Delayed Antics

This, and others like it just appeared via [michaelbyers]. They're from a bouldering comp in November. Above is my feeble, drunken attempt at suicide after I finished 28th.

Michael DJd at that comp and it was radicale.
Here's a song: Quasimoto - Axe Puzzles.mp3
Another song, think slow motion: Lusine ICL - In flight.mp3

A sedated journey through the interweb

The obvious gateway:
We Make Money Not Art
Information Aesthetics - I really love this one as well. The home of interesting/brilliant visualisations/representations of data.
Lateral.net
Data is Nature
Transphormetic video feedback - excels at blowing minds
Cyberweeds
Tags Tagged
Yahoo vs. Google - "Google"
I obviously searched my name, and Google found a progress report from my job in India.
Back to Information Aesthetics
Netlag - featuring some not-too-good GarageBand music.
More WMMNA
And finally, something outrageous.

The last thing kind of made me freak out, and it was bedtime.

Fat Baaaastards

By popular demand, I'm reposting Julian Ichim's blueprint for retardation. Click here. I'm making a mix and getting America's most blunted. Wanna have an I/DM party if people promise to dance.

Some Dead Prez lyrics:

How 'bout we start with a salad
Fresh bed of lettuce with croutons
Later we can play a game of chess on the futon

Let's have mind-AIDS, you ain't got to put in your diaphragm just yet... okay, stoned. I'll be taking this down later.

Don't sweat the Panasonics

In an attempt to make up for lost funk, I went to the Albion last night to catch Charless and his double discman shitshow. Since I've spent the week almost entirely in my housecoat and slippers, I decided it would be nothing if not appropriate to just go to the Albion like that. The only thing that would've made the 'I'm here to sweat, bitch' look more complete would've been a 4-woofer boombox on my shoulder blasting Arthur Russell (aside: Charless actually played 'Hung Up' - wicked!) Anyway, it was ridiculoid. Girls didn't know what to do. In retrospect 'Come over, we'll play house. I'll be your screen door and you can bang me all night long' is a better line than 'I'm warm to your form'.

Look at these psychos: And these psychos:
And this robot:
"You owe me 100 push-ups you little betch!"

After five gin & tonics in one hour and a variety of semi-haggard to actually-not-that-bad encounters, I walked to Brett's to take some resi bin laden chronic nug tokes and pass out on his couch. I haven't slept in a bed since Wednesday/look like death as a result.

Oh eff

Woke up on a couch somewhere, no idea.

Time: 9:20am
Hair status: level 3 bed head
Alcohol level: significant, though manageable.

Go out to find my car, nestle myself among the crushed cans of red bull and ten million burned CDs that all say Boards of Canada, and drive home.

Here are some tips for those of you who wish to be denied entry to Starlight:

1. Roll up with 7 male engineers
2. Have a blood alcohol level of... oh fuck. Be really drunk. Really drunk.
3. Have a sloppy snowball fight directly in front of the venue
4. Wear a corduroy house coat and Rick's leather slippers (i.e. King's).
5. Beg the bouncer to let you in. When this fails, get someone more drunk in your group to beg the bouncer to let you in.

Sadly, all of the above would've made Starlight really manageable, but alas. The alcohol treated me beautifully.

Super Scorer

Today I looked at the receiver and saw the volume cranked to 14, so I thought that maybe some of the shit I'm listening to would be suitable for tonight's iteration of the bi-weekly Gentleman's Club meeting. Sure enough, it was like on Dave Chapelle, when John Meyer played at an office full of white people.

Tracklist:

The Knife - Take My Breath Away (Mylo mix)
Mylo vs. Miami Sound - Doctor Pressure (dirty club mix)
Chromeo - Needy Girl
Metro Area - Swag's Mas Jugo Dub
Arthur Russel - Loose Joints
ESG - Moody
Isolée - Enrico
Boy Robot - Super Scorer
Tinkertoy - Editing Our Connection
Mouse on Mars - Send Me Shivers
Kraftwerk - The Robots (some odd mix off a Rough Trade comp)
Apparat - Contradiction (Lusine mix)
Lemon Jelly - Stay With You

A good bit of the above have been covered in previous posts, so scroll down, 'cause mp3s are only up for a week.

PS: bandanas are cool again as of 8:36pm EST Jan 25th 2006.

Tekmology

Snakes on a Plane was getting old. Today I had a heat transfer quiz, and, when faced with a (fairly simple) differential equation, I was very tempted to just write 'Snakes on a Plane' and hand it in.

I spent yesterday afternoon at SSP, where I just wanted to 'kick off' data collection for a massive project. As it turns out, people were willing to help, and consequently within fifteen minutes I had drawings and diagrams and a desk and a laptop and thermocouples and - oh drool - a data logger. Within an hour, I had 67,341 data points. When I used to work there, an hour would be spent discussing my former boss' forged psychiatric report or his use of cat antibiotics to combat his human STDs. Holler!

Snakes on a Plane

From now every post will be called Snakes on a Plane. A recent lapse in Soulseeking made me re-examine my collection. Here's what came up: Apparat - Contradiction (Lusine mix). If this doesn't make you dance intelligently, there's something wrong with you. Last time I checked, Apparat rocked the dance floor until 4:30am. I asked him to play in Canada and he said maybe. In the meantime, watch this brilliant video for the song Komponent.

I've always been fascinated with the way he makes/performs music. There's a lot of LFOs modulating various things, which is how I think the percussion works. He threw in some nifty delay VSTs on his site. Likely this week I'll buy an actual host and check them.

/\/\/\Update: Link to Contradiction has been fixed. Also, now I realise Sascha from Apparat really looks like me in that picture, so here's a more distinctive one. Finally, if you're not intelligent or don't wish to dance as though you are, necessarily, try this: The Knife - Take My Breath Away (Mylo mix).mp3

Snakes on a Plane

"Samuel L. Jackson plays an FBI agent who is escorting a witness on a flight from Hawaii to Los Angeles when an assassin releases hundreds of deadly snakes on a commercial airplane in order to eliminate the witness. The FBI agent, along with a rookie pilot, frightened crew and passengers must then band together in a desperate attempt to survive."

Are you pissing your pants yet?

So effin haggard

I should mention also that prior to going out on Thursday, we listened to that one song that goes like "My washing machine doesn't work/someone fucked my washing machine", which really... set the mood.
Ich don't sink so
The pants are off here
The steroids aren't working, but the alcohol definitely is
Just about to get nasty
Thoroughly haggard
Oh god Avery! Note the cubic metre of bacon bits strictly on one end of the sub. This is bad form.

Some music to go along with the above: Mylo vs. Miami Sound Machine - Drop the Pressure and Ladytron - Destroy Everything You Touch.

Worst Day of My Life

Ableton Live quit working today. I can't even open my songs. Hopes of being a basement produzent are now dashed. I'm going to get a job and cut my hair.

Listening to: Deaf Center - Eloy while I update my resume.

DFA is playing at my house

Went out with this fat baaastard last night. Started off at Play de Record, outside of which I got a mean parking ticket (but I did buy a cuuute Koushik 12"), then I drank a lot of wine, then I drank some other stuff, then to the Queen's head, on the way to which x-treme Segway scooter action was discussed and enacted, then I got gloriously, wonderfully drunk on $3 beer and just danced until I could no longer stand up, then Ben bought a rose and was holding it in his teeth and took his clothes off and went up to some drunk girl who was puking, then I took my clothes off and just flexed down a bit while someone shot photos, then we walked back to the two competing hot dog stands on Queen/Spad and one of the dudes was on a break or something, so I went behind the stand and busted it out and kinda put it on the grill a little bit, and then I think I put like three raw meat hot dogs in my mouth at once and then I went to sleep, then drove home early in the morning to catch class, still drunk. Oh fuck!

I found out later that the guy from DFA was allegedly at the 'head, though my excitement subsided when it was clarified that it was actually the guy from DFA 1979.

Of course it's cold

Good day today. Finished homework/had good flow of ideas. Late night drive on snowy country roads ended well. It was blowing snow so much that people were reluctantly plowing ahead at half the posted limit. I played a couple of Vladislav Delay tracks in the car, which I thought were suitably frigid. The kind that put me in an ice castle with falling icicles everywhere. Nordic producers (see also Marc Leclair, Lackluster) capture the 'survival' theme of winter very well. Delay (of Finland) kind of reminds me of scandinavian metal bands in a distant way, though this is a very deep composition of discernable, brittle sounds. Check the excellent percussion on Kotilainen.mp3. Makes me shiver.

Terror is the Order of the Day

Today this Cory-looking motherfucker and four others like him squared off in the minicipal electoral debates. I knew this event would be hilarious, and thus I attended the shit out of it, front row and everything.

As hoped, some certifiably retarded utterances emerged from all candidates, but some were especially gifted in saying the unbelievable. Let's begin with Andrew Telegdi.wav, the liberal candidate, and thus the one I'm going to vote for. He seemed kind of evil. I think things must be getting to him, because his bodyguard or whatever handed out anti-conservative propaganda (reiterated in the above audio clip) to booing students. I think trashing the other guy in an election is kind of immature, but then again the liberals have been attacked to near-death by every other party. Kind of gross, considering they're the only ones that make some amount of sense policy-wise (if only they were more effective). Okay, boring.

Next came Ajmer Mandur.wav, who didn't fail to frighten me with his retardation. Kyoto. Holy fuck. I can't believe that. I just can't believe someone who is trying to get elected would say something like that. He was promptly shut down by the Green Party candidate, who explained that it's not because of Kyoto that CO2 emissions have gone up, but rather because we're not doing much about it. Again, I'm not fully down with Kyoto per se, but we need some sort of strategy, and... okay, fuck all that, we need to at least demonstrate that the environment is important to us. If Kyoto had absolutely none other than symbolic value, I would still embrace it. Sooo, anyway, don't vote for that party.

I should say here that the NDP and Green Party candidates behaved quite well, and likely earned themselves the most votes in this debate. That's okay, because I won't vote for either of them, as they're both rather delusional.

Though nothing could approach the delusion of the man pictured above. It is as though Cory himself took the stand and put on a special circus act just for us, complete with like cartwheels and floor punching. Cory and Julian Ichim.wav are, I suspect, blood brothers of getting punched in the face at hardcore shows. Please listen to the above clip. You will not be disappointed. There is little more I can say, it's just... a pleasure to have experienced all that was said in person. Mr. Ichim, as may or may not be fitting for a candidate of the Marxist-Leninist party, was dressed like a young Castro trying to bite Che, complete with an army cap with a red star on it. I was nothing if not impressed.

In summary, it looks like the conservatives are going to win. Let's not let ourselves be transformed (by age and apathy and greed) into the horrible people who vote for them.

Natural Gases

If you, like me, missed the electoral debates recently, click here to read about them/watch them. Here are some general statements on the environment from each of the major political parties (i.e. not the Green Party).


Conservative:
"Our tax credit for transit users will put hard-earned dollars back in the pockets of Canadians, and at the same time help our environment, … [t]his will be a real incentive that encourages more people to take public transit which, in turn, means fewer cars on the roads and cleaner air… This family-friendly policy allows parents to claim the tax credit on behalf of dependent children, and one spouse can claim the credit on behalf of another. The tax credit will apply to all transit passes, whether annual, monthly or weekly, and also to other fare payment options."

Liberal:
"Our comprehensive approach uses the full range of policy instruments – market mechanisms, new tax measures, incentives for businesses and consumers. It also spurs innovation, introduces a balance of regulatory and voluntary measures, and examines all existing federal climate change programs to redirect funding to the most effective measures. It is estimated that the approaches outlined in the plan, with an associated federal investment of $10 billion through 2012, could reduce GHG emissions by about 270 megatonnes annually in the 2008-2012 period."

NDP:
"In this election, we’re going to be spelling out a detailed plan to get back on track in protecting our environment. Here are some of the key elements of our plan:
A tough new Clean Air Act to include a commitment to a 25% reduction of greenhouse gases by year 2020.
A tough new Clean Water Act.
A tough new Polluter Pay Act.
A comprehensive home retrofit plan, to reduce energy consumption while improving people’s comfort and cutting their home heating bills

….voluntary rules for polluters …have never worked"

In summary, the conservatives think that 'environment' is about bus passes. On Kyoto, they say that the protocol is 'fatally flawed', i.e. the American mantra. I will not say that it is not fatally flawed, though I don't like their attitude. I think the Liberals have the right approach, but thus far it has produced shitty results. NDP don't seem to have any actual plan. Apparently they intend to cease funding for nuclear power plants, which indicates that they don't have any actual plan, because no actual plan could exclude nuclear. Though in many ways their platform reflects what some environmentalists want. So in even briefer summary, here are the fundamental positions:

Conservatives: advance incrementally while keeping the public pacified
Liberals: let the market take care of it
NDP: aggresive approach, though unrealistic

Another version of the above statements is available from CBC here.

You can hear the room

Recently, I stayed up until six in my dark basement listening to music. This was one of the better experiences of 2006.

The playlist was random and I was really high. The net result was that I loved to death every single song that played, regardless of what it was or how much I love it in reality. To express my love, I decided it would be great to sit at the computer and write just how strongly I feel about each. The outcome was a series of incoherent paragraphs that I won't share with you.... but here are some highlights:

Kuchen - Mauri the Pugilist: this one affected me the most, as it was at the peak of my intoxication. It made me think of the studio it must've been recorded in. An empty room with tall ceilings, a wall of Roland keyboard amps, a wall of wood panelling, and possibly a Roland Poly 6 on a stand in the centre. The room was very warm. The drumming absolutely kills me, as does the purring.

To Rococo Rot - Die Dinge Des Lebens: I think here I noted how TRR are synth magicians and on the song's complexity. Also, this reminds me of space a great deal, where I often find myself.

Autechre - Bike: this had me wondering what it would sound like as a composition played with hard instruments. If you extrapolated an obviously synthetic sound to a physical instrument with a similar sound. Would've been interesting to see Autechre Unplugged in like '94. As a general note, I should say that I enjoy Autechre's use of hi-hats. Robert Lippok of TRR (and Tarwater) has produced an all-hi-hat track that I've never been able to find. Alas.

Boards of Canada - M9. Played this for Gavin recently and he commented that it's probably an old analogue synth. Because of the pace of the track, I just pictured some absolute monster synth set up in a huge empty room with a million patch cords and all sorts of meters and displays monitoring its heartbeat as this really intense progression takes it to its limits.

Speaking of which, I found something like the Da Vinci Code of Boards of Canada. If you ever wanted to know EVERYTHING about them/appear really cool.

Something more constructive

This is a robot that Jeff and I worked on recently. Jeff's idea: to construct a permanent installation of a humanoid robot that symbolises the progress/decay of civilisation via traversing a field over a thousand years. I suggested that it crash into a wall. In order to sustain itself for such a long time, we decided that it would be propelled by somothing I kind of cooked up, basically a network of plates of different materials that, due to different thermal expansion properties and natural thermal cycling, are able to advance the robot as they bend back and forth in a sort of ratcheting motion. This is very simple and, compared with any other propulsion technology, relatively bomb-proof. What you see is about a 16" model powered by batteries (we like to cheat). I built the chassis out of ABS plastic (Lego Mindstorms pieces) with each arm consisting of a 5 bar linkage that folds in three places and curls much like a human arm as the robot walks. The arms move very slowly and require about a ten second stare to make sure that they're actually moving. This is wonderful to watch while intoxicated.

Jeff built the lower portion of the chassis and skin out of PET plastic and cardboard. The model installation is a grassy field with a coniferus tree over which the robot towers. This would really dominate a landscape. Would be quite interesting to actually build it. Some inspiration for this project was derived from the 10,000 Year Clock.

Oh yeah, Jeff is a sculptor/artist/musician from Toronto. He gave me this lamp. I think people should stop buying lamps from IKEA and start buying lamps from Jeff, and Jeff should start making more lamps. Check out Jeff and his portfolio.

Mispronunciation Olympics

The long-awaited, highly-anticipated Mispronunciation Olympics are finally upon us. Several fierce opponents have been roaming the halls of DWE for the last four years (or possibly more), flexing word-mangling muscle wherever they go. Let me clarify the rules: the mispronunciations listed below are not slips of the tongue. To qualify, each athlete must consistently fuck up a word to the point that I am convinced that it's how they actually think it's pronounced.

Now, skipping past the bronze and silver medals, here is the straight gold:

In Process Design, from The People's Republic of China, Prof. Feng with "contrition (concentration)"
In Process Control, from Canada, Prof. Douglas with "innergal (integral)"
In Materials Science, from Brazil, we have Prof. Simon with "orangine (origin)"
In Environmental Chemistry, from Canada, Prof. Fowler with "aludamin (aluminum)"

And the final medalist, again from The People's Republic of China, Prof. Chen with "@#^*$ (infinitessimally)"

I should add that all of the above are very brilliant people, and mostly pronounce every other word right.

Three 6 Mafia sound like Dave Chapelle doing an impersonation of Three 6 Mafia

Hey guys, check this stuff out: we had gathered in Chicago for a conference, when my college friend passed me a leaf-filled cylinder and said "Old boy, put a light to the end of this and inhale! This has not yet been popularised in your professional field." I retorted: "Indeed, that is something. And you call this Osama Bin Laden?"

Sightings

Being always late and thus sitting at the back of the class can have some advantages. Namely, you get to read everyone's (potentially horrible/bizarre) t-shirt and observe what people are doing on their notebooks. An amazing specimen from each category was spotted today.

Specimen 1:

Nondescript, rocking something like a Thinkpad with wallpaper consisting of a hot asian babe.

Specimen 2:

Well-worn navy blue t-shirt bearing the following verse:

Father, I will always be
The same boy that stood by the sea
And watched you tower over me
Now I'm older, I want to be the same as you

This shit bends my mind. I wish I could capture Specimen 2 in particular and feed it occasionally if it promises to never change.

Check back soon for the Mispronunciation Olympics.

Making music to climb walls to

A lot of good music lately. Just burned M.B. a disc with several of my favourites, but, because I'm indecisive (or perhaps because of the surplus of excellent music), I was 2 minutes over. The obvious solution : mix some tracks together and thus shorten the whole. Since I only have one turntable, no microphone, and not very much time, I just figured I would drop the tracks into Ableton Live and stretch/compress/repitch them until they sound right-ish. However, Live being utterly gross, the above wasn't necessary. I dropped each track in approx the right place and simply played it and the tempos matched, the pitch hadn't changed... I was actually worried that I had selected two tracks with the exact same beat.

Here's a simple fade from 'The Juan MacLean - Dance With Me' into 'Bochum Welt - Arnos Park' This isn't horrendously difficult to do on decks, but you can be right stupid and do it on a computer. I wonder if scratch purists are pissed that their craft is so easily automatable. 2007: DJ robots take over club scene. "Fa-f-f-...BUFFERING 90%...-reshhhh"

Some other tracks on that CD:

Junior Boys - More Than Real
Boy Robot - Invaders of Vanity Club Land (oddly poignant)
Isolee - Face B
Vladislav Delay - Kotilainen (I love this - very nordic)
Marc Leclair (Akufen) - 114e Jour
Phonem - Euphrates
Boards of Canada - Circle (1994, off a TAPE)
Boards of Canada - Chromakey Dreamcoat (2005)

As an appendix, I threw in 'Hung up' by Madonna and 'Drop the Pressure' by Mylo. Thank you Ben for supplying me with moving music. Click here.

Jah bless

Galaxie 500

Saw one of those recently and it reminded me of the band. Not into cars, but I understand why this one is loved. The one I saw was dirty and white like the season.

The official Galaxie Club of America website is nostalgic in its own way. American cars are kind of going extinct. I invite my generation to mourn the demise of the 7th generation Civic.

To honour the Galaxie, I've been listening to Sorry and Summertime on repeat in my Civic.

Fuck.

I'm really hoping this bitch has a manufacturing defect in the next 9 months so that I can swap it for a new one.

I'm never buying anything again. If you, like me, need comfort, listen to this on repeat.

Crown of the Lost

Some people are lovely. Here's a perfect example. Read the history and such on the left. Lovely. Vashti also has a haunting sort of voice that should be resorted to when body heat is not enough.

Notably she appears on a record with another reliable exotherm: Piano Magic. If you ever need to boil water or something like that, heat your house, they will do it. The people behind PM have an outstanding idea of what sounds good. I think they've done work with ISAN, Future 3, Tarwater, Klima... I won't even go on. The song with Vashti Bunyan is called Crown of the Lost.mp3 and was first really noticed whilst on a train between Paris and Fontainebleau, when warming was needed.

Do follow through to the Piano Magic playlist, as it has in the past revealed some diamonds.

A Cyberwonderland of Polymer Fun

Currently rotting in CHE 542. The prof just proceeded to cut up a diaper and dump its powdery contents into a glass of water. This is fascinating. Science at work. I think I'm going to drop it.

This is making my batteries die. I’m down to 94% and won’t have enough to rock out to the new Madonna single on repeat during my afternoon classes. Time goes by… so slowly.

I miss the satisfaction derived from not having a blog

When doing something - the something is immaterial - one inevitably reminisces about doing nothing and how blissful that felt. When reading blogs in the past, I've occasionally thought "I'm so glad I don't have a blog, because it looks like most of them are shit."

This is real.

I've actually lost something by creating this. I've lost the ability to say "I can do better", because I'm doing it now, this is it, this is the blog, and it's only about... this good.

So, don't do the things you really want to, as it's quite possible that you suck. At those things.

Lose heat

Toes lose heat. Heat loss is a precursor to hypothermia is a precursor to death. Stay alive: wear socks or don't step on cold floors. When you see someone barefooted step on a cold floor, do them a favour: scream at the top of your brave lungs 'YOU'RE GOING TO DIE!' Possibly chase after them with socks, or call 911.

Tinkertoy

I really like listening to this, but I keep thinking that its ribs are showing somewhat. It's good, yet less permanent than others - a construction that will be dismantled. Boards of Canada build pyramids, on the other hand.

In summary: this small-time band sucks compared with an established (almost Radiohead-esque [oh god vomit]) monolith. Also, the Beatles were the greatest band in the world, and everybody is copying them, isn't that obvious to you? Have you heard Wolf Parade?

This is how I feel.

Keep this in mind

The anterior and lateral trunk muscles consist of four muscles. These muscles are large sheaths arranged in layers with fibers running in different directions. Together they are responsible for trunk flexion, rotation, lateral bending, and aiding trunk stability.

You had no idea.

Straight killer

Just ride.

This space will become your oxygen tank.