Mantis Style!: 02/01/2005

Monday, February 28, 2005

In a break from tradition, this is not Tay. Happy Christmas.

Sunday, February 27, 2005

More Dues To Pay

Because nobody else will link this, and it's definitly worthwhile to watch. The world's funniest book report.

You might as well also check out the world's funniest essay too. I mean, while you're at it.

Oh, and another fun little tidbit: remember when we were at The Den last week, and that awesome song came on early in the night, and I said that it sounded like Beck fucking with an old NES? Well, I really wanted to find out what that track was, rather than have Fat Mike give it to me next year and totally out-cool me. As it turns out, it actually was Beck fucking with an old NES. The track is called Bit Rate Variations in B Flat, off of his brand new Hell Yes EP. The album comes with a few other similarly-themed, and similarly-awesome sounding tracks. I can't wait for the full album, it should be rad.

Motherfucker, but do I hate it when blogger loses my posts. I'm giving out the links, but fuck the jokes that went alongside.

The True Adventures Of Chad, The Guy Who Was So Into Super Monkey Ball Deluxe That He Decided To Live In A Ball.

A Political Cartoon.

Space Tree The Space Tree In Space.

Click 'ems already!

I guess that I owe you guys some links that I've been talking about lately. Here ya go.

The True Adventures Of Chad, The Guy Who Was So Into Super Monkey Ball Deluxe That He Decided To Live In A Ball. It certainly lives up to it's title. This may very well be the funniest ad campaign for a video game ever.

Oh, and a funny political cartoon featuring a Strangelove-style Kim Jong Il. I chuckled, you might too. As well. Also. Whatever.

Space Tree The Space Tree In Space. It's a pretty funny cartoon, if not falling into the pitfalls of typical flash animations, ie Not Having A Female Voice Actor For Female Characters. Oh well.

Saturday, February 26, 2005

I finished the post now, so if you've only read the first part, scroll down for the soulful sounds of Part 2.

So we got to talking at Viscious Circle last night, and the topic of conversation turned to musical genious. Phil proposed that musical genious is dead, and cited classical composer Bach as the bar that's been set. Supposedly he could compose fugues on the spot, sort of a renaissance version of the freestyle rap, if you will. Although I would expect that composing several overlapping melodies on piano is slightly more difficult than rhyming your favorite brand of alcohol with your favorite brand of car.

All of this is kind of bugging me, because I don't want to believe that musical genious is dead. I know that I've thrown the term around here and there in reference to The Flaming Lips and such, but I guess that all comes down to how we define genious. If we define it by how complicated we can make music while still sounding good, then maybe nobody will beat Bach, I don't know. But I still think that there's something to be said about creating songs that illustrate the beauty of things such as death and seeping head wounds.

After some thought, I've found that one of the reasons this topic bugs me is because we're trying to quanitfy an already debatably evil term. But on the other hand, there's nothing quite as annoying as the person who wants to be everybody's friend by saying that everything's subjective. When the guy in line behind me at Ticketmaster is yakking on his cel phone about how he's so excited for the Velvet Revolver tour, I want to punch out his teeth and quietly tell him that his taste in music is poorly formed, at best. But at the same time I can imagine some high school prick walking up and saying that this douchebag has the right to listen to whatever crap he wants, and I have no right to intervene on that.

Did I get off-topic? Ah, fuck it.

Thursday, February 24, 2005

Wait, did you hear that? It sounds like the screams of a million posers simultaeneously getting kicked in the balls. The streets will run with discarded Atticus hoodies and retarded trucker caps at odd angles. Fishhook piercings will hide behind black veils in mourning, and true punk may just have a hope yet.

Also, The Hot Hot Heat is coming to town on April 14, and they're bringing The Futureheads with them. This is likely going to be the coolest concert to hit Calgary this year, simply because cooler bands do not exist. I'm getting my tickets this weekend. If you guys want to come, that would be great, but I'm not really depending on other people to make it. I HAVE to see this concert.

In addition to the awesomeness of April, my absolute favorite band of all time, Reel Big Fish, is releasing a new album! Saints be praised.

Whew, if music news gets any better, my head will explode. This just in: Zombie Joe Strummer has announced that he has forgotten the words to Rock the Casbah and all subsequent songs, but has reunited The Clash and will tour anyways.

BOOM!

Oh shit Ryan, that was the illest freestyle ever. Fucking hilarious. To make a quick correction though, I thought that A Grand Don't Come Free was better than Original Pirate Material, it's Fat Mike who is on your side. I'm a sucker for album-long storylines. Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots was musical genious, and The Streets latest certainly doesn't dissapoint either.

Oh, you also said you were having trouble with colour schemes. I found a keen colour-scheme generator to help out. I don't know how it works, I just click stuff and colours do things. Shit, I don't know.

Sunday, February 20, 2005

Condensed complaint against Grammies:

1) Stop giving Norah Jones/Sting every available award. Give them a lifetime achievement each and then let somebody else have a chance.

2) Stop giving awards to every single performer that night. Not even Paris Hilton returns the favour that fast.

3) Invite back Wu-Tang. The last time they came by in 1998 was the last good show you guys had. "Wu-Tang is for the children!!!"

4) Slap yourselves for choosing Wilco over Modest Mouse in the alternative catergory. Be honest, you just liked their movie where they fight the record company for the rights to their songs, only to turn around and sell them back to the same label. It's the most beautiful sell-out story in the world.

5) Kanye West may have been the right pick out of all the rap nominations, but that's not saying much. It's not really saying anything at all.

Ryan was asking earlier if their were any televised music awards shows that gave trophies to good music. I don't know about that, but I watched about 10 minutes of the Brit Awards, and I was frickin' impressed. Scissor Sister won over Maroon 5, Shawn of the Dead presented an award to Franz Ferdinand, The Streets did a wicked performance and then lost for Best Single. I was super-happy. Hopefully it will be replayed several times, it seems that the english know music.

Wednesday, February 16, 2005

Blogger lost my lengthy complaint letter against the grammies. As witty as I thought it was, I don't care to type it out again. I'm going to have to make a habit of using a different word processor to make these posts, blogger has a patchy trach record of keeping them.

Monday, February 14, 2005

I am running on about 2 hours sleep. While normally going on little sleep is a superpower of mine, this is only the tip of what can only be called an insomnia iceberg. I'm going to try to get some sleep tomorrow, so that I'll have enough energy to complain about the Grammies.

Wednesday, February 09, 2005

Little Known Facts
Did you know that if you go to Starbucks now, they have a drink that is comprised completely of chocolate? There's no water or milk to dilute it's form, it's just melted chocolate in a cup. Did you know that if you order this beverage, the server will pester you no less than 5 times during your stay, asking if you actually enjoy the drink, followed by the tittering of the staff and the assumed changing hands of money?

Come to think of it, they probably wouldn't be surprised that somebody would enjoy pure melted chocolate. Who wouldn't, right? More likely is that they all spat in my drink and took bets on if I'd notice. Crap.

Saturday, February 05, 2005

Redux

To start, let me comment on the albums that I lent Ryan last week. I'll agree that Rufus Wainwright's Want Two isn't great. I'm a much bigger fan of the pop sound he perfected in Poses. As for the Rushmore Soundtrack, I can see why you'd be surprised, what with me being a known enemy of classic rock. I think the difference can be found in two factors. The first is context, being that listening to the album makes me think of the movie, which still stands in my Top 5 of All Time list. The second factor is that I have never heard any of the soundtrack on the radio. Ever. It's as new to me as it would have been when the recording were first released. It's not like the ancient U2 or Beatles (shudder) albums that still maintain airwave saturation. Fuck, they don't play any Cat Stevens now that he's a known terrorist.

Concerning the big debate that is forming, I'd like to chip in my two cents, in the form of an open letter to the middle and upper classes:

Dear Middle and Upper Class,

Shut the fuck up.

Your pal,
Tay

Stop complaining about criminals with law degrees, or criminals that get themselves educated, or how your tax dollars are spent. I will let you in on a little secret.

There are worse things to do with your life than to be a criminal. There are worse things than robbery, extortion, and murder. For example, you could waste your entire life complaining about these people, and contribute to a system that does nothing but generate more of these degenerates. If people really wanted to change things, really wanted to overhaul the system in a way that would eliminate the need for crime, it would happen overnight. The fact of the matter is that you're all too complacent to do a damned thing about it.

You may have noticed that I mentioned a need for crime. That's due to the systems need for a lower class. We can't all be middle class; what the hell would they call it then? The Only Class? No, the truth is that without poor people, the system would collapse.

So with a system based on disparity, crime follows by nature. They are playing the exact same game that you are, they just have a slightly different role. Really, the whole thing boils down to this question: would you rather be poor, and more apt towards criminal activity, or would you rather be less poor yet take on the relatively small chance of being victimized by a poor person?

As for criminals in prison taking the oppurtunity to better themselves through education, what the fuck is wrong with you? Do you think that staring at a wall for 10 years of your waking life will rehabilitate you? Of course not, you'll go fucking nuts! Structure and discipline are the only viable ways we have to rehabilitate criminals, and education has heaping loads of that crap. It's either that or the military, and you probably don't want to see these guys with guns.

Ryan, I think you just convinced me. I'm not voting anymore. I don't want to complain.

Wednesday, February 02, 2005

Internet, I Forsake Thee
Long have I been a friend of Free Speech. I like the idea that anybody who has something important to say should be allowed to say it whenever he wants to.

I do not believe in free speech anymore. The reason being is that there are too many fuckwads on this planet. There are very few people who should be allowed to talk. The rest just want to scream and whine and fart, pausing only briefly to breathe with their mouths.

As I'm sure a few of you have guessed, this goes back to online gaming. I can't do it anymore. It's simply too frustrating trying to play while some internet fuckwad is screeching in my ear. I simply refuse to play like that now.

Perhaps you're thinking now: "But Tay, if you quit the internet, the fuckwads win!"

I say: Fine. Let 'em win. They can have the internet. I am more than ready to accept defeat at the hands of the ignorant, who are born by the metric ton every day. May they control this virtual realm with an iron fist, trolling around anime message boards and posting drawings of horse genitals wherever they see fit. It's simply not worth the frustration for me to fight this.

Having said all this, I will still play Halo online, under one condition. I will not use the headset, should the presense of a single anonymous figure be heard. I would rather play Resident Evil 4 than deal with that shit. Lord knows it was all I could do to keep from taking the hedge clippers to the cable line last night.

Mantis Style!