I ate a brownie batter blizzard today and almost died from the richness of said blizzard.

Well, I was going to be the first person to post about the death of a television icon on Pleasant Interruption, but unfortunately (or fortunately) I was thwarted, before I could piece together a decent “tribute” to Peter Jennings.

Even though I rarely watched ABC World News Tonight (Dad watched Dan Rather, so I watched), I couldn’t ignore the fact that Jennings was a Canadian born Journalist with an eye for the facts.
He had an incredible career (which I leer at enviously), and a repertoire of experience that many could only dream of having. Even though he dropped out of high school (and later regretting it) he still was able to achieve and maintain a level of professionalism, and journalistic quality that was admired by many of his competitors on the other major networks.
Jennings after some very productive teen years, he went from radio broadcaster to co-anchor of CTV’s late night news. But when he was sent to the United States to report on the Democratic National convention, he caught the attention of ABC, and eventually was swept down south to work.
At the age of 26 Jennings became the head anchor of ABC’s new which was called “Peter Jennings with the News”, competition with the likes of Walter Cronkite (CBS), and David Brinkley (NBC). Unfortunate being inexperienced with American news and culture, presenting them with sort of a Canadian twist, with diction and grammar, He was replaced 3 years later.
After his brief stint as the head anchor he headed overseas, and was the first foreign anchor to open up a news bureau in the Middle East, it was located in Beirut, Lebanon. From there he covered many major news stories, traveled all around the world covering major conflicts and events such as the rise and fall of the Berlin Wall, and more recently the September 11th catastrophe. Eventually Jennings would take the reigns of the ABC news in 1983.
I only have admiration for Jennings, being a Canadian, and a major news broadcaster, which I could only dream of becoming. Dan Rather commented a day after his death, on CBC that Jennings upbringing in Canada, allowed him to have a different perspective inside and outside of the US. Tom Brokaw commented after an emotional conversation with Larry King, that it had “too much emotion, and too little fact”.

This little bit, really got me thinking about the state of media today, it seems that many news shows today, present the news in more of an “Infotainment” stand. For some reason there are many people out there that call the news boring, because its just a bunch of people talking about what has happened, so they being dumbing it down for these people, having flashy lights, big theme songs, more animated, younger, and attractive news anchors, that put emotions and opinions into their news broadcasts. Its like people turn to the news to be entertained, they want a news show that goes along with their values or opinions. Why does the news have to be interesting? Its supposed to tell you what the hell is happening in the world, and if you don’t agree with the news for some strange reason, remind yourself that they are there to tell you what is happening, not what you want to happen. Many of today’s news stations either indirectly, or directly shift your opinions, depending on how the news is told. When you have opinion pieces telling you how to understand a situation, you know something is damn well wrong with that show, and for many, it should be a flag, NOT to take all the information at face value. Sadly there are people that just watch for these flashy shows, and highly opinionated pieces and take everything at face value, thinking that they know everything about the world, when they have never even read a book in their life, or lets go a step further, never seen a colored person in their lives. Its all about the almighty dollar, the more viewers, the more money rolls in, why? Its those evil conglomerations, if any of you were lucky enough to watch SNL in 1997-ish, they had this amazing ‘School House Rock’ parody that was funny, but almost accurate portrayal of how these conglomerates work (If I can find it, I’ll try and get it on the site). News stations of these major networks, such as ABC, CBS, ABC, FOX, and CTV (a Canadian one for kicks) all are examples, of conglomerated media outlets. This degradation of the news in order to achieve higher viewers, has really affected opinion’s of the people who watch these shows.
Compared with shows such as the BBC, and CBC, all publicly owned, are much better to get information from, rather then from news companies. (Even though they still have some Bias, it is less prominent, then the other major stations. And they don’t tell you what stance you should take, they let you make up your own mind.)WOAH! What an amazing concept, except I’m too lazy to actually go out and learn more so I’ll just agree with everything that your saying.

Anyways, I think I left out a lot, cause its late, and I work tomorrow (whipping noises here), but I might get back to this later. But please all of you amazing special Pleasant Interruption readers, don’t let the media control your thoughts and form your opinions, have an open mind, and look to other sources for information, don’t get blinded by the bright lights. (How do you like those apples Nana)

Peter Jennings R.I.P. (This one was for you)

It’s time for us to say our farewell to Peter Jennings. He’s been a fixture of American news and of Canadians watching American news. There’s not much else that I could say that hasn’t already been said somewhere else, and I didn’t know him personally. But I know that he did have some influence on me, as I did entertain the idea of being a journalist at some point. Also, he was probably the most rock and roll out of all of the big three anchors (maybe he’s tied with Brokaw, I don’t really know, but he definitely beats Rather).

Rest peacefully, Mr. Jennings

People do all kinds of pointless things. I name my electronic gadgets.

My habit of naming things that I own began with my first “two-wheeler” mountain bike. It was my pride and joy; I’d ride it everywhere, going on little adventures with my friends(and not so little ones).

The problem with naming things, as most people know, is that you form an attachment with the named thing. When a child threw rocks at my bike and put a few dents and chips into it’s frame I went nuts. I still haven’t forgiven him. And I didn’t learn my lesson.

Time passed for a while and I didn’t really name anything else. I got video game consoles which I could have named Peter or Sally, and used family computers I could have called Bill. (When I built my computer I did name it Rosie, [Rosie is the name of the robot maid from the Jetsons, and is a name that I'm fond of. It's also called Rosie because when I turn my computer on it talks in a female voice. I'm serious.] That’s a story for another day.) But all of this would change when I got my first discman.

I didn’t really have a name for it, but we formed an immediate connection from the moment that I wrenched it from it’s moulded plastic prison that fall day 5 years ago. The discman was with me through thick and thin: through backstabbings from friends, through being turned down comically and repeatedly in school by girl after girl, through my first love in grade 12, and through my first heartbreak months later. I’ve taken it to two other continents, and to various provinces and states. It’s been with me through cold weather and hot, and through exams and vacations. I don’t think it would be much of a stretch for me to say that I love the think, but I won’t. We throw those sorts of phrases and words around so much that they lose their meaning. But that really is the feeling I get when I put on my headphones and walk to class every day.

But when I came back to Belleville this summer I left it behind. I guess I needed a clean break from it all because our relationship is over. 5 years is long enough, and it’s probably time for a change.

#5.) Low are not from the UK.

#4.) They pretty much defined a whole genre of music, aptly called “slowcore” for it’s slow but powerful force. (from their bio) “The idea, all that time ago, was to play as slowly and quietly as possible[.]..”

#3.) Mimi Parker (drummer and singer), Zak Sally (the bassist), and Alan Sparhawk (on guitar and vocals) have been making music steadily for over 10 years and 7 albums.

#2.) The Great Destroyer, Low’s newest album (released in January of this year) is one of the best album that I’ve heard. Ever.

#1.) You can sample some of Low’s songs at their website, chair kickers dot com. Or, you can download the first song from The Great Destroyerhere, from download dot com

There is conflict between co-workers, its getting terrible. Right now, the will to work (out of 100) is next to nil, It’s like I am running on fumes. GO WORK!1!!

Ok, I’m going to post random links right now, just to fill space. Now they aren’t just completely random, they are ones that I just thought were interesting, or funny, they at least deserve to be looked at. So don’t be lazy.

- Al Gore, former Vice-President of the USA, started a new television channel focused on 18-(random age here, I don’t remember exactly) and it hosts amateur video which is could catch the interest for people within the age bracket. We all know this already adds to his other great accomplishment…Inventing the Internet. Anyways, there are some cool videos on there so check it out.

- One of the last Absolute Monarchy’s lost their King on Monday, King Fahd of Saudi Arabia for anyone out of the loop. Anyways he is credited for supplying the world with the countries deep oil wells, which made him one of the richest men on the face of this planet. His “close” relationship with the United States made many Saudi scholars angry. His decision to let the US into Saudi Arabia pissed off a lot of Conservative Muslims, like Usama Bin-Laden. I’ll just let you read the article to understand what I am talking about, and if you don’t believe it, then actually go out, pick up any sort of educational or even a history book, then read it, hopefully you’ll understand. If you don’t, and deny the obvious truths, then do the rest of us a favor, go lay in a shallow grave, and bury yourself, because you are useless.