Cultural Flotsam

Friday, September 15, 2006

I think it's Nintendo day........

Well, pay day is here at last and that means that it's time to go out and get "Lego Star Wars: II". Now as much as I'm looking forward to playing this the minute I get home another thing caught my eye while I was trolling through Digg this morning........... yes ladies and gentlemen....... it's the WII!!!!! This game system looks like it's gonna kick ass!!!!! And it's backward compatible with my GameCube!!!! And it's out soon!!!!! (Can you tell I'm a little excited? And I never was a gamer at all when I was young).

I don't have a lot for you this morning, but if you wait till later today I can tell you how many stormtroopers I've killed.

There is more info on the WII at WII.com, and as this is the game system that I'm most excited about I'll try and keep you informed about my obsession.

Laters

Thursday, September 14, 2006

Brick Noir........

So the other day I finally got to see "Brick". If you don't know what this is, it's a noir-ish film about High School kids, drugs and murder staring the kid out of "Third Rock From the Sun" (Joseph Gordon-Levit). I'm not ashamed to say that I loved it. It was gritty, dark and all the things I love about flicks like this. I will say this about it though. The fact that it was written in a very adult way and involved high school students had me flashing back to the movie "Bugsy Malone". If you've never seen this movie I would suggest trying to find it as a rent as it's one of the funniest movies I saw as a teenager (and that should tell you a little more about me!). "Bugsy" starred Scott Baio and Jodie Foster when they were still just little kids (for Foster, it was the same year she was in "Taxi Driver", 1976), and involved them playing out a mobster movie. The best part about that movie were the pie-shooting machine guns which made it feel very Keystone Kops at times.

So back to "Brick". Dark, dark, dark. If it was made with adults in the roles instead of the youngsters, I could forsee someone like Nick Nolte in the lead role (or Jack Nicholson from his "Chinatown" days). While "Brick" didn't spend a lot of time in the theaters (or at least not here in Ottawa), if you want to see a good, well paced and though out movie that doesn't pander to kids, I would certainly reccomend that you pay a visit to your nearest movie store and enjoy a good night.

Music wise, I don't have a lot to report today, except that I rediscovered one of my favourite hardcore/punky records again last night.... Refused's "The shape of Punk to come". It's always interesting to hear a Swedish anarchic punk/hardcore band include what sounds like techno and Brazillian funk into the mix and have it sound like it was always meant to be there. Unfortunately, Refused split after the release of this record in 1998, but some other pretty cool bands rose from it's ashes: (International) Noise Conspiracy being my favourite.

Alright ladies and gentlemen, it's about that time to get back to class and some lernding.

Wednesday, September 13, 2006

I love cheat codes.......

Yesterday was the release date for the new Lego Star Wars game. As I am poor I'm not getting it till Friday but that didn't stop me from playing through the first game in it's entirety. I love the cheat codes though. Currently I am playing with all my characters wearing moustaches that look like they are about to tie a damsel to a traintrack any second. I've been waiting for the release of the second installment for a while now as it's always been a dream (since I saw "A New Hope" in 1977) to be Han Solo with my own Wookie and I now finally have a chance to do so.

On the music side of things.............. yesterday was Mars Volta day!!! The new record is called "Amputechture" and is back to the full on "RAWK" of their first album "De-Loused in the Comatorium". I once again missed seeing them with the Chilli Peppers on tour but have hope that I'll get to see them sometime in the future.

Speaking of live music, my other "one of these days I'll get to go to a show" band Death Cab For Cutie is heading to Ottawa!!!! Ticket purchase will be Saturday and then I'll be happy. (As long as they ain't sold out)

I'll check in with you all later as I should really get back to class.

Tuesday, September 12, 2006

The first post is always the hardest.......

I think the title says it all. I've been staring at this for about 15 minutes before I started typing today. Could be because it's still only 7:30am and after two years of working evenings and overnights, the morning is still an alien concept to me.

The nice thing this morning was being able to cruise in the car listening to the new Junior Boys record: "So this is Goodbye" [KIN]. If you never heard of these guys, you are missing out. This blog is going to focus on stuff like this. Bands and groups you never heard of, making music you never knew you liked at all. That and movies and stuff that just randomly pops into my head while I'm bored at work or up too late and my eye's have turned red.

So far this year, I have been very impressed with the state of Canadian music and a lot of my favourite bands have either put out, or are about to put out, fantastic records. (Yes, I will call them records. Not CD's. I am a vinyl junkie and they will always be records.) I will attempt to give you my impressions on these and someday if you are really lucky (or not, depends on your perspective), I might take the time to sit down and learn the software and inflict my own creations on you.

Today is just the beginning and I look forward to many more of these little conversations (or rants) to come.

Have a great day Kids!

Monday, September 11, 2006

Zero Hour!!

Well, this is it. I've decided to inflict my thoughts on the world. You'll have to wait till the first real post goes up as setting this up at work isn't really condusive to putting a lot on paper. I promise to try and not use too many cliched words like Blogosphere or stuff like that though.