Alissa's Wailing Wall

What's hilarious is that we haven't actually had much of a winter here, so the prediction for an early spring could have come a month ago.  I think we had one week in January during which the temperatures were somewhere around seasonal average, but otherwise it's been ridiculously warm for Manitoba.  I mean, good lord...the forecast high for today is 0 degrees Celsius and it's the 2nd of February! Seasonal temperatures would see the day's HIGH at -10, and that's about what it was when I got up this morning.  We are having a truly weird and practially snow-less winter.

No matter how hard I try, I can't seem to view my friends page.  Is anyone else having this problem?  It's been going on for me for about a week or so.

It's not a purchase, per se -- I'd pay off my student loans.  I actually dream about paying off my student loans with a lottery type windfall.  They've been the monkey on my back for the past 7 years already.  I feel more pressure about the student loans than about my mortgage and my credit card debt.  So my first expenditure would be to liberate myself from the bonds incurred by that expensive and useful paper that hangs on my wall.

Then I'd buy a newer, better, bigger house.

This has actually happened a few times that I've been listening to someone since they were brand new on the scene, and all of a sudden their career explodes into the stratosphere.  If it's an artist whose work I love, I tend to feel happy for them that they've found success.  However, I usually regret not having taken an opportunity to see them in concert in a small venue before they started taking on stadiums and arenas. 

For instance, I was listening to Sarah McLachlan from her very first album (released in 1988), before America even knew she existed and long before Lilith Fair was ever conceived.  She came to Manitoba for a couple of smaller concerts back in the early 90s, and living in Brandon at the time it was hard for me to get out to Winnipeg to see her so it just never happened.  And now it's impossible to see her anywhere but Lilith Fair.  Bah.  Honestly, I like her early work better than what she's putting out now.

Then there are those artists that I wish the world would catch on to as much as we have here in Canada.  I've been a fan of Jann Arden since her very first album, and I got to see her open for Moxy Fruvous way back when they were the next big Canadian thing.  It was just her and one friend up there on the stage at Pantages Playhouse going through the repertoire of her first album with nothing but a guitar, a bass, and her witty banter to fuel their performance.  After all these years, it's her performance that I recall the best of that entire night, and I've seen her in concert a handful of times since then.  She's brilliant and hilarious and deserves to be known around the world as more than the one-global-hit-wonder that produced Insensitive -- a song that she didn't write, and certainly not her best song (though still a good one, I might add).  Also, she is now my Facebook friend.  Heh.

I don't think mainstream appeal, per se, is a turn off for me, but I do tend to like mining the airwaves for new music that I wouldn't otherwise hear by listening to the radio alone.  I listen to podcasts that extoll the virtues of artists I've never heard of before, and I try to get a heavy dose of Canadiana in my musical meals.  I read articles about new music in online magazines, and I sample a lot of artists via downloading.  Sometimes, I find gems that become a regular part of my listening life, such as The Weepies and Girlyman.  Other times, I just find interesting new listens that come and go in my memory.  Occasionally, I end up finding a guilty pleasure song (most of the time from mainstream radio)...for some reason, I love Pink's song Funhouse, about which I am somewhat ashamed.

I have to admit that I am a little prejudiced against mainstream radio.  I hate Lady Gaga -- I admit it!  I dislike a great deal of what passes for popular music these days.  I guess that makes me a bit of a music snob.  But even someone like me that searches for music others haven't heard will occasionally start tapping toes and singing along with whatever comes on a colleague's blaring radio...which is about the time I turn on my iPod.

Neither.  I'd save my pets, and make sure Julie got out too.  My guitars and my computers and whatnot can be replaced.  My pets and my girlfriend cannot.

The bigger question for me is, why on earth is the arsonist in danger?  Did s/he set my house on fire and then break in to enjoy the barbecue?  Hmm.

http://new.ca.music.yahoo.com/blog…

I can almost feel his giant sigh of relief.  I remember that relief.  Nobody's reaction matters that much, because it's all about being free from hiding information.

I've just been reading a couple of articles about what some prominent conservatives in the US have been saying about the disaster in Haiti.  Their stupidity is awe-inspiring:

Pat Robertson: Haitians were originally "under the heel of the French. You know, Napoleon the third, or whatever. And they got together and swore a pact to the devil," said the 80-year-old former presidential candidate.  "They said, we will serve you if you will get us free from the French. True story. And so, the devil said, okay it's a deal," the televangelist said.  Ever since they have been cursed by one thing after the other."

Rush Limbaugh: "told his audience not to give money to Haiti [...] said the country is run by dictatorships and the U.S. has already helped it. [...]"  [said] that the Obama administration would use the situation to "burnish their, shall we say, credibility with the black community, in the… the both light-skinned and dark-skinned black community in this country".  [...] Limbaugh said, "We've already donated to Haiti. It's called the U.S. income tax."

What I enjoy is the response of the White House press secretary, Robert Gibbs:  "It never ceases to amaze that in times of amazing human suffering, someone says something that could be so utterly stupid. But like clockwork, it happens with some regularity"

Amen, Mr. Gibbs.

I read an article this morning that tells the tale of the demise of the local TV station in Brandon.  CKX-TV has been in operation in my old hometown throughout my entire life, and it's gone down the tubes because CTV can't find someone to buy the station, for which no digital cable service will carry its signal.

There's a huge debate about the effect this is going to have on southwestern Manitoba, given the station's viewership of approximately 125,000 people, when you factor in all the surrounding communities.  One person said that people should take a good look at the mayor, because you'll never see the mayor of Brandon on TV again once CKX has shut down; it is said that no Winnipeg news crew is going to head out to cover Brandon's politicians, and that's likely true.

But what was life like in Brandon before a television station started up there?  Some people are up in arms that they won't have farm and weather news anymore, but really...there are more radio stations in Brandon than there ever were when I was growing up, and there's still the local newspaper (however crappy it is), and I'm fairly sure they'll carry that info.

Mostly, I agree with the concerns being expressed about the narrowing of media diversity in this country, and the demise of local media.  After all, one media giant (Canwest) basically owns about 90% of media in Canada.

I don't feel bad for the viewers as much as I feel bad for the employees, who got exactly one day's notice of their complete and permanent layoff.  I can sympathize.

Sayonara, CKX.  You were a bastion of my childhood, and I'll never forget Ron Thompson's weathercasts.