guttervomit

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The Vines: Winning Days

22 Mar 2004

Everyone said they were the next Nirvana, but really, the three-piece band led by Craig Nicholls is neither Nirvana nor that other band they’re always compared to, the Beatles. They’re somewhere in the massive alt-rock space in between, and their new album “Winning Days” kicks around in various directions because of all the extra legroom.

I’ve been listening to it for the past three days and haven’t enjoyed another album quite as much since Belle & Sebastian’s Dear Catastrophe Waitress. Most of you have probably already heard the first single off the album, “Ride”; it’s got a neat little hook that had me tapping my fingers to it throughout most of the day the first time I heard it.

“TV Pro” and “Evil Town” were also pretty good, but the standout tracks were the titular “Winning Days” and “Rainfall.” “Winning Days” is one of those feel-good tracks that you don’t mind listening to over and over again. Nicholls sings “Get up and go outside/It can help your mind too/Get up don’t hide away,” an anthem for the world-weary if I’ve ever heard one. The last 45 seconds makes you want to stick your head out of a moving car and howl.

… well, that’s sort of a gross exaggeration right there, but you get the idea.

My favorite Vines track has always been “Homesick” from their debut album, but “Winning” is a very close second. Nicholls explains their musical tastes thusly: “Nothing turns me on like rock music does. What’s really important to me is that our music is about escape. It’s controlled and it’s not controlled, and it’s got to be that half and half.”

I think what I love most about the Vines sound is that when you listen to their songs, it always feels like they’re going nuts onstage, playing their hearts out. It’s the same reason I love that husband-and-wife duo, Mates of State. They love what they’re doing and you can hear it in their music.

——

This is unrelated, but WinAmp just transitioned randomly to Quicksand’s cover of The Smiths’ “How Soon is Now.” I love Quicksand, and Rival Schools. I love the Smiths too. This is a good song.

Posted in Music | 1 Comment »
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RSS and oral lights

22 Mar 2004
- RSS + Bittorrent = the ultimate filesharing tool? According to the Wired writeup, the technology works by syndicating RSS feeds, but instead of parsing headlines, you’re downloading media. I like the idea of waking up in the morning to find “the latest recordings from my favorite band loaded into my portable MP3 player,” that sounds really convenient. You can check out Andrew Grumet’s installation instructions too.
- Party Mouth! Try to imagine having oral sex with one of these. (spotted by moonchild)
Posted in Randomness | No Comments »
0

One in Five

21 Mar 2004

An estimated one in five adults - 44 million Americans - suffers from a mental disorder, according to the National Institute of Mental Health.

(from this article about Dr. Phil, pointed out to me by nyx)

Now it seems to me that the only reason this statistic rings true is because Americans have gone to such great lengths to categorize and analyze every possible type of mental condition, to the point of being ridiculously overachieving. With names like “bipolar II disorder” (manic depression), the obvious question would be, is there a “bipolar IIb” (slightly-less manic, but still as depressed)? Is this statistic the result of seeing insanity where there is simply individuality, or are 20% of all americans just plain nuts?

———

In other news, this guy just proposed to this girl online, and it looks like she’s accepted. This just proves my theory that the internet is the most frightening thing man has ever created.

Posted in Randomness | No Comments »
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Blogaround #3

21 Mar 2004

MaddogMedic is an interesting journal detailing one paramedic’s daily adventures. This is probably pretty obvious, but driving an ambulance for a living practically guarantees that you never have a lack of things to write about on your blog. Indeed, Maddog’s average daily entry consists of infants going into seizures, women breaking their ankles and DUI-related car accidents.

J had an excellent opportunity to display her driving skill on our first call. [...] BANG! we’re out like a shot! I’m in the front seat and the address is buried in the apartment complex. The ambulance is swerving and flying and my job is to get into the mapbook and figure out how the hell we get there. At first, I think, “How the hell am I going to do this?” This lasted for about 15 seconds until I slipped into “underway mode.” I have plotted out complicated navigational courses and fixed out position on a detailed NOAA chart, under a dim red light while riding in a small boat in 4-5 foot seas in a storm. Finding a house on a map in an ambulance is not much different.

I suppose what makes this blog even more interesting is that Maddog himself is relatively new to all of this, having just “started school in January, 2003″ (he seems to find great amusement in being a 31 year old freshman). In a way, it makes you feel like you’re experiencing all of this with him, with the same amount of honest enthusiasm and appreciation for detail that only newbies and greenhorns ever really have.

I got my turnout gear today! It’s all shiny and new. I have a blue helmet. That’s the designator for EMS only. I’m sure I’ll look funny and get lots of snide remarks from the firefighters at the Firehouse. [...] I also got my Personal Accountability Tag. It’s a little ID with my picture on it and a clip. I feel like I’ve been inducted into a club!

MaddogMedic is well-written, simple and utterly engrossing for a blog I’d never heard of until a few hours ago. It’s detailed without being clinical — the sort of writing that never lets you forget there’s a very human person behind it all, just like you.

All of a sudden, all these kids, these annoying, drunk, well-fed obnoxious kids are so precious to me. I suddenly cherish every single person I see. The feeling stays with me. It’s still with me 12 hours later. On the ride back to the firehouse, I can see the pulse in H’s neck as she turns to talk to [our friends] in the front. Keep beating, heart, keep beating.

Posted in Randomness | No Comments »
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Ethan got voted out :(

21 Mar 2004

Boy, do I hate Lex.

How brutal is that. Ethan made it halfway through, only to be voted out because Jerry can’t shoot for shit. Jerry, for God’s sake! Ethan looked like a little kid when Lex was telling him that he was next.

I still want to be out there playing the game. It hurts. I’d do anything to be back out there. I don’t want this game to end; I love the game. [...] I still played it my way: I didn’t lie; I didn’t cheat. I’m going home with my dignity and self-respect, and that I’m happy about.(from the official CBS site)

I’m glad that Ethan took it like a man though, instead of whining like Rob C.

Now that both Hatch and Ethan are gone, there’s no point in my watching this show, except maybe to see Lex and Boston Rob get voted off. It’ll be a fucking travesty if either of these two assholes win, I can tell you that.

Posted in TV | No Comments »
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Sex Theme Parks, Roadmaps and Extinction

20 Mar 2004
- It finally happened folks. The world’s first sex theme park (via boingboing).
- The Roadmap to Your Heart (via kottke).
- Declines in bird, butterfly and plant populations may indicate that we are in the middle of the sixth great mass extinction. Well, that’s just wonderful. I wonder if Emmerich and Devlin will make a movie out of this one too.
- A Woody Allen short story called “The Whore of MENSA” (pointed out to me by feanne).
Posted in Randomness | No Comments »
2

A Big Tree, and other pictures

19 Mar 2004

I’m not sure why I’ve been taking so many pictures recently … maybe being on campus during the last couple of the days of the semester has gotten me all nostalgic. I spent the late afternoon on Friday just sitting with Nyx on one of the big Stone-Henge-esque benches at the CMC, eating cheap ice cream and counting the jeepneys.

(As always, click on the thumbnails to see the full-sized, uncropped versions.)

Posted in Photography | 2 Comments »
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Phones, Vines and Avril

18 Mar 2004
- Nokia 7610 includes a 1 Megapixel camera and a LifeBlog application that allows you to organize photos and text into a multimedia diary. If I’m converting this right, 500 euros should be just under Php35,000, so it’ll be just slightly less expensive than the Ericsson P900 when it’s released here. The number-pad looks quaintly difficult to use, as usual. (via mr. ellis)
- And on the other side of the great cellphone rivalry, Sony-Ericsson is releasing the S700 which has a rather interesting swivel design. I’m not sure how quickly you can twist it if you really need to make a call.
- “Hilary Duff’s such a goody-goody, such a mommy’s girl,” says bad-girl punk rebel Avril Lavigne.
- The new Vines album is out. I’ve been listening to it for the past day, and “Winning Days” is a fantastic track. I should have a more in-depth review by the weekend.
Posted in Randomness | No Comments »
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Blogaround#2

18 Mar 2004

Blondee is a startlingly sincere recounting of its author’s experiences with cosmetic surgery, dieting, working out, and all the effects these things have on her everyday life. One of her first entries talks about her recent liposuction, which appears to be one of a couple of operations she’s had over the years.

When I awoke [after the operation], I was on the same table I’d been operated on - they wheeled me [...] to the recovery room, and set up that wonderful warming blanket. In addition, they left the I.V. in [...] and rehydrated me with two entire liter-bags of solution for the next couple hours. And an automatic blood pressure band on my arm inflated and checked me every 15 minutes or so, and a thumb clamp kept tabs on my pulse - a tiny beep for every heart beep and a whole readout on a monitor next to my bed.

She talks about everything in vivid detail, and I actually found it a bit disconcerting when she picks apart an intimate moment with her fiancee, as if I had overheard a conversation I shouldn’t have. But I suppose that that’s the reason why she chose to be completely anonymous:

you know how it is when people you know read your entries? you lose all real confession ability and write tailored with them in mind [...] I need some confessional catharsis, my real thoughts and emotions

I thought this was an interesting way to put it, because although I agree with her in principle, I also know that this level of honesty isn’t something you can really keep up. As time passes, you start getting used to the regular batch of random strangers that visit your site and pretty soon, you’re back to where you started, writing stuff that adheres to their tastes and interests.

I think the truth about the internet is that it’s proof that no one is ever really alone. If you’re online, someone else knows who you are, and someone else listens to what you have to say. Even being anonymous, or writing simply for your own amusement, can’t prevent that.

But I do wish her luck though.

Posted in Randomness | No Comments »
2

The Butterfly Effect

17 Mar 2004

Watched Ashton Kutcher’s big movie tonight with the guys. I have mixed reactions to the whole thing, so this may ramble on a bit more than I intend it to.

The Butterfly Effect reminded me quite a bit of Run Lola Run (or Lola Rennt, as the Germans know it) in that it was really about fate, and how every little decision we make has the potential to change our lives. The first 5 seconds of the movie has a quote to this effect, a pretty well-known excerpt from Chaos Theory, stating that the fluttering of butterfly’s wings can generate a hurricane hundreds of miles away (you know the one).

Our hapless hero Kelso has weird holes in his memory, most of them rather conveniently blotting out the most pivotal moments of his life. He discovers that by remembering these moments, he is able to throw himself backwards in time and change things. When he wakes up, his whole life has been affected by this one alteration, and he gets a pretty nasty nosebleed from his mind bringing him up to speed with all the changes that have come about because of it.

The basic plot is nothing original, we’ve seen this in the aforementioned Run Lola Run, Terry Gilliam’s 12 Monkeys, the Christopher Reeves classic One Moment in Time, etc., and you can see that the movie goes to great lengths to try to mark out new territory for itself. For one thing, it spends a lot of time talking about the 8-year-old Kelso, who is incidentally one of the worst child actors I’ve ever seen. (He’s better than Jake Lloyd though.)

Every time Kelso tries to save himself, or his girlfriend Kayleigh, or his friends Lenny and Tommy, he ends up making things worse than before. Finally he figures out The Only Way to save everyone. He writes out a short note, saying (to the effect of) “If anyone finds this, that means my plan didn’t work, and I will already be dead.” I’m not sure what in the world he was going to die from though … he had some lesions in his brain, so I guess he was expecting to drop dead at any moment.

Anyway, he goes back in time once more, just long enough to make sure he and Kayleigh never see each other again. I thought this little twist was a major tease, but on retrospect, it’s where the movie made its biggest impact on the crowd.

There are a bunch of really hokey sequences that this film could’ve really done without. Turning Tommy into a vest-wearing jesus freak was utterly ridiculous, and having Kayleigh justify it by saying “You know how religious Tommy has become since he saved Mrs. so-and-so” just magnified the absurdity of it even more.

When Kelso goes back in time and impales his hands (in the elementary school), he wakes up still in prison, completely unaffected by the event. Did anyone else think it was weird that fucking himself up like that had utterly no effect on anything (except to give him those oh-so-necessary scars)? What happened to the butterfly … oh, never mind.

Also, I probably just wasn’t paying attention, but did they ever explain why young Kelso drew that bloody picture? Or was that just a plot device to get the story going?

Now I know that up till this moment, I’ve been pretty critical of this film, but there were scenes every now and then that I thought were well-done. I liked the establishing shot of the two kids riding a bike down an empty street. And I liked Kelso’s comic-relief goth friend, who is always either doing drugs or getting laid.

Finally, I liked the last minute of the film: it shows a late-20’s Kelso, now a successful yuppie walking down a busy street. He brushes past Kayleigh, who is also a yuppie and also successful and they both stop. They turn around slowly as if recognizing each other, then turn back and start walking away.

That scene said, “it just wasn’t meant to be,” and I was pretty impressed that they didn’t end it instead with a shot of Kelso turning to run after Kayleigh. It showed a lot of restraint and class on the part of the writers, by not pandering to the audience with a pseudo-happy ending. I just wish they had been able to exercise a bit more of that type of thinking throughout the rest of the movie.

Posted in Movies | 2 Comments »