Recapturing my youth pt. 1

"Shout it loud and clearrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!"

Chomping at the bit.

So exam season is almost done, and my mind is already elsewhere. Somewhat Indifferent got me thinking of what shows I want/need to see this summer, and given the increasing amount of time I'm getting at CJAM hopefully I can get some spillover tickets. Bruce wants the juice. Next show is May 3, 6-8 AM- set your alarm clocks in addition to writing it in your dayplanner(1989 resets).

Date/Group/Venue/Likelihood of attending (5 high, 1 low)

May 09 - Built to Spill @ St. Andrews Hall (1)
May 13 - Gang of Four, Radio 4 @ Majestic (3)
May 14 - Doves, Mercury Rev @Majestic (4)
May 20 - Decemberists, Willy Mason @ St. Andrews (3)
May 28 - England vs. USA friendly @ Soldier Field (5)
May 29 -
May 31 N Fuse @ Hart Plaza amongst other places in Detroit (5)
(By the way, 89x are pretty gay to book their birthday bash the same weekend as the electronic music festival, talk about cockblockers)
June 03 - Low @ Magic Stick (1)
June 06 - The Dears @ Magic Stick (2)
June 08 - Autolux, Raveonettes @ Magic Stick (3)
June 09 - Caribou, Junior Boys, Russian Futurists (4)
June 26 - Xiu Xiu @ Gladstone Art Bar (2)
July 01 - Do Make Say Think @ Magic Stick (1)
July something - Pitchfork Intonation Festival (1)

Radio Singles Review

The Coral - In The Morning - Instantly a grower, this song hits on all the right notes. Steel drums are back in a big way, builds on last year's success from the Arcade Fire and Delays. A

The White Stripes - Blue Orchid - Either I've really lost interest or it sounds like Jack White co-opted a DFA79 B-side for his own use. Boring. C

Weezer - Beverly Hills - Hopefully the rest of the album doesn't head in this direction. Very awkward sound to it, Rivers doesn't exactly sound comfortable with the singalong songs. If they're going back to the Dope Nose type songs I'm jumping ship. F

Coldplay - Speed of Sound - Pretty much the same type structure as Coldplay songs you know already. Decent song, but played fairly safely, especially after Chris said X & Y would have a more electronic sound to it. You don't hear it here at all. B-

System of a Down - BYOB - Continually becoming more political with every new single, and it actually works for them in the sense that they haven't lost much airplay (yet). Get their message across without hitting you over the head incessantly with it. Afterall, it's still supposed to be music. A-

Oasis - Lyla - I've really been hot and cold with Oasis over the years, and this track falls somewhere in the middle. I've always preferred their edgier stuff ala What's the Story Morning Glory, with a more definitive hook to it. C+

Foo Fighters - Best of You - This will be a huge song this summer. Grohl follows up his strong drumming on the NIN album with another well produced single. Nothing groundbreaking, but there's a definite progression that continues from their last album that you appreciate because it sounds authentic (poorly explained but whatever.) No Everlong but those come around once in a decade. A-

Remember?

Five Word Album Reviews

Taking a page out of Coolfer's book (and mostly because I can't talk about a record for more than a sentence) here's an abbreviated review of some new albums I've been listening to.

Nine Inch Nails - With Teeth
Reznor maintains stellar track record. B+

Jose Gonzalez - Veneer
Strong songwriting, masterful spanish guitar. A-

Antony & The Johnsons - I Am A Bird Now
Inconsistent. Frivolous lyrics test patience. C

The National - Alligator
Potential. Overhype may kill quality. B

Colored Shadows - Colored Shadows (EP)
Poor producing, overcompensates for shallowness. D-

1000 visitors

A big thanks to everyone who has stopped by to check what I have to write about, it's nice to know people reading from usdoj.gov are concerned enough to read about stolen gamecubes and such. Seriously though I love writing, hopefully the move to 2000 isn't as long and arduous now that I have a massive audience of 10-20 readers a day! New York Times here I come!

David

untitled

I don't really like talking about myself on here, but right now I'm really not sure what else to do. About 20 minutes ago I came to the realization that my Gamecube, controllers, and games were all missing. Given that it couldn't have been many places, the conclusion that it had been stolen set in fairly quickly. There is no worse feeling than that of being stolen from. At least none that I have experienced. I feel so helpless that all I can do is talk about it by myself.

This situation has led to all sorts of questions in my head, hopefully they can be answered at some point. Either way this exactly the kind of thing I don't want to be have to be thinking about at this point, but there's no escaping this shit from consuming my thoughts.

The first thing to figure out is when it was stolen. In reality I hadn't played the system since coming back from spring break, and I can't recall looking at where I kept it underneath the TV in some time. The system is silver and had a yellow controller, not exactly the dullest of colours.
My schedule has been so inconsistent this semester it's tough to pinpoint giant spans of time where I hadn't been around other than spring break. More on this part in a bit.

The question then shifts to how the room was entered. There appears to be one of two possibilities here. Since I have a balcony that overlooks the backyard, it's quite possible that that door was used to get in, especially since the bathroom adjacent to my room has a window that can exit out onto the same balcony (Windsor architecture) if opened. If it happened when I think it did though chances are fairly unlikely they got in that way cause both those doors would in all probability be locked. This leads to my thinking it was my room door they/he/she came through. Normally I would've said unlikely because I lock my door everytime I'm gone for even 2 minutes. While I was gone though, and at a few other points, my landlord has shown the house to other people looking to rent it for next year. However, since they are retarded everytime they key in to my room to show it, they close the door, but FORGET TO LOCK IT.

Suspects:

Suspect #1. Girl who lives below me, or her boyfriend. Both use my bathroom upstairs. Both were here on reading week, girl knew I wasn't here. Boyfriend has never really said anything to me. Never really seen where it was kept, but would know when the landlord had been through to show the house.

Motivation to steal from me: I play music occasionally too loud at night, subwoofer is right above her bedroom. Also caught them both stealing from my toothpaste last week, responded with a note that read "This isn't Shoppers Drug Mart. Please Don't Steal My Toothpaste." Would imply GC was stolen recently which doesn't seem very likely today.

Suspect #2. Nigerian guy in basement, who is always around. Knocks on door frequently, if knocks go unanswered, tries the knob. Comes from Nigeria, land of scam artists, and really hasn't done much to disprove that line of thinking, even as shortsighted as it may be.

Motivation to steal from me: He's a hardcore Christian, didn't take it well when I explained to him Jesus was not my saviour. Potentially moving out cause I blocked him from moving upstairs with me. Landlord explained it to him in similar terms that it was me and not them who didn't want him on the 2nd floor, even though they agreed with me. Has shady friends who aren't exactly the most honest people.

Now, the real the question is where do I go from here, and is there anyway to get anything back out of this situation. Do I confront either roommate about it, because obviously they are going to deny it and it won't go anywhere, especially given the time lapse since when I think it's happened. How much worse could this possibly make the next two weeks while they're still living here?

Second is the landlords' possible involvement in the whole thing. If it can be proven (which I think there is a strong case for) that they left my door unlocked when I was back home, shouldn't they be responsible for anything stolen? They have it written into the lease that the landlord isn't responsible for anything stolen from the tenants, but if they enabled the theft to occur, how could the lease protect them against this? The reason people use locks on their door is to prevent things like this from happening, so I can't see them not being liable if I can prove what I think went down actually did happen.

I don't know at this point whether I should file a police report either, because of the amount of time that has now elapsed. But if I do, there's potential for it to be covered by insurance, even though on paper it's only about $275.

In the end, at least my parents will be happy to know I've at least been doing so much schoolwork that I didn't realize my Gamecube was gone for over a month. Plus the fact that now that it's gone I couldn't play videogames even if I wanted to.

I'm at a loss for words. I'll just say it really sucks, my faith in humanity took a huge dent today.

Signs of the Apocalypse

"I've asked other people this, what do you really make of the obsession with Brad & Jen? What is that?"

As seen on the internets

Preparing for the 2005 Haters Ball, productive... (FUH2.com)

D.A.D pt. II

Today's playlist from the show, much better but still tons of room for improvement.
Can be heard here (Starts at 38:45 in), continues over to all of here, and finally ends here (first 8 minutes, then it's some animal show).

Tracklisting.

Castaways - Liar Liar
Human Television - Saw You Walking By
The Go! Team - Huddle Formation
Arcade Fire - Intervention (KCRW session)
Great Lakes Swimmers - I Will Never See The Sun
The Ponys - Glass Conversation
Alterkicks - Do Everything I Taught You
The Libertines - Time For Heroes (Live)
The National - Abel
The Dears - Don't Lose The Faith
Beef Terminal - Red Sky Take Warning
Final Fantasy - This Is The Dream Of Win & Reg
Squeak E. Clean - Hello Tomorrow
The Aeffect - Always Artificial
Caribou - Barnowl
The Social Register - She Knows
David Usher - Numb
Phoenix - Run Run Run
Be Your Own Pet - Damn Damn Leash
BC Camplight - Blood And Peanut Butter
Dizzee Rascal - Fix Up, Look Sharp

Follow the links

1. Ads (3, first clue) on Coolfer for a stolen Audi A3.
2. Clicking through to the website you see a similar notice, while they slowly introduce features about the car.
3. Following the similar notice on the Audi site, you get a pop-up microsite (notice how they don't want to take you away from the features of the car.
4. Microsite reveals more pictures (no license plate of course) and provides nonsense like apparent video of the security footage of the car being stolen. Bottom of the page reveals further website and the tease "Please note: this is an ongoing INTERNAL investigation by Audi of America."
5. The Stolen A3 website takes the shape of some guy named Todd's blog, although for someone looking to recover a stolen vehicle you'd think they'd have enabled comments. His posts lead to a different site.
6. Doing a domain name lookup on both those sites would reveal they are curiously both registered to GMD Studios of Winter Park, FL.
7. GMD Studios is an online content producer/PR firm.

As many people no doubt have figured out that the whole thing is a giant viral marketing campaign. Unfortunately once these types of deceptive ads are found out they tend to do more harm than good for the companies they attempt to hype up.

Ultimately the real tipoff should be that the Audi A3 is such a horrifically ugly car that a) the only way people will ever look at it is through lame campaigns such as this one, and b) if anyone had the misfortune of purchasing a monstrosity of a vehicle like the A3 surely they would rather collect the insurance money than have a picture of it and the poor purchase it implies being advertised all over the place. Sad.

'GOD BLESS THE NRA'

A quote to start your week on the right note:

"DeLay also praised a NRA initiative to put instructors in every major U.S. city to teach woman how to use guns. "If you want to empower women in America, give 'em a gun," he said. "

The Thrill of Observation

So while everyone's all about Google Maps these days but the software that powers it, Keyhole is much more fun to play with. It has been some time since I found a way to crash my computer, but sure enough this was so compelling to me I managed to get the blue screen of death within 2 minutes of zooming in way too fast.

It strikes me that this level of invasiveness that can pretty much be used by anyone is eventually going to lead to severe privacy issues. Right now Google is only updating the pictures every 18-24 months, but once bandwidth and storage issues become less of an issue look out. This satellite can already zoom in to an altitude of 1 foot in some places!

The fact that this is what consumers have to play around with also makes you wonder about what kind of stuff the government has at their disposal. Not to sound too conspiracy theorish or anything, but just imagine the potential for this kind of technology.

Keyhole Pro has a 7-day trial period, check it out. In the meantime, here are some local sights to see from space. If you actually want something more substantial, check this site (Skydome preservation society!)

The Detroit-Windsor tunnel, as seen from space

Just imagine what happens once perverts get their hands on this kind of technology - peeping Toms from space!

Check the the big building at University and Sunset

The Paul Martin Law Library, University of Windsor

Deer in the Headlights

There's nothing worse than finding pictures of yourself on the internet that you didn't take. The main reason for this is that they always have you with the stupidest look on your face. Relative to some of the other atrocities I've pulled this one isn't so bad so I thought I'd share.

SWEPT Presents Pre-Exam Meltdown

SWEPT had our second party of the semester last night at the Pub, and after a fairly slowed start to the evening I must say things turned out fairly well. Not as many people as the last one but the pub isn't exactly the easiest place to throw a jam outside of pub night itself. Overall everyone had a good time and the people at Harmony in Action will hopefully put the money raised to good use helping people in the community.

Special thanks to many of the groups who came out to support us, including FAIR, International Students Society, Social Science Society, V.I.S.A., Caricom, and African Union.

(Click on the pictures below to see larger images)

Logo in Training

G Dubb running the decks, Paul on the mic - the perfect formula for getting a jam started

Don't mess with these people...you don't want to see what they'll do if you step up with outside food or drink.

Facial Hair 101 - Advantages of shaving infrequently

Droppin it like it's lukewarm

Power Players

Paul - feeling the music apparently

Nice to know someone still represents the trucker hat era... 'Von Dutch Preservationist Society"

Kobe on the prowl looking for new victims

The reaction to that last comment

For when you're just a little too off balance to take a proper picture... even a few white people showed up trying to prove some amongst us think they can dance.

Preparing the gang colours just in case anyone from East Windsor thought of showing up

G Dubb and a headless Paul

Do Everything I Taught You

Windsor has a lot of really good restaurants, and I love that I get to eat at them on the University's dime - higher education at its finest!

Stopped by the Jammies to revel in the crappyness of my show in front of all the folks who actually put on good shows. Surprised to see way more people there that I actually knew. In the end we went to Chaney's for a while, had such a good time there we ended just missing Junior Boys (widely reported though they were drunk and sloppy anyways.)

All in all a very good night. If I wasn't doing my own party tonight I would definitely make it to the one Mike and John (pictured) are throwing on Mill.

Synopsis

Tons of dead air.

ID carts played in the wrong order.

Not enough Cancon.

Barely went on the mic.

Repeated songs.

Didn't give out call-in numbers (Propers to the Detroit people who called in anyways despite this- if I ever have to do the hiphop show again I'll be more prepared.)

Didn't use on-air library to fullest extent.

Bad mixes.

I'm deflated, we'll see how it feels tomorrow once I've actually heard it all.

Come support a good cause, cheap drinks and women just waiting to prove to you how good they look in warm weather!

The End is Near

Here are some really ugly ones which I designed in Photoshop using the fill button- professional artist I am not.

Customization to the Nth level

The favorite site of MitM, Josh Rubin has a piece on Puma's Mongolian Shoe BBQ project, where you basically design your own pair and they build it for you. At $130 it isn't cheap but it certainly is an interesting concept.

My Pope Will Go On

Reading the fairly standard article reflecting various world leaders' thoughts on the pope's legacy and it just makes you wonder who compiles these things. After quoting about 20 heads of state, we hear from the person everyone is waiting for a comment on the papalcy: Celine Dion.

"He was the Pope of the reconciliation and unity among the countries." Nice to know even Reuters has a soft spot for a Vegas lounge singer's broken English. Hopefully 'the countries' can continue to reconcile, and bond further by listening to You And I Were Meant To Fly. Lovely.

The Soundtrack of My Life

Hottest: Bloc Party

Awesome show, really good energy, except most of my pictures sucked. They played a brand new song not on Silent Alarm. Openers The Ponys and Golden Dogs were pretty good too from what I'd heard which wasn't much but throroughly enjoyable through and through. Radio show debuts on Thursday, 10-12, Junior Boys Friday, SWEPT's Pre-Exam Meltdown Saturday at the Thirsty Scholar. Plus school of course...

Fridays

Some days just don't go as planned. I was working on a fairly lengthy post (by this blog's standards at least) when the power went out in my house, ruining the entry and my enthusiasm to rewrite it in detail all over.

I tried to take a picture of this white trash old man who lives in the house next to mine as he picked up dog shit (it would be funnier if it could be visualized) but the dogs spotted me on the balcony trying to find a good shot and started barking like crazy. Alas, old man will have to be seen on another day.

A few new sites I've been checking out lately:

Scenestars

My Old Kentucky Blog

Rock Snob

There were more but that's good enough for now. Bloc Party tonight? Developing...