I do like that O’Reilly had my actual talk proposal up on its site here. I hope people don’t start believing that my friend Mark is mean to animals just because his name and “drown” and “cat” exist in the same sentence in various web pages. He’s a true cat person. Though I could tell you about a developer I work with who upsets me with stories about what he did to cats on the farm growing up. So mean!

So I don’t really think about that book much but somehow it ended up in my head today because when I got to work I had a sudden desire to listen to Kate Bush.

I don’t tend to get this urge much as her voice lives in that ethereal realm of being both beautiful and really fucking annoying sometimes, so I prefer to avoid listening to her in case I can only hear the annoying bits that day. Although I will admit that this doesn’t apply to Running Up That Hill, which I can listen to on repeat (but not the inferior Placebo version they seem to like playing in vampire movie trailers), and often do.

Later in the day I brought up semaphore flags in conversation for some reason I’ve since forgotten, and the other person thought I was talking about those found in operating systems and I had to correct him that I actually meant real flags. Monty Python fans might realize where I then went with this: to demonstrate the concept, I sent him this educational Youtube video (please ignore the subtitles):

So I’ve now spent more time today thinking about that book than I really ever wanted to in my life, but there you go. Mind you, it was really wuthering today in Kelowna, enough to riggwelt a sheep. Or something.

I know I’m a week and a half late on mentioning it, but it’s been giving me multiple nerdgasms and it took this long to calm down enough to type. I saw this trailer in Imax 3D when I went to see Alice in Wonderland Friday before last, and honestly don’t remember much about the movie but damn, that trailer was AWESOME.

Tron happens to be my favourite Disney movie ever and one of the most awe-inspiring from my childhood. Youtube isn’t helping me but my memory has it that the Wonderful World of Disney TV show’s intro had a clip from Tron in it at some point in the 80s, so every Sunday night I would be reminded of its utter coolness and be saddened when instead I’d be watching some educational film about bears or something.

I loved the computer graphics and the humans-as-programs-in-glowing-outfits, and thought that Bruce Boxleitner was hotter than Jeff Bridges because I didn’t have hormones yet. The Recognizer vehicles were scary and ominous, the way they’d hover in the air and wait for the chance to stomp on you. God, I love what the new Recognizers look like (the monstrous glowing horseshoe in the image above). Nice to see they added a bit of detail to the original wire frame version.

When I first heard about this movie I thought, “damn you, Disney, for screwing with my childhood!” but I’m okay with it now, because it looks so sweet and it’s got Jeff Bridges AND a computer-generated young Jeff Bridges (as Clu, who I thought was “killed” in the original movie, but Spock was reincarnated so let’s not judge). Plus, it comes out on the day after my birthday, so I consider it a gift to me from the universe (or perhaps from the MCP?). I may even take the day off and fly into Vancouver (where it was filmed!) to get to see it all Imax’d and 3D’d because Kelowna’s movie theatres are from the stone age and are therefore NOT GOOD ENOUGH.

I already posted this on Facebook, but here’s perhaps the best piece of trivia from the original movie, via IMDB:

Jeff Bridges produced too much of a bulge in the crotch area in his computer outfit, so he was forced to wear a dance belt to conceal it.

See, it made him horny too!

(I blogged about their first video to the song two weeks ago).

Between this sort of stuff and Mythbusters I keep wishing I’d become an engineer instead of a computer scientist. Not that I’d be good at it, I come from a long line of crap engineers (so a great-uncle once told me).

I like, and agree with one of the comments on this video posted at BoingBoing: “shit like this restores my faith in humanity.”

OK Go – This Too Shall Pass from OK Go on Vimeo.

If you can recall, these guys got internet famous in 2006 with music videos of them dancing in a backyard, and again on treadmills. Their new album, entitled “Of the Blue Colour of the Sky”, is out now (for once I mention an album that’s already released). I’m really digging the lo-fi videos from the indie music scene, another one being the semi-deconstructed Cousins by Vampire Weekend.

Many of you don’t know this, but I got into music via marching band. My first instrument was the glockenspiel. Believe me, it’s hard to aim for the right key when you’re stomping around. Also when you have bad aim to begin with. The clarinet was easier, it stayed still.

Disregarding eating, going to the bathroom, and commuting, I was working 23 out of 24 hours. Someone should give me a medal. And a pillow.

Back in high school, when I first did all-nighters (unlike many people, my later high school courses were university-level, except I had to take 7 academic classes at a time instead of university’s 5, which was fine since I wasn’t having any sex yet anyways) I would spend the day in a daze, drinking herbal tea. Don’t know why; that barely has any caffeine. But somehow I managed it.

In university, specifically near the end when I was finishing my computer science degree, I started having strange sleep-deprivation-induced hallucinations. These were often spiders or insects (either one large one, or a flying swarm of something) but strangely also severed heads. I don’t know about the severed heads, but the insect stuff is supposedly documented as being common. It’s trippy once you realize you’re just imagining it.

Last night’s work resulted in my afternoon nap including a really detailed lesbian dream. So now sleep deprivation is making me gay, great. The other chick in the dream was really hot, but I didn’t really know what to do, since she didn’t have a penis. It was a real cock-tease of a dream, especially since it didn’t contain any cock whatsoever.

The local radio station that wakes me up every morning (well, except this morning when I was just putting my head down when it went off) seems to be playing a lot of my Grade 5 soundtrack this week, to remind me of a time when I got my 8-9 hours every night:

(Interesting to Dad, the guy above is from Sheffield.)

(Songs about Americans always seem to be written or sung by Canadians.)

Man, I usually don’t need a news article to make me feel like an inbred mutant, though up until reading it I had considered my grey-blue eyes to be rather nice and that despite being nearsighted were my best attributes when my tits aren’t visible. But maybe now I’m supposed to recogize them as the aberration they are and feel ashamed.

With this knowledge and forgetting myself for a minute I have a sudden desire to reexamine the Oedipus tragedy, for did he not, upon discovering that his wife was also Mumsy, gouge out his eyes with her dress pins? I bet his eyes were blue, while he still had them anyways.

Moving to other body parts, I’ve also been watching Dumbo again and seeing it as an expose on race relations in the US. I’m not talking about the representation of the crows (that’s obvious!), but of Dumbo himself. My theory is that the backstory has Mrs. Jumbo getting drunk one night (seems to be common enough at that circus:

) and waking up the next morning next to an African elephant who wasn’t her husband (or, that’s what she told Mr. Jumbo later). And lo and behond, 22 months later the stork brings her a baby elephant with big African elephant ears, and she’s like, how’d that get there? And then she’s shamed by her peers and Jumbo Jr’s taken away from her. And he only redeems himself in society by becoming a magic negro elephant who can fly. So really this whole story is just a parable about the unacceptance of mixed-race relationships and the mistreatment of “half-breed” children in a 20th century dual-race society. Interestingly, though, none of the other elephants ever argued that he wasn’t born in the US.

Isn’t it a shame I didn’t do arts grad school?

Yeasayer is one of my favourite bands, making indie rock with a world music vibe and a healthy emphasis on percussion. I’ve probably mentioned them before, but now they’ve got a new album coming out and I totally didn’t get a leaked copy and listen to it and think it is awesome. Nope.

Here’s the video from their first single, “Ambling Alp” (which you can download for free from the band’s website here). Sadly I couldn’t find a version on Youtube where the boobies weren’t blurred out. Shame.

It’s not what they normally do, but this album has a love song, even. Feel free to ignore the fan-made video:

I just discovered that “Odd Blood” doesn’t come out until next month, so, um, if you enjoyed these songs I hope you don’t mind waiting!

When people ask me to recommend relaxing music I usually mention these guys, because the lead singer could sing me to sleep every night and make my life complete. I don’t normally like concert recordings but often go back to the one they did for NPR’s All Songs Considered. Shearwater was founded by two dudes who left Okkervil River to do quieter songs, so if you’re a fan of the latter you might like them too.

You can get “Castaways” for free at their label’s website, and their album “The Golden Archipelago” is set to be released on February 23. Shit, I really should be recommending albums that are out now, shouldn’t I?

Just forget I said anything.

This week, however, I discovered one of the best things to happen from me moving here, and to have picked this apartment building (as if I had a choice, nowhere else would allow cats): I’m 3 blocks from the local indie venue. I’ve been laughing at how I now have little excuse not to see a show, what with it being right there, tickets being $10-15 and the place serves food until about 11. There were 4 concerts this week I would’ve liked to have seen, but what with my having a job and needing to sleep I only made it to half of them.

Last night’s was the Vancouver singer-songwriter Dan Mangan, of whom I’ve been a fan for a couple years after I first heard “Journal of a Narcoleptic”, which according to iTunes is my 3rd most played song since I got my Macbook 2 years ago:

I’d never seen him live, so it was a real treat to catch him at a small, intimate venue like The Habitat and I recommend you check him out should he play in your town. He ended last night’s set (or tried to, before he got heckled into doing an encore) with “Robots”, which is off his new album. He got a few audience members to play percussion and the rest of us to sing along to the chorus at the end, which was a sweet way to end the night. He hasn’t made a video for the song yet, but here’s a fan version:

On Tuesday I was there to check out Grand Archives opening for The Most Serene Republic. I really went for the former band, though I have albums from both groups because I have albums from everyone you’ve never heard of. I felt obliged to buy merchandise because it seemed like stealing to see them both for $13 or whatever I paid for the ticket online. Luckily you can’t have too many band t-shirts (it’s true).

Grand Archives captured my attention instantly with their unison mandolin playing to the first song off their new album (song: “Topsy’s Revenge”; album: “Keep In Mind Frankenstein”), which sadly I can’t link to online but you should check them out if you like quieter stuff a la Iron & Wine. Here’s “Sleepdriving” off of their earlier album:

I’d lazily describe The Most Serene Republic as “chamber pop” because I’m too tired to come up with anything better for this Ontario band with a penchant for lush instrumentation:

I’ve been nagged into doing a music recommendations post so this is what you get for now.

I find this kind of cool, because in my life CDs have become rather archaic; everything I listen to comes out of a computer or iPod, and I tend to buy mp3s online and probably wouldn’t recognize the newer album covers of most of my favourite artists anymore. I applaud anyone trying to bring CD art back into prominence, especially in such an out-there way.

You can read a bit more about the design and see stills of the packaging here, but the gist of it is about

…a fictitious character named Adam and his internal struggle with an audio triggered bipolar disorder. The cover splits Adam to reveal inside his head, a 3D animated hologram which morphs from a passive lamb into an agressive ape. The CD and insert artwork documents Adam’s mental state along with vital statistics and final prognosis.

That’s deep, yo.

Unfortunately I’ve only heard a song or two of theirs previously so I can’t say much about their sound (will have to wait until I get a copy of the album), but Thompson is an awesome musician and I have fond memories of watching him perform at various UBC beer gardens back when we were in music school. I believe he plays guitar and sings backing vocals with these guys, and would ignore me if I were to scream “play El Scorcho!” (perhaps the early 2000′s cover band’s “Free Bird”) at one of his concerts now. Le sigh.