Memos: Delayed Onset Colds Suck

• For the last few days I've been feeling extremely tired all the time, needing to get up and go for short walks to avoid nodding off in my chair during the day, and getting home and going right to sleep afterwards, but still mostly sleeping through the night.
  
  Today I finally developed symptoms of a cold, which is what I suspected I was getting but wasn't sure. I had no energy all day today, the most I managed to do was play Lego with the 3 year-old son of a friend of my parents who was visiting. It's been a while since the words "man, there are never enough long pieces" went through my head but the thought instantly reminded me that that sentiment had crossed my mind many a time when I was a kid. I guess some things never change.
  

• What I assume was a new episode of the Simpsons was on tonight. I think they've crossed the line between self-aware poking at their own clichés and just wishing they could put the characters out to pasture. It was the episode where Bart becomes a drummer and Lisa is jealous of his instant success in the jazz world. (switch the names around and replace 'jazz' with 'hockey' and you already know how the plot unfolds, except this one has a tiger.) The only good parts were the sequence with bart playing his drums with a repeated image of himself moving around town, and running into the White Stripes (Jack White is still the most terrifying man in rock.) and the line "What are you doing up here?" "Not smoking reefer." "Yeah, we're all not smoking reefer up here." Then there's the obviouly-long list of hilarious jazz musicians, where you get the feeling the writers just wanted to play for a bit.
  
  
• American Dad still sucks. Full Stop.
  
  
• Family Guy's playing itself out pretty solidly these days, too. The 'funny at first, then not funny, then really funny' joke worked only once, on another show, when Sideshow Bob was stepping on the rakes. When they do it on Family Guy you know what they're going to do right away on the second repetition, which kills the humour.
  
  
• Saw a couple of good bands this weekend, with most of them being from Newfoundland for some reason.. Friday was The Nordic Beat from Newfoundland playing at Baba's. Then last night was the RollerCoaster tour at The Wave with Mark Bragg (One of Sabrina's favourites, and the reason we went to the show.) and The Novaks and The Museum Pieces from Halifax, who were my favourite of the night. Their drummer is fantastic, and they paint a full sound really nicely.
  
  We cut out of The Novaks early since they weren't really doing it for either of us. Skratch Bastid was at Baba's last night but ther ewas no getting in by that time, since my name isn't Matt Mayes. So I went over to Hunter's where Rock Ranger from Cape Breton were playing. They're as straight-up a gritty bar-rock band as you can get. The flashing LED badge Sabrina got at The Wave ended up clipped to their singer. The original purpose of the things as they were handing them out at The Wave seemed to be to draw extra attention to girls' cleavage, but this was almost as good.