all over the place
May 25, 2003
Links That Air Likes
A couple of days ago I got an email from Ariel asking for sites that she'd be interested in. I put together this nifty little response in Hotmail and then proceeded to use the same browser to zip over to check out one of the sites...because I'm an idiot. I lost what I had typed and was too pissed off to compile all the links and banter again. So I'm going to put together a list right here. Nothing big time, just enough to fill up half an hour or so between her admirable schedule of downhill biking, Vancouver music life living, city biking, and planning her trip back home.
-->This'strange little girl' likes to bike. Not only that, she likes to stick it to the cars as she does so. Right on.
-->Tacky. And great. Make sonic crap on the WD-1 DJ Trainer
-->At Creaturecology you can waste a lot of time putting together some random 'organisms' and then convince yourself that other people will actually be interested, notify all of your friends that you are engaged in this retarded past time and then wonder why it is that nobody has called you in a couple of days. (I think that I've mentioned this site to Ariel before.) The Anghodo Bird was my pride and joy, once upon a time...
-->On the last Tuesday of every month, KAOS Radio airs P.L.U.J. at 8pm Olympia, Washington time. VERY FUN.
-->CBC Radio 3 has a good design, and better content. Thispiece they did on The Organ was pretty cool.
-->Next up we have PinkNoises, a site that subheads itself as "the one stop web-resource on women + electronic music".
--->Pitchfork is one of a thousand good ways to informate yourself.
- posted by K. @ 5:37 p.m. |
My quest to read as many Toronto bloggers as possible brought me to freddie-dot-see-eh? today. The content of this guy's site is a little too hockey-friendly for my tastes, but from here I was pointed in the direction of Enetations. A couple of minutes later I had a 'comments' option here at aotp! Hurrah!
Oh yeah..I also re-discovered 'smilies' this afternoon. So prepare yourself for some giffic overindulgances in the near future.
Ahem. One final thing for the next little while. I'm currently downloading a video file from kazaa. Five users are uploading to my computer and how is the transfer moving?? Less than 4kb per second. What IS this?!?
- posted by K. @ 3:39 p.m. |
The WHO's 64th Toronto SARS update states that on May 22 "a cluster of five cases of respiratory illness associated with a single hospital in Toronto" was reported to the Organization. The update then goes on to address the possibility that SARS originated in a number of wild Chinese animals that are sold as delicacies at market. And now with western Canada's mad-cow panic...well, vegetarian groups are going to be thumping a few fresh new case studies detailing why exploiting animals is no good.
- posted by K. @ 2:02 p.m. |
May 20, 2003
LIVE IN TORONTO
- Barefoot plays at Blue Moon this Friday. The band started up in Thunder Bay and has been touring across the country for a year(ish) now. They recently played at the popular Come Together Music Festival at Frontier Ghost Town. This will be Barefoot's second gig at Blue Moon. The band should start their set sometime between 9:30 and 10pm. Blue Moon is located at 725 Queen Street East. Call 416-463-8868 for venue information.
- Burt Neilson Band is going to be at the Horseshoe on June 14th. Ohh...I can already smell the patchouli.
- May 27th at Lee's Palace is FOURTET & MANITOBA.
- posted by K. @ 6:52 p.m. |
This Afternoon
I like the way the rain makes everything feel so alive and re-connected. The sounds of running, falling water adds a vital, syncopated rhythm to the urban score. I've never heard anyone complain about the sound of rain. At the same time, watching the water drop on so much hard ground is saddening when you start to think about it. Puddles form where there is no grass, no earth, no natural water course to join. Instead of leaves and root systems to use and administer the downfall, there are rooves and sewers to move it away. And if the rain keeps falling like it is, the sewers will exceed their capacity, and overflow into the Lake. The rain finally making its way back to the water body, but bringing all of our shit along with it. It's the destruction of Lake Ontario using an ant trap method. We allow the rain to use these sewer systems that are filled with our poisons, contaminating that water and then, in turn, the body of water it eventually becomes part of.
I have a bit of head ache right now. I'm pretty sure its due to the day's weather system. Which is actually sort of comforting. It's proof of still being a true part of the natural environment. Not that I need a headache to be aware of this...but you know, it's a warning that I think a lot of us need. I wish more people in Toronto (and the rest of the province, country, world) would get more headaches. Maybe our arrogance/ingnorance levels would taper off a bit.
- posted by K. @ 5:54 p.m. |
May 17, 2003
"More housing developments go up, named after the things they replace; so welcome to Minnow Brook, and welcome to Shady Space." -- Novocain Stain, Modest Mouse
- posted by K. @ 11:40 p.m. |
May 15, 2003
My interest in community has been growing lately. I mean, the concept of community; communities online and in the flesh/concrete. This past year I tried to find to find as much Canadian fiction as I could that takes place within the last few years within the broader part of my own community, Toronto. I failed miserably. (If anyone has any suggestions for such books, I'm still interested -- my email is at the right.) So now I'm becoming interested in exploring Toronto's presence online. Or, I should say, the presence of Torontonians online. GTA Bloggers is my jumping off point. You could make yours Cellar Dweller.
- posted by K. @ 9:09 p.m. |
Audio News Update
The Beach has one record store. This one record store is chocked full of Top 30s Chart, soft rock, and mainstream classical. This record store is always out of stock when it comes to music that I'd like to buy. So I have go downtown. Today I ended up settling for the HMV on Yonge because I knew that what I wanted would probably be in stock there. And it was. I feel bad about hitting up HMV and not Rotate or whichever other independant store I should have gone to instead. (And to think that I was bugging Miranda about Blockbuster!)To: The wonderfully diverse music vendors of Toronto
I am very sorry for spending money at HMV this afternoon. I could have bought from the Sam's right next door. At least Sam is Canadian. I tried, I really did. But Sam's was all out of the first two titles that I was looking for. And HMV was so conveniant. So there. So predictable.
I promise that my next music purchase will be made in cramped, locally owned quarters.
From: Kyra, the kleenex carrying, bleary eyed girl in the brown sweater
Now then. Here's what I came home with --> (1.)The Postal Service - Give Up (2.)Mirah - you think it's like this but really it's like this (3.)The Be Good Tanyas - Chinatown (4.)Ugly Cassanova - Sharpen Your Teeth
- posted by K. @ 8:22 p.m. |
This afternoon is a lovely one in Toronto. I'm in the backyard, sitting at the patio table, wearing pyjamas, enjoying the breeze, and, most importantly, not up to my elbows in meat product. My mother is beside me, reading the list of Princess Margaret Lottery winners. . .and guess what! I still don't own a car! My dad did win a pair of binoculars though. But that is far from exciting. Maybe I'll use them to spy on the woman who won the Aston Martin V12 Vanquish. I imagine she'll have to sell it; I don't think many people could afford the insurance rates that car would be subject to.
Last night, Taylor and I walked from work to Max Milk to Becker's to home because nobody seems to value the Classic Coke slushie anymore. Vanilla Coke has stolen the hearts and sensibilities of my neighbourhood's variety store owners. So we went back to my house, borrowed my parents' barge (a 1996 Buick LeSabre) and drove to the SevenEleven at Pape and Queen for our frosted treats. On the way there we picked up Miranda who, by the end of our little sojourn, was none too pleased. Poor girl just wanted her burgers and boyfriend and home.
There were three things on my agenda for today:- sleeping late -- didn't really happen due to my burgeoning cold, and the clopping around that permeates the paper thin floor separating my basement bedroom from the kitchen, bathroom, and hallway above.
- CD shopping -- not sure if this will happen due to, again, my cold, and the motivation that this has sucked out of me.
- quit work -- ah yes, a recurring item on my to-do lists of late. . .The past few days at work have been made possible by the "Today is the last" mantra. Now with my cold (such a crutch I make of this slight malady) I feel that perhaps I will actually make the call today. Afterall, I certainly won't be able to go in tomorrow if I'm still sneezing.
Bah! Miranda just called. She wants me to go with her to hand in a resume at Blockbuster. I've told her that Blockbuster is Bad, but no, she's fine with its big boxyness and censorship. But I'll go with her because that way she'll come with me to find some CDs. First I'll call in to work to quit though. I'll tell Ernie that I'm sick and probably won't be able to come in tomorrow, and that I won't be in ever again. So that's not exactly real notice, but in this instance I'll suspend certain ethical beliefs and just be done with it. WOw. Maybe I'll actually end up two for three at the end of the day. Hur. Rah.
- posted by K. @ 12:58 p.m. |
May 12, 2003
Audio News Update
Having temporarily put aside the mix I mentioned yesterday, my laptop has been filling the basement w/sounds by Manitoba, Múm, Neko Case, M.Ward, To Rocco Rot, Ida, and Ms. John Soda tonight. And my dad has been enjoying it. He actually said this. Usually my father would prefer that I use headphones when it comes to the music I listen to. So, hearing my 50-something year old dad compliment the work of someone like Manitoba is a pretty big thing. I'm pretty sure his penchant for the new pop classical thang won't be waning any time soon though.
- posted by K. @ 11:31 p.m. |
May 11, 2003
I've been weeding through my music files in my bits of free time, trying to find some good songs for a new mix I'm putting together. The cd is going to veer back toward my roots a little bit. I'm going to keep it simple: no bleeps or loops, just unprocessed vibrations and pure lyrics. From the start there were two songs that I knew represented something of the disc: Cat Power's "I Don't Blame You" and The Weakerthans' "My Favourite Chords". The latter has been ditched because it's a little too loud for the project, though. The lineup so far looks like this:- Cat Power -- I Don't Blame You
- Craig Cardiff -- Dance Me Outsie
- Gemma Hayes -- Day One
- The Sea and Cake -- Alone For The Moment
- Bob Dylan -- Girl From The North Country
- Mazzy Star -- Sweet Jane
- The Weakerthans -- Reconstruction Site
- Mary Lou Lord -- By The Time It Gets Dark
- posted by K. @ 4:43 p.m. |
May 05, 2003
I'm back at home in Toronto now. Working, sleeping, and enjoying being back in town. Two days after getting arriving home, I started work at an Italian deli/grocery. My first day there I worked for eleven hours without knowing what I was making per hour. It turns out that my wage is $8/hour. 'Tis a wonderful thing, being unskilled. But I will certainly be getting enough hours...six days a week my boss wants me there! Ridiculous. I'm definately going to try to whittle that number down considerably.
On to more important things...
The demons of Starbucks are threatening legal action against the small HaidaBucks café in Masset, B.C. Starbucks claims that the name violates tradmark law, and wants the word 'buck' removed from the name of the café. The conflict is attracting national attention and has support coming from across the globe. Starbucks is just fueling the anti-American-style-capitalism fire. It makes me think about all the nice tea places I can choose to sit in. Or not sit in, like the ___ in Victoria.
Does anyone remember the time when Microsoft wanted to own the word 'window'?
- posted by K. @ 12:37 p.m. |
Blogroll aotp - sleeping late -- didn't really happen due to my burgeoning cold, and the clopping around that permeates the paper thin floor separating my basement bedroom from the kitchen, bathroom, and hallway above.
