Beware The Count.

It's amazing some of the ideas fanfiction writers come up with for crossovers. Some are obvious, some aren't so obvious, and all too frequently they don't have the skill to pull them off, obvious or not. So, how's this for an idea? A crossover between Buffy the Vampire Slayer and The Muppets that involves the Count visiting Sunnydale before Buffy shows up. And it's played relatively straight. And it mostly works, much to my surprise. I have no idea how Jim Henson would react to the Count portrayed both as we know him, a being obsessed with counting, and as a dangerous vampire whose counting can be downright dangerous to your health. Whatever the case, best not let your kids read this one if they're precocious readers, it might freak them out.

Project S Begins.

I won't be revealing much of what I'm calling Project S is since it's personal. But one of its elements I can publicly reveal is that it includes me losing some weight. I really do need to slim down a bit, and I've set the very conservative goal of ten pounds by the end of June. That should easily be doable given some of the other things I'll be doing.

I'm Jealous.

PZ Myers makes a post about something that took place in his life and gets more than 1200 comments. Me, the most comments I've had to a post here is four. I suppose it would help if I posted more, and managed to piss off credulous anti-evolutionists as well. Oh well, maybe next post.

A Missed Opportunity.

In many places today saw the celebration of Saint Patrick's Day, with parades and other activities occuring. But one thing I'm surprised I've never heard of is PETA protesting celebrating Saint Patrick. After all one of his supposed accomplishments was driving all the snakes from Ireland. And given that Ireland is an island the snakes must have all died when they fell into the sea. So it's surprising PETA isn't protesting the practice of honouring him given that they seem to never miss a chance to embarrass themselves.

(It should be noted that any snakes that might have existed in Ireland died out during the various ice ages that affected Ireland, long before Saint Patrick or in fact any human habitation of Ireland existed.)

Jazz Consumer Tip.

If you actually still go out to look for CDs you may have seen the silver box labelled Collectors Edition with a nice late '60s-early '70s shot of Miles Davis on it. Despite the picture on it the albums contained within are from the '50s, specifically Workin', Relaxin', and Cookin'. These are the recent RVG Remasters, done by the original engineer Rudy Van Gelder himself, so if you've been thinking of picking up those albums buy this box instead, as you'll save money. I found a $16.99 copy at my local Future Shop, and with the tax the whole thing came out to $18.69. Some other places like London Drugs and HMV, in my area at least, have offered this package at $19.99. So you may save 15 bucks or more over buying the albums individually. Now if I could just find new copies of things like Get Up With It at a good price....

A Definition.

The coverage in the last few days of New York state Governor Eliot Spitzer getting caught in a prostitution scandal made me think up this in the shower this morning:

Prostutition-paying someone's child to do things to you that you would be disgusted and angry to find out someone was paying your child to do to them.

Today's Pedal.

Ah, a post guaranteed to be meaningless and/or annoying to 99% of potential visitors here. But for the guitar geek visitors I must note that I took a brief spin with a pedal I haven't played in awhile(which describes all of them for that matter). It's my DOD FX60 chorus pedal. My example is one of the round knob versions, versus the initial square knob version. But I wasn't using it for chorus. Rather I had it going as a vibrato, as it makes a vibrato sound I find appealing if you turn the speed up enough with the depth set high. I should really sit down with it and set it to a more chorusy setting and see if it's as subtle as I remember it. Guitar was my Aria Pro II TS-300 Thor Sound, and the amp was my Roland JC60. Of course someone is going "Why do you have a chorus when you have a JC?" but that's because the chorus on my amp is noisy as can be.

Rethink That Name.

Today I picked up the latest issue of WHOLifE, the "wholeness and wellness journal of Saskatchewan," of which I hope to have more to say later. One of the ads within was for someone offering a treatment involving "Electro-physiological Frequency Xrroid." I don't know about you, but Xrroid looks like some weird abbreviation for hemroid, or perhaps an alien from a bad sci fi movie. It certainly doesn't look like something I'd think was healthy. Hey, if you're gonna market something it should have a pleasing name.

Jeff Healey, RIP.

Toronto musician Jeff Healey passed away today at 41 after a losing battle with cancer. Healey had been affected by cancer for much of his life, losing his eyesight to retinoblastoma as a baby. Healey began playing guitar at three, holding the instrument across his lap, a style he would use throughout his life. Healey would later take up trumpet and clarinet, a reflection of his love of early jazz. Although it was as a blues rock guitarist, singer, and bandleader that he found fame Healey's devotion to jazz was obvious given his collection of more than 25 thousand jazz 78s, and he recorded several jazz albums after his fame cooled in the mid '90s. For several years he hosted the program My Kind of Jazz on CBC Radio that showcased material from his collection. He also ran a club in Toronto at which he often played with his group the Jazz Wizards. Healey found himself battling cancer once more when tumours appeared on his legs in 2005, followed by surgery to remove lung tumours in 2007.