February 2006 Archives
The intricacies of properly building your application. I wonder what are the tricks of the trade, golden rules and whatnot that would make the most stupid tasks always work at once, and not have me stand there figuring out something else instead.
Already I knew that most people at Saint-Laurent Metro at 23:30 came from the show, but that was a given. Although I've known of the WWW's magical powers, now I can be off for some magic for myself to witness as I browse pics of the show in all sorts of other angles too!
A fine show by Belle and Sebastian at the Metropolis. Got there at approximately a quarter past 8, just in time for the pre-show that was starting, with Canadian band The New Pornographers. It was a song I knew, but of course, I don't know the name - about the same for most of the B&S songs. Not a weird thing when you know the band for only three years, and have been since trying to catch up on their 10 years career.
Stuart Murdoch is very chatty and energetic on stage. At some point during the show, he descended to meet the crowd, while Stevie (the band's other male vocals) was starting on Jonathan David. Your Cover's Blown was played after the second time a girl from the balcony yelled for it. they played all the songs from the new album, except the drunken slow ones, like Song For Sunshine, or Act of the Apostle Part 2. There were many pieces from the older albums, some of which I've never heard before - being on If You Are Feeling Sinister or something else that's pre-1999. Finished with a two-song encore, ultimately concluding with one favourite, Sleep The Clock Around (for not seeing S at all during or after the show - could be what she's done, b/c *I* was falling asleep dead asleep on the bus to/from show, and even during the show >_>).
(Edit: lolz, petronia says via lj that she was indeed in the crowd, and in fact in my photo! "one of the heads about two people back, trumpettist's corner". She caught a setlist.)
Found a Chinese indie community, and re-acquainted with a HK duo called The Marshmallow Kisses (a discovery of Fio's de Moderntime, who was loose in HK a few weeks back!), from My Little Airport's page on Last.fm. The demos are really fresh and cute (like their name). They were a feature in the English-language free weekly BC Magazine of February 2nd 2006, but the site's maintenance seems to have imploded after last Fall (omg, teh poor web design)...
"But anyways, what is indie?", asks the community page. Is it for people who like to be unfaithful in music? B/c all I've been doing in new music is from either public Canadian indie radio stations, rarely taking down addresses, or even names. Much to my own dismay. One likes to be a nomad in its music-listening - but soon enough, you comfort yourself with old flames.
Intense work makes me want to ... produce music mixes.
I tend to think of coding as arranging more or less minute bits of machinery - screws and bolts, or bunches of gears placed together and hopefully turning to produce useful work... such is the grunt work of coding. I would also think that somewhere in the future some people (surely ourselves) would make our work deal with larger, more self-contained sorts of machinery. The same way that the people who came up with relatively high-level languages made writing in assembly code something you just see in class, or if you work on electronic devices that aren't standard computers. Something like that.
Let's ponder on this: Montreal's cold, but not as cold as it'd be in the north pole, or London if the Gulf Stream went counterclockwise.
Damn, I hate it when I feel as if reinventing the wheel. Holy grail of programming anyone? (A: the machine that codes for you) Now some Dilbert.
I'm listening to a bandeapart news report on the upcomind Montreal All-nighter. The radio station's associate director dude's has a proposed trail for the 25th...
- Nuit Electronik (starts at midnight)
- Usine C (a walk up the street at 2AM)
- Musee d'art contemporain (at 3AM)
- Free breakfast at Complexe Desjardins at 5AM
- Nuit Electronik again
- (Ced's addition: the Olympics men's ice hockey final LIVE at 8AM :D)
By chance, I saw this newly translated Murakami short story in the magazine shop, and bought the issue.
Starts off by introducing the main character, a newly-wed woman who would forget her own name. And what is it with these newly-wed w/o kids characters?
If you have a livejournal, answer this or that poll. XD
Personally, I can't think of the broth as something more than an accompaniment to the noodles. You have your bowl of noodles, and put the noodles in your spoon, and eat the contents of the spoon - which may also contain soak amounts of the soup. But that's it. Gotta leave house, cannot elaborate. But yeah...
An album of threesome-ish covers (and originals?). A really fun album, even if you haven't heard all the original songs.
I never thought French confit duck could have its skin done as browned crunchy as this. I know it's total fat, but it's crunchy caramelized animal fat... Somewhat different from the Chinese version of a roast, which produces shiny skin with a redish tinge. Perhaps the result of the 'confit', I'm not sure.
Two nights of boogie-woogie. Friday night was with buddies Francis and Ivo from CTF at our club's mascot band, The Electric Six, who seem to be old boys in their late 20s or early 30s doing what Francis describes as rock/punk/alternative, which could also just be a 'rock band with funny lyrics'. A lot of fun, especially being just one metre away from lead singer (who just did that, sing, except during that stretch between him shouting "STOP" and "CONTINUE", at the middle of a song, where he went backstage to fetch a guitar while other members less clavierist retired and sings some unknown moody rock song, and oh; I will immediately forget about the details on pants and shirt, or lack thereof during 5-minute intermezzo). That was Electric Six, the band that tours Montreal, Canada, every six months...
[I often forget what I said before long parentheses, go on and ramble about all sorts of diff stuff... Here, what I meant by being a meter away from the lead singer is not that it's cool by itself (following crowd for low-fives), but rather that it was where the mosh pit energy waves came crashing on. Try to keep yourself steady among rowdy teenagers twice your size.]
Tonight, was with Jae from NYC and Ess, dancing away to local electronica DJs at the Parc Jean-Drapeau. Activity in question was Piknic Electronik des Neiges, the cold version of the summerly weekly event under the sculpture in Jean-Drapeau going by L'Homme. After an hour skating with Wee around temporary skating *tracks*, went to dance the cold off for a couple of hours, armed with some brandy brought along, complemented with hot wine 'n caribou purchased from makeshift bar. Can now mark off "dancing in snow and on ice" below "dancing during summer rain".
Afterwards hung out at Andrew-the-conteur-extraordinaire's for a compressed beer and a cuppa tea and a discussion on the gayness of a certain shounen series -like Naruto if you are anime-adverse/illiterate- called "Bleach", with a roomate playing Heroes IV making impromptu comments-as-if-across-hallway. I made it home at 3AM, exactly an hour after getting the 382 night bus at Metro Côte-Vertu. Dropped off in the middle of nowhere - Pierrefonds-St-Charles intersection, and walked a good 20 minutes in some -7000°C cold listening to a certain angsty teen rock band... I'm going to check in on Flickr...
Slashed...
(Edit: And like last month's other Life Baddie, this doesn't seem so bad at all first hand as 1) it was not caused directly per my incompetence (funding in research is an unstable thing) although I'm sure if I were really really efficient, they'd hypothetically find a way to keep me - the self-depreciating self talking - and that 2) it opens up new opportunities I never would've thought 'honourable' pursuing. That is my philosophical take on being slashed... Yeah. Good lord. but I guess the emoticon is truthfully a vast overstatement right now.)
Woaw, do I tag this entry music or food? :D (Anyone interested? lol, it's in less than 24hrs...)
Did not play "competitive" (intramurals) hockey -not even on ice, just on a field- for a good three years. I miss the times planting myself in front of the opponent's net, or fighting pucks/balls in the corners. Which reminds me of playing broom-ball in cegep, sliding my ass on the ice with the ball into the crease... I would need to improve endurance, but I remember I've demonstrated heart in what I was doing. Well, ok.
At the beginning of this week, S passed on to me some new music by Tsuji Ayano. At least the album that's currently playing (Cover Girl) is like April in Japan (in fact, the newest 'Calendar Calendar' is 12 songs for each month of the year). Pleasant, like a stroll in the Tokyo suburb, along the canal, under the sakuras and a big blue sky. From the transparent biodegradable bag, I take out the nigiri I just bought for 145円 from the Family Mart ("damnit, it's salmon roe!"). Wipe the taste in my mouth with a sip from my carton of Hokkaido milk ("damnit, it's not milk, rather yogurt drink!"). What a gentle breeze.
[music: Tsuji Ayano - Never can say goodbye]
(Note: 'Cover Girl' is a cover album, that also contains a few English songs re-taken in Japanese, in this mellow acoustic register w/ trademark ukulele.)
Metric - Empty
Canadian indie rock band with a girl doing the vocals. This track caught my attention on the January 13th CBC Radio 3 podcast, b/c it crashes down like a mobile of glass planks on a freshly waxed marble floor? ... I'll listen to the rest of the album. Then, since they're playing at the Metropolis on March 1st, I'll just decide on the spot whether to see them live when I go see the Belle and Sebastian.
Bande a part has been playing French Canadian rock oldies from the 60s for the last hour, which is an odd thing, b/c they are an 'emerging music' show, not 'long-buried' music show. lol, the retro-ness of the lyrics... Le garcon qui ressemblait a une fille, J'etais son copain, and covers of American classics. The same lame topics of predilection with big doses of refreshing prudeness one doesn't find in contemporary pop music.
Anyways, it's overflowing with cheese on Espace Musique (100.7 in Mtl) for the rest of the week between 1 and 2AM.
But that reminded me of how cool it would be if I could put my hands on retro 60s music from Hong Kong; with mental link to Fantasia, the 2004 movie with Cecilia Cheung. It's always intrigued me: Chinese 60s pop from Hong Kong, where can I find that?
Also heard on the radio box, the tube map of music!
I get this impression that time passes way quicker now than when I was a teenager, or even an university student. Probably would guess that it is an effect of no longer having the school year to regulate the flow of time. Remember when you were in high school and had two to three months vacation from May-June to September (or not, depending on whether your parents sent you to bootcamp)? Fair enough, now there's work, and depending on where you work, there will be milestones to achieve - but by no means is it as regular as the immuability of the school year. Unless you were educated at home, or took a sabbatical at some stage in your education (but even so, is just a sabbatical).
To me, it sounds disorienting to think in terms of "how long ago has this-that been". It has been one year and three-quarters that I'm out of university. But it has been three summers ago that I had 30 people over at my house. It has also been a remarquable six months (celebrated today!) since my plane landed in Montreal, ending an almost 5-month trip on the other face of the world. What kind of man would I be at the end of another year and three-quarters, three summers, or six months?
My brother and his girlfriend wanted to see Chinese lezzies on the big screen, so bought Saving Face off eBay. :D:D It's The Joy Luck Club on crack. :D:D
On a sader note, it's the second gay movie in a month and half that makes me go -> T_T So, I'll be curling up until 3PM (start time of Habs vs Flyers).
The SCMP ran an interview with Alice Wu, the director of Saving Face, when the movie came out in Asia last Spring (not sure, but it wasn't when it came out at Sundance, since that's in January...), and it left a mark on me. Stirred things up wrt my belief (perhaps void on the topic?) that 'Chinese values' == 'Chinese traditional values'. There's a world of differences, and I'm losing face just saying it, I feel. No, probably we feel it's an 'Asian/Chinese thing' to live at home until we marry (sigh) b/c it's the Asian/Chinese tradition to do so. But hello! Mentalities are evolving in China too! (Who's the father of the widowed mother's unborn baby!?) The director thinks that Overseas Chinese might feel the need to preserve their cultural identity - but they do so by preserving values that date of half-a-century (or the time at which they emigrated), while the country they left, and the one which welcomed them, evolved with time. I feel like I'm stating the obvious, now that I'm enlightened. But thoughts in the comments box are welcomed.
In any case, the movie was not about gayness, even if the director is gay, but was more a Moliere-ish (in the denouement) satire of traditional Chinese values in America (half the dialogues are in Mandarin!). A comedy with miles to go at my house parties, if I can hold on to it, b/c bro-Dave's Mel's parents (and my parents, heck), and flist alike, want it.
(I'm on crack. The movie's not on lesbians, not on Chinese, it's on LOVE, stupid. Everyone's just looking for LOVE. In any case, just read the director's note.)
Hey! Fun fact! Will Smith, the ID4-MIB-Will-Smith, is one of the co-producers of this movie.
I got my answer concerning the impression I had regarding Les Nouvelles Lunes. Says the first clip from "Sacré Talent!" (of whom she's the featured artist this month), that she wrote Grande est la vie, and Douce Lueur when the contrast between the goodness, sweetness of the child growing in her versus the pain, hatred and destruction of the Iraq war going on was at its paroxysm.
Montreal has been unusually warm in January, with three separate days (and maybe one before or after each of them) with the thermometer exploding above the 0C mark. Now we're in February, and story repeats. That is quite pleasant, except for snow festivals and casual outdoor hockey players.
"The police are a bunch of monkey" - just been reported on the radio.
A few Jpop buys, since the yen and usd are so low (the vendor is gaining). It's also been a while that I had new, potentially good, Jpop. So, you know, if you've got any, send it my way. :D
The Maaya Sakamoto is not produced by Yoko Kanno. I guess it had to be slightly different-sounding. And as for the Yuki one, well, it's cool, also pop-pop-pop. Very very similar in beat and twist as the previous single (upbeat, hopeful), Yorokobi no Tane... just like the singles from Commune sounded alike. I guess it's the inspirational streak. I'm still unsure how the artist in Yuki deals with her baby son dying at a very young age last year... Can you tell in the lyrics?