Month: April 2013

Chrissy Amphlett, singer of Australian rock band the Divinyls, has died from breast cancer and multiple sclerosis at the age of 53. She and the Divinyls are best known here in North America for their 1991 hit single, I Touch Myself, a tune that found its way onto both the alt-rock and pop charts, the dance floor at Crazy Go Nuts University’s Clark Hall Pub whenever I DJ’d, and Toronto’s Kickass Karaoke nights, where karaoke impresario Carson T. Foster made it one of his signature numbers.

Let’s not forget this scene from 1997’s Austin Powers, International Man of Mystery, in wehich Austin uses his mojo against the fembots:

Among the Australian stars leading the tribute to her are Midnight Oil’s frontman-turned-parliamentarian, Peter Garrett:

Farewell to the finest of singers, great performer, a true star #chrissieamphlett

— Peter Garrett AM MP (@PGarrettMP) April 22, 2013

And Russell Crowe, who’s acted with her in the musical Blood Brothers:

Dear Chrissie, The last time I saw you was in the Botanic Gardens, loving life and reciting verse. That’s how I’ll remember you, your boy, R

— Russell Crowe (@russellcrowe) April 22, 2013

On her official Facebook page, you find this quote from her:

Unfortunately the last 18 months have been a real challenge for me having breast cancer and MS and all the new places that will take you.

You become sadly a patient in a world of waiting rooms, waiting sometimes hours for a result or an appointment.

You spend a lot time in cold machines… hospital beds, on your knees praying for miracles, operating rooms, tests after tests, looking at healthy people skip down the street like you once did and you took it all for granted and now wish you could do that.

I have not stopped singing throughout all this in my dreams and to be once again performing and doing what I love to do.

Her husband Charley Drayton said:

Hers was a life of passion and creativity; she always lived it to the fullest. With her force of character and vocal strength she paved the way for strong, sexy, outspoken women.

Requiescat in pace, Chrissy.

Last week, I saw this ad:

Click to see what this ad’s all about.

“We offer more of the things you want,” it reads, “like private bathrooms. 2,800 jobs. 2,800 rooms. 2,800 bathrooms.” It turns out that it’s not that everyone who works at this place gets  their own executive bathroom. Instead, if you work there — which happens to be ConocoPhillips’ Surmont Phase 2 Project in the Athabasca oil sands in northern Alberta, which is pretty remote — you’d have to live on or near the site. In many similar setups, it means living in dorm-style accommodations, often with shared bathrooms. The video on the site seems to indicate that one of the perks is that the living accommodations are more hotel-like, meaning that you can “shit, shower, shave” in the privacy of your very own in-room can.

Pointer Pointer is a site that pulls off a clever trick, but it pulls it off well: it displays pictures of people pointing right at where the cursor happens to be. Go over there and give it a try; it’s oddly mesmerizing.

Boston Police tweeted their capture of Dzhokar Tsarnaev, suspected participant in the Boston Marathon bombing, in a rhyme worth of Dr. Seuss. I thought it was worthy of a graphic treatment:

In case you wanted to see the original, here it is:

CAPTURED!!! The hunt is over. The search is done. The terror is over. And justice has won. Suspect in custody.

— Boston Police Dept. (@Boston_Police) April 20, 2013

Here’s a Dr. Seuss book that might be appropriate for Tsarnaev right about now:

Easy to say, considerably more difficult — but necessary — to do.

Ah, showbiz. Due to some last-minute changes, the Dead Red Velvet show taking place tonight at 10:00 Eastern (UTC-4) at OnAirGigs.com needs an opening act, and I’ve just been “voluntold” to do it. If you happen to be online tonight at 9:30 Eastern (still UTC-4), tune in to OnAirGigs.com and see what I come up with!

It’s odd that the most bang-on, if you’ll pardon the term, article on the recent ruling on gun control in the U.S. was written by The Onion. Odd, but not surprising. The full thing’s over at The Onion — check it out!

I won.

In fact, I would go so far as to say that I absolutely fucking walloped you.

Now, even though you got absolutely annihilated here, I bet you actually thought you had a pretty good chance this time around. Four months ago, after 20 children were senselessly gunned down in the one place they should have been safe, you said to yourself, “Enough is enough. We’re going to get to work and make some serious changes to the gun laws in this country so that this kind of thing never happens again.” I could tell you all really wanted to win, but I knew you would lose.

The truth is, you never had a fucking chance. I had Congress in my back pocket the entire time, and so when that big gun control proposal reared its ugly head, we gradually chipped away at it, snipping away provisions for an assault rifle ban and restrictions on high-capacity magazines until all that was left was the idea of expanding background checks to keep military-grade killing implements from falling into the hands of criminals and the mentally unhinged, a relatively innocuous measure supported by 90 percent of Americans.

Once again, be sure to read the full article.

Update: I cut the article down from full-blown copypasta down to some excerpts.