QBall's Mental Detritus

Back to Fall

2009-05-05T09:27:00.001-07:00

I spoke too soon. Spring left. We're back to wind and rain again.

Went to the Faint / Ladytron tour on Sunday and it was rippin' good. The sound was much better than the last Ladytron concert. I think the Faint were having technical difficulties with their keyboards but they still managed to rock the house.

Next event: the Terminal City Rollergirls match on Saturday. Looking quite forward to that one! I found out that one of the Rollergirl refs lives in my building, which is pretty cool.

Acupuncture appointment on Wednesday -- it's much needed, believe you me. My knee *and* back are both acting up now. I feel like I should be walking with a cane or something... House MD?

Spring Has Sprung...

2009-04-27T07:00:00.001-07:00

... the grass has riz,
And the crazy guy on the bus this morning was biting himself harder and more furiously than he ever has before.

Poetic?

Not Sure How To Feel

2009-03-30T07:07:00.001-07:00

I'm finding these days, given inherent money issues, that I'm always waiting for the next paycheque to come my way. Unfortunately, this also means spending most of my month simply waiting for it to end. As a result it feels like time is going faster and faster.

Like, what the hell happened to March? Boom! It's gone!

Bonnie "Prince" Billy

2009-03-26T07:30:00.000-07:00

Last night Niki and I went and saw Bonnie Prince Billy (aka. Will Oldham) play live at the Vogue. It was a great show, despite some initial sound issues.

The opening act was not to my liking: a group called Pillars and Tongues. They had a couple nice sounding bits in their set, but there was a lot of self-indulgence going on, particularly in the percussion and beer-drinking-while-playing department. They sure can hold a single note for a long time. Jesus. The band didn't really seem into it themselves and the music, while fitting perhaps for a movie soundtrack, was lacking soul. Like I said, not to my liking. I'd rather listen to a Dead Can Dance record.

Oldham, on the other hand, seemed in good spirits and the whole band seemed to be into it and enjoying themselves, which was nice to see.

Here's a video, not from last night's show, but from one a few nights previous:

The TV I Know I Want

2009-03-25T07:40:00.000-07:00

Look at the sexiness of this TV. Just look at it:

Fez

2009-03-25T07:34:00.001-07:00

It's good to see that there's still creativity in the video games biz. It ain't all just shooting and ultra-realistic and 9000 shades of brown.

FEZ TRAILER 2 from fish on Vimeo.

The music is hot too.

Light on the "Sport", please

2009-03-17T13:50:00.000-07:00

I had a minor revelation this morning about SUVs and the guys (generalization! sexist!) who drive them.

They are just minivans repackaged so that men don't feel emasculated driving them. Seriously. Look at them. Most of them couldn't go anywhere that a minivan couldn't. They're all utility, no sport.

They are "man-i-vans".

Vancouver 2010 Traffic Plan

2009-03-12T13:55:00.000-07:00

Yesteday the Vancouver Olympic Committee announced what will happen to traffic during the 2010 Olympics. People are urged firstly to stay home and inside the entire two weeks. Suuuure, that sounds likely.

People are also told, if they have to go to work, to ride a bike or take transit.

How many of these people on the Vancouver Olympic Committee have ridden a bike to work in FEBRUARY? That seems feasible.

They're also planning to add something like 180 new buses to deal with increased ridership during those two weeks. Apparently the number actually needed to deal with the ridership swell would be closer to 500.

All I will say is that this is going to be "interesting".

You know...

2009-03-10T07:43:00.001-07:00

... as much as I like to complain about the change to daylight savings time, it sure is nice to have that extra light at the end of the day. Unfortunately it's supposed to be around -15 degrees with windchill today, so spring is most definitely not in the air. Yet.

Going to see Simian Mobile Disco on Thursday, which should be dance-tastic. Later this month, Bonnie "Prince" Billy, and then in May I have the Faint / Ladytron co-headlining tour. The concert season has started early this year. Did it ever end?

I see from my site stats that someone from BC Transit has visited my site, no doubt attracted by my mentions of them usually in an unfavourable light. Same thing happened with Lululemon back in the previous iteration of my blog. Clearly someone from the companies gets paid (presumably) to keep an eye on what people are saying about them.

To sum up:

1. Lululemon: in my experience, poorly made clothes that cost to much for yoga posers. There's some weird culty-type stuff going on in management according to Chatelaine magazine, but I don't really give a shit. However, it must be said that Lululemon pants make womens' asses look amazing, so I appreciate them on that level.

2. BC Transit / Translink / whatever they're called now. Dubious service, especially when it snows, never-ending fare increases, a disaster called the Canada Line.

That is all.

Bleary-eyed Morning

2009-03-09T08:29:00.001-07:00

Daylight savings time crept up on me this weekend and slapped me unceremoniously in the scrotum. Ouch. I wasn't quite ready for that. Although when is anyone really ready for that? A quick dump of snow and it feels like today is going to require a little more effort.

Brrrrrr

2009-02-27T12:53:00.001-08:00

We here in Vancouver got another little blast of winter, just to remind us that this winter business isn't over yet. Temperatures (taking into account windchill) of -10 or so (celsius, relax Americans!). The day the weather turned, I was naturally caught off guard wearing only a Dickies jacket. Oh that was a marvelous walk home.

But hey, who wants to talk about the weather, right?

Right now I'm kind of walking a tightrope, future-wise -- and it's mostly the economy that's to blame.

Firstly, my job is (like most people's jobs these days) not a sure-thing in the long term. Who knows what could happen in the next 6-8 months.

Secondly, since the economy is sliding further and further into the toilet, real-estate prices have suddenly come into the realm of (semi-) reasonable in and around Vancouver. So while it's tempting to buy a place, mortgage payments don't seem like a good idea to take on right about now when the job market in Vancouver is so tumultuous.

What to do, what to do...

Let's check my power level.

Freeloadin' on the Great Demotivator

2009-02-23T19:32:00.001-08:00

For the first three years of my time living in the Lee Building, I had free cable. This was not an amenity that was supposed to come with the apartment, it was just a result of the cable company being too lazy / confused to unhook the previous tenants' cable.

Who was I to argue? Free cable!

My cable freeloadin' days have come to an end. The cable company finally got wise / unlazy enough to unplug me. Easy come, easy go.

One thing I now realize is how much time I frittered away sitting in front of the TV watching crap, instead of doing anything even remotely productive. TV truly is the Great Demotivator.

Life sans cable was a bit of an adjustment at first, but now things are smooth. For now I still get 2 channels out of the air (until the cable companies finally lock that up with the so-called switch to digital cable -- more like the sealing of the monopoly).

I'm hoping that Canada gets a service like Hulu soon. That might shake up the ol' cable company beasts a little. However, in order to watch a service like Hulu, we'll still have to subscribe to broadband internet, which will still involve getting fucked by either the phone company or the cable company.

Really -- how is this not a monopoly?

I Don't Get It

2009-02-20T08:06:00.000-08:00

Much of the gaming world is aflutter this week with the North American release of Street Fighter 4. This game release is totally lost on me. When it comes to gaming, I tend to avoid fighting games since I really don't seem to "get" them. All I see is button-mashing.

Other gamers who do groove on fighting games all seem to have their "brand" -- much like smokers, beer drinkers, or even pop-drinkers. Some prefer Street Fighter, others prefer Tekken or Soul Calibur. They claim certain subtleties within each brand, and even claim to prefer subtleties within iterations inside that brand (eg. "Street Fighter 2 was the best ever, but Street Fighter 3 sucked!" or whatever).

To me, it feels like these brands/franchaises have been making the same game over and over ad nauseum. I guess I can't fault them though since people keep buying them. It's kind of the same issue with the game industry, and the film industry for that matter, in general: sequelitis.

Like I said, to me it's all button mashing.

Itchy Scratchy

2009-02-19T20:55:00.001-08:00

Maybe it's just that I haven't had a vacation in eons, or maybe it's the early twinklings of spring fever, but I feel the urge to purge -- not in a bulemic kinda way, but in a surroundings kinda way. Too many screens, too many wires, too much crap. It's an itch that I need to scratch.

I suppose to a certain extent I've inherited a mild pack-rat mentality. I have copies of my paid bills and tax material from 2004. I keep them yet I will never use them. An industrial-strength paper shredder would be nice.

Apropos to itching --

Ever since I was a little kid, I've had difficulty with eczema.

When I was younger, it used to be more prevalent -- showing up on both legs, the backs of my knees, my arms... I scratched and I scratched. I would scratch until I bled and then I would scratch some more, getting dried blood lodged underneath my fingernails. I itched so much that I scratched in my sleep -- often waking up and finding that my sheets were glued to my legs with dried blood.

These days it only really manifests itself around the end of the winter and usually only on one of my calves. My leg, not the baby cow.

I suppose with time my body's evened out a little, and just like zits, the problem has mostly gone away (though not entirely).

Draw your own conclusions as to what the connection is between pack-rattery and eczema -- I'm sure there's something tenuous connecting the two. I'm just too tired to figure it out myself.

Do Over

2009-02-18T20:41:00.000-08:00

This blog, which was previously a repository for general thoughts and nonsense, is going to get a thorough redesign. I'm not sure which direction it's going to be going in just yet, so this is mostly a placeholder post.