unnecessary news: news that's totally unessential, but perfect for those awkward parties and first dates

DegrasRiRi?

Oh Canada, get ready, because you just might make the spotlight on Perez for the next fifteen minutes.

Apparently Chris Brown's ex-pillow-cushion has been canoodling with a Canadian who plays someone with a visible physical impairment. Via People via Eye, may I present to you: Rihanna and Jimmy Brooks Aubrey Graham.

"The two of them were stealing kisses here and there the whole night," says the source. 

The singer's group danced until midnight, when the new pair left together. "They were very cute. Both of them were in really good spirits..."

This marks the first time Canadians and the Carribean have been associated since Cool Runnings. Next week: Chris Brown releases old photos of Rihanna making fun of people in wheelchairs.

Let's All Hate Coldplay (but please, please don't)

Just like that pussy kid who always turned the other cheek, Gwyneth Paltrow's bleary-eyed activist husband renags: "SUE ME MORE!!!". Via Twitter via Pitchfork via Coldplay's website via NME (next project: link trees?):

"Some people are suing us at the moment, and although it was initially a bit depressing, now it's become really inspiring. You think, 'Right, if everyone's trying to take away our best song, then we'd better write 25 better ones.' And so just at the point where I was thinking about getting fat and becoming complacent, I've been finding more inspiration. Now we've got more to prove than ever before."

So that's it. Coldplay sorta rips off someone's stuff, which is legit (all music takes its "inspiration" from something else, it's just a matter of making sure it's an expansive idea instead of some obvious carbon copy). Someone else gets pissed because Coldplay will always be more succesful at ripping off their shit (and probably because their girlfriend gets all sappy about that bloke Chris Martin) than they ever were at making it in the first place. That someone sues Coldplay. Chris Martin and those other three guys miraculously don't have the ability to get angry, instead, they turn it into some wonderfully charming observation about the colours of stars. Coldplay makes eight billion dollars. Your girlfriend leaves you for a singer-songwriter who plays open mic nights and probably has a shitty construction job but is full of emotion and other effeminate qualities. "Someone" out there is now broke, single, and worst of all, p3wned by Chris Martin.

The Globe and Mail Online Gets a Makeover

They make a video. Nobody cares, except for whiny commenters who express their complaints, because everybody knows that change is bad.

Scrumdiddilyumptious.

I love to eat.

I remember back in the beginning of high school (really not that long ago), the glare I received from my little sister's baby-sitter as I brought up an ravaged, empty, cheese-encrusted nacho plate from my room, only to snag a tub of cookies 'n cream ice cream from the freezer with one grubby hand, two slices of pizza in the other.

She stood with her hand on her hip as she told me, snarkily, "You know, Kasandra, if you keep eating like that, when you hit puberty, you're going to blow up."

I turned around, grabbing the Nesquik, and replied, "Well, 'till then, I'm gonna have to live it up."

Oh, and I did. And I have. I don't know when (or if) I ever really hit puberty, and while I can't claim to be as stringbean-y as I was in my hey day, I haven't hit the helium stages yet.

My tastes of course, have matured with my body. While I still have more sweet teeth than any other kind, I can always appreciate a good, delicious meal. And without my chef-in-residence brother around to cater to my stomach's every whim, nor a checkbook equipped with the means to cover nightly extravagant dinners out, I'm left with two hands, a fridge, an oven... and the internet. My mother kindly passed down the homemaker's tradition with a gifted Betty Crocker cookbook last year, and I kindly shoved it atop the fridge to gather dust alongside dishwasher warranties and vacuum manuals.

Instead, I've turned to a much more interactive, innovative, experimental (ok, and prettier) source―the food blog.

Tonight I dragged my favorite foodie friend out (or rather, in, as staying in is lately my favorite) to help indulge in some deep-dish apple pancakes a la mode. Mm, a veritable masterpiece, best when seconds (and, inevitably, thirds and fourths) are shared. Of course, I shovel much faster than I snap photos and could never manage to start a food blog of my own, but I'll happily turn a friend's hungry head in their direction.

And so, a few of my favorites:

Closet Cooking. Young guy from Toronto, often cooks for one. Perhaps we're soul (food) mates? Who else could make a 13-word recipe title sound so enticing? (Roasted Butternut Squash and Caramelized Onion Pizza with Gorgonzola and Crispy Fried Sage)

Love and Olive Oil. Misleading Italian name, not entirely devoted to C-A-R-B-S. Wondefully scrumptious cupcakes.

Think you know how to make nachos? It's not-so. Check out these fatties from a real Homesick Texan.

Pinch My Salt caught my attention with the cheeky name, and then further irked my inklings with a real recipe for sweet potato fries. Can't... resist....

Now, if you get caught up in the vicous cycle of food blogs, don't delusion yourself of your desires. Indulge, once, maybe twice. But a tip of advice from my personal pool? Don't get really 'heavy' into the desserts section a week before your bikini'd beach vacation. You'll pay for it at the gym, and in the pictures. Ok?

Blog appetit!

the good kind of mix-up.

It's time to reintroduce the mixtape.

Or perhaps "reintroduce" isn't the right word. Since CDs, then MP3s, Ipods, and the resurgence of vinyl, mixtapes have experienced a few moments in silence, but they've been repetively glorified as icons of the early 90s in all kinds of pop culture memorabilia. From best-selling books to boombox bags, the mixtape never really shut up -- even once the sales of blank tapes did. 

My home collection of personal mixtapes is mostly stolen from Rick Dees and the Weekly Top 40 -- a collection of Enrique, Love Inc., and Vertical Horizon -- one which I refused to be ashamed of. I've carefully written the tracklisting in gold gel pen on each label, some a few times over when I ran out of 1-dollar blanks. I listened to more mixtapes than I bought real tapes, and I didn't own a discman, nor a CD player 'till mid-junior high (is that old?). I'm sure everyone and their dog wants to say they were a mixtape afficiando back in the good ol' days, but I'm pretty sure I played my part -- and I played my part loud. I mean, there was a large Coldplay phase somewhere in between... but no more needs to be said about that. Chris Martin's still one hot dada.

Anywho, now that I've bored you with my nostalgia, it's time to regrasp your attention, as I introduce you to something a little more aesthetically appealing than my own bewildering babblings. Now that muxtape's gone all muddly, and because I cannot afford to send each and every one of my three loyal blog readers their own personal tape, I have had to track down a substitute. And don't give me any credit, it wasn't a tough task.

So now please, I insist -- sit back, relax, and allow yourself to be soothed by my first "favtape". If you know me, you know I'm the nerdy music junkie type -- but I've had to tone it down for my introductory work (and fear not, I'll bring out my signature full-on weird-out stuff in due time). 

Now I know we all listen to foreign music - sure, Rolling Stones and Rihanna are outta-towners, but here I suggest you delve into some deeper cuts. And so, for the purposes of this playlist, I've ignored all artists from Canada, the States, and U.K. -- not cause I dislike 'em, but... well, they're just too easy. I've specially imported some select tracks from Sweden, Denmark, Japan, Australia, Lichtenstein... oh, and this one dude from Santa Fe, but his band is named after a place in Lebanon -- that counts, right?

But don't let me do all the talking -- I've entitled my masterpiece "Erocktic Exotica". Listen, let the travelling tracks soothe your ears, repeat... there will be more to come.

quite the fortnight.

In two weeks, I've...

• Cut my hair... twice.
  
• Screamed at my credit card statement after a NY trip where the most common phrase to exit my mouth (even for Orbit at 7-11) was "charge it"... and then again, when I realized all I bought was pretty, frilly summer dresses and went out and decided I needed to buy a week's worth of practical clothing.
  
• Taken on two new jobs. Only one shall remain next week.
  
• Acquired a taste for hip-hop. Yes, even the typical rock-or-bust chicks have their phases. Nothing beats biking to beats a la the Midnight Marauders (this, of course, was aided by an ode to NYC's hip-hop scene circa 1994. Jonathan Levine makes Boyz II Men look whack, er, wiggity-wack).
  
• Bought a television after a year's hibernation. ... And then a splitter, so I can watch t.v. AND read nymag simultaneously, because that's absolutely and entirely necessary.
  
• Drank blueberry beer and a green apple beer float... and actually enjoyed the latter.
  
• Lived out of a suitcase. Not the same bag, mind you, but out of a bag for two weeks straight nonetheless.

Oh yeah. And partied with Kenneth Hotz.... God's gift to womankind.