When it rains, it pours.

I was starting to think this summer has been the wettest ever. Then my suspicions were confirmed. But despite the downpour, there are ways to have fun. Sarah and I promise. Here are some more ways to fight the rain.

A guide to an evening out in the rain:

1. Bring a comb. Your hair has seen better days.

2. Pack an umbrella. If you forget, a t-shirt will suffice. 

3. Go out anyways. And don't skip the after-party either. 

4. Don't worry. Everyone looks like a soggy mess. Indulge in it.

Coffee in hand, here is my own personal morning news round up:

My boy Nas' record is Number 1 on the Billboard 200. How did he celebrate? A protest on the front steps of Fox News, of course. Remember in the '90s when rappers only had beef with other rappers? Then O'Reilly had to go and say Nas was "nothing short of a gun-toting, murder inciting criminal."  Oh Really O'Reilly? Watch Nas talk about the beef on Colbert on Youtube.

Remember Ashley Dupre? I had almost forgotten too. The call girl who helped Eliot Spitzer destroy his career is back. This time she's been hanging around with Thomas Earle. Stay tuned, the whole ordeal is very Pretty Woman. Doesn't anyone care if they get herpes anymore?

David Beckham paid a visit to Toronto yesterday to play in the All Star game. Unfortunately, Beckham had to see that Toronto FC fans have no class. The crowd booed Star-Spangled Banner. Grow up kids. 

Just when you thought the Internet was safe. Powerhouse Google is about to nab up networking news site Digg. The deal may cost Google as much as $200 million. A word to the kind folks at Google: I'll sell you my blog for half that. 

Athletes from Iraq have been banned from the Beijing Olympics due to politics, causing everyone to wonder when they are going to ban athletes from Beijing from the Beijing Olympics. 

Everyone's favourite mess Tricia Walsh Smith has posted another Youtube video chronicling her divorce. Apparently Kathy Lee Gifford wants her dead. Newsflash Tricia: Kathy Lee Gifford probably isn't the only one who wants you dead. When will she learn that her online video diary is no match for her ex-husbands powerful lawyers?

And last but not least, the mini-celebrities over at Disney are fighting again. I have $5 that says Miley is going to loose an eye. 

Every girl needs one.

This is Oklahoma republican state legislator Sally Kern's favourite accessory, a handgun. Kern was busted (for the second time) trying to bring a gun into Capitol yesterday. Her response? "Aw, I forgot."

In the 80s, Jack Anderson almost lost his press credentials when he brought a gun into Capitol for a TV show on terrorism. Now Kerns does it twice and gets to brush it off like a misunderstanding? 

Did I mention this is the same nutbar who said gays are a bigger threat than terrorists? The backwards conservative is probably just mad her son's a queen. 

Crazy republicans. 

Gerard Way: Beware of Russia.

According to NME.com:

"Legislation is currently being formulated in Russia to heavily regulate emo websites and ban emo and goth dress style in schools and government buildings."

Silly Russians. Emo kids skip school to hang out at the mall. How about an emo ban there? 

In response, mass protests were held by emo kids around Russia. I couldn't make this up if I tried. Don't you wish you were a Russian leader so you could ban all the things you don't like? 

Culture Consume Soup.

Who says consuming is a bad thing? Other than Al Gore, David Suzuki, Karl Marx, Jane Jacobs, The Yes Men, Naomi Klein, Ralph Nader and the rest of those crazy activists over the years. In an effort to consume more of the right things, here's a list of some of the stuff I'm into this week.

Banksy: The man behind the mask has been revealed. Does that take away from the mystique of the work? Maybe a bit. Does it make it any less cool to look at? Nope.

Augusten Burroughs' Running With Scissors. Burroughs' writing style will pull you in. I couldn't put this book down all week.

The Murakami exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum closed last Sunday, but the Gagosian will have his work included in an exhibit thats open until August 22. Now if I could only afford to buy My Lonesome Cowboy (above) to put in my home.

It's 1994 again. Mary-Kate O is hardly in this film, which may be a good thing, and may be a bad thing. Either way, the film is great, and Method Man rules.

I know all the hype this week is about Batman. And I know no one from the cast of Hellboy II has recently died, but this movie is seriously worth checking out. Blood, guts and comics. Can't go wrong.

Club Monaco. Bow-ties, vests, suspenders, and blazers in a classic black and white. What more could one ask for? Colour? Casual wear? The return of Joe Mimran? Pish-posh.

Video games just got a little gayer. 

If you are still subscribing to the myth that gamers are pale 14-year-old geeks with bad skin, you need to catch up on the times. The average gamer is over 30. Video games are a major cultural industry, and just about everyone plays some sort of game. There is such a culture around video games that gaming tournaments fill up stadiums in Asia. Pro gamers are treated like rockstars. Even in Canada, there are pro gamers who make six figures. I met the guys from the AMP energy pro team a couple of weeks ago, and I promise you, they are not 80's style geeks with glasses. 

That said, I'm a little skeptical about the assumption that if companies design the right game, anyone will play. This morning I read that Clueless, Pretty In Pink and Mean Girls are getting turned into video games. Who does Paramount think is going to buy these games? Are the 30-and-40-something ladies that aspired to be Alicia and Molly really going to go for this? And will you do in the games? Shop? Gossip? Feel insecure? 

I think I'll stick to Wii Golf and watching my friends play Halo. 

"Whatever." 

The night is never over.

The weekend won. It's Tuesday morning and I still have bloodshot eyes, bedhead and I am gripping my coffee cup just a little too hard. 

All Families Are Psychotic 

Sometimes you look at a family and wonder how two people could possibly share the same DNA. If you don't know us very well, this is how my sister and I appear. She's a small town girl who watches Grey's Anatomy and worries about crime. I live in a smoggy city, eat after party appetizers and call it dinner and make friends with the homeless people outside Tim Horton's. To say the least, we are very different people.

She has never understood the music or art I like, and is usually casually embarrassed to be seen with me on the street, depending on what I am wearings. However, she's probably most dedicated and reliable person I know, perhaps other than my father. Plus, our mutual friends will explain we have the exact same mannerism, about explicitly different things. And a few of her friends keep telling her that I seem cool, so maybe she'll come around. 

Here's to you big sis. You're the maggie to my Jake. 

She actually knows how to play tennis.

I just like the outfits.

Smells Like Teen Spirit.

As an intern, I keep my eyes peeled for intern-gossip in the news. In previous years interning was thought of as a professional coffee running business. Then LC made it the it-career to have on The Hills, and suddenly the job had a little more glamour. In Toronto Shanae Grimes was even pitching in at Fashion Television before she landed her 90210 gig. Better believe she's not working for free anymore (and I guess we won't be seeing her at L'Oreal Fashion Week anymore either..)

This summer my friends and peers have been dispersed to Teen Vogue, Chatelaine, Interview and St. Joesph's Media, the company that publishes Fashion and Toronto Life. We will all tell you that despite the perks (there are some, we swear) life as an intern is nothing like The Hills. Adam was the star of a weekly blog on FT's website documenting what he wore to the office, but that's nothing compared to the cool points the newest celebrity intern at Rolling Stone grew up with. 

It's hard not to be cool when you're dad spearheaded grunge, and your mom has a reputation as America's biggest trainwreck. Frances Bean has taken time out of her busy schedule posing for Harper's to help out at the Rolling Stone office. But according to Page Six's "insiders" Frances "doesn't get coffee for anyone" and "calls in sick all the time and wears funny outfits." If she had my job, she'd probably get fired. But as much as I love my gig, I have to admit, Beaner is probably a little too cool to fill my shoes. 

As far as the funny outfits go, I'm betting that part is true. Based on previous experience of course:

(Just an educated guess)

Frances should have asked if the stylist from Harper's could have given her an outfit or two to take home.

That said, as long as she doesn't start dressing (or acting) like her mom, I'll leave the poor girl alone. Happy interning Beaner, it's nice to have you on the team.

Time Machine.

Ultra Short Term Nostalgia: Homesickness for the extremely recent past: "Things seemed so much better in the world last week."

I want to skip out on work and spend the afternoon in bed reading Generation X, again.

Happy Birthday To My Favourite Scientologist. 

What do birthday celebrations for a Scientologist include? 

First: Get ready. Looking great is a must for every Scientologist. You never know who will show up to your party. Katie's bob is a lot to compete with.

Next: Pre drinks while watching Cocktail. Every time Tommy-boy mixes a drink, so do you. 

Then: Bible Dips in L. Ron Hubbard's Scientology: The Fundamentals of Thought. Find out what the next year has in store. (Truthbooks.com, $12.00)

Later: Party favours. I hear that Will Smith likes to give out Gift Cards for the church. How did JC not think of those?

Before the night's over: Get down. Everyone knows a Scientologist likes to dance. Jump up on the couch and boogie. 

The Next Morning: Press snooze and sleep in. You're going to need some rest if you want to take over the world. When your parents call to see how everything went, ignore the calls. After all, they were the ones who sent you to that pesky Catholic boarding school. Why couldn't you just have gone to a regular Scientology school, like all your friends?

Whatever mom, Scientology rules!

Quiet Sounds for Angry Guys. 

(Angry Sounds for Quiet Guys)

Last night I went to see my good friend David play in his band Siberia. I haven't been to that type of music for a few years, but I'll always support a friend. Listen to his band, they sound like a subtle but impending doom is approaching, and I'm into that. It's what Don Delillo's White Noise would sound like if it could make music. 

If you like it, there is a show at the Reverb on the 31st. I know what your thinking, ("The Reverb? Really?") but I need a date, so come along.

Don't talk down to children.

Last night Max & Cameron took me to help out at a garden for kids. I'm pretty much useless at physical labour but a little boy told me all about his Spiderman race-track, and I am a very good listener. 

Adults have a complex understanding of the world, while children look at what is in front of them and understand it innately. If we spent more time listening to them, there is a lot we could learn. 

Next Canadian election, I'm going to ask this girl if she will move up here and run. Waterguns for everyone!

Dear Christopher Sherman: Thanks for existing. 

I have a new obsession. 

When Team Epic was released I was excited. It promised campy Canadian superhero goodness. Unfortunately it turned out to be a big steamy load of Canadian-content garbage. Then this morning I stumbled across Dr. Horrible's sing-along blog, one of the only good things to come out of the writer's strike. It's cheesy, smart & has Neil Patrick Harris in it, what more can you ask for?

Tights, sing-alongs and a bad-guys-are-good mentality: Dr. Horrible has it all. Dr. Horrible is what would happen if I met my 13-year-old self at a comic book shop and teamed up to make an internet mini-series. 

The site says it plans to release it via pay-for-download and DVD later, but until Sunday it's streaming free. Get it while the cost is nothing kids. They have to pay Harris sometime, I have a feeling those Malcolm in the Middle checks are running out.  

The most romantic lovers to be recreated in the 90s. 

Every Tuesday this summer Futureshop is showing free movies in Dundas Square. Last night we showed up for the 4th edition to see Baz Luhrmann's Romeo & Juliet. Considering I was eight when this movie was released, there was a lot I didn't catch the first time around. Like the fact that Romeo was hopped up on ecstasy when he met Juliet. Of course he loved her, he was on drugs. He probably also loved the way his hands felt when they touched his face. 

Seeing a movie outdoors was fun, it was kind of like an urban drive-in. It would have been even more fun if Jack Astor's patio wasn't playing such bad music so loudly. There is nothing like watching two lovebirds commit suicide while Rihanna blasts over a tacky empty patio. One more reason to avoid JA's. 

However, the night was a success. Genna got to relive her first kiss, and I got Oreo Yogenfruz. Plus, the movie offered an important lesson: if Romeo and Juliet had been out watching a movie with friends instead of chasing love, they probably wouldn't have died.

People were generally annoyed with our banter.

The first kiss.

The crowd was, erm.. diverse. We almost offered this woman $20 and a pack of cigarettes for her sequin blazer.

I have to say something.

Everyone has chipped in their two cents. I have been trying to avoid the response to this cover all day. But it's everywhere. It has engulfed me. I have been reading the columns, articles and letters with one eye closed, pretending that if I don't indulge in it, the hype will go away. 

It won't. And maybe it shouldn't. The purpose of this cover was clearly to be thought-provoking, but it has ended up shit disturbing. Everyone has pulled out the PR stops and condemned the illustration in an attempt to avoid bad press. 

What this has me asking is, how is this possibly such a big deal? Have we not spent the past two US presidential terms mocking the cocaine-snorting, trigger-happy, rednecked Texan sitting in the White House? The Comedy Network has pretty much survived on Bush jokes over the past few years. Before that late night talk shows dedicated half of their air time to billy-blow-job jokes. Why is Obama so taboo?   

It's because he's black. And because of that comfy baritone voice he has that makes everything seem like it's going to be okay. It's also because he's undeniably likeable, and we don't want to laugh at his expense. And because people want to believe he's going to make some sort of a change, and they think anything (even a joke) could hurt his chances at becoming president. 

Obama's a big boy, I'm sure he can take a joke. Is this tasteless? Arguably. A great illustration? Not by a long shot. Is it funny? Probably, as long as we can remember we're allowed to laugh. 

If I could offer Remnick some advice while everyone whines about his publication, it would be to remember that if you're not pissing anyone off, you're probably not doing anything worthwhile. And no apologies please. Stick to your guns. You're the New Yorker, you'll do what you want.

Those who say alcohol is liquid courage,
have never tried the powder form.

The Secret to a Lifetime of Happiness. 

Fun. If you're not having any, why bother? With that in mind, here is my guide to having fun on a music festival vacation, even if it rains the entire time. 

Step 1: Empty everything from your tent. Try to re-organize everything into dry places, but avoid doing so when it's raining outside on all your stuff.

Step 2: Find the closest second hand shop. Matching jackets fix almost everything.

Step 3: When all of this fails, check into a hotel. Use someone else's credit card if possible, and make sure there is a pool. Once the pizza is delivered, your perspective will return.

Step 4: Call up some friends and go dancing. If you order enough drinks, you will forget you were ever cold and damp. 

  THERE GOES THE NEIGHBOURHOOD

Nigger drops on Tuesday (yes, Sarah, new music is still released on Tuesdays). The album has been renamed 'Untitled', but we all know the name. He wore it across his chest at the Grammy's. 

I'll stand behind pretty much anything my man Nas does, and I'm standing behind this. Because he's right. I don't care how many liberal minded white kids are running into Urban Outfitters and picking up Obama tees. To the people who own the store, he's still a nigger. 

I love the idea of a post-racial America, the same way I love the idea of a post-racial Canada. But it's not a reality. Go where I grew up and try to tell me Canadians don't discriminate. There blacks are niggers, gays are faggots and anyone from the middle east is a towel head. Let's not ban the words that make us feel uncomfortable. If we're uncomfortable, there's a reason why. Like Kelis said, many years ago John Lennon put out "women are the niggers of the world", and it hasn't changed. 

When it comes to "nigger", Nas has a lot to rap about. He'll turn the word on its head. And if he's calling that kind of attention to himself, you know he's got something to say. You heard the last album, and the one before that. 

And Brooke Anderson needs to do her research. Why is hip-hop dead Brooke? 

If you're askin' - Why is hip-hop dead? Its a pretty good chance you're the reason it died. 

Sometimes I see people in public I think I know.

It turns out that everyone everywhere just looks the same. 

In the spirit of Fringe I wanted to share this experiment I stumbled across online today. The video takes me back to my street improv days, of which there were two. During the first I got into a screaming match with my friend Amy, over our imaginary break-up. We scared an entire patio of club-goers as she slapped me (hard) across the face and I screamed that she was a cheater.

The second time I participated in street theatre was by accident. One minute I was shopping in downtown Glasgow and the next I was on an street impromptu date with an well dressed Scandinavian boy, much to the delight of the nearby pedestrians. He offered me a seat at a tiny table covered by a checkered tablecloth and topped with a flower. He gave me a box of sea shell chocolates and a Marlboro light, and asked me,

"What's the most important thing in the world? Is it happiness?" 

I had to admit, I really wasn't sure.

Either way, the homeless people heckled us until we agreed to sing "Wonderwall" with them, and the tourists took pictures. And that my friends, is what street theatre is all about. 

Breakfast in Oban, Scotland.

There is nothing like a break. Whether its 5 minutes outside for a cigarette or two years bumming around Thailand, everyone needs a break. That's why they have Kit-Kats. It's also why I am heading home tomorrow. 

I miss watching the swans peck at garbage while I eat fish and chips from newspaper wraps in sleepy towns in Scotland, but I also miss eating left overs and drinking beer with my parents late at night. My parents live in the sleepiest town of them all.

Though they spent the weekend salsa dancing in Vegas, my bets are saying that they are outside on their big deck watching as nothing happens on their sprawling lawn. My mom is sun-tanning, and my dad is reading non-fiction. He is preparing my camping supplies, and my mom is packing economic size bottles of sunscreen, worrying I will get skin-cancer.

And I am stuck sitting at my desk, daydreaming about the outdoors.

Not another "Did you like the Sex & the City movie?" conversation.

The Sex & the City movie taught us all sorts of things. 50 is the new 40. TV shows can make blockbuster hits. D&G makes ugly belts. Patricia Field needs a new job (Payless will do). And finally, you probably should have just stayed home and watched the box set of DVDs. But I want to take a step back and remember something the TV show taught me: why baseball rules. 

Baseball games are one of the only places it is socially acceptable to be wasted during the middle of the day. Plus there are lots of exciting things to watch once you are hammered on $8 beers. Idiots will be screaming louder than you (depending on your personal level of idiocy and intoxication). Thanks to facepaint someone will always look sillier than you (hopefully). And baseball games usually end early, so there is plenty of time to take a nap before you head out for the evening. 

In the vain of baseball and beer, I stumbled across a new blog this morning. Its called Drunk Jays Fans. It has hilarious stories, incoherent ramblings and a load of cheap shots at whoever the bloggers are currently blaming the Jays failure on. What more could a sports fan ask for?

Dean & Dan: Dsquared. Milan 2009 Spring RTW.

Why is it that the boys behind Dsquared so often look better on the runway then their models do? Regardless, the twins are charming, talented and Canadian, so I'll let some misses slide. 

But this one is too much to ignore:

Boys: it's D&D not D&G. Put some clothes on your models.

And send me this blazer in an XXS. I'm into it.

Everyone left Manhattan for Brooklyn.

Can't we all just move to East Egg and get along? Doubtful. We'd overdose on cheap cocaine or sleeping pills or compliments. The latter being the most dangerous of the three.

I can't take compliments and I can't give them. When someone compliments me, I smile awkwardly and freeze up, forgetting to return the favour. I usually forget to say thank-you. Or I will try to think quickly and say something nice about them.

But it always comes out wrong. Everything I end up saying is a double edged sword. It sounds like a compliment, but the connotation is all wrong. Or I say the first thing that comes to my head, which is usually rude, but true.

At least I say it with a smile. Usually.

Happy Independence Day.

I once dated someone who confused the word "independent" with the word "stubborn". That was a lesson learned. I've spent the past few years drifting through different towns and cities; attending dinner parties with new friends and finding new clubs to go to. There is always a new club to go to. Someone new to talk to. Someone new to sleep with.

I moved six times in two years.

Spending so much time in new places makes you feel independent. But being alone doesn't make you independent, it makes you lonely. So on July 4, I drank to good company.

And I know all the cool kids are on team Obama, but I'm still putting my money on Baby Suri.

Urban picnic. (all you can ask for is friends and rum).

Wednesday was the opening of Fringe. We saw a philosophical poet rant about the shopping mall for an hour. It was the gospel according to Jem Rolls, titled How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Mall; a clever play off on a classic film title. 

Finally a play about how the mall is such a scary place. The message was clear: the world is on a downward spiral, and it's pretty much our fault. Ever notice that despite the baby boomers 1960s counter-culture revolution, everything is pretty much their fault?

At least that's the way I'm going to spin it. 

My solution: screw Harper, Obama and Gordon Brown. Next election everyone should vote for Baby Suri. I hear she's secretly L. Ron Hubbard's kid. I'm sure she'd make a great leader.

I learned everything I know from Hunter S. Thompson.

Well, that's a lie. But I have picked up a thing or two about writing and substance abuse since finding Fear & Loathing in the bookshelf of the house I was staying in while finishing high school.

One thing I learned from Mr. Thompson is that it is always time for a vacation. The weather is changing by the minute in Toronto. Downpour. Sunshine. Wind. Downpour. Violent sun. Overcast. Repeat. Day after day. I've grown tired of it. 

To avoid further confusion and aggravation, I am spending a couple of weeks out of town. I will spend one weekend camping in the wilderness amongst naked hippies on acid, and another poking around someone else's city, people watching in train stations and spying on strangers from my hotel room.

Hunter would be proud.

Who knew people still went to raves?

I thought that raves died out after the kids on Dawson's Creek stopped going to them. Turns out I was only half right. The raves of the mid-90s are dead. All the abandoned warehouses where they were held have been turned into condo buildings and all the early ravers have got office jobs or have moved on to harder drugs and softer parties. The sales of fun fur, candy necklaces and water bottles may never recover. 

Since then I have discovered two kinds of raves: darkraves and club-raves. Last year I stumbled upon a darkrave full of gothic pill-poppers dancing in a scuzzy bar on top of a Shopper's Drug Mart. I made jokes about it for at least a month; but I have to say, if the darkrave crowd is one thing its friendly. No one even made fun of me for my lack of studs and eyeliner. 

This weekend I found out about another type of "rave". Suburban gangsters from all across the GTA met up at the Guvernment entertainment complex on Monday for a blend of dub, house, electronic. Someone even died of an apparent overdose on "herbal extacy", a drug I didn't know existed.  All connotation aside, the Guvernment is a handsome club. And I found a room with paisley red walls and some decent electronic. 

I won't write the night off, but there won't be many more "raves" in my future. 

And really what better did I have to do on a Monday night? 

"Eternal nothingness is fine if you happen to be dressed for it." 

Sometimes I worry that as I age I will become Woody Allen. Then I think, "Wait a minute. Woody Allen rules." 

With that in mind, this weekend Woody Allen's 'Manhattan' is coming to Bathurst. I am excited to dress up in black and white, drink too much and watch another Winnipeg ex-pat head to New York. 

To brighten up your morning, watch this montage reading of On The Road. I love Kerouac, no matter what anyone says. One day I plan to go missing and show up a few months later having done the pancake tour of America. 

H&M is about to go Avant-Garde.

Once a year poor fashionistas everywhere rejoice and head to H&M for the annual designer collection. The likes of Karl Lagerfeld and Stella McCartney have produced cheapie-lines for the store in the past. H&M just announced that this year's collection will be designed by Japanese designer Rei Kawakubo, the woman behind Comme des Garcons.

Don't expect too much; this is still H&M we're talking about. The fabrics won't be expensive and the seams might rip, but the designs are guaranteed to be a conversation piece, at the very least. I fared well at last year's Cavalli sale. Perhaps too well, considering by the time I got home VISA had me on the phone, explaining they thought someone may have stolen my card. You can read about that and other Roberto Cavalli antics here.

Before the pushing and shoving gets started and everything but XL underwear sells out on the opening day in November, expect leaks and previews soon. And look out for the advertising campaign. Lagerfeld's campaign was genious and the mock-wedding Victor & Rolf staged wasn't bad either. But I would have expected a bit more from a house with an immaculate website and an upside down flagship store.

Here's to Garcons. Let the biting, tripping and discount shopping begin.