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I’ve come across so much candy in the last few days that I literally have a toothache. I’m gonna go get that checked out real soon. So while I wish I could indulge in some of the candy that’s been floating around, I can’t!

Over at slashfood, they’re talking about the top 5 worst Halloween candies. I agree with the Hershey’s kisses, and I have to add mini maple fudge squares to that list. Not a big maple fan.

My favourites have gotta be the mini gumballs that are orange and have a pumpkin face on them, dark chocolate caramel (not CARMEL) chews, mini Mars bars, Rockets and Sweet Tarts.

Check out the mind-boggling number of fast food restaurants in the U.S. using Google Maps (link via Slashfood). Over 27,000 in total!

You can keep zooming in on the map and even see the actual address of each fast food location on the city’s grid.

Go post 43 things (or more, or fewer) that you want to do in your lifetime over at 43things.com. Then, once you’ve completed one of your goals, write a testimonial about it and tell others if it’s worth doing or not!

You’ll notice that a disproportionate number of people want to do *things* that involve Gerard Way. To wit:

# of people who want to:

Marry Gerard Way: 304
Meet Gerard Way: 260
Kiss Gerard Way: 78
Talk to Gerard Way: 48
Get over Gerard Way: 8
Get a lock of Gerard Way’s hair (that way we can be together forever in hair heaven): 3

Every day on BBC 6, Steve Lamacq plays about a jillion of my favourite songs - on some days, it’s literally the soundtrack of my life. To make things even more fun, he engages listeners by encouraging them to email or call in and identify songs with a particular theme. Today the theme was songs with a drink name in the title. Being the list lover that I am, I wanted to make a few contributions to the list, but I was initially stumped! Then I managed to come up with Juice Box (the upcoming Strokes single), Gin And Juice (Snoop Dogg) and Ocean Spray (Manic Street Preachers). There must be literally hundreds more that I couldn’t think of. What’s missing?

Hallowe’en isn’t my favourite holiday, but I couldn’t resist checking out the ghoulish indie superstar collaboration “Do They Know It’s Hallowe’en?”. The North American Hallowe’en Prevention Initiative (NAHPI) features Beck, The Arcade Fire, Wolf Parade, Sloan, The Postal Service, Feist and many others all singing along in this effort to help raise funds for UNICEF.

Watch the cute (err…scary) video here!

Under The Radar is one of my most favourite magazines out there (also one of the few that I don’t have a subscription for - yet), and it can be a tough one to find on the stands.

When I went to their website and saw their next issue’s cover story, I had to cave in and promptly subscribe. Check out the Canadian indie lovefest!

Pictured on the cover (from utr.com) are Tegan & Sara (on opposite ends), Amy Milian (Stars), Kevin Drew (Broken Social Scene), Emily Haines (Metric), Murray Lightburn & Natalia Yanchak (The Dears), Feist, Carl Newman (New Pornographers) & k-os! UTR never disappoints so I can’t wait to read the spread in this upcoming issue.

PS: For The Records reports that Murray & Natalia (pictured pregnant in the pic above) are now the proud parents of a baby girl, born a couple of weeks ago!

I love me some Franz Ferdinand, so I’m really looking forward to their appearance on MOD tomorrow, as well as their show with TV On The Radio and Cut Copy.

With their second album faring pretty well in North America so far, the boys are set to release a live DVD with a twist - the DVD will feature several setlists worth of footage from a dozen different live appearances (including festival footage) in the past few years, as well as a whole show in San Francisco and at the Brixton Academy in London and a pair of “bonus” karaoke tracks. Keep an eye out for it next month.

This site lets you know how your height compares to that of various celebs and socialites. I’ll have you know that I am taller than both Danny DeVito AND Janeane Garafolo.

I read a stat the other day that said 80,000 new blogs are being created every day. That’s one per second. Holy crap! Add musicians to the ranks and things get even more interesting. Beatnik Pad lists a whole bunch of blogs by the musicians you love to listen to. Read thoughts by Dave Navarro, Trent Reznor, Rivers Cuomo, Matthew Good, Doves, Radiohead, Death Cab For Cutie, the godfather (of sorts) of blogs, Moby, and many more.

Over the weekend I finally got around to listening to some archived Lamacq Live playlists online and Lady Sovereign’s tracks just kept popping up, over and over. She is tearing up the airwaves over in the UK and I suspect she’ll be doing the same in North America very, very soon. You have to have to a listen to see for yourself (you can listen on her website - notable tracks include “Adidas Hoodie” and her contributions to a remix of The Streets’ “Fit But You Know It”), or catch her when she makes a few Canadian stops on her tour in December. She’s really got a raw MC-ing talent, not unlike the sound of M.I.A., and her melodies are sometimes reminiscent of something light and fun like The Go! Team. At only 5′1 and 18 years old, Lady Sovereign is a rising talent and definitely one to watch in the next few months!