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This past weekend, My Girlfriend and I went over to our local Indigo (book store) to browse around, stretch our legs, and pick-up some books to read. She is an avid reader (which I admire) and was able to find two new books to enjoy quite quickly. I found a hardcover sci-fi book (Iain M. Banks’ latest ‘Culture’ novel, Matter) on the discount shelf for under $10. I’ve read this author before, many years ago now, but I don’t remember which book it was… Inversions perhaps? Looking at the author’s website doesn’t help either; none of the covers I see there are ones I recognize. Sound familiar?

You see, this is what I don’t understand about the book industry right now: why do they feel the need to republish books, year after year, with new covers? It’s the same book… the same content… the same format… but new cover art! No musical artist (that I’m aware of) re-issues the same album with new cover art on such a regular basis; for an anniversary re-issue with new tracks, or some sort of money-grubbin’ special edition with a few b-sides and demo versions, sure, maybe… but then there is (technically) new content. And no, I don’t consider a new forward by some special guest or a few pages about this second publishing to be enough to warrant a new look to the whole work.

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Happy 2010 (“twenty-ten”) Everyone!

I’d hoped to post this yesterday, but the day — just like the year — seemed to get away from me. So, just about 18 hours ‘late’, I present the annual “Best 75 Albums of the Year” list. As a special, but not surprising, bonus, I’ve also cobbled together a “Best Albums of 2000-2009″ list … I’ll leave the debate about when the ‘decade’ started to other forums of discussion.

• Best 75 Albums of 2009 — #1: Animal Collective, Merriweather Post Pavilion
• Best 25 Albums from 2000-2009 — #1: Arcade Fire, Funeral

Regarding the ‘09 list: much like last year I haven’t heard all of the top-25 albums, so I have some work to do in 2010. Last year this resulted in many wonderful discoveries, so I’m looking forward to catching up on what I’d missed in 2009. I honestly don’t know what my personal ‘album of the year’ would be from 2009, but it’d likely be Canadian in origin. This really was the year that I found CBC Radio3 (and, to a lesser extent, Radio2). There were lots of great albums/songs that I first heard on the R3-30 Countdown and I’m still trying to track down some of them, such as Ohbijou’s album, Beacons, which I’ve just recently fallen in love with.

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I’ll try to keep the spoilers to a minimum here, so if you haven’t seen tonight’s episode yet, don’t worry.

As a long (long, long) time fan, having just watched Survivor: Samoa tonight, I can say with great certainty and enthusiasm that this season is awesome. If you haven’t watched the show in years, or maybe you’ve never watched it at all, catch-up on the last 3-4 weeks with your cable provider’s ‘video on demand’ feature (it’s free) and see what I mean. Or, according to the official website, next week will be the usual recap episode, so you can get the Coles’ Notes version of the season this way.

Sure, the challenges haven’t changed much in the past 19 seasons, but really… you’re not watching for that, it’s all about the people. This is the best ‘cast’ since I don’t know when. This is the first time in recent memory that I can really attribute personalities to the different players; a very diverse group. And, as the title suggests, the interesting cast has made for some very exciting Tribal Councils; you never know what’s going to happen.

A really solid, surprising season to be sure. Survivor hasn’t been must-see-tv for me in many years (I don’t even know if I watched the last 2-3 seasons at all, to be honest) but this is certainly my Thursday night event. It comes to the exciting finish on December 20th – mark your calendars!

While I haven’t been the best about posting new blog entries (or even frequent tweets) lately, my immediate family has been feverishly building impressive on-line sites. In honour of today being Remembrance Day, I thought I’d take a moment to recognize them:

My mom’s Flickr site grows and grows and grows. She is learning constantly, experimenting fearlessly and always out shooting with her Nikon. I wouldn’t dare try to pick out my fav photos that she’s posted, because they always seem to be trumped by whatever she next publishes… although the Geography Minor in me was super-impressed by her recent image, “Clouds”. That is how you use a wide-angle lens!

My sister’s personal blog, You Were Never Lovelier, is just awesome… and I’m not into fashion. Which isn’t to say that it’s all about fashion, because it isn’t, but she’s made a bit of a name for herself in the UK in certain circles and her work here shows you just how deserving this reputation is. And, I can’t not (double-negative!) compliment her on the photography… quite stunning!

My dad doesn’t have a website (or even an eMail account), but here’s an on-line “Hello!” to him all the same. He might not blog or tweet, but he’s super-handy with tools and has an impressive knowledge of, and love for, music.

Many thanks to you all — keep up the excellent work!

My Girlfriend and I were out the other night at a coffee house near our place. We’d had dinner at home and were just looking for a nice dessert out somewhere. It was a nice night to be out, the conversation was good, the food was decent (although the service and serving staff left much to be desired on this occasion) and to our surprise there was a guy in the corner playing acoustic guitar. Now, as usual, I listened long enough initially to decide that the volume wasn’t too high, the guy could actually sing and play… enough to acknowledge that he wasn’t going to be too intrusive to our night. Then, while we were deciding what to order, the lyrics caught my attention…

For the most part I think about golfing and constantly calculate;
all the seconds left in the minutes, and so on, etcetera;
Or recite the names of provinces and Hollywood actors;
Oh, Ontario! Oh, Jennifer Jason Leigh!

What the… this isn’t your standard coffee house fare. Why do I know this song… what is it?

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I watched this week’s episode of The Big Bang Theory tonight and, although it was episode six of the season, it was only the second good episode (in my opinion; the first being the one where Raj was going to be deported). What happened to this show? It used to be ‘must see, tv’ for me, but it’s lost it’s chemistry.

First, the writers seem to have forgotten that this is an ensemble show — these four guys and one girl used to all hang out together for ‘Halo night’ or ‘Comic Book Store night’, but now it’s Leonard and Penny, sometimes Sheldon… and the other two. The Sheldon-Penny friendship had grown to the point where it very often stole the show, and they had one of these moments this week when Sheldon comes over to borrow some bread, but generally this season it’s been reduced to a few off-hand insults or side comments. As for Raj and Wolowitz, they’re starting to play-up the bromance they have just a little too much; it’s almost as if the writers didn’t see it happening until they made a point of it in the episode where Leonard’s mom comes to visit. My recommendation: put everyone back in the guy’s apartment, order some take-away and start the tape rolling.

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We’ve been following the Battle of the Blades competition at my house since it started. Tonight, we had the pleasure of actually going down to the historic Maple Leaf Gardens for a live taping of the week five performance show! Hard to believe, but tickets for the show are just $8/person; however, there are only 3000 seats per showing and most of them (seemed to have been) sold or given away to friends, family and various skating groups. If you’re interested in going down, you’d better act fast: tickets are available Monday’s starting at noon for the show two weeks later. We got ours right at noon; within minutes the public tickets were all gone.

As for tonight’s show, the final four pairs put on a really good performance. My favourites — Sale & Simpson — put on a great pairs routine and did really well in the special group demonstration. While I think they’ll be safe tomorrow night, I think it’s sadly time for Hough-Sweeney & Domi to hang up the skates. They’ve been great this round, but they’re slowing slipping behind the competition.

If you haven’t checked out the show yet, I suggest you do before it’s over. The (Vancouver) 2010 Winter Olympics are coming up in just under 100 days now, so you can just consider it some fun practice for that (if you’re looking for an excuse). Enjoy!