outside, looking in

Sat, 27 Sep 2008 01:00:07 GMT

this week's episode of house (which i just watched) is great, and has the best opening i have ever seen on a house episode. for some reason i thought this was good enough to screen cap:

i have always really enjoyed house but for some reason it has never been 'must watch' viewing for me, but now i find it super entertaining (especially with the new PI character, who gets along nicely with house) and feel compelled to make it appointment viewing. (also i have no life and nothing to do with my time so i may as well watch it when it airs)

also today i decided it would be a good idea to pull every cd out of my collection that is likely to be melancholic, saddening or depressing and stack them on my bureau for easy access because i am apparently going through a bout of occasional anhedonia and feeling terrible about my life and i would like to make myself cry or feel bad if at all possible.

this one is illustrated!

Thu, 25 Sep 2008 04:04:11 GMT

i guess i haven't put up one of these things in a while. i drew something and coloured it and you can look at it under the cut if you like. there is also a bit of boring procedural stuff under the cut that i've recorded for posterity, and you might want to skip that bit.

umm yes. i haven't drawn for a really long time, and am very very much the most novice of artists, but i began doodling occasionally in my spare time for whatever reason and came up with this after a couple days of on and off work with a pencil and felt tip pen.

this is actually the first time i have ever coloured a drawing with any moderate level of success. i downloaded GIMP with a somewhat dodgy usage history (mainly involving previous attempts to colour my art scraps), and managed to wangle most of what i wanted out of it with heavy reliance on my scanty photoshop knowledge. i now endorse this GIMP program. it is good.

other things:

my bloody valentine tomorrow night! huzzah. i am pretty certain that the handing out of earplugs is a regular event pre-show, but i almost feel like i should bring my own JUST IN CASE so i do not lose my higher auditory capacity.

i want a job in alberta on an oil rig. apparently they are available and pay more than adequately. i should probably feel bad about this, but you know, if i don't go help them rape the environment, i'm sure they'll find someone else more than willing, and i would very much like to pay for my university education. also, i would very much like to live away from my house and kitchener in general for a number of months.

i found a lovely little ebay seller in quebec who has sold me a bunch of comics and saved me three hundred dollars or so in the deal. today i got a box with marvel's omnibus hardcover collections of all frank miller's daredevil stories, as well as their first bendis daredevil thing and the first thirty issues of stan and jack on fantastic four! these books are staggeringly enormous. last week he sent me the starman omnibus volume one and fantagraphics' popeye reprint thing which is enormous in height altho not in girth.

i have been reading "the truth (with jokes)" by al franken. what a terrible fellow this george bush is!, etc. etc.

Sat, 20 Sep 2008 18:36:03 GMT

about a week ago i came to the realization that chad kroeger is the one who liked all those pretty songs and who liked to sing along and who liked to shoot his gun, but he did not know what it meant.

Thu, 04 Sep 2008 03:47:59 GMT

i have my bloody valentine tickets for the 25th in toronto!!!!!!!

squeal

miss

Wed, 09 Jul 2008 05:20:30 GMT

so last friday i got hit by a car.

i was riding my bike on the sidewalk, on the left side in the opposite direction of a one-way street, and i booking it because i was a couple minutes late for work. i approached my workplace's street and observed from pedestrians that the crosswalk was on in the direction parallel to the street i wanted to turn onto, so i started to make a right turn onto the street and there was a car turning right towards me and it hit me and i rolled off my bike onto the car hood and was stuck there by the motion of the car as it turned and braked and came to a halt, after which i slid onto the road. it was really surreal and the only part i really remember clearly is being on top of the car and worrying that i was going to fall off and the car would run over me.

the lady who was driving and a guy who was either her boyfriend or merely the driver in the car behind came out, and we spent five minutes establishing that i was barely injured if a little shaken. the accident was pretty much my fault, and the lady had a serious dent in front of her right door from my bike whereas my bike merely had a contorted front tire. i offered to exchange information or compensate her in some way for damaging her car, but she said no and so i went on my way.

i was lucky.

this time it's for real.

Wed, 25 Jun 2008 00:21:01 GMT

well i had my last exam today so now i am OFFICIALLY a free man with no responsibility whatsoever, so that's nice!

my big sister is back from school for a week before going on a month-long trip to ireland (yes, lucky), so i celebrated by going out to lunch with her at the seafood place across from my school. then we broke up and i went off on a crazy shopping spree. one of my very worst habits is buying excessive amounts of music or whatever without getting through what i already have, so i decided to purchase freely till the end of the month and then refrain from purchasing media for the rest of the year.

i bought a copy of loveless, and i now have both of my bloody valentine's albums. i still haven't listened to them, though i'm going to pretty soon, but part of me really really wants to go see them live in toronto this september. there are still tickets available, and all the reports (notably this one) make it sound like such an awe-inspiring, intense experience.

in other news ern56 found a typewriter for sale locally on kijiji for me, and i went out and bought it! it's great. it smells pleasantly of old things like board games at the cottage, and it has its own carrying case and i adore typewriter font. i have been writing a little bit on it, and i plan to continue. my sister took some pictures of it, i will upload when she gives them to me.

it is so great that it's actually summer now, i cannot believe it. i can finally do whatever i want.

honestly i really have nothing interesting to write here. i'm not really interested in writing about personal things and at this point in my life i am not really in a place to write entertaining things, so i am probably going to leave this thing alone for a while.

have a good summer.

i'm amazed that i survived

Wed, 18 Jun 2008 21:15:27 GMT

last day of school.

jesus christ am i glad to be done with that.

she was referred to on this tour as the h-bomb

Thu, 27 Mar 2008 02:02:09 GMT

I think that this video is pretty great:

Also! I am doing an article for the "underground" school newspaper our Writer's Craft class is putting out because almost everyone didn't particularly care for the actual school newspaper when we read it in class. I'm writing an article about whether or not Obama has actual policies since the typical rhetoric seems to say that he is full of inspiration and kittens and go-get-'em-america stump speeches and not much else. I don't really have a side in the presidential campaign, I just picked the topic because I was interested in finding out! So far, Obama is looking pretty good. I read this excellent article in The Daily Kos, which painstakingly combs through the bills proposed by both Clinton and Obama and compares them and found it fascinating. If that's the sort of thing that interests you, I very much recommend it!

Mon, 10 Mar 2008 18:54:58 GMT

each time i reply to someone on last.fm who's offered to buy my new porns tickets off me, i don't get a reply from them, but i do get a message from a totally different person offering to buy the tickets.

went to ikea today, which is pretty much the best store to window shop in ever, and just as awesome as it was when i was a kid.

yesterday i watched 2001: a space odyssey for the first time, which is really gorgeous and i liked it but at the same time it doesn't really seem like there's much to it other than being an amazing audiovisual experience. for all the weirdness that goes on, the story in and of itself seems kind of surface and obvious (well, hey! this is about evolution) and aside from maybe a brief discussion about the nature of the obelisks and jupiter and the reason of things, there isn't really much to think about. maybe it was a bit overdone with the endless footage of ships traveling through space, but i thought it was pretty tolerable, actually, and the designs of the ships are great and fascinating to examine anyways. it makes me want to watch the first star trek movie so i can figure out why exactly the endless ship footage in that one is so damn bad.

so yes: overall good, i'd like to watch it again sometime when i'm in the mood.

on saturday night there was an enormous snow storm. it must have been a foot deep. i was working, but it was a slow night so the restaurant closed early. i rushed out at 8.50 to catch the bus, and it was already a ways down the street. i was so intent on getting on that bus that i didn't realize that it was, in fact, the wrong bus. so then i went on a little loop back to the stop i started at, where the people told me that they'd been waiting forty minutes for the bus i wanted. i called my dad to come pick me up, sat up at the cafe in huether's for an hour, had a hot chocolate and lemon meringue pie and started 'nine stories' by j. d. salinger. it was fun, though i didn't get home till 11.30. haha.

i'm slowly making my way through the comics stacks at the used bookstore downtown. they've positively shitloads of comics there, these shelves just filled with stacks of them. most of them are terrible of course, but there are some highlights: some vertigo comics not collected in trade like 'shade, the changing man', some stuff that is collected but considerably cheaper when picked up for fifty cents an issue, like 'enigma'. also a bunch of ostrander's 'suicide squad', 'wasteland', other things i forget. i've only had a cursory flip through because i keep going before work and have to rush out, but i'm going downtown tomorrow and i'm going to spend a couple hours and look through it all. i am afraid that i may find too much to buy, though.

this is a good march break so far and i plan to keep it that way. that said, the only plans i really have are to minimize internet usage, keep reading, finish playing deus ex, watch a movie every night (i have to watch a friend's copy of AI so i can finally return it, and i have rashomon from the library, i dunno what else i'll watch), weed through my comics, listen to a bunch of my unlistened albums, and catch up with my friend down the street sometime for a game of chess or something. i guess that's actually a lot. plus homework. oh well!

i've got this epic problem

Tue, 04 Mar 2008 02:02:15 GMT

Right now, I would seriously like to punch whoever thought it was a good idea to periodically rip pages out of the library's copy of Death Note v. 2. I would like to punch them in the face. Repeatedly.

File under 'things I found funny for about five minutes':

Mon, 03 Mar 2008 04:43:25 GMT

Stuff White People Like.

I found a link on Best Week Ever. I read a couple of entries and thought it was somewhat funny. Then I realized, hey, this isn't about white people, it's about hipsters! or, at least, middle class white people who devote at least a moderate portion of their day to attempting to be cool. (But those are the same thing, right?)

Anyways, now it just pisses me off too much to read.

In other news, I bought an iPod Classic this week (yay) AND found out that the New Porns/Okkervil River show in Michigan I already bought tix for is mysteriously taking place on a totally different day than I thought it was and am now desperately trying to get rid of my tickets (boo). And honestly, my discovery today that the show was on a Thursday instead of a Sunday was one of the most mind-boggling realizations of a mistake I have ever made. Or realization of a mind-boggling mistake. Whichever.

All of which really is regrettable, though, since it would have been an amazing show.

really banal

Mon, 18 Feb 2008 00:57:23 GMT

I find I don't have a lot to write about on here lately, for whatever reason, but I wanted to mention that I bought concert tickets yesterday!!!

I'm going to go down to Michigan to see The New Pornographers and Okkervil River. Two of my favorite bands in one place! It will surely be awesome.

It was actually the first purchase I made with my credit card. I wasn't originally planning to get one, but the bank kept bugging me about how I am pre-approved and wouldn't I like one so I talked to my dad about it and we decided it would be good to build up my credit rating, plus it would be neat to be able to make online purchases. I don't plan to use it any more than I would my debit card (which I try to use as little as possible).

Also presently I am saving my money to buy an iPod. Business is booming at the restaurant -- we had a valentine's dinner and somewhere in the region of seventy-five people came out. Apparently we've got a ton of reservations next week, so I've been offered four nights to work next week, and I think I'll take 'em all. iPod, you are totally mine.

I talked to my boss about whether I would stay on over the summer, and whether I could pick up more hours and the like, and it seems like there's a good chance of it, if I can talk the chefs into doing some food prep training with me and get handy with a knife.

I haven't watched this week's Lost yet, but last week's was so good -- it feels weird for me to actually want to gush over Lost again, but it was exciting like it hasn't been for a while, the new characters are actually interesting for once, and it's a hopeful season beginning!

Dexter is premiering on network tv tonight, and it has tons of buzz and appears on top ten lists and whatnot, so I think I'm going to check it out. (edit: network censorship dammit i am an idiot)

And that's pretty much it.

let this be a message to all those emos contemplating suicide.

Sat, 02 Feb 2008 03:11:28 GMT

the only thing i have to say about this list of the 24 biggest assholes of LOST is, how do you make a list like that and not put jack on it? i kind of expected him to be number one. still, it's hilarious.

so yeah, LOST came back on tv yesterday and that was sweet. i was kind of surprised how low-key it was, particularly the opening segment, which in the premiere they've always trotted out some great shot or bit of information, but here it was just some flash-forward stuff. it seemed kind of solid but unexceptional to me, but apparently critics are in mad love with the episode. i don't know, maybe i missed something! anyways, welcome back LOST, i missed you a bit. it's neat that jeremy davies has joined your cast. hoorah for another seven weeks before you disappear into the ether yet again.

also, via best week ever:

the t-shirts are here, if you were wondering.

i highly recommend all of his videos. i'm not even... i don't disdain him or something, i think there's something truly amazing and sincere and uninhibited about his videos. thanks to youtube, we can now have the minds of fourteen year-old boys laid before us without any pretense whatsoever. wow.

Thu, 17 Jan 2008 04:25:20 GMT

man, i kind of miss my old zzt friends.

yessssss

Wed, 16 Jan 2008 21:03:21 GMT

two good things happened today:

i found out matador records is reissuing mission of burma's first couple of albums, which i found out were out of print not so long ago, so that's ACE

BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE

i got a perfect on my final physics test, which... i did a lot better on the whole (and was a lot more engaged) in grade eleven physics, and i never even got perfect on a test in that course. i'm amazed.

Sun, 13 Jan 2008 18:47:19 GMT

Cleaning up my livejournal account... leaving communities I never use, removing friends who have long ago deleted their accounts. Hurrah.

Now I just have to change the layout, which has been bugging me for forever.

i think i just had the creepiest phone conversation of my life

Sat, 12 Jan 2008 20:18:20 GMT

me: wow

2:21 PM

i am still just

2:25 PM i answered the phone, and this girl was like, is beth in

and i said no

and she was like whyyyy in this drawn out way

and i was like, i think she's at a political meeting

and she was like whyyyy again

2:26 PM and i was like, uh

2:27 PM and then she laughed, and she was like obviously you don't know who this is

David: lol

me: and it was someone i knew, like, a daughter in a family we used to be friends with when they lived near here

2:28 PM and i was like, were you being creepy and bizarre on purpose

and she was like, now you're calling me creepy and bizarre? and then: no, i think it just comes naturally

David: haha

me: and then i kind of took a message

2:29 PM i realize my question is probably kind of a social faux pas or whatever

but honestly

i am not going to answer the phone for the rest of the day

what you gonna do with all that ass

Wed, 09 Jan 2008 04:04:05 GMT

also i don't know why everyone hates 'my humps' so much, i think it's hilarious. it's like, almost an experiment in MAXIMUM dumbness and lack of subtlety.

edit: according to wikipedia, they released an actual vinyl single of 'my humps', which is just about the stupidest thing i've ever heard of. did people seriously buy that? does anyone who listens to the black eyed peas even know of the existence of vinyl?

i understand this is an unusual request yet i do need your help

Wed, 09 Jan 2008 03:58:29 GMT

oh also while we're still talking about david lynch i thought this was funny:

also mr. brightside is the only good song by the killers, confirm/deny

also i just started doing tags again, and livejournal does an automatic space after you put a comma, which i think is really dumb, because i keep having to go back and delete the space i put!

david lynch wants you to know about watching movies on your cellphone.

Sun, 06 Jan 2008 21:20:54 GMT

Bonus video:

don't look back like dylan in the movies

Sun, 30 Dec 2007 05:26:06 GMT

So I was standing there on Ontario Street in front of the bus terminal lanes, waiting to get picked up, and a slightly haggard guy comes up to me and asks me if I'm from around here. And I say no (kind of unconsciously, because I was from the city, just not from downtown), and he's like yeah, I'm not from here, I need to take the Greyhound back to my city, and someone stole my backpack with my tickets and I was wondering if you could spare some change, I just need thirteen quarters -- I've got a job, I work at wherever, and I'll mail you twenty dollars when I get back if you can just give me some money. And I said no, I didn't have any change, because as I am talking to this guy I realize that he approached me a month ago not ten feet away from where I was standing and asked me for money because he had missed his Greyhound and he wasn't from here and he just needed some money, he didn't have anywhere to go, etc. and I gave him some money then. So yeah, fool me once...

I felt like maybe I should have gone after he walked away and told him off, but then again I know nothing about his situation and also I didn't really feel the need to act in any way which might present the possibility of violence being inflicted upon my person.

Sat, 29 Dec 2007 07:18:34 GMT

oh my god, i read the most amazing thing in the alternative weekly on the bus home from work -- i mean, generally if i read something that i think is funny i'll smile or something, but this was like, laughing out loud on the bus.

"here we present to you a smattering of news -- by no means all of it, of course -- that helped shaped 2007 into the year that it was. after all, who could forget the industrious winnipeg pizza purveyors that went the extra mile with their aptly titled company, porno pizza? the pie makers offered pornographic images under each pizza, giving a new incentive for finishing your dinner (thanks mom!)"

just when you think you've heard it all -- porno pizza. bam.

yay new music

Mon, 24 Dec 2007 04:41:42 GMT

Honestly, it feels so very good to know that I won't have to go to school for another two weeks.

Anyways, apparently today was British pop group purchase day! I was doing a bit of shopping with my mom, and we went into the Beat Goes On, which is a used cd/dvd/whatever chain, and there on their 'buy two get one free' display rack is a big beautiful copy of 'Very' by Pet Shop Boys, and it's actually one of the original copies, so it's got the crazy raised Lego bumps on the cover... and then I look and there's a copy of Blur's self-titled album and both albums are four dollars each... sigh. So then I had to look through all the cds to find my free cd, and after getting through all the cds on the first side of the display I'm beginning to think that I may have already found the only good albums they had out. But then on the other side I found 'Copper Blue' by Sugar and '(What's the Story) Morning Glory?' by Oasis. I grabbed the Oasis on the logic that if I wanted to buy a cd by a band Bob Mould was in, I would buy Zen Arcade instead -- later I regretted this a bit because I wasn't sure whether Oasis are supposed to actually be any good or not and Sugar at least have 'indie cred' (by which I mean Pitchfork cred lulz). Anyways, it turns out it's okay because I didn't technically pay anything for it and I guess Oasis' first two albums are supposed to be classics -- we'll see.

Also yesterday I bought 'Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga' by Spoon because that's pretty much the only album released this year that I've listened to so far and I really enjoyed it. Plus it comes with a "limited edition" (har) bonus CD and I wanted to buy it before the bonus cd disappeared. I am a sucker! Seriously, though, the bonus cd -- well, the album comes in a digipak -- those cardboard environmentally cases that are all the rage now -- and after I opened the case and basked in the warm glow of black and white photos of Britt Daniel & co., I was struck with the sudden fear of where's my bonus cd????? Anyways, it turns out that like the front cover is slit and carries the liner notes inside, they've managed to wedge the bonus cd inside the cardboard behind the album cd's plastic tray. But it's wedged in there something good... like, seriously, that cd was a bitch to get out. I finally got it out when I came home from work and stuck it into my cd book where it will remain for either eternity or until I get it its own case. Anyways, it's nice to have a walkman now to listen to the album with because when I originally had it out from the library, I was subsisting on stereos, which I am not especially fond of as a device for serious musical listening.

One of the greatest things about new albums though, especially with ones that you kind of know of but you've never listened to, is just looking through the track listing and seeing all these crazy song titles that you've never heard of and wondering what they could possibly sound like... like looking through the Blur tracklisting: "Theme From Retro"? "You're So Great"? (meant in sarcasm?). I remember when I first got a copy of Nevermind, looking at the tracklisting, and of course the first half is filled with songs I at least knew the names of: "Smells Like Teen Spirit" and "In Bloom" and "Lithium" and "Come As You Are" and everything, but then in the latter half there's like, "Lounge Act" and "Something in the Way" and "On A Plain", and it was sort of like, whoah, what are these?

On that note: I am making a mix cd of songs I've enjoyed this year for a friend, and it's actually the first mix cd I've ever made! So that's exciting. I was actually listening to a bit of Nevermind while I was selecting songs, and was kind of reminded just how dark and weird and effective an album it actually is. I guess kind of its reputation overwhelmed the actual music for me when I was listening over the summer -- I enjoyed it but I didn't quite get all the fuss or how it was so dazzlingly brilliant. Anyways, I've been intentionally not listening to it for a while in hopes that maybe coming back would assist me in getting it in some manner and apparently it sort of has.

Anyways, the mix cd is fun. I tried to split it into two sides just to be cute, one happy and one sad. I realize this is a somewhat simplistic filter for song moods, but there you go. I also put "Teen Age Riot" by Sonic Youth, which is the first song on its album, as the last track of the album, which gives me a perverse sense of glee. I think it will actually make a really good closer, though.

So I guess if you ever thought it would be neat to have your very own personal mix cd made by moi (or not) consisting mainly of Belle and Sebastian, The New Pornographers, Nirvana, Spoon, and Tokyo Police Club, I would be more than happy to send you one.

watch me crank dat

Mon, 17 Dec 2007 21:20:21 GMT

Why, thanks for reminding us how totally irrelevant you are, Rolling Stone! Would you like to try again next year?

oh, morrissey.

Sat, 08 Dec 2007 07:39:36 GMT

"I do not mean to be rude to Tim Jonze, but when I first caught sight of him I assumed that someone had brought their child along to the interview. The runny nose told the whole story. Conor had assured that Tim was their best writer. Talking behind his hands and in endless fidget, Tim accepted every answer I gave him with a schoolgirl giggle, and repeatedly asked me if I was shocked at how little he actually knew about music. I told him that, yes, I was shocked."

Apparently Morrissey is mad.