Random Funny Thing

I've been looking for a release date/pre-sale for the new Spiritual Front album, and in doing so went to the Canadian, American and German Amazon sites and came across something I found endlessly funny.  On both the Canadian and American sites, Amazon is highly featuring the Kindle.  On the German site, the main feature is a washing machine.



I did, however, manage to find that the video for the first single from the new album has been posted, "Darkroom Friendship".  It seems much more accessible compared to how dark some of Armageddon Gigolo was, nevertheless I quite like it.  It still continues with the Morricone-inspired guitar feel and I like the trumpet and accordion.

...because I can't sleep...

I've been clicking the "Next Blog" link at the top blogger bar for about an hour now, just seeing what people have decided to post.  Most are about as interesting as watching paint dry, especially the preponderance of Christian blogs proselytizing at me while playing midi hymns (I thought midi files on pages were banned back in the 90's?), but then I guess the same is true if you just randomly came across this page in your travels.  It only ever really matters to the person writing it, so well...

What I did kind of find interesting was the sheer amount of people, all with the same basic template, who are "Bringing home..." whomever; the adoption blogs.  Maybe I'm just overly cynical, but most of the adoption sites just seem like so much a scam, even to the point where I swear that some of the blogs themselves are made up since several of them seem to duplicate the same material.

No. Not me. Or Anyone.

He was always amazed by how quiet a city as large as this could be at night. Where New York or Toronto never sleeps, Hamilton closes its doors and heads in for the night at 5:30 for the most part. Nine o'clock at the latest. It gave the night, in all but downtown proper, an eerie ghost-like quality. A ghost town populated by six hundred thousand people.

The Incontrovertible Didact

Dictionary.com's definition of a didact is "a didactic person". Thank you very much for that lovely piece of enlightenment. This, ladies and gentlemen, is a perfect example of something that "begs the question" -- an explanation or definition that uses itself as a proof. Not, as too many people use the phrase as, something that merely causes you to ask a question or leads to a question.

"I used to think there was no future at all, I still think..."

There is nothing more frightening than a blank, white page.
How do you begin? What's the first step? The future isn't written yet, there is no past for a frame of reference, there's just empty fields of white. You're trapped in an odd existentialist nightmare of your own making simply confronting it. What do you do with it? A common turn of phrase, an introductory passage relating the setting of your work, a humorous anecdote to put the audience at ease; which one do you choose? All or none? There are more ways, of course, an infinite myriad of ways, but how? How do you choose the right step?
There is no future. It hasn't been written yet.

State of Love and Trust

"When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things."

-- 1 Corinthians 13:11

I suppose you're probably expecting som big long introductory and explanatory post giving the idea of where I've been, what I've been doing, what this is all about, and so on and so forth ad nauseum. Complete with an obligatory digression into the quote above. Well, essentially my response to the quote is: "like that's going to happen any time soon."



You have not been paying attention. There's a bunch of lemmings and ants marching around doing the same thing again and again, falling into the same depressing routine, struggling to get noticed. The blogosphere is one giant, bloated, sometimes hilarious, sometimes relevant, sometimes frightening circle jerk.



Here are the basic dynamics of the Blogo-Domino Effect:



1) A news article, book, CD release, comic book, random sound byte from some idiot on TV serves as a catalyst.



2) Five people then rush to be the "first" to comment on it, usually with some sort of grand effusive statements if they like it, or base, frank derision usually reserved for the lowliest scum of the earth and George W. Bush if not.



3) Ten more people link to each of the original five, while commenting on the "originals"' blogs with things that often amount to little more than "me too" or "you're a stinky poohead"

Out of My Head

I'm a fairly simple kind of guy. I wake up in the morning, I take a shower, I put on my clothes, eat breakfast, go to work, yada yada yada yada. The same as just about everyone else. I do, however have a weakness. Whereas some people are addicted to caffeine, or alcohol, or fluffy bunnies, I have an addiction to media. It doesn't matter what it is -- print, film, radio, music -- I don't care, I'll listen to it. ...or watch it. ...or read it. It doesn't matter. I always have to be reading, watching, or listening to something, even if I'm doing something else at the time. I have to continuously have some kind of sensory input using some part of my faculties.

It's not enough for me, though, to just watch, read, or listen to something, that should be readily apparent to anyone who's been visiting this website or reading my work for any period of time. My highly critical, analytical brain has to try to make some kind of sense out of the stimuli that results in essays, reviews, and just plain old incoherent ramblings. In my attempts to further my own critical analysis abilities, I've been writing comics and graphic novel reviews for some time now, along with the occasional CD review here and there, and now I come to this Spin the Shiny Plastic Circle. This is my attempt to be a film critic. Kind of. More like a film on DVD critic. Music critic too, because they come in handy dandy plastic circle form as well.