Front-formation of the day: an unsoothed itch

Prashant is right (words so infrequently used that my fingers struggle to finish the phrase) – Megadeth is nary a whisper in the wind – unless you count the idiotic legal duet Mustaine and Ellefson are performing – but as they say, any publicity is good publicity. Let loose the PR machine driven by buzz and watch it raze our senses silly.

Incidentally, I stumbled upon the most curious of webpages: Buzztracker. As its name implies, the site graphically depicts which cities are occupying copy space in the world’s newspapers, as determined by Google News. So what’s on the menu for today? The usual Gaza, Washington and Baghdad are to be expected, but evidently not Bali… not even a day has passed since that picturesque tourist locale again experienced explosive violence and its newsworthiness has relegated it to second-tier status. The only saving grace of this debacle is that Jakarta is still in the mix, at least reminding the reading public of world geography.

Does this just illustrate how fickle the media can be, oxymoronically shifting its focus from one corner of the globe to another? The current incarnation of Buzztracker certainly puts a new spin on how we see the world – I would like to see it mutate into a multimedia spectacle, through the medium of motion. When presented as a movie, we can see how quickly a major story can break and dominate the world’s headlines. We will also witness its precipitous decline as younger, stronger tidbits wrestle their way to the front pages.

Soon enough (October 5 to be exact), a new story will grip this nation’s eyes, ears and souls – the return of hockey, also known as Rebranding 101. Only time will tell if the on-ice product will withstand semi-enthused American indifference. Up here however, the only thing left to say is “DROP THE PUCK ALREADY.”

I'll see you at the bar.