Never Apologize, Never Explain

02:05 pm

Like Cosmo Kramer, I only watch Canadian football. Part of the reason is that sometimes you just see something you'll never see again. Like this 'tribute' to Michael Jackson:

Unfortunately they didn't include the sideline reporter's bit afterward, where relates that he found out it was a tribute to MJ and asked Bruce, "Why not a moonwalk?" and Bruce replied "Becuase MJ doesn't moonwalk anymore." LOL

08:37 pm

I remember I was in the early grades and the whole Thriller song/video was a pretty big thing at school. Too bad about the freakshow that happened later, but I guess not a lot of people can survive growing up famous.


(Yeah, the sound quality is pretty terrible, but it's the only clip of this song I could find)

04:10 pm

03:09 pm

I think the wintertime is my favourite season. I miss it. About the only thing good about summer is wearing shorts and sandals, which is pretty relaxing. But pretty much soon as spring hits I get allergies and then all sorts of flying, stinging insects, and heat & humidity, and sunburns - and the sun's been so bright the past couple of days that I usually get a headache just looking out the window in the morning. There's probably more stuff to add to that list too.

Current Mood: grumpy

02:54 pm

Wow, I've got a whole new level of respect for Michaelle Jean after she ate a piece of raw seal heart from a freshly-slaughtered seal.

There's obviously a political implication the gesture, as the EU ignorantly put in a ban on most seal products coming from Canada. So I guess they can feel better about themselves, while at the same time still raking in cash for things like fighting bulls to the death in front of tourists. The funny thing is that seal populations are still going to need to be managed, to keep seal and fish population balanced (the way humans have been managing them long before Europeans came here), so the legislation isn't preventing seal deaths, it's just preventing people from making a living off of the land and the fruits of nature. I guess the European thinking is it's better that the seal carcasses be thrown away rather than used for people's benefit? There's nothing that makes sealing any more cruel than cattle ranching or chicken farms or the many, MANY wild animals that are killed in the course of producing a 'vegetarian' dish; but the PETA scumbags get to feel good about themselves by scapegoating a population that is both geographically distant and not too wealthy.

Stuff like this almost makes me feel proud to live in a monarchy :)

11:43 pm

"I might have a whole new life, next time you see me": 25 worthwhile documentaries about ambitious outsiders - This is a pretty neat list of movies. There's a handful there I've seen, and some others that I want to, as well as a few that don't sound that good at all.

One which I found about from that list and just watched tonight is Danielson: A Family Movie (or, Make a Joyful Noise Here), which was a lot better than I expected, and gave me a lot to think about. It's based around Daniel Smith, an artist and musician, who formed a band made up mainly of his family members, called The Danielson Family, who are deeply rooted in Christianity while creating an odd stage show (such as all dressing in nurse's uniforms) and the sort of music that got their songs produced by cooler-than-cool indie producers like Kramer and Steve Albini. During the course of the filming of the documentary, one of the musicians who is an occasional fill-in for the band, Sufjan Stevens, goes from roadie to understudy to opening act to what is apparently a huge deal critically and commercially. I really hadn't heard of the Danielson Family before, and only marginally about Sufjan Stevens, as I don't listen to much rock/pop anymore.

Some of the things it left me thinking about was Daniel Smith talking about how our lives and what we're meant to do is already pre-planned before the beginning of time. And of how he sits back and lets the Holy Spirit bring most of the songs to life. He compares the work most of us do to a kid helping his dad change a tire - the kid is enjoying himself and feels like he's doing something, but it's really God doing all of the real tough work. Which kind of reminds me of a quote from a Neil Young interview I watched recently, where the interviewer is asking him about his place in songwriting, and the few others that are at that level, and Young just blinks perplexedly a few times and says, "I'm so absent".

01:22 am - "And another thing, when I gun the motor, I want people to think the world is coming to an end!"

05:59 pm

wow...the trailer for Where the Wild Things Are really blows me away: http://www.apple.com/trailers/wb/wherethewildthingsare/

06:20 pm

Wow, cool, apparently Neil Young's next record is a concept album all about electric cars...I love it when he goes off the deep end :D

"His own guitar solos are luridly violent affairs—he staggers crazily about like an enraged fisherman who doesn't realize he's hooked the seat of his own pants...We love Neil Young because he does whatever the hell he wants, even if half the time we'd rather not sit around and watch him do it. There is only so much entertainment you can derive from watching a genius lose his way." http://www.villagevoice.com/2008-12-24/music/let-s-avoid-neil-young-s-next-record/

01:05 pm

I don't usually like Family Guy...but this is a hilarious take on that Christian Bale freak-out. Maybe NSFW?

07:05 pm

An old hard drive stopped working for me a few days ago, and though there wasn't really anything there I was too concerned about losing (mostly video & audio files), I was still looking around at solutions I might try in order to make sure the drive is dead. And then I found an idea I'd never heard of before, freezing your hard drive to get it to work! So, I threw it in the freezer, and actually didn't get around to trying it again for a few days. Today I pulled it out and plugged it in, and not only did it work long enough for me to check what exactly I had on there, and xfer most of it off, but it is still running smooth, long past the expected 20 minutes most people experience! I'm not sure I'll trust it again, but for now I think I'll keep using it and see what happens.

08:10 am

Wow, Newegg sells a USB turntable...though its alternate name is 'vinyl archiver', lol.

10:50 am - As an antidote to my viewing of the terrible 'No Country for Old Men' last night...

A new interview with Werner Herzog.

"If you do not have an absolutely clear vision of something, where you can follow the light to the end of the tunnel, then it doesn't matter whether you're bold or cowardly, or whether you're stupid or intelligent. Doesn't get you anywhere. So, there are much more important things out there that you have to follow. And once you follow your vision, it doesn't matter whether you get shot en route or not. You have not lost sight of what you are doing."

"When you ask biologists, talk to people who study climate and people who try to detect high-energy neutrinos, all sorts of scientists – it is very, very obvious that our presence, our physical presence on this planet is not sustainable. And I must say this: it doesn't make me nervous, but we have to anticipate that other species are much more successful. For example, sponges. They have seen hundreds of millions of years and they probably have several hundreds of millions of years more. Or snails, or cockroaches, and microbes are also out to get us. And there are many other things that make us much more vulnerable than other species that ever roamed this planet. And when you look at evidence of biological life on our planet, of course, it is a constant chain of cataclysms. We had trilobites and ammonites and such, but they basically disappeared. But they had a long, long, long-lasting presence on the planet. And of course, most famously, the dinosaurs, which came and disappeared. So human beings appeared only very, very recently, and they will probably, within timespans of hundreds of millions of years, have no any chance at all. Whether we will disappear in 12,000 years, or 80,000 years, or 200,000 years, doesn't really matter. But it will be fairly quickly."

"I watched the Anna Nicole Smith show and now it's over, so now I watch WrestleMania and things like that, simply because a poet must not avert his eyes. You have to know in which collective world you are living; you cannot isolate yourself, you should not. But let me answer your question about film-makers. Yes, there are at least 200 films that I could rattle down the titles that I find wonderful, but none of them I could say has influenced me because, in a way, I had to invent cinema for myself."

10:59 am - Old vs. New streetsigns

Apparently Toronto is rolling out a new street-sign design. Below are the old design (which was apparently $300 a sign!!), the streamlined new ones that had been popping up (that I thought looked real cheap), and the new style:



I also wanted to find pictures of the backlit streetsigns they used to have in some downtown areas, but no luck. Here is a really neat picture of old-time Toronto: ( where does that staircase go? )

10:35 am

I think this puts it over the top that Ovechkin is not only the best, but also the coolest player in the NHL.

11:39 am

Life is like a cloud of mist
Emerging from a mountain cave
And death
A floating moon
In its celestial course.
If you think too much
About the meaning they may have
You'll be bound forever
Like an ass to a stake.

- Mumon Gensen

06:24 pm

So, I bought an extension cord today (kind of sore that the indoors one was more expensive than the outdoors one, but orange doesn't exactly blend in), and once I undo the paper sleeve it's in, I see that there's a tag on the cord that says, among other things, "This product contains chemicals, including lead, known in the State of California to cause cancer, and birth defects or reproductive harm."

Well, I'm not in California, so....Wooo! No danger to me!

(But seriously, that is a bit disconcerting. I hope they mean like just inside it? I figure I'm safe if I don't sleep naked on it, or eat it...)

08:00 am

11:44 am

Perfect for the theme of New Year's resolutions and such, here is a neat site that chronicles the working habits of various famous people: http://dailyroutines.typepad.com/

11:40 am

There are some really interesting pages on the 'net exploring abandoned buildings and infrastructure, everything from closed-off subway stations to Mike Tyson's mansion. Here's a couple of great pages exploring the Buffalo Memorial Auditorium, which is currently undergoing demolition:



Link 1
Link 2