The BEST movie theatre popcorn in Winnipeg

So say you go to the movie theatres. You'd think the Silver City Polo Park/St Vital would have the best popcorn, but you're WRONG.

You're so very wrong. In fact, the BEST popcorn in Winnipeg is at the Grant Park theatres.

It's so good, I'd rather go to Grant Park on a tuesday than Polo Park or St Vital, or any other Famous Players theatre, because while they give a free drink and popcorn, its just not worth it.

Plus, you don't have to limit yourself to Tuesday. You can go Monday to Thursday at Grant Park for only $6.99! Sure, Popcorn is extra, but its worth it.

The secret seems to be that Grant Park uses Orville Redenbacher popcorn, wheras Famous Players uses Poopcorn brand Popcorn. AKA Act II popcorn. Which apparently leaves less unpopped kernels in a scientific study I just googled, but all the same, tastes like garbage.

So that is my reccommendation. Plus, Grant Park has self serve margarine. Butter Button!
IMAX theatre at Portage Place also has primo popcorn, but they don't have a butter button. Alas. Also you have to wait for movies to come out there. And I'm not sure what brand they use. All the same, at least their popcorn is always hot and well buttered.

Groove FM Winnipeg

I hate Jazz music;

Izzy Asper lurved Jazz music, and he started Groove FM in Winnipeg so that he could listen to Jazz music all the time. Why he didn't buy an iPod or Mp3 player, I dunno, he died anyways. So now Groove FM is owned by the same people who own CJOB and Power 97.

They have Isaac Hayes, aka Chef from South Park before Scientologists put a stop to that, do the promo's. Now, thats all good, but he's dead, so that's a little bit spooky. But what can you do. Then again, if Power 97 had a promo commercial with Kurt Cobain, they'd probably run that all the time too, so there you go. Necessity is the mother of retention.

My junior high school band teacher loved Jazz music. I should have dropped that class. People who like Jazz music are sociopaths.

Maybe they should just shut down groove FM and make it CJOB FM. I might actually listen to CJOB if they did that. Then again, that station is basically infomercials and moose games and whiny winnipegers bitching about the NDP, yet voting for them anyways.

Wallets

Buying a realistically useful wallet to use in Canada is difficult. I don't want to buy a womans wallet, but all the same, with Twoonies and Loonies you can't simply close up the change section of your wallet with a little buttom snap. Then I thought, you know what would be genius? Using magnets! Then I brought it up to someone else and they said that it would demagnetize bank cards. And that sucks. We need some sort of non-demagnetizing magnet. I like magnets.

Anyways, one day I'll design the perfect wallet, and I'll make billions. And I'll put it in my wallet.

Retarded Conclusions based on flawed poll questions

citynews.ca, a website out of Toronto (of course), has an article on Jim Balsillie conducting a poll asking Canadians whether they would support the Phoenix Coyotes moving to the Hamilton/Waterloo region of Ontario. Now, obviously, Canadians are going to say yes.

Now, the ridiculous thing here is that they try to spin 70% support from the prairies and western provinces as a knock against Winnipeg. I'm sorry, the question wasn't "Would you rather have an NHL team in Winnipeg or Hamilton". No, the question was, would you support the moving of Phoenix to Hamilton. Yes, most Canadians would. Would most Canadians prefer the romantic notion of the Coyotes going back home to Phoenix where they began as the Winnipeg Jets? I would say, yes, that's probably very likely. If it was a war between the two cities, I think support would go right down the middle, even in Winnipeg itself (The team is cursed, to be honest)

From the article:

Bettman, the commissioner of the NHL, had suggested that the team could return to Winnipeg.

But 70 per cent of people living out west want the team out east. And support runs deep across the country.

What! Nobody said they need for the team to be out east. They said they would support a team in Hamilton. Canadians want the team in Canada.

Of course, the strange thing is Quebec is against the idea, where only 54 per cent still support the bid. Whats up with that?

CBC Radio annoyances - "Monsoon House"

I hate ethnic comedy. People from India making jokes about India and whatever crappy food they eat in India. Elephants or Curry or whatever. Or cultural differences. I hate that shit. I hate it! I don't care! But hey, that's just me. Maybe some people like it.

What I hate most though, is when listening to CBC Radio, they have a commercial for "Monsoon House" after every show. Every hour. On the hour. And they play horrible Indian sounding music that just makes me want to stab stab stab, but that's illegal.

Happily, I heard the commercial again today. Happily I say, because its the final episode or something. That's great! No longer will I have to hear this stupid commercial.

I don't care what this show is about. I just don't. I don't care how funny Russell Peters is. His voice could carry THC sonically direct to my brain and I wouldn't find it funny or desire to listen. I don't need to be beaten over the head to listen to something. You don't see CBC going this far to promote other shows. Just crap shows that they seem to think is all great.

Unfortunately, Wikipedia says this radio show is renewed for another season. Well fuck me.

Holy crap, a show about wild hogs is on Discovery Channel. Now that's interesting. Monsoon house, call me when you have a show about wild pigs threatening your dogs in the woods. I still won't listen, but at least it will be a step in the right direction.

I Hate Hulu

As a Canadian, I hate Hulu. I hate the notion of being blocked for being in a different region. I despise that. The inter in internet stands for INTERNATIONAL. Media dimwits have to understand that if I cannot get what I want where everyone else does, I WILL PIRATE IT. I WILL. I don't give a shit about your little fiefdoms. I don't give a shit about international laws you purchase in return for campaign contributions. I CARE ABOUT ME. If I want something, you either provide it, or I will steal it. If you don't offer it at all to anybody, then I don't care. I hate having to go to CTV to watch the daily show or whatever. I don't care about the John Bore show or whatever the fuck show he has that they advertise during every "commercial break" on ctv. I will give credit to CTV at least for using flash and not some bullshit microsoft silverlight garbage. nobody uses that crap. Fuck you, Hulu. Fuck you.

Make it Over 9000 dot com

Jim Balsillie created a website to make his vision of a team in Hamilton come true. He called it makeitseven.com, presumably because he wants there to be 7 teams in Canada. More like he wants to own an NHL team in Hamilton because he'd make tons of money. But whatever, nothing wrong with making money, but calling the website makeitseven.com really irritates me.

One, it implies that we should stop at 7. Why not makeitnine.com or makeitten.com? Screw Winnipeg and Quebec City, they're not getting teams back any time soon oh no. Not if Balsillie succeeds in DRIVING UP THE PRICE OF AN NHL TEAM. Nobody else wants to pay as much as he does for a team, especially the Phoenix Coyotes formerly the Winnipeg Jets, who I have PUT A CURSE ON years ago that they shall not win a Stanley Cup until they return to Winnipeg. If Balsillie really wants to buy it and move it to that region of Ontario, well great, but stop driving up the price of a cursed Hockey Team. Nevermind one that might actually be worth it, like Pittsburgh was.

Anyways, over 100,000 idiots signed up to this website, presumably many Manitobans and Quebeckers as well. We all know that Gary Bettman is a lying douche who can't admit that he is a failure as a GM, but we don't expect any better from him at this point. But to go to this website which exists under false pretenses, and put your name in with that lot makes you people look like fools.

Getting a franchise to Hamilton/Waterloo is not going to accomplish anything. The only thing to do is to break the hold of the NHL owners over the Stanley Cup, and create a new league across Canada (and let some US states in) But that's not going to happen any time soon.

Balsillie you just look silly. I bet you've never heard that one before. Also I'm gonna buy a google phone.

The Laptop "Shot"/ Laptop pose

If you're reading articles or looking at advertisements of laptops, you'll notice a similarity in how the laptop is presented in the shot.



see a trend? This is the standard press shot laptop manufacturers release apparently. It tells you NOTHING except what the lid looks like. ooh you can somewhat see the keyboard but NOT REALLY. I suppose it shows that they really aren't trying to create something you'd want, so they feel the need to hide it. It's just a generic copy of the other netbooks/laptops out there anyways. Oh what kind of keyboard is it going to have? I DON'T KNOW!

Which is a beef of mine about netbooks, they're all missing something that would make them perfect. The 8.9" acer aspire one is probably the best value for the price (and the one I ended up buying) Though I do like the HP keyboard the most, but the HP either doens't have VGA, or it doesn't have SD slots. What the hell is wrong with them at HP?

Anyways, back to the issue, I despise the laptop shot. It is to laptops what the myspace pose is to fat girls.



so laptop people, think, do you really want to be like this person?

From the Globe and Mail:

Former Winnipeg mayor Susan Thompson, who spent 18 months negotiating to keep the Jets in the city and shed tears at the press conference announcing that team couldn't be saved, says the market still can't support a team here.

"It takes that critical mass of population that we don't have," she said. "It was a loss. It was a sad time for our community. But you just have to get past it."

This differs greatly from the way I remember it.

Susan Thompson, who was the mayor of Winnipeg at the time, did not do enough to save the Jets. All she did was cry at the press conference announcing they would be leaving. She cried because she probably felt guilty for not doing enough. Sure she can cover it up saying oh, just get past it. But no. Someone on youtube makes this point:

"In 1996, Winnipeg's mayor Susan Thompson spent $130 million of taxpayer money to prepare for the 1999 Pan American Games instead of building an arena for the Jets. The Pan-Am funds were used to improve roads and clean up Winnipeg for the 16-day event. Years later, the $130 million Winnipeg spent has amortized into nothing. Susan Thompson was thinking short-term instead of long-term. The benefits of an arena and a NHL team can be had for decades, while the benefits of new paint and fixed roads were felt for less then a single decade. Had Winnipeg not had such an incompetent mayor at the time, an arena would have been built long ago, and the Jets would still in Winnipeg"

Nobody cares or cared about the Pan-Am games. If Winnipeg had built a proper arena at the time, the Jets would still be around. It has nothing to do with the size of the metropolitan population. Our current arena is one of the top concert draws in North America. It could have been made to have 1000 more seats but whatever, its still better than the old Winnipeg Arena.

She said the NHL was "greedy".. well DUH. But the difference between cities that still have teams and those that don't? They built the damn arena. She didn't. She was too busy stuffing her face with food at Folklorama pavillions.

Discovery Channel

The show "Destroyed in seconds" is on right after "how it's made" ... if that's not clever scheduling, I don't know what is.

The more things change

damninteresting.com has an interesting article about the tragic creation of FM radio. It explains how a brilliant inventor was cheated out of profit and patents by the US government and vested wealthy interests in AM radio. The same sort of corruption is currently happening with various RIAA's/CRIA's, MPAA's and the like trying to get copyright laws passed to maintain their portfolios for infinity. Those who don't remember history, doomed to repeat it? Yes.

Dove Soap

Apparently Dove Soap makes you hideously ugly. Other soap commercials have people who look decent, but Dove has the ugliest people .. I was flipping through channels and there was some annoying woman giving really stupid motivational talks. Apparently it had something to do with Dove soap. Therefore, Dove soap makes you ugly and stupid and annoying to listen to. And even moreso, why would anyone want to listen to this shit? Ugh. Yes, nobody is perfect, but ugly people should be locked up in the attic and fed fish heads.

Damaged Bus Shelters

The city of Winnipeg sees a lot of damaged bus shelters in a year. This is based on my own visual presumption of how many I see a month. I have a solution to their problem. There will be far fewer damaged bus shelters if Winnipeg Transit ACTUALLY PUTS OUT ENOUGH BUSES FOR PEOPLE TO GET WHERE THEY'RE GOING! I swear. Every single route you take, if you want to transfer, you JUST MISSED YOUR BUS AND ANOTHER WON'T COME FOR 20-60 MINUTES!!! Which wouldn't be so bad once in a while, but EVERY TIME? It makes me want to break every single window in the bus shack.