No, I'm not dead

... but Mitch Hedberg, one of my favourite comedians, is.
I just found this out the other day, and I'm kinda bummed. He was the master of the one-liner, and always looked like he was doing his set stoned. Here's a couple of his gems...

"I played golf... I did not get a hole in one, but I did hit a guy. That's way more satisfying..."

"I know a lot about cars. I can look at a car's headlights and tell you exactly which way it's coming."

"I don't have a girlfriend. But I do know a woman who'd be mad at me for saying that."

"Mr. Pibb is a poor imitation of Dr. Pepper. Dude didn't even get his degree."

He's got some videos you can check out HERE. I'm busy gathering all my holiday snaps, so a lengthy entry is upcoming...

later

On blogging and bashing the Leafs

My Friday column was all about sports blogs, since I forgot that I needed to write something for the paper. Whoops. I guess it's true what they say - "neccessity is the mother of invention and slapped-together articles." Or something like that...

But during my, ahem, "research," I came across some really interesting blogs - like Michael Lyon's.

(Click on the banner).
This guy was an embedded journalist and has some amazing stories from Iraq, like this one. My kind of journalist . . . although he is definitely pro-American. Not pro-war or pro-bush, but he identifies and supports the soldiers he lived with. He also took one of the most moving pictures of the year - Time magazine ranked it No. 1 (see HERE) during his time over there. If you have some time, read all about it.

Anyways, here's the crappy story I wrote for Friday's paper. I have a long way to go before I'm in shootouts with terrorists in Iraq.

On blogging and bashing the Leafs

Q: So why do they drink out of glasses in Toronto?
A: Because all the Cups are in Montreal.
Ba-dump-pa! Try the veal . . . I’m here all week, folks.
Right about now, as you are reading this, my managing editor is cursing a mean blue streak and devising ways to send me on assignment to Kazakhstan.
Not that the first paragraph was an example of amateurish journalism (it is) or, at the very least, was a bad joke (it most definitely is). But the aforementioned Mr. John Harding, a long-suffering Maple Leafs fan, didn’t find the joke very amusing when I told it to him last night. And I know it’ll have even less appeal while he’s drinking his morning coffee.
Yep, I hear Kazakhstan is nice this time of year.
It used to be that, as a columnist, I had near sole propriety of the domain of public opinion. I had a forum where I could voice my views, such as the perennial suckiness of the Leafs, and broadcast it to a large audience.
But the advent of the popularity of blogging has created a whole new breed of pseudo-sports journalists, to the point where CNN even has a segment where anchors read various blogs.
(Blogging, for those of you old enough to wear bifocals, is an online journal — a “web-log,” so to speak. It gained popularity about five years ago, but the number of blogs in the “blogosphere” has exploded in recent years.)
There are blogs from soldiers in Iraq, news blogs, gardening blogs, first-baby blogs, cooking blogs, and personal blogs that are just ways for friends and family to keep in touch.
Sports blogs are probably the most popular and well-read sites on the Net, full of humour, rumours and tidbits that most pro athletes wouldn’t want as public knowledge.
Every morning, after I’m done scanning the headlines in the paper — and reading the comics, of course — I usually grab my coffee and spend an hour or so cruising my favourite blogs.
Here’s just a few:
Badjocks.com: Always good for digging up dirt. Where else can you read about what actually happened on the Vikings’ infamous boat cruise? Plus stories about goats and cheerleaders. Really.
TheHaterNation.com: As loath as I am to promote a site that boastfully admits of its disdain for my Oakland Raiders, this is one of the best football blogs around.
Hockeyfan.blogspot.com: Mike, a 28-year-old broadcaster from Pennsylvania, has a pretty insightful blog, despite his somewhat disturbing crush on Team USA hockey player Kathleen Kauth.
Redmile.blogspot.com: The Okanagan is full of transplanted Calgary Flames fans. Greg, from Victoria, has a photo-filled site, but has a somewhat disturbing crush on the Flames.
Blogmaverick.com: It makes sense that the only billionaire who made his money off the internet and owns an NBA team has a blog. Mark Cuban is very accessible — even personally
answering fans’ e-mails — and his exchanges with Kenny Smith and Charles Barkley are classic.
The two best blogs are best left for last.
TheMightyMJD.com: “Slangin’ knowledge since 2003.” One of the funniest and well-written blogs out there, covering every major sport. His take on Donovan McNabb’s feud with the NAACP had me snorting hot coffee through my nose. Which ain’t fun, lemme tell ya.
Deadspin.com: Arguably the most popular general sports blog on the Net. One comment on the Vikings’ latest woes, with four players charged with misdemeanours Thursday: “The good news is that there were no federal charges filed. The bad news is that next year’s rookie party is going to be at a playground, with Grimace, the Hamburgler and a smattering of very nervous minimum wage McDonald’s workers.”
Or, of course, you can start your own, (Blogger.com is a good place to begin) and tell the world just how the Canadiens are a way better team than the Leafs.
I did.

Talk about Bad Santas...

40 drunken Santas go on crime rampage in New Zealand’s largest city
WELLINGTON, N.Z. (AP) — A group of 40 people dressed in Santa Claus outfits, many of them drunk, went on a rampage through Auckland, New Zealand’s largest city, robbing stores, assaulting security guards and urinating from highway overpasses, police said Sunday.
The rampage, dubbed Santarchy by local newspapers, began early Saturday afternoon when the men, wearing ill-fitting Santa costumes, threw beer bottles and urinated on cars from an overpass, said Auckland Central Police spokesman Noreen Hegarty.
She said the men then rushed through a central city park, overturning garbage containers, throwing bottles at passing cars and spraying graffiti on office buildings.
One man climbed the mooring line of a cruise ship before being ordered down by the captain. Other Santas, objecting when the man was arrested, attacked security staff who were later treated by paramedics, Hegarty said.
The remaining Santas entered another downtown convenience store and carried off beer and soft drinks.
“They came in, said 'Merry Christmas’ and then helped themselves,” store owner Changa Manakynda said.
Two security guards were treated for cuts after being struck by beer bottles, Hegarty said. Three people, including the man who climbed on the cruise ship, were arrested and charged with drunkenness and disorderly behavior.
Alex Dyer, a spokesman for the group, said Santarchy is a worldwide movement designed to protest the commercialization of Christmas.

Video on JJ's blog? GASP

Check it out! Click here!

And there will be more to come, my friends... more to come...

Cause I'm the KING

A Christmas Greeting

Yeah, I'm down with the King

DMC
Originally uploaded by smoove_J.

Minus Run, DMC prepares solo album Checks, Thugs and Rock & Roll

By Raquiyah Mays
NEW YORK (AP) — Once again, DMC is in the place to be.
The 41-year-old rapper and former Run-DMC member is preparing to release his first solo album, Checks, Thugs & Rock and Roll, which features a wide array of musicians from Kid Rock to Doug E. Fresh to Fieldy from Korn.
The man who introduced himself to the world in the early ’80s on Sucker MCs with “I’m DMC in the place to be” answered the following questions in a recent interview:
AP: How did you pick the album title?
DMC: Checks, because everybody looks at hip-hop and says it’s about money. And I call it `thugs’ because everybody seems to want to be meaner or rougher or tougher than the next brother, running with the posses and if you rhyme about this guy on a record he’s gonna shoot that guy. What they don’t really understand is it’s rock & roll. So I call it Checks, Thugs, and Rock & Roll, because I’m the missing ingredient, the rock ’n’ roll ingredient that’s gonna bring the vision, versatility, creativity and consciousness back to the rap game.
AP: Does this approach have anything to do with being 41 years old?
DMC: It irks me when I hear these rap cats say, `When I get 30 years old I don’t even know if I’ma be doing rap.’ That’s like saying because Eric Clapton is over 50 he’s not supposed to play the guitar anymore. So I’m just trying to evolve the music or go with the music and let the world know how a B-boy becomes a B-man.
AP: So how do you do it?
DMC: Know what it is? You cannot give up. You gotta be confident enough to know that music, you’re gonna keep making it. How did Bob Dylan do it? You gotta keep your associations and your affiliations and you gotta keep it real. You can’t be out there jumping around with these young cats. You can’t be out there trying to look like the young cats. You just gotta make your music. My motivation is to be making music until I’m 80 or 90. I’m going out like Sinatra.
AP: When did you realize that you were a B-man and not a B-boy?
DMC: When I turned on the radio to the popular rap stations and said, `I don’t like this no more.’ That was my awakening when I couldn’t relate anymore. Let’s say 10 years ago.
AP: What’s the typical day of a 40-something MC?
DMC: A typical day is you wake up and you go, `Thank God I made it to another day.’ At 40 whether you get married or not, it’s about the kids and work and you wake up and you try to figure out where do you fit in. The good thing about being a 40-something MC is actually it’s like being a kid all over again. because everything is new to you. You’re like a baby that wants to touch and investigate everything. And that helps your creativity. A lot of people would expect me to say lemme get with P Diddy or Jermaine Dupri. But what I don’t want to be doing is jumping around in the video with them or be seen in the club scene or pool party or sitting there talking about my jewels. I been there done that. A day in the life of a 40-something MC is a day in real life reality. In the 20s your having fun so that’s your talking about. But when you’re 40 you got other concerns in your mind and you want to express them concerns. Like my new album is really personal. I deal with suicide, politics, war, relationships.
AP: What do you do less of at 40?
DMC: Drugs. (Laughs.) I do lesser drugs. But see what’s so crazy is in ’91 I was diagnosed with pancreitis because I used to drink a case of 40-ounces a day to myself. Every day. The doctor said, `If you drink again you die.’ So from ’91-’99 I didn’t have a drink. Then one day I was in Germany, I took one sip. And then I drank three glasses that night. Went to the club, had vodka and orange juice, rationalizing that it was juice. From that day on, from ’99 to April of last year, was Hennessey, Remy Martin, Hypnotiq, I went on a drinking binge. Then it got bad with my family, my wife and friends. So last year, I went into rehab for alcoholism in April. They taught you about your brain cells, hereditary diseases. See, since I’m adopted I don’t know my parents — they could be alcoholics. It’s hereditary. So once I understood what was going on, I don’t have to drink anymore.
AP: Well congratulations on taking steps to stop drinking.
DMC: When (Jam Master) Jay died I (was) thinking, `It’s over.’ But it’s a whole bigger plan than that. It happened for a reason. Waiting ’til last year to go to rehab happened for a reason. It gave me a clear head and clear focus to really step up to my responsibility. Now I’m ready to come out. Instead of a vocalist, I’m a spokalist. Cause I speak and I have something to say.

He's probably praying

Five westerners, aid workers from the group Christian Peacemaker Teams, were captured in Iraq earlier this week. One of them, Tom Fox, kept a blog of his experiences. As soon as he arrived in Baghdad in October 2004, he had contemplated the possibility that he would be kidnapped.
“I am to stand firm against the kidnapper as I am to stand firm against the soldier,” he wrote in one of his first entries. "Does that mean I walk into a raging battle to confront the soldiers? Does that mean I walk the streets of Baghdad with a sign saying American for the Taking? No to both counts. But if Jesus and Gandhi are right, then I am asked to risk my life and if I lose it to be as forgiving as they were when murdered by the forces of Satan.”

Check it out... it's pretty interesting

www.waitinginthelight.blogspot.com