Rider Rumbling

Big game for the Riders tomorrow. They lose to the Hamilton Tiger Cats, they'll have dropped three home games in a row, and will be 3-4 heading into an Aug. 21 tilt with the 6-1 Alouettes in Montreal. In past years, this would have been considered a gimme. No longer. The Ti-Cats are a team on the rise.

District 9: Hype overdrive

At this point, everybody is loving District 9. It's certainly an OK movie, but it coasts heavily on the fish out of the water premise. The bugs are stand ins for every oppressed minority, a noble idea, but an old one. For me, the most interesting aspect of the flick is turning a plain bureaucrat into an action hero. Most awesome of all: Sharito Copley (a guy who never acted before District 9) actually looks like one.

Canadian connection: District 9 director Neill Blomkamp graduated from the Vancouver Film School and recruited 20+ of his classmates to help out.

Live Tonight: Young Rival

Saturday, August 15

Young Rival
The Distrikt

Young Rival last came through Regina with the Sadies, one of Canada's greatest touring groups. It's a pairing that fits. Young Rival aren't the wonderful mash of folk, country, rock, and pure energy that the Sadies are, but, as an indie-rock band, they seem to be channeling some '60s pop spirit on their self-titled debut EP.

Playing with Carl Johnson of Library Voices.



Also playing tonight: Donny Parenteau at the Pump.

Saturday Morning Cartoon

Little kid Steve was probably never more excited about a Saturday morning cartoon than this one, which debuted on NBC in 1978. A Godzilla cartoon! Who could believe it? The greatest monster ever, who combined the awe-inspiring wonder of dinosaurs with the sheer greatness of fire-breathing dragons in one towering, city stomping visage.

Sadly, the cartoon did not quite live up to expectations. Here's the title sequence. See if you can spot the exact moment everything is ruined.



If you said "and Godzoooooooky!" you are correct. What the hell was that stupid thing? And why wasn't Godzilla eating him? And then stomping on that boat? And then laying waste to Tokyo? So many narrative problems.

But the series did have its moments. If you disregard Godzilla's dumb laser beam eyes (?!) and his gargling roar and his constantly-shifting scale and his human "friends"--and of course horrible Godzooky--a Kaiju-worshiping child could at least savour the annihilation of futuristic jets and cannons.

At least until Godzooky showed up, flapping and flopping and squawking like a concussed Scooby-Doo.



Damn you, Godzooky. Damn you to hell.



This is available on DVD, unbelievably.

Brooks and Done

Brooks and Dunn, the hugely popular country duo, will be calling it quits. The band, who formed in 1991, announced this Monday that they would be breaking up. No reason was given for the split.

For all those with tickets to their October 24 show at the Brandt Centre, no need to worry. They'll be honouring all current dates and doing one more tour as well before they boot scootin' boogie one last time.

Six Things I Would've Blogged About Today If I'd Had Time

1) JERKS The lying, manipulative healthcare-bashing bastards who are trash-talking Canada and Britain's health systems suck all the ass there is to suck. (Guardian)

2) CREEPS Stupid Canadian government and its evil deporting former child soldiers crap. Grrr! (StarPhoenix)

3) PRICKS Stupid Canadian government and its evil obstructions and sinister shenanigans toward a former child soldier who's a Canadian citizen. (A third appeal? Really? Assholes.) (Globe And Mail)

4) SCREWED Sask. revenue crash: uh-oh, spaghetti-o. (CBC)

5) VICTORIOUS The CUPE gang are not going to jail for election pamphleteering; say "nyah"to Sask Party. (CUPE)

6) YOUNG AND NAIVE A young New Jersey cop arrests a weird old dude for, um, being a weird old dude--and it turns out to be uber-legend Bob Dylan, who she'd never heard of because she's only 22 and doesn't give a rat's ass about ancient grampa music. (Telegraph)

Too bad I didn't have time. Poop!

PD On The Radio

Prairie dog's Stephen Whitworth (that's me!) and Planet S' Chris Kirkland (it's Chris!) will be on CBC's Afternoon Edition later today to talk about "Exciting Things To Do" this weekend. We usually start sometime between 4:10 and 4:15 and babble incoherently for about six minutes. The link is here--click on it around four, if you dare. (Did I say dare? I mean care.)

Friday Afternoon Kitty: Pon Farrrrrrrrrrrr!

There is nothing that isn't better with the right music. And this video, ripped from the outlaw realm of copyright violation that is Yootube, proves it.



Ahhhhhhhh, that's the stuff!

EDIT: More "r"s added to headline because more "r"s = more awesome. PONN FARRRRRRRR!

Budget Update

In an article I did in late March on the 2009-10 Saskatchewan budget, I suggested that for next year's budget address Finance Minister Rod Gantefoer consider dressing as a fortune teller with a crystal ball. That's because, when it comes to revenue projections in particular, much is dependent on prices that the Finance department forecasts for key commodities like oil, natural gas and potash. Today, Gantefoer is delivering his first quarter financial update. The news it contains is not good. In 2009-10, Saskatchewan will apparently take in a whopping $1.3 billion less in potash royalties than initially forecast. That will be offset somewhat by a $668 million increase in oil royalties and taxes, but that still leaves the province with a $558 million shortfall that will require the government to defer several spending committments and raid--I mean, take a special dividend of $185 million from the Crown Investments Corp. Hindsight is always 20-20, so it's pretty easy to rip Gantefoer and his officials for being so wrong with their potash revenue estimate. But it's also true that in the current economic climate, it's virtually impossible to forecast anything with a reasonable degree of accuracy. Here's more on the story from CBC.

Fiday Afternoon Kitty (Failure Edition)

So after about two hours surfing on Yootoob Thursday night, I hadn't found the right cat (or cute animal) video for Friday afternoon. I always look for videos with some kind of ineffable "prairie dog vibe", whatever that is. (You can't explain it, you can only "feel" it. Like the Force.)

The best best I'd found by 10 o'clock last night was, uh, this thing...





Well it was pretty damn funny after two hours of watching videos of cats licking their butts. Not really up to our standards, though.

I'll keep looking...