The CBC is reporting that the European Space Agency is looking for people to participate in a simulated trip to Mars.

This is the only thing that could drag me away from my family for 18 months.

The experience would make me a part of a crew of six, isolated for 520 days in sealed modules created to simulate a space ship.

How cool would that be?

Here’s where you can apply.

Channel Changer is going on hiatus, but before I go, here’s a look at what the fall 2007 landscape will look like on your television.

“Heroes” will be back. “Studio 60” will not. “Little Mosque on the Prairie” gets a 20-episode order, while “Battlestar Galactica” will be wrapping their story.

Get the rest of the details over here.

Channel Changer, by the way, is looking for a home. Get in touch if you have any ideas.

I though that half-way through the Great Canadian Video Game Competition sponsored by Telefilm Canada was a good place to check in on the four finalists, competing for $500,000 in matching funds to support commercialization.

So that’s the focus of this week’s Trigger Happy column.

Reviewed this week are Rocky Balboa and Fight Night: Round 3.

Caught a whiff of this song while walking down the street yesterday, and woke up with it playing in my head this morning.

It’s just further evidence that the new Modest Mouse album, We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank, has a breakout pop hit.

Now, after not having listened to them in a good month, I’ve got the disc on repeat. And, as with other Modest Mouse efforts, the album is better after having been apart from it for a while.

The weather in Vancouver in the past few days has been very spring-like, but last week it was more like summer.

There is a certain kind of music that sounds better in the summer. The Alarm, for one, although I’m dating myself by saying that. Billy Idol always sounded better in the summer.

Ever since the summer road trip camping trips with Mike, the Northern Pikes will always be summer music, too.

I discovered Joel Plaskett through the excellent podcasts coming from CBC Radio 3 , and heard someone – I think it must have been Grant Lawrence – describe the music coming from Joel Plaskett Emergency as cottage rock. I can think of no better descriptor.

“Nowhere With You” is found on the EP Make A Little Noise which you can’t really find in stores, but is being packaged with the full-length La De Da by Maple Music.

C, dottir, and I are making a trip to the Ottawa Valley this summer. I’ve already loaded all Joel Plaskett Emergency songs on the iPod in preparation.