So famed writer/director Kevin Smith has rolled in to town for two of the Q & A sessions he’s known for at Roy Thomson Hall. He’s also attending a mini film festival dubbed “Kevin Smith Fest” at the Bloor Cinema. The last screening of which is probably wrapping up as I write this.

I bought tickets for the Saturday Roy Thompson hall gig months ago with the hope that my good friend Chris would be able to come with me. Chris is the biggest Kevin Smith fan I know and is the person that introduced me to his films. Alas, Chris lives in Montreal and wasn’t able to swing in to town.

Anyway, my friend Nelson came with me. To my surprise he was a fan of Kevin Smith which I was pretty happy to hear because at first thought, I couldn’t think of anyone besides Chris and my friend Steve (who couldn’t come) that would be remotely interested in Kevin Smith’s humour let alone Kevin Smith.

A large portion of the show was devoted to Kevin Smith’s seemingly new and perhaps all too convenient infatuation with Wayne Gretzky. He gave various reasons as to why The Great One is so great. Like how one of the videos he watched show Wayne’s dad, Walter Gretzky, recounting a story about how Wayne told him one day that one particular kid on the team had never scored a goal and that he was going to try his hardest to help him score a goal. “Well did he?” asked Kevin Smith’s partner in crime Jason Mews. “Let’s just say he did!” replied an undeterred Kevin Smith who really wasn’t sure of the answer but knew there was only one possible answer.

One interesting thing I learned from the show was that a lot of Kevin Smith’s fans are… larger people. I wasn’t really all that surprised though, after all, he’s quite a large man himself. There were some attractive people in the crowd but a majority of them weren’t.

Anyway, being that this is Canada, the Q & A session didn’t quite last the 4 to 8 hours that they apparently last in the US. Which was a good thing because by the end it was starting to lose steam. He had cut it with the Gretzky stuff for the last hour and with 20 minutes left in the show he answered 5 questions whereas in the beginning he was taking 20 minutes to answer a single question.

That said, I’m really glad I went to see him.

If Bill Gates is optimistic, then I am too.

That talk touches on two things I’ve given a great deal of thought to – the problem with medical research dollars going to the wrong things and to the idea that the education system could be a little better.

First and foremost, I’m surprised he mentioned balding over Viagra… he probably just wanted to keep the talk PG-13 or something. To take the research “preference” thing a little further, research dollars don’t go in to fighting diseases and problems that face third world nations because if a cure was found, the corporation in question would probably be guilted in to giving away the cure for free. This is essentially the same as the balding and Viagra reason but takes it a step further since now it could actually cost the pharmaceutical company dollars to do a good deed.

The teacher problem has always baffled me. I was fortunate enough to have some great teachers during the course of my life but there were some teachers, mainly supply teachers, that really shocked and baffled me. Like that Mr. Culp that marked up the attendance sheets and that short Indian guy that was really smart but couldn’t couldn’t teach something to another human being if his life depended on it.

Maybe one day I’ll become a teacher… one day…

So Barack Obama was elected as the 44th President of the United States of America yesterday evening and everyone seems to be really happy about it across the globe.

I’m pretty happy as well for some strange reason that I can’t explain. I think it has to do with the fact that things are looking bleak these days and all the blame for this has fallen on the current President, George W. Bush and his government. I read a stat yesterday saying that the state of the economy has been a decent guideline for predicting the election outcome for 80% or so of the past elections. The idea being that if things are going well, the current President (or the person running on behalf of his party) is re-elected. If things are going poorly, the party in control is flipped. Considering that things are the bleakest they’ve been in a long time, it’s no surprise that the country decided on their new leader they way did.

Another big issue was the race of Mr. Obama. I honestly had my doubts regarding the outcome. Would the United States of America actually elect a black man as their President? Have things really come far enough from the days where people of colour weren’t even allowed to use the same washroom as others or sit at the front of a bus? I think reports are showing that there was record voter turnout yesterday. Chances the educated people of America are the ones that made up the difference this time around. I doubt other parts of world really care. Silly Americans.

Anyway, we’ll see what Barack Obama and his government can muster up starting January 20th, 2009.

So the city thought it would be a good idea to try this at the intersection of Yonge and Dundas:

The city says they’re going to monitor it and make adjustments as needed. I could have swore I heard them say that they weren’t going to allow pedestrians to cross with the cars. But that’s mainly done to allow cars to make right turns easier which you can’t do in that intersection at all. I’m sure they spend a ton of money determining if this is a good idea or not .

Went to go see NIN during the week. The concert was pretty awesome and filled with tons of new material since Year Zero, Ghosts and The Slip have all been released since they last came to town. Not a good a show as the Foos, but nothing will ever be that good . Their stage set up had 3 super wide screens that, through the wonders of technology, were transparent. They did some pretty cool visual tricks with them like creating auras around the band members and a rainy environment. The set list was:

01 999,999 – The Slip
02 1,000,000 – The Slip
03 Letting You – The Slip
04 Discipline – The Slip
05 March of the Pigs – The Downward Spiral
06 Head Down – The Slip
07 The Frail – The Fragile
08 Closer – The Downward Spiral
09 Gave Up – Broken
10 The Warning – Year Zero
11 Vessel – Year Zero
12 Ghosts 5 – Ghosts
13 Ghosts 6 – Ghosts
14 Ghosts 19 – Ghosts
15 Piggy – The Downward Spiral
16 The Greater Good – Year Zero
17 Pinion – Broken
18 Wish – Broken
19 Terrible Lie – Pretty Hate Machine
20 Survivalism – Year Zero
21 The Big Come Down – The Fragile
22 Ghosts 31 – Ghosts
23 Only – With Teeth
24 The Hand That Feeds – With Teeth
25 Head Like A Hole – Pretty Hate Machine
26 Echoplex – The Slip
27 God Given – Year Zero
28 The Good Soldier – Year Zero
29 Hurt – The Downward Spiral
30 In This Twilight – Year Zero

spanning roughly two and a half hours. Kudos to whoever figured out the titles for the Ghost tracks, they all sound the same to me. Then again I don’t even think I’ve really listened to that album.

The ticket purchasing process was pretty cool for this show as well. Registered users of nin.com go a special presale that netted them a super sweet looking special ticket with their name on it. Hopefully I’ll remember to scan or take a picture of it soon and add it to this post for prosperity. This of course was to foil scalpers and get try fans good tickets. The sad thing was that while I was supposed to present ID to pick up the tickets and bring the credit card that was used for the purchase, they guy at the box office window didn’t care to see my ID or my credit card – he only cared about the the confirmation email printout. I didn’t even have to show ID when I used the ticket to enter the venue. I’m guessing the idea was that it would be a pain for a scalper/eBayer to sell a ticket that they didn’t have prior to the day of the show I would have loved to see them not only ask for my ID when the tickets were used but also ensuring that I entered the venue but I guess that could be somewhat ballbreaking for the legitimate concert goer.

All in all, a great experience though .