dick cheese vs. toe jam

Apartment Hunting

2005-08-23T23:20:00.000-04:00

I haven’t updated this thing in very long, but I have very good excuses. I’m done my education and now I’m twice as smart as ever, and I got a job and now I’m looking for apartments. There is so much ridiculousness with this apartment hunt. I checked out www.viewit.ca where you can actually look at a houses on line before you do in real life. I’ve yet to see a place look as good as it does in the pictures. A beautiful apartment in pictures turns out to be in the ghetto on O’connor (Vic. Park and Eglinton area for you tdottians). There was a motorcycle chop shop next door, which I actually thought was kind of cool, but still, not something I’d want to live next to. And across the street, a COOKIE FACTORY! Yes, COOKIES! It smelled like something’s baking at all times outside. How do you compete against that with your own oven? If the girlfriend comes over and you want to impress her with the smell of baking in the air you’ve got no chance.

And every single apartment has a smell associated with it. I’ve been to ones that smelled like a hospital – on that thought, why do hospitals smell like hospitals? – one that smelled like smoke, old people/retirement home, musty and the classic ‘just plain bad’. Smells everywhere you go. I just want one place that has no smell what so ever.

I’ll make this one short, but to close it up, I’ll share one more thing. Sara just moved into a new place on Bloor and Sherbourne. Her rent is more than the GDP of Lithuania, yet here’s a small list of what I don’t really like about the place.

1. Roaches
2. Shower water fluctuates (OH SHIT BURNING! SOOO COOOOLD!)
3. Roaches
4. Lobby is ripped up
5. Roaches
6. Ghetto
7. No parking ANYWHERE.
8. Roaches
9. Cupboards look like someone chewed the edges
10. Roaches
11. Crying babies
12. Roaches
13. Traffic Noise
14. Roaches
15. Car alarms
16. Roaches
17. Roaches
18. Broken oven
19. Roaches
20. Closets make random noises in the middle of the night.
21. Roaches
22. Broken faucet in the bathroom
23. Roaches
24. Bent burners on stove
25. Roaches
26. Non functioning buzzer system
27. Roaches
28. Cheap cologne smell in the lobby
29. Roaches
30. Broken lobby entrance stays open 24/7 (see point #6)
31. Roaches
32. Roaches
33. Roaches

Leave vegetarians alone

2005-07-27T01:08:00.000-04:00

When I was a child, my late grandfather was an avid fisherman. One day he caught a very large and beautiful fish that we were going to eat to celebrate a birthday. This particular fish had very large and shimmering scales that would change hue depending on the angle at which the light caught them. As I watched my grandfather remove the scales from the animal with a sparring knife, I fainted. My grandfather also kept rabbits for meat. I once watched him twist the neck of the gentle creature and then watched as he skinned it. I fainted. Later in life my friend’s dog got sick and we took him to a veterinary clinic. The doctor proceeded with his work and I watched the doctor take the dog’s temperature by inserting a thermometer in his rectum. I fainted.

Much later in life, when I effectively moved out to go to university, I was in charge of fetching my own meals. I was responsible for going to the grocery store and picking out exactly what I wanted. I finally started eating what I wanted, not the meals my mother prepared. There was nothing wrong with my mother’s cuisine and ate whatever she made. Without even realizing it, I would bring home food that did not contain any meat. I guess I didn’t really care for the taste and I knew I didn’t want to cook with it. I became aware that I didn’t really need to eat meat because I never actually missed it. I ate steaks not because they tasted amazing, but because it was expected of me when I went to a barbecue. This is when I consciously decided that I would, out of principle, not eat products containing meat.

I’m very happy with the decision that I had made more than three years ago. I feel really good about my diet and I feel a lot more fulfilled by a meal completely devoid of meat. Not only do I not care for the taste, but consuming meat doesn’t fulfill me spiritually. Even if a meat dish filled my stomach, it would lay heavy on my conscience. Under no circumstances do I ever want to go back to eating meat. I have absolutely no reason to.

The decision I have made is personal and I know that not everybody feels the same as I do. Problems arise when people have unsupported opinions and try to tell me things that are just not true. I’m often asked the same questions over and over. The top three questions are; “Why have you become a vegetarian?”, “How long have you been a vegetarian?” and “Where do you get your protein?” There is often the closing quip to this line of questioning with the person confiding in me that he or she could never give up meat. These are the people who are at least trying to be polite. There is always the person who tries to be original at the dinner table and makes a comment about not being able to make friends with a salad. To this I always want to respond by saying that I don’t make friends with meatheads, but choose not to and keep chewing my salad.

This constant questioning and contemplation from the masses is the biggest reason vegetarians turn back to eating meat. If you are at a table with a vegetarian and you feel the need for empty conversation or snarky remarks, please talk about the weather. At least the weather changes and gives chances for a different response. Realize that there is probably nothing original you can come up with on the subject of vegetarianism and move along. Your silence will more than likely receive the quietest thank you.

more album covers

2005-07-13T22:34:00.000-04:00

When Sara saw my album cover concepts she was shocked and asked me to make more. Shocked because she couldn't stop laughing and fell off her chair. Well I created a few more, all revolving around the same theme. Let me know which one you like best! It's all original work too! I'm so special.

You can also CLICK the image to get a cooler, bigger version. That way you can see MORE of my artistic geniousness at work. It's like walking up and touching Mona Lisa, as opposed to just looking at her from across the room.

This one is nice and sleek. I sort of like it, because it's very "indie"...whatever taht means. I'll tell you what it means. It means I did it.

If Sara was more goth, she could get away with this one:

This is less goth:

I like this last one because it fuses the evil crow foot with a girly fun font, and that's a FAKT!

I think I procrastinated enough now. Time to do a 1/2 ass job on a presentation!

Album covers and bdays

2005-07-13T01:14:00.000-04:00

I've been busy with finishing up school lately. I've managed to turn 24 along the way.

I've also been partying here, there and everywhere. It seems like anyone is up for a beer these days, you just have to ask.

Sara is going to be recording her CD soon, and I made a few concept album covers for her. I don't think they'll make the cut, but it makes me feel like i'm contributing.

Aparently there is no parental advisory either since she cut out the song with the swearing, but I liked putting that little advisory in there. It made me feel cool, so there.

There's actually a really funny story behind that fries place where Sara is standing, but i'll leave that for another day. I think I'm off to bed.

Fuck insurance companies

2005-06-21T01:24:00.000-04:00

Reply to a post Andrew made on his site:

Why would you open up this giant can of controversy Andrew? I fucking DISPISE insurance companies. There is nothing I hate more than those dirty sons of bitches. What right do they have to say that I will cause 500 THOUSAND dollars worth of damage when I’m a good driver? The thing is, one in 1000 people will cause that much damage in their lives, yet the other 999 out of that 1000 are somehow responsible for the one stupid fuck that does in fact do something completely insane. Well I say fuck that person. Our courts can handle that much. Make the one idiot pay, not me.

In fact, if you add up all the insurance the average Canadian pays in a lifetime and then add up all the damage the average Canadian does to vehicles over a lifetime, there is a giant discrepancy. The exact figures escape me now, but we pay something to the extent of 10X the amount in insurance than we would pay for the damages we do with our cars. To look at it another way, imagine you were not FORCED AGAINST YOUR WILL BY LAW into liability car insurance. Instead you bought bonds or some other financial instruments. If you managed to crash your car every 5-10 years, you would sell some of the bonds to pay for damages. In the end, you would end up with a SHIT LOAD of retirement money.

In Europe, insurance is mandatory but you only need to cover your own ass. By law, you need to be covered if you want to be on the road in a vehicle, and if there is some damage done to your vehicle, whether it is your fault or not, you go to your own insurance company to claim the damage. I guess there is the occasional time someone manages to drive into a store window or a gas station, but honestly, how often does that shit happen? Yeah, you could run over a person and be liable for that damage, but again, we’re assuming you’re not a complete idiot. That’s why all stores and gas stations also have insurance. If the guy you ran over didn’t have his own insurance, then he couldn’t have been making all that much money, which in turn means that his earning potential had you not killed/maimed him wouldn’t have been that great anyways. There’s a huge difference in premiums when you’re insuring a $2000 Chevy Cavalier over a $500,000 liability insurance that you need in Canada. Bloody fucking hell.

If you’ve been fortunate enough to have a car since you’ve been 16, you’re OK, but what about me? I’ve had car insurance once, maybe 5 or 6 years ago and never since. Now let us say I graduate and I get a job in Kincardine at the OPG nuclear power plant. There is no form of public transportation there. I now buy a piece of mother fucking shit 1994 Chevrolet Cavalier 4 door rust bucket worth about $2000 give or take a few hundred bucks. I would have to pay, brace yourselves ladies and gentlemen, because I am a mother fucking menace on the road, and I will be paying, $3250 PER MOTHER FUCKING YEAR to be allowed to drive my $2000 vehicle. PER YEAR. Where is the justice in this? Please explain this to me. Somebody. I didn’t just come up with this figure, I actually went on www.kanetix.com to get “THE BEST QUOTE”! That’s not even that bad considering the $5000 I was getting quoted when I tried insuring my Chevy Metro with a 76HP 1.3L engine. You see, this car was considered ‘SPORTY” because it only had 3 doors. Two on the sides and the hatch in the back. Oh watch me set speed records people. The tach only went to 140km/h but somehow I can cause damage with a car that weighs 1200lbs.

This was my beast:

And the massive engine that would power the beast from 0 - 100 in oh...about 1/2 an hour.

So did I end up paying the $5000? FUCK NO! I scammed the mother fuckers and risked driving illegally. The first offence of $5000 would put me in the same boat as I’d be in if I did pay the $5000 insurance. I didn’t get into any accidents and then didn’t need the car after I finished my coop terms so I sold it. I drove over 20,000KM in that fine automobile and I’m proud to say that I got away with not giving in to the fucking assholes.

drunken rambling about rock

2005-06-16T03:18:00.000-04:00

Jason may not understand this at all. He keeps thinking that indie rock is something that I’m tying to be, something I’m trying to live up to, or live out, just to be different. But he’s so fucking wrong he doesn’t even know it.

I just got back home from grocery shopping. It’s about 3:00 AM and I rode my shitty ass bike down to the Sobey’s and picked up a few groceries. Then, on the way back, my bags hanging off both sides of my shitty bike I noticed that Steve and Karl were walking down the street. I lent my shitty bike to Karl, only to watch him go off into the distance so I can laugh at him. I walk my 3 bags of groceries home and notice that 2 of 3 tomatoes have escaped me, but everything else has managed to stay, and this is a good drunken night. I got to pinch a lot of cheeks. Face cheeks to be exact. Apparently more girls want Kyle than he can handle, so I get to go around and pinch the ‘losers’ cheeks. These are the unsatisfactory females that get to go home all alone because Kyle left them.

So anyways, I got my groceries, and my beans are cooking on the stove, BUT I’m not happy. I threw on my more than expensive headphones and started to listen to death cab’s Transatlanticism album. It sounds amazing over these headphones, yet, what the hell am I supposed to be? I have a great life right now, and every single song on the LP is about sadness and settling and other depressing shit. Well, you know what, I got my beans cooking down stairs and I feel awesome because I have Sara the next town over. I really don’t have anything to worry about. How the hell am I supposed to be “an indie kid” when I’m happy? I think indie is all about being alone, and there is nothing else left for you but the music. I got into the game when I was dating Bex, and she made it even worse. When she left me - not that she was really with me - I needed something to hold on to and she wouldn’t be there for me but the fucking Delgados, Modest Mouse and Gibbard were champs. Then this Sara girl came along many months later and she filled the void and now I have nothing to be sad about. Music just doesn’t feel the same as it did back in the day because now it doesn’t mean anything. “and we’d learn how our bodies worked/god damn the black night with all its foul temptations/we looked like giants in the back of the gray sub compact/fumbling to make contact as the others slept inside” Yeah, that’s right but now that doesn’t quite evoke any fantasies because I honestly have nothing to bitch about or to hope for. I have all that every indie band can ever complain about and more. And that’s what indie rock is all about. It’s about making you feel better when there is nobody else for you. Nobody that gives a flying fuck about you. It’s music for depressed girls and boys that don’t think anything else can honestly help. It’s there because there are kids that don’t care what happens tomorrow because they don’t see a future and don’t care to see a fucking future no matter what it brings. It’s all depressing and it’s something you can hold on to. Something that feels as real as you do because nobody else understands and nobody else cares to feel like you do except for the music you listen to. I was there and it did its job. It’s true that I don’t need it anymore and now I don’t even know what the hell the whole shindig was about, but I do know what it did for me in the past and that’s what counts. I will always thank it for that and hope that it stays around for the other kids that need it.

Random music reviews

2005-06-07T20:22:00.000-04:00

About a year or so ago, I was bored and decided to browse through a random person’s Soulseek shared folder. I saw a band called Carissa’s Wierd and decided to download the thing. (For those not in the know, they spell it wrong on purpose, or the band is just really dumb. The debate is still out on this.) It is now one of my favourite bands, definitely in the top 5 if not top 3. Since that happy accident I occasionally download random stuff just to see if I manage to run across another Carissa’s Wierd.

I recently downloaded 5 bands and I feel very strongly about reviewing them. I’ll bang them off very quickly and you can sort it out yourself.

We have:

The Receiving End of Sirens - Between the Heart and the Synapse

Fallout Out Boy - From Under The Cork Tree

12 Step Rebels - Go Go Graveyard Rockin'

The Lost Patrol Band – The Lost Patrol Band

Armor for Sleep - What To Do When You Are Dead

--------------------------------------------

The Receiving End of Sirens - Between the Heart and the Synapse

Let’s start with “The Receiving End of Sirens”. The name of the band, length of the songs and the intro would give the impression this is a bit of an experimental band, lots of instruments, interesting textured synth and maybe even some strings. About five seconds into the second track “Generic Male Vocalist #8574” begins to sing. Then you realize that the music in the background consists of guitars, bass and drums that have been processed to the point where they all sound alike. There is supposed to be intricate little guitar fills in there, but they are completely uneventful and boring. The lyrics are equally gripping. “Bring all the kings horses and all the kings men/push brought on these legs/like pistons pumping forward motion” please don’t make me write anymore.

Rating: SHIFT + Delete, SHIFT + Delete, SHIFT + Delete

Fallout Out Boy - From Under The Cork Tree

Next on the chopping block, Chicago’s own “Fallout Out Boy”. Like ‘Between the Heart and the Synapse’, this CD is supposed to be new wave punk or something like that. I remember when punk was played by ugly, smelly guys with bad facial hair who enjoyed spitting and swearing. Instead, we have “Generic Male Vocalist #14537”. At times they almost sound like “Saves the Day”, which isn’t anything to brag about. One of the scoundrels from the band mentioned in an interview “We don’t want to disappoint the 200,000 people who are part of a very cult following that hangs onto our every word, and we won’t. But we wrote this record for all the people who haven't heard of Fall Out Boy before…[and he rambles on to make some kind of Star Wars comparison]” How they have 200,000 fans is beyond me. Is this what the kids are listening to these days? Poor kids.

Rating: SHIFT + Delete, SHIFT + Delete, SHIFT + Delete, SHIFT + Delete

12 Step Rebels - Go Go Graveyard Rockin'

I was grabbing at straws at this point and wasn’t expecting much from 12 Step Rebels. This was good because I got nothing. To their credit, they didn’t waste money on a recording studio and did the whole thing in a garage. People make comparisons to Tiger Army when they hear this, but that's like comparing Roseanne to the Olsen twins. But it isn’t the sound quality or lack of command of their instruments that is appalling. After all ‘Sadstyle’ by S is a worse quality recording than this. The real offense is their drummer who has only learned one drumming pattern in his life. And it isn’t even a good one. At least they’re trying.

Rating: SHIFT + Delete (I feel bad for these guys, they only get one)

The Lost Patrol Band – The Lost Patrol Band

So far the best of the bunch is The Lost Patrol Band, Self Titled CD. They sound really wholesome and almost happy. They’re never going to be top of the charts or be “that band that always got overlooked”, or even “that local band everyone likes”. They’d be fun if you ever feelt nostalgic for those times you spent watching battle of the bands in your high school . You could sing along to “You’re just what I want first thing every morning/all I think about is you all day till the sun goes away/I’m thinking about you too” and then you could reuse those lyrics on the next track ‘Golden Times’, because it starts with “You’re just what I want”.

Rating: SHIFT + Delete, SHIFT + Delete

Armor for Sleep - What To Do When You Are Dead

I’m really getting sick of this, but I did set out on this journey and feel like I must complete it no matter how painful. The “Generic Male Vocalist” factory must be working overtime these days. Take the first two discs I reviewed, “Between the Heart and the Synapse” and “From Under The Cork Tree”, wrap them in some tasty, overproduced plastic, throw in a couple of hooks that get old ½ way through the song and we have ourselves a cult following.

Rating: SHIFT + Delete, SHIFT + Delete, SHIFT + Delete, SHIFT + Delete, SHIFT + Delete,

Only if I spent that time searching for a job I could have been somebody.

Punjabi Matrimony Report

2005-06-06T02:07:00.000-04:00

This past week was a good course on Indian cultural practices. Apparently, they’re really hardcore about this no sex before marriage business and hitching people for life. I always knew about this arranged marriage concept thanks to the Simpsons, but I had no idea they actually took it that seriously. Instead of dating services like Lava life being there for hooking up and fun, it’s there for MATRIMONY! Imagine going on Lava life to find the person you will spend the rest of your life with.

Rav has been extremely kind and has signed me up on Punjabi Matrimony and Bharat Matrimony. This gesture is very much appreciated, as I really am in need of some more junk mail. There is a bunch of testimonies from couples that are now happily married. Here’s an example of a lovely new couple, Priya and Udai, married on March 28th, 2005. Awwww.

They offer 24/7 customer support and they’re ISO 9001 certified! YES! A site for meeting people is ISO certified! I wonder if the IT guys have to wear steel toed boots just in case the web server falls over.

Further searching of the site reveals Xpress Matrimony. I thought this was an Indian version of Las Vegas, but it’s just tips on marriage and stuff of that nature, including some wife beating tips.

Definition: eggbeating
1. Hitting your wife only lightly to avoid any serious damage.
2. Hitting your wife only as hard as you’d hit an egg if you didn’t want to break it.

Here’s a cute little excerpt from an article
“…when I was cribbing bitterly to [my mother] about my husband’s inordinate fondness for cricket, and his habit of disappearing on Sundays to play matches, he smiled a wicked smile and said, “I think I will stop playing cricket, and start playing another sport.”
“What sport?” I asked breathlessly.
“Wife-beating”, he replied, prompting me to throw a cushion at him.

And finally, here’s a little picture to sum up the marriage services offered by Bahrat Matrimony.

Yet another area of enlightenment came in the form of henna. I knew about this stuff before, but contrary to popular Western beliefs, Madonna did not invent it.

The idea here is that you paint your hands in all sorts of intricate designs with this natural paint. It is red or black, but you’re supposed to stay away from the black henna It has been known to cause bad stuff to happen. I also saw this on some girl at school once, but it didn’t look anything as cool as actual quality Punjabi Henna. I must say I like it quite a bit since I dig chicks with tatoos.

Of course as with everything else, Westerners have taken this Henna business, bastardized and sexualized it, because that is what we’re best at. One giant boner for capitalism.

I will close this up with a hint to the Indian nation. If you have something cool, hide it from white people.

Concerts Galore!

2005-05-25T01:58:00.000-04:00

Summer is here and that means all the best bands are on tour. I saw three concerts last week and experienced all that is ‘cool’ on the scene at the moment, which means I just reached new heights of coolness, oh yes, don’t you all want to be more like me?

So the list of notable bands I saw were The Faint, Bright Eyes, The Decemberists, M.I.A. and LCD Soundsystem. The best of the bunch was definitely Bright Eyes. The guy is so scrawny, short and pale, yet he somehow managed to stand out and draw your attention on a packed stage. He would just stand there and sing, not even as well as on his CD. He had violins, cello, guitars, keyboards, two drummers, yet he was the center of attention the whole time, without dancing or even moving around very much.

The biggest surprise of the all was The Faint. They really rocked the house. It made you want to jump around and dance. The best moves were exhibited by a guy in front of us who managed to molest the girl in front of him for the whole set while waving one hand in the air like he just didn’t care.

The most interesting experience was LCD Soundsystem. Musically, it was probably the worst show ever. The levels were completely off, the guy couldn’t sing. Their songs are quite repetitive, which works on CD, but not live. The band did their own setup and only had one roadie, and a female one at that. They were super ghetto, supporting their amps on milk crates and other random crap. Yet through all this I managed to have fun.

It started off much earlier in the day, when Sara and I noticed the LCD Soundsystem bus parked right outside the venue and I decided to lick it. I actually made contact there.

We then had to scalp the tickets off some dude, thankfully Sara is a good negotiator and talked the guy down from $60 each to $60 for the pair. So much for Laurier School of Business and my ability to negotiate.

Part of the fun was getting right up close to the stage. M.I.A. opened the show, which was neat, but I wasn’t too sure what to think of it. I’d describe it as ‘cute’. The crowd really seemed to love her and her weird ass little dance. They liked her more than LCD Soundsystem even, which is always embarrassing for the main act. They did sing most of their own stuff, and it didn’t seem like they were using too much tape backup, like a Britney Spears show would for example.

By the time LCD came out, we managed to get to the front. Sara was right in front of the drummer, which means your hearing goes instantly. I don’t know how drummers don’t go deaf from all that noise night after night.

The bass guitarist was my favourite. He had a very quiet and composed demenour and just played his instrument until the second last song. At this point the guy, out of nowhere, decides to start chugging hard liquor. Camera in hand, I got two candid beauty shots of this guy chugging. He sort of tried to hide behind the drums or his speakers, but we were really close and I managed to take two pics of him. I found it quite amusing.

At the end of the show, we managed to get a drum stick and the set list from the show. All in all, it was a fun time even though I probably lost some of my hearing.

With Teeth: Review

2005-05-13T01:25:00.000-04:00

I gave a pretty mediocre presentation at school today, however my teacher still really liked it because I pulled off an A in one of his classes last summer. In fact, because he knew me but nobody else in the group, he simply referred to it as “your presentation”, meaning me, Peter, and he completely ignored the other two people. It almost seemed as if it was my thing, and the other people were just some kind of appendix that is never really referenced. (I’m sorry, my appendices, if you’re reading this, but it isn’t really my fault.)

So how then, does one judge Reznor’s work by looking at the past? You can start with pointing out that he always worked on the bleeding edge, adding his own style to his influences. Trent’s music always appealed to whatever the kids were listening to at the time. This meant that NIN always acted as a marker, pointing to and even driving the predominant trends at the time. He was always a perfectionist and made sure that absolutely everything, including music, packaging, t-shirts and concert experiences were of the highest quality.

Does With Teeth exhibit all of those qualities? Yes. It has a brand new unique sound. The amount of distortion used on this CD surpasses everything out there. At first listen, it’s almost headache inducing when you listen to a distorted bass, guitar and some type of distorted synth noise all at the same time. Completing the new sound for this era of Trent’s work are clean piano melodies. The piano is almost like a woven thread through the CD bringing some civility to all the dirty distortion and lovely walls upon walls of noise. Dave Grohl ensures that the drumming is less involved with more straight forward rock beats on most tracks. The album has a sense of urgency and definitely knows where it is headed. With Teeth is not the fastest, but can easily pass for hard rock, especially with the heavy sound.

Trent Reznor loves music and he’s always talking about what he is currently listening to and unlike most other artists, his influences are audible. If you’re interested, he mentioned Saul Williams and M.I.A. as some of his current faves. I’m always baffled when an artist lists The Smiths as an influence and then writes a happy rap song about a steak dinner. Listening to the title track and “Only” I was being reminded of someone. Second time through I realized what disc Trent must have had in his CD player when he recorded them. As a fun experiment, I want you to queue up your LCD Soundsystem MP3s, especially “On Repeat”, then listen to “With Teeth” and “Only”. You can clearly hear the influences on those tracks. Another way of thinking about it is that Trent managed to sum up the entire LCD Soundsystem album in only two tracks on his own album. In case you don’t make the connection there, Trent also puts on a few LCD Soundsystem tracks during band setup at his show. Don’t be surprised to see a track remixed by James Murphy on the upcoming remix albums either.

It’s difficult to point out which tracks strike my fancy because they’re all fantastic and bring something new to the table. Everyone mentions “Only” as their favourite, with its simple beat and an extremely catchy “There is no you, there is only me, there is no fucking you, there is only me”. It opens with Trent half singing and half rapping. He teases you with various fills and then breaks into the chorus just past the half way point of the song. I’m not sure what the deal with “a tiniest little dot caught my eye” lyric is. He used the same thing in “Down In It”, back in 1989. Coincidently, he also kind of half sings and half raps on that track as well and perhaps it’s some kind of quip or inside joke? The piano work rounds out the song perfectly. This is definitely a radio song start to finish.

Other neat things worth mentioning are the falsetto in ‘All the Love in the World’, which is a first from TR as far as I can remember. The opening track is an excellent example of how Trent can slowly massage a song from a subtle piano and vocals to a full out distorted wank fest. Not that all transitions are so subtle. The title track has a beautiful little segway at 3 minutes in with only a piano and vocals. As a balls out album, you’d expect Trent wouldn’t manage to depress you with a sad song. It almost seemed that way until the closer, “Right Where it Belongs”. It is the only song on the album that doesn’t make you think of gorillas playing guitars. A sad piano melody and pangs of pleasing distortion over depressed vocals works wonders here. The song begins with Trent sounding distant, as if he was singing from another room. He then almost creeps into your ear, putting one foot in, and then the other, slowly entering your brain. I really can’t describe it any other way, other than commending him and Alan Molder for brilliant production and engineering work.

The wonders don’t stop there of course. This has to be a perfectionist piece and that means Trent and recording crew listened to all songs through different speakers and systems to ensure you get a pleasing, yet different experience depending on your setup. Back when I was a kid, I’d get excited at the opportunity of playing a NIN disc in a new system because it would unleash a whole new dynamic. Trent continues his meticulous engineering on this record as well. I copied the CD to a tape and listened to it in the car. A lot of the subtlety disappeared, but the percussion and bass gained a rather metallic, more industrial tone. Trent kicks up innovation another notch by only including a web link, instead of liner notes. This really changes the listening dynamic because you can follow along the .PDF file as you listen to the songs. It’s a very large file and you have to navigate around by following a line from one song to another. It is a completely original idea that adds a level of interaction never experienced on a CD. Who said everything’s been done before?

With Teeth finally sees Trent maturing both as a person and musician. Kicking some nasty drug habits and staying clean for almost 4 years really helped him focus more on what he really loves to do. He turned away from drugs and alcohol towards dumbbells and treadmills. At the moment, I can not think of another rock star in as good a shape as Trent. He sounds very at peace with himself, almost coming to a realization that he is getting older, but you do get a sense that something is not right. Lyrically there is a feeling of despair and helplessness. You get the sense that he feels like nobody is listening to him and that he can no longer make a difference. ‘Now I never make a sound/I just do as I’ve been told’ from “Every Day is Exactly the Same” and ‘I’ve gone all this fucking way/to wind up/back at the start’ on “Love is Not Enough”. Sounds a little like a midlife crisis.

Whatever it is, Trent has done it once again. This is hands down the best album to come out so far this year. If I had a rating system it would be five stars, or 10/10, or whatever else rating scale you can come up with. As with all of his work, this album is complex and is best approached a few songs at a time. Trying to digest the beast in one gulp might leave you a little bit nauseous.

Review of Trent's work

2005-05-02T14:10:00.000-04:00

I’ve had the new Nine Inch Nails album for quite a while now thanks to dear Zori and her strange connections. I downloaded, but did not listen to it. I just downloaded it to be able to say that I did and that I had it “before anyone else”. The official date was April 14^th if anyone is at all interested.

I then listened to the main halos in their entirety over the last 2 weeks or so to fully get into the NIN groove. If you’re a NIN fan, you might think that this is suicidal since his work never resembles anything he’s done in the past. The first major halo, Pretty Hate Machine was the best synth pop ever created. In fact, I can’t think of anyone else other than Depeche Mode that ever created enjoyable synth pop. Some people try to put Prince (when he was actually called Prince) and good ol’ MJ before his child molesting days into this category as well, but in both cases, the synths weren’t used as the instrument to carry the music. Then someone points out Skinny Puppy, and then I’ll point out that they weren’t really all that listenable, and were quite boring. And recently, I’ll add that Dave “Rave” Oglivie produced most of their albums. I had nothing against him, since he also produced some of Trent’s stuff, but last year he was involved with a little project called Jackalope and I lost all respect for him. That, Serial Joe and of course “Instant Star” are telltale signs that his coke fund is running low. When most people used synths as filler for the vocals of their songs, Trent was able to use “those features on the keyboard that are only for show” and make them the central part of the music. Just listen to “Ringfinger” on PHM (old hardcore NIN fan acronyms coming back to me!). The sound is so full, disjointed and distinct that nothing has ever sounded quite like that, and nothing ever will, that is, until some rapper decides to sample Ringfinger. That song is a league of its own. The entire album can be summed up in that one song and hence, it is at the end. Listening to the CD again after so many years has shown its age. I wouldn’t give it a second listen to anything that sounded like that today, but in high school, it didn’t really get much better than this.

Besides, this album was just a little primer for what was to come next. The Broken album was like a gang bang, fast, dirty, to point and only leaves you wanting more. Trent spent most of PHM feeling sorry for himself -ok the entire album, except for Head Like a Hole. Broken should have been called “I grew giant balls and want to show them to everyone”. The songs are sexually charged. From “Physical”:

i want your rough house baby
i want this right in your ear

Then there’s “Suck”

a thousand lips a thousand tongues
a thousand throats a thousand lungs
a thousand ways to make it true
i wanna do terrbile things to you

Other amazing quotes to live by, courtesy of Mr. Reznor:

i put my faith in god and my trust in you
now there's nothing more fucked up i could do

don't think you're having all the fun
you know me i hate everyone

He sings about morbid subjects of course, we couldn’t have it any other way. The guy is a marked sociopath and hermit, but the songs are full of anger. The sorry feelings are gone and he is just pissed off and horny. The album clocks in just over ½ hour and is guitar/drums/synth driven with a lot of dirty distortion and a wall of noise. It does not resemble PHM in any way. A lot of people don’t count this as one of his major albums because it’s so short and because Trent hasn’t really done cover songs on his major albums, but Physical is a cover. (If you care to know, the original sucked)

This is the album that turned me onto NIN in the first place, and I feel like I must tell the story. I was running track at the time and was supposed to spend the whole day at a track meet. I really sucked and was eliminated early on in the day. I went home for lunch with the intention to go back later and run a few more events. This would not have been a memorable day in any way, except while at home I decide to pop in a cd from my brother's case. It was all black with a column that looked like it was on fire. I popped it in out of sheer boredom and the need to hear some new music, not caring what it was. I couldn' believe the ghastly noise and cursed my brother for having such terrible taste in music.

Then Trent decided to invest in some needles and experiment with Heroin. This was good for the music business because I’m sure it had a little bit to do with the creation of The Downward Spiral. This is the album when Trent realized what he was meant to do. PHM was a “DUDE! I can make noise with a synth”. Broken was “I can add guitar to it and make it even cooler!” TDS was the culmination of everything he’s learned in the past and the ability to meter out various doses. I don’t need to go into details on this album because it was very successful commercially and a lot of the songs got radio play. You can hear “Closer” and “Hurt” on the radio to this day. One element that Trent has not played around with much was flow of the entire album. Most bands are just happy to write a couple of singles and then throw in filler to support them. You can’t just listen to one song on TDS because they’re meant to be listened to as part of the whole, much like you have to eat the entire Thanksgiving meal in one go (turkey, stuffing and sauce). He wasn’t the first person to do this, but apparently it takes skill. The album is heavily based on Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon, which also had similar flow. The album flows, but it seems like it’s trying to get you from one place to the next rather quickly. It pauses briefly during “A Warm Place” and “Eraser”. The album, in retrospect, is rushed and tries to do too much at one time.

Just to make sure it is understood, all of this is in retrospect after listening to the albums again for the 40^th time, or however many times I’ve done so. I’m only comparing Trent to himself, not to anyone else. Most artists can't compare their best work to Trent's worst.

Finally, the most underrated album of all time was a two disc monster called Fragility. There is a LEFT and RIGHT disc (as opposed to disc 1 and 2). The LEFT disc only sets the tone for the RIGHT one. It’s almost like two person volleyball. Everything Trent accomplished before Fragility was the defensive move against the other team’s spike. The spike was life. It got a hold of the man and really showed up in all his music.

i'm the one without a soul
i'm the one with this big fucking hole
no new tale to tell
twenty-six years on my way to hell

You’d think he’s singing about someone else, but he threw in his age just to make sure you know it’s him. Fragility was five years after TDS. There was some time to reflect and time to go kick the Heroin habit. Apparently, getting off smack is similar to quitting smoking because he got really fat and had to grow bad facial hair and wear funny clothes to hide the fact. It didn’t work too well. I always wondered if “The Perfect Drug” was a love song, his final goodbye to Horse (what really cool people call Heroin) or perhaps an ode to Doritos?

Back to volleyball then. The LEFT disc is the setup. Trent doesn’t seem to be retelling too many personal experiences, it is all more or less out in a void. The attack has been defended against, and the ball is set up to be spiked. The RIGHT disc accomplishes the spike.

The LEFT or RIGHT discs are not rushed, but the RIGHT especially isn't. It is slow moving but you don’t want it to or care if it moves along. You just want to live in whatever is happening at the moment. The songs have names, but they don’t really matter because there is flow to them all you need to know is that you’re listening to the RIGHT album. Even the first three songs with the fat beats make you feel that nothing is being rushed, you’re just being carried along like on a tube in the Lazy River at Wally World. It’s fast at parts, and slow in others, but it feels natural. The second last song, “Underneath it All” gets a little bit too much and begins to pull. The flow is no longer natural and it almost feels like being in the undercurrent of a wave. I used to stand in front of giant waves and let them crash into me when I a wee one. Horrible idea because often times I’d smash my head off the rocks underneath, but once that was over, the current would really push you at high speed for a little while. This is the little part of the CD where you’re being dragged somewhere against your will, a place you don’t really want to go. That place is “Ripe, With Decay” – the next and final track. I also imagine it as swimming around in one pool of water, and then having the Matrix robot come in and scoop you out like a hawk, then drop you into some other body of water. All this without taking any psychedelics at all! Trent accomplishes this with barely any hooks along the way. It’s an ambient album that you can tap your foot to. Trent was now a seasoned veteran when it came to working with the synth, which meant there was only one logical direction, the acoustic route. He uses a lot of real piano and various acoustic guitar for good measure. I used to think that he was a genius for inventing a steel guitar, but it turns out such an instrument was used a long time ago. To further get the acoustic point across, Trent released “And All That Could Have Been”, the acoustic remixes of select pieces from his past, all the way to PHM. If you didn’t think “Something I Can Never Have” originally didn’t sound depressing enough, this one should be to your liking.

Fragility was definitely Trent’s best work to date. In fact, every time he released a major album, it completely obliterated everything before it. The first single from his major albums generally sets the tone for the rest of the record. The first single from Fragility was the extremely radio unfriendly “The Day The Whole World Went Away”. It was ambient, dirty and slow moving, just like the entire record. “Closer” was rough and hoppy with an organic beat and lots of refined synth, just like the entire TDS album.

The main thing to receive a new NIN record is to not expect anything that was done in the past. That is the only constant that Trent has ever held to. The new single seems to be using quite a bit of synth, but in a more pronounced way. There are no ‘natural’ noises in the song. Like all of his music, it takes a good amount of time to actually grow on you. I’ve been told that fans have been complaining about the little synth solo at 2:13 into the song. Trent makes synthesizer music. What on earth did they expect out of the guy? He’s always utilized synth and he always will, it’s a staple in his music. Complaining about it being too electronic is like complaining there is a roof on your house. It needs to be there. With that said, the new single is pointing to a more refined experience out of a seasoned musician. I will go as far as saying that Fragility is the best album ever released by any musician. Whatever album you can think up gets trumped by Fragility, simply on the grounds of refinement and meticulous composition. It doesn’t take Trent years to release an album because he’s lazy, but because he puts a great deal of thought and effort into every single song. He generally writes twice as many songs as he plans on releasing, then only picks the ones that fit with what he’s trying to accomplish. There are probably dozens of songs nobody has ever heard. It may sound a little bit morbid, but I can’t wait for the guy to die. All of those songs will be released. Much like Jimmy Hendrix, Trent will probably release more albums after he hits the grave than he did while he was alive.

I must get to class, but whatever happens tomorrow, you can bet it will be a great because he spent years making the new one. I expect it to be more poppy and even more seasoned than Fragility. Will it be better? I’ll let you know in five years. Fragility had staying power. I still remember buying it at Dr. Disc on Oulette in Windsor after walking home from my high school co-op job at the Windsor Board of Education. It’s been five years, yet the album is still as fresh as it was then.

I’ll let you know my first thoughts in a few days, after several listens.

Reply to my last post

2005-04-29T17:14:00.000-04:00

Instead of just replying to some of the comments made regarding the previous post, I will post a new entry. If you haven't, you might want to read the previous post and the comments made by my significant other. I try to address some of the issues brought up and then go off topic to talk about something vaguely related as I always do. As for the severity of the arguments, they are not completely, 100% serious. Sara has managed to scare people away by posting comments to the previous post. Please don't be afraid to post your thoughts, it's not AS bad as she made it seem. Similarly, my post wasn't as serious as I've made it seem.

This is the reply to the comments on the previous post:

Thank you for your comment on this issue. My rant did not in any way speak about the personalities of the women mentioned, aside from the generalities to which no names were assigned. In no way did I insinuate that all women are only concerned with decor. Of course to make your argument stronger, you did not mention any of the positives I've talked about in the rant, such as the uncanny ability of persuasion that women can posses. That was meant as a positive. My attempt at making the female president aggressive by plunging a knife into a map also went completely un-noticed.

I was specifically talking about the most intellectually unfortunate people, such as in this example:

A case for eugenics

As for the specific people I brought into the picture, I simply decided to talk about a small part of their appearance, and not at all about their great accomplishments in life. I chose to do that in order to accentuate the hair, because that was the topic of the post. I could have dragged other things into it, but that would have destroyed the idea of focusing on one point only. Never did I say that it was the only thing attractive on a woman. The idea was that it can enhance the physical beauty. Never did I say that short hair = lesbian either. I also did not say that ALL femininity is in the hair, I said "a great part", which isn't necessarily a majority but is a much greater part - at least for me - than say, long eyelashes. I don't really care much for eyelashes. Now I will go on a long winded rant to prove a very small point, but I hope the readers will learn something from it, or at least agree with me.

I begin by talking about the choice of profession between the sexes. Looking at the engineering classes at Waterloo university, very few girls choose to enter this area of study. I ask you to look at the information presented by the "Women in Mathematics" committee at U of W.

As the graph shows, there seems to be an upward trend in engineering but the numbers are still completely out of whack.

Using my own program of study as an example, there are six girls out of about 30 students in my year. Talking to you Sara, you've told me that you're in certain arts classes which only have one or two males in them. Finally, consider the fact that barriers to entry for females are exactly the same as those for males in all areas of study. In some cases it is easier for females to get into certain professions because of affirmative action programs in place. U of W has grants that only female engineering students have access to. Just to make it blatantly clear, I am in no way saying that I support or denounce affirmatve action, I am simply stating it to make a point. All you need to get into Waterloo engineering are good marks in math and science and a formidable score on the Descartes math exam. There is nothing barring girls to do either. From what I've seen in class, there is barely any difference in grades between the two sexes. This particular study shows that boys had a slightly higher average in elementary school, but I've also heard otherwise from various other studies. Why then, do girls not choose these professions? It may have something to do with the genes, or the way they are brought up, but in the end, girls tend to gravitate towards dolls and boys tend to gravitate towards cars. There are organizations such as Women in Engineering Programs & Advocates Network that look at this issue, but they want your $$ in order to view the stats.

I'm going to mention an even more taboo issue than the above. Black athletes. This is such a taboo subject that we rarely hear people talking about it. You can really offend people simply by saying what is palpably obvious. A well selling book (I don't think it ever was a best seller) with a ridiculously long name looks directly at this subject. I heard it mentioned on CNN a few years ago and it's a miracle that I was able to find a link to it. Taboo : Why Black Athletes Dominate Sports and Why We're Afraid to Talk About It. You can even read the first few pages of the book for free. It is offensive to talk about this because people begin looking for hidden information or make assumptions about what you did not say. People reinterpret information to hear what they want, not what is actually meant by the speaker. The authors of 'Taboo...' mention that to many people, superiority of black athletes also means inferiority in other areas. That is not at all what is being said, but it can be taken in that way by people who enjoy filling in between the lines. People are born predisposed with various traits, and there are trends that can be seen amongst the races and gender when it comes to athletics. That is what the book is about.

The erroneous conclusion that people come to when they look at stats is this. Since the majority of the group is predisposed to act in a certain way, then every one in that group will also act in that way. Let's suppose that a community of turquoise and teal shaded people exists. It has also been proven that 13 out of 100 teal people have a certain undesirable quality, but only 3 out of 100 turquoise people have it. Statistically, the teal people are more likely to have this quality, but the truth is that there are 87% of teal people that are completely unaffected. In fact, those 87 people are better off than those 3 turquoise ones with the condition. With all that said, you can make up insane propaganda to make this statistic sound terrible. "Teal people are more than four times as likely to have predisposition X! Kill all teal!" Statistics are harmless pieces of information in the right context, but their misconstruction is the deadly part.

These ideas can then be taken back to my arguments about the female president who would redecorate the White House. When I walk into a bedroom, I can immediately tell if a girl or a boy lives in it. It is not incorrect to say that males and females have different ideas of aesthetics and therefore it is not completely unreasonable that the female president would redecorate. Furthermore, I wasn't saying that the female president would be incompetent in any way. You could draw the conclusion that because she would be concerned with decor, she would then not be able to carry out the job of a president. If the reader came to that conclusion, who is really at fault for stereotyping?

Thoughts on short hair

2005-04-25T12:41:00.001-04:00

I came back to Windsor but I can't seem to be able to sleep here. Apparently my girlfriend decided to cut her hair real short and I've been preoccupied with the subject of hair. I haven't seen this yet, and for all I know she might just be joking around. Either way it's not helping me sleep any.

When it comes to women and hair, I do not believe they know what looks good on them. In fact, I think this is what gay men were created for. To cater to women's hair. Every time a girl gets some kind of hair work done, be it colouring, streaking, perm, perm removal, bangs, bang removal, head shave, etc all other girls notice and say "Oh did you get a hair cut?" And then, without any hesitation what so ever, and with utmost sincerity say "I really like it! I really do." They might say otherwise once the 'new hair-cut girl' takes a step beyond hearing distance, but they will say it. This ability to say stuff sincerely without meaning it can be seen practised by women all over the place.

Girl #1 "OOOh, I really like that skirt you're wearing!"
Girl #2 "Thanks, I saw it at AE for only $29 and I just HAD -TO - HAVE IT."
Girl #2 Exeunt stage left
Girl #1 "Oh - My - God she looks like SUCh a SLUT in that skirt. I mean, could she be showing off any MORE of that ass?"

Luckily, there are not more women in politics because they have the ability to seem sincere even though they are completely bullshitting you. When George Bush says "Under no circumstance are we planning to invade Iran next, but with that said, we can not rule out any possibilities" you know that Iran is going to get it. If it was a female president saying this, it would go something like this: "Oh my god, did you see the Kashmir skirts they have for sale at Iranian Eagle? They're only $29!" and Iran would immediately think that they're not the next target. As soon as the White House (which by now would have been repainted some pastel colour to make it look more airy) cameras go off, you can see the female president plunge her swiss army knife at an Iranian map while saying "Those Iranian sons of bitches are going down. They look like such sluts in those Kashmir skirts!"

With all that in mind, the truth is that no girl ever looked better with short hair. By short I mean it doesn't go past the ears. I'm not saying that it makes them look hideous or unattractive, but a great part of the femininity is removed. I've been racking my brain trying to think of one girl that looked better with boy hair and I can't. The closest I can come up with is when Björk had little knots of hair all over her head - that was a pretty hot look. This doesn't really count since the hair was still long, it was only styled to look short. Furthermore, she's Icelandic and that's just a genetic experiment gone wrong, or right, depending on your tastes.

Let us now look at a few examples, starting with Björk, who can pull off this insane look quite well. It's taken from the "Venus as a Boy" video. At some point she begins rolling those eggs on her face, a must see if you're into weird shit.

We can clearly see a funky look going on an dit works quite well in the context. Next up is Grace Jones, who I actually find quite frightening. She had quite a major role in Conan: The Destroyer and was popular back in the 80's.

Some random person I found on the internet. I bring this to the party because girls holding guitars are very hot, too bad the boy look is detracting from the picture.

Next up is a Canadian CBC person. I'm reading her book right now. She also had a show about homosexuality at some point in time. I think she has excellent potential to go for the cute nerd look, but blows it with the coiff. (That's how she described her hair in the book, I'm not trying to sound educated, because I'm not.)

And finally, the biggest offender of them all, Sinead O'Connor. Look at those beautiful features. She's almost textbook perfect. One annoying song and a haircut later, we get this.

As I've said, I haven't seen Sara since she told me, so I figured if I get it all down now, I would have done it before the fact and I will get into less trouble. I'm probably already in trouble, but that's what I do best. The question is, what should I do now that my girlfriend become a boyfriend? My first knee-jerk reaction was to get out the 1 inch rake on the hair clippers and shave my head. I look hideous with short hair. My head is about 3 times as long as it is wide. This is presently concealed by my wavy hair. I have a disproportionately tall forehead. To get a better picture, take your own head as a starting point and then imagine some ogre pulled at your chin and hair at the same time. Your head would stretch out and then you would begin to look like me. To quantify this better, I wear the smallest available motorcycle helmet and size 7 fitted caps. I haven't yet met an adult that could wear any of my fitted caps. To make things even worse, the back of my head has a nasty little slant which would become very visible with only one inch of hair.

I was ready to show the world my slant when I realized that I need to start looking for a job. Nobody would hire me with one inch of hair because nobody wants a walking, blubbering penis around their office. True, that I will have to cut my hair to get the job, but I will still keep it a bit long, enough to conceal the deformed melon. I then realized that the best I can do is reinvest in a $2 bottle of Dippity-Do. The gooey substance and I were buddies back in the day and perhaps we should get reacquainted. Sara and I will of course look like a couple taken off the set of Jerry Springer, but hey, what can you you do when more than half the population can walk around complementing each other on how good their AE skirts look?
In the end, it's true that there's more to attraction than just the hair. In my case, it is the only attractive thing I have - then again I've always been special - but why destroy something beautiful? I mean even the Nazis couldn't bring themselves to raze Paris.

Podcasts

2005-04-11T12:21:00.000-04:00

I think British accents can be quite neat and now, due to wonders of modern technology I can listen to a British dude complain about random things in life. I happened across this Another Angry Young Man podcast. He broaches dry subjects such as:

Content:
* Farewell, Hunter S.
* It's really fucking cold
* Sudan-1: Bringer of cancer (worcester sauce flavour)
* Updated for the new millennium

Even though the subject matter is rather dry, I ended up laughing at a number of parts. I’d highly recommend it and suggest you give it a good 5-10 minutes before making a judgement.

If you haven’t experienced podcasts yet – I was in the dark until George mentioned them on his show – they are like blogs but you can listen to them in your car on your way to/from work. This is assuming you actually have a car and an iPod or some other type of mass storage audio playing device in your car. Most of the radio stations that you can pick up these days are just not worth listening to because there are too many commercials and really, most of the music they play are just commercials themselves. You hear the same shitty pop single every hour, on the hour, in part because they get paid for playing it. There’s something refreshing about the amateurism that goes along with podcasting. The content can be anything from comedy to religion. Why read the bible when you can have someone read it to you. The last of many great things about podcasts that I’ll mention, is that you get to play them whenever you want, unlike broadcast radio which makes up the schedule for you. I want to listen to “The History of New Music” now, not Sunday evenings.

If you like listening to music as opposed to British dudes, there’s a ton of people who, like me, believe they have a superior taste in music and feel the need to tell everyone what indie songs they’ve been listening to lately. Although in my case, the superiority is true, really it is! I ran across the Disposable Radio Show. They feature new music from some of the more popular indie artists. For those not in the know, popular indie means that 7 people buy their CD, as opposed to garage band indie, where only your mother listens to your CD.

…Oh, I almost forgot. Whatever you do, don’t listen to the first song on broadcast #6. It’s horrible. Yet another great thing about podcasts - you can skip it if it sucks!

Andrew Stevens Tribute

2005-03-28T15:47:00.000-05:00

I figured I should dedicate this posting to what is now turning into a seasoned friend, Andrew Stevens. Kind of funny that I should, but I figured I’ve known him for five years now and he’s always been a good person to me. He’s one of the few people I can keep long distance contact with. My other friends shouldn’t get jealous, perhaps one day, you’ll get your own blog posting. Conversely, I don’t expect Andrew to post anything about me. I just figured he’s an interesting topic.

Andrew was my room mate in first year and was the kid that didn’t really like to party. He never wanted to come out with us, save one memorable occasion where he ended up break dancing at Louie’s nightclub. Lucky he didn’t end up with a shard of glass in his hand, or worse yet, catching Chlamydia from a spent condom littering the floor. We didn’t talk much aside from going through some of his interesting musical tastes and computer geek talk. I think he mentioned his girlfriend a few times too. Aside from that, he wasn’t the most popular kid on the floor because he was a lot more reclusive than is permitted at this school. I say permitted, because you’re not allowed to be different here at Wilfrid Laurier University. In your freshman year, everybody must fit in the “I go to clubs in my AE outfit and pick up girls in AE outfits while dancing to Shaggy” demographic. Andrew was not as interested in this scene and in retrospect I wish I hadn’t been either. His hobbies were studying and driving home for the weekend as far as I could tell. He took sleep seriously and that did not mesh with our taking partying during the week seriously. It got out of hand when Andrew called the floor don late one night because of excessive noise. The don found a hole in the wall – which my room mate Joe punched in using his fists – and about a dozen people in my room talking loudly. I came out the winner, because you really have to be cool if that many people want to hang out in your room. Joe had to pay for the damages.

As the school years dragged on, I managed to meet new people and become far more open minded. As I ran into Andrew in the hallways of our tiny school, I began to realize that he is a very interesting and intelligent person, not the sucky wimp who had to get 8 hours of sleep or else would be cranky. I began to enjoy Andrew’s company and realized that he is in fact extremely cool. Ben Kweller puts it quite well in “On My way” - “He is up for anything/ he can hang with anyone/ he still likes the things/ we used to think were fun”. Quite fitting since he turned me onto Ben Kweller in the first place.

Andrew is now pursuing a Law degree at UWO which, according to him, is the hot undergrad capital of the world.

Andrew followed up on two of my posts, informing me that the iPod does in fact have lossless audio format capability as of version 2.2 of the software. You can download this from their website to upgrade your iPod. Perhaps I was wrong about the iPod not having enough processor power to decode lossless, but perhaps not. You can only use Apple’s proprietary ALE (Apple Lossless Encoder), which is thought to be specifically designed to run well on…whatever they designed it to run well with. It would still be interesting to see if it could decode FLAC or APE, which I like to use. I don’t know enough about decoding to be able to make any claims at this moment. It is also sad to see Apple force their standards on everyone. They should support at least one open source codec aside from their own. After all, the iPod can play back mp3’s, which are open source.

I also inspired Andrew into buying a new battery charger. I’ll just quote the kid on this one:

“Usually, my unit takes on average 20-30 seconds to get a reading from three satellites.
Three seconds after hitting 'on' with the non-rechargeables I had my position and everything was a go.  
The other observations were subjective: the unit seemed more accurate and the distance counted down in finer increments.
Overall, I can say surely that the GPS works way better with the right voltage running through it.

So I guess since I've lost the charger anyway, I should give Pure Energy a try.”

To close up this post, I’ll say that Andrew has many interests ranging from flying, exotic tobacco products and even bongos. His love of pyrotechnics inspired the following picture. One moonlit night we set out to light up a chemical (forget the name) which, when combined with sugar creates a pretty damn cool smoke bomb. Andrew had the chemical, I provided the sugar and corn nuts while Eric and Nick enjoyed the ride. The corn nuts were there for eating, they had nothing to do with the chemical.

So these are some of my travels and tribulations with Andrew. He’s informed me that he has a TA job lined up for the summer, right here in Waterloo. This would mean there would be some shenanigans on the menu. Besides, I’m pretty sure his favourite two treats are on the Laurier baseball keg party menu.

Food Steaming

2005-03-23T01:56:00.000-05:00

Steamed food can be very enjoyable. When I was a kid living in the ‘old world’ steamed foods were quite common. But how the heck does one go about steaming food? A short discussion on steaming ensues, followed by a (relatively) easy steamed bread recipe.

My mom would suspend a gauze over some water in a pot and the cover would go on top of that. It has to be covered, because it needs to be surrounded by steam. This might be tough, depending on the type of pot that you have, because there needs to be enough clearance above the dough for it to rise even more. Another neat device i've seen used is a little metallic...umm.. raisy thingy that goes into the pot. You can buy this insert:

and fill the water so that it doesn't go up to the insert, and you place this on top of your pot. The one I've seen used is a little bit different. Imagine a disc with holes in it, like the bottom of the steamer I showed here. Then there are little legs attached to it so that it hangs out above the water level. My favourite steamer of all time which I used to play with a great deal as a kid was adjustable.

This one fits into any pot.

This is how it looks open.

The beauty of this device is that it only opens as much as the pot you're using allows and therefore adjusts to the size of your pot. Absolute brilliance.

Now-a-days, my mom uses a steamer she bought at K-Mart or wherever. You can also steam rice and veggies in it.

The last note about steaming is that you need to retain a good amount of steam around whatever you're steaming, but you can't make it airtight because it'll explode. You need to release the steam a little bit, yet still make sure enough stays in the pot. The best thing to do is to just cover the pot and put it on a boil that isn't too vigorous. That way you get steam and when it builds up too much the cover will just pop up and release some.

Now that you know how to steam things you can try to make something! This recipe was sent to me by my mother, via email. Yes, my mother now has her own email address and everything. I translated it as best as I could and added some of my own notes

"Knedlik" aka steamed bread

500 gr. flour
3 deciLiters warm milk (obviously a European recipe)
1 egg
yeast
sugar - 1tsp
salt - 1tsp

Take the yeast with sugar and get it to rise with a bit of the milk. This should take a few minutes.

I'm already lost here because I'm not sure how to do that or how much to use. I've bought these little rising yeast balls at the store before. I guess you could read the instructions on that. Back in the day, my mom used real active yeast that came in chunks. Real living organisms in a block that you can make all kinds of crazy things with, but I'm not sure where you'd get a hold of that here. I'm pretty sure she uses the dried yest these days.

Add the flour and the rest of the milk and leave it in a warm place (i.e. top of fridge). Best - from what I've seen my mom do at home - is to take the a large mixing bowl and cover it with a cloth of some kind (make sure oxygen can get in). The cloth retains some of the heat while allowing air to go through it. The dough should rise from the yeast in about an hour, but it really depends on the warmth and how active your yeast is. It gets all swollen and fluffy and it's fun to poke at. My mom used to get mad when I poked the dough, because the heat would escape. When it's nice and plump, split it in two and make two rolls that resemble bread out of it. Let it rise again for about 25 minutes. This time just cover with a cloth on a table.

The cooking time... errr... steaming time for this is about 20 minutes. It has to be good all the way to the center. I guess you could check by cutting into it to see if it's still raw in the middle. After you take it out, rub some butter on top and poke it a few times with a fork or toothpick.

Best enjoyed fresh from my experience.

So wrong...

2005-03-14T11:20:00.000-05:00

Jason gave me a book by Irshad Manji, "The Trouble with Islam". I've barely started and still have to be convinced that the trouble IS with islam and not the culture, but one disturbing fact just popped out at me. If you're stoning someone, you are supposed to "hold a Koran under your arm to restrain the force of the throw".

Damn, now that's something.

Old Gang

2005-03-12T13:19:00.000-05:00

This was my first time at Ethel's that I actually remember the scenery and the vintage posters on the wall. They have some really neat stuff I didn't even know existed. There's a crazy bright neon sign advertising Blatz beer. This quality brew is brought to you by the same people that create Colt 45, Schlitz, Lucky Lager, Old Milwaukee, Lone Star and many other discount beers that are well known with the alcohol dependent, shelter impaired citizens. They didn't even sell it, but I really enjoyed the 650nm light it emitted. It had quite a pleasurable effect on my retinas. I'm sure the beer might have had something to do with that as well.

I went with the 'old gang' from Canadian Tire. Approximately 6.5 months old actually. I planned on going to bed at around 11PM but then Melissa and Rav disturbed my peace and I couldn't resist. When Mike gets to the party, the gloves are off and the gin begins to flow at an ever increasing rate. I don't understand how 100% of non white people manage to look so 'thug' in every picture, but only 33% of white people do. Mike always looks thug.

We hung out until the place closed down and the cows came home.

Flickr is being a giant hardon, so I can't really make a good post of this. Just click any of those pics to see a few more from last night.

Rechargeable conspiracy

2005-03-05T17:37:00.000-05:00

I really don't understand this rechargeable conspiracy. All the batteries that are readily available and rechargeable are the 1.2Volt variety. Standard equipment is generally designed for 1.5 Volts, but it's all slightly relative. A toy car or an MP3 player will work with 0.3 Volts less, because electronics are generally designed to work in a given range. I can actually say this with authority because I'm almost done this forsaken undergrad degree in Computer Electronics. Just to give you an example, the parallel port in your computer (where you stick your printer) is designed to work in the +5V to +15V, and -5V to -15V. That's a 30 Volt difference between two opposite signal peaks! That's pretty huge, but really, it doesn't matter because they probably stick a huge resistor in there to take care of that. The point is that electronics are not as sensitive as people generally think they are. Just because the thing says 2 1.5V batteries doesn't make it so.

I did say the electronics will work, but they won't be as lively and in some cases won't last as long. A small remote control car that takes 4 X 1.5V batteries has a total of 6V to go through the motor. If you use 1.2V batteries, you now have 4.8V pumping through the circuitry. It will work, but less voltage means less current, which translates to a slower car. My MP3 player is designed to give up once the voltage gets too low. As the batteries weaken and begin losing charge (and Voltage across the batteries) the thing just gives up because there is only so much leeway it can take. Flashlights are an even better example since the brightness is directly related to the amount of power pumping through the bulb. You just don't get as much power with a 1.2 V battery.

I've analyzed the rechargeable in the past and they do vary in Voltage quite a bit more than regular batteries. Right after a charge, they're much closer to 1.3V, sometimes even 1.4V, but very quickly lose about 0.2V to arrive at roughly 1.2V for the majority of their life, and then start dropping off towards 1V. Regular batteries, more or less stay at 1.5 V for their entire life, until they die.

My huge issue is that battery companies put out 1.2V batteries because 1.5V would compete with the throw away batteries business. I've had my camera for 3 years and the same set of batteries to run it with. They still work! I'm pretty sure I've got my money's worth. I'd much rather have 1.5V batteries because they last longer. Energinzer and Duracel do not make 1.5V rechargeables! This is an obvious way of putting out an inferior product to protect their market share. You buy the charger, but all of a sudden your flash light isn't as bright and your MP3 player doesn't go as long. Your remote control car is slower and your kid is not happy. Must be those 'other' rejected electrons in there. Everyone's in on it! If you go to FutureShop, they'll want to sell you the non rechargeable ones because that way they move more product. They proudly display the 1.2V rechargeables next to the 1.5V copper top and Energizer.

You're thinking, I'm is a freak and a conspiracist! Obviously if FutureShop was able to sell a better charger they would. There must be some technical problem with having 1.5V batteries that nobody can solve? A quick search on the internet yielded a Canadian company named Pure Energy that has managed to solve this 1.5V mystery. Somehow Duracell and Energizer didn't have the engineering capabilities to figure it out, but this company, that can't even afford a half decent website figured it out. I have never seen these batteries on a store shelf before. Why aren't they right next to the Duracells? They're obviously a superior product! They're Mercury and Lead free. They have 1100mAh (milliamp hours) stored in them. My rechargeable Duracells have 750 (advertised in giant letters, as if this was some kind of feat). For those without the technical background, milliamp hours measure how many hours the battery would last if it was outputting 1 milliamp continuously. Duracell won't publish the data straight out, but their 'industrial' batteries meant for factories and what not, made of Manganese Dioxide, which is not available for regular customers lasts about 2000mAh according to my shoddy mathematics and guesstimation of what the number should be.

Now your job is to go buy a charger and some batteries, and stay away from non rechargeables.

digital music

2005-03-02T19:10:00.000-05:00

I get some kind of sick jollies out of having my CPU work. I think it's the nerd in me, but I hate having it just sit there with System Idle Process at 99%. I need it to work. I mean, I paid for the thing, so it might as well do work. I also enjoy knowing the little fuckers inside are turning themselves on and off and that they're keeping busy. They're generating all kinds of heat and performing various calculations, figuring out where to send data and where to fetch it from. Oh yes, I think I'm turned on. I just realized this as I put on on an .ape encoded file. I take my CDs, and encode them in .ape now because it's a lossless format, which is equivalent to CD quality. Not only do these files take up way too much space on the drive, but Winamp needs a good 13 - 15% of the CPU to playback these files on my Athlon 1800+, compared to the 0.25% that it needs to play back plain old .mp3 files. There's also a huge pause between songs as the computer loads up the buffer with the first few seconds of the song. CPU at 100%, oh yeah.

An iPOD can't even play lossless files because a) iPods don't have enough muscle to decode these files properly (i'm guessing) b) the developers aren't proactive enough and c) the iPod doesn't have a DAC of sufficient quality to actually make use of a CD quality file. I was wondering if they'll ever make an "audiophile" grade iPOD, but I doubt the market would be there to justify such a thing. I'm not dissing the iPOD, I even want one! I'm just coming up with the limitations of it. There are good reasons for not having what I proposed anyways. Having a powerful enough CPU to crunch .ape or .flac files would consume a great deal of power. A high powered, quality DAC would do the same. In the end, what good is an mp3 player with a day worth of music if the batteries can only keep it alive for an hour?

i'm not the only one...

2005-02-25T00:05:00.000-05:00

I just ran across a review of the Shivaree concert I went to at Chromewaves. The guy has the same thing to say about Ambrosia as I did. She didn't just make love to me off that stage, she did it to everyone in there! Here's what he had to say:

" First thing I'll say about Shivaree to get it out of the way is that Ambrosia Parsley (her real name) is ridiculously hot. My pics from last night (which didn't turn out as well as I'd have liked since I couldn't really move around...) don't do her justice. Seriously. Which is why when I say that her voice was the most mesmerizing thing about her, that's no mean feat. Backed by a superb band (they're touring as a five-piece), Parsley's sultry, sexy coo was front and centre and sounded even better than it does on record."

I guess I'm not the only one! His pictures dont' do her justice either. In fact, I think it's only in combination with her voice that she actually becomes this uberhottie. Looking at the pictures alone doesn't quite do it. He also got slightly better pics, but mostly because of natural colour. I guess the dude has a real camera, as opposed to my piece of shit, which forces me to use a flash in anything but the brightest environments.

yet another pop music rant

2005-02-24T16:14:00.000-05:00

Some thoughts on music, fuelled by Hayley’s recent post.

Why does popular media assume that the band did not exist before they became popular (i.e. Modest Mouse or Death Cab...) The only solution is to only like bands that have never released anything, that way you can say you're truly indie :P All kidding aside, when a band is overplayed on the radio you don't really know whether you like them because they've been beaten into your head or because they're actually good. I got extremely excited over Jakalope, because Trent Reznor was listed as one of the producers and the project was masterminded by Dave Oglivie, one of Trent's long time buddies and producers. It turned out to be a huge disappointment. I had no idea they were going to play them on the radio, yet I still hated the piece of shit of an album. Trent’s name was listed on it and I tried my hardest to actually like it. I was beginning to get worried. Was this 'new music' so advanced and amazing that my mind couldn't comprehend it? Am I finally too old to 'get it'? No, the answer is that Jackalope just plain old fucking sucks! Some time later my friend told me that Jakalope was being played on the Edge. This is just a small example of how a lot of pop music is terrible, not JUST because they're on the radio and I'm an elitist snob, but because the band genuinely licks sweaty scrotum. I hated it before the radio and I hated it even more when I found out that these no talent ass clowns are going to get airplay.

Same goes for Ja Rule's horrid incarnation "Hey Yeah". It should be illegal for this fucker to open his mouth, let alone try to sing. His voice is absolute shit. Then, to top it all off, he goes "HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEY YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH", flaunting to everyone on the planet how awful his voice is. I almost took up singing after I heard that song because if he can get on the 'top 40' then so can I. I can not comprehend why people like it. It was hailed as a revolutionary piece of shit...err, I mean work, because a rapper 'rocked out' and crossed boundaries. Maybe if the pope rocked out it would be revolutionary, but who really cares if some two bit rapper does. My friends said "No, yo guy, it like, makes you go man, it pumps up da club you know?" It does, does it? How about some Death From Above 1979 to pump up the club next time? That sure as hell gets me going! I've even heard Interpol and Franz Ferdinand played at quality bars. Ja Rule is yet another example of how music that should never see the light of [a 780 nm wavelength] makes it into 'top 40', even though it completely blows. I understand the evils of Clear Channel and won't rehash them here, but some music is so bad that I don't see how backing it with any amount of money would help.

such a tool...

2005-02-23T00:53:00.000-05:00

Once again, I destroyed my giant post to the blog because I was fiddling with the back of my computer while inserting a USB key into it. I managed to knock out the power and kill everything.

So here it is, this time a little bit more bitter:

There have been no posts in a few days because I spent the weekend at my hot girlfriend's house. Sara very much enjoys being called hot. It's easy to do because she happens to be. [major pionts!] :) Have a look for yourself.

This should also alleviate any concerns over posting random French chicks and going on about Ambrosia. She thought it was pretty funny when I was ranting about her while in a drunken delirium after the concert on Thursday.

I managed to catch some type of stomach bug thing at some point on Sunday night. I think it may have been from The Old Spaghetti Factory . I have no idea if it was that, or perhaps the stomach problem is a symptom of some type of flu? After being curled up in the fetal position for over an hour on Sara's futon, the symptoms kind of went away. I then further showed off how little I know about stomach matters by deciding to cook Chana Masala - a spicy indian dish which involves Cayenne Pepper, Turmeric, lots of garlic and onions among other things. I figured that all these spices would kill the evil critters in my stomach. To top it off, some hard liquor was sent chasnig after the Chana Masala. This was a horrible idea the day after, espcially after I ate the second half of the Chana Masala, which set the dirty tone for the rest of the day. In fact, that is all I had the entire day. I kind of lost the urge to eat do to whatever is wrong with me. I hope that it will fix itself by tomorrow morning. If not, I'll see you at my funeral :)

2005-02-17T23:37:00.000-05:00

(DRUNKTALK) I just saw Ambrosia live. She didn't too many songs off her last two CD's that I had, but i've never seen a woman make love to people off a stage the way this one did. She just stood there. Fingers in her pockets. When the music came on, she really came on.. I cAN not explain this. She would open her mouth and amazing sound would come out. It was so gorgeous. Where did it come from? I hAVW no idea. She would just open her trap and sound would come out. She stood there, swaying left to right, and the sound drew everyone in. I ran up with my camera a couple of times, once she posed for me, but ....wow.. ican't describe it...... .. drunken blog rules.. Please bring her back. (/DRUNKTALK>

end of the world

2005-02-17T02:36:00.000-05:00

George Strombulopoluos (i think?) mentioned this during his little TV show the other day. Hilarity ensues.

You can also play with my balls!

the Ezra Strangler

2005-02-16T15:50:00.000-05:00

the Ezra Strangler
Originally uploaded by pgagy.

I'm entering another plant into Steven's plant contest. May the best looker of the bunch win!

the ah, fuck it stage

2005-02-15T23:40:00.000-05:00

I just realized there's an 'ah, fuck it' stage to everything I do. I was trying to figure out these image filters for my cp467 class (image processing, would you believe it?). The idea is to apply a matrix to every pixel on an image. This will cause different things to occur, such as bluring, sharpening or edge detection. I just couldn't figure out what the hell the 7X7 matrix to 'sharpen' an image could possibly be. I'm *guessing* that it's something like this:

{ 0, 0, 0, -3, 0, 0, 0},
{ 0, 0, 0, -2, 0, 0, 0},
{ 0, 0, 0, -1, 0, 0, 0},
{ -3, -2, -1, 24, -1, -2, -3},
{ 0, 0, 0, -1, 0, 0, 0},
{ 0, 0, 0, -2, 0, 0, 0},
{ 0, 0, 0, -3, 0, 0, 0}

but i've been known to be wrong a lot. It almost looks like it should be producing good output, but who knows what it's supposed to look like? I tried tweaking the above to give better output, but that gave me nothing. I can't find one ANYWHERE on the internet. Can you believe this? I found plenty of 3X3 ones, but nothing that's my size.

/*failed filters:
*
* { 0, -3, -3, -3, -3, -3, -3},
{ -3, -2, -2, -2, -2, -2, -3},
{ -3, -2, -1, -1, -1, -2, -3},
{ -3, -2, -1, 56, -1, -2, -3},
{ -3, -2, -1, -1, -1, -2, -3},
{ -3, -2, -2, -2, -2, -2, -3},
{ -3, -3, -3, -3, -3, -3, -3}

{ -5, -5, -5, -5, -5, -5, -5},
{ -5, -2, -2, -2, -2, -2, -5},
{ -5, -2, -1, -1, -1, -2, -5},
{ -5, -2, -1,160, -1, -2, -5},
{ -5, -2, -1, -1, -1, -2, -5},
{ -5, -2, -2, -2, -2, -2, -5},
{ -5, -5, -5, -5, -5, -5, -5}

{ -5, -5, -5, -5, -5, -5, -5},
{ -5, -2, -2, -2, -2, -2, -5},
{ -5, 2, 5, 5, 5, 2, -5},
{ -5, 2, 5, 8, 5, 2, -5},
{ -5, 2, 5, 5, 5, 2, -5},
{ -5, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, -5},
{ -5, -5, -5, -5, -5, -5, -5},

*/

After a number of failures, i just reached the fuckit stage. So what it's wrong? It's getting late and I'm too old for this shit. I'll hand it in 'as is', and if someone has a problem with it, they can shove it.

If you really need to see what I'm talking about, here's an example of vertical edge detection.

communists

2005-02-15T17:56:00.000-05:00

Well, my first post caused a crash in my Firefox. So here's post 2.0. There's a

random hottie that I needed to show off. Aparently I have to sign up for some Hello.com bullshit to post the pics for real.

The first post made a reference that pictures like that will keep people coming back, and that yes, I will stoop that low. I also realize that I'll have to post 'random hottie' pictures of Sara if I don't want to be beaten up. I also made references to that girl possibly being too young, but that not mattering since a) she has her clothes on and b) Stevens agrees that she's hot. I also made references to how I'm supposed to be doing work, but instead I decided to start a blog.

As for this blog, the only two ideas I have for now are:

random hot girl pics
music reviews
ranting
raving

I'm a real skid, so we'll see how long this blog is going to last.

Now I will put some clothes on and go make some tasty food.