UR END-OF-JULY NEWS
NOT REALLY ABOUT UR

Well, five interviews were recently used for Space Junkies' latest ish.  For those interested, the interviews are as follows:

Dr. Wily and the Robot Masters
Held Under
Suhrim
Jason Karns | Tales From Uranus
Time Of Orchids

I apologize if I didn't get these babies up in time for UR purposes.  After all, what with the great year I've been having emotionally (no sarcasm in said statement, honest!  I'm being REALLY!  REALLY SERIOUS!  AS YOU CAN TELL BY THE ALL-CAPS AND POOR GRAMMAR!) it's been difficult organizing my various burps and farts.  Anyhow, two more interviews are in the pipeline for next month so those interviewed by me better save these interviews while you can.

Also, you really should check out Space Junkies itself as it does not suck.  While I'm shilling my ass off, why not subscribe to the various newsletters I recently linked to?  After all, I do get like 100 hits or so from Googlers a day.  I might as well whore like crazy while I'm at it.  Hell, maybe Ben Wilson of Oohnasty.com might link me if he's so arsed.  I know it ain't gonna happen, a man can dream though.  Man, I feel dirtier than Pigpen all of a sudden...

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Wrestling Opinions just linked...well, right now the site links to my company logo.  Hopefully that will be rectified in the near future.  Kind of annoying that Doug Graham didn't just go to my blog as buttons have been displayed there for months, but whatcha gonna do.  Seems like the audience for my rantings and the audience for choreographed sport don't mix yet aside from Reverend.  He's one of those statistical aberrations ya know.

Granted, so am I.  Fucking statistics.

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Nothing new to report with regards to the end-of-July totals: the top three searches remained "dan naturman," "extreme dinosaurs" and "girlfeet" (please find a hobby to replace your fetishes, people) and the blog is by now becoming the most popular part of my site by a wide margin.  Also, props go to Ian Castle as his LiveJournal is a surprisingly strong jumping-off point to sweetposer.tk.  I don't know exactly why that is as I have this weird reputation with DDTers (I invite it, baby fetish and weird tastes + all the shilling I do) but he's a good guy and he can draw well.

Thus ends my site whoring for the day.  You may now return to your regularly scheduled freebase + wine and cheese orgy.

HELLO, PAUL MOTH.

Well, looks like Paul Moth (somebody who works for Sunny Days & Nights, either or) took a look at my website.  Would have been nice if the person had visited the blog, though.  It also would've been nice if my e-mail to Sunny Days & Nights wasn't thrown into the "Junk Mail" folder.

EDIT (08.01.2004:) I deleted the part of this blog where I was feeling sorry for myself.  I jumped the damn gun since Paul Moth just e-mailed me half an hour ago with an answer to a question I'd sent him.  No, I don't think before I open my cakehole; that's why I'm here.

"THE MASTER" + UR DVD NEWS

I went to Belleville the other day and purchased what I hoped would be some reviewable material for the DVD portion of UR.  Usually I'm not one to spend $50 a blow - I just don't have that kind of money to burn, especially not in a place like fucking Music World - but in my stupidity only five of the seven DVD's seem to be reviewable.  The Crash Cinema Kill Chiba collection will be reviewed in due time, as will the budget-priced St. Clair Vision releases of God Told Me To and Don't Look In The Basement.

Among the purchases I made, though, were two episodes of the Lee Van Cleef series The Master (which I later found was part and parcel of the When NBC Was Bad era - hell, MST3K did two treatments of this show, which solidifies its being shite) and a truncated full-frame release of Virus (both released through Platinum Disc Corporation, and boy are the DVD's budget-priced offal.)  This is what one expects when going through the 2-for-$10 bin but I have to say this about Platinum: boy, it sure does release a lot of shit, doesn't it?  It's obvious the company doesn't care one bit about its product.  Could've saved ten bucks alone by ignoring that crap.  Should I review these, though?  I'm waffling, but I have a certain affinity for misguided NBC shows of the 1980's.

Within the next few weeks (read: when I finally get my ass in gear) I'll be reviewing some of my DVD collection, even though only two of the discs were actually submitted so far.  I should be able to get to The Driller Killer, some Andy Milligan rereleases from Video Cuts and G-Men From Hell in due time.  Also, maybe I'll actually update my site.  That'd be super, wouldn't it?  Man, the dog days of summer...

UR NEWS, 07.18-25.2004
ALL THE NEWS THAT FITS INTO THE SMALL OF YOUR BACK

Radio Weisblogg recently linked one of my posts, which I should thank Mr. Weisblott for even though I'm not one for the rather left-handed compliment he gave me.  Beggars can't be choosy I guess.  The link to the site is in the sidebar, just to give RW a plug.  Radio Weisblogg has a column these days called The Daily CHOI which is...well, it should get a few people interested if you're a fan of shock radio.  These days Spike TV's CRTC application is being rehashed again as news, if you can believe it.  Yes, Globe and Mail, it makes sense to link the now-not-100%-crap Spike TV to a Montreal radio station where they make fun of "dem whiny separatist frogs."  I get those two mixed up all the time.

I've been interviewing a lot of people these days, so many that I have to make a full list of who I've interviewed in the past two weeks.  Soon to appear on UR and/or Space Junkies (finished interviews/receivers of int. questions are in bold; unconfirmed interviews in italics:)

"Brotherdannn" (Alchymist, Loco Diablo Records)
Ambassador21
Betty Dworatschek (Metal Queen Management)
Birdflesh
Blood Cult
Dave Colantoni of Earsplit PR/Worthless United
Dr. Wily and the Robot Masters
Fuck...I'm Dead
Ghoul
Held Under
Jason Karns (Tales From Uranus)
Keith Bergman (PB Army, Infernal Combustion)
Khanate
Michael Miller (guitarist)
Nick Atoms, The
Of Angels and Gravediggers
Paul Corupe (Canuxploitation.com)
Rain Novelty
Suhrim
Thor
Time Of Orchids
Topon Das (Fuck the Facts, Ghetto Blaster Distribution)
unconfirmed Neoblast acts
Wednesday Elektra (Space Junkies Monthly)

More acts on the way, let's just see what else comes down the pipeline.

Finally, I should be able to update UR itself with some new reviews in the next few weeks.  I really should, considering how UR's just been static as hell for two months.  Why the hell did I let that happen?  Well, besides the fact I'm a schmuck.  At least the blog looks pretty with all that fancy fontage and all.

It's not much of a post, but I thought you'd like to see my Blogger profile at http://www.blogger.com/profile/2963861

Yes, that, an extra plug for my newsletter and some Kinja profilage (I'm on there as "babybuttforabutt", annoying you with my baby fetish) is all I've updated in the past week.

Screw you, not every post can be comedy gold.

REVIEW OF THE CBC SUMMER WAVES SHOWS 2004! Part One

Radio Nomad - I have no idea why CBCR1 is giving this show a summer rerun (it aired in the spring originally.)  The man who hosts this show, Andre Alexis, has a great radio voice but as a writer his stories are all hackneyed morality plays.  One of his stories was about a bum with no luck and eight toes.  He sells his soul, his luck turns around, and he's "normal" (as he has ten toes.)  The story ends up with the man being miserable when he's whole, and to get his soul back he gives up four toes.  Then he dies.  When hearing that story the first time I was amazed how fatalistic and pointless the story was, and later stories didn't improve in quality or in lack of oversimplistic endings.  I'm not a fan of the happy ending, mind you.  It's just that he's in the role of storyteller and as one he should know better than to use the stock "and he lived unhappily ever after" ending.  At least throw a fucking curveball, huh Mr. Alexis?  CBCR1 would've been better off bunging on a rerun of The Irrelevant Show. D

Sunny Days and Nights - I don't make it a secret that I'm a fan of that rare decent show on the CBC, The Great Eastern.  It was one of the best comedy shows CBC Radio ever did, plus host "Paul Moth" made swearies and stuff.  It's been five years since The Great Eastern and apparently the cast of that show have turned their sites to making fun of "cottage country"-type faff.  I wasn't a fan of the first episode and it'd be stupid to say that Sunny Days and Nights reaches the heights of The Great Eastern but subsequent shows have allowed me to rest easy as Moth and co. have not lost that subtle pisstaking of CBC programming that made The Great Eastern what it was.  I love the CBC Radio tag at the end of each show.  Here's some shameless plugging of GE-relatedness: The Great Eastern eps., Paul Moth'sb Log B

Bunny Watson - I would like to know what the hell this show is supposed to be, and I've listened to at least two episodes of this by now.  Bunny Watson seems to be one of those tangent shows where the host talks about one topic and veneers into other topics - something like Deicide to the death of Henry VIII to polygamy to castles until we finally get to the end subject of Andy Milligan.  I'm not impressed.  The show's host (Bill Richardson, he of that Sad Goat concept) is good enough, but this show seems like a sop to NPR audiences and this is not, in my opinion, what the CBC should be doing.  Bunny Watson is formless radio, and I don't think the concept of said show was handled well enough as Bunny Watson could really try harder to be freeform.  This is the usual middle-of-the-road pap I expect from CBC Radio these days, and it makes Go look like Basic friggin' Black. D

Wiretap - from what I've heard of the show the whole "phone conservations broadcast on radio" concept is rather weak to hang an entire half-hour show on, and the show doesn't even meet said concept.  These are just friggin' interviews broadcast verbatim.  As much as I hate all shows on the CBC that try to ape what NPR's doing this show could have been decent.  All you needed was somebody like Jeff Rappaport or - hell, me - interview people off the top of the head of who was writing the show at the time.  If Jeff Rappaport did a Wiretap-like show I know it'd be great - an interview with Glenn Danzig, then a Gorelord track, then Brad Garrett would talk about his voiceover career.  That would have been great listening.  As it stands now, Wiretap is just boring and isn't all that different from what CBC Radio is doing anyway.  Thumbs down. D

Crank It Up - this show could have been a bomb, but the concept is great: old 78 RPM records being played on the radio after the enema that is Definitely Not The Enema, I mean Opera.  Luckily, there are some lively, totally un-PC records from the era and the links by Andrew Younghusband are actually entertaining to listen to.  The show's pretty much a variant of the "boy, 60's records were weird" idea but with a better premise and focusing on the years where things were men were men, women stayed in the kitchen (they're the void, the void needs to be hidden from view) and black comedy was limited to "f-f-f-feets do yo stuff!!!"  Younghusband seems to actually enjoy what he's doing and he doesn't shy away from offensiveness, either in his choice of records or in his links (within the confines of the 4:00-5:00 PM slot, of course, wouldn't want to piss off both me and the six listeners listening to CBC Radio One on a Saturday.)  This kind of esoteric shit is what the CBC should be doing, as Younghusband actually makes seemingly innocuous records actually interesting.  I want more esoteric shows like this and less of the boring NPRage that CBC Radio has resigned itself to producing these days.  We don't want another clone of As It Happens, do we? A

Part Two when I'm arsed to do it. Hell, I've been talking about CBC Radio so much even I think I'm insufferably gay.

NOTE: Why are the good shows always from Newfoundland?  Dammit, CBC, those codhumpers are lapping you!

Well, I've apparently been fired from TheDDT, although I was never told as such in clear, concise language. There was no warning, but owner James Ryder hadn't heard from me in a month and thus I was dropped from the active roster (he assumed I had quit.) My writing is still featured on a TheDDT sister site, Wrestling Opinions, but I feel that Ryder could have at least told me directly about my being fired from TheDDT (he told me he deleted my news posting privileges, but never used the f-word once.) I think I know the reason why I was fired - not writing often enough there - but I'm not worried considering what's been going on with UR during the past two months.

I don't have anything against Mr. Ryder, but I think I understand now why there are people who hate him. I'm used to just being dumped - it happened with Tragenda.net as far as I know early in 2004 - but I can't lie and say this doesn't irritate me a little bit. The fact that someone can just be dumped without warning from a site I worked for - yes, I know full well I wasn't being paid for what I did, I still worked there - seems unprofessional to me, and I wouldn't expect that sort of nonchalant attitude from anyone I write for. I wish Ryder the best of luck with TheDDT, but I'm personally amazed I lasted six months there.

The article meant for TheDDT (Wrasslers vs. Celebrities) is now on WO. I hope to have better luck with WO than I did with TheDDT. This is The Yob, spinebusting a cat.

I recently came across a Starweek article by Norman Wilner called "Sight Unseen."  He talks about the downside of reviewing DVD's as some of the DVD's he reviews arrive too late for him to talk about what he's reviewing.  Yeah, big deal, I do that too but then he writes for the Toronto Star and I write for my dipshitty quasi-personal website which an average of ten persons a day ever read anyway - apples oranges, that kind of mank.  Seriously, this is one of the most honest articles I have ever read about film reviewing (holds true for music reviewing, too) ever.  The man has earned my trust forever now, simply for this paragraph in the article:

Some titles aren't made available until hours before they hit the store shelves, which means I can't cover them in any depth.  In the most extreme cases, titles turn up weeks late...or not at all.  I'd have loved to direct your attention to at least four Kino Video releases, had their local publicist ever bothered to send them my way.  (Believe it or not, I actually do try to watch the stuff I write about...you know, the better to write about it.)

Thank God.  Somebody actually succinctly puts into words the process behind the five years of frustration that all legitimate reviewers, like myself, feel.  Also, this is the first time I've seen somebody mention that he/she pays attention to what's being reviewed.  I swear, if there were more writers like this I'd have an easier time with UR.  Seriously, frustrations would divide in half if I didn't have to go through the process of selling myself for "free shit" and the indignation of feeling invariably useless anyway because I do what I do.

Mr. Wilner, you've earned my respect for life.  It all would've been for nought, though, if I didn't realise I hadn't read last week's Toronto Star.  Thank crap someone besides me finally vented his frustration with the entertainment business. It was about freakin' time.

The DVD portion of UR is coming along nicely these days.  I haven't reviewed a DVD yet but recently I've been granted titles from Siren Tales Productions and Cult Epics (in fact, I will review The Driller Killer soon.  I want to make you jealous.)  Also, I've been taping some films from Omni.2's Hong Kong lineup, and so far I've been able to procure for review Anna In Kung-Fu Land (which turns out to be a ripoff of Shaolin Soccer, at least according to the twits who review HK films), Women From Mars (which is terrible - male chauvinists lose their dicks and have to learn how to love to get their bibbles back, it's actually worse than it sounds) and right now I'm taping an actual good movie, My Left Eye Sees Ghosts.  This should be interesting for me as I'm not the HK movie enthusiast but fuck it, the only week for some time I've watched something else besides HK mainstream film is when I watched the 1977 George Carlin concert at USC on Bravo.  This is what I believe in now.  By the way, YES I read.  Don't get ahead of me here.

I've also been contacting Canadian and Korean production companies with more general requests about what the companies do and what they put out, with no success so far.  The Canadian response, at least with regards to the companies whose e-mails I contacted from this website, has been terrible.  Granted, I'm jumping headlong into a field I may not understand fully yet but I am stunned at the lack of responses I've received from my own countrymen so far.  Perhaps what I do is not what, say, a.k.a. cartoon is interested in.  I dunno, as with everything I do I'm doing this not knowing where the hell I have to leap.  Still, this is going to be very interesting scouring Canada and South Korea for reviewable product.  These are the lengths I go to for two or three DVD's.

I know, I should've just been like everyone else and backpatted the people who made the bloody overrated Battle Royale (Wow!  Kids kill each other!  Hipsters, it's Japan, nips* have no morals) and said things like "Shaolin Soccer is magical!"  I'm that idiot who looks before he leaps.  Trust me, I'd be making a lot more money if I wasn't this stupid in the first place.

*I'm using a racial slur as a joke, BTW.  I'll hear no end of it from the NPR-lovers and PC police if I don't asterisk the word.  Oh what the hell, they hate me anyway for being such a racist.  After all, I am white.

UPDATE (07.18.2004):  Finally, Matthew Andrews Productions wrote me.  About time I got a response from my fellow Canuckleheads.

Link update: I've upgraded Screen Rant and johnrpierce.info to the "permanent" links sidebar (they languished in the Bloglinker morass until recently.) Seriously, the johnrpierce.info site is better than the name makes it out to be. The man has an interesting blog, and it seems to have its fans as 21 of you today seem to prove. Also, Blood Cult gets a nod. You may know the band from Reverend's comments. I don't know how you couldn't. He's what you call...omnipresent.

By the way, I've also linked Kim Arndt's site. The woman is one of the few "furry" artists (actually, she's more an artist who draws anthropomorphics than a "furry" - see, furry is one of those invented terms that comprise bestialists and people who think they're animals, an Interweb invention really) who's actually talented and can hold down a job in the animation industry. She actually worked on Daria and TV Funhouse. Thus, she gets a nod.

Also, I've linked blo.gs.


I know, these sort of update posts are terribly boring. I just wanted to hype people who weren't me. I will do an actual post as events warrant.

UR NEWS, JUNE 14:

Finished the interview for Fuck the Facts. I'm probably going to wad all my 2003 ints in and use them for SJM before I put them on UR, but that's because I'm unbelievably retarded (spot the use of the Product Placement!) with my other projects, catching up on university stuff...basically, this is the busiest I've been since 2001. I'm a fucking dynamo these days.

Anyway, I'm going to be writing interviews for Birdflesh, Time of Orchids and (probably) Blood Cult soon. I'm also thinking about giving Betty Dworatschek of Metal Queen Management an interview. God, this must be the closest I've come to writing a real 'zine in...well, ever. Hell, I've probably annoyed countless people with my Seebelow posts as of late. Also, I don't know if I'm going to be writing for TheDDT or moving to Wrestling Opinions (Jimmy Reject, always with the new project every damn month) - what I'm saying is you're going to be inundated with my work in the near future. INUNDATED. Try to keep up.

I've been on some sort of an SNL kick as of late, going through my tapes of the 1975-76 season and looking up stuff relating to the sketch comedy dictum that is, after all, Saturday Night Live. In the tradition of my fandom reviews (which I should do more of, and will because I honestly think I'm getting stagnant in the role I've arsed myself in - whatever that is), I think as some sort of an experiment I should review SNL-related articles and websites just to prove my stand on such a fandom as this.

I admit to being part of the SNL "online" fandom at one time, though I eventually stopped because for the life of me I can't stand the online fans of this show. As with any bloody online group or messageboard the most annoying, self-consciously "cool" people seem to "rank" higher in the fandom for some reason which I can't pinpoint. It probably has to do with familiarity or something. With this group, though, there's these extra intangibles like terrible gimmick posters and too much of a bloody focus on mainstream concerns and missing the point with regards to sketch comedy. You'd think viewers would catch on but some don't, as you will see...

SNL In Review - one of the longtime online fans of the show, I don't have anything against 'Larchman.' His SNL site doesn't just rehash info like some sites and reviewing SNL's thirty years is a good idea in theory. Still, I think he's too easy on some of the ratings he gives (a lot of 6/10 ratings for sketches even in years like 1994-95 - I refuse to believe that season as a whole deserved more than a 3/10 at best, what with the sheer number of Farley "WAAAAUGH! HOLY SCHNIKEYS" sketches in existence during that year) and the site needs better organisation. Hasn't updated since 2002-03. B-

SNL Transcripts - pretty much what one expects, lots and lots of transcripts. Nothing wrong with this site: good organization, nice interface, a wide selection of scripts to read. Mind you, not every script from SNL can be found on this site but in some cases that's a good thing. This is about the closest you'll get to finding Martin Lawrence's monologue without actually having a tape in your hand. See, he talks about douching and... A

SNLMB - I honestly think this messageboard is a desolate wasteland. Usually when I plow through reviews here there's too much exposition and putting over of personality than actual reviewing of the show in question. To bring up some anecdotes, Mark Polishuk pestered the higher-ups at SNL through his reviews to have his name said on national television during Weekend Update. This went on for a whole year. Sad, huh? Also, negative comments about SNL are usually always sneered at by at least one SNLMB member, even when they're justified (and boy, this season they're justified...Donald Trump as a host? He was about as funny as the severed head of Robert DeNiro.) There's a surfeit of things to hate about the SNLMB every time one visits it. D

Saturday Night You - The thing with regards to SNL is sketches are culled and cobbled together in a week or so, and that's what makes the show. The people who write for SNY don't have that sort of pressure/limit attached to them, and anyone who writes sketch comedy can tell you how difficult and uninspiring the whole business is. Just because one follows cultural trends and watches television does not mean one is a sketch writer, and there are few people on SNY who have the gift of writing good sketch comedy. Unlike SNL, which is filled with people who write comedy for a living, SNYers are amateurs. Still, SNL sketchwriters are sometimes amazingly unfunny and/or lazy hacks, which should mean SNYers should be able to write much better things while taking a piss. Amazingly, they don't. I'm amazed at the level of awfulness some of these sketches take, and I can't go without mentioning John Edward Kilduff's work. Every sketch of his either has SNLers/SNL hosts/SNL musical guests mention their past projects, Tina Fey worship, conservative rhetoric or all three of those elements stuck together. ("Hi, I'm Tina Fey. Go see my movie Mean Girls, it's funny! I'm a bleeding-heart liberal but who cares about that Bush when you could have mine?") It's neurosis as sketch comedy and it only works in George Carlin monologues. D-

"Comedy of Errors" - Best of New Orleans - Obviously my favourite weblink of the six I'm listing here. It's funny, full of old reminiscences and it features Garrett Morris anecdotes. The Mardi Gras episode sounds like a right good thing to get ahold of, just so I can see if Gilda Radner actually gets group-groped. Seriously, I don't care how drunk the Mardi Gras people get, why anyone would actually want to feel up Emily Litella is beyond what science can explain. Geez, Jane Curtin was a tighter piece of ass then. A+

TV Tome - TV Tome is a crapshoot at best. Its SNL section mixes some interesting trivia (e.g., Garrett Morris getting angry at the SNL cast after dressing up as a bunch of women...and then a flying monkey - spot the symbolism there) with erroneous information, as is the norm for TV Tome. I wish the editors of the SNL section of TV Tome would clean up the information strewn throughout its databanks. For instance, there's a problem with when the first 1985-86 montage was replaced with the second. Also, I don't think a man died during SNL's Mardi Gras episode (and if he did, it had nothing to do with SNL's televising of the event anyway.) All in all, a mix of the interesting and the ignorant. C

Anyway, there are more sites than the six I've linked and this blog entry is a trial balloon for other like-minded reviews, so enjoy the links and don't bitch about how I have too much free time. It's taken me a few days to write this, so let's see how this little meme travels. You watch, I'll probably piss off Laraine Newman.

Fun with searches, week of July 3-10 2004:

I actually come in second in a Technorati search for radio weisblogg.  Granted, that's only because I update often (the Technorati search is ranked by date of last post, after all) but considering I put the link in yesterday I'm surprised I actually factor in a Technorati search.  After all, The UR Blog hasn't really exploded into public consciousness, not that I want it to.

I keep getting visitors from people who want pictures of Doink the Clown and Torrie Wilson nudie pics.  Where do you people come from, anyway?  Sure, I'm a fan of wrestling (at least to a point) but I just can't understand why anybody in their right mind would look up Doink the Clown in any way.  At least aim for Kamala or something, or Borne Again.  Geez, people love the lamest gimmicks.

Where did this come from?

Why do these searches exist?  Sadly, "brent bambury gay" comes up way too often for my tastes.  I'm amazed more than one person is interested in the sexual preference of a minor Canadian radio personality.  I know I'm not.

Finally, I'm still getting Dan Naturman hits.  You'd think they would trail off after a while, but The UR Blog keeps getting hits from his fans and hangers-on.  Hey, while I'm at it why don't I just namedrop Wanda Sykes, JB Smoove, Sean Majumder and other overrated comics?  As long as I'm spamming, I wonder what Blake Clark has been up to?  I do miss that guy, he's one of the few people from Comedy Showcase that was actually funny.  Maybe I should interview him.  I'm interviewing everybody else these days, so let's go nuts and dilute UR to sub-Fade To Black levels.  You people both amaze and disgust me.  Keep up the good(?) work.

You might have noticed some changes to this blog recently. First off, in accordance to every bloody permalink of mine pointing to its own page these days I have fixed the Blogkomm commenting system accordingly. Of course, the individual permalink-based comments might not sync with the monthly comment archives; that's Blogkomm's fault, not mine. My mind is also bleary from getting this blog up to code so if I've missed something report it to me.

I got rid of the Blogtree and Blogwise links, by the way, as the Javascript wasn't working for those two links. Bloglinker seems to be the only thing that's effective in getting eyes to the prize anyway. The anti-ads server is also back, so I'll let your mind die trying to figure out why I have Google Adsense and its total antithesis on the same page. I'm not a hypocrite, I'm just being contrary here. Besides, Adsense doesn't even work as after 500 ad impressions I have earned NOTHING. I'm sure the people who hate my guts love this fact, but banner ads don't work. I knew that before and I'm not surprised the AdSense experiment has been a total bust so far. What can ya do...besides better advertisers giving Google AdWords a whirl, of course, but that was a foregone conclusion.

Finally - and this is the most important thing with regards to The UR Blog - I ditched Chronicle Lite as the damn thing just stopped working recently (see, the Javascript wouldn't compile properly, these things happen you know.) I've since switched to w.bloggar, which seems to be a better program even though it only works in Crappy Winblows (see, I have to make fun of Microsoft, they're evil and shit...or at least that's what Slashdot tells me.) Chronicle Lite wasn't a bad program but it wasn't really smart in finding out where the Blogger API was as the API link would change every other day or so - oh, and the annoyingly slow load time for the program gave me headaches. So...w.bloggar. As the people are wont to say...a new...day...has come...

I just referenced Celine Dion. I oughta be ashamed of myself.

CULLIN'

I recently got rid of some of my earlier UR Blog posts that seemed to be written, at least in my opinion, by a whiny self-absorbed knob who didn't get out much. That described my attitude for the whole of March, admittedly. I normally don't like self-censoring myself but my policy - and it has been for two years - is getting rid of my whiny, outdated and/or inaccurate posts for UR or elsewhere whenever I get absolutely sick of them. If you're looking for the post where I talk about my PoE News banner, it's gone. Don't go looking for it. I'd feel sorry for you if you did.

I'm looking for interviews for UR now (since I've done, like, ten of them over a five-year period and somehow this excludes you from calling a music 'zine a music 'zine) and I'm throwing out the open lines to any musician/weirdo-type reading this blog. You all know who you are. This is for UR and Space Junkies Magazine, so let's see how this goes. Leave me a comment or e-mail if interested. Just whippin' out the meme here.

Marlon Brando died today at the age of 80 (which is saying something given how fat, out-of-shape and crazy the man became by the 1980's what with the private islands, enthusiasm for HAM radios and so on).  Ironically, for a post I'm going to be doing for theDDT I was going to have famous A-list celebrities fight wrestlers and Marlon Brando vs. The Big Show would have made for some level of humour.  Does anyone have any opinions on what they'd like to see?  There has to be a crazy actor/actress vs. wrestler for the fake card I'm drawing up.  Right now I've got Tom Brokaw vs. WWE CHAMPION!!!!! John "Bradshaw" Layfield, Dan Rather vs. Jim Ross, Dave Sim w/Sid Vicious vs. WARR-EEE-OHHHHHR and Bill Clinton vs. Kane.  Anything else I should do?

Yeah, I'm really expecting people from TheDDT to visit this site.  That'd be a fuckin' larf.  Man, do I ever love to humour myself.

Happy Canada day, everybody!  Thought I'd sorta celebrate by giving props to Andrew C. Lee, who helped work on the Canadian documentary Wrestling With the North and who personally contacted me yesterday to thank me for the exposure I gave the doco.  There's not much of a wrestling industry in Canada as far as television is concerned.  Usually only Border City Wrestling and Internet Wrestling Syndicate get much of a name here, and I'm not sure if EWA had a televised card on CHRO or not so anything relating to Canadian wrestling is appreciated.  The Wrestling With the North documentary aired on Global recently (albeit at the death timeslot of Saturday at 8:00 PM, which seems to be the burial place for most of Global's documentaries) and the site is at http://www.wrestlingwiththenorth.com/, so if you'd like to see how people in northern Manitoba attempt to eke out a wrestling career this is the place.  It's my skewed way of being patriotic on Canada Day, so suffer through it if you can.

I'd also like to thank the people visiting The UR Blog, as it has come off its best-ever month.  It's especially picked up speed as of last week so it seems I'm finding my audience.  Here's looking to a breakthrough July.