Apparently now that The UR Blog is starting to gain more of an audience (due to both the most bizarre searches known to man and Dan Naturman fans - seriously, that search term might actually topple mainstays "girlfeet" and "extreme dinosaurs" by tomorrow) I'm wondering if anyone knows the whereabouts of documentary filmmaker Peter Watkins.  I'd love to interview him because I've become a fan of his work but I've heard he's a Luddite and doesn't use a computer often.  I realise it's a long shot at best but the man lives in Hamilton, Ontario these days so it's not like he's totally inaccessible.

Failing that, let's see if I can arse Devon Storm, Peter Dinklage and/or Albert Pyun to commit to an interview.  Finally, the power of randomness is working for me and I love every waking minute of it.

Yes, I'm doing a link dump and this is pretty much a filler post but I'm sure you've had enough of my insipid rantings so I've decided to highlight a few interesting links like I did when I started the blog three months ago.  I'm sure at least one of you will get something out of my totally random searches so let's see if I can't piss off an entirely new legion of fans and stalkers...

http://chriswalker.dudeguy.com/ | I remember this being featured in a Something Awful article (Your Band Sucks, I think - doesn't really matter though, SA is about as funny as Jerry Lewis overmiming a brain tumour.)  Needless to say, The Chris Walker Experience is one of the best bands I've heard this year.  I aware CWEXP is somewhat of a joke band (like I've never professed my love of the joke band genre eighteen hundred times by now) but I really want CWEXP to blow up all Tiny Tim-like and stuff just to explode unsuspecting listeners' heads -- well, that and William Hung is overrated as hell.

http://google.blogspace.com/ - A blog about Google - not surprisingly, the first thing that comes up when you look up "Google blog."  Incredibly interesting site, and it's because of them that I've found out about the existence of Google's blog.  Man, that company has to get involved in everything, doesn't it?  I wonder if they'll rip off Orkut in five minutes' time, make the Internet that much smarmier.

http://www.geocities.com/netnewsmusic/ - Network News Music.  An old favourite of mine, has exactly what the title says.  Has some backstory to go along with the .rm files of network news themes, so it's a nice little time waster.

http://www.oldmasterq.com/wangz/index.php - The character Old Master Q: Incredible Pet Detective was based on.  Sites like this give you more of an impression about what sells in Hong Kong, and it's funny that the ads for this movie feature people in Matrix and Star Wars costumes.  How many copyright infringements were they breaking there by featuring that still for their advertising campaign?  Only in Asian Cinema.

http://www.videooutlaw.com/ - Alternative Cinema's video arm.  This company does business under at least five names (i.e., Video Outlaw, MistyMundae.com, Shock-O-Rama, Seduction Cinema and Alternative Cinema)  All of the companies offer the same porn and porn-related genre films that you'd expect from a company like this.  I wish this company didn't show the same unattractive girls on the splash page of each site, but what the hell.  Whatever makes money, I guess.  It'd help if the site design and overall impression I got of the product didn't seem so bloody cheap and thrown together, though.

BIG IDEA

I am planning the creation of a TV Cream/Off The Telly-related site in the near future.

I've seriously been looking at where my writing has been going the past 18 months and I've talked an awful lot about television during that time, and I'm looking for a hobby outside of what I'm doing now. I know doing a music-oriented webzine been a hobby for me these past five years, but I seriously am thinking about talking about Canadian television and media as there isn't any real representation of Canada in the television-nostalgia field. It's just an idea, but we'll see where it goes from there. It's not like what I'm doing is unprecendented either. I mean, no one remembers Billy Ingram's punk website now that he's making a living off of TVParty, though that may be just as well.

Yes, I'm still doing UR as well. Get off my back, will you?

QUESTION FOR JACK LAYTON

Could you get your party to PLEASE stop airing these damn "we're a positive choice" ads, you knob? Honestly, the NDP is the only party that has taken advantage of the CBC's policy of accepting paid political ads and seems to have bought every possible ad it can on CBC Radio's news programs. The commercials lecturing me on how "[Jack Layton's] a smart, tough cookie who gets public policy" (or something; I'm paraphrasing from a quote the NDP took from Maclean's and the original sentence wasn't writed gooder in teh oneth place) will not escape my brain waves no matter how hard I try. The NDP's trying to turn the ever-smiling man into a pillar of incorruptibility is getting rather sickening as well considering Layton is said to have lived in low-rent housing while he and his wife were making $200,000 a year.

I'm aware these commercials will end in two days, don't remind me. Still, is there a good Canadian political commercial out there? It's all "Paul Martin bad," "Harper not Canadian," "Liberals waste money." Where are the commercials where Stephen Harper is compared to Satan? Entertain me, you monkeys. You're all more boring than Joe freakin' Clark.

THE CREAMY TV DREAM

Man, I love TV Cream. I received the site's Creamup newsletter recently (also, I recently admitted Gonter Who's existence to Graham Kibble-White - no, I still disown that brain-fart, thanks for asking) and there's an article about what topped their search term top 10 in a particular week. Some of these links are so bizarre I might as well quote from Creamup #49 verbatim. It sort of mirrors my problems with search terms. Judging by what Webalizer tells me I might as well rename UR, the blog and everything else I do "girlfeet." Or "extreme dinosaurs."

"BASIL BRUSH ADVENTURE HOUR/BASIL BRUSH COMEDY HOUR/BASIL BRUSH DRAMA HOUR"
Of course, the new Basil is crap and the only mentions he's ever received on
TVC have been rants about how awful his new sitcom is and how he's messed up
Blue Peter. The original is still allowed, and we hope that's who the 23, 28
and 28 people respectively were looking for information about when they
entered the above terms into the search box. Although we've frankly no idea
what any of these programmes were. Was there an American equivalent or
something?

I've seen this show on BBC Kids. It's okay, at least in my opinion. Then again, I've never seen the original Basil Brush and there was never an American equivalent to that show in North America. Strikes me as akin to whining about Mr. Dressup replacing Casey and Finnegan with Chester and that pink fuck whose name escapes me at the moment. I'd be more worried about Mr. Rogers/Mr. Dressup incest porn.

"MICHAEL GRADE"
Well, no surprise here, really. 47 people searched for this term in the week
ending April 3, the week the great man was announced as new chairman of the
BBC. Of course, his appointment was entirely - we like to think, anyway -
down to our campaign, launched in February, to get him back to the Beeb. And
this, along with our piece on Greg Dyke - who himself got into the top 10
back in January - can now be found in our "Special Reports" section, linked
from the front page of TVC. Not too big, mind, we're not Media Guardian.

It's probably from the whining of Doctor Who fans, who are sad that their greatest enemy has made an Iron Maiden-esque return to prominence.

"TWO RONNIES TITS"
"WHAT IS THE BIGGEST LEAF"
"WINCEY WILLIS GAY"
"FLOELLA BENJAMIN IN A BIN"
"BEADLE'S UNDERPANT GARDEN"

Well, those are some bizarre searches. I probably should list some of my weirder searches on The UR Blog sometime, because some of the searches I get are just as bad. Honestly, somebody looked up "is brent bambury gay" one time for a reason that just escapes me. Of course the man's a poof. I thought everybody knew that.

Anyway, that's enough shilling for today. Keep on reaching for your pants as you look up things like Chris Claremont fisting porn.

SOURCE: Creamup Newsletter

PICKING GREEN

I've been hearing lately that the Green Party doesn't have any mainstream attention these days with regards to the 2004 election. This is something that's been endlessly thrown about like this sort of opinion is somehow true. I just can't see it, to be perfectly honest. In the news - especially on CBC Radio - there has been a piece about the Green Party every couple of days (well, it seems that way to me anyway.) Already I've been told how "conservative" the party's becoming just because a former Tory leads the Greens and the Green platform doesn't have a place for wind power. The more conventional of the Greens can't stand this, as if the party's being raped by some sort of right-wing invasion instead of the party becoming a true alternative like it should be. Hell, during the leadership debates Green leader Jim Harris was all over the media getting attention because he felt he was being excluded from said debates. Sure, the Greens only seem to pop up every four years but I am getting tired of the myth that's floating around about the Greens. The Green Party didn't get half as much attention during the 2000 elections as it does now. Already I've heard, read etc. about ten (well, more than five anyway) pieces relating to the Green Party and its platform since the election began. The party's getting mainstream attention, people. You can't say that about the joke that was, and still is, the Marijuana Party. Remember them? Amazing how they ceased to be a going concern after the Canadian government briefly decriminalised pot, eh?

Honestly, I'm going to be voting the Green Party on June 28. You might remember I was voting NDP until I realised Jack Layton parroted his platform endlessly and had no qualms about throwing around dumb accusations like "Paul Martin kills the homeless." I can't go for Stephen Harper or Paul Martin because the Tories and Liberals have about an equal record with regards to corruption within their respective parties. Sorry, I'm going with the party that has done the most with the funding it has had, and I honestly think the Greens are going to do better than everyone expects. I think the Greens could get a lot more than the one seat the pundits are predicting, because people are honestly looking for true change and the Greens in Canada have a surprisingly good chance to affect the political process here, even if some Tory wonks make Jim Harris out to be Canada's Ralph Nader. That's like comparing an apple to the Corvair that hijacked the Green road for its own personal benefit. Then again, you expect dumb statements like this from me.

Man, I write too much. It's like fault zone #1 when it comes to my writing sometimes.

BLOGLINKER & PAYPAL

I admit BlogLinker's actually doing what it advertises, but I just went there recently and the thing was overrun by the usual get-rich-quick schemes and .biz fucks (not to mention porno sites, not that I mind porno but really) that usually pollute Javascript-based list generators. It's a fact of life and blogging that things like that should happen, but on one of my visits you couldn't skin a cat but for a surfeit of .biz links and "MAKE MONEY NOW" schemes. Unbelievable. It's caused me to be a bit more discreet with regards to Bloglinker, insofar as I need to hide whoever's using my blog for overt shilling of product like porn, web hosting etc. I'll make public lists of web hosts etc. but that's it. The puritan side of me is in overdrive right here, I'll admit. It's not like either porn links or get-rich-quick schemes don't choke my mailbox already. Sometimes it's not worth it wading through the morass only to see [email protected] or whatever tell me "sweetposer YOUR TODAYS WINNER" eighteen hundred times. Me no rikey spam.

Also, you'll notice I took the Paypal link off the blog. I am still keeping it for UR itself but with my acceptance of Google AdSense I'm sort of admitting my commerciality these days. Well, that and I finally have a marginally commercial format to sell. I'll fill you in on more changes to this blog as they happen.

ANNOYING LITTLE CBC MEME

Well! Apparently I'm just barely hitting a meme for my Last Comic Standing post. It's rather interesting as I've never had a meme to call my own before. Usually people who visit here get here by looking up Nora Young or Shieldhost or something wholly unrelated to my writing but thanks for all three hits, guys. Seriously, I don't mean that in a derisi...wait, I do. Dan Naturman can take his Seinfeld-lite schtick to the garbage bin where it belongs. I like Jeremy Hotz better anyway, since Hotz actually has an iota of comedic talent.

Anyway, I'm starting an article right now about CBC Radio, its shows and its personalities of the 1990's and if you people can help me let me know by e-mailing me at [email protected] with some information on some of the more obscure of the 1980's-1990's CBC radio shows. (No, I'm not going to talk about Roots and Wings. That show is buried in its graveyard Sunday time slot for a reason.) The questions:

1) What was the name of that show that aired after RealTime went off the air but before RadioSonic aired, and who hosted that show? It was a 1997 summer show called -----'s Show In The Summertime, or something. It's the best music show CBC's done in the past ten years, which is kind of sad when you think about it.

2) What was the CBC Radio show about music that once had Alanis Morrisette as its host? It was some throwaway show that aired on Sunday afternoons, and all I remember of it was the show where musicians fellated Kurt Cobain not long after his death.

3) Does anyone have any fond memories/unfond memories of the following shows? I list them with or without their dates (the article's a prelim, see) as I'm curious to know if anyone actually liked shows like The Muckraker or that godawful excuse for "CBC Radio Comedy" National Pastime. I loves me some anecdotal crap.

AFTER HOURS
AS IT HAPPENS (1970- )
BASIC BLACK (1988?-2003)
BRAND X/DEFINITELY NOT THE OPERA (1993- )
BRAVE NEW WAVES (1984- )
CHUMPS, THE (1996-1998?)
COMEDY CLASSICS/SUMMER COMEDY COMEDY SUMMARY/"THE CBC FESTIVAL OF COMEDY" (did this go by other names? I'm sure it did since Al Rae wouldn't have a job without this show.)
CROSS-COUNTRY CHECKUP
CURRENT, THE (2003- )
DOUBLE EXPOSURE (1986-94)
GILMORE'S ALBUMS (194?-199?)
GO (2003- )
GREAT EASTERN, THE (1994-1999)
GROOVESHINNY (2003- )
HOUSE, THE
IDEAS
INSIDE TRACK, THE (1985- )
IRRELEVANT SHOW, THE (2004)
MORNINGSIDE/THIS MORNING WITH SHELAGH ROGERS
MUCKRAKER, THE (1997-2001)

[alison morrissette radio thingy] (1993-1995)
NATIONAL PASTIME (2003)
NIGHTLINES
QUIRKS AND QUARKS
RADIO ESCAPADE (1997-2003)
RADIO NOMAD (2004)
RADIOSONIC (1997-2003)
RADIO 3 (2003- )
REALTIME (1995-1997)
ROYAL CANADIAN AIR FARCE, THE (1973-1995)
SOUNDS LIKE CANADA (2003- )
TRANSCONTINENTAL, THE
TWO NEW HOURS
VESTIBULES, THE (year?)
WHAT A WEEK (2003)
WORDBEAT (2002)

Yes, this is more of that "not metal" crap I like to do sometimes. Anyhow, anything you'd like to say about these shows you can do by e-mailing me as I mentioned earlier, or you could post a comment on my site. Yes, I know I can enable a comments feature on this thing these days (f-view very much, Blogger. Grr.) I took nine hours to install this Blogkomm comments system, though, so I better get some use out of it. Come on, it's the CBC. Somebody's gotta be interested in making fun of Patti "Pest 5000" Schmidt.

Anton Szabo. Just had to say that name. Rolls off the tongue. zzz-AB-oh.

CAMERON IN B-FILM LAND + GLOBAL LATE NIGHT

I'm really starting to "dig" (heh, dig, I'm a fucking beatnik over here) the Hong Kong movies they're airing on the Omni.2 network. Apparently Omni.2 is the Cantonese version of what used to be CFMT and every Saturday they seem to air something Asian-based and dubbed in English for the lazy North American palette. This week it's a kung-fu movie/relationship comedy called Anna in Kung Fu Land (from what I've seen of it the film seems surprisingly good; as I write this I'm taping the film), while last week Omni.2 aired Master Q: Incredible Pet Detective. It's like I've found a B-movie paradise, or at least something that makes me want to actually watch late-night Saturday television. Well, that and I live in the sticks, like I'd watch Omni.2 at 10:43 PM if I actually had anything resembling a life. I'm presently contacting what seems like hundreds of DVD/video companies these days and I'm personally more excited to get into film reviewing than anything else I've embarked on in the past two years. I should maybe get into music reviewing right now, too. Expect to begin to see film reviews within the next few weeks. Shit, this could either be a renaissance for UR or this is yet another mistake. Man, I hope it's the latter this time. Karma bloody owes me.

Also, I'm currently watching Global Late Night as well and I give it a thumbs-up. Hell, nine minutes of the new show beats anything the unpolished turd that was Mike Bullard shat out for Global. Then again, Mike Bullard's shit is more entertaining than Mike Bullard so what I say is a double-edged sword anyway. It seems like anything Mike Bullard leaves behind gets better immediately after his departure. It must have something to do with Mike's fat ass.

LAST COMIC STANDING

Usually I don't do blog entries about things based on popular trends because, well, they're popular trends and said trends are usually as manufactured as Volvos. Still, I can safely say I've seen the second installment of Last Comic Standing (at least the quarterfinals show that aired tonight) and I have to say...Ant? Dan Naturman? I'm pretty sure I saw Ant on Weird TV about eight years ago, and Dan Naturman stunk up the joint when he was on HBO's Comedy Showcase six years ago (then again, almost everybody aside from Blake Clark did. An hour of sex jokes does not appeal to me in any fashion. EVER.) Why the hell did they even advance to the New York semifinals? Honestly, if you're whoring yourself out to a bloody reality show after it's obvious your career's so bad you're six rings below Shadoe Stevens on some godawful "alternative" show you should just quit.

Seriously, I think "Ant" once said one time on Weird TV something to the effect of "Sex can wait, masturbate! It feels good, and it's safe." I think he was a crossdresser then, too. Honestly, most of the Last Comic Standing acts shoulda gone on The Gong Show. The world needs that show more than ever.

LUMPY LUMPY DUMPIES OF LUMPAGE

Well, updated the site and nothing was too exciting to waste a small post on, so here are the highlights and lowlights of the week. Think of it as that darts and laurels thing from the newspaper, only less gay.

DART! Seriously, Trent University...do you guys know you have the worst drama radio shows in the history of Canadian radio? I tried to get through an episode of Flying Fists of Radio Drama and couldn't get past the lame puns and overwrought dialogue (SING LO IS THE NAME OF THE BIRD! HA HA HA! WIT DAMMIT!), not to mention the not-even-good-enough-for-campus-radio-drama acting. Honestly, what is it about campus radio that it's doomed to suck ninety percent of the time? Then again, it is Peterborough.

DART! This is the most honest spam I've ever received. Thanks to Gmail, I never even knew it existed until I checked the spam box (which is another reason why you should use Gmail, its over-reliance on JavaScript notwithstanding.) Honestly, if you spamsters insist on using fake words to make me open your worthless tripe try not to use words that could incriminate, mmmkay? Just a thought.

LAUREL! Somehow my ugly visage is hotter than 91% of the men on Hot or Not. It's funny, since I've received a 5 more often than anything and even I don't think I'm anything more than a homely bastard. That, and my blog has like a 1.7 rating. God I love weighted voting. It's not a stupid, easy-to-manipulate concept or anything.

LAUREL! I'm going to be serviced by Unmatched Brutality. I've been interested in these guys for years. I just hope the bands on the label don't suck.

Uh...that's it!