Love affair of the day: The Midnight Organ Fight, the latest album from Frightened Rabbit. I loved this one right from the jump, right from song one. And when song one has a title like “The Modern Leper” and it still hooks you, you know it’s good. Go, find. It’s on eMusic, I’m sure it’s on iTunes as well.
[tags]frightened rabbit, the midnight organ fight[/tags]
It’s a very Montreal day: St. Urbain bagels for breakfast, the Canadiens game on TV tonight. Of course, that could be any Saturday, but it’s even better during the playoffs.
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While I sit here and catch up on news and such from the past two days, I’ve been poking through my music inbox and seeing what’s what. I’m a little disappointed in the newest Black Keys disc Attack and Release. Part of what I loved about their previous albums was the lo-fi fuzzy blues; the new one is more advanced musically, but less interesting to me.The new R.E.M. isn’t great, but at least it has some crunch. I don’t mind it so far. (metacritic: black keys | r.e.m.)
Recently it’s stopped making sense to me that the album format even really exists anymore. Albums were really only a convenient format under which to release music; they were just groupings of singles before becoming ends unto themselves. Now that the album is no longer necessary, it’s only a matter of time before the increasing popularity of iTunes, etc. makes the album format irrelevant and we just consume individual songs, like we did 60 years ago.
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We watched the season premiere of 30 Rock. Very funny. My love for Tina Fey (Girlfriend du jour!) is really getting quite alarming. It’s distressing, to be honest with you.
[tags]st-urbain bagels, montreal canadiens, black keys, r.e.m., itunes, 30 rock, tina fey[/tags]
[From Paolo Zinatelli at the National Post’s Ampersand]
[tags]bob dylan, national post, ampersand[/tags]
[tags]parrsboro, nicole atkins, thermals, canadiens, toronto weather[/tags]
Esquire has a new column called “What the hell is wrong with people.” Based on the first entry (that I’ve seen, anyway) I think I’m going to like it. A lot.
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Via OpenCulture I found this site called BigThink. Looks like lots of interesting podcasts.
Speaking of podcasts, I feel like I should be taking advantage of more. I spend 15 or 20 minutes each day listening to random music on my Zen on my way to work, and I could be using that time to, I don’t know, learn French or investigate Utilitarianism or something.
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I upgraded this blog to WordPress 2.5 last night. While it doesn’t change the appearance to you, Joe Internet, the admin looks awfully spiffy. One little problem though: a lot of stuff doesn’t work. I can’t add URLs, for example; none of the pop-ups work. Good thing I know HTML, otherwise it’d be a little tricky to post.
[tags]esquire, evolution, open culture, bigthink, podcasts, wordpress 2.5[/tags]
[tags]logitech wireless mouse, montreal canadiens, ottawa senators, battlestar galactica, spring, constantines, kensington heights, income tax return[/tags]
I’m now more than 90% of the way through my MBA program. To tell you the truth I haven’t been thinking about it much lately. I haven’t worked on it — no reading, no writing, no ‘rithmetic-ing — for about a month, but I have an assignment due six days from now, so I think I know where my weekend is headed.
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Man, would I love to go to Summercase in Spain this July. I have no desire to see an outdoor music festival, but Sweet Screaming Jesus would I ever love to see Mogwai play the entire Young Team album live.
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This Richard Florida blog post contains three things that shock me:
Toronto, by comparison, runs about 75%.
[tags]mba, mogwai, young team, summercase, richard florida, american school system[/tags]
…is “Each One Teach One” by Oneida. Go. Fetchez-vous.
Oh, and my latest guilty pleasure song (though it’s not terribly new): “Our Velocity” by Maximo Park. Judge if you must.
[tags]oneida, maximo park[/tags]
Spring has sprung
grass has ris
I wonder where
the birdies is?
Dear rotation + trajectory of earth: we would like spring now please. Kthxbye.
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The second-quickest way to invite my scorn? Be a telemarketer and call at dinner time. The quickest way to invite my scorn? Be a telemarketer, call at dinner and try to sell me a subscription to the Toronto Sun. For bonus scorn, argue with me when I say no.
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The new Silver Mt. Zion (etc., etc.) album garnered an A- from the Onion AV Club. I haven’t had a chance to listen to it yet, but I just assume I’ll love it. Maybe I’ll take the same approach that I did with Horses In The Sky: buy it, put it on my Zen, forget about it, and then nearly have a stroke six months later when I hear a song like “Teddy Roosevelt’s Guns” for the first time.
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One of these arrived in the mail last week. I bought this one from Threadless last week. Now I’m tempted to buy this. I need help.
[tags]ogden nash, telemarketers, toronto sun, silver mt zion, threadless, tshirts[/tags]
Spring has a downside, one that sometimes makes me want to vom. Smokers, on the whole, are disgusting assholes.
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Dinner last night at Tutti Matti was pretty good. I had a caprese salad* and the grilled swordfish and a dessert called the Gino, a semifreddo covered in chocolate sauce. Damn.
Nice atmosphere, good service, and we all enjoyed our meals. Fieramosca is the undoubted comfort zone for us in terms of Italian food, but Tutti Matti may now be a good alternative, a more “downtown” option if needed.
* It’s hard to believe, sometimes, how much my tastes have changed over the past few years. Not long ago the idea of eating a giant pile of buffalo mozzarella and tomato covered in olive oil would have turned my stomach.
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Last night Montreal beat Boston for the eighth straight time this season, and eleventh straight overall going back into last season. They won in the shootout, which was the best possible scenario: Montreal stays where they are (tops in the east!) and Boston earns a point to stay ahead of the chasing teams like Toronto. There’re two reasons why this is good for the Habs; if Boston holds on to the 8th (or even 7th) spot, there’s a good chance Montreal will play them in the first round and…well, eight in a row. The Canadiens have owned the Bruins this year.
The other reason why a Boston point last night was beneficial: it makes it harder for the Leafs fans to hold on to their mass delusion of making the playoffs. With eight games left they’re four points out of the final playoff spot, and they’d have to leapfrog four teams to get there, but the delusion lives on. Rather than shutting down their veterans, letting their young players get some much-needed development and securing a spot in the lottery, they’re playing themselves into a lower draft pick.
But hey, if they want to keep it up, that’s cool. I kind of hope they win both games against the Bruins (the team they’re chasing) this week and get their hopes up even higher, so that when Montreal plays them next Saturday, I can watch live as the Canadiens crush their playoff dreams once and for all.
Wait a second…goddammit, I won’t be able to watch that live after all. Stupid climate change…must you ruin everything?
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My buddy Joe sent me the new Constantines album yesterday. I’m only a few songs in but I already love it. “Million Star Hotel” in particular is brilliant. The last two ‘tines albums were amazing and under-appreciated; if you like the rock and roll, do yourself a favour and check them out.
[tags]smokers, tutti matti, fieramosca, montreal canadiens, boston bruins, toronto maple leafs, nhl playoffs, earth hour, constantines[/tags]
Skirl | Dan Dickinson 