Nick and Artie

If you're like me, you've missed hearing Artie Lange on the radio since personal problems forced him off the Howard Stern Show in late 2009.

His new radio show  - hosted by his friend and fellow comedian, Nick DiPaolo - is great.  It's casual sports talk and a lot of laughs.

Artie is a real talent and though I wish his road to recovery would have led him back to the Stern Show, he and Nick are great.  They are on terrestrial radio in a number of markets in the US, XM radio and you can stream their show live or listen to previous episodes on demand using the Stitcher application.

Excellent Netflix Canada Releases - December 2011

Every month I think about it, but I never do it - cancel my Netflix Canada subscription.  The catalogue is dodgy, the "New Releases" are few and far between, but every month those delightful devils at Netflix Canada push out just enough gems for me to stay hooked.  This month's fix...

1) Bad Santa (Badder Santa Edition) - Billy Bob Thornton, Bernie Mac
Always meant to check this one out.  I love good Christmas movies and I've been urged to see this for years.  Co-stars two great (but dead) comic actors John Ritter and Bernie Mac.  I will definitely see this during the holidays.

2) Pulp Fiction - John Travolta, Bruce WIllis, Uma Thurman
Hadn't seen this in years before recently borrowing a DVD copy from a friend.  I must have watched this movie 15 times as a teenage wannabe movie director.  Full of great performances, this influencial Tarantino flick from 1994 deserved to be watched again.  Netflix now has it or you can pick up the 2011 BluRay release.

3) Star Trek II, The Wrath of Khan - William Shatner, Ricardo Montel-motherfuckin-ban
Netfix Canada you have arrived.  Been waiting a long time for this bad boy.  Now all of the original cast Star Trek movies are up.  This is the strongest of the bunch in my opinion.

4) The Walking Dead, Season 1- Andrew Lincoln, Jon Bernthal
I love this show.  Season one was short but sweet and all of the episodes are available for streaming.  Season 2 is not here yet (I was hoping for weekly new episodes, but that's asking a lot, I know) but please see this show and please read the comic books.  The best comics to TV adaptation ever.

5) Breaking Bad, Seasons 1-3 - Bryan Cranston, Anna Gunn
Love me some Bryan Cranston; this series is him at his best.  The rest of the cast is great, the writing is stellar.  You will not be able to put this down.

Honorable mentions:
The Larry Sanders Show, Complete Series - Awesome.  Not necessarily a series to watch from beginning to end but beats almost any comedy on the air right now if you have a half hour to kill.
The Hurt Locker - blah, but technically a "Best Picture" winner.
Rounders - Best poker movie that will ever be made? - likely.
The Mist - 2007 telling of the Stphen King tale.  Pretty solid.
The Decent - Spelunking-based horro tale.  Atmospheric and creepy as hell.
Californication, Season 1 - Good series.

Late to the Party - My 'Mad Men' Obsession

I've been meaning to check out the amazing AMC dramatic series Mad Men since it debuted in the summer of 2007.  I thought it looked cool before any of my friends did, I swear.  But then I got busy.

I finally "manned up" a little over a week ago and took the plunge.  I fired up my Netflix subscription and dug in for an initial 2 episode session.  10 days later I'm 2 seasons deep and I love it.  It's a marvelous bit of nostalgia even for me, having been born 21 years after the setting of the pilot.  I remember going into my Dad's office in 1985 and people smoking at their desks.  When did that stop?  It's only been about 5 years since you could smoke in bars and restaurants here.  Tangent.

I love looking at this world through the prism of the ad world - one that you don't see portrayed a lot on either the big or small screen, I love the characters, I love the scripts and I love the performances.  I have caught myself on a number of occassions over the past few days practicing my "Don Draper" face.  (It's pathetic, by the way.)

Since I was not alive in the early sixites I am reling solely on what I assume to be Mad Men's faithful recreation of the era as the basis of my obession with the following elements of 1960's American culture:

1) Pervasive smoking / drinking
2) Extensive use of carpeting / synthetic fibres
3) Those pointy bras / sexual harrassment
4) Cars / airplanes of the era
5) Hats (men) / gloves (ladies)
6) Well mannered children / few television stations

This is by no means an exhaustive list of reasons why I love Mad Men but I do love all of this stuff and I love this show.  So happy it exists and I have 2 seasons left to discover.  Please don't let it start to suck...

My Shitty Fantasy Football Team

Garrard, David JAC QB

Palmer, Carson CIN QB

Ponder, Christian MIN QB (R)

Vick, Michael PHI QB

Darby, Kenneth STL RB 

Hardesty, Montario CLE RB 

Harrison, Jerome PHI RB 

Hillis, Peyton CLE RB

McGahee, Willis BAL RB 

Scott, Da'Rel NYG RB (R) 

Snelling, Jason ATL RB

Tomlinson, LaDainian NYJ RB 

Britt, Kenny TEN WR

Brown, Vincent SDC WR (R) 

Clayton, Mark STL WR 

Cooper, Riley PHI WR 

Davis, Buster SDC WR 

Edelman, Julian NEP WR 

Gilyard, Mardy STL WR 

Hester, Devin CHI WR 

Lloyd, Brandon DEN WR 

Obomanu, Ben SEA WR 

Ochocinco, Chad CIN WR 

Owens, Terrell CIN WR

Shorts, Cecil JAC WR (R) 

Williams, Damian TEN WR

Dickson, Ed BAL TE 

Gonzalez, Tony ATL TE 

Pettigrew, Brandon DET TE 

Winslow, Kellen TBB TE 

Rackers, Neil HOU PK 

Abraham, John ATL DE 

Bowers, Da'Quan TBB DE (R) 

Clemons, Chris SEA DE 

Morgan, Derrick TEN DE 

Tuck, Justin NYG DE 

Ayodele, Akinola BUF LB 

Burnett, Kevin SDC LB 

Curry, Aaron SEA LB 

Dansby, Karlos MIA LB 

Durant, Justin JAC LB 

Hali, Tamba KCC LB 

Morrison, Kirk JAC LB 

Session, Clint IND LB 

Spikes, Takeo SFO LB 

Wilson, Martez NOS LB (R) 

Marshall, Richard CAR CB

McCourty, Devin NEP CB 

Elam, Abram CLE S 

Weddle, Eric SDC S 

Whitner, Donte BUF S

Excellent Netflix Canada New Releases - June 2011

Every month I think about it, but I never do it - cancel my Netflix Canada subscription.  The catalogue is dodgy, the the "New Releases" are few and far between, but every month those delightful devils at Netflix Canada push out just enough gems for me to stay hooked.  This month's fix...

1) Richard Pryor Live on the Suset Strip - Richard Pryor
Richard Pryor standup in his prime.  Interested to see this now to see if it holds up after all these years.

2) See No Evil, Hear No Evil - Richard Pryor, GeneWilder
Excellent comedy from the 80s.  A lot of great lines and very memorable performances from Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor.  Joan Severance is the femme fatale in this one and the first movie boobs that I can remember are hers in this movie. (I have flashbacks of Glenn Close's boobs in Fatal Attraction, but I don't remember which movie I saw first... or why I was allowed to watch Fatal Attraction at 6 years old in the first place.)

3) Almighty Thor - Richard Grieco, Kevin Nash
I don't think this is an official Marvel release.  I can't get enough of these direct to video cash in titles.  A welcome addition to Netflix Canada's "Comic Books and Superheroes" section.  A total of 21 titles with somedownright puzzling entries: Blade and Blade: Trinity (no love for Blade 2?), Alec Baldwin's The Shadow, Spawn, 1966's Batman The Movie, and Son of the Mask.

4) Fright Night - Chris Sarandon, WIlliam Ragsdale
This is the best vampire movie of the 1980s.  This is a movie I try to track down every Halloween.  Thank you Netflix Canada for saving me a trip to my local video store (which will be closed by Halloween.)

5) The Foreigner - Steven Seagal, Max Ryan
I missed this 2003 Seagal film the first time around.  I will see every Seagal film before I die and this one brings the total number of this lawman/actor's works on Netflix Canada's on-demand service to four.

Converting MPG to Litres/100km in Excel

I am searching for a new car and am having trouble comparing the fuel efficiency of cars.  Many dealers' websites now display L/100km (in Canada at least) and it makes it tricky to compare apples to apples.  There are online calculators to do this or you can use the following formula in Microsoft Excel (note that is actually the same formula to convert both ways because the result is a function of the inverse of the known variable.)

MPG to L/100km

Where A1 is your fuel economy in MPG,

=100/(A1*0.425144)

L/100lm to MPG

Where A1 is your fuel economy in L/100km,

=100/(A1*0.425144)

Article: Ottawa seeks to end postal disruption (CBC.ca)

"Legislation that would send locked-out Canada Post employees back to work is expected in Parliament Monday afternoon...  If debate began Tuesday, an act could be signed into law as early as Thursday." - CBC.ca article

Not sensing a great deal of public support for the labour union, here.  Large-scale postal strike/lockout hurts small business, charities, the working class and seniors; most folks blame the union.

I'm trying to phase the physical mail out of my home life and my business will soon follow.  Hopefully this dispute will encourage other Canadians to do the same.

Packages still need to move, but private companies have been doing a better job of this for years now.  The reasons why they are so efficient - cheap non-unionized labour, extended service hours, and guaranteed deliveries.  Not exactly Canada Post's business model...