The Flour Shoppe located at 617 Bank Street makes delicious cupcakes. I had the opportunity to sample some of these delectable treats over the holidays. I’d highly recommend the Chocolate Peanut Butter cupcake – but I’d be prepared to name your first born after Melissa Somers – the shoppe’s owner – once you have one. Purchased a few for Christmas bring overs and visits over the holidays.

Dave’s Drum Shop located at 390 Gladstone Avenue. Dave Dudley was the drummer in Furnaceface. It’s his store. He’s also a super nice guy. If you’re a drummer, you may want to check out their wares – especially the vintage kits he gets in here. They also have a wicked line of Vic Firth custom sticks – which I got a pair of for Christmas.

The Whalesbone Catering. It’s good. I had the pleasure of having it at a good friend of mine’s wedding at the Cube Gallery back in November. They had a risotto bar. Isn’t that enough of a reason to call this guys when you get married?

If you’re looking for a house cleaning service in Ottawa – check out Greenapple House Cleaning, Inc. They don’t believe in bleach (trust me that’s a good thing), and they’re as professional as they come. They’ve got a very cool policy about always having the same person visit your pad, and they give a no charge consultation at your home before they clean anything to ensure your expectations are met and a consistency is created. Bought a few gift certificates for friends and family over Christmas….

That’s it.

What a difference a few days makes. Ottawa – all of Canada really…has been awash in controversy.

Today…the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council (CBSC) deemed the 1985 classic rock song Money For Nothing by Dire Straits to be offensive. So they banned it from Canadian Radio.

This started when a gay man called CHOZ-FM in St. John’s and pointed out the use of the word “faggot” in the tune. The CBSC got involved, and the next thing you know….we’re never going to hear the song again if we’re in a car. Let’s face it – that’s the only place people really listen to the radio. This is a bummer for everyone in my generation. I’m sure I speak for many other adults born in the late seventies and early eighties, when I say the only reason I even knew about this song was because of the incredible computer animation and visual effects in it’s video. I remember actually watching The Last Starfighter and thinking that that movie had nothing on the video for Money For Nothing – and I was blown away by The Last Starfighter. Money For Nothing combined the best elements of Tron and cutting edge computer graphics, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t run home every day after school to watch Video Hits with Sam Taylor – waiting for another opportunity to watch that shit. You see…we didn’t have a VCR yet…so I couldn’t even tape the video. Considering the convenient nature of the internet these days, the effort required to appreciate these kinds of things from 25 years ago makes me a bit peeved about this decision to ban the song entirely from Canadian Radio now. Don’t you think this decision kind of excessive? I think there’s a difference between something that’s clearly meant to be malicious, and something that’s clearly meant to be sarcastic, witty, and written from a fictional character view. If you know the song…the verse in question is:

The little faggot with the earring and the makeup
Yeah buddy, that’s his own hair
That little faggot got his own jet airplane
That little faggot he’s a millionaire

Mark Knopfler was making a societal reference here and was writing the song from the perspective of a third person – back then – who was clearly dismissive of the 1980′s culture of excess, glam, and spoiled wealthy rock stars. He even said so in his 1985 Rolling Stone interview. I don’t think there’s an element of maliciousness associated with this, and never thought there was. Free speech or not – I mean really….I’m not going to write an essay here and spout baloney about the right to express ourselves…but what do you think? On the other hand – the CBSC’s decision is something that is making me feel pretty comfortable in light of some of the debate going on in the United States.

Hello track teamers,

This post is going to unite us in a way unlike anything we have ever experienced before. I was introduced to the Angry Video Game Nerd recently by a friend, and felt as if a waterfall (a la Duran Duran’s video for The Reflex) of understanding hit my head, as an early thirtysomething former regular Nintendo fanatic. James Rolfe’s video pieces on the most frustrating games made me realize just in fact how much of my early childhood I spent obsessively attempting to perfect certain areas in Nintendo games that were near impossible to figure out. I’m now convinced that they might have had illiterate morons programming code in 16 bit for some of the shit I owned. Like Castelvania 2. I saw this video and had to hit the kickboxing studio to lay out some frustration.

http://www.youtube.com/user/JamesNintendoNerd