Category: Music

Buried under a fucking snowbank, that's where

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

Spring has sprung
grass has ris
I wonder where
the birdies is?

Dear rotation + trajectory of earth: we would like spring now please. Kthxbye.

.:.

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.

.:.

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.

.:.

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]

I Will Not Sing A Hateful Song

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

Spring has a downside, one that sometimes makes me want to vom. Smokers, on the whole, are disgusting assholes.

.:.

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.

.:.

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?

.:.

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]

Mannish god

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

Since it’s 7:58PM and I’m still at work, this is about as much original, interesting thought as I can muster: while listening to The Last Waltz by The Band, it occurred to me that if there was a god, he would sound like Muddy Waters.

Actually, on further reflection, god’s voice would probably sound like Mark Lanegan‘s. I think the almighty would be a whiskey & Marlboro kind of guy.

[tags]the band, last waltz, muddy waters, god’s voice, mark lanegan[/tags]

All 4 ratings

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

Oh god. No. Please, please no.

The popular 1990s TV series Beverly Hills 90210 — the numbers refer to the wealthy enclave’s zip code — may be getting a spinoff. The CW network is said to be developing a contemporary spinoff of Aaron Spelling’s teen soap, which starred Canada’s Jason Priestly and Shannen Doherty as Minnesota teens who move into L.A.’s richest community.

The rumour is that Rob Thomas — creator of the excellent (at first, anyway) series Veronica Mars — is supposed to direct. Culturally speaking, I’d say this is the rough equivalent of Weezer covering the debut album by Color Me Badd.

[tags]beverly hills 90210, rob thomas, veronica mars, weezer, color me badd[/tags]

With my feet in the air and my head on the ground

Dan Dickinson3 Comments

Sorry internet, I’ve been too busy to blog lately. Work is devouring most of my time, so it’s probably a good thing I’ve dropped any pretense of putting effort into the MBA. Also, daylight saving time is wreaking havoc on my brain-clock, making it hard to keep up with my usual distractions.  Thus, you shall get brief notes instead of piercing insights.*

  • I don’t really know how two Kara Keith songs ended up in my inbox, but I like the songs I’ve heard so far. I suspect I downloaded them via Chromewaves.
  • The last time Montreal was first in their conference this late in the season was 1993, which was also the last year they won the cup. I’m just sayin’. Weird thing about that year, though; they wound up finishing third in their division (let alone conference) behind Quebec and Boston, both of whom were powerhouses, and then won the cup.
  • Last night we took the cats to the vet (which I kind of enjoyed, ’cause it gave me an excuse to leave work at 5) and found out that Sonny, the one we refer to as “fatty”, “fat boy”, “sir fatness”, etc. has lost weight. He’s now a sleek, slim 17 lbs. I guess all those nights of threatening to kill him as he howled for food have paid off.
  • Thanks to ModernMod for sending me the Frames‘ cover of “Where Is My Mind.” I’ve been listening to it constantly.
  • My toe is…well, weird. It’s still the color of violent rage, but it’s not hurting. I ran two miles on it this morning, in brand new shoes, and hardly felt anything. This is my first broken pinky toe so I’m not really sure whether this is standard, and just ask me if I can be arsed to look anything up on WebMD.

* as if you ever get piercing insights here.

[tags]kara keith, montreal canadiens, fat cats, the frames, where is my mind, broken pinky toe[/tags]

"Because, brother, when you were good, you were the best we had."

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

The Wire is dead. Long live The Wire.

I agree with the critics who say it was the best show on television during its run. Each of the first four seasons was the best show I’ve seen related to whatever topic they were portraying that year: police, blue collar workers, politics, schools.

If you haven’t watched it, I beg you to go rent season 1; by the time you finish watching season 4 the final season should be available on DVD.

.:.

So while my toe does appear to be broken — or at least really badly sprained, ’cause it’s the color of an angry plum right now — it’s more or less stopped hurting. I might actually try running on it tomorrow or Wednesday if I can get it into my new shoes without hurting.

.:.

If you have ten minutes and thirty-five seconds to spare, I recommend downloading and listening to “Ghost Blues” by Ladyhawk.

[tags]the wire, broken toe, saucony running shoes, ladyhawk, ghost blues[/tags]

This is how behind I am

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As is so often the case, I am acquiring media faster than I can consume it. I now have 22 films on the PVR:

  • Elementary Particles
  • Catch A Fire
  • The War Within
  • For Your Consideration
  • The Notorious Bettie Page
  • Venus
  • The Fountain
  • The Science Of Sleep
  • Bubble
  • Free Zone
  • One Last Thing
  • Bobby
  • The Lives Of Others
  • Beowulf & Grendel
  • Edmond
  • The Journals Of Knud Rasmussen
  • The Three Burials Of Melquiades Estrada
  • Monkey Warfare
  • Tsotsi
  • Six Figures
  • Grindhouse (both Planet Terror and Death Proof)
  • Fido

I also have a bunch of music piled up in the inbox:

  • annuals . be he me
  • black keys . attack and release
  • devotchka . a mad & faithful telling
  • devotchka . little miss sunshine soundtrack
  • duke spirit . neptune
  • elbow . the seldom seen kid
  • gutter twins . saturnalia
  • ladyhawk . shots
  • raveonettes . lust lust lust
  • shack . time machine
  • siberian . with me
  • sigur ros . hvarf-heim
  • sigur ros . svarf
  • silver mt zion . 13 blues for thirteen moons
  • sons and daughters . this gift

Gotta finish that MBA. Or at least stop caring…

.:.

Oh yeah, and I think I’ve broken my baby toe. But hey, at least the snow’s stopped and the sun’s shining.

[tags]broken toe[/tags]

Unmarked helicopters? Somebody call Mulder.

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This helicopter’s been hovering around just to the east of my building for most of the morning. Not sure what’s going on. Nellie says that if we see guys with rifles start sliding down any ziplines, we’re locking the door.

.:.

I forgot to post about the Flickr song chart pool last week when I saw it. I lost a good hour one night going through it. Enjoy!

(by the way, this one should make any Buffy fans out there extremely happy)

.:.

I have to fly to Montreal tomorrow, and back Tuesday night. It’ll be my first time flying off the island airport with Porter Air, so I’m looking forward to it. Actually, what I’m looking forward to is to not have to go all the way out to Pearson.

If it’s as good an experience as I’ve heard, I can see us using them for flights to New York, Montreal and even Halifax.

.:.

We have a new picture in the dictionary next to the word “ironic”: the logo of film production company Genius Products, who are responsible for The Hottie And The Nottie. Well done, gentlemen.

[tags]helicopter, toronto, flickr song chart pool, buffy, once more with feeling, porter air, irony, geniuss products, the hottie and the nottie[/tags]

"Make art…make art."

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

BlogTO is single-handedly trying to kill me, listing the best places to buy chocolate in Toronto. Of course, I was already aware of them, especially JS Bonbons and Soma, but those pictures are making me hungry.

.:.

Quick thoughts on the Oscars: for the first time in quite a while I have no problem with any of the winners (or rather, with who didn’t win). Also, it’s a good thing “Falling Slowly” won best original song, ’cause if it’d lost to one of those Disney songs from Enchanted I’d have flown to L.A. and burned the Kodak theatre to the motherfucking ground.

Watch the performance (and acceptance speeches) here at Cinematical.

.:.

I just finished reading Incendiary (indigo) and need a new book. Fortunately I own about 60 that I haven’t read yet.

[tags]blogto, chocolate, soma, js bonbons, oscars, falling slowly, once, incendiary[/tags]

"It would be Wolfmother instead of Wolf Parade, Darkness instead of Lightning Bolts"

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

I like this recent development of traditional media linking out to local event sites for more in-depth coverage. It’s especially helpful in cases where user-generated content (like all the photos of this week’s fire on Queen Street) is better and/or more plentiful than the professionally-gathered stuff.

.:.

I don’t know what it says about the internet (or, erm, me) that, just by reading her blog at NPR, I’ve developed a crush on Carrie Brownstein, a gay woman I’ve never met. I sense this could be difficult relationship.

.:.

I can feel myself getting sick. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, since everyone around at work is sick, but c’mon…I was just sick. Super crazy mondo sick. Hell ass balls sick. I cannot be sick again, not with an assignment due Monday and work running somewhere north of murderous. I cannot. I shall not.

[coughs]

Goddammit.

[tags]blogto, toronto star, carrie brownstein, cold season[/tags]