My me-time this past weekend wasn’t a total waste for the rest of humanity. I made a lot of changes to the site, and worked on the redesign. Tough questions were asked, like do I put a picture on my front page like an nerdy academic, or remain faceless, like a trendy blogger? In the end, I compromised, by putting up a picture that doesn’t look all that much like me. I’m a bit more of a CHUD in real life.
The big change, though, is that I used a few of the huge number of WordPress plug-ins to add info about my media consumption habits. Now you can see what I’ve been listening to, reading, and watching. I actually kind of dig it when I can go to other people’s web sites and find out stuff like that, so hopefully some of you out there will dig it here. I’m especially looking forward to having a forum to write glib little mini-reviews of movies I’ve seen, since I tend to do that on a pretty regular basis anyway.
Also filed in books, haikufactory, movies, review||Comments Off on never one to turn down a chance to express an opinion
So I’ve been pretty focused and Interweb-less the past couple of weeks. I have some deadlines looming, a couple of recently-scrapped projects behind me, and various other demands of my time. Yesterday, after a morning full of meetings, I spent about ten hours straight trying unsuccessfully to implement an optimization algorithm. I walked home, tired and frustrated, in full-on zombie mode. And Ty, Gill and I watched this video of bouncing Japanese kids playing the Saber Dance.
Last night the Orpheum turned, for an evening, into the land of the Chuck Taylors for the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. The trio was joined by the first opener, Dave Burke-impersonator Imaad Wasif, who played his rather excellent set alone with his guitar and some kind of drone box electrothingee. He has gotta rank as one of the more humble performers I’ve seen, mumbling appreciation of the quiet audience between his songs.
The second opening act, Blood on the Wall — um… wow. I guess being from Williamsburg is now enough to qualify you to start a band and open for the Yeahs. Because it sure wasn’t musicianship, songwriting or stage presence. As Gillian said, for three bucks you can see better bands in Saskatchewan. Needless to say, Pitchfork Media loves ’em (or so the 8.1 rating suggests; the review itself seems to be a bunch of random sentence fragments from the author’s diary).
The YYYs were great though. Karen O came on stage with an ear-to-ear grin, a Renaissance squire costume, and a stiff-legged bounce, the sum of which made her seem like a particularly musical marionette. She ripped through a high-energy set, singing, whispering and screaming, and it’s obvious she loves to perform — everything you want and need in a punk-glam frontwoman. I’m sure she was a handful for her parents.
Also filed in shows, vancouver||Comments Off on The Yeah Yeah Yeahs
My former roommate’s girlfriend’s former roommate’s Neo New Wave/Electropop duo — Children of the CPU — not only has a really pretty cool album (geek-chicishly titled Back to BASIC), but they got air time on my fave podcast — CBC’s Radio 3. Right in between The Cansecos and Habitat. This rates major coolness points as far as I’m concerned. I remember Amy telling me a couple of years ago about how Cam was setting up recording equipment and then hearing a couple of his tracks when I was in Montreal. Happily the whole album is now up on their website, and it’s a really fun listen.
It really does make me want to write songs and catch fireflies like the other hipsters do, and hey, how many albums make you feel that way?
My me-time this past weekend wasn’t a total waste for the rest of humanity. I made a lot of changes to the site, and worked on the redesign. Tough questions were asked, like do I put a picture on my front page like an nerdy academic, or remain faceless, like a trendy blogger? In the end, I compromised, by putting up a picture that doesn’t look all that much like me. I’m a bit more of a CHUD in real life.
So I’ve been pretty focused and Interweb-less the past couple of weeks. I have some deadlines looming, a couple of recently-scrapped projects behind me, and various other demands of my time. Yesterday, after a morning full of meetings, I spent about ten hours straight trying unsuccessfully to implement an optimization algorithm. I walked home, tired and frustrated, in full-on zombie mode. And Ty, Gill and I watched this video of bouncing Japanese kids playing the Saber Dance.
My former roommate’s girlfriend’s former roommate’s Neo New Wave/Electropop duo — Children of the CPU — not only has a really pretty cool album (geek-chicishly titled Back to BASIC), but they got air time on my fave podcast — CBC’s