show I thought it wasn’t wise to post. They say that someone driving tired is the same as someone who drives drunk. Hence posting a blog while tired would be the same as doing it while drunk. You don’t want to see a rambling from me like Rosanne Barr where she talked about peeing her pants and admitting that somewhere she has a sex tape! (God I hope that never sees the light of day! I think I would have to gouge my eye balls out with a spoon….as horrendous as that sounds it would be nothing like the pain you would feel from seeing Rosanne naked)
A troubling thing happened this past weekend. It involved Pearl Jam and freedom of speech in America. They were performing at a huge festival called LOLLAPALLOOZA. Their part of the show was available on the internet exclusivly through AT&T. Since they are a huge company it’s not surprising that they had a delay on the broadcast so that they could cut out any “offensive” material. Now I can understand to a certain extent editing out cursing, but what happened was totally inconceivable. During one of there songs they broke into a rendition of “Another Brick in the Wall” and for the lines “Teacher leave them kids alone” the band substituted “George Bush leave the world alone” and then “George Bush go find another home”…..while here in Canada anyone who’s reading these lines may think “ok…so what..George is A-Hole and the boys are right” or at the very least that people in a free world have the right to voice their opinion. AT&T decided that anyone listening to the webcast would find criticism of the President offensive. So they edited the entire section where he talks about Bush. Can you imagine…it’s scary to think that’s what it has come to in some people’s minds in America…you can say what you want but don’t criticize the President. Since the incident AT&T has said they were wrong for taking out that section…but the real piss off is that they didn’t say…”ok we were wrong” they try to play it off like “we thought he was going to curse” even though there was a delay on the song.
Anyway if this story has interested you in the least the boys of Pear Jam have posted the unedited video and their comments on the issue here: http://pearljam.com/news/index.php?what=News#197
One more reason I’m proud to be Canadian…free speech and beer with some bite to it!
I think it’s safe to say that everyone has an addiction of some sort. It’s just a matter of how harmful your addcition is..and for every addiction there is a ying and a yang ie: some are addicted to food where as others are addicted to working out (I wish i was the latter)
I am an addict..for guitars. (before you stop reading here thinking that I’m going to talk and talk about how great I am or talk about something only a guitar player would be interested in you’re wrong …read on I do have a point!) My addiction for has different levels to it. Sometimes I can get my fix by just replacing the strings or even a new effects pedal. But from time to time there’s no cure like a new guitar. This was the case this past weekend. My girlfiend decided she wanted a guitar so we went to see the folks at Long and Mcquade. Bad idea. Unfortunatly for me Long and Mcquade generally has a pretty decent array of left handed guitars ( It’s often hard if not downright impossible to find left handers…generally music stores will have one or two in stock) So as she was looking for the “prettiest” guitar I happened to see a Fender Strat (the type Jimi and Clapton play) After what seemed like an hour of drooling over this thing my mind started to wander and justify why I should buy this guitar… “lately I’ve been playing alot of Jimi and Clapton and the guitars I currently own don’t have the sound to do the tunes justice.” Makes sense right? (i know not so much) Luckily for me as I was about to ask to play it she found her “pretty guitar” and was anxious to leave so we did.
Anyone who as any sort of addiction will also tell you that when you’re an addict and you’re in need of a fix that’s all that you can think of. So for the next 5 hours I spent my time on Youtube watching footage of Jimi, Eric and even amateurs who were pretty good all playing Strats. A half hour before the store closed I had decided if I didn’t get this thing my world could come to an end as the guitar gods from above would forever curse me for not doing their music justice for the vast audience that listens to me play (which is a total of 2… Jack and Dazie…my two dogs).
After getting home and plugging in and playing into the wee hours of the morning I came to a realization. If crack addicts can get free pipes why can’t I get a free guitar? If not a free guitar then why not set up a “safe play site” much like a ” safe injection site” have you ever had a neighbor come knocking at 3am when the amps are cranked to 10 and the more you drink the better you think you are? If not let me tell you your life is in danger!.Think of how much nicer the city would be if we stopped giving crack addicts pipes and instead gave musicians guitars or instruments! ……and now i’ve reached the point in the story where I have no idea where i’m going with this….so….uhh…I guess I’m off to feed my addiction!
p.s. I know there will be spelling errors in this one…but it’s the long weekend..I’m too lazy to put it through a spell checker…we all do things half assed on a long weekend right!
I have a serious problem with squirrels and I don’t mean that I don’t like them. I mean I have a squirrel problem. It all stems from my girlfriend, peanuts and my new place.
I moved into a new town home this spring. It was a very exciting time since I’d been living in an apartment for close to 5 years. My girlfriend had also been living in an apartment for 4 or 5 years as well. I like nature but she’s over the top with animals. I’m talking old Macdonald..the more room, the more animals we would have. So it wasn’t a big surprise to me that the day we moved in we had to go get bird feeders. The day after the bird feeders went up we needed to go get peanuts for the squirrels so that they wouldn’t eat all of the bird seed. This is when she made the decision that she was going to have a squirrel eat out of her hand. I thought it was a lofty goal but didn’t try to crush her dream of one day having a rabid animal potentially millimeters away from her fingers.
To my surprise by the end of the week she actually had one eat a peanut out of her hand. Then later in the week she had two of them eating out of her hand. Before long there were more than I could count willing to take peanuts from her. This was amusing but not concerning to me…until yesterday.
After taking a short nap at noon I decided to BBQ. Everything appeared normal in the backyard as I went outside. I turned the BBQ on and sat down and waited for it to heat up. This is where things got weird. As I sat down I noticed a squirrel come out of a tree and run purposefully towards me. He stopped about 2 feet away. Then another appeared from under the fence. 3 feet away. Then another ran from around the corner of the house. It was like a bad horror movie and instead of Zombies coming out of the woodwork it was squirrels. The gathering finally tapped out at about 5 or 6 of the furry fear mongers. The thing was they weren’t just passing by, they were there on a mission…get peanuts or kill anything that stood in their way. They all stood like statues eyeballing me wondering where the hell the peanuts were….as I slowly backed towards the door ….they slowly crept forward…Luckily I made it inside without being bitten. When I looked back outside to my astonishment the squirrels had gone…it was quiet..too quiet. Without warning from above one crawled down onto the screen on the door. (they were getting sneaky calling in air support) After hanging on the screen for a few moments the squirrel left. The only problem was that I had to go outside because there was still a steak on the BBQ and no ninja squirrel was keeping me from that. So I grabbed a handful of peanuts, opened the door, and tossed them like they were mini grenades. The squirrel’s instantly ran for them and were appeased for the moment. I finally cooked my steak and went inside.
So now I can’t go into my backyard without something for the squirrels…perhaps a slingshot would be in order!
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