The internet offers entrepreneurs so many new opportunities. For example, with the anonymity of the internet, no one would know if you had an imaginary girlfriend.
posted by Pi at 5:59 PM |

 
I heard that 311 does a cover of the Cure's "Love Song". I was curious so I searched for a version. I found the video on Artist Direct. Oh god it's horrible. Gone are Robert Smith's emotive vocals of despair, anguish, and desperation. Absolutely horrid.

Judge for yourself:
311 Love Song video in Real Media or Windows Media.

Now excuse me as I go off and listen to the real version.
posted by Pi at 11:06 PM |

 
Next door to me is "She Said Boom", a record and music store. Upon arriving home, I noticed a small crowd of people outside of the store browsing through a couple of boxes. At first I thought the store was putting out old vinyl that wasn't selling. To my surprise, they were boxes filled with books. And there were some stunning finds. I didn't take *everything* that caught my interest, just the ones I would like to read about. This is my final tally:

- Twentieth Century Design Classics: A Book of 30 Postcards
- Rock Talk
- Morrissey & Marr: The Severed Alliance
- Miracles of the Gods
- The Wicked Wit of Oscar Wilde
- The Bell Jar

Other finds that I did not pick up include "Tropic of Cancer", "Lord of the Rings" + "The Hobbit" box set, Playboy, JP Sartre, Descartes, and so much other great stuff.

I couldn't resist "Miracles of the Gods" since it's by the same author as "Chariots of the Gods", Erich von Daniken. "Chariots" was such a silly book, I hope "Miracles" is more of the same. And of course, I had to pick up the only books about music that I saw. "Rock Talk" profiles Elton John, Paul McCartney, Jefferson Starship, Olivia Newton-John (I'd get physical with her), War, Neil Sedaka and Chicago. And how could I not pick up a book about the Smiths?

I started reading "Wicked Wit", and the first chapter is entitled "Age Before Beauty" and I immediately guessed the first quotation before even seeing it. Here it is:

"Thirty-five is a very attractive age. London society is full of women of the very highest birth who have, of their own free choice, remianed thrity-five for years. Lady Dumbletone is an instance in point. To my own knowledge she has been thrity-five ever since she arrived at the age of forty, which was many years ago now."

Damn, I *love* Wilde.
posted by Pi at 6:23 PM |

 
Having troubles in love? Try using the "I Love You" Clarifier.

Or if you just want to waste 11 minutes of your life, watch someone finish all of Super Mario Brothers 3 in the aforementioned timespan. (If link does not work, try this link)
posted by Pi at 12:23 AM |

 
Holy shit man, Trailer Trash was fucking amazing. Never have I seen so many trailers at once. Most were from the seventies and eighties, but there were some older and newer, all of them were "gripping". "The Gate" was the only movie featured definitely remember seeing although it's likely that I've seen both "Red Scorpion" and "Missing In Action 2". And how come I don't remember movies like "I Come In Peace" (w/Dolph Lundgren), "Satisfaction" (featuring Justine Bateman), and "The Pom Pom Girls"? And of course, who could forget rock star-cum-actor movies including "Hard to Hold" (feat. Rick Springfield) and "On The Line" with *NSYNC beau Lance Bass.

You can do your own IMDB searches for these movies, I'm too lazy to link them all at this time.
posted by Pi at 12:10 AM |

 
I just got home from seeing The Sounds tonight. Their album "Living In America" is very fun. The songs all follow the kind of recipe, but it works and done live, it really captures the crowd. We were all jumping around and dancing to their tunes. About half-way through the show, someone yelled out "Blondie rules!" or something like that. You see, this band wants to be Blondie. A blonde lead singer and a band weaing matching leather jackets. They even pose like them in photos. I wonder what Deborah Harry would think?

The opening bands were decent. IMA Robot made me feel like it was 1976 at CBGB. Not like I was even born in 1976, but this is what I gather from video footage I've seen. Oh, and you also have to subtract the Kraftwerk-like synth sounds. Kill Hannah was sort of a misplaced punk band. What kept my attention was the Ladyton sticker on the bass. And of course, The Sounds completed the time warp to the late '70s/early '80s.
posted by Pi at 1:59 AM |

 
Shake it like a Polaroid picture, Charlie Brown style. But apparently, you're not supposed to shake it like a Polaroid picture. But if your picture ends up distorted, you can always Photoshop it to correct it. Wait that was an incorrect use of the word "Photoshop", see the proper usage of the word "Photoshop".
posted by Pi at 12:01 AM |

 
Love Is...

So one of the stupidest days is finally over. In previous years, I've either commented about the commercialism of the "holiday", or ignored it completely. Perhaps it was because I was single back then. Or perhaps not. I have a wonderful girlfriend now and I still wasn't looking forward to this day. At any rate, I ended up having a great evening that actually made me enjoy the occasion. Now I hope that I don't have to go through so much work and planning for another evening any time soon.
posted by Pi at 11:20 PM |

 
Love Is Mathematics

One book I'm reading for my master's degree is called "Nonlinear Dynamics and Chaos". One example in the book models two lovers, Romeo and Juliet. By choosing how they react to each other's love as well as their own feelings, it is possible to determine if they will fall in love, or hate each other's guts, or have unrequited love. A team from the University of Washington has quantified marriage in terms of how couples resolve conflict. From this, they chart the course of the relationship and can predict how long it will last. The relationships are most likely to last when the couples resolve conflicts in the same way. They are classified as "avoiders" who never argue, "volatile" for those who argue all the time, and "validating" for those who argue occasionally and respect each other's opinions. Barbie and Ken lasted 43 years. Is your relationship doomed, or will you be happy (and for how long)? Read more.
posted by Pi at 4:38 PM |

 
Love Is Blindness

For all you lovers, here's something to think about for Valentine's Day:

According to this story, love can cause parts of the brain to shut-off. "The deactivated areas included those involved in negative judgments and critical thinking." I find this very amusing. Perhaps this is why humans are so stupid when it comes to love.
posted by Pi at 4:19 PM |

 
Did you know that William Hung has no formal singing training? Who could tell with his stunning performance of "She Bangs" on American Idol. I guarantee this will be one of the funniest things you'll have ever seen.
posted by Pi at 11:23 PM |

 
Whenver I get spam, I usually tell Eudora to "Delete From Server" and then I transfer it into the Trash bin. But last week, I got a bit of spam that I just couldn't delete. At least not until I read it. What was it about you ask? The subject was "Re: You still look the same!", which in itself is quite unspectacular. But coupled with the fact that it was from "Pauline" piqued my interest. I once knew a girl named Pauline. I even wrote a poem about her. Whether she knows it or not, she had a big influence on my life. She was the first girl who I ever had the nerve to tell that I liked her. I was flatly rejected. I haven't really talked with her much since that incident eight years ago. I have no idea how she is doing these days. I'd imagine she's quite successful. Even though I no longer feel the same way about her, it would have been nice to receive a random email from a long lost friend. So I had this sort of false hope that perhaps this email was legitimate since I do keep in contact with some people who might still have contact with her. Anyway, it turned out being an ad for an item that was "better than botox". In the trash you go.

(In case you are wondering if this post breaks either rule, I don't think it does since I feel practically nothing for her these days.)

And thank you Erica for your words tonight.
posted by Pi at 11:57 PM |

 
Mood: Sentimental
Music: Shaye - Happy Baby

*Bleh*

*Ahem*

Hello everyone,

There are two rules I try to abide by when writing in my blog. The first is no talking about girls, crushes or other such romantic pursuits. This was instilled many years ago when I had a major fallout. The second rule which was implemented much more recently states that I will not babble about my emotions. I have on occasion broken both rules. Most recently, I broke the second rule in my previous post. I realize that breaking either rule can have dire circumstances for me and the people I care about. I promise to everyone that I will NEVER break these rules again. NEVER, NEVER, NEVER! Some of the things I write on here belong in my paper journal which I have neglected for much too long. I have recently rediscovered the joy of picking up my pen and scrawling illegible thoughts on paper. No matter how difficult my life may become I will not complain about them on here. This is NOT a LiveJournal so after this post, there will be no more "Mood" nor "Music" listed at the top.

Thank you for reading.
Pi
posted by Pi at 1:08 AM |

 
Mood: flustered
Music: Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Fever To Tell

Today I'm pretending this is a LiveJournal entry. There are three fields that really bother me about LiveJournal: mood, music, and body. But aside from that, I think LiveJournal is okay. Why does it seem like everyone on LiveJournal is a girl? Maybe it's because they can be all moody and it doesn't really matter because it's not a real feeling because they are just selecting emoticons. Ok, I don't mind the music field too much because it's cool to see what other people are listening too, but all too often it's some shitty stuff that I couldn't careless about. And finally, the content of LiveJournals always seeem to bitch about something and sometimes the content doesn't even match the "mood" listed. At any rate, today I'm temporarily transforming drops of drivel into a LiveJournal. Yes, I already have "mood" and "music" listed above. Now it's time for a bitchy, moody post (even though I said I wouldn't use my blog for this again, but it's not my fault because daily drivel is down again!!).

I had a difficult time deciding what the fuck I wanted to play. I searched through my mp3s and I wanted something very angry, something that would kick me in the stomach and knock the wind out of me. First I tried Franz Ferdinand, but it didn't quite do it for me. I contemplated Green Day, but thought better of it because I wasn't having one of those teenage angst days. Then I tried Metric and it almost worked. Sometimes I wished I had more Ramones songs. Anyway, I settled on Yeah Yeah Yeahs because Karen O's yelling verbalizes how I feel at this time.

There's a sort of anger and frustration that's sneaking up from behind and waiting to ambush me. I guess it all started this year. New Year's Eve to be exact. New Year's Eve set off a whole chain of events leading to many ups and downs. It's like an unstable oscillation with the eigenvalues in the right-half plane. The oscillations start small, but they grow exponentially over time, eventually reaching infinite amplitudes. Now I'm talking gibberish. What I mean is that once emotions get involved, good things seem double plus good and bad things seem double plus ungood. There is an amplification of the true emotions involved. And though it can feel good at the crest, being in the trough can feel drowning.

For the past few years, I've been getting better and better at managing my emotions. It was like I could flick a switch and feel happy, or contemplative, or very rarely I could feel sad. I felt happier, but I don't know if it was because I duped myself into thinking I really was or if I was truly happy. I had lost spontaneity and enthusiasm in the process. I was losing my passion for everything because I was in control of it all. There was nothing that I could get truly excited about. I could tell myself I should be happy because I was out with friends or listening to good music, but I didn't really feel it. My emotions were simply settings on a switch with nothing substantiating them. And it was a very empty and hollow feeling.

So back to my main point. The oscillations started to grow in September, but it wasn't until New Year's Eve that they almost grew out of control. I had started to feel real emotions again. I was feeling happy or sad without even realizing I had flicked the switch. And now, it's almost like I have no control over how I feel. There is something terrifying yet reassuring about it. It is terrifying because I couldn't predict how I would feel the next minute. Or the smallest things would cause my mood to swing between two extremes. But it was refreshing because I started to feel like a human again, not some sort of android devoid of feelings. When I feel happy, I feel it in my skin, flesh, and bones. And when I feel sad...well, I don't actually feel sad, it's just a deviation from the happiness that I'd rather feel. Maybe my statement earlier about bad things being double plus ungood was slightly exaggerated. Or perhaps not. I definitely remember feeling really shitty one day near the beginning of January. It was one of the shittiest days I'd had in a long time. But in retrospect, there wasn't anything particularly horrible about it. All the issues that were bothering me were resolved quite quickly and in a satisfactory manner.

Now that I think about it, there really was no reason for me to do this huge LiveJournal-style rant. Usually when I write emotional rants, I get all depressed and sad when I reveal all the flaws and holes in my life. But not recently. Writing has made me feel like I've lifted a load of my shoulders and they usually lead me to a happier place. This is totally weird. Writing is both soothing AND uplifting.

I'm going to stop now because my main purpose for writing this entry has been lost.
posted by Pi at 10:06 PM |

 
"a classless, crass and deplorable stunt"

Are we talking about President Bush's policies here?

"offensive, embarrassing to us and our fans and inappropriate"

Are talking about the fact that so many people watch such a crappy sport? In my opinion, the sporting event of the weekend was the Australian Open. Congratulations to Roger Federer and Justine Henin-Hardenne.

"wardrobe malfunction"

Nope. We must be talking about Janet and Justin. I've got to use that line some time...

Too much hoopla over something as simple as a breast. Why is America so afraid of sex? How is it appropriate to have a show entitled "Sex and the City", but there is so much controversy over a barely perceptible breast?

Read a fun article in the Toronto Star on this subject.
posted by Pi at 11:30 PM |

 
Very rarely does WinAmp choose the right song for the right moment when I drag my entire mp3 collection and put it on shuffle mode. Today was one of those rare instances.
posted by Pi at 2:02 AM |

 
For all of you who shop in Kensington Market, let me tell you that I'm no longer going to Global Cheese. Cheese Magic is so much better and I will patronize them from now on. The lineups are shorter and the staff is much friendlier.
posted by Pi at 1:32 AM |