Car Buying
Mood:  irritated
Topic: People
Well, right now I'm in the midst of buying my first brand new car. Let me tell you, its a frustrating experience; you always dream of buying a new car with everything you want. You never imagine all of the bad experiences that come along with it though. Just imagine, you finally have the money and financial security to buy a new car and you decide that its time for you to buy. First you must sift through all of the useless information and pushy advertising that is out there, and decide what is right for you. It took me over a year to finally decide exactly what I wanted, and believe me I changed my mind at least twice a week, and sometimes twice a day. I finally decided to buy a 2005 Honda Civic Sedan, so I went to my local Honda dealership, and within 5 seconds of walking on the lot I was approached by a friendly young man who offered to sell me a new car even though he was in the used car department and he claimed, "He makes no money selling new cars." Is this a literal statement? Does this guy actually think I believe him? If they made no money selling new cars, why the hell are there 15 guys working in the typical showroom?

The first lesson of car buying is, don't believe a word the salesman says. It must be tough to be a salesman. Imagine going home and telling your wife things like, "Listen, what do I have to do to get you in my bed tonight?" or "I can sell you my french fries, but I have to charge you an extra $5 for teh ketchup." Anyway, I talked to the guy and he gave me a set price and I said thanks and I'll think about it. A few days later I drove over 45 minutes to a Honda dealership in the next city and test drove one there. The salesman there said that he would give it to me for a little less. I said thank you and we'll be in touch.

I at the point where I'll give the first guy one more chance to beat the 2nd guys price, and then I'll make my choice.

The whole point is, this is such a frustrating exercise and it shouldn't be. Everyone feels like they are getting ripped off, and you never feel good when you talk to the salespeople. I have a solution to this problem; the manufactures should make themselves very transparent and we should all know exactly what it costs to build one of these vehicles.

Why I used to like Nickelback, but now hate them: Or the specialness of country music
I've been developing this theory for the past few months and this is the gist of it, the reason I dislike bands like Nickelback, the now defunct Creed, their new formation Alter Bridge, and Good Charlotte is because they write their own songs, but they write them so that millions of people can relate to them.

First I'll give you some back story. I used to absolutely love Nickelback. Now being from Canada I was able to see them even before they blew up south of the border. I listened to them when 'The State' was their newest release and I saw them in a small venue at that time and I thought they were awesome. I thought they were so good that I believed they outshone Everclear who were the headliner of that show. I thought their songs were great traditional straight-up rock songs that were about real experiences. When I listened to 'Leader of Men' I could imagine those Chad Kroeger sitting around with his buddies taking mushrooms. Then they released 'Silver Side Up' with all its pop filled songs and I managed to overlook the shoddy lyrics of the songs and just rock out to them. The straw that broke the camel's back though, came when they released their new album 'Long Road'. By all accounts this CD is just mindless pop drivel, most of which sounds very much like the Songs on Silver Side Up. There songs like 'Feeling Way Too Damn Good' just seem absolutely unbelievable to me. It seems like the lyricist sat down and thought, how can I write a song that almost anyone in the world an relate to? And then he wrote some lines and threw them together with a few riffs and repeated the process 10 or 12 times and created this new album. The problem I have with this is that the members of the band would have difficulty relating to the lyrics.

After think about this for a while I thought, how can I bash Nickelback and the other bands of their ilk and yet unabashedly love country artists like Kenny Chesney who doesn't write his own songs but sings of themes which everyone can relate to? My conclusion is simple, country artists tend to live their music, and they tend have an upbeat attitude to their songs.

So in general, I am more likely to listen to a small indie band like Death Cab for Cutie who write amazing songs about their personal experiences rather than Good Charlotte who try to sing songs about problems everyone but themselves have.

Sunday Night Football
Mood:  irritated
Topic: Sports
I watched tonight's Sunday night football game between the Baltimore Ravens and the Cleveland Browns (Sunday Nov. 7) and I was astonished at the the level of praise given to Jeff Garcia by ESPN's Sunday night crew. They were falling all over themselves to issue high praise to a guy who was let go by the 49'ers in favour of Tim Rattay. TIM RATTAY! for goodness sakes. Don't get me wrong, I like Jeff Garcia; I live in Canada so I was fortunate enough to watch him while he played in the CFL. I think he is a talented quarterback, but they were prasing this guy like he was the 2nd coming of Johnny U.

Over the last few years I've noticed that the announcers for the Sunday night telecast will pick out one player from each of the teams, visit with him before the game, and then preform the equivalent of broadcasting fellatio on the guy during the game. It is getting so ridiculous now because most Sunday night teams seem to be 2nd rate, and the players they pick are also mid level guys most of the time. Anyway, I've had enough of it; from now on I am either going to refuse to watch the Sunday night game, or watch it with no sound.