How much for that nutcracker in the window?

Hi, gang! It's another Saturday morning, dontcha know? Once there was a time when that would mean waking up around 6:30 AM for a marathon of shows like The Smoggies, Captain Planet, He-Man and She-Ra, Pro-Stars, My Pet Monster, Inspector Gadget, COPS, Denver the last Dinosaur, Beetlejuice, Darkwing Duck, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and... this list could just go on and on, couldn't it?

Nowadays I go for the simpler pleasures in life, like sleeping in (if possible) and having a pancake breakfast. Except today it's cereal. That's still kid-like, right?

Whatever you're up to today, thanks for joining me. To the post!

-  It's Father's Day tomorrow, and what do I have for my dad? A half-decent card and no gift. True story: the first thing I remember ever buying my dad was a nutcracker candle at The Dollar Store. He loved it, or at least that's what I remember. Thanks for not crushing my spirits, Pop. In my defense, I think I was six or seven, and I had five dollars to spend on four people in the Dollar Store. There was very little change after taxes.

Not much has changed since then. I'm twenty years older, and I still don't have enough dough to get my dad pretty much anything in The Ultimate Father's Day Gift Guide from GQ. Sorry Dad. More candles?

-  I was in a drugstore a couple of weeks ago when a man ran in with a knife and robbed the place. He got away, but thankfully no one was hurt. I didn't see the guy, so I was of absolutely zero use to the police. Apparently the same suspect has robbed a couple of more places, and he might have upgraded to a gun. Scary stuff.

In more light-hearted news, this has to be the worst burglar in the world.

-  Pottermore? More Potter? HARRY Potter?! The internet has been rife with speculation the last couple of days about what the H. is up with the website, the countdown, and J.K. Rowling. We'll all know for sure next week, but in the meantime, what do you think it could be? The odds* are as follows:

HP Encyclopedia: 2 to 1
HP multi-player online role-playing experience: 5 to 1
New HP book: 100 to 1

Is an encyclopedia really a big deal? Would a game be any good? Should J.K. Rowling write more Potter books?

*made-up

-  Speaking of The Boy Who Lived, here's a bizarre clip of Dan Radcliffe introducing Anna Wintour of Vogue. You want a short acceptance speech? How about five words? Is that short enough?


This ranks up there with Ethan Coen just saying "We, uh, thank you very much," at the Oscars a couple of years ago for No Country for Old Men, and Joe Pesci's "It was my privilege. Thank you," for Goodfellas.

-  Are you more narcissistic than you realized? This writer wonders if Facebook is ruining writers (it isn't), but I wonder if the part about being a little more self-absorbed is accurate:

"On Facebook, we post pictures to represent ourselves: our best, shiniest, toothiest, happiest/sexiest ponderer/wanderer/adventurer. The fairest ones of all. Or we post some other person or object as icon. Puppy, baby, six-year old self. The poor person’s version of identity airbrushing. To deepen the portrait, we post our status, likes and dislikes — bananas, skiing, taxes — and photo albums of grand vacations, graduations and celebrations. To our walls we announce opinions, as they come. What we find good, stupid, evil, sexy."

Ultimately, the article/writer decide that the fault lies with us, not with Facebook.

-  American Gods looks set to be HBO's next big genre series. Nice. Although I wonder at the wisdom of signing anything like that to a six-year deal before it's even produced. There must be some kind of mistake in that detail. If they waited until A Game of Thrones aired its first episode before renewing it for a second season (A GAME of EFFING THRONES, people!), why would they sign American Gods for six? Don't get me wrong, it's a good book. It isn't my favourite by Neil Gaiman (who I have a bit of a writer-crush on), but it's ambitious, and interesting, and generally good.

- Congratulations, Boston, on winning the Stanley Cup. As a fan of your divisional rival Maple Leafs (and I use the word rival loosely when talking about my team that has missed the playoff for years), I was only cheering for Tim Thomas. Vancouver? Yikes. Way to lose your freaking mind over a game. In fairness, the mob didn't represent all the citizens of Vancouver.

-  SUMMER IS HERE!!! Almost.

-   If you're famous enough, one of the perks of being in a band is that you get a rider. That means you give the venue or promoters a list of things you want or need. This can include mundane items like bottles of water and extravagant requests like only red M&Ms in a crystal bowl. The first time my band was asked to provide rider, the promoters laughed so hard that we only asked for water that they gave us a full table of food, fruit, beer, and an expanded backstage guest list. Ah, the good life.

Anyway, the Fighters of Foo can obviously ask for a lot more. They could be divas like Prince and ask for water in a highball glass with only seven ice cubes in it, or they could be like Madonna , and... you know what? I don't know what she asks for. but I don't want to guess. So what do the Foos do? For one thing, they don't take it too seriously. For another, they turn their list into a coloring book.

For more Foos, you can peruse their rider from 2008, containing some thoughts on the finer points of cooking chicken breasts, among other things

-  Song of the Week:

One thing I like about The Black Keys is that they don't really do conventional, straight-up music videos. There's usually some playing with the sound, or a bit of altering something between the way the song is played on the album, and the way it sounds in the video. For that reason, give Too Afraid to Love You a minute or so for all the instruments and tracks to be present and the song to kick off. Watch Patrick Carney play. He is one cool drummer.


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That's it, everyone. Have a great weekend, and a great Father's Day. It isn't too late to get some candles at the Dollar Store.