Movie Round up

I just checked out Idiocracy. To summarize: a regular schmoe wakes up after being frozen for 500 years, and in that time culture has become so degraded and people have become so fat and stupid that he is the smartest guy on earth.

The most popular restaurant is call "Buttfuckers", the #1 movie is called "Ass" and the president is a Macho-man type wrestler. The first fifteen minutes (and the continous narration) are painfully pedantic, but it is still hilarious.

Beerfest was probably still my favorite movie of the year. It's got everything I like: beer drinking, sports, ethnic humour.



Volver: This was surprsingly good for something the turtleneck crowd thinks is good. The writing is tight. Penelope Cruz is of course mind blowingly hot, but the best part is the love interest - there isn't one. I'm pretty sure this will be re-made in English next year with Matthew McConaughey and Kate Hudson.

Clerks II: This was so bad it wasn't good, I couldn't watch more than the first 30 minutes. Every "joke" was painfully forced and not funny at all.

The cameos from Kevin Smith-made stars like Jason Lee and Ben Affleck emphasize just why the two fuckos from Clerks, Dante and Randal never made any other movies. They have the charisma of strip mall pedophiles.



So the notion that Rosario Dawson (very Hot!) has a crush on Dante is just absurd.

Honestly, I was thinking it was made under some sort of duress, like Kevin Smith was fighting a nasty drug habit or making it to pay off a gambling debt.
I thought it was intentional that Dante's fiance was supposed to be hideous and look like a transvestite .. but it turns out that is KEVIN SMITH'S ACTUAL WIFE !

"Dude, you married a tranny."

Homely Princess

Matrimonial ads a huge among Indians, ad when we were kids we'd read them and laugh at the bad Hinglish and general lack of tact.

Twenty years later the Hinglish hasn't gotten better, nor the lack of tact :





A bigger problem with Indians is the general obliviousness of how others will interpret their words or actions. To say that you're looking for someone "...NOT EARNING LESS THAN ..." is a lose-lose scenario. Dumbasses.

Holy Cow

Jet Man

(the video takes a bit of time to load)

Five Tunes of 2006

Okaay, the last post was the best of 1990, so now here's five of my fave songs from 2006.

Ghostface Killah - The Champ (4:09)

Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Phenomena (4:10)

Everyone hate Lady Sovereign, that just makes me like her more ....

Lady Sovereign - Love Me or Hate me (3:40)

The lyrics of this song are soo juvenile, like they're written by a 12 yr old. but still ....

CSS - Art Bitch (3:09)

I always liked Nellie McKay - a smark-alek New Yorker - her new album doesn't have the cuteness of her first, but here she is, at least as a change of pace from the first four on this list.

Nellie McKay - There you are in Me (2:47)

The Best of .... 1990 ?

This is that time of year when everyone lists their top songs and music of the year.

That's all cool and all, but I came acros spiritofradio.ca, a CFNY fan page and lists ther year end charts going back to 1978. One the right there is the top 90 from 1990, the year of Madchester - funky basslines and pulsing organs. And those long forgotten names! Electronic ! Sugarcubes ! Bootsauce !

Here's the five Madchester tunes from the way back machine.

Stone Roses - Fool's Gold (9:55)

Happy Mondays - Step On (5:17)

Charlatans UK - The Only One I Know (3:56)

Soup Dragons - I'm Free (3:23)

Inspiral Carpets - Commercial Rain (4:40)


PS. That pic at the top is a close up of this house I spotted on one of my night rides. THe lat few years everyone seems to trying to out do each other on the Halloween and Christmas decorations.

Down with Grups

I came across this article. 30 and 40-somethings that try to be 22 yr. olds and try waaay. to hard to be hip This pretty much describes every dude that lives in my neighborhood.

Grown-ups should dress like this.

Tiger Flag

Last week somene asked me if I was Tamil and said something about "Elam", I had no idea what they were talking about -- so like anyone I hit the google. Tamil Eelam is the not-yet-liberated Tamil homeland. And what I discovered is they hae the coolest flag evar!

Sun! Guns ! Tiger !

They have a super-cool coat of arms too, which would like nifty on a concert poster or T-shirt.

The Toronto Cheap Drink Guide

Loyal Assbike Magazine reader, THIS! is what the internet is good for. (And, hopefully will be useful this holiday season when you need to get yr buzz on)

Thanks to stilepost:
The Toronto Drink Special Compendium

I'd tried to mave a similar list in the past, but really you need the collective input of all of society to provide the content (the "web 2.0 philosophy").

(I reproduced the list below - you never know when that link could disappear, but check the link for updates)

PS. Also be aware it's not 100% accurate. Asean Buffet for example no longer exists.

ALL THE TIME:
*magpie - $3.50 domestic bottles - Dundas W of Bathurst
*751 - $3.50 Jack & Cokes (and other shots/drinks!) $3 Mill St. Beers - 751 Queen St. W
*Piccadilly's - $7 pitchers - College St. E of Bathurst (across from Sneaky Dee's)
*Bistro - Sun-Tues $8 pitchers / $1 Shots - Wed-Sat $10 pitchers / $2 shots - College St.
*12:30 - $4 half pitchers / $8 pitchers - Bloor E of Ossington
*Squirly's - $2.99 domestic beers, $4.50 imports - Queen W.
*Bovine Sex Club - $3 drinks before midnight - Queen E of Bathurst
*Social - $3.50 pints of 50 (Cover some nights) closed mondays - Queen W of Dovercourt
*Woody's - $3.75 cocktails (doubles $5.75), $4 beers, $11 pitchers, until 8pm - Church S. of Wellesley
*Asean Buffet - $2.50 domestic bottles - College E. of Spadina
*Gorilla Monsoon - $10 pitchers/$4 pints (11.70/4.70 w/taxes) of "Cool" brand beer from 4-7. - Queen E of Spadina
*Ikea - $3.75 pints of carlsburg - Sheppard/Leslie
*Volo - $4 pints - Yonge/Wellesley
*Wild Wings - $7 pitchers or $2.50 pints till 8pm. After 10pm: Pitcers $10, Pints $3.50 - Pape/Danforth.

MONDAY:

* Insomnia - $3 pints - Bloor E of Bathurst
* Gladstone Hotel - $4 pints - Karaoke - Queen W and Gladstone
* Wide Open - 2-for-1 drinks before Midnight - Spadina S of Richmond
* Squirly's - $3 Margueritas (plus "all the time" specials) - Queen W.
* Souz Dal - $3.95 cocktails (Reg $7.95) - College and Grace
* Tortilla Flats - $3 Daiquiries - Queen W. of Spadina
* Bryden's - $3 pints $9 pitchers - Jane & Bloor
* Kubo Radio - 'Chicken Balls & Beer Night' - $3 pints of Mill Street. Queen E, west of Logan.


TUESDAY:

* Souz Dal - $3.95 cocktails (Reg $7.95) - College and Grace
* Hooters - $2.50 domestic bottles - John and Adelaide
* Bovine Sex Club - $2.50 drinks before midnight - Queen E of Bathurst


WEDNESDAY:

* Serf n' Turf @ The Queenshead - $3 Domestic Beer after 10:30pm - DJs - Queen W of Bathurst
* Sneaky Dee's - $2.50 bottles of Brick Beers- College and Bathurst
* Labyrinth - $3.50 martinis ($4 cover) - Brunswick S of Bloor
* Gypsy Co-op - $5 martinis ($5 cover after 10:30) - Queen W of Bathurst
* Tortilla Flats - $2.75 bottles - Queen W. of Spadina
* Velvet Underground - $2.50 drinks before midnight (No cover) - DJs - Queen W., E of Bathurst
* Hey Lucy - $3.50 Martinis- King & John


THURSDAY:

* Labrynth Lounge - $2.50 drinks before midnight - DJ - Brunswick S of Bloor
* O'Grady's - $3 domestic bottles and pints, $3 shots - 171 College St.
* Tortilla Flats - $3 Margueritas - Queen W. of Spadina
* Eintein - $8.50 pitchers - College E. of Spadina


FRIDAY:

* Dance Cave - $2.75 drinks before 11:30 - Bloor W. of Spadina
* Neutral - $3.00 beers before 12am, $4.00 after - College and Augusta
* Phoenix - $2.50 domestic bottles and mixed drinks (and probably shots too) until 1am. no cover for women all night - Sherbourne N of Carlton
* ??? - $2 Beers and Drinks, $1 Shots till Midnight - 526 Queen Street West.
* Crystal Room - $3 domestics and bar rail before 11:30 ($5.75 after) - $3 cover before 11:30 ($5 cover after 11:30) - 567 Queen W at Protland


SATURDAY:

* Dance Cave - $2.75 drinks before 11:30 - Bloor W. of Spadina
(could be wrong... can someone verify?)
* 751 Queen W - $3.50 pints $2.50 shots (free beer somenights) - LFK, pwyc before 12:00, $5 after - 751 Queen W. (duh!)


SUNDAY:

* Squirly's - $17 for Pitcher and a Pizza - Queen W.
* Souz Dal - $3.95 cocktails (Reg $7.95) - College and Grace
* Bedhead @ The Queenshead - $10 pitchers (domestic) - DJs - Queen W of Bathurst
* Asean Buffet - $2.50 domestic bottles and $4.99 BUFFET! - College E. of Spadina

Vice Guides

Too bad. The cynical and sarcastic hipster culture has been thwarted by poorly read emo-crybabies. But, Vice still occasionally comes up with some good ones, like this :

(Shit! I think Amanda Peet has the same bike!)

Also worth checking out is the Vice Guide to Travel. They do the extreme travelling so you don't have to.

This follows guides like the very useful Vice Guide to Everyting and the semi-useful Vice Guide to Toronto.

Watching the guide I realized I'd met one of the correspondents before at a Tangiers/Controller Controller show so here's some Tangiers - "old school" hipster music.

Tangiers - "Keep the Living Bodies Warm" (2:35 MP3)

Assbike Tip #5

Use bridges to avoid hills.


The key to Assbiking is to not look like you just biked across town like a madman when you show up.

If you pick your route well you can avoid some hills and instead of huffing and puffing into your meeting you will stroll in all chill, like you were just next door having a coffee.

Here are two routes from near my place at Bathurst & Dupont to Don Mills & Eglinton.



Route I Details

Route II Details

Route 1 is the more "obvious" route: St. Clair to Mt. Pleasant and along Eglinton. 10.6 km but with a ton of hills along the way. Route 2 is longer at 11.6 km but despite what the elevation profiles from Bikely say the ride is almost dead flat.



Bloor Street, the Viaduct and the Leaside Bridge take you over the valleys, so you can cruise on uptown without breaking a sweat.

Video Dog Fetches

You can spend an hour on YouTube looking for all the week's vids, or you can watch the Video Dog's highlight reel :

The week that was.

Eyeglasses stores are for suckers

I was pointed to this blog : Glassy Eyes from Boing Boing.

Eyeglasses stores are for suckers backstory.

A few weeks ago I had to get a new pair of glasses when the frame I've had for years finally broke.

I bought my last pair of glasses YEARS ago at Specs on Bloor for almost $500 (about $250 ea. for frames and lenses), so that's where I went back, hoping they'd have spare parts (yah right).

Even though I'd kinda soured on them - the coating on the $260 primo-brand lenses started shedding in a few months. The $125 Chinatown lenses (Fuji Optical) turned out to be way better.

They have a decent selection, but, like shoes, whenever you spot the one that's a little bit nicer, stylish without being tacky; it's always $100 more than the others.

At Specs on Bloor, the prices aren't marked on the frames, this makes it hard to comparison shop. You only know the real price when everything is tallied. The guy who works there is really patient and accomodating, he even installed the lenses while I waited. The service there has to be good. Once you've put him through all the work of dealing with you it's hard to back out of the purchase. That's how I rationalized my decision to not walk out of the store and to Toronto Western Hosptial or Chinatown, two places I know where I can get as good or a better product for less money. That, and I wanted them right away.

I ended up dropping $280 on a new frame, but I still can't get over the fact these days thanks to online shopping and ebay and craigslist $280 buys a hell of a lot. Lot more than an ordinary pair of glasses.

Buying glasses online is sounds tricky but I plan to try it out.

Some business are big time rackets, like dentistry, insurance or real estate and apparently ... shops that sell glasses.

Some rackets rely on instituionalizing the business, so that you are forced to deal only with authorized agents who have a strict agreement on how to do business and what to charge. Some do it by making it hard to shop around, but that kind racket is starting to crumble now that every douche has google and can find out what anythng should really cost.

Still I have a ongoing beef with dentistry. I need a teeth cleaning, but you can't just walk into a dentist's office and get a cleaning. You have to put up with half-assed checkups, x-rays, rectal probing and semi-annual boolsha, and get hit with massive bills when all you're looking for is cleaning (a cosmetic not medical procedure in my opinion) which is going to be done by a dental hygenist anyway.

I have one filling, and it was from a time I was getting regular check ups and x-rays, but because of their ineptitude I had to endure a wicked toothache and a expensive rootcanal anyways.

Sure there are teeth related issues that can be serious health problems, but there also skin related issues that are serious - and no one ever suggests that everyone should see a dermatologist every 6 months for a "check up".

If most people could get their teeth cleaned for a price which in comparable other trivial cosmetic services like haircuts and manicures, they would never have occasion to see a dentist.

This is my new ongoing project: Get my teeth cleaned without getting hosed.

Rockin' the Boat

After my despair about the current lameness of music I saw a couple bands yesteraday that made it all better. And all for $5 at The Boat.

The Boat is a strange Asian karaoke place in Kensington Market. That is because the inside is made to look like you are in a Boat. Some nights the Boat gets taken over for gigs.



Slave to the Squarewave (left) was the opening band, but the reason I decided to check out the show after listening to some of their stuff. Think 80s new wave and pimp funk. Talking Heads meets Parliament. They fuckin' put on a SHOW. There were maybe 20 people in the room for their set - which is mind blowing since Slave was one of the best live acts I've ever seen. These mofos should be huuuge.

I could only find a coupla samples of their work :


Heavy Bones (mp3 sample)

Gorilla Swing Disotheque (mp3 sample)

They also do some Spandau Ballet style ballads which I don't dig so much (and would've killed the energy of the live show) but you can check it all out at their myspace.

Unfortunatly in the year 2006, every douche thinks they're an artist or a writer or a performer, so we have to tolerate an endless stream of lamers and their grade 10 thoughts.



Thus the next two bands sucked. This gave me a chance to go grab some noodles and tripe in chinatown and have the ATM swallow my bank card, but I knew I had to catch the Primordials (right), with a name like that I knew they HAD to be a garage band.

I like a band that can not only play the songs, but also play the part, and the Primordials did that, with their hollow body guitars and tight black suits.

In that pic from last night you can not only see one the brass portals of the Boat, but also a very garagey Selmer amp with the green backlit logo.

Another good bet if you're into live music is the semi-regular feature on Wednesday nights called at Sneak's called "Cheap Beer/No Cover". I checked out +/- there last Wednesday. If you read the music blogs you'd get the impression this is a big up and coming band, but at this free show there were about 30 people. They were technicaly pretty good, thought they really sounded like the Killers, but otherwise pretty blah. Except the drummer. The drumming was awesome.