Better Know A Hottie: Alizee Paradis

You're a star athlete in College, yet no one pays attention to your stats; instead, they focus on your looks and the ''outrageous'' things you do when you go out with your friends. They're surprised to find out how much alcohol your body can take, not knowing that genetics - like being born in Québec - is part of the recipe of your success.

College ends and you don't know what to do. You turn the way people look at you into a job - and you become a model.

That's exactly what Alizée Paradis did, and it's working fine for her so far.

Busted Coverage called her the sexiest NCAA female athlete of the decade, and she turned it into a photoshoot and runway model job.

Her blog posts are fun to read, too.

Hot Chicks In Batman Shirts

Yes, even hotties like The Bat. The real Batman, not Christian Bale.

Urgh, just writing his name gave me shivers, and probably cold sores, too.

In any event, check the blog here.

The Future Shop

For almost a week, I've been looking at Future Shop's website (Best Buy for my American friends) for a store to stock up on headphones that are on sale - I need some because I want to listen to my Ipod on my way to work and to warm my ears in winter.

Turns out this morning, the site said there was stock - at the downtown Montréal location. So I go, at 10AM - I really want those fucking things. I didn't put my second foot inside the store that I was already getting raped by four hyper-caffeinated apes dressed in read who insisted on helping me. I say ''I'm just looking, thanks'' to at least give them time to slip condoms on, and head for the headphones section.

The pair I'm looking for, of course, is nowhere to be found. That's when another over-perfumed greasy-haired Laval resident jumps on me and offers his help, and I tell him I'm looking for the yellow Sony headphones that are on sale on their website.

- Yellow? Sony? No, man, I don't have that...
- Not even in the back store?
- We don't have a back store, all we have is on the floor, that's how we operate.
- The website says you have it in stock.
- Yeah, that happens. It means it's somewhere in the store, but we may have misplaced it.
- And you don't know where they are?
- No, man, like I said, I've never even seen those.
- Then what the fuck is your use? What do you do, here, exactly? Once you land on someone's back and they accept to be helped by you, has it ever happened, just once, that you gave the customer what he needed? How does it work, your job?
- Well, sometimes it's right in front of their eyes and I get to show them, and I get commission.

Now I know where all the retards work. And shop.

If this is how we'll Shop, in the Future, I can make one prediction right now: capitalism is even more doomed than I thought.

That's A Shitty Hockey Goal, Joe!

Sure, the Washington Capitals' colour commentator Craig Laughlin probably thinks he said ''shinny''.

The important thing is: I don't.

An Omen, Motherfucker

It's a bad sign when the always-healthy cat vomits five times in a single morning while its ''I-eat-everything-and-always-get-sick'' lion-sized brethren looks on, puzzled.

It's not the sign of a bad day coming, however, since my day actually began yesterday morning and has been eventful - to say the least - since. And here I am Friday, twelve hours behind the deadline I had to hand in a piece of work, with my boss awaiting my email. The same boss who yesterday made threats (''either she leaves, or I do!''), quit his job over a co-worker, and un-quit it hours later, resulting in office drama that somehow ended up revolving around me, the guy with the longest tenure on the office, who has seen the most bosses come - and every single one of them go.

Except while I'm busy playing psychologist and counselor, a role my boss ironically insisted I play when he forced me to work from the office instead of from home, my job doesn't get done.

Now it's early too Friday morning, I haven't slept in over 24 hours, with one deadline dead and gone, the office Christmas party tonight - and me playing a show later in the evening somewhere else. And I'm also playing tomorrow.

So what's the omen? That my day job's going down - or that it'll affect my night-time job?

Funny thing is, I was told two weeks ago today was just about my last day at my day job...

Jere Lehtinen Retires

After 14 and a half seasons in the Dallas Stars' organization, with one President's Trophy (regular-season championship), a Stanley Cup and three Selke trophies as the league's best defensive forward, Finnish two-way superstar Jere Lehtinen announced his retirement earlier today.

He is the only Finland native to have won both a Stanley Cup and a World Championship gold medal - take that, Jari Kurri and Teemu Selanne!

He is also a huge Slayer fan, as proven in the video below:




I wish him the best in his after-career. He was a true, honest, hard-working pleasure to watch for all this time.

Video Of The Week: Ramones

Inspired by my Facebook Status Battle Of The Bands (every day I ask my friends to vote between two music acts, a winner is declared and moves on to the next round), in which today's battle is: Ramones Vs Sex Pistols.

My choice is Ramones - and so far it's 9-0, a landslide I didn't quite expect, but one that makes an awful lot of sense when you compare the numbers: the Ramones came first, released 14 studio albums, 13 (!) compilation albums, and 6 live albums - to the Pistols' 1 studio album, 7 compilations (!!!) and 4 live albums.

Oh, and 2,263 shows in 20-some years with something like 4 different drummers, that's pretty impressive, as is having a Mötorhead song named after you. Oh, and dressing minimalistically as a statement, rather than being a pre-fabricated, glorified Boy Band.

But I also didn't want to ''just put a Ramones song'' here, I wanted something special, and I found it in their 1995 cover of the (1992) Tom Waits track I Don't Wanna Grow Up. Waits if perhaps my favourite songwriter out there, his songs touch me deeper than anything else, and he changes musical styles completely every 5 years or so, reinventing not just himself but his stories altogether. He is a huge Ramones fan - and they sent their love right back, like here:

Where Do They Think We're Living In, California?

Jesus Christ. Three times in 24 hours the electricity's been cut out by the Hydro people, the last time, for 5 hours while they played around in the sewers. Long enough for the shit in my freezer to thaw, and now it's ''eat-or-throw-away''.

Three times in 24 hours, in minus-10 weather, at night. Long enough for the floors to turn icy cold; long enough for the three candles I had to die on me.

Three times re-setting all the digital clocks in the house, twice late for work - in my last week there. Very professional, eh?

It's one of those weeks, where you'd be better off staying in bed and jerking off than even trying to attempt to undertake anything.

Video Of The (Past) Week: Samwell

For this past week, I was browsing through YouTube looking for a fitting Video Of The Week, a song about something ending, dying - to commemorate my last week of work for a company I had been 9 years with. However, that workplace decided to screw me over one last time, and now this seems more fitting.

Here's the context: when I was hired in 2001, I was promised more money than at my then-place of employment, Createc +, pending I succeeded passing through a 3-month probation period. Which I did. Except when it came time, the person who'd hired me had been fired herself, and her replacement ''was not aware'' of our arrangement, and couldn't ''find my contract'' anywhere. Nine years went by and they're closing down my complete division, of which I am supervisor and field director. Low-level boss of sorts. And, just now, for the last two weeks of my time there, I finally get a raise that puts me even higher than what was initially promised. Except all my employees get a $300 severance cheque, and I get zilch. ''But you just got a raise'', they said, one that will give me a whopping $120 more than if I hadn't - meaning I'm still losing out on $180 compared to everyone else.

So they have fucked me for the last time. But fucked me they have, ''in the butt'', as Samwell would say.

Born and raised in South Carolina, Samwell graduated from university in North Carolina before moving to Chicago, IL. Marion Cotillard and Johnny Depp are fans, and he has performed an acoustic version of this song, What What (In The Butt), with Queens Of The Stone Age frontman Josh Homme on Tosh.0 - as well as a regular version on Lily Allen And Friends.

This is the #10 top-rated video of all time on YouTube, the sixth most favorited music video - 12th most favorited video period. The message is universal: LOVE, as in ''I used to LOVE working for my employer, until I'd had enough of them wanting to do it in my butt (in my butt)''.

The WikiLeaks Cables' Fallout

Want to know how fucked up the ''War On Terror'' has made people? Look no farther than the recent WikiLeaks' revelations about messed-up diplomatic relations and how numb-tongued politicians actually talk to one another behind closed doors - and the unhealthy alliances and company they keep.

Sure, the White House says it could ''put peoples' lives in danger'', it's their job to say that. However, they said the same thing about the first three MegaLeaks (about the Afghan and Iraq wars, respectively), but as The McClatchy Company's (home of the Sacramento Bee) Nancy Youssef has said:

U.S. officials concede that they have no evidence to date that the documents led to anyone's death.

The problem doesn't lie with the White House, though, neither does it lie with the Russian government, who said it will study the leaked cables and use the material contained in it as they see fit.

No, the problem comes from the Reactionaries, usually right-wing, highly-Conservative politicians who seem to forget we live in an age both of high-speed mass media and fucking Laws.

Mike Huckabee, who could very well be the next President of the United States said, as he was signing copies of his new children's book (I kid you not, that's how fucked up this world is) Can't Wait Till Christmas:

Whoever in our government leaked that information is guilty of treason, and I think anything less than execution is too kind a penalty.

It's right here on politico.com. Again: Anything LESS than execution is TOO KIND. Keep in mind most of the world no longer has the death penalty. The only ones who do are what Americans call ''those damn retarded Arab states'', ''the socialist anti-human-rights evil China'', and the good ol' U.S.A. So most of the planet doesn't see the death penalty as any less a crime than murder.

Speaking of which, Tom Flanagan, former advisor to Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper - the ideas behind the face, if you will - even left video evidence of his reaction, but I'll still quote it:

I think (WikiLeaks head honcho) Julian Assange should be assassinated ... I think (Barack) Obama should put out a contract and maybe use a drone or something ... I wouldn't feel unhappy if Assange disappeared.

Not only is it a crime pretty much everywhere on the planet to murder somebody, it's also one to conspire to murder. It's also still a crime to hire someone to murder someone else. Many people have been arrested for trying to hire hitmen to kill others. This ''political scientist'' (obviously not ''rocket scientist'') has publicly opinionated that another human should die, and specifically called out for a ''contract'' to be put on his head. Which, of course, is 1970s mob-talk for ''pay to kill''. Which, of course, is illegal in most countries.

But because we live in ''dangerous times'', because we have ''enemies'' everywhere, because everyone with a tan is dangerous (although I, for one, fear the douchebags from Jersey Shore more than Arabs), because every single secret is both important to discover and must not be read by others - suddenly, it's ok to rape people who want to board a plane to see their families for the Holidays, and it's surely fine to forgo the most basic fucking laws in the history of mankind (''Thou shalt not kill'', anyone?).

And preachers are praying for Obama's death. Two things/questions: 1. How fucked up are you? 2. Obama's still alive; A. where's your God now? B. Could you be on the wrong side of the argument?

Make peace, not war. And let's pray for Tom Flanagan's death.