Saturday miscellany

• I recently discovered that Obama's new Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel was the model for the character of Josh Lyman on The West Wing. That's kind of cool; what blows my mind is that his brother Ari, a talent agent in L.A., was the inspiration for the character of Ari Gold on Entourage. All of which leads me to the conclusion that you really don't want to fuck with this family.
  
  
• And so it begins: today I went into Shopper's Drug Mart for some odds and sods, and had the pleasant experience of hearing U2 on the store soundtrack. As if to make a point to me specifically, "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" was cut off before it finished to be replaced by Neil Diamond singing "The Little Drummer Boy." Seriously? Seriously ... and once again the consumerist powers that be renew their assault on my sensibilities in their yearly attempt to make me loathe Christmas before December begins.
  
  
• I've decided to found an advocacy group for the abolition of lotteries. Not because they feed people's gambling addictions (which they do), or because low-income people spend a disproportionate amount of their wages on them as compared to high-income people (which they do), but because I invariably end up behind them in the checkout line as they have their two-dozen or so tickets checked by the clerk, and then take their sweet time deciding whether to take their meagre winnings in cash or more tickets. The madness must end! I must be allowed to buy my toothpaste with dispatch!