Leaf Trade Talks

Well it’s only a few weeks from trade deadline day and Maple Leaf fans, being what they are, are already talking trade. That’s not necessarily to say that there aren’t some moves to be made but people don’t evne think. It’s just like “Let’s trade our 5th round pick and Wade Belak for Rob Blake”. Well, while that would solve our defensive problems it’s never gonna happen.

I’m ashamed to admit it because I’m a huge Leaf fan… but too many Leaf fans are retards. Do you honestly think that the Leafs are the only team out there looking for a “horse” on defense to sure up their playoff drive. EVERY team that even still has a chance of making the playoffs is looking for that. Colorado had the best D in the league and still made a move to make it better!

The report that I’ve heard today is what spurred me to write this. On the table from Washington is a deal that would send Sergei Gonchar to the Leafs for Caro Colaiacovo AND Nik Antropov AND our first round pick next year! That’s RETARDED! Even more retarded is the number of people screaming “MAKE THE TRADE! MAKE THE TRADE!” I’m tellin’ ya. Leaf fans are dumb! I won’t take myself out of that group because I’m a Leaf fan… but there are some of us that stop and think first.

As soon as the name Gonchar was mentioned in the group of defenseman that would be available Leaf fans immediately assumed that that’s exactly what we needed and we should give up ANYTHING to get him.

Gonchar is a great offensive defenseman. If you only watch Leaf games and not any other games I’d say you’d compare him to a … Bryan McCabe. What’s that? Yup. Bryan McCabe. Y’know? That guy we ALREADY HAVE! Sure it would be nice to have another guy like that to work the point on the powerplay but if you run out and get him and his salary and give up the farm to get him what are you going to have left to spend/trade on a guy you actually need? Like Bob Boughner. I know he’s gone but that’s the kinda guy the Leafs need. A physical presence that will clear out his own zone and can shut down other teams top lines.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying DON’T get Gonchar. I’m saying don’t make the deal that’s on the table now. You give up two of your best young players a year after giving up Brad Boyes for Nolan and you’ll also give up your first round pick this year which will be another good prospect.

I know the Leafs are getting old and they need to go for it but as I JUST said… the Leafs ARE GETTING OLD! What happens when these guys retire and you’ve traded all your young guys? Does anyone remember the 80’s for the Leafs. Nothing but losses!

The Leafs need to make some deals but they need to do it by agreeing to pick up salary. They can afford that. They can’t afford to give up young guys. We’re already thin on those.

Antropov, Colaiacovo and first round pick? Fuck off! Would you like Stajan, Bell and Telqvist while we’re at it?

Retards

Truth Is Dumber Than Fiction

Just when I think I’ve seen the stupidest thing I could possibly see, somebody comes along and tops it. Ok, this story actually more than tops it. It not only takes the cake, I think it baked the fucking thing.

I can’t remember which town this happened in but honestly it’s not that important to the story. It’s somewhere in Canada though and I think it might have been Toronto but I can’t be entirely sure.

A woman living in a townhouse complex opened her front door yesterday to find that somebody had left a baby on her doorstep. So rather than calling the police as most of us would probably do in a situation like this once we finished freaking out, our hero decides that she’s going to take the kid to the management office of the complex she lives in. Ok, I can understand the thinking there, maybe one of the managers will recognize the kid and be able to point you in the direction of the person who left it, or maybe you can go door to door with a manager asking people if they know who the little guy belongs to. Both fine ideas I figure, it’s just too bad that’s not what happened. Here’s where things go wrong, horribly horribly wrong.

When she gets to the office, our favourite future Mensa member doesn’t look for a trusted office worker at all, but rather for reasons that only the truly mentally afflicted among us could even think about understanding, simply hands the kid off to some guy she’s never seen before. Yeah, you’re reading that right, she just gives the kid to some random guy who in true random guy fashion, promptly fucks off and takes the kid with him. So now the police are left with no names, no missing persons report, and one really big idiot who I’m sure they’d all like to take turns slapping upside the fucking head.

I’d ask what must have been going through her mind, but that would imply that she has one, which clearly she does not.

I’m not sure what we the public are supposed to do to help solve this case, perhaps we should all report any random man we see with a baby to the police so that they can question him immediately and hopefully bring a swift end to this case and reunite the poor baby with his family, or at least with somebody who won’t leave him at random houses when they need a babysitter.

Relationship Tip

One of the most common argument starters in any relationship is the toilet seat. A large majority of men have a tendency to leave the seat up when they’re finished, seeing no reason for putting it down. For obvious reasons this causes women many headaches and upsets them quite a bit and rightfully so. But men, there is something you can do to help. You have the power to stop the nagging, the complaining, the wining and the arguing over something that should be a very trivial matter and I’m happy to say that the solution to the problem is quite simple.

If you never want to have the toilet seat argument again, all you have to do is piss in the sink. It has no lid, nothing to lift up or put down. Just piss, rince and forget. Another advantage to this is that you can wash your hands and flush at the same time saving yourself the trouble of walking to 2 different places just to use water. And for those of you out there who might be wondering, yes, the tub will work just fine and is actually recommended for those of you with strangely built sinks or severe aiming issues.

I Hate New Music

I have just about had it with new music… or at least the lighter side of it. (i.e. pop, country). I’m gonna tell you why. I will start with the one that offends me less because… I wanna.

This morning I woke up and came upstairs to where the family was getting ready for the days activities. On the radio was the same country station that my mother always listens to in the morning. I’m not a huge country fan but at that time of day I usually don’t even notice what’s playing. This morning I did. And Faith Hill, as hot as she might be, offended my ears greatly.

I don’t know how long it’s been out but Faith was doing the old Janice Joplin song “Take Another Piece Of My Heart” and doing it quite badly. As I said before I don’t generally like country but I’ll admit that Faith Hill has a great voice… but she RAPED this song.

First of all the obvious. This does NOT turn in to a country song very well. The addition of a fiddle and the change from electric to steel guitar does not do the song any favours. It sounds just terrible.

Secondly. Faith Hill is a great singer – Janice Joplin is not. But in this instance it almost seemed reversed. Joplin’s voice is very crackly and almost masculin. Faith’s… ISN’T. The song fit greatly with Janice’s voice and that song made her lots and lots of money because people loved it. Faith performs it how she does all of her other songs, with a high pitched, angelic tone that is great for her but just terrible for this song.

The song was a classic good song and she has tortured it and anyone that must listen to it. She never should have treid to tackle it. She’s a great singer but she needed to understand that she did not have the right kind of voice for this song. It was almost offensive.

My second example hurts me more because it takes away from something I personally enjoy… and in the end isn’t it always about me? Yes it is.

Two nights ago I was watching part of the Brit Awards and I saw a pop group I’d never heard before called “Busted’ (I believe) take the stage and as they did the announcer said something that scared me.

“Now to perform their latest hit, Teenage Kicks, here is Busted!”

I was filled with terror. “it couldn’t be” I thought to myself. It was.

These lousy British pop motherfuckers were taking an old old punk song and turning it in to something that would have any punk fan almost in teers.

During the height of the Romones popularity there was another Europena punk band making some noise that doesn’t get near the recognition of say the Romones or the Clash. The Undertones were putting out solid record after solid record and had developed quite a large fan bass around Europe and some parts of North America. These boys hailed from Ireland and their first hit was… yup, Teenage Kicks.

The song was not as heavy as many punk songs are now but then neither is most of the older punk. It’s not that it’s softer or worse… It’s just different. Partly because of where music was at and partly because of where instrument technology was at but the song got very big in Europe and you still hear it now on certain Punk shows and compilations from time to time.

The electronic poppy little bastards started up and sure enough, it was the same song. Although, you could barely say the same song. Not once did anyone give the Undertones any kind of credit or even mention that the group didn’t have anything to do with writing it. No one even mentioned that it was written, performed, released and making money 10 years before these guys were born. Nope. Just a bunch of teenage girls screaming and thinking their geniouses for such a great song. It almost made me sick to my stomach.

There’s all kinds of bad covers out there and punk bands are some of the most famous for taking other peoples songs and performing them… but seriously how much money are they making off of it and how serious are they. Punk Covers are generally something you download online for a laugh. These modern mainstream bands, though, take these songs and put them on their cd’s and make millions.

How about the Ataris doing Boys of Summer. I bet you all the 13 year old girls flocking out to buy that album have never even heard of Don Henly and the Ataris sold more copies of that album then of all their other albums put together.

Write your own damn songs you pricks. I could sit here and name off a bunch more things that people never ever should have tried to cover but I thought it might be kind of fun for the comment boards. If you guys got some songs in mind that someone decided they could do a better job in and just killed it… please feel free to throw them on up here.

To me it’s just sad that we’ve reached a level where people can no longer write their own songs. Has every possible musical note combination been used up? Pretty sure it hasn’t. Quit being so lazy and if you are gonna use someone elses song you should acknowledge them every time you perform it or have it all over your cd or make radio DJ’s give real credit every time they play it.

Fuckin’ music. Almost tired of it.

Everything Works Again

If you were here earlier and tried to comment on something but the comment boards wouldn’t let you, the problem, whatever it was, seems to be fixed now. It was something to do with the commenting host and it went away on it’s own without us having to do anything. This is good because I’d have no clue how to fix it if it was our fault. I’m not sure how long it was down for but it’s all up and running again so comment away.

Flawed Logic

A group called The Kaiser Family Foundation has just published a study on junk food addiction and childhood obesity and their findings are in a word, stupid.

The study finds that a large part of why kids are so addicted to junk food and getting so fat is that their are more commercials for candy and snack food than their used to be. They say that as a matter of fact, the number of ads for such things has doubled from 20000 in the 70’s to 40000 today. Ok, I’m not going to argue that point for 2 reasons. First and foremost, I don’t have any of my own numbers to use to make a good case and secondly because they’re probably right, there are a lot of commercials out there these days and quite a few of them are for food.

Here’s where I have a problem. As part of a separate but related study, a team of psychologists spent about a year and a half studying the impact of commercials on different age groups. What they found was that children under the age of 8 have trouble understanding that the intent of ads was to sell things and that the claims made in those ads were in fact exagerated. Well first of all let me just say on behalf of anybody who’s money went into funding any of this and on behalf of anybody with a functioning brain, duh!

So now the American Psychological Association and the people who did the other study are calling for tighter controls on junk food advertising directed at young children thinking that somehow these new laws are going to stop kids from getting fat. Um, I think you’re all missing something here, that being the fact that kids don’t have money and that they’re not the ones buying all of this crap. If you want to try to change something, why not try to target all the parents who are buying everything just because their kids are asking for it? If Mom and Dad could just say no to little Billy when he asks for the big bag of chips and the 12 gallon drumb of sugar water, maybe the chances of him becoming not so little Billy before he turns 11 would go down a little bit.

Parents are so afraid of saying no to their children these days, it’s ridiculous! I know some of them have guns but give me a break, put your foot down, you’re a parent for god sakes! My Mom used to say no to me quite a bit when I was a kid and she’s still very much alive and well thank you very much. Kids can’t have everything they ask for, whether it be junk food, toys, clothes or whatever.

I’m not sure what it is with parents these days but something really needs to change and maybe, just maybe, before we start coming down on the kids for not understanding how commercials work and putting all the blame on them, perhaps what all of these groups should be doing is funding classes for Mom and Dad to teach them the proper use of a small but effective part of the English language, that being the word no.

Irony At It’s Finest

If you ever find yourself needing to define irony for somebody, forget the dictionary and just point them here.

It seems that Eminem has filed a nice hefty lawsuit against Apple Computer, specifically Apple’s iTunes music download service for of all things, get this, copyright infringement. Acording to Em and his music publishing company Eight Mile Style the so-called “legal pay per download service” used the song “Lose Yourself” in a TV commercial without permission and then even went so far as to put the ad on a company website. So now the rapper and the publisher are taking Apple, Viacom, MTV and a company called TBWA/Chiat/Day advertising to court for millions of dollars, money that Eminem says that he could easily get for an endorsement deal.

I love it when the jokes write themselves like that, it makes my job so much easier.

Oh My God But This Is Funny!

If you’re a fan of wrestling, laughing, or both then you have to click this link, no excuses. It seems that in the 1980’s somebody got the brilliant idea of making a porno movie based around wrestling. And now, the folks over at
Wrestle Crap
have done an absolutely hilarious write-up on it. Make sure you’ve got Real Player or Real Alternative too because this thing even has audio clips and they’re a very important part of the whole experience. And don’t put off clicking there until later because the link will only work for a few more days before something else replaces it. I won’t keep you any longer, you need to go there.

You Ask, I Answer

It’s Monday once again and that means only one thing. Ok, so it probably means a whole pile of things, but one of those things is that it’s Tone Deaf day so in that spirit,
here it is.

This week I’m answering the questions and such that a few people helpfully tossed my way. So if you want to know how trends get started, just who is singing on “Dream On” or how a big phone company saved some poor bastard from some really brutal self-inflicted torture then this is the column for you. We’ve also got a little feedback and a new trivia question for you to take a stab at so click on over and have some fun.

Writer’s Block

First things first, welcome back Matt. It’s good to have you back man and a nice couple of posts about the trip too, I like reading people’s opinions on other countries when they don’t take themselves too seriously or spend the whole time describing the fucking scenery, I hate that. Nice job.

Now on to the main point of this post. I have to write one of those Tone Deaf columns for Monday but there’s a problem. I have about as close to nothing to say as you can have without actually saying nothing. I’ve got about 2 thoughts in my head that I could probably stretch out to about 5 lines tops. I’ve also got a bit of reader response but not much that I’ll probably use, a trivia question, a winner and well, that’s about it really. So having nothing to write about I’m turning to you, our loyal Vomiteers for help. What should I write about? Is there anything in the world of music you want my thoughts on? Do you have thoughts on something to do with music that you could possibly put into written form and send my way thus causing the column to be made up of thoughts from 1 or more of you? Are you wondering about who sang a certain song or what year an album came out? If you have any ideas for me, leave them on the comment board under this post or
shoot me an email.

I hope somebody’s got something, because I’ve got nothin’ and nothin’ does not a column make. Thank you all so much for saving my ass here if any of you actually do it. If not, thanks anyway I guess, thanks for nothing!

One more thing before I go. Congratulations to
Karine
on winning a new phone. I hope that now that you’re all big and important in the world that you won’t forget all the little people.

I’ll possibly be back later with something, wait and see.