EdgeFest 2013 – Why You Should Hate It

EdgeFest has been around for a long long time now.  Starting roughly around 1988, it’s seen a ton of great bands on stage. I’ve gone twice in my life, way back in my high school days, seeing great bands like Tool, Matthew Good Band, Big Wreck, Silverchair, Tragically Hip and Finger Eleven. Back then it was up in Barrie, Ontario at Molson Park. A great venue for a big rock concert, involving a couple side stages and one large one for the headliners.  After the park was closed down, it was then moved to Toronto at the Molson Amphitheatre. Ever since that move, it’s been a steady decline in weak bands and even worst headliners.

It’s almost as if they’ve turned the whole venue in an indie band fest. Where you’ll see lumber jack shirt, big glasses, tight jean wearing hipster idiots. This is their lineup for 2013 and the hate comments on Facebook has exploded. The worst part yet, is that the concert is on a Wednesday, yes hump day! Who the hell will take a vacation day to see this shitty lineup in the middle of the week. Not this guy, nor the rest of Ontario for that matter.

Toronto Blue Jays Mega Deal Approved By MLB

Baseball commissioner Bud Selig says he will not stand in the way of the mammoth 12-player deal between the Toronto Blue Jays and Miami Marlins.

Selig approved the trade Monday that sees Toronto acquire all-star shortstop Jose Reyes, pitchers Mark Buehrle and Josh Johnson, catcher John Buck and infielder/outfielder Emilio Bonifacio for seven relatively low-priced players.

Miami receives infielders Yunel Escobar and Adeiny Hechavarria, pitchers Henderson Alvarez, Anthony DeSclafani and Justin Nicolino, catcher Jeff Mathis and outfielder Jake Marisnick under the deal, which was agreed to last week. The Marlins also are sending Toronto cash.

 

This week, the Blue Jays also acquired free agent left fielder Melky Cabrera for a reported 2 year deal worth $16 million dollars. On the field, in 113 games, the Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic native hit 11 home runs with 60 runs batted in and a career best .346 batting average. While he was suspended 52 games for being on an illegal substance, the Jays are taking the risk on the former Giant and Yankee.

While the Jays deal has sent shock waves through Florida, upsetting fans and lighting up sports radio stations alike. Toronto fans couldn’t be more ecstatic for four huge pieces to their line up.

 

Source – TSN

 

The Love Machine – No Matter

A buddy of mine has a band in Ottawa, Ontario Canda called The Love Machine.They are definitely a bunch of talented guys. Give them a watch, hopefully you’ll listen because everyone needs love.

www.facebook.com/thelovemachine

www.thelovemachineband.com

Big Wreck Concert

Alicia and I got tickets for a Big Wreck concert last week right in our home town. I love when a great band comes around and you don’t even have to drive an hour or so to get there. Big Wreck is one of Canada’s premiere bands. Which really sucked when they broke up there for about 10 years. Their first album since then “Albatross” is a really solid album, definitely check it out on iTunes people.

So the concert was of course great. A good venue of 1500 people but we certainly payed for it the next morning considering we didn’t get home until 12:30am.

I was a little confused at the concert when I noticed everyone was in their late 30’s or a little older. Then I thought to myself, I’m one year away from being 30, dammit.

Crazy Spitting Lady Interrupts Reporter

Some lady interrupts this reporter in downtown Toronto. She shows up out of the blue, complains that she got a cold visiting Chicago, and just starts spitting.

Toronto Batman vs. Beef Jerky

Batman has an off night from fighting evil. How does he spend that time, eating beef jerky obviously.

Big Wreck – Albatross

It’s been 10 years but Big Wreck is back. On the bands lengthly hiatus, we saw, two solo CD’s titled “Come Again” and “Tiny Pictures” from lead singer, Ian Thonrley. Ian thought this was the right time to come back to this band. Why, well because Ian Thonrley said rock music is missing the soul and character it had throughout the 90’s.

The first single is out, which is called “Albratross”. The new CD will be out in Canada and The United States March 6/12

 

We Can’t Say Merry Christmas Anymore?

Well, this originally began as a video blog, but I realized that I swear so much in it that people might have a hard time ascertaining the point.
So I have three things that I wanted to say about this subject.

Everyone was pissed around the holidays that “We can’t say Merry Christmas anymore” or “We can’t have a Christmas tree in our lobby anymore at work.” And, because we are Canadian, we would precede each complaint with, “I’m not racist or anything, but…” Then follow it with “… it really pisses me off that all these other religions and cultures come to our country and complain that we are celebrating Christmas. Why did they come to the country just to bring their own beliefs and culture with them?” Sound familiar? Well news flash, preceding something with “I’m not racist” doesn’t make it not racist. That’s like saying “I don’t like the taste of maple syrup, but I will literally put that shit on anything it tastes so good.” OK. It’s not like that at all, but you get my point. 

 

1. QUIT BLAMING THE IMMIGRANTS

The first thing I want to say is that it I find it unlikely that this began because some non-Christians  got pissed off because there was a Christmas tree in the lobby at their office. To me, this sounds like a proactive  corporate or governmental idea. Or maybe someone with some common sense took a look around them one day and said…  “Hey… only like half the people in this office celebrate Christmas… maybe a Christmas tree isn’t appropriate… ” But we all immediately assume that Christmas trees came down because some non-Christian immigrant lodged a complaint. Maybe in a few cases that was the case, but I think we can all concede that this was more likely a proactive approach based on respect. I know personally many of my friends who don’t celebrate Christmas couldn’t give two shits that a Christmas tree was in the lobby of their office or that a CEO signed an email saying Merry Christmas.

 

2. SANTA IS NOT JESUS. TRY NOT TO CONFUSE THE TWO.

Secondly I wanted to talk about the argument that “This is a Christian nation that was founded on Christian beliefs.” Well to that I say Waaahhh waaaaah. Number one: I am going to go out on a limb and say half or more than half of the “Christians” making this argument are the ones that are pissed off that their family drags them to church on Christmas morning. They are also probably the same kind of Christians who think that the church’s beliefs on gay marriage, premarital sex, birth control etc. are archaic. So don’t bust out the religion card when you’re a half assed Christian who only plays the card when it suits you. I think most of us agree that because we’re a Christian nation we all get Easter and Christmas off which is awesome, but we don’t spend those holidays in church and thanking God. We spend them opening up gifts, eating disgusting amounts of chocolate and wondering why the Easter bunny claims he hid 50 chocolates, but we can only ever find 49. Secondly, nobody is forcing you to celebrate Kwanzaa or Chanukah! I think all this “Happy Holidays” business is just a way of asking you to be respectful of others’ beliefs. And you know what? I’ll bet you already are respectful of them. You probably didn’t even need that corporate email reminding you, but you got pissed off anyway when it was sent out. That is what this all boils down to. We are being asked to be respectful and people consider an attack on their rights. Which brings me to my next point.

 

3. FIRST WORLD PROBLEMS

This is the thing that you’re gonna get all pissed off about and clutter up my Facebook news feed with? “I used to be able to say Merry Christmas??” There are goddamn hell ass bigger problems in the world. Like a lot bigger. You think that is a violation of rights? We have people carrying around “down with fags” signs in our country. We have a health care system that seriously needs to be addressed and a prime minister who is more interested in addressing his turtle neck collection. Then you can look outside this country and we have  genocide, war, women’s rights and human rights violations, people starving to death while we walk around all abundant and shit. Those are problems. Being asked to be courteous to other religions is not a real problem. And you know what else? When I go to my local Indian Food restaurant and my local Shawarma hut, those guys aren’t celebrating Christmas but they have Christmas decorations and wish me a Merry Christmas when I leave because they are  considerate that I’m a pasty white chick and that’s probably what I celebrate. So on the other side of the coin here are these other cultures being considerate of my holiday choice.

 

CONCLUSION

Suck it up. Stop complaining about being asked to be considerate to those who don’t celebrate Christmas. Put as much energy as you’ve put into bitching about not being able to say Merry Christmas into a real problem and maybe we could make some progress.

 

Sorry about the spelling errors. My spell check isn’t working and I am a lazy ho. Thanks for reading! Feel free to spread this around if you agree!

Chael Sonnen vs Michael Landsberg – Must See Interview

Now Michael Landsberg is a broadcaster at Sports Centre up here in Toronto, Ontario. He’s such an idiot on so many levels, I don’t know why they keep him employeed. He has his own show called, “Off The Record“. He talks to guests about topics in sports and usually makes nothing out of something. I’ve never liked the guy, he’s pompous, arrogant and wears sooo much makeup on TV its sickening.

He does one-on-one interviews sometimes and acts just like I said. He asks arrogant questions like he knows what he’s talking about and if the guests weren’t always so nice, they could really show him up. Until Landsberg interviewed Chanel Sonnen from the UFC. I didn’t appreciate the anti Canadian reference, but honestly, if an American reporter was asking me dumb questions too, I’d do the same as Sonnen did. It’s a long interview but definitely worth watching.

Why Canada Post is Terrible

What the hell is Canada Post doing? The last few things that I have sent through this incompetent government service have never reached their destination and everyone I know has a similar story. How the hell is that that a 14 year old errand boy with small pox could deliver love letters on horseback in the 1600’s in a timely manner? How is it that messengers could deliver crucial information between camps during a war? Bombs going off all around them, bullets grazing their bodies, shell shocked, covered in mud, cold and wet, yet they successfully managed to deliver a note. How does a bloody PIGEON successfully deliver messages thousands of miles away, but the tickets for the Jays game that I ordered last month failed to be transported 80 kilometers in time for the game last week?? Where the hell does this mail end up? How difficult can this job be? We never had a problem with mail not being delivered or received in my former office– the young man in the mail room made minimum wage and was a high functioning autistic.

And Canada Post has the audacity to go on STRIKE? You literally sort and carry paper for a living, you have no accountability or repercussions when you fail, you don’t have to profit because you’re a crown corp, you lack customer service skills, and you make more than most workers in a skilled trade. It is an insult to hardworking Canadians that Canada Post still exists.

There is a reason that the most deplorable character on Seinfeld was a postman and there is a reason that Ned Flanders hates only two things: His beatnik parents and the postal service.

Conclusion: Fuck Canada Post. Shut it down. The company’s mandate is simple: Get people’s shit from point A to point B. If you can’t fulfill your mandate, you should at least be hella profitable– Yet, it is neither fulfilling its mandate nor being profitable; so why does it still exist?

Use private companies to send your mail. It isn’t that much more expensive, it gets delivered in a timely manner (it gets delivered, period), everything has a tracking number, and best of all, they actually give a shit about customer service because they have to make a profit– unlike Canada Post. They proved how useless they are when they recently went on strike and nobody noticed. Shut it down and put the government money towards something useful.

Some signs in the Canada Post office that are concerning

Don’t send cash in the mail — Translation: We don’t trust ourselves enough not to steal or lose it.

Use certified mail — Translation: If you’re not watching, we’re not going to do our job.

Insure your packages — Translation: Otherwise, we’ll probably lose it or break it.