Track Reviews

So by now, I should have bragged sufficiently that I got to go see Cloud Cult (link) live. But the most important thing I forgot to mention in my excitement was their opening number- a cover of Billy Joel’s “Hey Mr Tambourine Man”. To tell the truth, I never really cared much for the original. Or many of Billy Joel’s songs. But the Cloud Cult cover was especially rad.
To start it, Craig played the main riff twice with drums, then the drums, guitar, and everything cut out- leaving just vocals. Probably my favorite thing about Cloud Cult is Craig Minowa’s voice- especially his expressions when he sings. He closes (or maybe squints) his eyes, stands straight up, and tilts his head from side to side. It ends up looking like a South Park caricature of himself, and sounds quite amazing. The song evolves into the Cello n’ drums sound that Cloud Cult has perfected for themselves, with noodlin’ guitars and the non-teen-whining vocals.
I say non-teen whining because these are not your Blink 182 vocals, not your crappy whiny emo vocals, but simply Craig Minowa’s style of voice. It’s rad. Rad, I tell you.

Oh, and Dear Mr Danger Mouse or MF Doom or whatever you are calling yourself these days. What the hell is with the chorus in the background of “Smily Faces” by Gnarls Barkley? Ever hear of harmony? Everyone is singing the same note and this annoys me on a personal basis.

List of Topics

So I work, yes? Yea, sometimes, we have this pleasant little miracle called, “Jesus Christ there is no work.” So I figure, I may as well write emails to myself and blog in them. It’s pretty magical.
Actually, first I decided I wanted to write out a list of topics to blog about. Naturally, it is slightly recursive, the first item on the list being, “Blog about the list of things to blog about”. It is just how I roll.

Here is the rest:

Bees

Dead Birds (Thursday Morning)

Nosebleeds

Headaches

Wolf Parade- “Apologies from the Queen Mary” [review]

Hailstorms in midafternoon (Wednesday night)

“Lord of the Flies” [review]

“The Great Gatsby” [review]

“The Curious Incident of the Dog in Night-Time”- [review]

“The Gutter and the Grave” [review]

The Qur’an (thoughts)

Fototannerin “Pedals”

Wah-Form pote pedals

Mannerisms in the office- bosses

Coke versus Pepsi

The Pepsi Challenge- second operator bias

Blur & the concise, focused album

Soda, Pop, Wisconsin

Cloud Cult cover of “Mr Tambourine Man”

Huffing = Smoking

Trivia (I don’t think I’m going this year)

Dust

Why Dust sucks

Dust really sucks

The Yeah Yeah Yeahs- “Show Your Bones” [review]

Monopoly (and collectors versions- also Bilbopoly)- “Advance to Boardwalk”/”Free Parking

Switching Deodorant

Rock Island Café- (new couches) [review]

Why I am less likely to buy from a company after a rebranding if I knew about them before they rebranded

Recording thoughts- Self Chorusing either with multi-ics or dual outputs

Recording thoughts- Live Stereo

Recording thoughts- Surround Stage

Out Sick

Might seem a little A.D.D. right now- it happens- but it is just how I roll.

I also roll sideways, and downhill.

Aw Shit son, throw down!

Chris Williams is a smarmy douchebag

Spoem (Spam+Poem): "Experienced Enough?"

house yearns for man trapped in his hotel room
they've all offered to than that. This
hit. Dan took shot off you that one of
her sense of there in his bed
any of this, and ancestor, and Ammon, the Egyptian god he
her possessions out on the and resting during which he rubbed the
D- He broke off. this day to the ending of
years just for single? celled life? forms to recolonize nation of mankind! Abdikadir
just for the heck of it, he into steep-walled valleys and gorges



[[Edited for spacing, no grammar check. I get these emails once in a while, figured I'd share them. They are entertaining.]]

Bookstore Noteblog to Myself: Fire the Irony Missiles

Today, when I went to the bookstore, I picked out 3 books. I sat down to read, and started with a book of poems by Charles Bukowski. I read the first poem, and closed the book.
"That's pretty pretentious." I thought to myself as I closed the book, shuffling my other books- a Qur'an and a copy of Milton's "Paradise Lost".

Rimshot, please.

Well, as Stephen Malkmus once said,

Today I told a joke to the bookstore employee. I was checking out, and I asked him, "Do you know what the best part about reading Chaucer is?"

Now, the answer to this is something the Great Stephen Malkmus once said, and his answer is "So you can say, 'I've read more Chaucer than you'."

I liked the bookstore employee's answer better. His was, "It never gets old"

Noteblog

I wrote this in my notebook today. I was in the coffeeshop, enjoying my book and listening to people talk far too loudly.

***

Sept 21st
Today I started reading "the Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time", mostly on Matthew Baldwin's glowing recommendation (link) [edit: reread that recommendation-- not as glowing as I remember it being]. Or, rather, will start reading it after I scribble in this notebook for a little bit. I really wish I know how to write in Arabic or Sanskrit. Not much I can do about that right now though. [edit/note: My Roman writing is often compared to arabic for its many loops and tails].
There's music on the boom box today. Sounds like if Andrew Bird sang over Stephen Malkmus's guitar work- nothing amazing, but divine in its mediocrity. The noisy people left. Oh wait. I've heard this whole album here before. It's an alright album, but more mediocre than divine. That's what you get when you can only play albums that aren't liscensed by ASCAP, I guess.
Oh wow. An alarmingly cute girl just walked in- apparantly she and Joe the barristo know eachother. Maybe they're dating. Too bad. She's cute. Then again, Anna tells me Joe is pretty good looking so I don't need to feel all annoyed that an ugly person of my sex and a pretty person of the fairer managed to hook up.
Does that sound shallow? I don't mean it to sound that way. I like to judge people's attractiveness probably the same way most people do- respective to how well I know them.

I just came from the book/tobacco store, which is pretty much a completely awesome combonation if you ask me. They have very nice employees, too. Today they gave me extra stamps on my frequent buyer card.

Literature Recommendation:
"Life Of Pi", by Yann Martel.
Man was I behind on getting to this one. My bad, the world. Go read it if you haven't.

Album Recommendation:
"You Forgot It In People", by Broken Social Scene.
Another one I was way behind on enjoying.

Artist Recommendation:
The Album Leaf
Like Mogwai? What about Sigur Ros? Broken Social Scene? Put them all in a blender and subtract a guitar or three and you get The Album Leaf. Listen.

the English System

Today I had 36 fluid ounces of beverage from the coffee shop. This was because the new employee, Joe, was working. Normally I have 16, 32, or 48 fl oz of beverage. This is when Anna, Sadie or Dana are working. But Joe suggested I try the 20 oz. A better value, he said. This is slightly ridiculous for only one reason. I spend $2.00 on whatever beverage I get- any change I get is placed in the tip jar. It honestly doesn't matter to me whether or not I get 16 or twenty ounces of beverage. As I was suffering from indigestion on the way home, I thought a conversation out. Only, like most of the conversations in my head, this one is more of a monolouge. I think you will be bored either way.
Joe: Did you want to try the 20 ounce instead?
Sam: No, the pint is good.
Joe: Sorry?
Sam: the pint, the 16 oz. eight of them make up a gallon.
Joe: Yea? (Starts making my beverage)
Sam: Yes. In fact, originally, the english system probably did not have quarts and half-gallons. It was probably just eight pints to the gallon. Then they decided that four pints should be a half gallon, and two should be a quarter gallon. Then they got linguistically lazy and shortened quarter gallons to quarts. I am actually surprised that they didn't shorten half gallons to hags. And then half pints to halps.
Joe: (not paying attention.)

EDIT: halfway through typing this, I realised two things:
1- I am probably not really playing with a full deck- I just imagined a full out conversation (or as full of a conversation as I generally have with people) about the english system of measurement because I tried a size of drink different from my regular.
2- The title of this post is a pun, because it both describes the english system of measurement and picks on the English language as being lazy.

A total and complete rip off.

These are fan comics. Not rip offs. (well, yea, actually they are rip offs, but... oh fuck it.)
Toothpastefordinner.com, people.

.......dumb.

People, are we that fucking retarded that no one goes outside anymore?

the neurons connected and thus the pun was born

Remember kids: It's not CommYOUnism, it's CommWEnism

Superpowers

Today I discovered my super power.

It is to slack as much as I can at work, but somehow not only manage to get my work done before noon, but get most of the new girl's work for the commercial business end of the company done too. Then from 3 until 4.30 i get real bored and fidgety.

That is a very long time to get bored and fidgety.

I had been filling out a chord chart for guitar (friggin' annoying, but every tuning is different finger arrangements, and I need to memorise them) but FINISHED (note: the first time I've finished one sans computer) before lunch. I was fidgety all during that too. So I think my fidgeting is actually ripping or stretching time so I can have more time to fidget and do my work- thusly making my day simultaniously go really really slow and really really fast.

I'm pretty sure my nemesis will spit fire or own a business.

New Rule:

Hey fuckers.

See that meebo widget over there?
If it starts talking to you, that is ACTUALLY ME talking to you.

So before you close out of the page, holla.

It works just like AIM or Yahoo Instant Messanger, just type and hit return. If you really wanna make me grin, come up with a creative name.

Oh Damn

You know, maybe you assholes that don't pay any attention to politics should start.
Maybe you bible thumpers should start looking into the book you advertise so viciously.
Doesn't it say even Satan can quote scripture? Maybe people should start THINKING FOR THEMSELVES.

The next email that I get AT FUCKING NON-PARTISAN WORK that calls red states a silent minority will get sent to the fucking HR department for solicitation (an offense that warrants firing if severe enough.)

Also, watch this. Rummy gets his ass handed to him- verbally.

Inspirational Quotes

"Good thing these tickets were free, Major Rathbone. This play su-"
-Abraham Lincoln, April 14th, 1865

thank god John Stewart lives in my desk calendar.


I wrote the title to an article a while back and didn't get around to publishing it until tonight. it is here.

Tuesday Morning

Apparently my Spam mail is 2/3rds of the number of the Beast. I'm pretty sure Satan will take over my email in a few months.

..... weekend recap

One More Spam

Spamming Wikipedia

As you read through your wikipedia articles, you may become aware that something is missing. You add it, and realise the tremendous potential for abuse that you can incur with this editing ability.

You add "Ouroboros" to every page you read.