November 2002

I’m in such a great mood right now. I just had my last coop coordinator visit ever. I get an unofficial day off tomorrow and Thanksgiving holidays are this week; 5-day weekend! I’m going to Las Vegas on Friday; drunken adventures risking my earnings! Seriously though, this could very well be one of the best weekends of the term, assuming I walk away a millionaire (odds are running about even in that department). Of course I’ll have a lot of work to do once I get back, but hey, there’s nothing like living in the present!

C’est une difficile vire langue, n’est-ce pas? Ceci est une étude. Ça fait beaucoup d’années que j’écris le français. Dans l’école secondaire j’écrivais beaucoup d’essais très longues, mais mon talent a disparu. J’ai pris l’immersion française pour toute ma éducation élémentaire. Mes professeurs préférés étaient Mme. Klaus et M. Timms à Westdale. Mme. Klaus était très européen, et on a vu des drôles filmes dans ça classe. M. Timms était plus sérieux, mais il avait des moments d’humeur. On a vu Toute la bande, écouté à MC Solaar, allé au théâtre pour voir une pièce de Molière. C’étais une bonne éducation. Depuis le commencement de l’université c’est seulement l’ingénie que j’étudie. C’est vraiment dommage parce que j’aime le français; c’est une langue très jolie. Peut-être j’écrirais plus souvent dans le futur. Ok, c’est tout.

I’m really digging the latest Ninjatune artist – Jaga Jazzist. They’re from Scandinavia and Ninjatune is releasing their latest album, A Livingroom Hush, to a wider audience, notably in North America and Britain. I’ll have to listen to the album again, but after the first time around, it’s definitely ranked highly on my list. I’m going to try and get their other album – The Stix. Hopefully it’s of the same quality.

On a related note, I have some new pictures to show. A couple of weeks ago I went to the Seattle Art Museum to see their Mexican Modernism exhibit. They didn’t allow flash photography inside, but I took some pictures of the building. It’s nothing fancy, but you can see them here. The next day I went to the Pacific Science Center and I took a few more pictures. I’m kind of disappointed that the butterfly pictures were out-of-focus, but some of them are ok. You can see these pictures here. I’ll have some more to show in the next few weeks.

I finally got to see Braveheart. I know it’s probably amazing that I’ve gone this long without seeing it, especially considering how many movies I’ve seen. However it was in fact true. It’s a pretty good movie, though rather violent. Stupid Sci-Fi channel censored out the nudity though, even the parts that you’d need a magnifying glass to see anything. There were a bunch of different movies on last night – L.A. Confidential, Maverick, Out Of Sight, Last of the Dogmen, Network, Hook – a regular cineplex right in my own home. I also went around Redmond during the day taking some pictures since I’m running out of days that I can do that and I’d like to be able to show people what it’s like here. My batteries died so I couldn’t take too many. That will be remedied though, as soon as they are recharged (it takes a mere 15 hours to do this). Anyway, back to having fun with WBXML.

I’ve always wanted to know if I have a personality disorder…so I took an online test

I never thought of myself as a paranoid person, but this is an online test and they’re infallible. I guess I’ll have to start looking over my shoulder everytime I go out of the house.

This segment in This Hour Has 22 Minutes always cracked me up. You can see some of the clips here, and read about Rick Mercer’s favourite 10 responses here. I realize that it’s not entirely accurate in the portrayal of Americans’ ignorance, but it’s funny nonetheless.

It’s been a fun weekend so far. Friday we went out to Chili’s for dinner and then saw D.A.D. (or Die Another Day). It wasn’t bad I guess, but I wasn’t really impressed with it. The evil plot this time seemed too tame in comparison with other Bond movies. I really liked the throwback scene of Halle Berry coming out of the water; it was exactly the same as the very first Bond movie. Rosamund Pike was very fine in the movie as well. The only problem was that we saw it at a Cineplex theatre and there is almost no slanting of the seats as you go towards the back of the theatre. As a result, you get big heads blocking a lot of the screen. Whenever there were subtitles, I had to move my head around just to read them. Rather annoying, but I don’t want to complain.

One of the weird things at the movies was that we saw a preview for Julia Stiles’ new movie (A Guy Thing), but after D.A.D. was over, out of the 8 of us at the theatre, none could remember anything about the movie except that Julia Stiles was in it. Mat and I watched True Lies and The Shining when we got home. Of course by the time they were done, it was well past 5. The weird thing about The Shining was that even though it was after 3, TBS still decided to blur out the scene with the old woman. Who’s going to see it at that hour? It made no sense to me. True Lies was also heavily censored, although they did keep this scene in:

Do it…douçement. Do it…very slowly.

Yesterday was all about cars. We had breakfast at Denny’s around 1 PM (we’re lazy) and then went out to test drive a bunch of nice cars. Our first car was the VW Jetta 1.8T. Neither Sandy or I can drive standard so we had to stick with automatics. This was ok though. The Jetta was very plush inside and had some nice features. We should have driven the GLI, but they didn’t have any on the lot. The next car was the Subaru Impreza WRX. We got the wagon to drive, but it was still an amazing car. We timed how long it would take to go from 0-60 and our time was about 10 seconds, going uphill. Very impressive. Mat and Jeff wanted to test-drive the Acura RSX Type S, so we hurried over to the Acura dealership just before they closed. This only comes in standard, so I was just a passenger for this ride. What a ride though! Mat was definitely giving it a good run and I think the dealer in the backseat was kind of scared, but that’s ok. You have to actually feel what the car is capable of.

Once our driving of real cars was over with, we went to The Olive Garden for an excellent meal. We went all out too – wine, coffee, dessert. We were so full afterwards. Sandy knew of a cool go-kart place near the end of the 405 so we went down there. It was really fun, though tiring surprisingly. I would have had a better time except Bowser hit me with a red shell and that ruined my speed. Damn Bowser! We got to race for 10 minutes and they give us this nice printout of our results. Sandy was a madman though, he was so much faster than the rest of us. At least I wasn’t last though.

To finish off the night we watched Sandy’s Spiderman DVD. Viewing #4 for me, but it’s a decent-enough movie to watch that many times. The special features were underwhelming though, no deleted scenes or anything. In our continued car-fascination though, we searched the web for some performance figures on the cars we saw. Sadly we couldn’t find much, and it was very frustrating trying to use dialup to look at the sites. It was almost 3 anyway, so we went home.

One of the girls on my floor brought her cat in today and it reminded me exactly of Cleo, our cat. It kind of made me think of home and how much I’m looking forward to going home again. Cleo, however, is pure evil, I’d have to be insane to look forward to seeing her again. It is fun to torment her though (so I probably deserve whatever she does to me) and she likes me a whole lot more than Kyle.

One other thing I forgot to mention about Wednesday’s movie fest was that I also watched a bit of Enemy Mine. Only Lisa really understands my fascination with this movie.

Enemies because they were taught to be. Allies because they had to be. Brothers because they dared to be.

While I’m rebuilding my topology, I’ll talk about last night. Mat, Sandy, and I went to the Seattle Symphony. We were shafted on the Campus Club discount by 5 minutes (again!). Last night on the program were:

• Sibelius: Romance for Strings


• Brahms: Piano Concerto no. 2


• Sibelius: Symphony No. 1

The highlight was definitely the piano concerto. The pianist’s hands were flying all over the place! The audience wouldn’t let him leave the stage – he kept on having to come back to another bow. He deserved it though, it was really an amazing performance. The Sibelius pieces were also nice to hear, there’s something about the sound of brass, it warms my heart. After the concert we wanted to go for coffee, but stupidly we went back to the Eastside, where everything locks up after 7. No coffee for us. We did get to take a ride in Hao’s brand-new 3.2 CL Type S. Very nice car, although a bit pricey as a first car maybe.

It’s the weekend (judging from the song I’m playing). Thankfully it’s still supposed to nice and sunny for the next few days. Pictures need to be taken.

Exactly one month from today, I’ll be at home. I can’t believe how fast the past almost-three-months have gone.

So last night I unconsciously rented two IFC films – Y tu mamá también (go Spanish accents!) and Waking Life. Let me clarify – I was conscious in Blockbuster, but I didn’t purposely rent two IFC films. Both pretty amazing films in their own way.

Y tu mamá también follows a two young men and an older (but not that much older) Spanish woman on a road trip through Mexico towards an imaginary beach. The boys learn some pretty important life lessons even though these lessons eventually cost them their friendship. The movie captures some of the disparities that exist in Mexican life. I wanted to see this movie for various reasons, one of them being to see the director, Alfonso Cuaron, about whom I’ve heard many good things. He’s going to be the director of “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban”. I think I need a Manifesto; my cause is definitely in need of some direction. I also want to take a road trip, maybe across Canada. That would be fun.

Waking Life is animated, but in an unusual style. It follows one man’s quest to awake from a seemingly endless chain of dreams. Along this journey several different questions are raised about what dreaming is. Are we sleepwalking through our awake state or are we wake-walking through our dreams? Many of the discussions in the movie I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about before, but there were still some new points made. I wish I could remember more of my dreams; they’re always just beyond my reach of memory. Maybe I should start keeping track of my thoughts when I wake up, just for my own sake. The little fragments I do remember seem pretty interesting.

So the college recruiters here threw a surprise lunch for us today. Pizza was the dish and lots of it. I found out some more information about full-time interviews. Basically they won’t be until the middle of December and it’ll be one grueling day with a couple of groups. Sounds like fun! We all got loot bags too. Super balls, candy, and a coffee mug were inside. It was like being back in elementary school at a friend’s birthday party. The only thing missing was a bit of bowling or ice cream cake.

...and boy have I ever! Oh my, what a show! Picture all you know and love about Zero 7. Translate all of those great songs to a live setting with an 11-piece band. Imagine finding out that the singers on the album are absolutely gorgeous and their voices are even better live. Now pretend you’re me and you have last night’s concert. I didn’t think it was possible to like this band any more than I already did, but I think I can safely say that I do.

The St. Germain effect was in full force at the concert, which was held at the Moore Theatre in downtown Seattle. The average age was probably over 30, but that was ok. Since it was in a theatre we all had seats. During “In The Waiting Line” some girls started dancing right near the stage but the Almighty Event Staff decided to push them to the side. These girls had some moxy because they went right back to dancing and then at that point the staff gave up and there was a tidal wave of people going down to dance.

It was such an organic concert – I didn’t realize that they used so many instruments to make their sound. One of the keyboardists had this whole Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory air about him and he was dancing pretty crazily on stage. I didn’t know that they had two different female vocalists either, but it turns out they do (and after listening to the album again, you can tell the difference between their voices). One of the singers didn’t really have a good stage presence (her dancing was kind of awkward and stiff), but her voice more than made up for that. The stage crew had some problems with the lighting, but they had that worked out by the end of the show.

As for the songs themselves, they played almost the entire album plus some new songs (which sounded great). They only had one encore and the first song they played was more of a jam song with the crazy keyboardist playing like John Medeski (if you know MMW). I would have loved for the concert to have been longer, but alas it wasn’t meant to be. The people who ran out of the theatre after their main set finished are pretty stupid; they missed a great encore. I guess in the traditional Seattle spirit of not wanting to be downtown past 10, there was a mad rush for the doors after the concert. Apparently they have a video out for “In The Waiting Line”...you can watch it here.

I still have shivers just thinking about this concert.

I know I’ve mentioned him before, but I have to re-emphasize how good his new album Sea Change is. Everything you once knew about Beck is not valid when talking about this album. I’ve probably listened to this disc everyday since I’ve obtained it, and that’s saying quite a bit considering how much music I have. There’s none of the glitz that you hear on Midnite Vultures or the quirky pop-rock of Odelay!. There’s essentially one theme to the whole album – brutally honest lyrics overtop of a comforting, consoling sadness. I’ll quote allmusic.com’s review:

As Sea Change is playing, it feels as if Beck singing to you alone, revealing painful, intimate secrets that mirror your own. It’s a genuine masterpiece in an era with too damn few of them.

On another note, I’ve been feeling really weird this week. It’s like I have constant butterflies in my stomach, but I can’t figure out why. Until I feel different, indescribable it is.

Some random thoughts:

• Kim told me today that there was a secret scene at the end of Harry Potter (after the credits). We were in a rush to leave on Friday so I missed it. I guess I’ll have to see it again. Either that or just go into the theatre after the crowds leave.


• Ed cleaned his bathroom in Portland because we were picking on him last time for it being so dirty (no comments). I thought that was really nice. He bought a new shower curtain and scrubbed the bathroom clean. What a guy.


• I found out that Talib Kweli, The Roots, and Common have new albums coming out. This made my hip-hop day.


• I missed the Leonids meteor shower this morning. Stupid overcast.

According to today’s bulletin, the president and co-CEO of RIM is being named chancellor of UW. At first I thought that the chancellor had more duties, but it looks like all he does is just hand out diplomas, degrees, and awards. I guess that’s good news, getting such a high-profile local businessman on board. His term starts in May, so maybe I’ll receive my diploma from him during my convocation.

I also checked how much my tuition would be for next term. It appears that it will only increase by $25 over last term, but that still puts it at $3800 CDN for the term. I’m so glad my tuition-paying days will be over soon, I shudder to think how much it will be in 5-10 years from now.

One more thing. Reading the bulletin, I noticed that my first-year don Matt Iley was mentioned in there. He’s playing Gilbert Blythe in the Anne of Green Gables production in Kitchener. He was a pretty cool guy, but he was too busy studying for his OATs to really involve himself with our floor activities. It didn’t surprise me to read that he married last summer, they seemed like a long-term couple.

Crazy is me yelling at the Elephant Man upstairs for making my shower scalding hot. Crazy is me yelling at the Elephant Man upstairs for doing laundry at 1 AM. Crazy is me yelling at the Elephant Man upstairs for speaking so loud on the phone that I could stand outside and hear him. Crazy is me yelling at the Elephant Man upstairs for generally being annoying.

On a more positive note, Zero 7 is in 11 hours.

I had to go back to the UPS store again this afternoon. Luckily there wasn’t any of the same problems as last time. The guy in there seemed kind of slow though, I needed to mail a package back home for my brother’s birthday this week (being the good brother that I am) and I checked the 2-day air box on the form, but the guy said “well, we can get it there by Monday”. Um, unless you mean today, that won’t be very good. Everything was sorted out eventually though and it should be there by Wednesday. I hope I bought the right book, I’m pretty sure he only has the first 3. Oh well, I guess it’s the thought that counts.

I love this song too, it’s off of Gilles Peterson’s Worldwide 2 CD. I can’t seem to find anything else by them though…

Last night after I got back from Portland, I was reading my book and listening to my music. I haven’t really been listening to music at home, mainly because I’m too busy in the evenings. That’s the one thing I miss about being in school right now, I always (and I do mean always) listen to music when I go to sleep. I don’t think it helps me get to sleep faster, but it definitely puts me in a good mood. It sure would be nice to have some speakers here…

So the weekend was divided into two parts really – Harry Potter on Friday and Portland on Saturday/Sunday.

First of all, Harry Potter was amazing, possibly better than the first film. The special effects were definitely better. It was a long movie though, especially when you’re seeing it at 10:10 and need leave early the next morning. The previews really sucked (Jungle Book 2? c’mon). Bad parts of the evening were: 1) going to the Mediterranean Kitchen before a movie (i.e. way too much garlic). I thought the cute girl sitting next to me in the theatre was going to say something. 2) parking in Bellevue. It was so ridiculous trying to find a spot that I had to squeeze my car around a pole and beside a Beetle. There was literally about 6 inches between me and the car next to me. Good parts were: 1) the movie 2) the movie and 3) Gilderoy Lockhart. Kenneth Branagh was so over-the-top in this role, I couldn’t help but laugh whenever he was on screen. I can’t believe I’ll have to wait until 2004 to see the next movie (which has a much better story than this one).

Anyway, so Saturday morning Sandy and I drove to Portland. We didn’t get to leave as early as we had intended, but we got a good breakfast and I got to watch an MST3K episode while I waited. It was really rainy on the way down there and the lane markings in Oregon are very hard to see in the rain, especially in the construction zones, but the main point is that we made it (obviously since I’m writing this). It was a fun weekend, I bought some shoes (“These are really cute shoes, they really fit your style” said the flirting cashier), watched a few movies, went to my favourite Portland bar on Saturday night and generally enjoyed ourselves.

Man I’m in such a great mood right now. This afternoon has gone so nicely – got some work accomplished, had an awesome MAPI beers “meeting”, played some foosball, and listened to some deep-groove music. If that wasn’t enough, there’s Harry Potter tonight and Portland to look forward to tomorrow. This has the makings for an exciting weekend…

So apparently this is Native American week, but I haven’t been able to find any resources to back this up. Anyway, they had some traditional drummers and singers in our building’s cafeteria today during noon hour. It was pretty interesting, but the caf was empty. Embarrassingly empty. It seems that people here don’t want to be interrupted during their lunch, so most people ate elsewhere. I guess they don’t want to learn about other cultures in our building. We’ll see if the Republic Day celebration this afternoon is better attended.

I just noticed that the covering of my headphones is still starting to split. Kind of annoying, because I just bought them in August. I guess I have been wearing them all day everyday since the beginning of September. Luckily the covering doesn’t affect my listening pleasure.

Last night Sandy and I watched the next four hours of Band of Brothers. More high-quality programming. Each episode focuses on a particular character in Easy Company. Probably the most gruesome one was last night’s Bastogne episode (Part 6) which centered around the medic Eugene Roe. I can’t believe the stuff they had to deal with back then on the battlefield. We finished last night with the company moving out of Haguenau in France and the way they have it built up, it almost looks like the Allies will win this war. Bottom line though – great miniseries (as I’ve already said). Sandy and I were talking about how we haven’t been able to form a regular schedule of going to the gym and this dynamic schedule, where we’re doing all kinds of different things every night, makes life pretty interesting. I noted how it also makes time go so much quicker and it seems like there’s not enough free time during the week to accomplish everything. Ah well, a busy life we lead these days over here.

PS - Excited is the mood before a certain wizard will be on-screen tonight.

I just held my own in a little foosball game against these two full-time employees. These guys are really good and they haven’t seen me play since September. Meanwhile, I’ve been playing everyday and I’m actually pretty good now. Definitely an accomplishment on my foosball scoreboard. Also, I found out that one of the guys is from Hamilton, in particular he went to Westdale. That was kind of weird to know. The other guy lives sort of close to me in Michigan. It seems I’m connected to everyone here in some way or another.

Also, I bought tickets to the Cirque du Soleil O show at the Bellagio in Las Vegas. It’s supposed to be pretty neat and I have good seats (at least they’d better be for the price). The only downside to this is that the whole Vegas trip is now becoming pretty expensive and I haven’t even stepped off of the plane yet.

A friend and I were discussing shows we used to watch when we were younger. Not like Mr. Dressup younger, but young enough. There are plenty, but the ones we were talking about today were Breaker High, The Secret World of Alex Mack, and The Odyssey.

Breaker High was really a dumb show at its core, but it was strangely addictive. The plot lines, the romance, the goofy characters – it really had it all. They used to (and very well still might) show it on YTV and most likely Nickelodeon down here. The premise was that there is a high school afloat on this cruise ship and they go around the world seeing the different cities they’re talking about in class. Obviously this story has great potential. Being high school kids, there are obviously little cliques and fights. This only adds to the excitement of the show.

The Secret World of Alex Mack is another guilty pleasure I had in high school. The idea is that on her first day of junior high, Alexandra Mack was accidentally doused with a mysterious chemical called GC-161 and it changed her life forever. Now Alex is the only high schooler she knows who can zap electricity from her fingertips, morph into an oozing blob of goo, and even make other people morph just by touching them. But having superpowers isn’t all just fun and games – the company bigwigs that make GC-161 know that some kid was sprayed with the stuff and they’ll stop at nothing to find her, so Alex has to keep the powers secret. And Alex’s powers aren’t easy to hide – especially when they make her glow unexpectedly. But with the help of her best friend, Ray, and her genius sister, Annie, Alex manages to avoid being discovered and keep away from that truck that keeps following her around. I obviously didn’t write that last blurb; it was taken from a Alex Mack fan site, but it gives a good synopsis of the show. Pretty exciting, right? Of course it is.

But the most exciting show was definitely The Odyssey. I watched this with my brother and sister all of the time, right up to when it was cancelled by CBC. The story here is that an 11-year-old kid falls from a tree, ends up in a coma and the series revolves around the world he has in his mind. The title is of course in reference to Homer’s The Odyssey. It was just a really good show. The goal for the boy was to conquer this tower and emerge from the coma. They threw in various ideas too, like him looking for his lost dad, romance, bizarro characters, weird quests. I haven’t been able to find it on TV though, I wonder if you can buy it on DVD.

Imagine yourself at your local Borders (or if you’re in Canada, Chapters) last night. The store is closed to the public because the local technology giant is having a charity event whereby all employees can receive substantial discounts on DVDs, music, and books. Where are you? The 5th Annual Geekfest @ Borders. All your stereotypes about geeks and books and movies coalescing in one place. It was good though, I got some of my Christmas shopping done and Sandy bought the Band of Brothers DVD boxset. We watched the first four episodes last night. If you like Saving Private Ryan, you’d like this miniseries. Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg are executive producers and it’s based on a fine book by Stephen E. Ambrose. It’s over 10 hours (!) and the boxset has a bonus disc with special features. If you have the desire, and more importantly the time, you should watch it.

This morning I headed out for work and as soon as I got to the parking lot here I realized that I didn’t have my badge with me. No badge = no way to get into the building. So I drove back home again (luckily it’s only 3 minutes away), went to my room and couldn’t see my badge anywhere. That’s when it hit me – it was in my jacket the whole time because we needed to show it at Borders last night and I don’t really like wearing my badge in public.

I wish my friends at work would be more enthusiastic about certain concerts. Take Zero 7 for example. They’re coming to Seattle next Tuesday at the Moore Theatre, which from the looks of it should be an awesome show. I’ve tried hyping the show up but so far I’ve received zero feedback. I really want to see these guys, especially since I can’t stop listening to their album and I’ve had it for over a year now. Oh well, if worst comes to worst, I’ll just see it by myself.

I had to go mail some letters and a package and I didn’t have the proper postage so I looked up the closest Mailboxes Etc. location. The map said that it was really close to where I work, so I tried going yesterday but couldn’t find it. It turned out that I made a wrong turn on a street and it was actually in the opposite direction. I then tried to go again today and it was very difficult to find, for two reasons mainly – 1) the road was super busy and it was hard to look on both sides of the street for the store and 2) it wasn’t even called Mailboxes Etc., it was a UPS Store that offered the same services as MBE. How annoying is that? Very. At least I got all of my stuff mailed finally.

On Sunday a few of us went to the Pacific Science Center to see Star Wars Episode II at their Imax theatre. I’d already seen it before, but it was only $3 with our Prime discount card and you don’t get to see feature-length films on an Imax screen very often. Evidently there’s big demand for this movie there, since most of the shows were sold out. It was an interesting experience, although during the action scenes it was just too much for my eyes; the screen was just too huge and I couldn’t follow what was going on. Some people cheered during certain parts and one guy yelled at one of staff girls at the end of the movie because he had paid to hear the end credits, not her voice. Whatever. She’s just doing her job pal. Another interesting note is that the Imax spectacular, “Beavers”, is still in theatres, so if you haven’t seen it yet, don’t hesitate – it’s only been out since 1999!

So apparently last night there was a huge thunderstorm here. I didn’t get to see it, mainly because I was inside in a room without windows, but from what I hear it was pretty spectacular. It’s also pretty odd to get thunder and lightning here, it’s mainly just rain, rain, and more rain. I wish I could have seen some of the lightning; I love thunderstorms.

Well the sweet ticket deal I had yesterday fell through, so we were forced to buy individual tickets. I still get to go see the show, but we won’t be as close/have quite as good a view. Ah well, it’ll still be fun.

No comments, just watch this (Windows Media link).

As strange as that title sounds, it is very accurate. I love Post Cinnamon Life. Unfortunately though, you can’t buy it in Canada (for arbitrary marketing reasons). I was first introduced to this wonderful cereal on a shopping trip to Buffalo when I was younger. However, it was when I moved out of residence in second year at school that the obsession truly took over. My family lives in Michigan now so I can get this cereal anytime I go home. And get it I did, usually a couple of boxes every time. Needless to say, this turned out to be too much and I turned my back on the cereal. It was just too much. Flash forward to the present day, and what am I eating? Cinnamon Life of course. I guess enough time has passed between us for me to like the cereal again. I’m keeping myself restrained though; don’t want to overdo it like last time.

What am I doing here at work still? Originally, it was to make a phone call and then possibly do some more work, but I’ve just been browsing around drinking some grapefruit juice. It’s almost 10:30 and I’m going to be back here in less than 12 hours, so why don’t I go home? Well, that’s a good idea…I think I’ll do just that.

It’s weird how a certain artist’s music can define a certain period in your life. Take Labradford, for example. I discovered this group while I was on my experimental, post-rock binge back in the fall of 2000. I always amaze myself when I look back and see just how much new music I find during these kinds of periods. Other similar periods would be:

• 1998-1999: Ninjatune/Warp artists


• fall 1999: rediscovered rock


• fall 2000: dabbled in experimental and post-rock


• winter 2001: gorged myself on jam bands, prog rock, and early ambient

I’m not sure what my current fixation would be, maybe underground hiphop and some other select artists. My music collection is a large beast though, so even listening to some random albums would be a new experience in itself. I think re-listening to some of these albums helps me appreciate why I got them in the first place, and it also to discover related artists and thus broaden my circle of music. There are certain artists, like Gentle Giant, that need a lot of energy to listen to (they’re pretty complex pieces), but in general I think I could pick any album in my collection and enjoy it.

I just found out that I can go see Pearl Jam in Seattle on December 9th. It’s pretty exciting, especially since they’re from Seattle and would put on a great show. I haven’t really followed Pearl Jam’s thing for a couple of years, but I love their earlier stuff. I’ll have to take a listen to their new album, out tomorrow. Our seats are 7 rows from the floor, right in front of the stage. This concert (and the other one on the Sunday) are pre-tour benefit shows. The beneficiaries are:

• Choice USA


• Voters for Choice


• Red Feather Development Group


• The Northwest School


• Spruce Street School


• Blue Mountain Clinic


• West Memphis Three Legal Defense Fund


• Youth Care


• Arts Corps


• Seattle Center Arts Academy


• Northwest Literacy Foundation


• Concerned United Birthparents (CUB)


• Conservation International


• Montana Parks and Recreation


• The Actors’ Gang


• Home Alive


• JAMPAC


• The Vera Project

So Maclean’s, the magazine, released their annual ranking of Canada’s universities today. They rank three different categories – primarily undergraduate, medical/doctoral, and comprehensive. Waterloo is part of the comprehensive group because we feature a lot of research and graduate studies. Last year we were #1, but sadly we’re only #2 this year. The University of Guelph is #1 this year in our category, which should please Lisa to no end. I always found it funny how much emphasis Waterloo puts on these rankings (we’re #1 in reputation for the 11th consecutive year); last year they had a huge party with cake and refreshments to celebrate. I guess it’s semi-important to people entering university, and it raises the university’s profile on a national scale, but the criteria that Maclean’s uses is rather vague and somewhat arbitrary.

Remember

Man, decisions, decisions. The band Low is in town tonight and tomorrow. I really like their music, but it’s so much effort to go to their concert. I’ll feel bad if I don’t see them, but I really want to relax this weekend. Maybe listening to their music will compensate.

Well last night Sandy, Hao and I were supposed to visit the Seattle Art Museum last night, since the first Friday of every month is Free Day and they’re open later, until 9 PM. They have a special exhibit on right now featuring Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera and other Mexican modern artists, and we wanted to see that, especially since there’s a movie about Frida, starring Salma Hayek out now. Don’t get me wrong, it isn’t because of the movie that we wanted to see the exhibit, we’re cultured guys.

At any rate, we didn’t get downtown until just before 8 and when we drove by the museum (after we found out where it was exactly), there was a huge line outside in the rain. We didn’t feel like getting wet, so we drove on, aiming to go back and see the exhibit this weekend hopefully. We stopped by East Street Records, mainly for my sake, where I bought Red Snapper’s last release, the mix album It’s All Good (and it is a pretty good disc).

The plan was then to find a movie theatre. There was nothing downtown that piqued our interest, so we went eastside to Bellevue. The theatre there was playing Punch-Drunk Love, which Sandy and I wanted to see. We had over an hour to spare, so we walked to Barnes and Noble and browsed around for a while. I picked up a couple of books, mainly because (and Kim is going to get a kick out of this) I’ve been reading too much code and non-fiction “deep” books. I needed a change of pace, so I picked up John Updike’s Trust Me short story collection and Douglas Coupland’s Shampoo Planet. Sandy bought an art book as part of his recent sketching resurgence.

The movie was interesting though, definitely not like any other movie I’ve seen recently and unlike any Adam Sandler movie. It’s directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, director of Magnolia and Boogie Nights. Adam’s character in the movie is so pathetic, you can’t help but hope that he finds a way to turn his life around and get from under his sisters’ scrutiny. Curiously enough, the pudding angle of the movie is based on a true event, as described here. There was some interesting camera work too, lots of different light filters applied to the camera. I’m assuming it was on purpose; it made the movie look pretty rough, which I thought was appropriate. Overall though, I enjoyed the film; definitely worth the price of admission.

No, not the steak sauce or even Houses of Parliament. Yep, it’s Harry Potter. One week from today (and a few hours), I’ll be seeing the second installment, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. We’re buying our tickets today being the kids we are. I saw the last movie on opening night as well and it was a ton of fun, especially seeing the little kids dressed up. I can’t wait!

It’s amazing that I can look at a graphic equalizer and just be captivated by it. There’s something about seeing the music on screen like that. On a related note (well, related to the song I’m listening to), I saw Amon Tobin on CBC’s Zed show late last night. It’s a pretty cool visual experience, and if you have RealPlayer™, you can watch it here.

Last night FX, that wholly-owned subsidiary of Fox, showed Baz Lurhmann’s Romeo + Juliet (or I guess the real title is William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet, just in case there is another one out there). It was very interesting watching this movie again, because I hadn’t seen it since it came out back in 1996. I remember watching this back then with my friends and thinking that this was one of the best movies. I even bought the 2 soundtracks, that’s how much I liked this movie. Now, it’s quite a different story. I can see the flaws in the movie and Baz’s direction skills aren’t quite as refined as can be seen in Moulin Rouge. I still like the movie for one reason though – the inclusion of Radiohead’s Talk Show Host, which can’t be found anywhere else. Such a great song. I wonder what I’ll think about the movies I like now when I watch them again in 10 years or so. I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

The rain has begun around here and I don’t expect to see the sun again until I fly back home in December. How sad.

About a month ago, a few interns and fulltime employees went to the Tieton River in Eastern Washington (near Yakima) to do some white water rafting. The descriptions we read made it seem like we were really risking our lives here – Class III rapids, drop of 50 feet per mile, etc. etc. It wasn’t that scary, but it was still pretty fun. I brought along a waterproof camera to take some pictures, but I don’t have a scanner here to put them up. Along the river they have professional photographers to take your picture during “action” sequences in the water. They then sell them to you at inflated prices after you’re finished. There were 5 of us in the boat, so we figured the cost was minimal when split, so we bought the CD with digital pictures for $40. The guy said that it would take about 2 to 3 weeks. I just received it yesterday. The pictures are pretty cool, although I have the same face in every picture it seems. You can see them here.

Last night myself, Mathieu, Jean-Francois, and Sandy decided to make some spaghetti and homemade sauce. It was one of the most filling meals I’ve ever had. It didn’t help that everything we cooked was in integer quantities. We used one pound of ground beef, two big jars of sauce, one onion, one green pepper, one crate of mushrooms, two jalapeno peppers, one loaf of garlic bread and one large bottle of wine. It was a good meal, but boy was it big. We called it The Man’s Sauce (not to be confused with The Man’s Sauce from Dixie’s BBQ downtown) because it was pretty spicy and we figured that men cook in quantity, not quality (although don’t be thinking that this wasn’t awesome – it was). During the making of the dinner, we thought that it the amount we were cooking was too ridiculous and we needed to preserve the evening for posterity. This of course meant we took some pictures. They’re available here. The last few pictures are of me drinking a tablespoon of Worcestershire sauce, just to disgust Mat. It wasn’t too bad, but not something that I’ll make a daily practice of.

My friend has set up a discussion site that everyone in the world should join. If you don’t, Mobark will come and find you, and that could be very unpleasant. Join!

PS - I don’t even know what exanimate means, but I assume it describes how I’m feeling.

PPS - I know what it means now – my buddy Dictionary.com always has the answer. On second thought, it doesn’t seem to describe how I’m feeling at all.

Some people may have noticed that the NBA season started last week. In the interest of increasing television deals, the old agreement expired last year and a new one was signed with TNT and the Disney Group (ABC/ESPN). NBC was left out in the cold, as seems to be the dominant trend in televised sports. Bill Walton, former superstar of the Portland Trailblazers (amongst other teams) in the 70’s and 80’s. After he retired, he went into broadcasting and was extremely annoying to listen to, but the bright side was that he was only on NBA on NBC Sunday marathon telecasts. In particular, his efforts during the 2000 NBA Playoffs essentially eliminated the Raptors, since every game that he would help broadcast, the Raptors would inevitably lose. Thus, he was on my personal hit list. Now that ESPN is covering more games, they decided it would be a great idea to hire Walton and have him telecast at least 2 games per week. I love watching the NBA, but I might have to start watching it on mute. The whole irony in this story is that Bill gets to write columns for ESPN’s Page 2 site and I actually enjoy reading them (although not as much as The Sports Guy). So in conclusion, Mr. Walton, please continue to write but not broadcast.

This installment I will be reviewing these albums:

• Godspeed You Black Emperor! – Yangui U.X.O.


• Minus 8 – Minuit


• Bonobo – Animal Magic

Godspeed You Black Emperor! – Yangui U.X.O.
The orchestral 9-piece ensemble from Montreal is back for another album. These guys are very politically-minded, as can be seen from their liner notes and vocal portions of their songs. There are very few lyrics in their music, it’s mainly based on mood and instrumental brooding that builds and builds until it reaches the climax. After the first listen to this album, I was very impressed with the sound. You would think that having a piece that’s over 30 minutes in length that you might get bored, but it’s perfect music for working to. That might seem ironic to the band, me listening to their music while toiling for The Man™, but you have to make do. I think this album stands on par with their earlier work, particularly Slow Riot For Zero Kanada.

Minus 8 – Minuit
I love Minus 8. He’s probably one of my favourite DJs. He’s a Swiss guy and this is his third album. His sound has been changing with every new release, ranging from drum & bass on Beyond Beyond to more jazz-infused on this release. This album you can definitely chill to, so naturally it’s perfect (again) for working to. If you’ve listened to his Elysian Fields albums and are familiar with the vocal tracks, it’s a similar sound here. Minus 8 has also brought in more live instrumentalists, so it’s almost like what St. Germain does. So go check out Minus 8, you won’t be disappointed!

Bonobo – Animal Magic
You might remember me mentioning this guy in my Amon Tobin concert post. Well I got his album and it’s amazing. I’m kicking myself now for not getting this earlier (like when it came out in North America). I think the later tracks on the album are the stronger ones. There are similarities here to Air’s sound, but more of a mid-range organic sound instead of the higher-pitched ones the Frenchmen (of Air) like to use. This album would be perfect for a late-night gathering after bar-hopping. Definitely a mood-setter.

The good news today is that I found out that Badly Drawn Boy has a new album out and Bjork has a greatest hits and box set coming out (6 CDs!). Can’t wait to give them a listen.

I’ve gone photo-crazy since I got my new camera, as you may have noticed from the number of galleries I’ve put up. Here are some more:

• Seattle – last weekend when Ed came up


• Vancouver – this weekend (Saturday)


• Victoria – this weekend (Sunday)

Continuing on my album review binge, other albums that I’ve obtained this week include:

• Beth Gibbons – Out Of Season


• Sigur Ros – ( )


• Godspeed You Black Emperor – Yanqui U.X.O.

I’ve only listened to the first two so far.

Firstly, Beth Gibbons, for those of you who haven’t heard of her, is the singer for the group Portishead. I posted earlier stating that Portishead is coming out with a new album next year and that Beth is releasing a solo album this fall. Well, this is it, and it’s fabulous. Technically it is Beth with Rustin’ Man of Talk Talk fame. I can’t emphasize enough how much I like this album. I’m not sure whether it (the album) fell in my lap at the right point in time or whether it truly is a great album. My guess is the latter. I could summarize the sound as “lyrics like Portishead but with more guitars and keyboards underneath”. I wonder if the next Portishead studio album will sound anything like this. Who cares really, so long as they’re working on an album. It’s been so long.

The new Sigur Ros album is also out this week and it’s outstanding. Sigur Ros is a band from Iceland (like Bjork) who create these lovely songs that combine bowed-guitar, drums, bells, keyboards and vocals. The vocals are the cool part though – the band has made up their own language called Hopelandish, which has been described as a combination of English and Icelandic. Their creed is that the lyrics of songs don’t matter so much as the emotion that comes from the song. I think it’s a really neat idea. I saw them live in Toronto in May 2000 and it was one of the best shows I’ve ever seen. They’re coming to Seattle later this month, but it’s the same day as Thievery Corporation and I think the interns that I want to go with would prefer Thievery Corporation. Anyway, back to the album. The average track length is about 8 minutes on this album and it features long symphonic-sounding passages. The lyrics don’t play as important a role as in previous albums, but that’s fine with me, the end result sounds great.

Stay tuned for my ramblings on the new Godspeed… album.