Douglas Coupland is one of my favourite authors, not to mention an absolute Canadian gem, but his last novel, The Gum Thief, felt tired and phoned-in to me. So, when I began to read his latest novel, Generation A, I wasn’t wholly optimistic. What I found though, as I went, is that Coupland is far from tired and while I don’t think he’s been at the top of his game recently—since jPod, I’d say—Generation A is nonetheless a winner.
My wife, Maria and I would like to introduce you to our newest family member Penelope “Penny” Lou. She’s a 4 1/2 month old Vizsla/Labrador Retriever cross. She’s full of spunk, loves sticks, and after three days is finally coming around to the cat—she’s stopped chasing him everywhere and now realizes that he will play, but on his terms.
In addition to pictures, I took a short video of Penny playing in the park on my cellphone.
Here’s another entry in my Favourite Tracks series.
I saw The New Pornographers live about five or six years ago. They were one of those bands that I had heard of but never heard. They were opening for Belle & Sebastian down at The Docks, when it was still called The Docks, on night I remember as being absolutely freezing, among other things. I remember not being hugely impressed by The New Pornographers but after having spent something like two hours in the freezing cold, lined up to get a good place to stand to see the main act, I think I was still thawing out.
“We’re just like you,” one of the band members said in between songs, “We’re all here to see Belle & Sebastian!” I thought it was a hilarious remark, but if I had known then what I know now, I would’ve been there to see The New Pornographers, too.
Adventures in Solitude
Adventures in Solitude just feels right, don’t you agree? A.C. Newman singing softly with Neko Case and Kathryn Calder. The beautiful back-and-forth. The gentle guitars. The building swell that comes like the tide and then breaks into an ocean of a chorus. It’s incredible even if my attempt to describe it is very poor. And, it’s summer music, don’t you think? It’s a breath of fresh air; it’s sunlight. Enjoy.
My brother-in-law Mark introduced this video at a family get-together this weekend. It had us in absolute stitches; I had to share.
I really didn’t expect a lot from Bobby. After all, it was written and directed by Emilio Estevez. Yes, that Emilio Estevez—the guy who played Coach Gordon in the highly-acclaimed Mighty Ducks series (tongue firmly planted in cheek). Really. So you can see why I didn’t go into this film expecting a whole lot, but Maria assured me that it was good and, as it turns out like in most all things, she was right.
This is one of those episodes of LOST that moves so quickly you barely have time to catch your breath, and when our normal LOST viewing party was canceled at the last minute we rushed already breathless to plunk down in front of our TV, just in time. I don’t think we ever really caught our breath until the credits rolled. Despite a pattern of only answering approximately zero to one question per episode, the pace of this week’s “The Last Recruit” was indeed staggering, and a lot went down even if we didn’t learn a whole lot about the over-arching plots.
Over the weekend I had a man date with my friend Jason. Like all manly men do when they get together, we decided to watch a scary movie. We picked Paranormal Activity a movie we both wanted to see but hadn’t got around to yet because, in both our cases, we didn’t have anyone to watch it with—and this isn’t the kind of movie you want to watch alone!
