Random Nonsense

My girlfriend* is a big fan of Toronto's Indie 88 radio station, and thus every time we're in the car together, it's the go-to channel on the dial.  Yes, that's right, I'm the one guy under the age of 40 who still listens to terrestrial radio.  I love living in the past! 

Anyway, Indie 88 is a fine station with one annoying flaw.  Champion's "No Heaven" is the background music they play during intros and outros, not to mention when the DJ is speaking between songs.  Even after months of listening, it still fools me every time.  I always get a momentary burst of excitement in thinking that "No Heaven" is up next, then am quickly disappointed when Indie 88's pattern dawns on me.  It's a good song!  Play it just once, that's all I ask.  Unless it has ironic meaning --- always being teased with a good song but never actually playing it is Indie 88's version of hell, i.e. 'no heaven.'  This could be the most metaphysical station in radio today.    

* To avoid confusion, I should point out that the girl in the banner pic isn't my girlfriend, that's just a random image I found online.  Also, my girlfriend is in a comedy duo with a penguin, not an eagle.

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This is one of the most astoundingly awesome wastes of time I've ever seen on the internet, and that's saying a lot.  This is The Office Time Machine, a one-stop director to a series of YouTube clips that catalogue (by year or, as you get further back, by decade) every pop culture reference ever made in all 201 episodes of the U.S. Office.  I bow to the epic pointlessness of this endeavour.   

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If you're the Nabisco employee who came up with the idea for these new Chips Ahoy/Chunks Ahoy bags, I hate you.  Why mess with perfection?  These new bags are sealed with what I can only presume is a space-age polymer that makes them incredibly hard to pull open, and yet once they are open, they're impossible to fit the cookie tray back into the bag.  There's a cardboard shaper in there fouling things up and….ARGH.  It's all madness.  Madness I say.

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An oral history of Ghostbusters!  AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!  Needless to say, I loved every word of this (though sadly, Bill Murray and Rick Moranis didn't participate).  William Atherton's brief contributions were gold.  I also love that with each passing behind-the-scenes look at this movie, it becomes more and more apparent that Dan Aykroyd's original concept was a) insane and b) possibly could've been the worst movie ever made.  Thank goodness that Ramis and Reitman were there to rein him in, and to his credit, Aykroyd praises them for helping polish the idea into a classic.

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As much as I love Conan O'Brien, I can't help but feel his show has gotten stale.  The monologues, the desk bits, the patter with Andy Richter (am I the only one that thinks Conan was better as a solo host without Andy as the sidekick?)…all of it just seems a bit rote after over 20 years on the air.  His TBS show is a weird hybrid of both Late Night and the Tonight Show that lacks both his old 12:37 zaniness and the attempted "classier" polish he attempted to add to 11:37.

This all being said, Conan still has one clear strength over the other late night hosts --- his remote bits.  This might go to my point about preferring Conan as a solo act without Andy, as Conan is never funnier than when he's just on his own, riffing with ordinary folks and making fun of himself.  To wit...