I choked on a piece of Hard Candy

Madonna's new album is called Hard Candy.

She's collaborated with all sorts of people like Justin Timberlake, Timbaland and Pharrel to make a street-savvy groove kinda sounding album.

Or so I am told.

My honest opinion? I don't like it. I can't put my finger on exactly what it is that I do not enjoy, but I feel it's got something to do with Madonna - who has for years defined the way pop music has been made - latching onto this new set of the overplayed and the overhyped industry types in what seems like an effort to keep herself in vogue (so to speak) as she comes close to 50 years old. I've listened to the songs. I can only get as far as the 7th track before I have to switch to something else. I don't think I've even heard track 12 yet, to be honest; I can't seem to get there. Maybe it all sounds too much the same. Maybe it just doesn't sound like her. I don't know exactly.

I'm not going to delete it from my music library or anything, but for me the telling moment came when I was putting together a road trip soundtrack for a Windsor adventure in a few weeks and I found myself struggling to put anything from Hard Candy into the playlist out of a sense of obligation.

So maybe it's over. Nothing lasts forever anyways. I have to admit that I was a bit less of a fan after Madonna decided not to come to Toronto for her Confessions Tour in 2006, but now a weak album right after that? Why should I feel like I have to blindly charge about with the rest of the (dwindling) fan base saying I enjoy it when, in fact, I do not?

Unless the next album (whenever that is) makes a bigger splash with me this whole Madonna thing could be coming to a screeching halt. I know that Parker wants to go see her when she is next on tour (if she graces Toronto with her presence, that is) so I'll probably go to that, but beyond that, who can say. Maybe for me it ended in 2006 and I just had to realize that now.

So. Hard Candy. Hard lesson.

That is all.

hallucination tired

Gah.

I went to what is known as a Region Forum for Canada Post and heard the president and CEO of the company, Moya Greene, tell us what she has in mind for modernising the dinosaur of a company. What I heard her say today is that there is going to be money poured into different divisions of Canada Post in an effort to bring it up to speed with competitors, but on the side I work in, collection and delivery, there will not be as much money and it will take something like 4 years before we start to see the effects of the initiatives being put forth. This means 4 years of management on my level having to be creative with the limited resources we have at our disposal, and 4 years of people having to pull a bit more as a unit to get the work done. And while we were inside taking part in this, our CUPW associates protested outside with their placards, despite having been invited to participate. How we're supposed to make any of this work with that kind of attitude is way beyond me.

Anyways. This was a daytime event and I work nights. I had last night off to make sure I was awake for this, but my sleep patterns are now twisted and messed up like mad as a result. I do not expect to make it through the full night now. I may have to go in and get things ready and come home and get some rest; I thought I would be able to bounce back from a switchover but apparantly no...

That is all.

plight and a TTC strike survival guide

So last night at work I went out on what is called a mail audit, where a supervisor visits a mailroom to ensure that everything is being done properly there, the mail is being delivered safely and all that. But the buildings I went to with another supervisor were plight holes from the depths of hell, also known as Toronto's own Regent Park. These very buildings are being demolished to make way for better places to live, and quite frankly for better people. My friend Mark has always said to roll in the bulldozers at night and not provide eviction notices, or if they insist, tape them to the wrecking balls that come through the window.

What absolute slums. The buildings are not secure. They stink. There's dirt everywhere. There's piss in the stairwells. I am suddenly so grateful for my humble abode, more grateful than I have ever been for anything. I have often said that if the zombie plague came and started there, we would never know until it was too late. Last night I was damn sure we were going to be eaten by something.

So the TTC is going on strike on Monday. How to survive?

1) go shopping *now* and get everything you need so you don't have to carry it. If you have to walk more while the TTC is not running you are not going to feel much like going to the store after a full day.

2) get friends with cars or get on a bike or rollerblades

3) DO NOT call in sick. I'm management now and I know how much that screws people up. Find a way to go to work. Me, I will walk. It may take me almost 2 hours but I could use the exercise and really as long as I am home by 12 noon to get to bed I'm fine.

4) get laid. now. because in a city where people need to travel to get laid, that laziness is going to kick in and you will have to go without. and that will just plain suck. This is more important if you are a gay man because we are inherently lazy and dreafully fickle, and if the next best lay is just a mouse click away, why walk to it? Keep clicking until you find something local.

That is all.

playing catch-up

I've slacked in blogging. Not that anyone is really keeping track but there it is.

In the time since I last wrote, I have seen Run Fatboy Run, which is funny but not Simon Pegg's best work. I still enjoyed it. I also went to see 21 on a date - but the dude never showed because he thought it was too windy outside to risk taking the TTC. Idiot. At least the movie was good.

In the literary world - if it can really be called that - I indulged in another Star Wars novel, this one titled Death Star. As one might guess this is about the massive space station itself, joining the tale of its construction sometime after its superstructure was seen being pieced together at the end of Revenge of the Sith. Grand Moff Tarkin is overseeing the project, Darth Vader shows up on an inspection tour, and the occupants of the station slowly come together believing that they are building not an ultimate weapon, but the ultimate deterrant with which Emperor Palpatine will ensure everlasting peace in the galaxy. We all know that's not true, though, and in the aftermath of the destruction of the prison planet Despayre (because the Death Star was built with slave labour; and the planet has some strikingly similar traits to Desperus, a prison planet from Doctor Who back in 1966) and then the obliteration of Alderaan, the cast of characters begin to doubt what they are working on. Two of them are Force-sensitive, which gives Vader a little something extra to think about here and there. And then comes the bit like Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, where the plot of the novel starts to overlap with the events from the very first Star Wars movie, A New Hope. Nobody actually meets and talks to Han Solo or Luke Skywalker, nor are they named in the narrative, but they are there during their rescue of Princess Leia Organa. The sad thing is once you start getting attached to the characters you realize that as inhabitants of the Death Star, unless they get off that thing they, and several thousand others, are going to die. I suppose the whole point to this story is to show that on both sides of the conflict there are heros, and not everyone suddenly abandoned their morals and blindly followed Palpatine down the power-crazed path. True, our band of eventual dissenters on board the Death Star are not card-carrying members of the Rebel Alliance, but they're certainly not Imperial lackeys either. I enjoyed this little trip down retro lane, and chanced upon A New Hope being broadcast on the weekend, and found myself thinking back to what was shown as going on behind the scenes, adding a new dimension to my enjoyment of the film.

I read Fables of Brunswick Avenue as well. Back in 1995 I lived on Howland Avenue in Toronto, which is one street over from Brunswick Avenue in the area known as The Annex. I was hoping that Fables might have some kind of nostalgic echoes for me from my time there, but alas the novel is something like 20 years old and the neighbourhood described in its pages is not the same one I was part of. Things had changed, there was less sense of community aside from the whining in The Annex Gleaner about how student life, the Brunswick House and Sabor Latino were dragging the neighbourhood down. I enjoyed the book to an extent, but it's an anthology and I never did like reading those right through, even if some of the regular characters do return over a few stories, sometimes with Brunswick Avenue long behind them in the past.

My professional development has been chugging along. Last week I was in training at the Gateway Postal Facility in Mississauga, learning how to be a more effective team leader. I admit freely that I thought I was going to pass out at times; classroom environments do that to me. I was lucky enough to be in class with some fellow supervisors I met when I came on board last year, and we all had tales to share and some catching up to do. Of course, every classroom has its clowns and there were several in ours. Loud and obnoxious they were not fun to be in there with and are most likely not the best people to work for. By the end of the week I and several of my classmates (we all gravitated back to each other eventually) were fed up. I wanted to complain about it but one of my current co-workers thinks thats a bad idea because I will only draw attention to myself as a troublemaker. I don't get it. And he has always been supportive, I wonder what the hell happened to him while I was away.

So here I am a few hours away from going back to work. The TTC is threatening to go on strike if their negotiations for better benefits are not met (where they expect the money to come from I have no idea). I'm already tired because I couldn't get any sleep this afternoon; the switchover from shifts is tough and I have not had a stable work week for a while now. I have, however, lost 5 pounds. I don't know exactly how I did it, but it's gone. So now I've removed donuts from my menu, I've cut back on things that only had marginal amounts of fat in them because it appeared I was eatign a lot of them, and tonight I had tuna with onions and black pepper wrapped in lettuve leaves instead of bread. Yes, I ate properly and will no doubt be starving in a few hours. But I will survive. I have fruit to take to work with me and when I come home, I'll have a light breakfast and get some proper sleep. The plan starts to fizz out around there; I haven't thought about dinner tomorrow. But here's hoping I make another good choice.

That is all.