If you mention The Rheostatics to the average 20-something or 30-something Canadian, they will usually nod and mutter “damn, that was a great band”. If you mention The Rheostatics to the average United Statesian of the same age, they will blink at you and say “huh?”

Which is too bad, because the Rheostatics definitely were a great band. And really, if you mention The Tragically Hip to the same groups of people you will probably get exactly the same response, so it isn’t much of an indictment. The only real difference there is that The Hip have sold a gajillion records in the Great White North, and The Rheostatics sold, well, some.

But I digress. The point here is that The Rheostatics opened for The Hip on a national tour and Dave Bidini – as thoughtful and as literate of a frontman as you will find – kept a tour diary on the trip. Later he mixed it up with interviews and stories from the forefathers of Canadian Rock – guys who did the same trip, but at a time when the industry and the sound was not entirely established, the heroes of side B of innumerable K-Tel Canada records, the soldiers in The Stampeders and Goddo and Crowbar who went out there and busted their ass to lay the groundwork for the current standard bearers of CanCon and maple leaf rock. It comes together in On A Cold Road: Tales Of Adventure In Canadian Rock and it is a fascinating read.

Highest recommendation. Makes that Timbit Nation jerk look like the hack that he undoubtedly is. Enjoy.

So here we are, the Wings are in the final (note to brain dead U.S. journalists – it is the “final”, not the “finals”, there is only one final series, you dumbasses) and ready to win the Stanley Cup.

For a lot of reasons I don’t think I have to explain why I am picking the Red Wings, but if you need a reason to give your friends (you might be a Gordie-come-lately to the glory of the Red and White and not have the quality hockey bloodlines of a long time fan like myself) then look no further than the fact that the Penguins’s best defenceman is Hal fucking Gill.

Quid pro quo.

It’s also worth mentioning that the monkey picked the Pens, so I will be kicking her crab eating little ass this time around. We are both 8 – 6 going into the final, which is fairly respectable, but after this I will stand alone. Since, you know, the Pittsburghs have no chance.

Wings in five games, more or less.

Another new crop of “Get A Mac” ads have hit the airwaves this week, and as per usual they run the gamut from “so-so” to “amusing” to “pretty fucking awesome“. What is even more awesome is that there is an “extended mix” of Vista Blues that you won’t see on TV but is definitely worth a look and a listen – click here to take a peek.

I think the crew at Apple has really missed a trick, however, by not making the audio of the full-length version available as a free download at the iTunes Store. Come on, guys, get with the program here … this shit is gold.

Please pause for a moment and reflect on the glory of the Red and White:

I was listening to the call in shows on the Detroit sports radio stations this morning, and it was interesting to hear how the fans consider this to be no victory at all. They know that there are only two possible outcomes to the hockey season for any NHL team: You either win the Stanley Cup, or you are a complete and utter failure. Contrast that to the sad and hapless fans of the Toronto Maple Leafs, who wax poetic over 1992 – the year that the Leafs almost won a game that would have let them keep playing in the series that might have let them get a chance to maybe play for the Cup. They get tearful and nostalgic over coming close to getting a chance to almost win.

This, however, is about real hockey teams, and not some pathetic collection of talentless goons, floaters, and half-wits. This is about a final that should be every bit as fabulous as the Canada-Russia thing in last week’s World Championship … but hopefully one with a more gratifying ending.

Game on.

Sigh.

I won’t bore you with prattling on about how awesome Mario Kart Wii is … suffice to say that is is awesome, and repeatedly so. It is pretty much the perfect pick-up-and-play game, the perfect party game, and the perfect game for hardcore game geeks. Again, awesome.

Just buy the damn thing.

However, what I will prattle on about is my Mario Kart license number. You wanna add me to your roster? Go for it – the digits are 4124-5420-0252.

Game on!

574,600,000: The amount that the United States government will spend in 2008 on adult literacy and adult basic eduction.

In the days since I refused to proclaim any sort of deep and undying love for Twitter I have been under siege from my Twitter-loving acquaintances, all of them determined to make me see the Twitter light. For a while they sent along solemn testimonials about how Twitter changed their life, cured their acne, and fixed their cat’s impacted anal glands. I remained unmoved, however, and now they have resorted to pimping the latest Twitter spin-offs … things that other developers are doing with the Twitter engine.

The first of these was TwittEarth – previously discussed in These Very Pages – which is fun to look at and ultimately more or less useless. The second volley is Twistori, which has nothing at all to do with TwittEarth but is also – and probably not coincidentally – fun to look at and ultimately more or less useless. The idea is pretty simple – you click on one of the six “emotional keys” on the left side of the page and the system combs the current Twitter public timeline for entries that contain that keyword. The presentation is nice and simple and the interface follows suit, but unless you are some sort of hermit or obsessive, there isn’t much value here.

Although I do like that second word a lot.

Once again I sucked the goat in the second round, going 2 and 2 to bring my record to a Blue Jay-esque 6 and 6 for the playoffs so far. On the plus side, I am tied with the monkey, which lets me save at least a bit of face.

And on the awesome side – as you can tell from the glorious red and white colour scheme of this page – the Red Wings are still tooling along and bringing much joy and merriment to the real hockey fans across the continent. The only thing better would be the wailing and gnashing that would be coming from Toronto if the Senators were also still alive, but I guess we can’t have everything. And on that note:

Detroit / Dallas: If you have been paying attention for even the most fleeting moment you will know where I think this one is going. It’s almost too bad that the Stars are going to be (rightly and properly) crushed. I like the fans in Dallas a lot – the bit where they stood for all four overtimes was mucho cool – but when you gotta go, you gotta go. I am going to assume that Marty Turco’s sublime goaltending will make this a longer series than the Colorado thing – maybe 6 or 7 games. But the result will be the same. Winner: Detroit.

Pittsburgh / Philadelphia: This should be a crapload of fun. The Penguins are a hoot to watch, and there is a grim sort of fascination in the spectacle that is the Flyers’ goon show, so there should be plenty to keep your eyes glued to the tube when this is on the air. Marty Biron is so the man, and should be able to keep things respectable, but when push comes to shove the Penguins skill will be the deciding factor. Winner: Pittsburgh.

I see that the monkey has made the same picks, so no matter what, we are going to be tied going into the final. And, just for laughs, here is one other prediction that you can file away and check up on in about 5 months. Next season the General Manager of the Toronto Maple Leafs will be … Cliff Fletcher. See if you can get some odds on that in Dallas.

1,500,000,000: The amount that the United States government will spend in 2008 to subsidize the the changeover necessary for the upcoming end of analog broadcasting and the need for consumers to get new televisions or set-top boxes by December 31.