Wrapped up my Christmas shopping yesterday at the Eaton Centre, which just brought back memories of being a kid, when we'd make the trek downtown for my mom's office Christmas party and then stop off at the Eaton Centre and past the window displays at the Bay.

I always hated it.

I didn't like crowds --- that was the main thing. A part of me would be scared I'd get lost in the heavy throng of people. But I guess that's one thing you get used to when you're working downtown...or maybe not.

It was sort of like watching a swarm of ants --- bodies moving everywhere, in constant motion.

A couple of years ago, around Christmas-time, they did this radio program where they rolled out the stats of how many times an item will be picked up, tried on, or handled by other people before it lands in your posession and the cashier swipes your credit card.

I think it was like, 11 people will try on the same sweater that you finally wind up buying.

That's why I'll always toss something into the wash before wearing it.

But I'm kind of a germaphobe that way.

Anyways, I have no plans of setting foot in a mall for the rest of the weekend.

I finally got around to watching the last four remaining episodes of Fox's Vanished.

I'm probably one of only 3.5 million people who tuned into this show --- and apparently, 3.5 million isn't a heck of a lot.

Maybe they were only counting the U.S.

In any event, when they cancelled the show, they opted to burn off the rest of the episodes online on the MySpace page for the show --- but only for US viewers, which was really very annoying because in Canada, the show aired on Global TV and you need to only take a cursory glance at the web site to know what a shitty site it is.

One thing's for sure about Global --- you're never going to find a link to the unaired episodes of a show that you've already invested 9 hours into.

Thank God for Bit Torrent!

And for people who never got a chance to check out this show, I really think they were missing out, because it was fascinating. You needed to watch right from the beginning and have a good memory to pick up on all the little clues to start piecing together everything.




One of the stupid things about this show, though, is how the main character, played by Queer As Folk alum, Gale Harold, was killed off on the eighth episode and Eddie Cibrian's character was brought in to continue the investigation in the kidnapping of a senator's wife.

At that point, I kind of thought I wouldn't really want to continue watching, but the thing about this show is that it's not so much about the characters as it is the storyline that keeps the show interesting.

You know how on Lost, it's all about the characters? 'Cause, really, nothing's moving the story forward. We're just caught in the minutiae of flashbacks and what was once fresh and interesting and captivating is now just tedious --- partly because networks inexplicably think it's okay to break for a couple of weeks and parachute something else in.

I'm not a sports fan so it annoys me when they show the World Series for whatever sport is wrapping up for the season --- I mean, why the hell do we have TSN? If you're such a diehard sports fan, wouldn't you subscribe to the package that would offer that channel?

That's just my thinking.

And you know, I don't see the point in yanking a show after you've already aired nine and opt to repeat other shows or bring in something new, like the case with ABC and the Taye Diggs vehicle, Day Break, which --- surprise, surprise --- got cancelled.

Why not just continue to air Lost and learn from last season's mistake and viewers' complaints that too frequent lulls in new episodes does nothing to retain a fan base.

I mean, isn't a strong viewership in a show important? That's what networks want, right? Don't they realize by now that it doesn't take much for a show's audience to nose dive as they get impatient with the constant fiddling of the TV schedule?

It's all just so stupid.