The Ultimate Swap Meet Meat Swap

I am always eager to help my friends in far flung parts of the world. I was chatting with Outer Mongolian Mark recently and he is suffering from a distinct lack of Spam. I did try a Spam drive, but it seems like all of my efforts have fallen on stony ground. I can only assume that there is a Spam shortage everywhere but here in Canada.

In order to satiate his craving for Spam I am personally going to ship him a can next week. He was so happy that in a token of appreciation he is shipping me some canned mutton! I am excited, I have never tried canned mutton. I guess that a quick 'google' with turn up all sorts of neat recipes though.

The one 'wild card' in all of this is the various customs checks that these packages are going to have to go through. I am wondering if importing canned mutton is permitted here in Canada? Or for that matter what Outer Mongolia is going to make of Spam?

Oh and just for anyone that does not know Spam, I managed to dredge up the Monty Python skit.

I love an adventure!

Whats A Reviewer To Do?

It is 2:30am, we couldn't sleep and so with it being Friday and my day off, why not get up and get some reviews done? Well I looked at the To Do pile and I am not a happy camper. So instead I opted to to listen to Dave Cousins again (well hell I like him!).

Of course this is doing nothing to deal with the backlog. And even worse, I just received an email from my good buddy about a whole schwack of new DVD's they are releasing soon. I guess I am just going to have to knuckle down and deal with 'the pile from hell'.

It is a rare treat to actually get to listen to something that you like in this game. Some people are envious when they hear about what I do. But the reality is its a lot of bloody work.

Oh well, off to the world of music purgatory...........

Monitor Abuse

My good buddy Bruce left a comment on one my TV problem story, and I feel that the question has to be handled thoroughly, so that everyone understands Monitor Abuse.

I am an old hand at Monitor Abuse, you really don't need any special equipment, just grit, determination and electricity.

Take a computer outside in a rain storm, and plug it in, now thats one of my favorites!

Alternatively turn the screen saver off, and leave the same ms word document on for 6 weeks, the results are great! You can read the document even when the monitor is switched off. This is the ultimate data storage method.

You can play this same trick with images, and I have been considering starting up a service for companies, I'll burn their logo into the phosphor coating! Now how cool would that be? Just think how happy almost every company would be? Now that is what I call value added.

I am also thinking of pioneering a similar service with these flat screens that are so popular. I suspect that using a sharp knife and a steady hand you could remove some of the pixels to reveal an everlasting image!

Jan on the other hand is just a beginner. She prefers the more physical approach, she just slaps em till they break. This is an art that she perfected on our digital alarm clock. She has broken the minute adjustment function, so every time we need to reset it, we have to plug it in and wait for 12 noon (the clock flashes 12:00 just like a vcr) and at noon you hit the set button, and its good to go!

I have high hopes for Jan though. I think that now she has mastered the Ninja slap, she may move on to more creative methods, rum and coke poured in, or maybe using a carpet 'steam cleaner' to give it that showroom look.

Another Thursday Evening...

That means it is the start of my well deserved weekend, which usually starts at 'dark thirty' Friday morning. Tomorrow is shaping up to be a cracker. I have a large box of DVD's that I just know I am not going to like, but have to produce reviews for.

My punk rocker, tattoo and piercing expert daughter dropped by for a quick visit last night, and gleefully informed me that one of the DVD's in the large 'to do' box is from a guy who likes to defecate on the audience! Boy I can hardly wait to pop that one in the player.

Manda Bala Is A Go!

Ok folks, the powers that be want this one to get some pre-release advertising. Manda Bala is a pretty disturbing documentary that hits at the very moral fibre of Brazil, crime, violence, corruption and just general bad shit are all covered in this Jason Kohn movie.

I have the review up, and I am waiting 'for my people' to talk to 'his people' so that Jason and I can do an interiew.

And the best bit so far has to be this picture, it just shows that we live in a Frog Eat Frog world!

Manda Bala

I get the strangest stuff for review, but it's likely my fault because generally it is me that asks for it. Manda Bala is opening in New York on the 17th, and other cities the next week. Oh, it's a movie, well actually it is a documentary, all about corruption in Brazil, and according to this movie there is lots of it.

Manda Bala won two big awards at the Sundance Festival, so I knew it would be good, and I was not disappointed. I am not sure when they want the review to go live, so I can't tell you too much about it. I deal with Sony, and a couple of other big studios and they will castrate you with a blunt butter knife if you publish before the day it streets!

Keep an eye out for this one, it is disturbing to say the least, and apparently it has been banned in Brazil! Generally the only reason people want to ban something is to prevent embarresment...

An Apple A Day......

....keeps Simon grumpy...

No, not that kind of Apple, the iPod, Mac, iPhone kind of Apple.

The heart of our home entertainment system is an old Apple Macintosh Performa. I would guess that it has a street value of about $5, but it works great for us. It has a TV tuner card in it, and a remote control. Yup I can actually power it on, switch to TV mode, change channel and sound volume from the remote! It's a great party trick.

Up until a few days ago I had a really nice 19 inch Mac monitor to go with it. I was at work, so I don't exactly know what Jan did, but when I got home it was broke. I suspect that she abused it!

"No Problem" I said, I pride myself on having a plan 'B', and my plan 'B' was to use a 17 inch Apple monitor that I had kicking around. After much grunting and hernia inducing exercise I got the 19 inch on the floor and the 17 inch in place. I powered it all up (and grabbed a beer), the Apple booted up with no problems. So I switched to TV mode, and got a rude message that the monitor was not compatible with TV mode.

Now it should be pointed out that I do not give up easily. My next plan 'B' was the 15 inch Apple monitor that I have. So, a couple of hernias later I have the 15 inch installed. I did have some nagging thoughts that their was a problem with this monitor, and I was right! The red gun in the tube is on the fritz! But at least we had a TV again. The lack of red does lead to everything being shades of green and blue, so it is not exactly ideal.

My next plan 'B' was to figure out how to lash up a regular PC monitor to the evil Apple. I found out pretty quickly that Apple monitor to PC is a walk in the park, a $5 adapter is all you need. Going the other way is a whole different deal.

Well, as luck would have it, while I was looking for some White Out for a client, what do I stumble across? Yup, you guessed right, the very adapter that I need! Of course there is a catch, you have to set 12 micro switches to get it to work, but I don't scare easy!

Not knowing exactly how many more hernias I can endure, I take the wimpy way out. The TV is very close to my computer, so to test my theory I just move the cable from my 19 inch monitor. WooHoo we have TV, and the colour looks good.

The next step is to move the blue/green monitor to the the ever increasing pile of useless Apple things that is begining to take over the entire living room. I have a nice Gateway 17 inch monitor, so risking further injury I muscled it into place. By this time I am feeling pretty damn good! I have the problem cracked, and Jan is going to think I am a hero! (which I am hahahahaha)

I know that this will come as no suprise, It did not work! So we are still watching everthing in shades of green and blue!

The Art Of Interviewing

It is most definitely an art form. I probably have done close to 50 in the last 6 months. And it gets harder and harder. Although the victims change, many of the readers do not. What could be more boring than reading the same questions time and time again? It really does become a challenge to come up with new stuff to ask.

That is where I find myself right now. I have the green light to interview a musician that I have admired for over 30 years, and I have been wrestling with the questions for 2 days. An absolute key is keep the questions positive, no-one (myself included) wants to field "so what went wrong in the late 70's?". Yet it is a question that I really want to ask.

Sometimes interviews just fall into place, in fact most times that is the case, but not this one!

My solution...... have another beer!

Blogger Eats it's Young!

If it's not one thing it's five other! For some reason only known to Blogger it decided to eat a couple of my articles! The good news is that Google had one of them cached, so I was able to recover it.


I was already pissed off with my computer that seems to have developed an aversion to running Internet Explorer, now I have Blogger acting up!


It was only 3:30am and already my day was going downhill. Maybe I should have just gone back to bed and tried this day over again.

Life can be tough sometimes!

The Week In Review(s)

It must be the summer, and I must be on vacation! I really have not done very much this week at all, well nothing up to the usual rate.I completely ran out of books, and had to dip into my pile of books that are old, but have been on my ‘to do’ list for a long time.First off I tackled Sibir by Farley Mowat, Farley is probably the most famous Canadian author of all time, he may not write great sweeping novels, but he sure writes with humor. Sibir is Russian for Siberia, and it is an account of his ventures into this frozen world in the late 60’s. The Cold War was in full swing, and certainly we in the west were led to believe that everything to do with Russia was bad. Farley is an entertaining writer, and the book basically chronicles a drunken adventure close to the arctic circle. Actually this is a very interesting book, and had more people read Sabir when it first came out (1970) maybe the Cold War would have thawed earlier.

I have had a fascination with the art of Spying for I don’t remember how long. I have read at least a dozen books about the famous ‘Cambridge Five’. One book that is often cited by authors is ‘The Second Oldest Profession’ by Philip Knightly. This book has been out of print for a million years! I snagged a copy a few months ago but I have never had the chance to get into it. I am only about 100 pages into it, but yes, it gets my recommendation!

The only other literary adventure was an interview with the Colwell Brothers, as in Up With People fame. Interestingly enough very few people know of this movement, yet they have performed 4 times at the Super Bowl half time show.

Actually I did have one other literary item, I know I am not alone in wondering what the real story was with the JFK assassination. An event that happened over 40 years ago still garners great interest. A new book is about to hit the stores. The author Dan Robertson relies on a new digitally cleaned up version of the very famous Zapruder home movie of the event to offer yet another slant on this world changing event. When I read the press release I knew it was a book that I had to read, what surprised me was that Dan phoned me the next day! Now I am no expert on the JFK story but I have read a fair amount, which was a good thing, because we ended up having a 45 minute conversation on it. The good news is that not only is he shipping a copy of his book but also a copy of this new cleaned up version of the Zapruder tape. Good times!

On the movie front I had the opportunity to watch a preview copy of The Contract, staring Morgan Freeman. Great movie, and for once Morgan plays the bad guy, in fact he plays a hit man. I have nothing but good things to say about this one, next time you are in Blockbuster pick it up.

Dave Cousins of The Strawbs has just released a solo album The Boy In The Sailor Suit, for any Strawbs fan this is a must have item. I have to admit that I was not sure what to make of it on the first listen, while it was certainly Dave Cousins singing, it did not quite seem to be the Dave Cousins I remembered, I guess that is what happens when you don’t listen to someone for 30 years! However it is an album that grows on you, I listened again to it last night and I was greatly impressed. Better still, when I checked my email this morning there was one from his management company granting my request for an interview.

I have to admit that this reviewing business is fun, I should have got into it years ago. Not in my wildest dreams would I have thought that I would ever get access to the people that I now have access to.

Musical Insanity

It must be the summer, and there is not much going on in the reviewing world, I am completely out of books, and let me tell you, that is something that I never thought would happen. At one point I had over a dozen volumes in my to do pile. I do hope it picks up again soon because I was hoping to break the 100 books in a year barrier! This may seem like a ridiculous number of books for anyone to read, but in actual fact it is only 2 a week.

Anyway in view of this lack of books I am forced to look elsewhere for stuff to do. I was pretty hopeful that the DVD distributor would keep me busy, they release at the rate of about one a day. Well, the last big box of goodies I got from them certainly has plenty to keep me busy, but, who the hell knows anything about Cuban musicians from the 60's and 70's! It all sounds like bad Mariachi music to me. I tried one review, and extended my limited knowledge of Cuban music to it's limits. Unfortunately I have 5 more!

I decided to put them all back on the 'pending' list.

I was pretty excited yesterday when the latest Dave Cousins album arrived, he sings in English, and has been around for 300 years. In his multi generational career he has only produced 2 solo albums, and number 1 was Two Weeks Last Summer, and that was over 20 years ago. I ripped the plastic off this new one The Boy In The Sailor Suit and put it in the player. It was not the Dave Cousins I wanted. Somehow 20 years of writing and touring has changed him.

So I have decided to do something completely off the wall (even by my standards). This morning I received a press release from a company they specializes in classical music. And yes, I do like it on occasion. I have gone for an Opera, but not just any Opera, this one was composed in 1697, and features the harpsichord as the lead instrument!

I hope fall gets here soon, I am not sure how much more I can take of this.

More Johnny

Whats not to love about Johnny Cash, the 'Man in Black'? As I said in an earlier post this guy has more CD releases now that he is dead than he ever did when he was alive. This latest offering The Great Lost Performance is from a concert in 1990. I do not yet have the CD in my hot little hand but I do have a couple of sample tracks (Oh, and before you ask, they are legal!).

So why not try Ring of Fire and Walk the Line.

The Week In Review(s)

Wow I was lazy this week, I Wonder if I was on vacation?

I did manage to read two more Damien Lewis books though. Bloody Heros has just been released in paperback, and has also been optioned as a movie. The book follows a group of the elite British Special Boat Service (these guys are meaner than the SAS!) and their adventures in the early days of the latest Afghan conflict. This book is based on actual events, and somehow Damien actually got some of the people involved to talk to him. Generally speaking these are folks that are meaner than rattlesnakes and very reluctant to talk about the missions that they have been involved in. It was a great read, and I think it will transition nicely into 120 minutes of non stop action on the 'Big Screen'.

Damien was invited to participate in World Book Day - 2006, 20 leading authors were asked to produce a short work that would appeal to 'emerging' readers. Being involved in the world of adult literacy, I was very interested in this book. Desert Claw lives up to its billing as a 'quick read', in 125 pages Damien packs 800 pages of Tom Clancy novel. This is a wonderful read, quick it may be, but a lot of fun it sure is.

I was a little concerned that Damien was pissed off at me when I did not get any response to a couple of emails. But the puzzle was solved this morning, he has been away on vacation, now most of us go to somewhere nice and relaxing, not so for Damien, he took off to climb Mont Blanc! As I recall this is the highest mountain in Western Europe.

All I have to say is..... There is no accounting for personal taste. Me, I would prefer a nice warm place together with a nice cold beer.

Who the hell climbs mountains covered in snow while wearing shorts and t-shirts? Only the Brits!

The Contract hit the streets a couple of days ago. I snagged a pre-release copy of this movie and I was most impressed. I was shocked to find Morgan Freeman playing the bad guy, he just isn't the kind of actor that does that kind of thing. But he does a magnificent job! This is a movie that you will want to pick up the next time you are in Blockbuster.

In the music DVD world I tackled All My Loving which was an interesting documentary that contains some unique video clips. We also took The Country Joe band out for a test drive, you might know him better as Country Joe And The Fish. I would not say that this was earth shattering music, but I was amazed at how young this 60 something guy looks!

What would a week be without some good old Doo Wop music, and we got that with an upcoming release of The Drifters. Jan was Groovin an Movin to the tunes!

Have a great weekend!

So What Did You Do Today?

It's been too stinking hot to sleep here for the past week, so I was not really surprised to find myself up at 2:30am. But what to do? Well we ripped off a couple of DVD reviews, and I had a beer or 5. With daylight creeping up on us I had one of those 'Eureka' moments! Lets have a yard sale.

We have lots of junk, oops, good stuff, that someone else would love to own. So as the sun was rising I started hauling 'good stuff' outside. 16 typewriters, a couple of laptops, a Commodore 64 (with external diskette drive), etc, etc.

Jan and I relocated to the great outdoors around 7:30am, put the tunes on, and sat back to watch the fun. Around 10am we had some old lady who probably is suffering from dementia wander through. She was looking for some other yard sale! And she showed scant interest in laptops or typewriters.

Around 11:30 I was getting a little concerned, low on beer, low on cigarettes, it was time to call it a day. So we packed all the good stuff back inside and took a nap. In total we made exactly $0, and got to meet one geriatric lady. I now know why I don't do yard sales more often.