I Am Not Afraid Of You, And I Will Beat Your Ass.
1 We saw Grindhouse last night. Cool, but not Soopa-Cool, so I was a little disappointed. There wasn't much to Planet Terror - it was a fine little 80s-style zombie movie and the effects were better than any zombie movie I can think of. But that's all it was - it didn't try to use any of the conventions of the zombie genre, or of exploitation cinema, to be something more interesting (like Romero, or Tarantino, or Hitchcock.) Death Proof was a lot more interesting than Planet Terror, but it still fell well short of Pulp Fiction or Kill Bill. Nice car chases. Big problemo - Eli Roth is one of the actors. Edgar Wright had the best trailer - Don't!!!
2 This week, I sent $$$ home for the first time since I returned to Korea, so I'm pretty happy. My credit card bill will be paid off by next month, and I'll start saving $$$ by July.
3 Saturday - Yo La Tengo. Listen to it.
4 We have a short week this week. Thursday is Buddha's birthday. It's a big holiday, and the school is closed on Friday as well. Unfortunately, I'm working Saturday mornings this month, so I don't get a four day holiday. But the class is a good one - advanced hot topics. I have 10 adults, all very accomplished speakers, and we just talk about stuff for 3 hours, from 10 until 1pm.
5 The Story Of Yo La Tengo. Lots of great music was released last year, and I couldn't download or buy any of it. I'm too computer-illiterate to bypass firewalls while I lived in Toronto, so I couldn't download anything. My parents live in a small town near Toronto, so while I stayed with them waiting for all my medical tests, and waiting to go to Korea, there were no stores where I could buy good music. Zellers doesn't carry too much Tom Waits, or Sonic Youth, or Yo La Tengo. SY and YLT released some of their best music last year, so it's good to be back in a country where downloading is simple, even for the dim-witted.
6 Speaking of great music - I purchased my first tunes from iTunes this week. There is a Canadian band called People for Audio. They were featured about a year ago on the CBC Radio 3 Podcast - a great tune called Sidewalks and Skylines. Post-rock cityscape jams. I couldn't find the album anywhere for download, and I couldn't find it in Toronto last summer. The album is called And This Will Be Our Homecoming, and when it finally appeared on iTunes, I bought it. It's too fucking cool. PfA have had their new album streaming on their website for a while. They are "Haussenfuss-approved" and are Officially My Favourite New Band.
7 Feist has a new CD as well. The Reminder is pretty good. Two of my favourite Feist tunes are The Eastern Shore and Intuition - demos that have been floating around for a few years. She's reworked both of them, and they are the best songs on the new album. Groovy.
8 Invader Zim - I downloaded as much Zim as I could find the last time I was in Korea, but could only find about 20 episodes. I had no trouble finding all the Zims in a single download. It's a lot easier downloading now, compared to 2 years ago. Even really esoteric stuff, like Tetsuo The Iron Man (quite good), or August Underground (equally quite bad) are easy to find and download. All hail Great Cthulhu for making this possible.
9 Speaking of which. Cthulhu still lives in my washing machine, and he called me a few minutes ago. Strangely, Cthulhu's voice sounds like an inconspicuous 'beep beep beep'. Strangely, indeed.
bye.
1 We saw Grindhouse last night. Cool, but not Soopa-Cool, so I was a little disappointed. There wasn't much to Planet Terror - it was a fine little 80s-style zombie movie and the effects were better than any zombie movie I can think of. But that's all it was - it didn't try to use any of the conventions of the zombie genre, or of exploitation cinema, to be something more interesting (like Romero, or Tarantino, or Hitchcock.) Death Proof was a lot more interesting than Planet Terror, but it still fell well short of Pulp Fiction or Kill Bill. Nice car chases. Big problemo - Eli Roth is one of the actors. Edgar Wright had the best trailer - Don't!!!
2 This week, I sent $$$ home for the first time since I returned to Korea, so I'm pretty happy. My credit card bill will be paid off by next month, and I'll start saving $$$ by July.
3 Saturday - Yo La Tengo. Listen to it.
4 We have a short week this week. Thursday is Buddha's birthday. It's a big holiday, and the school is closed on Friday as well. Unfortunately, I'm working Saturday mornings this month, so I don't get a four day holiday. But the class is a good one - advanced hot topics. I have 10 adults, all very accomplished speakers, and we just talk about stuff for 3 hours, from 10 until 1pm.
5 The Story Of Yo La Tengo. Lots of great music was released last year, and I couldn't download or buy any of it. I'm too computer-illiterate to bypass firewalls while I lived in Toronto, so I couldn't download anything. My parents live in a small town near Toronto, so while I stayed with them waiting for all my medical tests, and waiting to go to Korea, there were no stores where I could buy good music. Zellers doesn't carry too much Tom Waits, or Sonic Youth, or Yo La Tengo. SY and YLT released some of their best music last year, so it's good to be back in a country where downloading is simple, even for the dim-witted.
6 Speaking of great music - I purchased my first tunes from iTunes this week. There is a Canadian band called People for Audio. They were featured about a year ago on the CBC Radio 3 Podcast - a great tune called Sidewalks and Skylines. Post-rock cityscape jams. I couldn't find the album anywhere for download, and I couldn't find it in Toronto last summer. The album is called And This Will Be Our Homecoming, and when it finally appeared on iTunes, I bought it. It's too fucking cool. PfA have had their new album streaming on their website for a while. They are "Haussenfuss-approved" and are Officially My Favourite New Band.
7 Feist has a new CD as well. The Reminder is pretty good. Two of my favourite Feist tunes are The Eastern Shore and Intuition - demos that have been floating around for a few years. She's reworked both of them, and they are the best songs on the new album. Groovy.
8 Invader Zim - I downloaded as much Zim as I could find the last time I was in Korea, but could only find about 20 episodes. I had no trouble finding all the Zims in a single download. It's a lot easier downloading now, compared to 2 years ago. Even really esoteric stuff, like Tetsuo The Iron Man (quite good), or August Underground (equally quite bad) are easy to find and download. All hail Great Cthulhu for making this possible.
9 Speaking of which. Cthulhu still lives in my washing machine, and he called me a few minutes ago. Strangely, Cthulhu's voice sounds like an inconspicuous 'beep beep beep'. Strangely, indeed.
bye.