Moving

My office will be moving location this weekend...

It's crazy here.

There is an entire vacated room labelled 'GARBAGE'.

The Maple Leaf State

Pitchfork has a link up to a live Sufjan video... where you can watch the indie superstar playing the banjo on a roof, and covering the Innocence Mission's Lakes of Canada.
As cool as Sufjan is, the IM is cooler still... so this is a pretty sweet deal. I ripped the audio, so feel free to 'right-click and save' that piece right here...

Update le Weekend

Another busy one...

Leah and I played a good bit of music... both practicing for church as well as playing/recording music in general. Leah rented a bass last week, and immediately started playing Dead Kennedys songs on it...
We also went to a couple of gatherings... one farewell party for Josh, Corky, Hannah and Molly, and one party at Jeremy etc.'s house.
Also, I rode the new bike around a fair bit... it is fun, but pretty hard to tackle hills on... Leah also gave it a go, all along the Cedarvale trail.

Bicycle

Yesterday I bought a new (used) bike. I was tired of tackling the ghetto streets (and sometimes the parks) of Toronto on my road bike...
But now I have an even LESS practical option!

It's Thursday

Last night, Anne and Joel came over to play some of their songs, with me trying to play along on the drums...
It was pretty fun, although I def. could use some more practice/general ability thumping the tubs.

Today I didn't bring any CDs to work, so I am left scouring the interweb for music to get me through the day... any ideas ???

Weekend Updating

Before I start updating anything, check out the cover of New Reform..!

Should I even continue...?

OK...

I don't feel like updating, so here goes:

Friday -> Church-style bachelor party ( = - stupid + more fun )
Saturday -> random roaming around - ended up eating sushi on the steps of the Walmer... and then at a barbecue at Anne and Joel's... complete with children and a country music / Rancid sing-along
Sunday -> random roaming, including a stop at Indigo (I repurchased the Geography of Nowhere)... and then church. The sound system was mental, but Bradley man-handled it - and Cyril gave a good sermon despite his new-dad total exhaustion. Ended up at Jeremy's for a while (complete with country music / Led Zep sing along), and then watched Rocky II
Monday -> random roaming, including purchasing some CD's... punk rock for Leah (Dead Kennedys, Sex Pistols), and wuss-rock for me (Cowboy Junkies Trinity Session)... surviving another Vic Day Oakwood Ave fireworks apocalypse
Tuesday -> that's now, kids...

Let's get to work !!!

wireframe

http://bentobjects.blogspot.com/

Audi Campaign

Simply genius

Check out this sweet customized briefcase.

Tired

Last night Leah and I got home from church kinda late... and found that we had left the skylights in both the bedroom and bathroom open. Since we had some pretty heavy rain throughout the evening, the bathroom was pretty wet, as was one whole corner of our bed...
Also, we had heard rumours that the basement room at the studio (yeah, the one with our guitars, drums, keyboards, computer...) leaks, so I went to check that action out. It does leak. But everything was mostly OK, and I just piled some stuff on chairs. Our carpets are going to be gross though.
So I only got to sleep (on the couch) around 12.30...

Time for a new bike...?

Yesterday, on my way home from work, I stopped in at Loblaws to pick up a coupla largish sacks of cat litter, and some other assorted grocery items.
I also took the opportunity to pump up my back tire, which keeps getting soft... and the whole valve ripped off. Good times.

So I loaded up the groceries in my basket, and proceeded to push my bike home. Luckily, I passed the bike store on the way, and it was still open... So I took the bike in, and the guy noticed that I also had a broken spoke (this must have been a pretty new feature, 'cause I hadn't noticed it). This means that I could not just buy a new tube, but had to leave the whole bike with him to fix...

So, I proceeded to carry the groceries home, without shopping bags. And then it started to rain. It was almost funny.

Turns out that I can't load up my bike like I do. Being a road bike, it can't handle carrying things like groceries, as well as my hulking weight... This makes the bike close to not-at-all-usefull.

Craigslist ???

Update

So - you can pretty much refer to the previous post for the weekend update...
We ended up watching the Science of Sleep at Jen and David's on Friday night.

On Saturday, I went to meet Solmaz to discuss/brainstorm some ideas for a strange design competition which we hope to enter. Afterwards I biked on down to Kensington to pick up some things. That afternoon we did more grocery shopping - and ended up buying more food than we could reasonably carry on two bikes. I had to bike home with one load, and then bike back to where Leah was waiting with the rest of the groceries (it sucked). Then we practiced some music for church. And then we went to the ElMo to see Laura Veirs. That place kinda sucks in that you can hear the bass coming through the floor from the dancefloor upstairs. The show was pretty good - I especially enjoyed opener (and Veirs' bass-player) Karl Blau, who has a looping station which he puts to good use, and a CD subscription service where he records and sends out music in the same way other people do magazines...

On Sunday we went to the Walmer. The theatre looks great. The art in the lobby included work by (studiomates!) Paul and Maegan and (non-studiomate) Jon B. Sarah J was singing. And Jen's clown workshop was really great. Quite a few people from church were there - I seriously couldn't understand why anybody DIDN'T come...

Afterwards we went to church to setup/soundcheck/practice. Drumming is still hard work for me, although it is definitely getting better. I am seriously lacking in technical skill, and also just need more hours playing with Leah and reading/following her. After church we met Dominic Guerette, who turned 5 days old yesterday.
!!!!!

Plans...

Tomorrow night we are going to see Laura Veirs... usually we plan to go to shows, and then do something else (read: go to bed) instead (last weekend's CftPA and Mt Eerie shows, for example). But Leah already bought tickets to this one, so that should ensure that we are there. Hopefully it will be good - we missed her last time (opening for Sufjan)... but this time she is the main attraction.

On Sunday I am going to try to play the drums in church.
And I think I should hopefully still be able to catch Jen McN's clown show at the Walmer before that. I am excited about this for a number of reasons:
a) I J clowning
b) Jen is amazing
c) I want to see the fully redone theatre - Kate and Brad have been performing miracles, and I haven't seen the finished final product yet...

Also - tonight we may/may not hang out with some church peeps to watch a movie/hang out on a patio...

My big break

I SINCERELY COUNT ON YOUR ASSISTANCE.REMEMBER .I AM HIGHLY PLACED OFFICIAL AND EXPECT ABSOLUTE DISCRETION FROM YOU IN ORDER TO PROTECT OUR HONOUR FROM FOREIGN JOURNALIST WHO
SEEK TO DESTROY MEMBER OF OUR RULING CIVILIAN GORVERNMENT THIS TRANSACTION IS HITCH-FREE, SO YOU NEED NOT ENTERTAIN ANY FEAR AT ALL.
I EXPECT YOUR REPLY IMMEDIATELY.

blah blah blah

Yesterday, after work, I went to Cumbrae's and purchased possibly the most expensive piece of meat I have ever bought. On the way home I also purchased some charcoal, and a $20 barbecue. When I got home, I cooked the meat on the barbecue - it was freaking delicious...

During the night, I had a dream in which I was killed. There was some sort of war going on, and someone had to shoot me for some reason or another. They took me to the edge of some elevated structure, and I took a bullet in the back of the head, execution style. As I fell off the edge everything went black, and I never hit the concrete pier below. It was almost like the fall never ended, because I was dead. And then I woke up. I don't think I have ever actually died in a dream before...

Today I am listening to Sonic Youth...




Are these events related ???

I must be bored...

...'cause I'm blogging like a madman.

The first song here, by the Prayers & Tears of Arthur Digby Sellers, is pretty freaking nice. Check it out.

...flashback...

Design Skool

Check out this video, for a bizarre architecture history lesson on Mies van der Rohe.
For extra-credit, compare and contrast Mies' work to that of Walter Gropius...
or you can compare and contrast that guy's dance moves to this guy's...

Moving

In preparing for the great office move of 2007, I deleted all of the mp3s of CDs that I own off of my work computer (I have spent 3 years slowly ripping most of our CDs at work - I listen to music pretty much constantly). The only stuff I decided to keep was the stuff I don't have on CD... Reeve's music, SLC, live stuff, promotional songs from bands'/labels' websites etc... now I'm down to around 3.11 GB - yikes...

Also - Leah and I are wondering about where to move to... we were thinking of finding a pimped out place downtown (think MTV cribs) - just to save time and simplify our lives. But we are also thinking about looking for something cheap (and therefore maybe a little less downtown) and saving some dough.

Maybe we can follow Jen and David's lead, and start looking for a dome-home...

jPod

OK - so a little more explanation on why I didn't like jPod all that much...

The main flavour of this book, to me, was one of total amorality... I suppose you could argue that this, in and of itself, would not necessarily make for a bad book. And, after checking out the website for the book, and downloading the available interview with the author, it turns out that this lack of morals was entirely intentional. Which makes sense... Coupland generally seems pretty intentional about the thematic content of his writing.

I guess you could argue that I am prejudicial in my tastes; I happen to believe in truth, and morality... and it turns out that most of my friends do too. I hope that Coupland DOESN'T have his finger on the pulse of society this time... but what if he does??!

In related news... I have found in some recent movies I have watched an equally disturbing amorality. I can't remember any examples other than Marie Antoinette (I seem to remember that there was a much better example in something else I watched first... Scoop? Volver??) The way in which her affair was handled in the film bugged me in that it was not even framed in moral terms. I think this is different from immorality, and is in a lot of ways much scarier.


Check out this clip from the Coupland interview... (or go to the jPod site and hear the whole thing) :

God has been kind of present in most of your other novels in one way, shape or form; people thinking about religion, thinking about meaning, maybe, more than anything. And, where did God go in this book? I mean, has He got part of this jPod universe? (or she, or it, or the overpowering...)

Well, hard-core Christians have this thing called the rapture, where all the people who are true believers vanish, and everyone else is left on the planet, and God himself has sort of become absent. And I think this book takes place in sort of a post-rapture environment, where everything holy has been removed from the world, and you just have to work with what remains, and have to get yourself through it. So, you know, I don't know, I mean, God, if you're up there and you're looking at jPod... um... Be merciful. Oh dear.

---

I do agree with the part about asking God for mercy on our world!!

Weekend

Friday - after leaving work early with a migraine, I slept for a couple of hours, and then we went to Katherine's place for dinner. We hung out with her and Joel, and it was fun, even though I was still feeling kinda crappy.

On Saturday, I still had a residual dull ache in my head - so we went to the Dufferin mall... we purchased various exciting clothes items (socks, underwear...), as well as the first three White Stripes CDs.

The rest of the weekend kinda sucked (although church was OK - and Adrienne sang backup with Leah, which was cool...) - I was just in a bad mood, and didn't really feel like doing anything.

I also managed to read Douglas Coupland's jPod over the course of the weekend. Unless you are a huge Doug C fan, I wouldn't bother with this one...

Useless links

Zellyn posted this one - pretty funny.
And then there's this one... inexplicable...

If it ain't broke

Last Christmas, Delvyn told me about the fixed gear bike trend that was happening in California.

Looks like it is spreading...

and - IT SOUNDS TOTALLY FREAKING POINTLESS... Let's see - no coasting, and no brakes... ??? Clearly this is an improvement ???

Hopefully Canadians will be sensible enough to pass on this one...