Life Bites (snack-size)

I was always the type of blog writer that was against the idea of posting my day-to-day routine for the world to see, just because I sustain a personal belief that assuming the world wide public space of the Internet would be interested in such pedestrian happenings is pretty vain; not to mention that I know my life is so retardedly routine, I'd end up copy/pasting entries anyway.

[Wussy disclaimer: Again, that's just my belief. It's ironic (I think) that I do read the blogs of friends who do exactly what I just disparaged].

Thus, the following mini rants will only be posted just this once (until, you know the outcome...comes out). For your convenience, much detail and useless tidbits have been cut off from the body of text, much like the crusts of toasted sandwiches your mothers so lovingly chopped off for your benefit.

1. The wayward wife

To be fair, she's not exactly wayward, she's just my aunt. Long story short, she married the wrong dude and now she wants out, and fast. What she fails to recognize is that the door to that particular pathway slammed shut about a good couple years ago. Saddled with two kids (who are adorable, yet are obviously experiencing the backlashes of an unhappy household) and a useless sack of meat who is currently having love affairs with upper pills and alcohol (two mistresses that shouldn't be mixed together, so some of us in the family wishes he might slip up and do just that), she's feeling appropriately stressed and very, very sorry for herself.

The second bit is inappropriate and just about enough to drive me, someone at least two decades younger than this particular adult, into a frustrated rage. It's disconcerting to hear about a 40 year-old acting like next door's 3 year-old brat--tears, snot and all.

I had once thought that becoming an adult meant that you would, I don't know, act like one. It's bad enough that, through my daily encounters with strangers (I caffeinate the masses), I know only a depressingly small minority of our population achieved this coveted status, it's worse that this deficiency might be genetic.

They say eugenics is a pseudo-science, but now I'm betting all I've got on that claim.

This isn't a very happy, sunshiney blog, so I might as well end this here for tonight. It's getting effing long, anyhow.

Revving the brain for some motivation

It's been a good couple weeks since I've last blogged, and a good month or so since I've really laid down anything worthwhile to read (I mean, stuff besides my personal outbursts of love and affection to certain individuals). Something about aging kind of grabs my usual blog topics by the arms and pulls them into a complicated looking headlock until they give and leave, defeated and with their heads sore by my annually rising numerical value.

Or something like that. This is good news because my usual blog topics were kind of really stupid, but without them, there's no meat to pack this burger.

I'll stop with the metaphors. It's summer (vacation), even though the weather has dipped back down to a coolness reminiscent to the knees of our changing seasons (assuming that spring is the head), aaand...I'm doing it again.

Alright, so I don't have much to blog about except that it's summer and I'm enjoying my brief moment of relatively free time (my work schedule is pretty sparse) until I throw myself into summer school and interships (that last one is just a possibility, people don't like to return my phone calls or something).

Oh, but I must announce to the world (or the small parts of it that stumbles by this blog and actually reads it) that a good friend of mine is going to be playing a live set this Thursday. He's a sexy man with fiery fingers and a hot, hot heart. ...That's a bit over the top, but my man Hiu plays a mean acoustic guitar set and his lyrics tug, pull and become entangled in your heart strings. Please check him out:

Time and Place Start Time: Thursday, May 1, 2008 at 9:00pm
End Time: Friday, May 2, 2008 at 3:00am
Location: Aura Lounge
Street: 4973 Yonge Street.
City/Town: Toronto, ON

Cover is F$6 and M$9 (mm...sexism), or $12 at the door. This is a 19+ event, so kids, grab your fake IDs and prepare to kick off the night with your Haiwaiin drivers lisence, "Patricia" *winkwink* Okay, but seriously, there's going to be a party after the sets, so if you're interested in DJs, dancing, and places that don't let you wear hats or athletic wear to party, this is your scene.

There, now this post has a point.

strange impulses

One of them being the urge to grab my stranger and plant one on him. To sow the seed or fast-forward its growth to full bloom?

Knowing me, probably neither. It would be a memo for him, a sort of: Dear recipient, I'm in love with you, just so you know.

Photo courtesy of Morgan Fuse @ Flickr

Shelley

Because I just got your letter (hearts and all) and was suddenly overcome with happiness, I just wanted to say:


Totally appreciating your stalker habits, totally touched (though I hope for some literality in the near-future), and promising to post up something good soon.

Oh, and dude, I totally miss you <3

Photo courtesy of loren ashleigh @ flickr

Bump of Chicken - Orbital Period [review]

Three years ago, the chicken had broken coop and left fans in a swirl of feathers and dust when the band took a vacation from the glare of the limelight. But like a good momma bird, Bump of Chicken returned in the small but significant form of singles, five of which were dropped during that time period.

Having been successfully egged on by these short snippets of memorable melodies, fans are welcoming the return of this Japanese band with open arms and a roar of approval loud enough to send the musical men back into space--which was apparently where they resided during their brief moment of rest.

Orbital Period is an album as space-based as the title suggests. All the tracks follow the theme of being lost and found and lost again in this great, wide universe we live in. Though the band was known for its messier style of music--especially noticeable in their early releases--the transition to more mellow and melodic styles of rock has become much more consistent in their latest work. Whereas crunchy guitar riffs used to dominate, Orbital Period features many tracks where layers of plucking guitar strings weave and interweave melody lines over and around each other, while each accentuated note bring on the sparkle of individual stars coming to light.

Logically, title tracks of the album would have been the singles dropped prior to the release of the finished product. But all five--from "planetarium" to "karma"--are individual pieces that fit into a larger work. The tempo of the music ebbs and flows like waves of emotion that washes over--but never overwhelms--the listener. Music and lyrics are wedded intimately together, bringing forth a dual barrage of emotionally charged sound, where layers of arrangement are meshed tightly with simplistic lyrics that communicate the most complex of human emotions.

The men of Bump of Chicken are officially back, and their newest work shows that they haven't lost the goose-bump-inspiring capabilities that they named themselves after (the rest was an English grammatical error). Though fans feared that the respectably lengthy break in between albums would only mess around with the band's musical styles, Fujiwara Motoo--sole composer and frontman--has not lost his touch.

Orbital Period is a successfully spacey piece of work without leaving out the descriptions of complex humanity that gives it a distinctly earthy feel.

Heroes

...can be anyone from a larger-than-life, courageous as heck photojournalist in a war zone; to a snarky, cynically optimistic fashion photog' inked with some of the most impressive tats I've ever seen on skin; to the genuine love and respect your mom (it's cheesy, but damn it, it's true)--heroes are found scattered all over the place within your daily walks of life, so why don't we talk about them more often?

More than that, is it possible to get through your life without ever thinking, "Wow, if I ever get to be a better person in life, I'd like to be like so-and-so"? And if so, would that make you an anti-social, unimaginative putz? Or does that make you better the rest of us ant-like beings, who scramble furiously against the ebb and flow of time and humanity?

Lots of questions tonight, possibly because I haven't blogged in a couple of eons, am partially hopped up on caffeine, am tired to the point of slight limb vibration and just personally started thinking about how all my fears are of such tiny consequence in comparisons to the day-to-day dealings that are tackled by the people I look up to the most. These guys--Yunghi Kim, Dan Pak, Fuijiwara Motoo, Takui, and yes, my mom--have done and are still doing crazy awesome things. They're beings beyond the grasp of inconsequential me, that more often than not, I always imaginging myself looking up at them even though I know that their physical realities are all about my height or shorter.

So it's no wonder that when I explain to my mother how stressed I am about my school work and my job and my lack of confidence in my own field, she can only look at me in disbelief. She's lived, seen and experienced about five lifetimes more than I can even imagine (and though you might think that a lot of momma's girls will say the same thing, I'm telling you now that my household is matriarchal system 'cause she's just taken so much shit within a stride, she can handle just about any situation short of ruling a nation; definitely the real deal), so no wonder she can recognize my insecurities of childish self-indulgence.

I need to get bigger, I need to get better, and the only frustrating obstacle that's completely barring my path is me. Which is stupid.

But yes, heroes! Maybe I am a scrambling ant, but I've gotten the cool chance to be born in the same era as these awesome beings. They help give me a little bit of direction and a little bit of ass kicking when I need to remember that life just ain't as hard as I'm making it out to be.

And that's my post. I sound like a really proud kid, but at the moment, that's just what I am. Just wait until you see the rest of me.

back on the beaten path

You're the reason I can't sleep at night.