Anyone who uses Facebook has probably noticed and if you’re like me, been annoyed by the rash of lists that keep cropping up. They have titles like “20 random things about me” or “20 Albums”. To further irritate my inner curmudgeon the trend has recently been exacerbated by livingsocial’s “Pick Your 5″ which clogs the newsfeed with list after relentless list documenting every category imaginable from “My top five albums from my college days” to “Five worst movies ever”.

In fact, the number of “Pick Your 5″ entries, coupled with the overwhelming popularity of inane quizzes, that clutter the facebook newsfeed has me contemplating leaving facebook forever. But then I’d have to face the social isolation inherent in working from home and being the parent of a young child (but I suppose that’s content for an entirely different entry).

I avoided jumping onto the list bandwagon thinking that it was too self-promotional and oozed with, as my wife put it, “Oh, look at me! I have such interesting and eclectic tastes!” Until a friend from my OCA days tagged me on her 15 Albums list and I found I agreed with an astonishing number of her choices. Despite my misgivings, I started to ruminate on albums that somehow made a difference in my life. As luck would have it, this blog has been sitting here begging me for content for some time now so I’ve decided to just start writing about music in my life and see where it goes. I should be able to avoid appearing “interesting and eclectic” as there are some records that had profound effects on me but which I would hardly classify as artistic masterpieces or even listen to today. Having said that, these albums were once important to me and shaped my growth as a wannabe rock star.

One example of this is Supertramp’s 1979 album Breakfast In America

This is the first full length album that I remember buying with my own money. Up until this point I’d been a regular purchaser of 45′s and I already owned two singles from Breakfast in America: Goodbye Stranger and The Logical Song. By purchasing the album I was securing Take the Long Way Home the only single left on the album at that time (they would later release the song Breakfast in America as a single).

I was eleven years old and my family and I were in Bracebridge, Ontario visiting my brother’s godparents when I spotted the record in a store window. It was $5.99 and I decided then and there that I wanted more than just singles in my life! I wanted the whole kit and caboodle! I forked out the cash and hastily removed the shrink wrap. I was immediately fascinated by how the outer and inner sleeves were cleverly designed to look like a menu from a traditional 1950′s diner. I listened to the album often and having pulled it out recently I’d say it still sounds like well crafted pop, although to my modern ears, it edges a little too close to “easy listening”. It’s definitely the kind of music you might hear at the dentist’s office.

The Monkees Collection Incident

One particular album from my childhood was important to me but for reasons other than musical. The K-Tel double LP The Monkees Collection taught me a lesson about responsibility and was the beginning of my uncanny ability, perfected some years later, to hide unpleasant thoughts and feelings deep in the pit of my stomach.

When I was seven years old, for days I begged my parents to order The Monkees’ Collection. They were reluctant at first, citing the unreliability of the post office and the uncertain trustworthiness of K-Tel. But I would not be dissuaded. I explained that this was the ultimate Monkees collection! It contained two records! Two records! K-Tel was a major player! They could trust K-Tel!
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Just for fun I ran the Russian text of the spam in my last entry through Google Translate to see if I could get a better idea of what it read.  The result was much more natural in tone but I still don’t know what the spammer was trying to achieve.  The Google translation was as follows:

“Beware of moshennitsa!
It steals your money!
Pashkulskaya Elena
Date of Birth 12.11.1984
Place of Birth: City of Anthracite, Ukraine
Lives in St. Petersburg.
Under the guise of a customs broker engaged in financial fraud
intentionally delaying растаможку goods, bring your goods to forfeiture.
Be careful!”

This arrived in my inbox a few minutes ago. The text is in Russian so I had it translated with Babel Fish.  The results made me chuckle.

As translated the subject says:  “Carefully, [moshennitsa]!”
Just over the picture it says: “It steals your money!”
And the main text reads:  ”[Pashkulskaya] Helen Nikolaevna Date of generation 12.11.1984 g. Place of the generation: g. anthracite, the Ukraine It lives in Saint Petersburg. Under the guise customs broker it is occupied by financial machinations, [umyshlenno] involving the custom fee of loads, leads your goods to the confiscation. You be careful!”

It looks like translation software still has a way to go.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m preoccupied by financial machinations.

I just put the final touches on my most recent job.  

A company called In Post hired me to build this site for a handbag and wallet company called BE.  I was handed a pdf file from the designer as well as a handful of reference sites and built the site from that, using flash and actionscript 3.

Almost all of the content is loaded from external image and xml files which makes it possible for the client to update all of their information without going back to In Post or myself.  As a result I was faced with a lot of fresh challenges from a coding perspective.  I won’t go into all of the details but it’s safe to say that I learned a lot of tricks making this site and have expanded my flash arsenal considerably.  Another advantage to loading data in this manner is it keeps the initial swf file rather small and the site loads much faster than if it were made from a large self-contained file.  

Note: When I last checked the site content was incomplete.

Update Feb 6, 2009: Some of the content has been updated but they’ve introduced a doubled up background image that doesn’t center properly.

Update Jan. 7, 2010: Every time I go to the BE site I get a warning that their server is hosting malicious software so I thought I’d post a demo version of the site so that people can actually see how it works.

Sammy on Much More Music.
Note:  You’ll need the latest version of Quicktime to view this video

I was happy to learn that Sammy the Hanukkah Lobster was featured on Much More Music’s Listed program over the holidays!  Sure it was as a horrible holiday tune but we were among some good company (and some truly horrible company as well). Regardless, I’m proud to have our work featured alongside Ren and Stimpy, Max Headroom and Gary Coleman.

Here’s the full list:

1.   White Christmas - Jingle Cats
2.   Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer – Dr. Elmo
3.   Reggae Christmas – Bryan Adams and Pee Wee Herman
4.   I Want to Rock You Hard This Christmas – The Dan Band
5.   Fleck the Halls – Ren and Stimpy
6.   Sammy the Hanukkah Lobster – H.B. Steinberg
7.   Christmas Time (Don’t Let the Bells End) – The Darkness
8.   Jingle Bell Rock – Hall and Oates
9.   Merry Christmas Happy Holidays – NSYNC and Gary Coleman
10. Please Come Home For Christmas – Jon Bon Jovi
11. O’ Come All Ye Faithful – Twisted Sister
12. I Hate Christmas – George Patience
13. Don’t Shoot Me Santa – The Killers
14. Zat You Santa Clause? – Buster Poindexter
15. The First Noel – The Crash Test Dummies
16. Merry Christmas Santa Clause – Max Headroom
17. Silent Night – Winger
18. Christmas Magic – Ali Lohan
19. Make Love to Christmas – Ivan Hrvastska
20. Little Drummer Boy – Ru Paul

I was a bit dismayed to hear the female commentator say that Sammy was neither catchy nor fun to watch but after viewing the entire program I found that this was her constant refrain along with “It’s not Christmassy at all!”

Other than Sammy, my personal favorite would have to be Make Love To Chistmas although I’ve always had a soft spot for Max Headroom’s Merry Christmas Santa Clause.

I’m astounded that after 4 years Sammy finally got his due.  If you’ve never seen the Sammy the Hanukkah Lobster video there are two high quality versions available for viewing on Sammy’s official website.

 

Christmas Eve is upon us and I wanted to wish everyone joy and merriment over the holidays and all the best for the New Year!

I finally finished watching the Survivor: Gabon reunion show and one thing has stuck in my head (other than the fact that Bob should have given  the $100,000 to Sugar or at the very least made some acknowledgement that she was the only reason he made it to the end) and that is a remark Jeff Probst made.  He thought it was interesting that Randy was applauded while Corinne was booed.  Personally I don’t find that to be much of a mystery.

The difference between Randy and Corrine is that Randy’s nastiness comes from a real emotional hang-up and Corrine’s comes from her believing she’s better than everyone else.  

At some time in the past, something happened that emotionally crippled Randy.  He mentions that his dog “never cheated on him, never lied…” and that’s made me think it may be something like his wife/lover having an affair with his best friend.  Whatever it was it fuels his anger and makes him the way he is.  At the same time he’s very self deprecating and he has a sense of humour about his misanthropic personality.

Corrine on the other hand is merely nasty and this nastiness is driven by an unwarranted sense of superiority.  In contrast to Randy, someone (probably her parents) made Corrine think that she was really special.  She’s a spoiled princess who’s social skills haven’t developed past 9th grade.  

It’s also no mystery that her most crass attacks focused on Sugar.  Corrine is just another insecure woman who needs to attack the competition to bolster her self esteem.  She makes a big fuss about being a college graduate while Sugar is “and uneducated leech”.  Like she’s the only one who’s ever gone to school.  What does she turn this much hyped education into?   Pharmaceutical sales! ( I don’t know if there are any statistics on this but it seems to me that a majority of reality show contestants are either wait staff or in pharmaceutical sales).  Woo-hoo Corrine!  That’s a lot more impressive than being a pin-up model!  No, wait… from what I’ve seen while waiting in doctor’s offices… it’s very much like being a pin-up model except you wear a suit.

“911.”

(sobbing) “Yes… I … I just saw someone run over a squirrel!  In broad daylight!  He just… he just … kept going and I… I…”

“Okay. Okay calm down… where are you calling from?”

“10 Semolina Drive.”

“We’ll send someone over…”

(hysterical) “I think he’s dead!”

“We’ll send someone immediately…”

“It’s just so… so…”

“Did you get the plate number?”

“Yes.”

“Give it to me.”

She does.

“I’ll put out an APB.  Stay where you are someone will arrive shortly.”

“Okay… okay… okay…”

Later at the scene of the crime:

“How is he?”

“I’m afraid he’s dead ma’am”

(begins to sob) “He was… it doesn’t…”

“I know how hard this can be ma’am. If it’s any consolation he doesn’t appear to have suffered he was dead in seconds…”

“His tail… it kept swishing back and forth!  He was…”

“That often happens.  People’s bodies will jerk and twitch long after they’re dead.”

“It’s just so… so… horrible.”

“I know.” (pause) “Is it okay if I ask you a few questions?”

“O.. o… okay.”

“Did you know this squirrel?”

“Not… not personally, I mean, I’ve seen him around the neighborhood, in my tree, on the back deck… that sort of thing.”

“Did you ever witness him hanging out with anyone suspicious?”

“Just other squirrels I guess…”

“This hit and run was definitely not perpetrated by other squirrels… did you see the driver?”

“Not really… he looked vaguely man shaped.”

“Have you seen any men interacting with the squirrels in the neighborhood?”

“There is… there’s an older fellow who feeds them… he lives at number 24…”

“Interesting.”

“Do you think he… is it possible?”

“Anything’s possible ma’am, but we’ll know more once we run the plates.” (awkward silence)  “If you think of anything else… here’s my card.”

“Okay… thank you.”

“Please let me know if you plan on leaving the province…”

“I don’t have any plans to leave the province.”

“If you do.”

“Okay.”

I’ve recently designed a new business card (business cards, actually: three versions based on the three colour schemes for my corporate site ) and I’m having difficulty deciding how to handle the image on the back. Here are the two options that I’m choosing between:

The top one really pops but the subtlety off the bottom one seems a bit more elegant. I keep going back and forth between the two.

That’s why I’ve decided to seek some outside opinions. If you’ve got the time, please log in and leave a comment letting me know which version you prefer. Thanks!

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The final chapter of “Meher, me, two strippers and a bodyguard”.

Interlude: A tale of two cops:

Cop one:

The first night I arrive in Los Angeles Meher picks me up at the airport and we set out in search of our original accomodations, Deano’s Motel in Culver City. Just as we accidentally pass the motel a police cruiser pulls up behind us and hits our rearview with this tremendous spotlight, blinding us and making the officer approaching look like the silhouetted aliens in Close Encounters. The cop emerges from the brightness on Meher’s side.

“You guys look lost.”

“We were just looking for Deano’s motel… it’s right there.”

I turn my head to see the officer’s partner silently hovering on my side.

“You’re lights also out in the back.”

“Oh really? Which one?”

“Well there’s a lot back there… hold on.” the cop steps back as Meher plays with his turn signal.

“The left one?” Meher asks.

“Uh… yeah. Can I see your license and registration?” he takes it from Meher. “You guys from Ontario?”

“Yeah.”

“Pretty good huh?”

“You must be psychic.”

The cop disappears for a while… a long while and then returns Meher’s papers to him.

“Ok. You know about that light and everything else is fine.”

“Okay.”

“May the force be with you.” the cop says, leaving Meher totally awestruck.

Cop two:

The next day I’m standing on the steps of our motel staring toward the street in an effort to mentally will Meher to return before checkout time. A police car pulls up next to me and the cop says “Hi.”

“Hi.” I say and then look back up the street.

“So, you’re just hanging out?”

“Yep.” I explain that I’m waiting for Meher and I notice the cop checking out my legs and boots like: “The kid’s thin… is he heroin addict thin? Hmm.”

“So you’re from out of town?”

“We’re from Ontario.”

“Just vacationing?”

“Yep,”

“Well okay then.” and he drives off.

Hassled by two cops in my first 12 hours here… and it hasn’t happened since.

There’s nothing you can do… it’s Culver City Jake.

And now our feature presentation:

As Meher and I return from a late lunch of burritos at La Salsa we find Erika standing in the back parking lot of the motel. It seems that the trucker friend of hers who was supposed to pick them up at four o’clock got held up (not like by a burglar) while trying to offload his truck. The forklift driver miscalculated and dropped a skid full of steel on a guy standing in the loading bay. As a witness to the man’s death the trucker has been delayed indefinitely and they’ll need to keep the stuff in Meher’s car until at least 11 o’clock tonight… the plot thickens.

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