The midnight hour is close at hand.

First of all, my apologies for being a most irregular blogger. I have about 10 half-written blog posts in the drafts section, but I have several horrible habits that cause me to leave them that way, and some may never see the light of day. Oh well.

That said, Boxing Day shopping caused a great blogging opportunity to fall into my lap: while perusing HMV for films I happened to come upon a DVD box set of 50 classic horror movies for the astoundingly too-good-to-be-true price of 25 dollars. This set had many films I'd never heard of, but it also had some that I've always needed to see, such as the original Phantom Of the Opera (1925), the original Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923), Nosferatu (1922), and at least 5 other classic horror movies that I'd normally pay about $30 or more per DVD for, damned rare things that they are. The only two films in the set that I'd previously seen were Nosferatu and, confusingly, Fritz Lang's masterpiece Metropolis--I really have no idea why it's there--which I'd (ironically) just ordered from Kino's website for approximately the same price as the entire set, minus shipping and tax.*

Now, for 50 cents apiece, I knew the transfers would likely be awful; a quick perusing of Metropolis confirmed this suspicion, because I've seen VHS copies of that esteemed film which look better than this one. But beggars rarely find themselves in the position to be choosy, and I am nothing if not a hungry film nerd. With a rarely-updated blog and my outlet-starved ability to conjure spontaneous film essays, with this post I am officially kicking off my Classic Horror project, in which I will watch each and every film in the set and publish my thoughts, with as much research as possible. The full list is linked here; I'm not sure how I want to go about it yet--it'd be really neat to do it chronologically, but much easier to just watch wildly--but expect the first review to go up in the next week or so, either way.

See you on the other side.

---

* This also means I will own Metropolis at least three times over the course of my life, because once they're done restoring the complete copy they found in Argentina, I will be all over that like a fat kid on a Smartie.

The Aftershock

Taking deep breaths never works.
The oxygen doesn't care, and your blood can't be bothered to carry any more baggage.

Look in the mirror:
Are you the same person you were five minutes ago? Somehow it seems
Like you've left the building,
and Elvises everywhere instantly understand.

You could coat yourself in Kevlar and still be shaken,
cracked at the foundations,
and in the aftermath you can't be sure
if the ground is still firm enough to stand on.

More Lamenting about Music

Yeah, I'm not impressed with my generation. Maybe I'm a music snob, and certainly I'm less of a snob than some people I know, but I was raised on really good music by my parents, and I like to think that I have a fairly good taste. But when I see the top 10 songs on iTunes, my heart sinks sometimes, and this week is particularly brutal, filled with samey synth dance things with all the wit and depth of a spoonful of Nyquil--even the one song I do like, which is in the number 3 spot, is electronically enhanced in a weird, bubble-gum sort of way. Ever the positive person that I am, rather than collapse inward in grief over the massive silliness of the 21st century, I like to pretend I could sit these people down and provide them with awesome alternatives to their mass-produced cotton candy fluff. So, here are some of the iTunes top 10 as of November 13, and what I'd recommend instead.

#3: "Fireflies", by Owl City
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aI4JLa0hbUw
Okay, I admit, I do love this song. It reminds me of something Ben Gibbard, the lead singer of Death Cab for Cutie, might have done in high school, and the music video is beyond adorable. I shall let this one pass my ire, but put it up because it gets my Awesome Music Video Of the Week award.

#4: "Sexy Bitch (Feat. Akon)", by David Guetta
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IcLLrwMYTiE
*sobs* I hate this song. It doesn't even sound any sort of good; it just sounds like noise. I had some patience for Guetta's "When Love Takes Over", the few times I heard it, because it at least was not horrifically offensive to the ear. Why do people buy this, and where's the amazing E they're clearly dropping which makes it such a religious experience to listen to?
Instead... Throw on 3OH!3's "Don't Trust Me". Not only is it awesome because they're from Colorado (shout out to my homies in Ft Collins, woot!), but they're unapologetically weird and, I think, totally aware of how silly they're being--the video totally proves that. Self-aware stupidity, friends. It's why Judd Apatow swims in a big pile of money.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-L8FRW72qo

#8: "Whatcha Say", by Jason DeRulo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmKEiYLG2rs
This one makes me particularly sad, because it dares to sample (read: destroy) a bit from one of my favourite artists, Imogen Heap, who knows how to make electronically-enhanced music actually sound like it has a soul. Here, our delightful Jason creates a fairly standard "girl, when I'm famous we're gonna be BALLIN'" song, interspersed with the aforementioned sampling of Heap's "Hide and Seek" (a song that has, tragically, become a bit of a meme due to misuse on one Fox prime-time soap, but in and of itself is quite stunning). The girls (if they are human, it's possible they're computer voices) singing the chorus sound especially snarky, as if they hate the song, hate Jason, and hate themselves for being his bitches. Frankly, I don't blame them. He sounds like my old nemisis, Karl Wolf. Because they all sound the same.
Instead... Check out "Bad Body Double", by Imogen Heap herself. Probably one of my favourite tracks off of her new album, it's got a fantastic beat, it's quite cheeky, and immensely more clever. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pR_heGRfwe0

So, basically:
=/=

The math makes sense, people. Math doesn't lie.

#9: "Party in the USA", by Miley Cyrus
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M11SvDtPBhA
Now, I am known neither for my partying ways, nor for my status as a US Resident, but......bleugh. Just, bleugh. This is bland, croaky, and just silly. Butterflies? Seriously? This girl should not be as famous as she is. Art should be about the provocative, the thing that makes you think even as you enjoy the hell out of it. Miley Cyrus is the opposite of think. She is the antithink.
Instead... To you, tweens, I offer, simply, Beethoven's 7th Symphony, one of my favourite pieces of music and something intelligent and dark and absolutely stunning. So basically like nothing you've ever heard before (zing!). Here ya go. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdfNTO_o-3k

That's basically all I've got to say about that. Something needs to change, people. Seriously.

Newsies, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying about Quality and Just Feel the Love.

Cult Film (n): "A film that has acquired a highly devoted but relatively small group of fans. Often, cult movies have failed to achieve fame outside of this small group; however there have been many exceptions...Cult films often become the source of a thriving, obsessive, and elaborate subculture of fandom, hence the analogy to cults." - Wikipedia

I think everyone who watches movies has a guilty pleasure; unfortunately I'm in the rotten habit of telling my guilty pleasures to everyone who will listen, and you, my readers, are no different.
I'm not going to lie to you, I'm a fanfic writer. I have been ever since the sixth grade or so, and as a result (or possibly as a cause) I have always been a complete sucker for cult films and TV shows, and Newsies is by far my favourite. I know that there are many other more well-known cult films out there and some fans of other movies who will fight me to the teeth about my choice, but to me, Newsies epitomizes the definition of a cult film, because I was there, and I know how it went.

It's a film that few people have heard of, an innocuous little 1992 Disney musical about the newsboys' strike of 1899 in New York, starring Christian Bale (of future Batman fame, hooray), David Moscow, Bill Pullman, Robert Duvall, and Anne-Margret. It was a box-office bomb, savaged by critics and quickly forgotten....but yet, it wasn't.

Unlike some other cult obsessions of mine, I can actually tell you why I love Newsies so much: I starred (as the character of David) in a stage version of it one summer when I was about 13, and I fell passionately and completely in love with it. When the VHS from Amazon.ca arrived, I watched it every single night, and I'm honestly not kidding you about this. I got the soundtrack and treated it like it was a Fabergé Egg. My obsessive adoration for Newsies lasted from the ages of 13 to about 15 or so, but even after I stopped my daily viewings, it stayed with me. As an example (and my then-boyfriend tried this with me when we were 16, much to his amusement), I could cover my eyes during any part of the film and tell you exactly what the characters onscreen were wearing. Two years after that--a full four years after my obsession wound down--I can still do this trick.

Of course, this was all before I started studying film from an objective point of view. Looking on Newsies with my new critical eye, I cringed at a lot of it--some of the acting is melodramatic to the point of hilarity, the dramatic tension is pretty much at the level of high-school drama class, and Anne-Margret's role is obviously just to get her name on the marquee; her character flits in, sings in a terrible Swedish accent, and flits back out.
Newsies does not have any fantastic camera shots, exquisite pacing, or even a snappy script. It's not the worst movie ever made, no, but it ain't exactly Scorcese.

BUT.......
My god, is it fun.
This is a film that has so much heart in it that some people can't help but be charmed. The actors, even those who may have a slight idea that this isn't exactly Oscar material, just seem to have so much fun--singing, dancing, throwing completely harmless riots, it's all done with this massive sense of hilarity and enthusiasm. The music is by Alan Menken and Howard Ashman (both of The Little Mermaid fame); it's cute like anything, and always makes me want to jump up and dance and sing along. Or maybe that's because I already know every single word, I dunno.
The film has gained a massive cult following of people--based mostly on the VHS and DVD sales, and spread by the internet--who are just as devoted as I was. These fans have created their own hierarchies and rankings, their own factions and devotions; Want proof?
As of this writing, FanFiction.net has 5,833 individual fan fics in the Newsies category. Newsies fans are divided into two types, those who love Jack (Christian Bale) and those who love a secondary character called Spot. Homosexual pairings abound, as they always do in fan fiction. Out there on the web is a detailed lesson on how to do the chair dance from the 'King of New York' musical number. People have set up multiple online shrines in memory of one of the actors, who died of cancer--and whose most memorable moment in Newsies is hanging from a spinning ceiling fan as a big finale to a dance number. Little things like that.

A cult film is whatever strikes you deeply for very little reason whatsoever. I can say that my favourite movie is Fight Club, or The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, and tell you in definitive words why; with Newsies, as good as my vocabulary is, at some point it all just breaks down into a little shrug and an "I don't know, I just do." It captivated me, as it has captivated many others; not because it's particularly brilliant, but because it is goofy, sloppy, silly fun. Despite my craving for intelligent filmmaking, some movies like Newsies are always welcome to space in my collection purely because they never fail to make me stupidly, fantastically happy--and that's something that is incredibly important.

.....WHAT?

http://www.slashfilm.com/2009/05/10/footage-from-prince-of-persia-the-sands-of-time/

I'm not going to lie, I will probably see the Prince of Persia movie, or at least hope that it manages to not suck horribly, but the above clip makes me rub my temples in frustrated agony. The Sands of Time continues to rock my (admittedly limited) world of video games, being one of the only games I've ever come across that had a story that pulled me in so much that I was giddy like a schoolgirl anytime a major plot point occurred. I know that practically everyone played it in 2003 and my love is totally silly at this point because bigger and better things have come along, but honestly, I have yet to find a PS2 title that has drawn me in as much as Sands of Time did. When I heard that there was a movie in the works, for a brief moment I was actually a little bit hopeful; of all the video game stories, Sands of Time is probably one that's pretty filmable, if you did it right.

For those who don't know, the story hinges on the titular (and unnamed) Prince, who is on his very first crusade with his father; while on their way to the Palace of Azad, they conquer the Maharajah of India with the help of the Maharajah's double-crossing Vizier, and take the mysterious Hourglass of Time, as well as the Princess Farah, as loot. Eager for power and glory, the Prince is tricked by the evil Vizier into releasing the Sands of Time (using the Dagger of Time that he took as his own personal prize), destroying the Palace of Azad and turning every human save for himself, Farah, and the Vizier into monsters. Wracked with guilt and horrified at what he has done, the Prince travels through the ruins of the palace with Farah in the hope of returning the Sands of Time to their hourglass and undoing the damage he has done; the trick of the game, of course, is that the whacky-fun platforming is enhanced by your ability to rewind time if you screw up. The Prince is a fantastic character, snarky and witty while still being flawed; Farah, too, is a unique female character, earnest and idealistic, and the banter between the two characters (as well as their romance) is charming and delightful. The gameplay is fantastically fun, the visuals are stunning, and with the exception of the combat, pretty much everything is fucking awesome.

So that's what we have to work with: a redemption story featuring two well-developed characters that bicker like Bogart and Bacall, drop-dead gorgeous scenery, and the always-fun concept of turning back time to try all manner of things over again. And the makers of the Prince of Persia movie have, as far as I can tell, drawl all over this great idea with crayons. And it's not just because Jake Gyllenhaal is entirely wrong for this part; it is because we live in a world where an action movie with actual characters and really witty dialogue is almost unheard-of, because Hollywood has absolutely no respect for audiences, and because audiences don't really give Hollywood much to respect. I put forth that the storyline of The Sands of Time could have been a really really good action movie, and if I'd written it, I would have tried my damndest to show how it could be different from the other cavalcades of mediocrity that grace that genre. Why can't we demand action movies that also have great scripts and characters for the ages? Why can't producers take chances with smart ideas and actually keep them smart throughout the filmmaking process? Escapist awesomeness can still have a great script and good actors; the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie proved that, and it was based on a goddamn theme park ride.

I'm not saying that the Prince of Persia movie will suck; there's always hope that they're just hiding the cleverness from us in a massively misguided marketing scheme. But I'm not holding out hope. When I'm a filmmaker, hopefully enough time will have passed for me to try my hand at remaking some of the films that are just now coming out, such as Watchmen and Prince of Persia, because I think that we can do so much better.

God hates my Macbook.

Hoo, boy, I've had some delightful dealings with technology people in these past few weeks. Between trying to get Rogers to upgrade my phone (that's another epic for another day) and the exploits of today, it seems that most customer service people have become so jaded and spiteful that they really just don't care anymore. But right now I'm here to complain mostly about my Macbook, and how it's becoming abundantly clear that God, the ultimate in customer service reps, really just has it in for my poor machine. Maybe I'm courting disaster by having the Flying Spaghetti Monster decal on the back, maybe I just got a lemon, but seriously, this is getting ridiculous.

Here, in chronological order, is the story of my Macbook.

- August 20, 2007: Happy Mia brings home her very own laptop, just in time for her move out to Victoria. My father, tech fiend that he is, recommends the Applecare extended warrenty, and nags me until I set it up. I will later thank him many times over. The first part of this year is filled with joy and happy.

- December 2007: While home for the holidays, I upgrade to Leopard.

- January 2008: My first hard drive failure. I am understandably distraught, but the guys at the UVic computer store are able to retrieve all information. In thanks, I make them brownies. The top case (where the keyboard, mouse, etc are) is cracking. I am charged $50 for the labour required to get my stuff back.

- November 13, 2008: The mouse button has completely ceased to function, and the case has cracked even further. A replacement of the case solves all of these problems, thankfully, giving me back the ability to click on things without using the trackpad. Covered by Applecare.

- November 19, 2008: I'm back in the shop again, to report that my battery has lost so much power that it will die without warning within an hour. It is just over the 300 charge cycles that is the maximum point in the warrenty, thus necessitating that I buy a new battery at full cost. I also upgrade my RAM from 1GB to 4GB. Total cost: $303. 52

- February 2009: My second hard drive failure, again for absolutely no discernible reason. I am lucky twice and the guys get my data back. $50 for labour, no charge for the new hard drive. The plastic border around my screen is also cracking, and that is repaired as well. It is also at this point when my dad gives me THE MONOLITH, one of my two faithful external hard drives, with the caution "it might fail if it's left on too long, but here ya go." Having learned my lesson, I now back up fairly regularly.

- March 2009: I buy my second faithful external hard drive, a 500GB MyBook. At this point, I do several different kinds of backups to several different kinds of drives (I have USB sticks stashed in strategic corners of my room that hold copies of my Documents folder). My Macbook has warped me into a twisted, superstitious creature. I will not leave my laptop on a soft surface, I schedule it to shut down each night, and have installed hard drive status checkers, web site checkers, and ad blockers, and I have combed through the hard drive trying to make more room on it. I know it's illogical, but I figure that the thing won't die if it has some extra GBs to breathe with. If the computer does crash and I am forced to reboot it, I will not look at it for several minutes. In fact, I will leave the room and let it load, because I know that if I look at it funny it'll fail on me just to be a bitch.

- April 2009: I start to notice that my power adapter is not charging as well as it used to, but I am in the middle of exams and cannot afford to send it away to Apple to be looked at.

- July 2009: It is firmly established that one of the pins in my power adapter has come loose, severely weakening the connection it can make with the machine. I figure out various ways to keep it on its feet because I have no time to send away for a new one, which would necessitate the old one being taken from me first. Furthermore, the battery (which is only 8 months old) begins to show signs of dying as it receives weaker and weaker signals from the power cord, until it will only run for about an hour on its own.

- August 2009: I make not one, but TWO attempts to go to TWO different Apple stores in an effort to get these parts exchanged. The Geniuses at both stores cannot be bothered to have available appointments.

- Monday: I sit on the phone with Applecare for a full hour, talking to three different, very nice people, about this problem. The second one assures me that she will send me a new power adapter and I can even keep the old one. I am then transferred to a Brooklynese guy named Johnathan, to whom I tell all my woes about this computer in an effort to maybe make a case for getting a new machine. He assures me that he will send me a new power cord (!) and a new battery, and all I have to do is send the old ones back. Fedex will deliver them in a minimum of four business days.

- Yesterday: While washing the dishes, I miss Fedex by two minutes.

- Today: While sneezing, I miss Fedex's ring of the doorbell AGAIN. After sitting on the phone with them, no sooner do I hang up when there is a passive-aggressive delivery woman at the door with three packages. Maybe the third one has the shipping boxes, I figure, but no, they've sent me two power adapters, as well as a battery. If I can, I plan to keep the second one, for the inevitable day when something else goes wrong. Oh, yeah, and the top case has cracked again.

Seriously, I think God hates my computer. This thing is exactly two years and one week old; I know because I checked all of this out in an attempt to make a case to Apple. I like their products, but seriously, it's like a circus machine.

Albums of the Summer (so far)

I, like everyone, have certain albums or songs that define my summers. I think summer music is like summer love; it may sneak up on you, totally surprising you, but it's love at first listen and that love is passionate and pure. With no school to busy yourself with, and possibly some excess cash due to a summer job, you court the albums, going to concerts and reveling in their beauty. Despite knowing you should listen to other things, you can't help yourself, and you devote all of your time to these albums until your other albums become resentful and claim you're not being a good friend (or maybe that's just me). And, when September rolls around and the leaves begin to fall, you realize that while the music is still there, somehow the magic is gone; while you can still give a listen once in a while, it's never the same.

Okay, it's an extended metaphor, but I defy you to tell me it doesn't work. So, without further adieu, here are my love affairs for this summer:

1. "No Nations", by Jets Overhead

I really, desperately hope that this one ends up lasting through September and possibly for the rest of my life. I've loved Jets Overhead from the moment I heard them open for Our Lady Peace back in 2006; they're Victoria natives, and their music reflects that islander quality. Their first album, Bridges, is delightfully laid-back and expressive, but No Nations is a complete gem. Whereas Bridges was a collection of songs, No Nations feels like a total, cohesive whole; it begins with the stellar "I Should be Born", and keeps up pace until the dirgelike, slow-building finale of "Tired of the Comfort". It's dreamy, it's meditative, and I can't think of a single flaw except that it's over too quickly. Totally, completely perfect.
Recommended songs: "I Should Be Born", "Heading for Nowhere", "It's a Funny Thing". Oh, hell, everything.

2. "O My Heart", by Mother Mother

This album is a ton of fun, mainly because every song is memorable, and occasionally, totally surprising. I first listened to this album while gardening, and each time I thought "meh, this song doesn't sound too impressive, maybe I'll change it", I was totally blown away. Mother Mother is cheeky, unapologetic, and totally addictive; their lyrics are fantastically strange, like most indie these days, but the songs are complex while still being accessible and a lot of fun. I'm also impressed by the range of songs on O My Heart; the title track sounds like something a pissed-off Joan Jett could have produced if she were more indie, "Body" alternates between a completely bizarre rhyming biology lesson and a surprisingly emotional note to an ex, "Ghosting" is one of the most honest indie ballads I've ever heard, and "Hay Loft" sounds like a song the Children of the Corn might have learned while at evil pre-school. Mother Mother sounds like those weird, fun, arty kids in high school who you wanted to be because they were so goddamned creative at every turn. And, for all of this range, Mother Mother never loses their sense of identity, and they're compulsively, terrifically, awesomely, confidently fun.
Recommended songs: "Wrecking Ball", "Wisdom", "Burning Pile", "O My Heart"

3. (tie) "We Have the Facts and We're Voting Yes" and "Transatlanticism" by Death Cab for Cutie

aannnndd continuing the grand tradition of me falling in love with things that were popular and relevant several years ago....
I won tickets to go see Death Cab (at a Jets Overhead concert, actually), and I was blown away by the subtle, mournful beauty of their earlier stuff. Until then I'd only heard Plans and Narrow Stairs, but these two earlier albums are filled with the kind of music that I like to call apocalyptic; they're not necessarily about the end of the world, but while I listen to them I tend to slip into a solitary, meditative, quietly mourning existence that I think I'd be like if I were the last person on earth. This is the sort of music I love when I feel that dark creativity in my head that produces the very best writing, and Death Cab for Cutie is perfect for it.
Recommended songs: "The Employment Pages", "Title Track", "Transatlanticism"

and a few single songs that have dominated in between...
- "Percussion Gun", by White Rabbits; I'm obsessed with this song. You should be too. It's AWESOME.
- "Baptized by Fire", by Spinnerette; like "Ghetto Love", except WAY better.
- "Stadium Love", by Metric; I love their new album, but this one keeps standing out. It's probably the coolest final track they've ever made. Oh yes, I did just go there.
- "Battlefield", by Jordin Sparks; okay, someone on So You Think You Can Dance did an incredible routine to this, and I fell for it purely for that reason. Everyone gets a guilty pleasure.

Lament for a Stat Holiday

At the moment I'm not quite convinced that BC Day isn't just another Valentine's Day, except more insidious in its subtlety. Here is a holiday specifically primed to let you spend time with friends and lovers, and so for a friendless, loveless sap like me, two BC Days in a row have passed with fuck-all for me to do, fun-wise.
Last year, I was working in a cafe on Government street, squarely in the middle of the biggest tourist area of Victoria, and my managers decided that having a massive free concert a few blocks down the street wouldn't generate too much foot traffic and that it was a great idea to take the day off. Of course, they were right, the shift passed uneventfully, and I even got a cute guy's number.

Nah, I'm kidding. We were swamped beyond swamped, fantastically understaffed, and I may have thrown money at more than a few ignorant customers in moments of pure frustration and horror. It was endless people, swarms of bodies clamoring for hot chocolates and sandwiches, and the stress of lineups out the door was doubled when I realized that each and every one of these people was going to have far more fun today than I would get to have all week. Hell, they even got to eat dinner, unlike me. At the end of the night, I slumped back home on the bus, surrounded by revelers who had just seen Feist and were mostly drunk off their gourds. Cute girls with flat stomachs and short shorts flirted with surfer boys holding water bottles full of vodka, and I, in espresso-stained Converses and a sweat-soaked black top, was the audience to this absurdly attractive mating ritual. I put on my ipod and tried not to cry too obviously.

This year, I find myself in a state of self-exile from Victoria due to having absolutely nobody to hang out with there. My friends have gone home, mostly, and the ones I did hang out with regularly are either busy or have broken up with me--not that I'm bitter, but it makes for a bit of a lonely existence. I've been living with my parents in Parksville, and today we went to a provincial park in the hope of taking a nice hike in the woods. By the river were endless families, some with young children and dogs, all having fun in the water. A large group of teens cliff-jumped, girls in bikinis sunned themselves, and, once again, absolutely everyone else seemed to have far more fun than I.

I write this not to complain, for I know that there are steps I could take to counter my situation. I accept where I am for the day, but it causes me to wonder if I'll ever enjoy a statuatory holiday like BC Day. It's all very well and good if you have people to go to the river with, see the awesome free concert with, or bombard the hapless barista with; it's wonderful when you have pals to drink with, to enjoy a summer BBQ with. But with none of those things, BC Day does become another Valentine's Day, that dreaded moment in late winter when those of us who are alone come to the awful realization that there are more attractive people out there who are having a lot more fun. Except that there aren't as many foil-covered chocolates to gorge oneself on in early August.

Open Letter to Karl Wolf

I can't think of what the hell I could possibly write--I'm working on a massive essay based on my experience with the worst of what Calgary's WASP community has to offer--so I'm going to repost a Facebook note I wrote a few months ago, which always makes me laugh. Thus, I present, an open letter to Karl Wolf:

~~~~

Dear Sir:

It has recently come to my attention that you have acquired knowledge of a relatively well-known 1982 song called "Africa", by the pop band Toto (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rIS4g2w_AM)
I cannot really fault you for liking the song; many people throughout the last 30 years have felt similarly. However, most of those people are happy with listening to the song. You, on the other hand, were apparently not content with being a simple appreciator of good music, and thus needed to be a douchebag.

Someone, probably your mother, may have told you that you had a good voice. I can't really tell, considering how much it's been digitally enhanced, but it's entirely possible that little Wolfy had a dream to be a singer someday.
Someone else, possibly playing a rather clever practical joke, told you that you would make a great urban/R&B star. And you, being a skinny kinda-white boy with a sideways bright red trucker cap, a few gold earrings, and a sense of entitlement due to your awesome! ripped! abs!, took this suggestion to heart. And perhaps you have made generic, computer-enhanced, club-friendly, no-IQ-required "songs" in the past, which have thankfully passed well below my radar. Had you simply continued on this way, I would have said Shine on, you crazy cubic zirconium. May your posters grace the walls of prepubescent girls for years to come.

But you had to go and fuck all of this up.

It's possibly due to the herpes that I am fairly sure you have has infected your brain, or maybe it's your simply atrocious sense of entitlement, or even simple jerkassery. Maybe one day you shook yourself from your random tangle of ho's and said, with the wit and charm of James Bond on several pounds of heroin, "Dude, I should cover "Africa!" And make it with MAD BEATSORZ!!1!!1!"
And while several puppies fell extremely ill due to the intense wrongness of that idea, in theory I can sort of understand the thought process. Toto has "mad beats", mainly because they wrote a layered song that took several African-inspired rhythms and integrated them into the rest of the music. And the concept of taking that drumline beyond what Toto originally did within their version of the song has a small amount of merit, even if purely from a point of novelty. And possibly the chorus could be played with a little bit. I can accept this, if I really try.
My grudging understanding of your demented thought process is not, by any means, an endorsement of you actually touching "Africa" with a ten foot pole. It also does not mean that I am in any way going to touch you, ever.

But, sir, the ability to cover a pop classic like "Africa" does not give you an excuse to do this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lOoId21B1Q

This, sir, is what is clinically known as "the complete and utter rape of one of the precious songs from my childhood." Not only have you intercut the chorus of the original with a fairly generic douchebag R&B song, complete with fat accompaning rapper/homie, but you also have murdered a musical bridge in what must be a first in music history, as well as completely eradicating all depth or beauty from the song.

However, you then had to proceed to show the complete and total extent of your mental deficit by creating this video.

I will not comment on the many, many things that sin against nature within this video, but focus primarily on the one thing that I cannot forgive, the one thing that causes me to conclude that you must be spoonfed by a nanny at home:
Objectified women in bikinis do not belong anywhere NEAR this song, even the mockery you have made of it. You have turned a wonderful song into something that makes me feel dirty while even listening to it, never mind watching this visual vomit. This offends me on virtually every level.

So, sir, in conclusion: fuck you, for your audacity to commit this crime against music, and for ruining all the young minds you will infect with this garbage when they could be listening to the far better, deeper and more intelligent original.

Covers I would Do.

On a walk I rediscovered the massive amount of James Taylor music on my iPod, which got me thinking about the music I listened to as a very young child when my mom would play me oldies songs in the car on the way to school, and virtually all of which I still love passionately. And like the amateur singer I am, I started to imagine which songs I'd cover, and how I'd do them, if I went to do an entire album of favourites a la Mandy Moore. To make things interesting, I restricted myself to stuff that my Mom played for me during those childhood years, limit to one or two songs per artist, and to try as hard as I could to stay away from the most famous songs of the artist (with several exceptions). And so for the pure indulgence of my ego, here is the song list for my own personal Covers album, if I could do it:

1. Save the Country (Laura Nyro)
2. Pleasant Valley Sunday (Carole King)
3. Urge for Going (Joni Mitchell)
4. Flowers are Red (Harry Chapin)
5. Desperado (The Eagles)
6. Won't Hold You Back (Toto)
7. Fire and Rain (James Taylor)
8. Me and Julio Down By the Schoolyard (Paul Simon)
9. I Never Loved A Man (The Way I Love You) (Aretha Franklin)
10. Got To Get You Into My Life (The Beatles)
11. Don't Stop (Fleetwood Mac)
12. Your Mother Should Know (The Beatles)
13. God Only Knows (The Beach Boys)

14. Soldiers (James Taylor) [Hidden Track]

So yeah. I'm going to spend the next several days listening to nothing but oldies, I think. Which will put me in a fantastic mood!

My mother would hate me for today's sins.

So I should be going outside and enjoying the beautiful sunshine just like my mom has nagged me to do for the past twenty years, but I'm not; I spent all morning in bed and after that playing Prince of Persia. I'm on a break now, not just because guilt is nibbling at my soul, but also because the game has gotten so frustrating that I'm considering breaking the controller. It's still fucking fantastic, and the romantic bits throw me back into the heart-pounding days of my fangirl youth so that I grin foolishly every time the Prince and Farah look at each other funny. But at the scene I'm at now, they take away your ability to rewind time in exchange for a fucking sweet sword that can pretty much kill anything. Except that then you go to a platforming sequence that requires perfect fucking accuracy and you can't undo your mistakes. Arrggh.

Speaking of the Prince and Farrah, one of the only things that annoy me about this game is the graphics, which were perfectly fantastic for 2003, but look like, well, this:
However, close to the end of the game there are two cutscenes that contain graphics that are about twenty billion times better than the rest of the game, which amused me greatly. Perhaps not so coincidentally, these are also both the major crisis of the game and the most romantic sequence (so far); in the former we are introduced to the ultimate villian, and in the latter the Prince and Farrah go swimming mostly nude. Which, again, causes the fangirl in me to coo. God help me to resist writing a fanfic, and instead just let me play the game again about three more times.

Right. Sunshine. I should do that. Also grocery shopping.

The Movies You Should Watch Today.

This list is completely arbitrary, mostly inspired by the soundtrack music on iTunes that keeps popping up today while I'm chilling out and not cleaning my room. But I love recommending movies, even if it is to the thankless faceless internet and nobody reads this.

1. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

If I had to choose one film to take with me to a desert island, this would be the one. Out of all the films I've watched, and all the things I love about movies, this one is the one that still surprises me, shocks me, and makes me cry every single time I watch it. Jim Carrey defies all expectations to play the boring and passive Joel, who finds out that his wild girlfriend Clementine (Kate Winslet, in the role she should have won her first Oscar for) has had him erased from her memory. He decides to also go through with the procedure too, but as he travels back through each memory, he begins to rediscover the earlier passion he shared with Clementine. From deep within his brain, Joel attempts to escape the process in an effort to grasp just one last whisp of the girl he loves.
Brilliantly written, gorgeously directed using only old-fashioned camera tricks--no green screens--and frighteningly well acted, Eternal Sunshine is my example of perfect filmmaking. It's absolutely guranteed you'll have to watch it twice, because you won't understand everything the first time, but the second time is better anyway. Eternal Sunshine proves that filmmaking can be smart, detailed and intricately artistic, and still tell a highly entertaining story.

2. Moulin Rouge!

"This story is about a love." That's how Moulin Rouge! begins, and that's essentially what it is; a love story between a penniless writer and a courtesan. But it's also probably one of the weirdest love stories ever put to screen, not because of the characters, but because of the situation. Baz Luhrmann's world is all sparkle, colour, and anachronistic musical numbers--everything from Queen to The Sound of Music to Meat Loaf (!)--and it's overwhelming at first, but absolutely worth it. The first act is notoriously strange, and many people (including myself) are initially turned off by it, but stick with it; the love story, once it begins, recalls the sort of passion we all wish we've known. Ewan McGregor and Nicole Kidman are both fantastic, and the film never loses the sense of gentle parody, which keeps it from being too silly and allows the villian to literally tent his fingers and snicker evilly and still hold dramatic tension. Give it a chance, because you really won't see anything like it again--oh, and the Elephant Love Medley is the strangest amalgamation of pop songs ever, but it WORKS, dammit.

3. Sunshine

I have this love affair with Danny Boyle right now; I honestly think he's one of the best directors of our time, and his massive range of films--the man who did Trainspotting and 28 Days Later just won several Oscars for a Bollywood-inspired underdog love story--shows me that he's got the balls to take on pretty much any genre that pleases him. This is a guy who has explored everything from children's movies to zombies, and Sunshine is his version of an action-adventure-space-thriller. 50 years into our future, the sun is dying, and a crew is in a spaceship going to deliver a massive nuclear bomb into the heart of the star in hopes of restarting it and saving all life on earth--except, of course, things go wrong and someone ends up sabotaging the mission. For a thriller, Sunshine ends up being exceptionally philosophical and psychological, focusing less on tired stereotypes being killed in various ways and more on the effects that such an important mission to the freakin SUN might have on the people who must accomplish it. You will either love or hate the last half of it--I personally loved it, but like I said, I'm biased--but I think it's one of the smarter action films you can find out there, and I have only good things to say about it.

Now, with that out there on the internet, I'm off to put on those films and clean things. Hooray!

Knitting complaints.

I'm sure that this will only serve to make me even more of an old fogey to all the young'uns out there, but I have to rant for a minute. I'm in the process of knitting this bag, which requires several mundane pieces made separately and then sewn together. And I just spent three days on one such boring--and HUGE--piece of knitting only to realize that it's exactly one stitch short. So rather than redo several days of work (and tear some of my hair out in the process due to frustration) I'm just gonna roll with it. Like many films, much of the erroneous stuff can be fixed in post-production. In this case, assembly.

Yes. I knit. It's awesome. Currently I'm making myself a new bag.

In better news, my back is immensely better! I have been without painkillers for two days, which is excellent, but only slightly balanced out by the fact that I feel horrible for having done nothing but sit on my ass for the past three days. Tomorrow, the job search continues.

Lower Back Fail? The Prince will fix it.

So, yes, I was helping my friend Trish move and I bent over to pick up a not-really-heavy chair and essentially killed my lower back. I've done nothing but lie around in various positions all day and wince/yelp in pain when it hurts, but it turns out I found a rather charming fix to take my mind off my epic back fail.

I have this horrifying habit of becoming utterly obsessed with things that have already had their heyday years before. I suppose some of it comes from my mom's repeated playing of oldies music when I was young, as well as my continued mission to see all the good old movies that were before my time, but it also extends to TV shows (see: Six Feet Under, Firefly, Buffy the Vampire Slayer) and, now, video games.

I have a summer mission, rather than a reading list, to become a gamer. I've always kinda loved video games, but had given up hope that I'd find a modern platformer game as fun as some of the old-school Mario stuff that used to be around. I even bought an N64, as well as Mario 64, in an effort to beat that game, but quickly lost interest. I follow both LRR (www.loadingreadyrun.com) and Yahtzee's Zero Punctuation, which talk about games a lot, and I've become convinced that I'm missing something really big, since I really only use my friend's Wii to rock out on Guitar Hero.

So. I've borrowed my brother's PS2 for the summer and finally found Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time in a pawn shop on Johnson street. And it's motherfucking AWESOME. Holy crap. If you ever fuck up your back, spend a few hours playing a guy who can run on walls and turn back time, and things will seem a lot better. Yeah.

*turns around too quick* OUCH.