Black Eyed Peas

Not quite peas, but close enough?

So, from what I gather, the general consensus is that the Black Eyed Peas sucked at the Super Bowl this year (along with Christina Aguilera). But let's get real here, I probably could have told you that. I've never been a fan of the Black Eyed Peas, and found them more of an annoyance than a good source of entertainment. Granted, 'I Gotta Feeling,' is a damn good pump-up song, and they have a few other catchy ones (most notably NOT Boom Boom Pow), but really, I've never been a big fan. But after seeing their performance on Sunday, I was reminded of one of their old, old songs, and man was I cheered up when I gave it another listen.

So here it is, my message to the Black Eyed Peas and all their fans: Ya'll are kinda annoying, and there's not really anything unique about you. (However, I did enjoy your dancers at the Super Bowl)

Now here is their only song that I actually genuinely like, from back when those other two guys (you know, not Fergie or Will.I.Am... yeah, the guys only that really die-hard fan and that pretentious guy who thinks he's better than you because of his knowledge about these kinds of facts can name.. THOSE guys) were actually a part of their image. I'm not saying it's awesome, I'm just saying it's better than their other stuff, and I like it... so here goes:

Where is the Love, Black Eyed Peas

 
(Again, I can't figure out formatting, hence the awkward look at the top. Oops!)

Did you know...

Not seen: stuffing tissues in your ears doesn't count.

...That many smart and cool people wear earplugs to clubs?

Thanks Psych100, for teaching me many interesting and important life lessons. I appreciate your subtlety.

 

Also, a cat's main function is to be cuddled, and cats' moving under bedsheets is a good metaphor for how your inner ear works. 

Happy Superbowl Sunday! For all you Green Bay fans out there, party hard tonight. (Why yes, I did google that just now.) For us less sport-enthused people, Glee's starting again tonight! So really, it's win-win for everyone.

I'd forgotten about this song until recently. I'd also forgotten how much I like John Mayer's music. Huh.

Who Says, by John Mayer

Experimental Films

This week in my film studies class, we covered experimental film.

It was even more painful that it sounds.

We watched four experimental films, and another one in tutorial later in the week. WOW. I'm all for expressing yourself, and I even kind of enjoyed the first one (in a "I'd like this in the background at an event, but not necessarily, go out of my way to see it" kind of way) but I dunno, for some reason, these kind of films ooze such an air of pretentiousness, I have trouble taking them seriously. Anyways, that's my very very condensed opinion of them. Call me uncultured, but I'm just sayin'....
Here are the ones we watch if you're interested in checking them out:
1. Ballet Mecanique
2. Un Chien Andalou
3. Meshes of the Afternoon (this one actually really creeped me out for some reason)
4. Watching for the Queen -it was basically impossible to find even a clip of this one, but basically it's a 2 second clip of a crowd, well, watching for the queen. These two seconds are repeated and dragged out over 11 minutes. I'm sure you can pretty much imagine how exciting it was.
5. The Phonebook (Couldn't find anything for this one either. But, it was done in Vancouver and actually have narration. WOW.)


Well that was basically a waste of space. My bad.
Ambling Alp, by Yeasayer (I can't embed the video, but check it out. It's some freaky stuff)


Fin.

Ah-coo

Picture unrelated, but still funny.

So you know what's awkward (at least for me)?

When you're with another person, and it's just the two of you, and they sneeze.

Now this doesn't seem like it'd  be a big deal, but I find this to be one of the most awkward everyday situations I find myself in. Why? Well, there's always that awkward pause after a sneeze where you're expected to say "Bless you." Usually, it's said, they either apologize or say thanks, and you both move on with your unawkward lives.

Cover thy mouth when thee sneezes, fool.

For some reason, I can rarely bring myself to fill the after-sneeze pause with a "Bless you." I know that, historically, it was said in hopes that, ya know, your soul didn't leave your body with the sneeze, but nowadays, if I say it, I picture myself looking something like the guy on the right.

I don't know why this is, because I don't feel weird when other people say it, but I just don't like saying it myself.

Ah, the awkward life of me. So don't feel bad if I seemingly ignore the fact that you just sneezed all over the desk beside me, believe me... I noticed. I'm not being rude, just awkward. We can move on and pretend it never happened. Right? Perfect.
(Also, cover it with something other than your hand, it creeps me out when you attempt to catch your sneeze like that)

Anyways, that's my daily dose of neurotic-ism (is that even applicable in this sense?) for you. Pleasant, right? Here's a song to take the uneasy edge off:

Strawberry, by Adrian Lux


See, the good thing about Facebook is that when people post music on their friends walls, you inadvertently gain access to it as well! Not creepy, right?

Double duty

Wow! Two consecutive posts. Weird. Just wanted to point out, this is how I spend a good portion of my day:

1) Ripping music off YouTube (with that handy link I shared before): about an hour or so.

2) Looking a delicious food, wishing I had a kitchen/any cooking skills other than "boiling water," "making pasta," and "making the best grilled cheese you will ever taste," on foodgawker.com. : More time than I'd like to admit.

3) On a not interesting but related note, studying sociology in the library: four and a half hours.

I KNOW. The exciting life of me. While #2 does make me look like a huge fatty, I will gladly embrace the term if it means I can enjoy that website in peace. (Clearly, res food is getting to me)

See? Yum.

And Yummier.

On a less sad note, I added about 40 new songs to my iTunes today, yay! Here are a few I particularly enjoy:

1) Don't Haunt This Place, by The Rural Alberta Advantage

2) Nothing Like You, by Frightened Rabbit

3) The Great Salt Lake, by Band of Horses

I actually got quite a few songs from each of these bands today. You should probably check them out.

My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy

Bad-ass Pumpkin: Check.

Alright, so I'm a little late on this post (like, 2 months too late? Ah well.), but I just want to put it out there: Kanye West, despite sending out a constant vibe of douchey-ness, makes damn good music. His new (as of November) album, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, is awesome. Seriously, if you haven't heard it yet, you're probably under an even bigger rock than I am.

Not only does this have a ridiculous number of famous musicians (my favorites: Bon Iver and Nicki Minaj. Yeah.) making appearances in various tracks, this is probably the best playlist for running, like, ever. Seriously. I don't ever like exercise, but running to this album is great. Read more about it, courtesy of my good friend Wikipedia, here. And for good measure, for those of you who want just the straight facts, here's the tracklist (in picture form, because the formatting is being stupid and dumb):

Wow.

Listen to that and tell me it's not awesome. I dare you. 

Check out Nicki Minaj's verse on Monster here. I'm not fully on the "we love Nicki Minaj" wagon at all really, but yeah... she kills this verse.

And my favorite track from the album:

Lost in the World, Kanye West

[Insert mandatory Kanye discussion "Imma let you finish" joke here]

Oscar Nominations

Hold on to your hats folks (Hehe, see what I did there? With the picture? No.. just me?.. okay..), because the Oscar nominations are out! The Oscars are always fun to watch, and this year shouldn't be anything less than awesome (hello, James Franco hosting? Yes please).

The nominations can be found here.

I'd just like to point out that The King's Speech swept. Twelve nominations? That's impressive, no matter how trivial you think the Oscar's are. 127 Hours, probably my favorite movie that I've seen in a while, also did pretty well, with six nominations. Other then that, I'm excited to see which movie wins Best Picture, because I've seen 6 of the 10 nominees, and was nothing less than impressed with each and every one of them. (I kinda hope that, while it probably won't win Best Picture, The Social Network wins something. It really good.)

Anyways, I'm not claiming to be an expert or anything on these kinds of award shows. I watch them for the entertainment value, and not much more. So on February 27th, I intend to be watching Anne Hathaway and James Franco host the 83rd Academy Awards, in the most superficial way I can manage. I'll probably be kept company by a few friends and a big ol' bowl of popcorn as well. It's going to be awesome.

My friend showed me this girl on YouTube, and I absolutely love her cover of Skinny Love by Bon Iver. Check it out:


P.S. If you really like movies, don't forget to check out my 'movies of 2011' page on the right!

Nighttime

Alright, so basically tonight we're one night away from a full moon and it's finally cleared up outside. Because I'm a big nerd, and I don't like doing homework, I walked down to Cadboro bay, fisheye and tripod in hand, and took a few long exposure shots. I've always liked doing long exposures (all but maybe one here are 30 second exposures)... especially if they work out. I'm pretty pleased with these ones tonight, which is good, because I just about froze my fingers off in the process. Some of them are a little messy, or the focus is a little off, but that's just me, unable to feel my fingers, sometimes forgetting exactly how wide the angle of my lens is, and my crooked tripod. Anyways, hope you enjoy at least a few of these! :)

 

Scariest. Octo-slide. Ever. EVER.

Hey it's me!

Lov..e?

Close-up of the tide

Low tide.

Keep in mind that all these pictures were taken at around 11:30 at night, and I am very tired writing this. Sorry about any non-nonsensical things written above :)
Now that you've enjoyed calming pictures (minus the scary slide), listen to this sweet sweet song and feel even better about life.

Blindsided, by Bon Iver




Then, check out another one of Bon-bon's (as my cousin and brother like to call him) song, one of my favorites: Skinny Love.