20 posts tagged “music”

More point forms:
- I downloaded Alpha Centauri. Basically wanted that game for ~ 6 years. And then I was like, "Hey. The internet is so good for that." I also learned that I do not know anything about computers, but now I have a vague idea of what an iso is.
- I also legitimately downloaded the Creature Creator demo for Spore, which is fiiiiiinally coming out sometime soon. I really enjoy it, and will likely soon get the full version less legitimately.
- Went to the cottage. 2 days, ~ 8 episodes of rain, once when I was in the kayak. Saw "Across the Universe". I kind of wanted to hate it, but couldn't. Really, it was quite good.
- Okay seriously it rains all the time. Allll the time.
- So things with Professor are going famously! I suppose I should have provided interim updates since the last thing I said was that it was questionable, but everything seems to have smoothed out. Yayyy. I really like him. And we're going to spend my favourite holiday, aka Canada Day, together. Erm, magical...?
- Work yadda yadda. I have this week off. Gotta get my fill of Toronto before I'm off to the hinterlands come this weekend.
- Saw 2046. Not so great. Bad one, Mr Wong. (Interlude: Watched it with Professor. Putting my arm around someone makes me feel manly!)
- (Please note that Professor is but a nickname.... dating a real professor would imply a creepy age difference.)
- Free Harbourfront shows! (Nothing I like, though...)
- Okay so apparently starting a sentence with "As well," meaning also, is something we only do in Canada. I have Canadian and American neighbours: confirm? thoughts?
- I was at Sonic Boom! today (bought Milk Man and Intercontinental Champion), and some woman asked me "Excuse me, do you work here?" WHAT A COMPLIMENT!
- I finished Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town, which was really good. And set in TO! This was my second excellent Cory Doctorow, so I certainly recommend him. Oh and you can get I think most of his books for free on his website sooo.
- This song:

Man I just remembered how craaaazy I was about The Mars Volta in high school. Like... insane fanboy. I just heard a song of theirs. Brings me back. And actually... I stopped listening to them when my tastes turned more like "indie pop"-wise, but now I'm kind of heading back in that musical direction anyway. You always get back to where you started. And I really do mean started. Growing up, I pretty much thought that my only musical options were a) the crap you saw on like "Much Music", and b) classical/jazz/etc. But there was so much more... And I'd say The Mars Volta was the first band I really liked. And by liked I mean loved. Of course nowadays they're more under the "Much Music crap" category. But it can't be helped.

Aaaanyway.

I just got back from a newmindspace pillow fight in Nathan Phillips Square (in front of city hall). Sooo fun. I totally went at it for an hour plus, and it went by so quickly. I'm a little dazed, I slightly chipped a tooth, and I think I swallowed a couple feathers (seriously), but it was hella hella fun. If all exercise were like that, I would totally be in shape. And I think it's a great thing those guys are doing. This is my city, I pay taxes (do I), and I am going to have fun in my public spaces. This is the first event by them I've been to, but they do lots of other stuff, like streetcar parties, and I look forward to it!

Story time. Thursday I went to work for a meeting. Oh PS, because our company is underbooked, I work like 2 or 3 days per week YET get paid salary, as if I work every day. It's unbelievable. But anyway, so we're all in there, and there'd been this other breakfast meeting before, so there was food left over which we were allowed to indulge in. And though I had just eaten, free food always stimulates my appetite. So I wolfed back a couple bagels and took a grape juice. I complained that it tasted like cough syrup grape, and someone said "Hey remember when you were a kid and they had those banana-flavoured antibiotics?" And we discussed that. I never had that stuff. Well actually I mentioned it to my mom and she said I did, but I was 2 so I can't be expected to remember.

Later that day, I met up with some Garg (newspaper) friends in the office. We sat around while one of our friends burned CDs for his show later that night. Then we went out for burritos (Big Fat Burrito, highly recommended), and after, I wanted popsicles. I got one of those red-white-blue ones, and my friend Diego got a banana-flavoured one. (You can see this coming). I said "I hate banana", and what does Emily say? "Hey remember when you were a kid and you had that banana-flavoured penicillin." So of course I was like "no way, oh my god", blah blah blah.

The show was good. Afterwards, we went to a bar. Usually I'm too scared for this, as I'm 18, but I figured fuck it. I didn't drink anyway, for reasons that are another story. But everyone else did. So some girl I do not know the name of was having some sort of fancy beer, and she says "Hmm... has a fruity aftertaste. Almost like... bananas." Yes. And as soon as she says it, someone pipes up, "Hey remember when you had that banana-flavoured amoxicillin as a kid." Thank goodness Emily was there, or else my subsequent spaz over it being the third instance in one day would have been lost on uncaring ears.

So I thought it was a weird coincidence.

One of my old high school friends (my ex-girlfriend actually... let's not revisit that) asked me to go to see Islands with her, and she asked me to get the tickets. Because she is lazy. But anyway, I was immediately like "oh, great, I've hardly been to any shows this year." But then I realized that I really don't want to go. I'm just not going to pick up the tickets. I don't like music people anymore. I don't want to look around at people in their silly "ironic" hats and turquoise skinny pants, and be judged by them, and (admittedly) judge them. And wonder what they listen to and what they think of what I listen to, and how many other people listen to it, and wonder what catty comment they'll make to their ever-so-distant friend about what they saw of me through their chunky lenses, and oh god. I just feel so... anomic... with that whole thing now. Who do you know "in the scene"? I don't want to anymore.

Also... I just thought to myself "I think I need new pants". I actually kind of need new... a lot of things. But I just never want to buy anything again. First of all, the act of buying has never been one I've favoured. And second of all, I am increasingly frustrated by the fact that you can't seem to wear anything without making some sort of "statement" or another. Like... I guess you wear clothes to be "cool", but if you don't buy into that, people assume you're trying to be "cool" anyway, by intentionally not participating in that. I think I'm just going to wear my bathrobe. But actually, my main source of clothes has been tourist shirts my parents buy me when they go on vacation, and I think that's fairly safe from statement-making besides saying "my parents go places and don't take me".

This seems so angsty, but actually it's just because it's midnight and I feel funky.

Sharing:
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AND

I'm not sure exactly what I'm doing with my time these days. I mean I'm always procrastinating on school, obviously. But like... I don't feel like I'm doing any of my "leisure pursuits" either. I amn't reading... and I am totally slacking on knitting anything. I haven't put any time into getting through the backed-up stack of unlistened-to music I recently came into possession of... I haven't played majiang in like... 3 weeks? A month? I have been pretty slacky on vox, too.

What have I been up to! I guess it's just been a lot of small distractions adding up to the equivalent of doing something decent.

For some reason, the DST change really messed me up. Circumstances didn't help.

I had an interview this morning at 9, so I figured I'd try to go to bed early. 11:30. Of course by ~12:45 I was still rolling around in bed practising my pronunciation of rudimentary Mandarin phrases, because this is what I do when I ought to be sleeping. Anyway, then my friends [using initials is getting lame, so we'll call them...] Bizarre and Pineapple knocked on my door to remind me that the time was changing. Which was very very helpful of them because I had no idea and would have missed the interview. But it was kind of unfortunate because there went another hour. Eventually I ended up getting about 4 hours, and I don't do well on low sleep.

Uh yeah and I didn't know that on Sundays our caf opens at 9 so.... breakfast was a Rice Krispie Square from last night. Classy.

Anyway the interview went fine, ended at like 11:20. And then I went and got lunch, played Wii with Bizarre for what I thought was an hour and then.... it was 4:30. And then I fell asleep. I felt jetlagged, to tell you the truth.

So I woke up at 6:30, had dinner, and then tried to do this online homework we get in Chem due Sunday night (hence doing it now). And this stuff is damn easy - everyone gets basically perfect. But I kept fucking up. Like... arithmetic. I was getting upset, and that wasn't helping. Anyway, so the point is, uhh the new DST schedule didn't go well for me. Damn you Yankees!

China has only one time zone when it ought to have 5. The ROC says it does have the 5, but the PRC puts everyone on Beijing time.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
That map is hella outdated, if anyone cares.

Okay there is totally a word for this bizarre thunder+lightning+snowstorm business. It is not creative: "thundersnow"! But apparently it's very rare. So rare, in fact, that the time that it happened here was notable enough to be mentioned on Wikipedia. Rare, yet it's happened twice in a month.

So my across-the-hall neighbour A was showing a mutual friend some music.

A: Oh, Peach Plum Pear is such a good song!
Me: Oh no, you like Joanna Newsom? Figures...
A: Who's that? I've never heard of her.
K: But you just said Peach Plum Pear...
A: It's by Final Fantasy.
K: Ohhhh. That's a cover.
At which point I play her the Joanna Newsom version, and she makes a shocked/appalled face. Because Joanna Newsom is not pleasant to listen to. I'm sorry everyone, because it does seem like everyone I talk to likes her. Come on!

That being said, the Final Fantasy cover is quite good.

I also don't like CocoRosie. At all! There! I said it! Call me a philistine!

Hey last entry was bitter!

This year is going by wayyyy too fast. I was reading a friend's Livejournal, and she was reflecting on her progress on accomplishing her New Year's Resolutions. And I could so clearly remember talking to her on the phone on New Year's Eve and her telling them to me... it feels like last week! And it was 2.4 months ago! Where did my life go! I don't want this year to end. Summer = home + work = lame.

However summer also = warm. And this weather is ridiculous. We're getting 36 hours of snowfall! Someone claimed we're in for 50 cm... I don't know about that, but it's certainly coming down. The melt is going to be gross.

Song!

Not terribly upbeat, I admit, but good for evening-time. A friend of mine called Black Moth Super Rainbow "trance". Err.... I'm not sure exactly why. I think the vocoder's just gotten a bad reputation. But what does she know.

Notice how there's just silence at the end. Another untitled track follows it on the album... I guess it's supposed to be "secret"? That worked on casettes, but not so much on CDs.....

Matt & Kim? Seriously? :-(

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

On a related note, we watched a movie in Sociology on "Coca-Colonization", the process by which Coca Cola is well on their way to becoming the most popular drink in the world. They sell the stuff to villagers in Africa who hardly even have access to clean drinking water! And they're trying to supplant tea as the most popular drink in China, and tea is damn integral to Chinese culture. I felt sick, and I'm glad I don't drink that crap.

The movie also showed a man protesting on the street about multinationals and McDonalds, and some guy comes up and heckles him, saying "Man why do you gotta bring us down, see what I'm eating? This is a good quality Big Mac! Maybe you should be eating this stuff - you look like you have AIDS! How can you talk like that about McDonalds?? This is the American Dream!" And if that wasn't bad enough, a good portion of the class clapped. Clapped! I just yelled out "Augh, fuck this culture," and it was a little too loud because I said it when they were clapping, but they had sort of quieted down by the time I'd said it. You know how it is. Yeah I sort of thought... jeez wasn't I supposed to be angsty in high school? Aren't I a little old for that?

But learning more about the world, globalisation, all that crap... doesn't help the feeling of anomie, really. I want to get out of here, but pretty soon, there isn't going to be anywhere left to go. I swear to god I'm just going to go off somewhere and become a subsistence farmer.

On a more positive note, and because where would I be without a comment on the weather... it's warm again! Sort of. Snow is melting. Slowly....

Some time mid-next week, I am going to be grossly behind on coursework. I'm just sort of teetering now. It'll work out.

But I don't want to get proactive! I just want to knit and listen to music. Allll day. Foxfire Forest are having a renaissance for me.

The lasagna at the cafeteria today is horrendous.

It is becoming increasingly apparent that my circle of close friends ("close") is dictated by people who understand my sense of humour, which can sometimes be... esoteric? Did I mention that my closest friend told me that I have "an unlikeable personality". This caused self-esteem damage of approximately 20%, though it was positive in that it made me care much less about others' opinions of me.

My friend from Jilin told me that if I move to China I should live in Hainan. I don't know how much this appeals to me, as it is quite warm, though said friend reports Chongqing to be much worse. Guangdong province is nearby, and it seems nice, though they are Cantonese there. Hangzhou or Nanjing are the most likely candidates for now. We'll see how this eventually pans out.