An (almost) all-electronica ep from 2001-ish (11 tracks in total). The opening track is just an Intro while “Hi Scores” is an honestly funny sketch. “Cal and Brady Style” is pleasingly glitchy downtempo, while “Tattoo of a Barcode” is 2 minutes of ambiant noise. “Get In Yr Squads” brings some guitar instrumentation into the glitching downbeat (which we see more of in Being Ridden) while “Cex Can Kiss My Soft, Sensuous Lips” and the awkwardly named “Your Handwriting When You Were A Child In The Winter” provide more glitchtronica.
The closing “Starship Galactica” is painfully juvenile, while the bonus tracks are aggressively glitchy, with “Friends Fall Down” a bit of an assault on the ears, “Monster-Faced Pills” almost palatable, and “Bunky” being a borderline unlistenable three and a half minutes.
A few decent tracks but overall a bit of a waste of a jewel case, a cd, time and money.
03/06/2009
[...consumed anew #126] Starship Galactica
29/05/2009
[...about me #126] aged
I honestly sometimes forget how old I am. Just now I thought I was turning 34 next week, which isn’t correct at all. When I was 29, I told myself I was 30, and would often just tell others I was 30. I guess I wanted to be 30. Since that time, but probably even before, I just haven’t really cared to keep track (I tend to have to do the math). Age ain’t nothin’ but a number. I tend to get curious looks when I’m pop quizzed at the border or at events requiring ID and I stumble over my age when they ask me..
15/05/2009
[...consumed all new #126] Born Standing Up by Steve Martin
I may have been alive during Steve Martin’s heyday - the first “rock star” stand-up comic to do massive cross-country tours and sell-out stadium sized venues - but I obviously have no recollection of it (being 6 years old by the time it was all over). Martin was no less a superstar in the 1980s, a movie star that appealed to adults and kids alike. His comedy was goofy, and that extended to his early cinematic endeavours, and anyone with a youthful sensibility to them got it. The Jerk, All Of Me, The Three Amigos, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels… all prime Martin vehicles (none of which I’m certain the longevity of, since I haven’t seen them since the 80’s, mind), before he started to be the straight man epitomized in Planes, Trains and Automobiles.
I’ve been exposing myself to Martin’s oblique comedy from days ago and the innovation is still perceptible, if since diluted by the many young comedians he’s influenced. As I’ve seen him appear on talk shows and read magazine interviews and even on Saturday Night Live, I see a jovial but prickly man, somewhat detached from his roots and I’ve really wondered how he got to be that way. This book pretty much explains it all to a certain degree. The hard work and insight into the form from a young age, Martin forged a path mostly on his own terms (with a few lucky encounters along the way) which led him to being the most successful and recognizable comedian ever, and it burned him right out.
Though in first person, Martin’s recollections of the time are pretty detached, and far from fond. In this you get insight into his personality, a person nervous and stressed, private and unsure. Even at his apex when he should have been reveling in his success, all he could see was his art morphing into something out of his control, so he ended it and took his celebrity elsewhere. The book is extremely light reading, two hundred pages in large type and plenty of pictures, it feels, abbreviated, but perhaps for the best, as without Martin showing much pleasure in the memories, it’s definitely interesting but not exactly the most enjoyable reading.
11/05/2009
[...about me #113/learned #127/i ate #121-135] snackaholic
Whilst spending two concentrated weeks with my Mom and Dad, working on the house, making frequent trips to Rona/Home Depot/Canadian Tire, watching hockey, eating meals, and just being a family that I have inherited a lot of traits from my parents, in particular a snacking obsession which it would seem stems from my dad (probably my mom too, but she’s found willpower).
In the time they were here I ate:
121 - Peak Freans Lifestyle Selection Blueberry and Brown Sugar Cookies (with Flax!)
122 - Humpty Dumpty ChedACorn
123 - Doritos - Nacho Cheese flavour (I was originally trying to make a point about the fakeness of dialogue in food commercials and wound up getting suckered into snacktime)
124 - Munchos
125 - President’s Choice Blue Menu Fig Cookies
126 - one dollar Swiss fruit and nut chocolate
127 - Bounty coconunt chocolate bar
128 - peanut M&Ms (Aden’s favourite)
129 - cherry & creame cheese danish
130 - apple & creame cheese danish
131 - Tim Hortons donuts (maple glaze, double chocolate)
132 - day old Tim Hortons donuts (honey glaze)
But the snacking didn’t stop there, carrying into the weekend
133 - meh cherry pie (from the local fruit stand)
134 - more Tim Hortons donuts (their sucky walnut crunch, which I always forget is nothing like the awesome Robin’s Donuts walnut crunch)
135 - apple pie (as made by Aden’s aunt, and about the best apple pie I’ve had in 2 or 3 years)
Thankfully I’d been working my ass off the past two weeks, climbing ladders, pulling cables, sweating it out in monkeysuits insulating the attic, so I didn’t really gain much weight, but that kind of snackiness can’t continue. I’m a snacky guy in general and I try to reserve it for one or two nights a week, but my folks, well, let’s just say they’re enablers. Heh. Love them lots though, and I wouldn’t have gotten much done without them.
06/05/2009
[...learned #126] bbq, allen key free
Putting together a barbecue isn’t much different than assembling Ikea furniture, except that if you put Ikea furniture together wrong it doesn’t run the risk of exploding.