If you haven’t done so yet, hold off on downloading iTunes 5 until a patch is available. I read (via Cnet’s News.com) that people are starting to complain of weird bugs on Apple’s support forums. Stuff like music and directories going missing, QuickTime incompatablities or the darn thing just not opening.

I just plugged in my iPod and discovered it created a new “On The Go” folder filled with show tunes and Xmas music. WTF?

Maybe Apple is subconciously getting people to shop for their Nanoo Nanoo’s early.

UPDATE: Just found some James Bond Themes in there too. Huh?!

I just came in from lunch and my supervisor grabbed my chilly nipples through my t-shirt.

“AAWWK!” I hooted, trying to defend my chest like Sissy Spacek from Carrie. I cried, “If I did that to you, I’d be fired!”

“That’s the beauty of differences,” she said and ducked into her cube.

Hello BlogTO’ers!

Have a martini, look around and make yourself at home.

Don’t poke Sharkboy. He ‘s been eating chilli all week.

Any questions, just ask.

Dead Robot

One Adam 12. One Adam 12. Possible gang fight. With chains and knives

Sharkboy picked up the first season DVD and we’ve been tucking into this groovy show. If you’ve never seen this 1968 cop drama then this post will probably not make sense so you should just move along now, nothing to see here. But if you have, then you know that the scripts are lifted from actual police reports. Half the stories are open-ended and without resolution which makes viewing a lot like watching an ADD writer who’s forgotten his meds months ago, try to hack out a Law and Order episode. Its fun to try to pick out the dialoge seams as the charcaters jump from gritty, true “She hit me with a pot of hot grease!” exclamations to the humanized, cop to cop banter: “Gee Pete, do you think you can take one of my puppies?”

I also love how they portray the hippie culture in harsh contrast to the incredibly boring, straight laced cops. Always, the criminal element has a vest (the more velour, the greater the probability of “smack” and “pot” use) and some sort of pendant that could make the dresser for Jesus Christ Superstar weep openly. There are subversive moments every so often that makes you go hmmmm, like the teen who tries to sell stolen credit cards with his “pal” from “San Francisco”, who is dressed rather foppishly. Or the two guys picked up for “driving around looking for a friend’s house” who eye each other nervously when asked why they have a bike sticking out of their trunk. And you have to love an episode that’s called “Log 131: Reed, the Dicks Have Their Jobs, and We Have Ours”

The above “chains and knives” quote is from the show’s beginning. We always giggle a bit when the dispatch says that part because she sounds so nasal and bored. As gay men are wont to do, Sharkboy and I have started to quote this when we are being catty while people watching:

“One Adam 12, one Adam 12. See the man. Far exer-cycle, north east corner of weight room. Possible neck injury. Suspect boogying too hard with walkman while cycling.”

“One Adam 12, one Adam 12. See the woman. Walking by us now. Black socks and birkenstocks. Code Ew.”

“One Adam 12, one Adam 12. See the man. Possible hubba hubba, aroooogah.”

And, as a beautiful memory marker that both Sharkboy and I are convinced was an influence to our homosexuality, is the ending: A sweaty, dirty, meaty hand bangs down twice on a brand, pulling away to reveal “A MARK VII PRODUCTION”

It seems that the Tim Hortons at Carlton and Jarvis is gaining ground as the city’s Worst Tim Hortons.

Poor Apprentice Blog.

I feel your pain:

I wandered into that same Timmys for a quick tea.

“An extra large, Earl Grey tea, double milk, please.”

“Green tea?” she says. Her voice is alarmingly similar to Scooby Doo.

“No. Earl Grey.”

She punches in my order. GREEN TEA comes up on the screen.

“Uh. Earl Grey? I asked for an Earl Grey,” I say pointing.

“Not Green …tea?”

“Earl. Grey. Extra. Large. Double. Milk.”

The second staff member comes over and voids the entry. She flummoxes around the punchpad until the other clerk comes back, finds it and pushes the buttons for her. I swear to you, she mumbled “green tea” as she turned to fill my order.

Seems Photojunkie has had a similar experience up on the Danforth, near to my fave fruit market.

Share your stories. Tell me of your Canadian shame…

The whole process of getting pics off a camera phone without a Bluetooth dongle or connector wires is a bit chunky. But here are a couple just for shits and giggles:

The current crap around my monitor.

A buttload of cop bikes.

It’s not too bad quality, I suppose. I did have to do some tweaking in p-shop.

And speaking of “safe camera use”: A fellow blogger I know took a picture of a guy reading in a coffee shop, without his consent, and posted it to his blog. While taking pictures of people in public is legal, this morning I found out that what he did was illegal, only because his post included comments on how “hot” this guy looked, making the publication of this image “sexual content”. I guess that makes him a crim.

Be careful out there, my camera equipped legions! I bet that as our privacy erodes through emerging technology, we will see irrational claims that our souls will be stolen if you make a call in someone’s direction.

I offer up to the Interweb these print/web comic ideas since I have no time to get them started. Feel free to develop them to your liking, just make sure you put “Created by Dead Robot!” (yes, with exclamation point). Some skate close to pre-copywritten things but you can cry “fair use” to weasle out.

Space 1998
A year before the tragic nuclear accident that blasts the Moon away from Earth’s orbit has the construction crew building Moonbase Alpha run up against:

• bad budget choices (we can only afford zippers long enough for shoulder access into these jumpsuits)
• a time travelling Maya, who is actually responsible for the toxic waste build up that shoots the moon towards her planet – she was bored and wanted to get away from her over-bearing father
• interpersonal relationship arcs (one worker is obsessed with Commander John Koenig but on the day he takes over the base, she’s relocated back to Earth)

Manky Kitty Estates
Taken from a tossed away line from Corination Street, MKE is about the life of British 20somethings living in a decrepid council flat:

• characters include a hypochondriac who firmly believes in Hemography, a gym obsessed woman who is determined to steal David Beckham away from Posh Spice, a completely unfunny comedian and the straight laced, unfunny one
• Story arcs include: the flat is suspected to be haunted; a council member tries to get it on with one (or all) of the flatmates; renovation day (!); a Door to door evangelist goes missing making everyone suspect each other…
• the flat eventually will be demolished for a Tescos

B.E.: Life under the Psychlos
Human characters from Battlefield Earth outwit and outsmart the Psychlos in this remix of Hogan’s Heros.

So INXS has released a single already with the new lead singer, JD Fortune (an apt name until the first album tanks), doing the vocals. And the children’s book from last night’s Martha Stewart’s Apprentice is on sale today in the bookstores. Clever marketing tie in.

Pretty soon we’ll be buying product before we know what it is.

“Great car. What kind is it?”

“I dont know. No markings. I think it’s from next fall’s TV show So You Wanna Be a Corporate Shill?“

Today at my office’s pot luck lunch, someone was giving out luggage tags from one of our suppliers. The weird part was that they had the logo for the movie “FLIGHTPLAN” on them, the movie about losing your daughter right out from under your sleeping arm.

A tag for your luggage for a movie about losing your daughter.

Am I reaching here? I thought it was pretty funny.

So exactly why would a gay person want to be part of this organization? So rife with understanding and compassion.

And they couldn’t have chosen a more appropriate picture.