How Did You Spend Your Weekend?

If you haven't seen this already, it's security camera footage of a guy who gets stuck in an elevator for a little over 40 hours.



I've always wondered what it would be like to be stuck in an elevator for an extended period of time. My concern is always what you'd have to do if you needed to go to the bathroom. Best I can tell, this guy just held it in for two days.

Random Memories From A TV-Addled Mind

My brain is a vast repository for useless pop culture knowledge. That's meant to be more of a confession than a boast. Though many geeks like me would take pride in their expansive internal databases, I'm convinced that these memories are probably taking up valuable real estate in my brain. I can only assume that most people fill up these same portions of the brain with important stuff like math, social skills and a sense of direction.

It's hardly a curse though, it's always fun to blow someone's mind when you can help them piece together their own pop culture memories. It was recently that a friend came to me with a vague memory. It went a little something like this:

Friend: Do you remember a show that had this guy and a dog, and they showed clips of Batman or something. I think his name was Stan the Man.
Me: You mean Switchback?
Friend: Maybe.

It was indeed Switchback, a show I had not seen or thought about since it went off the air in the late eighties. Switchback was a youth oriented program on CBC. There were various versions of the program, each suited to their particular Canadian market. Stan the Man (pictured above) hosted the Halifax version with his trusty dog Rufus. My memories of the show consist of little more than glimpses of neon and puppets. I can remember, however, that the show was quite popular and it came as a shock to many when it was cancelled.

After being reminded of the show, I tried to find as much info on it as I could. Sadly, I couldn't find any video clips and only a few pictures. There are several mentions of the show on various message boards. One common theme among those who remember the show was that Stan the Man was not a particularly genial person when the cameras weren't rolling.

It was during my google quest for Switchback info that I came across the site TVArchive.ca, which must have been lovingly crafted by pop culture geeks not unlike myself. The beauty of the site though is that it focuesses on Canadian programming. Meaning that shows like Switchback, Danger Bay and the Littlest Hobo have all been given some recognition.

Here is a list of some of the countless Canadian made programs that TVArchive.ca brought back from the dark recesses of my brain:

The Anti-Gravity Room
Camp Cariboo
Deke Wilson's Mini Mysteries
The Edison Twins
Harriet's Magic Hats
Maniac Mansion
My Secret Identity
Owl/TV
Puttnam's Prairie Emporium
Size Small
Squawk Box
Street Cents
Test Pattern
Today's Special
Under The Umbrella Tree
The Vacant Lot
Wok With Yan

The downside of this memory affirming bit of nostalgia is that it has knocked loose a new variety of partial memories. Like the show where a cop's soul gets trapped in the body of his St. Bernard after a car accident and the dog ends up living with the cop's relatives who have a wacky neighbor who is a hair-obsessed TV weather man who suspects that there is something not quite right with the St. Bernard. I'm not kidding about that either, it was a cheesy sitcom wherein the dog (who could talk) would try to help out the family with their everday problems by dispensing advice and stupid pet tricks. God help me.

Chief Brody and the Maritime Winter Blues

A little bit of sad news here kiddos, veteran actor Roy Scheider has passed away at the age of 75. Scheider, best known for his role as Chief Brody in Jaws, died this past sunday at a hospital in Little Rock, Arkansas. No official cause of death has been released. He will be missed.

In other news: I'm friggin' sick of winter. So sick that I've put together a haiku to express my hatred of this awful season. Enjoy.

Go to hell winter
You god damn son of a bitch
I hate shoveling

A Late List

Seeing as 2008 hasn't yielded any milestones yet, here is a list of a few of my favorite movies/albums/books/websites of 2007.

Best Movies I Saw In Theatres*
3:10 To Yuma
American Gangster
Live Free or Die Hard
No Country For Old Men
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
The Kingdom
The Simpsons Movie

*I like to go see movies in the theatre as often as possible. Downloading movies and the quick turnaround from big screen to DVD is making the in-theatre experience almost unnecessary, which is a shame.

Great Albums I Bought*
Albert Hammond Jr. - Yours to Keep
Arcade Fire - Neon Bible
Arctic Monkeys - Favourite Worst Nightmare
Handsome Furs - Plague Park
The Hives - The Black and White Album
Julie Doiron - Woke Myself Up
Matthew Good - Hospital Music
Modest Mouse - We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank
Patton Oswalt - Werewolves and Lollipops
Radiohead - In Rainbows**
Spaceblood - Spaceblood
Sunset Rubdown - Random Spirit Lover
The White Stripes - Icky Thump

*I still buy CDs. The whole Napster revolution is several years old now. If you like an artist, I think you should support them. The downloader mindset of "sticking it to the man" and "stealing from the rich" is pretty selfish. Just because you can steal, doesn't always mean that you should.
**Yes, I sprung for the limited edition discbox set.

The Books I Read*
"Fast Food Nation" by Eric Schlosser
"I Am America (And So Can You!)" by Stephen Colbert
"Invisible Monsters" by Chuck Palahniuk
"Into The Wild" by Jon Krakauer
"The Areas of My Expertise" by John Hodgman
"The Road" by Cormac McCarthy

*I don't read a lot of new books. Nor do I read as much as I'd like. These are simply a few books that I can remember reading and enjoying over the course of last year.

Best of the Web
www.deadpit.com
An internet talk radio show devoted to horror movies. The show is hosted by two guys from Kentucky, Uncle Bill and the Creepy Kentuckian. Deadpit's combination of news, reviews, comedy and honesty make for a very entertaining show. I had all but given up on the horror genre before I found this show.

SModcast
SModcast is a weekly podcast hosted by Kevin Smith and Scott Mosier of View Askew Films. Each podcast is an extended informal conversation between the hosts and occasional guests. If you're a fan of Kevin Smith's movies (ie: Clerks, Mallrats, Dogma, etc.) then you will enjoy this podcast.

Is It A Good Idea To Microwave This?
American college students and their destructive microwave adventures.


Hopefully we can all look forward to a prosperous and enjoyable 2008.

Holy Shit, It's Christmas!

This month has gone by so fast. I had meant to get in some quality blogging by now, but I just never got around to it. It's been a good month for me, with the exception of the weather. We've gotten a lot of snow here lately, which has meant poor driving conditions and lots of shovelling. I can't wait for Spring, which sucks, seeing as Winter just started.

For some reason, I've gotten a buttload of free booze this holiday season. I won a liquor basket (pictured) at my work Christmas party. It had some import tallboys, a bottle of rum, a bottle of wine, and a little bottle of champagne. I also managed to score a free case of beer from my grandfather. So far, all my holiday drinking has been done with free booze. Nothing wrong with that. Though I am currently nursing a hangover, courtesy of the aforementioned bottle of rum.

I have to take a moment to thank Shauna for the nice Christmas card she sent me. Whitey and I really appreciated the card, even though we're still cleaning up the glitter. All the best holiday wishes to you and yours.

Anyways, I've got it in my mind to do a 2007 best-of post before the end of the year, so hopefully this won't be my last post before 2008. In the meantime, dear readers, stay safe and have a happy holiday.

"I did everything by the seat of my pants."

Evel Knievel died today at the age of 69. Knievel had been in the news recently after ending a feud with rapper Kanye West. Though I wasn't alive during Knievel's heyday as a motorcycle daredevil, the guy always fascinated me. I remember seeing an A&E Biography special on Knievel a number of years ago. While it detailed many of the triumphs and setbacks of his career, the part that always stuck with me was when Knievel took a baseball bat to an author who had written an unflattering book about him. Most people would have sued, Knievel put the guy in the hospital first and then threatened to sue. In the end, I'm not sure if you could accurately describe the man as having been brave or crazy, because it must have taken balls of steel and shit for brains to think jumping over a canyon in a rocket was a good idea.

Give The People What They Want

Royal Flush
A quick note for my fellow poker enthusiasts. I was playing some Texas Hold 'Em this past weekend with some friends when I got a royal flush. Best of all, I was able to pull some money out of my fellow players with it. God only knows if I'll ever get another royal flush, but at least I can say that I got one.

Trailer Park Boys
Good news for Trailer Park Boys fans. It seems as though the gang from Sunnyvale finished filming a special recently and they also have plans to make another movie. This news comes from Mr. Lahey himself, John Dunsworth.

Sesame Street
Recently, the folks behind Sesame Street have been releasing a DVD series called "Sesame Street: Old School." The series features shows and clips from the early years of the program. The funny part is that each DVD comes with a warning sticker suggesting to consumers that the "Old School" DVDs are intended for mature audiences only. Reasons for this apparently include: scenes of the Cookie Monster smoking a pipe and eating cookies, as well as Oscar the Grouch being too grouchy. The New York Times has a decent article about the depravity that was Sesame Street in the 1970s and you can read it here.

Celine Dion
I'd tell you what I think about Celine Dion, but apparently you're not allowed to have any opinion about her in Nova Scotia. From the moment it was announced that Dion was scheduled to play a concert in the Halifax Commons next summer, the general sentiment was that the whole idea was a clusterfuck waiting to happen. So it was no surprise that within a few days Dion's people cancelled the show, citing the venue as being inadequte for their stage needs. With this, many Nova Scotians breathed a hearty sigh of relief. However, the other shoe dropped recently when Dion's husband/manager said in a press conference that the show was cancelled due to the negative comments from the press. Mr. Dion (who creeps the shit out of me) went on to name names. The brunt of the blame went to a columnist for the Halifax Daily News, one Mr. David Rodenhiser, and his column Like her or not, it's good news, which originally ran in the paper on November 8th. Had Mr. Dion bothered to read the piece, he would have seen that while Mr. Rodenhiser does not care for Celine's music, he saw the concert as being of benefit to the city of Halifax. It's unfortunate for Mr. Rodenhiser that he received so much criticism in the beginning for supporting the concert and now he's being scapegoated for its cancellation. Unfortunately this is becoming a trend for the city of Halifax, the populations vocally balks at the announcement of any major event and then they decry its cancellation.

Movies
As some of you might know, the Writers Guild of America (WGA) is currently on strike. This means there will be no new episodes of the Daily Show or the Colbert Report in the near future. The effects of the WGA strike also seem to be making their way into the realm of movies. This means that, should the strike continue long enough, Hollywood will run out of new movie ideas. (Yes, I realize that some people think they ran out of ideas years ago, but let's move on, shall we...)

So I am hereby throwing my hat into the ring, Hollywood. The following are some script ideas that you can buy from me should you run out of scripts. I can write the screenplay to any one of these ideas in a weekend for $100 and some Criterion Collection DVDs. Potential scripts include:

- My Boss is a Werewolf
- The Mustache that Dripped Blood
- The Killer Cubicle, the workplace that gives deadlines a whole new meaning
- Samurai Crossing Guard
- When the Chips are Down, a heart-warming tale of gambling addiction
- The Mop that Killed
- Space Cheese
- William Shatner vs Your Car (90 minutes of Shatner smashing your car with a baseball bat)
- Death Net (it turns out that the internet gives you AIDS)
- Gumby Meets Al Gore
- Night of the Lobster (kinda like Night of the Living Dead but with lobsters)
- Mad Cow Disease: The Musical
- Zombie Lawyer, a comedy
- Clamatto, a documentary (seriously, what the hell were those guys thinking?)
- The Life and Times of John Wilkes Booth, an animated feature
- Monkey vs Shark

All ideas are copyrights of Quammy Inc. The ball's in your court Hollywood.

Plate of Shrimp

A lot o' people don't realize what's really going on. They view life as a bunch o' unconnected incidents 'n things. They don't realize that there's this, like, lattice o' coincidence that lays on top o' everything. Give you an example; show you what I mean: suppose you're thinkin' about a plate o' shrimp. Suddenly someone'll say, like, plate, or shrimp, or plate o' shrimp out of the blue, no explanation. No point in lookin' for one, either. It's all part of a cosmic unconsciousness.

That particular piece of pseudo-philosophy is from one of my favorite cult films, 1984's Repo Man. While I don't have much faith in the existence of a "cosmic unconsciousness," I still believe that there is some wisdom in that particular monologue.

Yesterday morning, a morning like most others, I was reading an article that was linked from IMDB's homepage. The article was little more than a best-of list concerning documentaries. At number two on the list was The Thin Blue Line, a documentary I had never heard of.

Later on in the day, I was reading an interview on the Onion's AV Club with director Tony Kaye. In the interview, which was mostly concerned with a documentary that he had recently completed, he mentioned The Thin Blue Line. Having then heard mention of an unfamiliar documentary for the second time in a few hours, I went to wikipedia to find out more.

With that curiosity settled, I thought I would read a little bit about each of the other titles on the best-of list that I wasn't already familiar with. I was almost finished reading wikipedia's entry on the Rolling Stones documentary Gimme Shelter when the very song for which the documentary was named happened to come on the radio.

Simple coincidences? Evidence of a cosmic unconsciousness? Either way, don't be surprised if someone mentions a plate of shrimp in the near future.

Ron James @ The Chester Playhouse

Last night I saw the Canadian comedian Ron James at the Chester Playhouse. He was doing a benefit for the Playhouse and also working out the kinks in some new material that he'll be recording soon for a TV special. His act was pretty funny, peppered here and there with nods to the locals. But what I enjoyed most about his set were the lengthy alliterative rants that would pop up on occasion.

In case you don't know who Ron James is (perhaps you never tried to sit through and episode of Blackfly, simply because it was filmed in a town near you), the following is one of the few clips of his material that I found on Youtube. He did some of this same material in his set last night at the Playhouse.

The Indie West

I just heard about this clip through the Onion's AV Club, so I thought I'd share it with all y'all. Essentially someone has taken clips from Sergio Leone's Once Upon A Time In The West and matched it to the Arcade Fire track "My Body Is A Cage." They mesh pretty well. I should mention, however, that the clip contains spoilers, so if you were planning on watching the movie (though I doubt you were) you might not want to check this out. Either way, enjoy.

Driving Music

I start up my car on the way home from work today and I get probably the best set of songs that the local classic rock station has ever put back-to-back. As part of their long weekend top 104 album countdown, my homeward journey was backed by:

"Band on the Run"
"Jet"
"Let Me Roll It"
and "Helen Wheels"

Practically a Paul McCartney and Wings "best of." If only it could have been capped off with "Wonderful Christmastime." And while some of you may scoff at my delight in hearing a Wings mini-marathon, you have to realize that the station is more likely to play April Wine and Nickleback than anything else, so I'll take a small victory when I can get one.

Where The Hell Did The Summer Go?

Summer is over, sort of. It's officially Race Week here in Chester and that means, come Sunday morning, summer is over. Sure, it might still be nice out and you might still have some vacation time coming to you. But around these parts, the post-Race Week blues will be setting in and no one will be too interested in whooping it up.

I've got to say though, that with minimal effort I managed to have a pretty good summer. I got to see two of my favorite bands in concert (the White Stripes and Eric's Trip), I got to visit with some family and good friends, I managed to pick up some cool records, and I saw a few good movies. So, all in all, I'm left with very little to complain about.

So, while it's still warm enough to wear shorts, I'd advise you all to crack an ice cold beer, plunk your ass down in a lawn chair, light a roman candle, and enjoy the outdoors.

Rock 'n Roll Thy Name Is The White Stripes

I had the pleasure of seeing the White Stripes live in concert last night in Halifax. My damaged hearing is but one sign that it was a hell of a show. I must say that Jack White is quite the showman. And, while there was little banter between songs, he seemed to know just what to say to get the crowd going. Also, I have to give it up to the band for coming to Nova Scotia at all, since very few bands at the peek of their careers play shows anywhere east of Montreal. I picked up a few 1" pins and a sweet turntable slip mat from the merchandise table after the show. It was funny (and this makes me feel old) but I remember when I went to my first rock concert (Meatloaf, Bat Out of Hell Part II Tour) everyone held up lighters, but at the White Stripes show, everyone just held up digital cameras and cell phones. Why go to a rock concert if you're going to be looking through your camera's view finder all night? Anyways, I could go on and on about what a great show it was and how happy I am that I got to see my favorite active rock band, but I'll just leave it at that.

On This Day...

1483 - Richard III is crowned King of England. Some time later, some dude writes a play about it.

1942 - Anne Frank and her family go into hiding. I have nothing funny to say about that.

1945 - Burt Ward is born. 19 years later he throws on a pair of tights and goes to live with Adam West in a cave.

1957 - John Lennon and Paul McCartney meet for the first time. I think they went on to form a band or something. Ask your parents.

1962 - William Faulkner dies. Consult your local library.

1977 - Roger Waters spits on a fan during a Pink Floyd concert. The incident inspires Waters to write The Wall.

1998 - Roy Rogers dies. Ask your grandparents.

2007 - A mediocre blogger scratches his head and wonders why he hasn't written anything in months.

I'm On It

Wall Crawlers, Proto Punks, and Ominous Poker Hands

- I had the opportunity to see Spider-man 3 last week, and I would say that, for the most part, I enjoyed it. It seemed to me that they tried to cram too much into the movie. The various plot lines could have easily fleshed out two separate movies. If you’ve seen the first two installments of the Spider-man franchise, you might as well go see this one. I ended up seeing a bootleg of the movie a few days after seeing it in the theater, but I would advise against downloading this one. Not for the reasons the MPAA and the various copyright holders would put forth, but simply because the bootlegs out right now don’t do this movie justice. Since Spider-man spends a good deal of time wearing a black costume in this flick, you really want to see a quality version, be that the theatrical print or the eventual DVD.

- I generally make it a rule that I don’t take my work home with me. And seeing that I work at a landfill, that hasn’t been a hard rule to follow. But last week a resident came in and I noticed he had a box of LPs on his passenger seat. He said I was welcome to have any of the records. You’d be surprised how many offer to let you have the things they are prepared to throw away, but that’s a topic for another day. So after thumbing through his various Foreigner and Journey albums, I managed to score a few choice LPs. I got Alice Cooper’s “Billion Dollar Babies,” The Cars’ “Panorama,” Elvis Costello’s “Trust,” and the piece de resistance the New York Dolls’ “Too Much Too Soon.” I never thought I’d come across a vintage Dolls LP, seeing as they probably didn’t sell many of them back in the day. But, as the old saying goes: one man’s trash...

- I played a lot of poker this past week. And while I did pretty well, I was alarmed when I got a Dead Man’s Hand. For the unfamiliar, a Dead Man’s Hand is a two pair poker hand, aces and eights. The hand is so named because it is widely reported to be the hand Wild Bill Hickok was playing before he was shot. The hand is a popular cliche in many old western films, wherein a character, usually a villain, will get a Dead Man’s Hand shortly before being killed in a violent confrontation. And though I have not been killed in a gunfight in the days since getting the ominous hand, I have been watching my back.

Chester After 24 Hours

Like many great things, vacations don't last forever. Mine came to an end yesterday morning as I packed up my car and drove back to Chester.

Now, as far as cities go, I like Fredericton. It's not too big and it's not too small. And I think I managed to take advantage of just about everything the city had to offer while I was there. I saw just about everyone I was hoping to see, I bought some cool records, I visited nearly every pawn shop on the city's south side, and I even caught a rock show before I left.

I've been back home for about twenty-four hours now and I feel like crap. Not because I have to go to work tomorrow, but because I caught a cold or something towards the end of my vacation. So, as good as Fredericton and its people were to me, they still managed to give me the plague.

So that's all for now kiddies.

Fredericton After 24 Hours

I got into Fredericton yesterday around three. The sun was shining and I saw plenty of hippies in the streets, so I knew I was back in a University town.

After meeting up with my gracious hosts, I went to one of my favorite spots in Fredericton, Backstreet Records. I picked up a David Byrne album, the new Spaceblood CD, and a copy of Roger Corman's The Man with X-Ray Eyes.

Later on, my hosts hosted a birthday party for one of their friends (and yes, I know, that's a lot of simultaneous hosting). In the midst of all the conversation and dollar store decorations, I was introduced to a drink called "the spirit of America." The tasty beverage involves a deceptive amount of gin, so I have to suspect that it could easily lead to one's undoing.

In order to somewhat remedy my hangover this morning, I took my hosts out for breakfast at Fred's Pancake House. Fred's is a truck stop style restaurant on the outer edge of the city. You can always count on two things at Fred's: surly waitresses and bottomless coffee. Even now, some two hours after the fact, I can still feel my breakfast working its magic on me.

So that's pretty much what I've done with the last 24 hours. I hope this week will conintue to provide good food, good friends and good times. And while I'd like to say that I'm going to post regular updates as the week unfolds, the fact remains, I am on vacation. So I'm not going to promise anything.

I'm Starting To Hate This Whole Blog Thing

Whenever I boot up Internet Explorer this page comes up. So each and every time I go on the net, I'm reminded that I haven't updated my blog in forever. And frankly, I'm getting sick of it. I had a lot more enthusiasm for blogging when I started. These days, when I think of something to write about, I'm pained by the thought of putting the time into posting something I can be relatively happy with. So here's the deal cats and kittens, don't expect much. I'm abandoning a few of my favorite parts of the blog, though I doubt anyone will notice/care. I'm going to keep posting, but all future posts are likely to be half-assed.

And now for something relatively different:

- The White Stripes will be putting out a new album this summer. Icky Thump will be released on June 19th. For more information, consult any music blog.

- Kurt Vonnegut has passed away. The author died yesterday as a result of brain injuries he suffered from a recent fall. While I haven't read many of Vonnegut's works, I have to say that Slaughterhouse-Five is one of the greatest books I have ever read.

- This past weekend was April 6th, a day that has a lot of meaning for me. Not only was it a good friend's birthday (for which he had a kick ass party) but it was also a day of celebration for anyone who has ever lived in Harrington Hall. Harrington, one of the residence buildings on campus at St. Thomas University, has maintained the tradition of April 6th Day celebrations for a number of years. While the origins of the occasion are somewhat unknown, the celebration of the day remains an annual fixture on campus. Though I have not lived in Harrington since 2001, I cannot help but think back to those days every April 6th. So, in the midst of a friend's birthday celebration this past weekend, I pulled another former Harrington resident aside and toasted the house. A tradition that I expect I will observe for many years to come.

And that's about all I can think of for now.

Oh Yeah, I'm Supposed To Post Stuff

Hey kids. Sorry about the massive delay since my last blog entry. I guess I don't have any real good excuse for not writing. So, I'll just get on with it then...

- I met Jonathan Torrens at work about two weeks ago. Yes, one of the former hosts of Street Cents and current stars of Trailer Park Boys. He was very polite and we had a short conversation about Street Cents.

- I'm still very hooked on Facebook. I've only been on it for a few weeks, but I'm still finding friends I haven't talked to in years. Unlike MySpace, there's something to look forward to every time I log on.

- One of my new favorite shows is a Japanese cartoon called Death Note. I haven't really been in to anime since I was in high school, but I'm definitely enjoying this show. I won't really bother explaining the concept of the show, you can find that on wikipedia. Personally, one of the things I like most about the show is how endlessly complicated it gets with every episode.

- The new Modest Mouse album comes out this Tuesday, March 20th. I'm pretty stoked to get this one, as I've been a fan of the band for a few years now. Don't just download this one kids, go to your friendly neighborhood record store (or, god forbid, the mall) and buy the CD. If you actually purchase the album they just might be able to make another one.