I’m LURVING the new computer. So…much…faster…

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One of the funniest things I’ve ever read. I was literally crying today at my desk as I read them.

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I realized today how busy I’m going to be in the next 13 days. Re-imaging the old computer, buying xmas gifts, studying, playing basketball, going to a Rheostatics concert, packing, working on an economics assignment that I haven’t even started yet, doing festive gathering type stuff…yoish.

Following a conversation with M² this morning, I thought I’d list the Canadian music you should be listening to (if you’re not already):

Five classic albums by Canadian artists that most people have heard of. Popular, but not in that horrible Bryan Adams / Celine Dion / Shania Twain kind of way:

• the band . the last waltz
• matthew good . last of the ghetto astronauts
• rush . moving pictures
• sloan . smeared
• the tragically hip . fully completely

The best albums by five Canadian bands who’ve received all manner of buzz in indie music circles over the past year or three:

• the arcade fire . funeral
• the constantines . tournament of hearts
• metric . old world underground
• the new pornographers . mass romantic
• wolf parade . apologies to the queen mary

Older (meaning anywhere from 1980 to 2000) albums that are VASTLY underrated.

• big sugar . five hundred pounds
• godspeed you! black emperor . lift your skinny fists like antennas to heaven
• rheostatics . whale music
• stan rogers . fogarty’s cove
• neil young . mirror ball

Five recent albums you might not have heard of but are well worth a download.

• black mountain . black mountain
• great lake swimmers . bodies and minds
• the hidden cameras . mississauga goddam
• magneta lane . the constant lover
• a.c. newman . the slow wonder

This Calgary Flames music (and I use the term loosely) video from 1987 is one of the most godawful things I’ve ever watched.

[via Mighty MJD]

I CANNOT TELL YOU HOW MUCH I WANT ONE OF THESE!!!!

Just got back from the doctor. Good news, all in all. All the bloodwork was good. Total cholesterol was very good; good cholesterol was not great (need more fruit & vegetables…no surprise there) but bad cholesterol was excellent.

I actually assumed it would be kind of high, given my past love for the fried & fatty.

Oy and argh. I finally got around to setting up the new computer last night. I took the 120 GB drive out of the old PC and tried to put it into the new one…unfortunately, it’s not compatible. At all. Doesn’t fit in the slot, uses different connections, etc., etc. I was well and truly pissed off for about 20 minutes there.

Luckily the new one comes with an 80GB hard drive (not 40 as I’d originally thought) so I can move everything I have onto the new machine. I hooked it up to the router and transferred everything over, so now it should just be a matter of plain old setting up a new machine. And I have to say, I love me some 19″ Ultrasharp LCD. It’s also pretty sweet that this bad boy has 7x the processor speed and 4x the memory of my old one. That’s what happens when you go 6 years between purchases.

In unrelated news, anybody out there need a Western Digital 120GB hard drive? Less than a year old. Just askin’.

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Nellie, rock star that she is, got most of the xmas shopping done yesterday. Hooray for wives on their days off.

Get it.

If you want to have some new music thrown at you head over to 75 Minutes. I’ve been downloading their “podcast” (still hate that word) for a few months now and it’s usually good for a one or two good songs. I’m a few weeks behind right now but the last few episodes I’ve reviewed have turned up some good stuff:

• The Decemberists convering Joanna Newsom’s “Bridges & Balloons”
• “Wake Up, Ma and Pa Are Gone” by Bound Stems
• “Werewolf” by Cat Power
• A band from the American midwest called Raccoo-oo-oon with an amazing song called “Stick Eaters”. I’ll be looking into this band some more, but they’re pretty obscure so…c’mon internets!
• A L’Spaerow song called “Bridges”
• A band called Ufomammut with a song called “Hellcore”. Or it could be the other way around, I’m not 100% sure.

Angels Twenty is another source for good music; not as prolific as 75 Minutes, but less random.

Another CD that I’ve made for my father. Now that I’ve made it I’m pretty sure I’ve put the Neko Case song on another disc for him, but oh well…it’s Neko and it trashes WalMart, so hooray.

1. Maria Taylor . “Song Beneath The Song”
2. Iron And Wine . “Free Until They Cut Me Down”
3. Black Rebel Mototcycle Club . “Devil’s Waitin'”
4. Neko Case . “Thrice All American”
5. Mirah . “Exactly Where We’re From”
6. Mark Lanegan . “Strange Religion”
7. Ben Lee . “In My Life”
8. Joel Plaskett . “Happen Now”
9. Detroit Cobras . “I Wanna Holler (but the town’s too small)”
10. FemBots . “Count Down Our Days”
11. William Elliot Whitmore . “The Buzzards Won’t Cry”
12. Neil Young . “A Dream That Can Last”
13. Black Keys . “My Mind Is Ramblin'”
14. U2 . “Springhill Mining Disaster”
15. Rev. Peyton’s Big Damn Band . “Aberdeen”
16. Jason Collett . “Honey I Don’t Know”
17. Richard Thompson . “1952 Vincent Black Lightning”
18. White Stripes . “I’m Lonely (but I ain’t that lonely yet)”

We spent last night at C’est What for CB’s birthday. Their microbrewed rye beer is awfully yummy.

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I can’t get over how dumb some people are when it comes to recycling. Our building has several bins for paper and several more for bottles/plastic/cans, and yet every week I find a paper bin overflowing with wine bottles, or a glass bin full of newspaper. Worse yet, people take things down that don’t belong in a recycling bin at all. Golf clubs? Skis? Lamps? People stuff shit like that in the bins all the time. Are they raging morons? Or just inconsiderate assholes?