• Weight. You will gain it. This is inevitable, much like the sunrise, city traffic, and bad haircuts. In fact, this is the time of year during which you will probably gain the most weight. After starving yourself for a solid week, and then fainting during your first Pro Fitness trial membership visit, food will cease to be optional. Enjoy it. Lots of it.
• Money. You might decide that this is the year to stop spending money so carelessly. You will think this is a novel idea, and text all your friends the glorious news. At 15 cents per message. Whoops.
• Sports. We live in Canada. This time of year is generally called “Winter”. It is the time of year when snow covers the ground, the wind cuts like razor blades, and people toboggan drunk down hills in cardboard boxes. Inexplicably, it is also a time during which a surprisingly large amount of Canadians decide to take up traditional “summer” sports, like golf, basbeall, and competitive table tennis. Icicles dangling from my beard, be damned — real character is built on the iceflows of our streets, and in the snowdrifts of our parks.
• Literature. Somehow, amidst the drunken revelry and ponging of beer, you will decide that you miss the smell of a musty old book. Perusing Hello Canada and Archie comics at the grocery checkout is no longer cutting it. However, now might be a good time to mention that Homer’s Odyssey is not, in fact, an anthology of Simpson’s episodes.
• Music. By some strange stroke of fate, you are entranced by the Black Eyed Peas’ new years performance. Nevermind that Fergie is cosplaying as Wolverine — there is clearly nothing cooler than becoming a musical artist. You will buy a guitar, which is doomed to lie beneath your bed, hidden away until you finish college. You will learn one chord, and break a string. This is living the dream.
• Women. Each new year brings with it the foolish assumption that the arbitrary turning of a calendar page increases your chance of finding a mate. Perhaps, you think, this is the year that Sally Mathers in the third row of PHL-322 will finally talk to you. However, a woman’s memory lasts longer than 365 days. That time you spilled Dr. Pepper on her notes is forever. No passage of time will change that. This, nor any other, is “the year” you will finally find a woman.

That is all. Heed my advice. Happy decade.

I will simply never grow tired of watching this.

After what seems like weeks of nagging, I’ve finally given in, and decided to get my act together for Canadian Music Week. It’s no exaggeration to say that there’s hundreds of bands playing in Toronto this week – and my friends want to know exactly which of those bands I’ll be seeing. It’s a tall order, sorting through more artists than I can shake a stick at, scattered across a multitude of venues; but without further ado, here’s The Horrible Fanfare’s Canadian Music Week Itinerary.

Also known as THFCMWI. Frankly, it’s the prettiest acronym I’ve seen in ages.

Wednesday. I’ll spend the morning, wandering the streets in a sleepy-eyed stupor, in search of my media credentials and complementary wristband. Later in the evening, Canadian Music Week kicks off with a bang, which means I’m apparently supposed to brush shoulders with other journalists and artists in the industry. Yet, I plan on eschewing the whole “socialization” thing, because it reminds me of socialists, and CMW is clearly run by communists. Instead, I’ll most likely be seeing Sloan, who will be playing a show at the Mod Club, starting at 8PM. If all goes according to plan, I might even be able to get a last minute press pass. At the very least, I can woo drunken women with my expensive camera.

Thursday. There’s a lot of bands playing tonight, and quite a few have names I don’t quite recognize. Others still have names that scare me. Then there are the unfortunate few who possess both. Nevertheless, I may just venture out to see Charles Spearin’s Happiness Project, at some obscure bar apparently located near John Street. I’m told this isn’t actually an official part of CMW, but I don’t quite care, because it’s Charles Spearin, of Broken Social Scene fame. As we all know, that band is the musical equivalent of a warm bowl of soup, which makes them pretty damn awesome. It would be more awesome if my friend Melody was there, but she seems to think the Wednesday show will be cooler. Little does she know, there is no show cooler than one in which I am attending.

Friday. Not much going on tonight. Rather, there’s lots going on, but I won’t be there. I hear there is a party going down, and I can’t keep the women waiting, can I, now? Though, should all the women really turn out to be my male friends posing at women, in a feeble attempt to convince me to hang out and talk about my feelings again, I might check out Green Go at the Wrongbar.

Saturday. This is where the magic happens, people. I’ve got two choices in the afternoon; The Rural Alberta Advantage is playing an all-ages, CMW showcase in the afternoon, somewhere around dinner, apparently. Unless my memory is faulty, Lisa Lobsinger, who’s toured with BSS, apparently played with them at one point. (It appears my memory is faulty indeed – she’s from Alberta, and that’s about it!) Or, perhaps she still does! Nevertheless, I liked what I heard on the internets earlier today. Otherwise, I can catch one of CMW’s premiere film screenings – specifically, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Undead. Come on, people – it’s Hamlet, with vampires.

Moving into the evening, I’d like to check out Hey Rosetta, at the Canadian Room showcase. Part of me simply wants to hear the band members sporadically speak in different tongues, though I recall they make some half-decent music. It may also be part of the trend I seem to be following this year, which states that I should see as many east-coast bands as possible. But later on, I’ll move back over to the Horseshoe Tavern, where I’ll reunite once again with Melody for some Young Galaxy. Part of the Arts&Crafts family of musicians, I’ve been listening to these guys and girls for a couple months now, so I’m looking forward to finally seeing them live. I’m also looking forward to using my media pass to its full potential. Meeting bands is always a cool experience.

So, there you have it! To all those who have nagged me, I’m truly sorry that I didn’t quite post this until the week of. But take solace in the fact that you know exactly what I’m doing, and now have the ability to appropriately stalk me during this weeks festivities. And to those who I don’t know personally, I invite you to do the same! It’s always nice meeting new people; drop me a line!

Today I finally managed to check out one of Toronto’s most beloved and well-known comic book stores, the Silver Snail. Located on Queen Street West, just before Spadina Avenue, it was high time I finally decided to wander inside, considering I’ve passed it by quite often over these past couple months. At the very least, a quick venture inside would perhaps serve to increase my “geek cred” – a term which my good friend Emily never quite lets me forget.

First and foremost, there’s a reason the Silver Snail is one of Toronto’s most respected comic book shops – it has everything. Even for someone like myself, who’s a relative newbie to the world of graphic novels, could appreciate a great deal of what was held inside. Numerous issues of Neil Gaiman’s Sandman were off to a corner, albeit, out of order, while the latest issue of DMZ sat alongside Action Comics and other contemporaries. Both are graphic novels that I’m itching to start, having heard nothing but great things. This is assuming I don’t die before finishing Transmetropolitan – long, fevered reading sessions usually mean I forget to eat sleep, and perhaps even breath when it comes to Warren Ellis’ impressive creation. I’m sure I’ve skipped a few heartbeats as well, the byproduct of fierce concentration.

Yet, when it comes to comics and graphic novels, the one thing that appears to set the Silver Snail apart is its huge back catalog of issues. Practically any comic you can think of, from almost any time period, is probably in stock. Of course, some of these issues, both vintage and rare, can fetch quite a commanding price; the thirty-second issue of Adventure Comics, apparently dating back to the mid-thirties, was prices at $5400.

What amused me most about the Silver Snail is that, despite what the name might imply, it is not simply a comic shop. In fact, the shop has what is probably the largest collection of old, obscure, and geeky action figures I have ever seen. It’s jarring, at first, to see $400 busts of Yoda, or Ridley Scott’s Alien adorning the top of the comic-filled shelves. Yet, a little closer to the ground, within reach of us mere mortals, are the real gems – 12” poseable figures from Stargate SG-1, a Wesley Crusher action figure, of ST:TNG fame, and even obscure, import Japanese transformers. It’s all a little overwhelming, but really makes me wish I was a kid again, an arsenal of action figures at my disposal.

While my first trip was a relatively short one, it was a treat to see everything the store had to offer. Make no mistake – as soon as I’m finished with Transmet, I’ll probably be headed right back to the Silver Snail to see what else I can dig up for my comic-reading pleasure. Though, be forewarned; I might even come back with a Richard Dean Anderson action figure of my own.

There are people who say that within every computer lies the magic smoke – the very power that gives life to a PC’s technological innards. Let it be known that I would like to find these people, and do horrible, unspeakable things to both them, and their families. There’s a car battery waiting in the garage, and my Russian neighbour is currently taking a cheese grater to the sheep for some steel wool. They must show me the source of this power – my computer’s life may just hang in the balance.

Today was the day the magic smoke escaped, and my motherboard began its slow, crippling descent into technological irrelevance. What started as a routine reformat and reinstall has quickly turned into a terrible mess. Normally, I don’t mind sorting through mess – being able to poke around the inside of my desktop computer is somehow my idea of a good time. That, and wrestling Apple Store Geniuses with my bare hands.

AMD Phenom II. Overclocked to a record-breaking 6.5GHz. In the corner, my PC weeps.

This time around, I actually don’t have the slightest clue as to what’s going on. A few examples of what’s been plaguing me…

• Overclocking the FSB, while possible at first, isn’t any longer. While I can clock my FSB at 1333MHz, it always reverts back to Auto. Overclocking yields no results.
• Moreso, there are strange temperature discrepancies, where the Southbridge and VCore voltages will spike, seemingly at random. This may play a part.
• Running with 4GB of RAM now causes a hardware failure upon installing Vista. This is Vista x64, too.
• Running with less than 4GB of RAM allows me to boot. Installing Vista is another story – It’s akin to watching donkeys go whitewater rafting on a river of molasses. That’s if I don’t BSOD while loading setup files.

So, let’s assume that, by some miracle, I actually boot into Vista and get some things installed. None of that really matters, anyways, because I’ll still get a BSOD relating to the nVidia storage drivers. It’s not a matter of if such a crash will occur, but when.

Make no mistake, a good number of these problems have been present since I built the PC almost three years ago. The voltages, for instance, gave me grief when I first built the PC, which was what discouraged me from overclocking in the first place. The errors that I’m getting with the nVidia storage drivers are curious as well, because I had similar, storage related issues running OS X on the machine last year, despite the fact that the components had been proven to work. It seems like my second stab at overclocking simply magnified these issues, and made these current symptoms noticeable a lot earlier than they may have been otherwise.

It seems I’m on the hunt for a new motherboard now, which I’ll most likely pick up this weekend. Who knows, I may even come back with one of these.