Monday, March 30, 2009

Weekly Fail

I have accomplished nothing on my weekly to-do list. This whole accountability thing is for far more accountable people than I. The mail is still in a pile, taxes unprocessed, smoke detector sitting on the printer, curtain rod leaning against the fireplace ... and it goes on. I did get the wall partially patched, but it needs another fill, a sand and paint before I reinstall. Le sigh.

Fail.com

Thursday, March 26, 2009

Words of Wisdom from Uncle Karl

"Loving someone is fine, but they have to love you back or it doesn’t work."

Thank you, Karl Lagerfeld, for Tweeting my life story in 140 characters or less.

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I'm stuck for a track for Daily Sound, which is sort of redonk given my PhD in Unrequited Love (my education started in kindergarten with Danny White) so I'm taking suggestions. Anything you want to nominate as an anthem for the Union of the Emotionally Retarded and Flag Bearers of Inappropriate Crushes?

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Update Nine Inch Nails - Something I Can Never Have. Obviously. I just needed a moment to access my deep chasm of self indulgent emotional dramatics and negotiate my way back to university - this song (playing on a bright yellow Sony Sports Walkman, natch), a bitterly cold fall night wandering Queen's campus with its spooky and imposing limestone buildings and the certain knowledge that a TA named Jason thought absolutely nothing of me beyond that I wrote great essays about dull films exploring themes of diaspora.

I'm linking to a video, because, well, Trent Reznor is hot. And this is a full service blog.

PS - I also wrote a paper on assumptions of male domination in Pretty Woman. That's right. Pretty Woman. They don't call it the Harvard of the North for nothing.

PPS - I still have those papers if any dishonest little buggers are looking for something in the 82% - 90% range. From Queen's remember. That's like 95% to 100% at normal schools. Snap! Oh yes I did! I am a snob.

I am also a Queen's dropout. Last laugh on me.

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

In lieu of having anything to say ...

I'm not in a bloggy place today, so in lieu of writing much of anything I'm going to post some photos that would have been up here eons ago if I hadn't been so delinquent with the blogging for, um, years. They won't be anything new to anyone who's poked through my Facebook albums (so both of you, most likely) but hells, they should have been posted eons ago.

Anywhoo.... I thought I'd post a few shots from my trip to China in 2006.

So of course the first day, running on very little sleep, we were trucked out to the Great Wall. It is spectacular. And challenging, having very steep and very uneven steps. And very surreal to get a good way up and hear Hollerback Girl blasting from a tour bus in the parking lot.



This killed me, we were at this massive buddha monument, and there were rollerskate rentals outside. If my little hospital side-trip hadn't just proved my universal health care less than universal I would have been tempted to throw injury caution to the wind and give'r.



I think this was the same day. The thing I had the hardest time with was being so on the go that it was hard to get good shots in. This might have been from the bus. There was something about the little outpost that was a little sad and lonely.



We did some hella touristy king fu shows and such. The first one was pretty impressive, but I'd stop at one next time.









I could have spent days wandering the houtongs in Beijing. So much history and life and bustle and smells just careening around in these little alleys.



I loved this guy, totally rickety ass old cart - and he's all chilled out texting on a way more skookum phone that I had at the time. Or have now for that matter.



Apparently the mayor was going to be coming through just after us, and this policeman was keeping an eye out for ruffians.



The rickshaws are very pretty, but oh my god, I thought it was going to fall apart under me, like in some bad cartoon.



Dave got a shot about 2 seconds after me where this little bag of donuts turned into something from Pet Cemetery.



This was taken in Jinan, which possibly my favorite place on the trip. They have a fantastic public space / park which is surrounded by a moat with bridges connecting it to the surrounding roadways. This busker blew my mind. Shame about the pollution smog though.



At night the park is total action - and not in a skeevy way. Ballroom dancing, rollerskating - well utilized public space, and kids that don't look like they rot on their asses playing video games all night.





I'm blanking out on the names of the towns these were taken in. Sorry, just got in from wings and beer. West Lake maybe?







There are some curious food storage practices. Which might explain my little e-coli induced hospital detour. (Note, I did not eat any of the foods shown below).









This is my favorite shot of the trip.



And totally unrelated, but because I am totally charmed by Christopher Walken's Twitter (part of my Lainey addiction issue - she's like a gateway drug) the Daily Sound- Lucinda Williams' Something About What Happens When We Talk goes out to him. Because I love a man that Twits about Lucinda Williams. And I'm feeling a little like this song lately.

Sunday, March 22, 2009

Tuesday is the New Funday

I know I often bitch about Victoria's music scene - or lack thereof - because we don't get a fraction of the tour action Vancouver sees. True, there is little likelihood that Sigur Ros or Bloc Party will ever grace us with their presence, but to be fair, things are looking up for the next few months. Shout Out Out Out Out, Wintersleep (sold out before I got my damn ticket, so internet machine, bring me some ticket karma), Elliott Brood, Chad Vangaalen, Attack in Black (so much better live than recorded) and the Dears are on my to-do list, and with the lovely Otto making her way back from Deutschland in a month my good -time-lady-posse will be nicely rounded out. I'm priming up for some shoegazing with intermittent bouts of ass shaking. Thank God for Atomique Productions.

The Von Bondies show a few weeks ago shook me out of my bitching phase. First, The Racoons (Their choice to miss a c, not mine) left me wishing I'd hurried my ass up and gotten there earlier. Victoria has birthed some fantastic talent, and The Racoons seem poised to take the local hero status left vacant with Wolf Parade's move east. They're catchy as hell, tight on stage, and have some really trampy fans. Recipe for success? I think so.

I also ran into an old friend from high school - really more the super-awesome-arty-I-want-to-be-like-her-but-am-just-not-cool girlcrush from high school. And of course I completely dorked out, because that's what I do. And of course, she's still awesome and crushable, because that's who she is. We were chatting and a very attractive dude comes over, and she says "Don, this is my old friend Melissa. She came to see your band." Yeah, that would have been Don Blum, the Von Bondies' drummer. Friends with the Von Bondies from her year in Detroit .... further proof that, while the so called popular douchbags peak around 18 and wither into paunchy balding disasters, the arty awesome kids keep on that trajectory through life. And she did her Brenda Walsh face for me. Girlcrush, reactivated.

I started right at the front, because I love me some flinging band sweat, but, due to a gimpy back from a tumble down the stairs, and well, a bitchin' case of The Thirties, I had to retreat back a bit when the kids got all whipped up frenzylike. Moshing? They still do that? It sort of freaked me out that when I was going through my moshy phase most of the crowd was in the kindergarten to grade 3 range. Shudder.

Anyhow, Von Bondies, fantastic live. And this song, this one song, as I said to the friend I was with, is the soundtrack for a night you are out too late and drink too much and are probably a little high and are working your way out of your clothes before you hit the apartment door and have totally Quentin Tarantino movie sex with someone who's maybe a little dangerous and totally wrong for you ... Or that's how it struck me at the time. Not so much in the comfort of my bathrobe and living room, but live, oh hells yeah.

Daily Sound: Von Bondies - Sound of Terror. Listen here. Yes, I know it links to Amazon, but it's not on the Von Bondies MySpace, and I am disinclined to dick around looking for a cooler link.

On the way home we had a killer cab driver who was blogging on his iPhone when he picked us up. I forgot about it until now, but I just found his blog, diaryofataxidriver, and am glad I did, because it makes me want to dig out my Diana and Supersampler and take pretty, surreal photos of my friends. So, thank you taxi driver.

This is why the internet should be breathalyzer activated.

Seriously. I mean, on the upside, despite it having been posted 2:30 am after a lot of beer, I did remember to spellcheck, and I can live with the grammar oopsie. But really ... all class.

The best part is that I think this ad might be about the same guy. Though there were a few hot guys with stars on their cheeks. In fact, I think we may have cracked the 'where do all the tasty man-treats in this town hide' code. At Urbanite. Which really ought to happen more than once every four months. 'Cause Mama needs some eye candy.

I did have some pretty bitching hiccups last night.

Saturday, March 21, 2009

Oh. Dear. God. Not this blogging thing again....

That's right, I'm giving this another crack after a long hiatus. I'm still wrapping my head around the format / content this is going to take, but basically I was thinking Damn, I'm cranking through a lot of CDs burning mixes for my friends, I should podcast them. Which got me thinking about blogging, and having somewhere to post them. Plus, you know, third-life crisis going on (Sooo scary that I'm past quarter-life. Third-life is even optimistic. There aren't a lot of 96 year olds in my family.) so really, what better way to sort out my whole who am I, what do I want to do with my life angst than in a totally public forum that exactly two people are likely to read (Hey Michelle and Helen!). 

So, here's hoping I become an internet phenom, or at least break through my post-a-year barrier.


Daily Sound - Bon Iver Blood Bank. Listen here.
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