Has a nasty way of haunting you.
I'd write more about my past week, but it really hasn't been that exciting.
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
First You Get the Sugar LIVE!
Ta-dah! The picture quality isn't great (and the first one is really stretched), but w/e.
It's been a while
BEFORE I GO ANY FURTHER: "Don't You Evah" just came on the radio of the coffee shop I'm sitting in. I don't think I've ever heard Spoon on the radio.
Anyways, back to the point. It HAS been a while, at least in 2009 terms, when not updating a blog for four days means nothing less than calamity. My reasons are not so exciting. I haven't been swallowed by any large creatures nor have I had my computer stolen by a band of roving Mongols. I have, however, been living without internet in my home, and I've been a regular 9 to 5 working stiff, so there we go.
Work is actually starting to get interesting. Now that the lab is moderately populated and I've had a chance to speak with my supervisor, I'm no longer stuck sitting around the lab with nothing to do and no one to talk to. Now I spend the days learning Cubase-- ostensibly to edit the sounds I'm going to be using for my auditory experiments, but also because I feel it can't be a bad thing to learn--and reading over articles on auditory beacons and the hippocampus.
I'd love to say life without internet at home is somehow freeing, but really its just a pain in the ass. I haven't been able to Skype with my friends or my brother and sister, and paying bills, dealing with immigration, and all those other things teh interwebs make possible or easier.
They've now gone from Spoon to some sort of incredibly forgettable acoustic ballad. Oh well.
One of the nice things about a 30-60 minute public transit commute is that you get to read. I've made it my mission this summer to plow through as much as possible of my roommate's bookshelf. I'll skip the PoliSci textbooks, but Rousseau and Marx might be fair game. I'm a little ways into East of Eden right now, and it's amazing. There should be a law against forcing middle schoolers to read great authors like Steinbeck against their wills; it just makes them less likely to pick them up when they could actually enjoy them.
My final thought in this all-over-the-place post: the Prop 8 decision. I don't blame the judges for their decision. Deciding otherwise would have been political suicide. I do blame the 52% of California that's still so uncomfortable with the thought of two men kissing (yes, I know it's not actually that simple) they feel the need to strip rights from millions of tax-paying, law-abiding citizens, including some dear friends and family. Fuck you.
Anyways, back to the point. It HAS been a while, at least in 2009 terms, when not updating a blog for four days means nothing less than calamity. My reasons are not so exciting. I haven't been swallowed by any large creatures nor have I had my computer stolen by a band of roving Mongols. I have, however, been living without internet in my home, and I've been a regular 9 to 5 working stiff, so there we go.
Work is actually starting to get interesting. Now that the lab is moderately populated and I've had a chance to speak with my supervisor, I'm no longer stuck sitting around the lab with nothing to do and no one to talk to. Now I spend the days learning Cubase-- ostensibly to edit the sounds I'm going to be using for my auditory experiments, but also because I feel it can't be a bad thing to learn--and reading over articles on auditory beacons and the hippocampus.
I'd love to say life without internet at home is somehow freeing, but really its just a pain in the ass. I haven't been able to Skype with my friends or my brother and sister, and paying bills, dealing with immigration, and all those other things teh interwebs make possible or easier.
They've now gone from Spoon to some sort of incredibly forgettable acoustic ballad. Oh well.
One of the nice things about a 30-60 minute public transit commute is that you get to read. I've made it my mission this summer to plow through as much as possible of my roommate's bookshelf. I'll skip the PoliSci textbooks, but Rousseau and Marx might be fair game. I'm a little ways into East of Eden right now, and it's amazing. There should be a law against forcing middle schoolers to read great authors like Steinbeck against their wills; it just makes them less likely to pick them up when they could actually enjoy them.
My final thought in this all-over-the-place post: the Prop 8 decision. I don't blame the judges for their decision. Deciding otherwise would have been political suicide. I do blame the 52% of California that's still so uncomfortable with the thought of two men kissing (yes, I know it's not actually that simple) they feel the need to strip rights from millions of tax-paying, law-abiding citizens, including some dear friends and family. Fuck you.
Friday, May 22, 2009
Going crazy
This is now my second eight-hour day in the lab with no one else here.
Give me another week or two of this and I'll be coming back as a patient.
Give me another week or two of this and I'll be coming back as a patient.
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Arrrrgh
My enthusiasm for MTL's public bike system has not waned; my enjoyment of my experience with it has.
There's a big difference between $6 max for more than 2 hours and $6 for EACH half hour past 2 hours. Whoops.
Also, it would have been nice if they had mentioned the $250 deposit they take out of your account when you rent the bike, and then take more than a week to give back.
There's a big difference between $6 max for more than 2 hours and $6 for EACH half hour past 2 hours. Whoops.
Also, it would have been nice if they had mentioned the $250 deposit they take out of your account when you rent the bike, and then take more than a week to give back.
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Grades grades grades
I was wondering how one can get "A"s and "A-"s on all the assignments in a class and then get a "B" as a final grade.
Turns out you can't, and I will no longer have to tell people that my lowest grade in college was in Sexual Ethics. Woo!
Turns out you can't, and I will no longer have to tell people that my lowest grade in college was in Sexual Ethics. Woo!
Presenting: the future!
The coolest thing ever.
The basic idea is this: there are automated bike rental stations (solar-powered) every few blocks. Each station has 5-10 bikes in them. You slide in a credit card, it charges you $5 for 24-hour access (or you can go on the website and get a monthly pass for $28 or a year-round pass for $78), and you get a code to unlock one of the bikes. The bike is then yours for as long as you like. It's no extra charge for the first half-hour and then increases up to a maximum of $6 depending on how long you keep it out for. When you're done, you just put the bike back into any of the stations scattered throughout the city.
They're setting the stations up in Montreal right now. They've probably only got ten percent or so of them working and/or present at the moment, but I already can't describe how excited I am about this thing. Yesterday I went with a friend, rented one of these bikes, and pedaled around downtown, down by the Atwater market and the Lachine canal, and had a lovely picnic. I had a movie to see, so we went back into downtown...and dropped the bike off right in front of the movie theater.
This morning I had some errands to run, so I walked to my first errand, grabbed a bike from the station a block away from it, took a lovely ten minute ride into downtown to the bank, dropped the bike off across the street from the bank, fulfilled my financial duties, grabbed another bike from the same station, headed to my other errands...and you can probably get the picture. Since they were all short rides, I paid nothing over the $5 I had paid the day before for 24 hours. I paid $11 total for getting the bike for an entire afternoon/evening and getting to run a bunch of errands all over the city the next morning--not much more expensive than the metro, and if I had the yearly pass I could do that as much as I wanted.
I really hope I'm not the only one who thinks this is the greatest idea ever. Why the hell would I take the metro if it's one of those iridescent Montreal summer days and I could take a lovely little ride downtown? Set up enough of these stations and make it convenient and cheap enough, and you could probably reduce congestion on the public transit system and maybe, because it's much more personal than a metro or bus, get people out of their cars. I already saw some well-heeled business types buzzing around downtown on them, and since Montreal already has some very safe bike paths that go straight through the middle of the city, I could see that becoming a fairly regular occurence if they spread the stations out into the suburbs.
Plus, the bikes are futuristic and sexy-looking. That's always important.
The basic idea is this: there are automated bike rental stations (solar-powered) every few blocks. Each station has 5-10 bikes in them. You slide in a credit card, it charges you $5 for 24-hour access (or you can go on the website and get a monthly pass for $28 or a year-round pass for $78), and you get a code to unlock one of the bikes. The bike is then yours for as long as you like. It's no extra charge for the first half-hour and then increases up to a maximum of $6 depending on how long you keep it out for. When you're done, you just put the bike back into any of the stations scattered throughout the city.
They're setting the stations up in Montreal right now. They've probably only got ten percent or so of them working and/or present at the moment, but I already can't describe how excited I am about this thing. Yesterday I went with a friend, rented one of these bikes, and pedaled around downtown, down by the Atwater market and the Lachine canal, and had a lovely picnic. I had a movie to see, so we went back into downtown...and dropped the bike off right in front of the movie theater.
This morning I had some errands to run, so I walked to my first errand, grabbed a bike from the station a block away from it, took a lovely ten minute ride into downtown to the bank, dropped the bike off across the street from the bank, fulfilled my financial duties, grabbed another bike from the same station, headed to my other errands...and you can probably get the picture. Since they were all short rides, I paid nothing over the $5 I had paid the day before for 24 hours. I paid $11 total for getting the bike for an entire afternoon/evening and getting to run a bunch of errands all over the city the next morning--not much more expensive than the metro, and if I had the yearly pass I could do that as much as I wanted.
I really hope I'm not the only one who thinks this is the greatest idea ever. Why the hell would I take the metro if it's one of those iridescent Montreal summer days and I could take a lovely little ride downtown? Set up enough of these stations and make it convenient and cheap enough, and you could probably reduce congestion on the public transit system and maybe, because it's much more personal than a metro or bus, get people out of their cars. I already saw some well-heeled business types buzzing around downtown on them, and since Montreal already has some very safe bike paths that go straight through the middle of the city, I could see that becoming a fairly regular occurence if they spread the stations out into the suburbs.
Plus, the bikes are futuristic and sexy-looking. That's always important.
Sunday, May 17, 2009
I have no patience
I was going to wait until I had gotten the good, full-sized versions of these to post them, but instead I decided to succumb to my desires and just post them now. Perhaps I'll swap them out for the full-sized versions when I get them.
These are the results of Ms. Angela Woodside and I going crazy with her very nice camera, some friends, and the city of Montreal.
Some photos by me:
And some by the lovely and talented Ms. Woodside:
These are the results of Ms. Angela Woodside and I going crazy with her very nice camera, some friends, and the city of Montreal.
Some photos by me:
And some by the lovely and talented Ms. Woodside:
Saturday, May 16, 2009
Summer showers
One of the quirks of Northern California's weather is that it never rains in the summer. Although this may sound like one more factor making the Bay Area into the earthly near-paradise that it is, it has the unfortunate side effect of making any native of the region woefully unprepared for life in the outside world. The reason I bring this up is that I am currently sitting in a cafe in Montreal (my computer has been fixed, but my internet has decided to stop working in my apartment) watching the grime of last night's revelries on St. Laurent being swiftly swept into the storm drains by a downpour.
The San Franciscan part of my brain is utterly confused by this. Fog, clouds, a brisk wind: these are all common enough in summer, and even hallmarks of it in certain neighborhoods. But seeing dark clouds blot out the sun on a radiant 75-degree day and feeling the first drops hit my face as I look up at the sky just leaves me lost and feeling like I've entered bizarro world, or maybe that I've pulled a Rip Van Winkle and my nap in the park lasted until November. I didn't even used to know that it was just a California thing. I assumed that it was simply the natural progression of the seasons: winter = chilly and rainy, spring = warm and rainy, summer = warm and dry, fall = chilly and dry. I was truly shocked when my mother suggested we bring along an umbrella in case of rain when i was heading out for a summer picnic in New Jersey. I suppose I'm adjusting slightly, but I'm still very weirded out by the whole thing.
You hear that, East Coast? You're weird. I love you anyway.
In other news, I start work on Tuesday, and spoke to my supervisor so I actually know what I'm going to be doing. Or at least I know that I don't have to know what I'm doing.
In other other news, I saw this ad on the side of youtube just now:
AHHHHH. WTF. Why they thought this photo would make anyone want to do this to themselves is beyond me.
The San Franciscan part of my brain is utterly confused by this. Fog, clouds, a brisk wind: these are all common enough in summer, and even hallmarks of it in certain neighborhoods. But seeing dark clouds blot out the sun on a radiant 75-degree day and feeling the first drops hit my face as I look up at the sky just leaves me lost and feeling like I've entered bizarro world, or maybe that I've pulled a Rip Van Winkle and my nap in the park lasted until November. I didn't even used to know that it was just a California thing. I assumed that it was simply the natural progression of the seasons: winter = chilly and rainy, spring = warm and rainy, summer = warm and dry, fall = chilly and dry. I was truly shocked when my mother suggested we bring along an umbrella in case of rain when i was heading out for a summer picnic in New Jersey. I suppose I'm adjusting slightly, but I'm still very weirded out by the whole thing.
You hear that, East Coast? You're weird. I love you anyway.
In other news, I start work on Tuesday, and spoke to my supervisor so I actually know what I'm going to be doing. Or at least I know that I don't have to know what I'm doing.
In other other news, I saw this ad on the side of youtube just now:
AHHHHH. WTF. Why they thought this photo would make anyone want to do this to themselves is beyond me.
Sunday, May 10, 2009
Old folks dancing
That pretty much describes the concert, and not necessarily in a negative way. There were a lot of rather drunk 45-60 year-olds doing wonderfully awkward "parent" dancing--the type that's guaranteed to leave their teenage children mortified to be seen anywhere near them. Although I'm still embarrassed when my family members engage in that sort of activity, it's not like I fault them for doing that. When I'm that age, I plan to be going to concerts and dancing my ass off, whether I look silly or not. Good on them.
As for the band, they actually (besides the obvious tracks) played mostly stuff from their new album, which was...good, I guess. It was all fun and dancy and whatnot, and everybody loves "Love Shack," but I can't help but feel that the whole band was really awkwardly trapped between "oldies touring band" and their normal weirdo new-wave/punk/retro-ness. It was especially odd with them, because the B-52s pretty much DEFINE kitschy/campy, and in a very strangely cool-by-way-of-uncool way. It was strange to see a band that was always hip by being square be forced into square-dom unwillingly.
The opening act (The 88) was pretty cool. Because youtube seems to have taken down their only music videos, this is the best clip I could find of them:
...and yes, that's from four years ago. I've heard a couple songs of theirs and always really liked what I heard. They're unabashedly poppy but also just write good guitar pop songs without any pretension or over-affectedness, which is growing increasingly rare. At this point, they're mostly famous for having songs in what seems like every single teen TV show ever. According to Wikipedia, they've been featured in Grey's Anatomy, What About Brian, Men in Trees, Kyle XY ,Emily's Reasons Why Not, Three Moons Over Milford, Greek, The O.C. (4 episodes), Pepper Dennis, Kitchen Confidential, Head Cases, How I Met Your Mother, Numb3rs, Tuesday Night Book Club, Gossip Girl, 90210, One Tree Hill, Summerland, Bedford Diaries, Laguna Beach, The Hills, The Real World, Making the Band, Dawson's Creek, Roswell, and Access Hollywood. Plus some other shows I'd never heard of.
I chatted with the keyboardist after the show for a while about playing shows in Canada, gave him First You Get the Sugar's Web site, and talked to him about how they managed to get so much shit on TV. Really nice guy, and the fact that he actually asked for my band's website, made sure he had it written down, and asked more about us all after I just made an offhand comment about playing in a band up in Montreal was pretty nice of him. Who knows, maybe someday we'll open for the band that opened for the B-52s.
On a final note, seeing the B-52s live made me realize how much FyGTS is indebted to them for our sound. "When She Stops" is obviously a bit "Rock Lobster"-ish, but more generally there's something about that very...shiny? Neon?...sound that they have that I've always heard in our music. Something about twangy guitars and shimmery organs.
As for the band, they actually (besides the obvious tracks) played mostly stuff from their new album, which was...good, I guess. It was all fun and dancy and whatnot, and everybody loves "Love Shack," but I can't help but feel that the whole band was really awkwardly trapped between "oldies touring band" and their normal weirdo new-wave/punk/retro-ness. It was especially odd with them, because the B-52s pretty much DEFINE kitschy/campy, and in a very strangely cool-by-way-of-uncool way. It was strange to see a band that was always hip by being square be forced into square-dom unwillingly.
The opening act (The 88) was pretty cool. Because youtube seems to have taken down their only music videos, this is the best clip I could find of them:
...and yes, that's from four years ago. I've heard a couple songs of theirs and always really liked what I heard. They're unabashedly poppy but also just write good guitar pop songs without any pretension or over-affectedness, which is growing increasingly rare. At this point, they're mostly famous for having songs in what seems like every single teen TV show ever. According to Wikipedia, they've been featured in Grey's Anatomy, What About Brian, Men in Trees, Kyle XY ,Emily's Reasons Why Not, Three Moons Over Milford, Greek, The O.C. (4 episodes), Pepper Dennis, Kitchen Confidential, Head Cases, How I Met Your Mother, Numb3rs, Tuesday Night Book Club, Gossip Girl, 90210, One Tree Hill, Summerland, Bedford Diaries, Laguna Beach, The Hills, The Real World, Making the Band, Dawson's Creek, Roswell, and Access Hollywood. Plus some other shows I'd never heard of.
I chatted with the keyboardist after the show for a while about playing shows in Canada, gave him First You Get the Sugar's Web site, and talked to him about how they managed to get so much shit on TV. Really nice guy, and the fact that he actually asked for my band's website, made sure he had it written down, and asked more about us all after I just made an offhand comment about playing in a band up in Montreal was pretty nice of him. Who knows, maybe someday we'll open for the band that opened for the B-52s.
On a final note, seeing the B-52s live made me realize how much FyGTS is indebted to them for our sound. "When She Stops" is obviously a bit "Rock Lobster"-ish, but more generally there's something about that very...shiny? Neon?...sound that they have that I've always heard in our music. Something about twangy guitars and shimmery organs.
How awesome was my weekend in NYC?
This awesome: I've slept five hours in the past two days. Yeahhhhh.
And Ryan's show was really awesome.
And to my wonderful mother, and all the other mothers out there...happy mothers' day!
And Ryan's show was really awesome.
And to my wonderful mother, and all the other mothers out there...happy mothers' day!
Friday, May 8, 2009
NYC
I'm heading into the Big Apple (I always wondered about that nickname) in about a half hour for a couple days of city-ness. I would promise lots of photos, but my camera is, alas, at somebody's house due to my leaving it at a party. Damn. Maybe I'll photoshop some old photos of myself next to monuments.
Thursday, May 7, 2009
It wasn't a rock. It was a...
Holy shit holy shit holy shit.
I was driving through downtown Morristown and happened to notice that these folks were playing on Sunday night.
I had no idea they were still together/alive. Now I've got tickets. So fucking excited.
I was driving through downtown Morristown and happened to notice that these folks were playing on Sunday night.
I had no idea they were still together/alive. Now I've got tickets. So fucking excited.
Trains and automobiles (but no planes, sadly)
I'm back! Sort of. My computer is now even deader than it was before, so I'm writing this from my grandfather's computer in sunny (actually not so much right now) Morristown, NJ. I took the lovely 12 hour train ride from Montreal yesterday. Twelve hours is a long time to spend in any one place, let alone a rather cramped train seat. Given that my last trip was nearly unbearable even given the presence of several good friends of mine to help pass the time, I was dreading it.
I ended up, however, having a better time of it than I expected, due to a) my having gotten three hours of sleep the previous night and b) my making a new friend.
"a" can be explained by the fact that I had a show with my band Tuesday night, and that our bassist is leaving town for a month. We had to give him a good send-off, of course, and even though I knew I had to wake up at 7:30 a.m. (at the latest) Wednesday morning, at a certain point it became so late I knew I would be getting nothing close to a decent night's sleep--so might as well stay up, right? I was originally planning to stay up with the bass player and some other band folks until 5:30 a.m., when he needed to catch his flight, but I only lasted until about 4:30, leaving me with a whopping three hours of sleep. This meant, of course, I was blissfully passed out for at least three out of those twelve hours. The nyquil I dosed myself with halfway through the trip probably didn't hurt with that either.
As for "b", I happened to sit across the aisle from a very friendly 30-year-old Quebecoise lady named Pascale, who was visiting some friends in NYC she had met in Denmark ten years ago and hadn't seen since. We discussed languages, restaurant work (she's a pastry chef at Stromboli, an Italian place in the Plateau), Quebec culture, and music. The latter became a rather applied conversation after she convinced me to pull out my guitar, and we went to the less populated end of the train car and had a Beatles/Simon and Garfunkel/Johnny Cash/Supertramp singalong. I also managed to sneak in First You Get the Sugar's greatest hits, which impressed her enough that she promised she would bring all of her friends to our next show. She's a huge fan of Django-esque gypsy jazz, and I think she was impressed by the "circus rock" aspect of our sound.
It's amazing how having someone to have conversation with can make what would be a hellish nightmare trapped in a 300-foot tube for 12 hours into a happy time of friendship, fun, and music.
Ouch. That last sentence made my head hurt to write. Time to sign off.
I ended up, however, having a better time of it than I expected, due to a) my having gotten three hours of sleep the previous night and b) my making a new friend.
"a" can be explained by the fact that I had a show with my band Tuesday night, and that our bassist is leaving town for a month. We had to give him a good send-off, of course, and even though I knew I had to wake up at 7:30 a.m. (at the latest) Wednesday morning, at a certain point it became so late I knew I would be getting nothing close to a decent night's sleep--so might as well stay up, right? I was originally planning to stay up with the bass player and some other band folks until 5:30 a.m., when he needed to catch his flight, but I only lasted until about 4:30, leaving me with a whopping three hours of sleep. This meant, of course, I was blissfully passed out for at least three out of those twelve hours. The nyquil I dosed myself with halfway through the trip probably didn't hurt with that either.
As for "b", I happened to sit across the aisle from a very friendly 30-year-old Quebecoise lady named Pascale, who was visiting some friends in NYC she had met in Denmark ten years ago and hadn't seen since. We discussed languages, restaurant work (she's a pastry chef at Stromboli, an Italian place in the Plateau), Quebec culture, and music. The latter became a rather applied conversation after she convinced me to pull out my guitar, and we went to the less populated end of the train car and had a Beatles/Simon and Garfunkel/Johnny Cash/Supertramp singalong. I also managed to sneak in First You Get the Sugar's greatest hits, which impressed her enough that she promised she would bring all of her friends to our next show. She's a huge fan of Django-esque gypsy jazz, and I think she was impressed by the "circus rock" aspect of our sound.
It's amazing how having someone to have conversation with can make what would be a hellish nightmare trapped in a 300-foot tube for 12 hours into a happy time of friendship, fun, and music.
Ouch. That last sentence made my head hurt to write. Time to sign off.
Sunday, May 3, 2009
If it's broke...I should fix it.
My laptop screen has decided to flicker, go black and smell like burning plastic on a disturbingly regular basis, so the updates on this blog will be a bit slower than normal until I've gotten it all fixed. Sorry to all those waiting for their daily dose of my honeyed prose.
Saturday, May 2, 2009
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