Circadian Shift

It's been one of those weeks that has afforded me plenty of opportunity to practice patience, compassion, and restraint.

And how.

I caught the Bodyworlds2 show (Wikipedia entry) tonight, its final night at the Ontario Science Centre. I hauled myself out early yesterday morning (!), hoping to get in before it got too crowded, but it was still too late. The only available ticket slots were for 3.30am last night/this morning, and 7.30pm today.

So, I enjoyed it (flashbacks to 3rd year anatomy class at UofT and all). The exhibit has not been without controversy, whatwith all the posing and manipulations of the corpses, but in a way I think it shows that developer Gunther von Hagens and his team have a deep understanding and appreciation of how the body works in order to portray it so wonderfully and imaginatively. I did find it bothersome that one of the signs referred its accompanying exhibit as a "plastinate" -- no, it's a person, and should be recognized and respected accordingly.

During the inevitable gift shop stop at the end of the exhibit, I did briefly ponder picking up one of the souvenir exhibition catalogues, but then remembered that I have a perfectly good set of anatomy textbooks kicking around somewhere that I haven't read in a gazillion years anyway.

I also wound up seeing Michelangelo Antonioni's 1975 film The Passenger (IMDb info), starring Jack Nicholson, yesteday. The premise is certainly enticing enough -- escape your life by exchanging your identity with someone else's. I thought it was OK. The narrative is vague and highly symbolic, which -- if you like that sort of thing -- makes this film worthwhile. But it's not really a thriller. (PopMatters review here. Metacritic roundup here.)

Other than that, it's more of the same. Got an achy-head-and-scratchy-throat thing going on, that I'm hoping will not tip over into a full-blown cold. We'll see...

Grid.

Non-grid.

The same 12 images, arranged differently. Being unable to pick one board, I figured I'd put up both.

Saw the movie Munich (official site is an annoyingly sluggish Flash thingy -- here's the IMDb info). I thought the film, while not perfect, was a worthwhile film to watch. (FYI, here is Wikipedia backgrounder info on the Munich Massacre and some of the controversy about the film.)

Otherwise, not much to report. The temperature has been really freakish this week -- either very cold, or very warm. Stupid weather.

Incidentally, all the images on the board(s) are avatars, except for the profile shot of Eric Bana that I took from the movie poster for Munich.

Addendum: These are mood boards number 49 and 50, since I started doing/posting these things last year. I also went and deleted and re-uploaded the boards over at Flickr so that they'd appear in the correct chronological order if you browse through my "Mood Board" Flickr set. (And after having done that the hard way, I discovered a tiny set of Flickr controls that might've enabled me to do all that re-arranging the easy way. Arg.)

A belated Happy New Year to everyone.

I spent the last week of 2005 fighting off a headache, doing stuff at work, dealing with my course assignment, and halfheartedly glancing at a couple of Boxing Week sales.

I did buy one thing, namely the single CD version of The Prodigy - Their Law: The Singles 1990-2005. It's funny, because I really didn't listen to The Prodigy much when they were really popular, but I do get nostalgic once in a while for that old-school booming techno sound.

There were more musical acquisitions, thanks to my eMusic subscription:

• Bloc Party - Silent Alarm -- an album that was much beloved by the hipster kiddies this year, and I like it too; wears its retro/post-punk influences well, without being so bloody obvious about it (cf. The Bravery); you can download the lead single, "Banquet", for free from betterPropoganda
• The Clientele - Strange Geometry -- another 2005 release that's been getting lots of good reviews; features lots of jangly reverberating guitars, melancholy lyrics and vocals, and many riffs and harmonies that are positively Beatle-esque; you can download the tune "E.M.P.T.Y." for free, once again courtesy of betterPropoganda
• Richard Bartz - Midnight Man -- another dirtyradio discovery; Bartz is a veteran of the German techno scene, and if you like that sort of sound, you won't be disappointed
• Alva Noto + Ryuichi Sakamoto - Insen -- featuring Sakamoto's piano compositions all cut up and glitched out by Noto's electronic manipulations, this album really works best as background music; I noticed that bleep lists the album as "Not For Sale In Canada", so I figured I'd grab it from eMusic while I still could (which meant dipping into my "Booster Pack" to get it)
• John Adams - Shaker Loops / Wound Dresser / Short Ride in a Fast Machine -- some Minimalist Clasical music for a change of pace; I already have a different recording of "Shaker Loops", so I only picked up the other compositions on this release

New Year's Eve was pretty quiet. Went out for a nice dinner, then stayed in and watched Monty Python's And Now for Something Completely Different on DVD. CITY-TV then ran Fight Club after midnight, so I wound up going to bed fairly late.

I really found myself struggling with the mood board this week.

Using a grid is easy to do, and yields pretty good results most of the time, but it does make it hard to keep the look fresh. I tried going back to the more free-form style, like what I was doing in the spring and summer, but it just looked like crap.

Anyway, it's December now, which means that my monthly 40 MP3 allotment from eMusic was there for the taking. I got three albums.

• Thievery Corporation - The Cosmic Game -- I already have five other CDs bearing the Thievery Corporation name; I just can't get enough of that lounge-y downtempo electro goodness
• Frankie Bones - Act Like You Know -- house-y dance tunage to get up and go to
• Steve Reich / Alarm Will Sound - Tehilim & Desert Music -- Steve Reich, of course, looms large on the scene of Minimalist Classical composers, whilst Alarm Will Sound is an instrumental ensemble with an eclectic repertoire (most recently, they covered music by Aphex Twin); the resulting combination yields a work that rewards repeated listens

For those of you doing the math, those three selections actually topped out at 42 MP3s, so I had to dip into my "Booster Pack" for the extra tracks.

The "Booster Pack" also got depleted a bit more, as I downloaded a bunch more of those ambient music/noise recordings that are supposed to do good things for your brain -- Brain Power, Deep Learning, High Focus, and Increase Creativity all got some significant play while at the office this week. They actually seemed to help, as I was able to buckle down and plow through some sticky points in what I've been working on.

In terms of other media consumption for the week, I saw the documentary film March of the Pengiuns (IMDb info) on DVD. It was a good movie -- who, after all, does not enjoy watching cute flightless seabirds (and fluffy baby birds!) waddling around -- but you may, perhaps, argue with the attempt to ascribe too many human characteristics to them. Still, is was great fun to watch, and the Antarctic vistas in the background were truly spectacular.

Boring week. Boring mood board.

I finally got around to seeing Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (IMDB info). It was OK -- didn't love it, didn't hate it. Really, I just went because I saw all the other episodes and even though I knew how this one ended, I still had to see it for myself.

Also bought a couple old/new CDs:

• Although I've accumulated a bunch of Bjork MP3s over the years, I've never bought any of her albums. (Although I did buy "Army of Me" as a CD single back when it was first released.) So I went and got her Greatest Hits compilation from a couple years ago.
• I downloaded a copy of Tourist by St. Germain from somewhere a few years ago, and had been meaning to get a "legitimate" copy for some time. I have now finally done so.

Better late than never, here is the mood board for last week...

The week brought the start of a new job, a new month, and a new raft of downloads from eMusic. For my forty-track allotment this month, I decided to forgo getting full albums, and instead cherry-picked a bunch of tunes from different sources.

• Picks number 1 through 27 were a selection of mid-80s goth and industrial tracks from Bauhaus, Gene Loves Jezebel, Love and Rockets, Ministry, Peter Murphy, The Revolting Cocks, Skinny Puppy, The Bolshoi, The Cult, and Tones on Tail.
• Keeping with the retro theme on picks 28 through 39 was an assortment of miscellaneous 80s tracks from Camper Van Beethoven, Eddy Grant, The Dead Milkmen, Scandal and Patty Smyth, Berlin, Toni Basil, Expose, The Go-Go's, Bananarama, and The Alarm.
• And, for my last track for the month, I picked "Raag Shree" performed by Ali Akbar Khan and Ravi Shankar; dubbed by the eMusic pundits as "one of the oldest, most difficult, and most exciting of all the ragas", it makes for a decent (I would beg to differ with the "exciting" label) twenty minutes and forty-one seconds (or so) of quieter listening.

Not shown on the board is another bit of media consumption from the week, namely the movie Pollock (IMDB info), which I saw on DVD. I found it to be an enjoyable overview of the life of Jackson Pollock; obviously, they can't cover everything in a movie, but this was good to whet the appetite for more information about his art, and other things.

I had a couple days downtime between contracts this week (I start a new gig on Monday), which gave me the chance to catch up on a few things, like sleep. And music. Lots and lots of music.

I went and bought Coldplay's latest album, X&Y (thank you, iTunes). As mentioned previously, I'm fairly new in catching on to Coldplay. The new album is OK, but I don't like it as much as I liked A Rush of Blood to the Head.

Also, I joined eMusic, finally succumbing to the "try us for two weeks and get 50 MP3s for free" pitch. So, for my free trial, I got the following albums:

• Funeral by The Arcade Fire -- this has gotten some good reviews from various music bloggers, and even my regular weekday morning mainstream radio station recently started playing the track "Rebellion (Lies)"; I like it, although some of the tunes sound kind of similar to me
• Light & Magic by Ladytron -- "Ladytron?" you're saying, "How 2002!" and you'd be right; although I'd heard a few of their tracks back in the day, and even saw them perform live, I'd never heard one of their albums in its entirety; I nearly bought Light & Magic once in HMV, but balked at the price ($21.99, IIRC) -- I'm glad I didn't buy it then, because listening to it now, I don't think it's really held up all that well
• Ciao! 1989-1996 by Lush -- another attempt to backfill the gaps in my music collection; I had an ancient cassette of Lush tunes that a friend made for me, and a handful of MP3s that I found online, but never actually "bought" anything from them before now
• Ultimate Sleep System by Ambient Music Therapy -- the above three albums brought my total up to 47 tracks, so this release -- 3 tracks of ambient electronic noise, clocking in at 25 mintues each -- filled out my 50 track quota

The one silly thing that eMusic does, IMHO, is that they don't encourage you to browse the catalogue before signing up -- a real mistake, because I think most people would want to know if the music that they offer is any good before forking over all their information (plus credit card number). Fortunately, you can circumvent the "start your free trial now" splash screen by clicking one of the footer links (such as the one for 'Privacy Policy'). From there you can access the navigation to browse through the various musical genres that they offer. There's some really good stuff there, particularly for indie/alternative fans; the electronica section is also strong, and my jaw dropped when I saw their jazz offerings -- classic releases from Miles Davis, Sonny Rollins, Thelonius Monk, Bill Evans, and more.

I've elected to go for monthly "40 MP3s for $9.95 (US)" package (sign up before August 31st and get 20% off an annual subscription), which, if you do the math (between 2 and 4 albums per month, on average) is a damn good deal. I've already queued up enough stuff in my 'Save for Later' list to take care of the first nine or ten months.

In terms of other media consumption, I went to see the movie The Island (Flash site) (IMDB info here). I enjoyed it, although the film's taken a real beating from the critics, mostly due to Michael Bay's noisy and chaotic directing -- I won't disagree, as the sound and visuals can be rather overwhelming at times. But the story's interesting, if you're willing to forgive a few plot holes.

As you might have guessed, the mood board is late because I have been very busy.

Last week in four bullet points:

• spent a lot of time at the computer
• saw the movie The 40 Year Old Virgin and enjoyed it
• played a lot of different MP3s; someone overhead me playing a track from MC5 and concluded that I'm a "headbanger"
• also played some 90s/early-00s era Madonna tunes on Sunday afternoon, which provided a nice pick-me-up while working at said computer

It's sad, but a busy week can make for a boring mood board.

I went to work and... well... worked. It was busy, but productive (and, of course, it was a short work week). However, the coffee maker was broken during the latter part of the week, so you can imagine what that was like. If it hadn't been for an ample supply of strong tea, I probably would have died.

When not working, I did a lot of walking around. And, it was hot outside.

Media consumption of note:

• I finally got around to seeing the movie Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle on DVD. It's a fun, ambling sort of buddy flick, nominally about a quest for the ultimate burger, but of course all sorts of wacky stuff happens on the way there. Not exactly The Odyssey, but better than what first impressions might lead you to believe.
• Been liking the song "Mushaboom" by Feist. It's a charming, idyllic sort of track, perfect to listen to on hot, lazy summer afternoons.

(Thanks to toothpastefordinner for the oh-so-appropriate cartoon. Other pix came from stock.xchng and FreeFoto.com.)

The week got off to a fairly idyllic start, then took a shift about halfway through.

Monday and Tuesday were typical 'lifestyles-of-the-unemployed' days, with lots of puttering around and napping.

On Wednesday morning the phone rang. The company whom I was recently contracting with needed me to come back and do some more work, so I was back in there -- and hence back into employment-time-and-space -- before noon. The next two weeks promise to be more of the same.

As for the weekend, Saturday was spent in the city, and it was hot humid. Then, yesterday "N" and I made a day trip up to Wasaga Beach, where it was... rainy and cold. It figures.

On the media consumption side, I went to go see Wedding Crashers. It's a reasonably enjoyable light comedy -- if you like Vince Vaughan or Owen Wilson in other comedies, you won't be disappointed here. Fun, but hardly a cinema classic.

I've also been trying to catch up on the huge backlog of work-related books I have, so this week's reading selection has been The Elements of User Experience. It's a short book (that's a good thing), and serves as a useful refresher, especially if you need to articulate to other people what the heck it is that you do.

After six weeks of frenetic activity, the pace over the last week slowed significantly.

My contract ended two Fridays ago (yep, it was quick), so the last week was spent updating the resume, talking to recruiters, and hitting the usual sites in search of a new gig.

Mind you, whatwith the now extremely flexible schedule and the very hot temperatures, a lot of napping also took place. Gotta work on that.

On the media side, I picked up the Special Edition DVD of the Oscar-winning animated short film Ryan (which made an appearance on a previous mood board). To recap:

"Ryan, directed by Chris Landreth, is an animated tribute to Canadian animator Ryan Larkin. Thirty years ago, at the National Film Board of Canada, Ryan produced some of the most influential animated films of his time. Today, Ryan lives on welfare and panhandles for spare change in downtown Montreal. How could such an artistic genius follow this path?"

The DVD includes three animated short films by Larkin himself, as well as two older shorts from Landreth. Also included is the 52-minute documentary Alter Egos (directed by Laurence Green), which further compares and contrasts the careers of Larkin and Landreth.

I haven't watched Alter Egos yet, but it's been interesting to see and compare the animated shorts. Larkin's work has a cheery, whimsical quality to it, although the pacing seems draggy by current standards. The two earlier pieces from Landreth are technically slick, but seem a bit too clever by half. Ryan itself remains compelling, even after repeated viewings -- in all likelihood, there will be a few more.

It's sad that the last entry made in this blog was last week's mood board (and I'm late with this one). All work and no play is making me very dull indeed.

Actually, things have eased off a bit chez office. It's still busy, but not the insane pressure-cooker like in previous weeks. I must getting the hang of things. Still, much of the week was spent at the computer, cranking out flowcharts.

And I still had time for some media consumption...

Yes, I had the TV on for a good chunk of Saturday to watch the Live 8 broadcast (although I went out in the afternoon -- hey, it was a nice day outside). There's a decent overview at Wikipedia of what the event entailed, as well as criticisms of it.

I saw the movie Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room (here's the link to the official site -- needs Flash). While I knew the basic outline of what happened, this movie filled in a lot of the details, and brought out the people behind the headlines.

It just boggles my mind how the key players managed to emerge relatively unscathed, after ripping off thousands of people -- including their own employees. As Roger Ebert writes in his review of the film:

"Strange, that there has not been more anger over the Enron scandals. The cost was incalculable, not only in lives lost during the power crisis, but in treasure: The state of California is suing for $6 billion in refunds for energy overcharges collected during the phony crisis. If the crisis had been created by Al Qaeda, if terrorists had shut down half of California's power plants, consider how we would regard these same events."

Lastly, there was this week's musical nostalgia selection, namely The Carpenters. Yeah, shut up -- if they were good enough for the likes of Sonic Youth and Matthew Sweet to pay tribute to ten years ago, they should be good enough for you.

Actually, I come by my Carpenters fanhood quite honestly. Back in the day, my dad had an 8-track tape of their hits that he used to play in our van frequently during our drives up north to the cottage. (Geez, nothing says "The 70s" quite like the words "8-track" and "van", huh?) I knew them all, and of course I sang along. Obviously, my voice was nowhere nearly as good as Karen's.

Just because, here's a ZIP file (EXPIRED) (6.85 MB) with two of their tunes. "Only Yesterday" was the duo's last Top Five hit (they actually thought the track was going to bust the charts wide open, but it didn't get any higher than #4). There's something about the lyrics and the way the song builds that reminds me a little of The Ronette's "Be My Baby". (OK, maybe very little.) The other song in the ZIP, "Superstar", had already been recorded by other artists (including Bette Midler) before The Carpenters got ahold of it; they really managed to make the tune their own.

If you go to this page of Sonic Youth MP3s (from their official website), you can download their cover of "Superstar". It may be almost blasphemous of me to say it, but I think it surpasses Karen and Richard's version. You can decide for yourselves.

(Note 1: The flowchart shown on the board is not one of mine, but is this one. Also, the pic of the computer user is not me; I got it from some free stock photo site, can't remember which.)

(Note 2: The ZIP file is being hosted on RapidShare, which will entail a wee bit of clicking before you get to the actual download link. And, you won't be able to use a download accelerator -- just right-click and "Save As...").

Here we go with another wrap-up of the week that was...

I saw two movies this week (thank Dog for "Happy Hour" matinees at the Bloor Cinema):

• Downfall -- based on the memoirs of Adolf Hitler's secretary, the film chronicles the final days of Hitler and his entourage in their bunker as Berlin falls to the Russians (official site needs Flash; you can also view the info on IMDB)
• The Upside of Anger -- Joan Allen plays a well-heeled suburban housewife whose husband disappears one day (ditto with the Flash; here's the IMDB info)

I enjoyed them both. Interestingly, they shared some common themes (denial, desparation, things coming apart at the seams), although obviously one movie was a lot happier at the end than the other one.

Tunage consumption for the week was heavily fed by the newly launched WOXY Vintage channel. Standout tracks included:

• "Stupid Girl" by Garbage (caution: very loud music playing when the site loads)
• "Infected" by The The

I wasn't completely hooked into the oldies for the whole week, however, as these two newer tunes spent a lot of time on repeat in WinAmp:

• "Wherever You Are" by Ulrich Schnauss, taken from the compilation CD Blue Skied An' Clear
• "6AM" by Alex Smoke, from the album Incommunicado

Both tracks were discoveries via Dirty Radio. I'll admit I'm a complete sucker for melancholic tracks featuring lush or intricate synth arrangements, and these tunes have haunted me for some time since I first heard them (and figured much more prominently in my initial take on this week's mood board). I finally managed to track them down and buy the MP3s from Bleep.com.

Another recent tune that got prominent play (in the CD Walkman) was "Speak Easy" from Swayzak (more about that song in this previous mood board writeup) -- it supplies the textual elements on the board this week.

Lastly, I spent a good chunk of time this week hauling myself around on public transit to meet various people. It was all for a good cause, as I've managed to secure some contract employment for myself (I start Monday). This means that you'll be spared my whining about looking for a job, at least for the next little while.

Another week, another mood board.

This week, I saw the Japanese film Nobody Knows. Here's the plot summary from the official website (needs Flash):

"Four siblings live happily with their mother in a small apartment in Tokyo. The children all have different fathers. They have never been to school. The very existence of three of them has been hidden from the landlord. One day, the mother leaves behind a little money and a note, asking her 12-year-old boy to look after the others. And so begins the children’s odyssey, a journey nobody knows."

And it's "based on a true story".

I liked this film. It cast an unflinching eye on the realities of the childrens' situation, without descending into pathos or pity. There was a certain aura of gentleness about it and about the way the siblings stuck together and cared for each other. The character portrayals were all very geniune, and didn't descend into that sappy plucky cuteness that seems to permeate kids' roles in Hollywood (the film's young star Yuya Yagira, who played the eldest boy, won the Best Actor prize at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival).

It wasn't until after I saw the movie that I learned that its director, Hirokazu Koreeda, also did the film After Life, which I saw a few years ago. While I thought that was a very lovely, meditative film, I found it really dragged in spots. I'm glad to see that Koreeda has learned to pick up the pace a bit while still keeping that gentle quality.

Tunage consumption this week was dominated by listening to some old stuff from The Sundays, featuring the vocal work of Harriet Wheeler. Damn, that woman has an amazing voice. I previously blogged about The Sundays here. Keeners may also want to check out this unofficial website dedicated to the group.

Also getting some heavy play in WinAmp this week was this electronic mix, which starts out all Richie Hawtin-esque, then gets a little more retro, with some acid breaks thrown in about halfway through. I particularly found myself repeating the segment starting at about the 26-minute-mark, when the song "Do you like acid?" by Swedish DJ Cari Lekebusch kicks in. I have to thank Dirty Radio for introducing me to this wickedly addictive tune, which unfortunately only seems to be available for purchase as a slab of 12-inch vinyl out of Germany.

Not much else to report, as the rest of the week was taken up with the usual jobhunt goo, and lots of meaningless websurfing. (Thanks to the ever-enjoyable toothpastefordinner for the drawing of the guy at the computer, and to gapingvoid for the scribbled bit.)

I'm way overdue with posting the weekly mood board. So here it be (for last week), such as it is.

I saw the movie Tarnation. It's an autobiography, created by some 32-year-old guy named Jonathon Caouette. As noted in this writeup in The Guardian:

It's compiled from footage shot on various cameras, ranging from a Super 8 to mini-DVD, that he's owned or borrowed to record his life since the age of eight. This he's accompanied by family snapshots, clips from feature films and audio tapes, all edited on an iMac computer using accompanying Apple software.

And these are no ordinary home movies, as Jonathon didn't exactly have a normal upbringing. His mother suffers from severe bipolarism and schizo-affective disorder, the result of (as it now turns out, likely unneccessary) electroshock treatments she received at a young age. At various times, Jonathon lived in an orphanage, foster homes (where he was abused), and with his grandparents, who had troubles of their own. Hardly the stuff of sunshine and lollipops.

Anyway, the film is sometimes difficult to watch, with occasionally garbled imagery and dialogue, and some very disturbing footage of people in severe mental pain. I don't regret seeing it -- and you've got to applaud the guy's effort to put all this together -- but if you're looking for something that's going to put you in an "up" mood when you leave the theatre, you may perhaps want to give this a miss. Or if you're curious, read more info about the movie here.

Various bits of tunage that got prominent play:

• "High and Dry" by Radiohead -- darned fine listening for when you're feeling good and sorry for yourself
• "Chest Fever" by The Band -- that organ sound just stays with you long after the song is over
• "Ain't No Sunshine" by Bill Withers -- sure, he sings "I know, I know" twenty-six times in a row, but it doesn't seem the least bit redundant
• "Going Fetal" by Eels -- already written about here

And, of course, there was job hunting:

• Workopolis recently added RSS feeds to its 'Fast Track' job post categories, and I like them a lot. They're much more useful than some of the garbage that get spewed out in the email-based 'Career Alerts'.

• Yahoo! Hot Jobs has made RSS available for a while. Here too, I find that attempting to build a customized feed (based on specific search criteria) also includes a lot of garbage, but feeds of postings by industry seem to work OK.
• Multimediator's job board recently had an upgrade of some kind, but unfortunately still does not have an RSS feed.

I wound up doing two mood boards this week...

The first one I did on Friday, wherein the theme of the week up to that point was anger and frustration:

I kinda wish sometimes that I could just stand there on a street corner and scream my head off, like the guy in this cartoon by m@b. sigh

So, one of the discs that I found myself spinning this week was an audio CD I made of Underworld's live set at the Fuji Rock Festival from 1999.

In particular, the song "Cowgirl" got repeated several times, and provided the lyrical content seen on the board. It's kind of nonsensical stream of consciousness stuff, but it fit the theme.

Anyway, it occurred to me this morning that the weekly mood boards of the last few weeks have been more like weekly whine-fests, so I figured I'd take a stab at a second board that reflected a more straight-forward look at the week's media consumption.

OK, so the board features "Cowgirl" once again, just because I played the track so damn much. It really is a very cool tune, as this writeup from Stylus magazine will aver. Also getting some time in the Walkman this week were a couple other discs from 1999 -- Play by Moby, and Abductions and Reconstructions by Thievery Corporation.

I did see one movie this week -- The Stepford Wives (2004 version) on DVD. It was OK, I guess; more satire than horror, but falling a bit flat.

I should also mention that the background images for this week's boards come from Texture Warehouse and Mayang's Free Textures. Both are good sources of imagery that's free to use.

This week's mood board draws its elements from a single piece of media, but actually manages to sum up the week pretty well.

Yes, I went to go see The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I liked it. And no, I haven't read the books -- I keep meaning to. (I even got the whole set as a gift a couple Christmases back. Oops.) I did get the feeling that there was a fair bit missing from the movie, which isn't surprising, I guess.

So, pictured on the board are the two characters I liked the most -- Marvin the robot, and the hapless human Arthur Dent. The way my week went -- whatwith more school stuff (yech), job hunting stuff (yikes), etc. -- I could pretty much relate to them the most as well.

Anyway, on to another week.

DON'T PANIC.

Just thought I'd mention this for any Toronto readers out there...

The Bloor Cinema will be re-running the collection of Oscar-nominated short films that I blogged about here.

You can catch it tomorrow (i.e. Wednesday) or Thursday at 7 pm, or on Friday at 4:30 pm.

Go see it if you have a chance -- there's some good stuff.

Not a lot to say for myself.

This week's media consumption:

• The standout tune for the week has been "Signal Crossing" by Dykehouse. The song is all swirly and dreamy and atmospheric, with a sound very reminiscent of something coming out of the UK in the mid-80s. Some have invited comparisons to The Jesus and Mary Chain, or Echo and The Bunnymen -- I won't disagree. You can download it for free here.
• Also gave the CD Loops from the Bergerie by Swayzak a couple listens. I picked the disc up sometime in February, I think. By far (in my my mind) the standout track on the disc is "Speakeasy", a swaggering bit of Electro with a wicked fat synth line and a terrific schaeffel beat. There's a Motorola TV commercial that uses the song. You can also download an earlier tune by Swayzak from Epitonic.
• Am also still really liking the LCD Soundsystem disc that appeared on the board a couple weeks back.
• Saw the movie Ocean's 12. It was sufficiently entertaining. I never saw Ocean's 11, and it didn't seem to matter.

The other pix on the page come via Cognitive Distortion and morgueFile. They seemed appropriate.

Another week has gone by, and I don't feel like I have a heck of a lot to show for it.

So here's what's on the board this week (starting from the lower-left hand corner):

• I went and picked up Set Yourself on Fire, the latest CD by Stars, which happens to be yet another disc that everyone's liking a lot. If I had to describe the band's sound in terms of what other groups sound like, I go with it being a cross between Prefab Sprout and Lush, accompanied by a Nintendo Gameboy. No, really, it's good. (Damn, I just noticed that the New York Times also cited Prefab Sprout in their writeup. And here I thought I was being so original.) I've seen the adjective "devastating" being bandied about a couple times, due to not only the sheer gorgeousness of the instrumentals, but also to the lyrical content. If you've ever had your heart broken -- be it last week, last year, or last decade -- you'll know what they mean about the lyrics.
• As the jobhunt thing continues, one company that I've applied to asked me to cough up a sample requirements document with use cases, which gave me the opportunity to show off a bit of the UML stuff I learned recently.
• Saw the movie Sideways. It's a bittersweet sort of film, heavy on the themes of aging and watching your dreams fade away, while trying to fight back and not give up on it all so easily. Nice visuals, fully drawn characters (flaws and all), understated humour, and pacing that feels leisurely without being draggy -- in all, a film well deserving of its handful of Oscar nominations (although Paul Giamatti should have gotten one too).
• Nick Lowe appears on the board, thanks to Tuesday's theme song.
• It's been a while since I visited Exploding Dog, where Sam has posted a number of his ink drawings on paper, in additon to his usual digital drawings. This particular pic has been especially appropriate for me lately.
• The background text is another jobhunt artifact, the well-known FOAD letter.

Not showing on the board is anything pertaining to school. While I'm all up-to-date on the reading, I've been thrashing around on the assignments. Blech. One's due Monday, so you know how the rest of my weekend will be spent.

Another week blinks by...

As the background image to this week's mood board would convey, things were a bit of a blur.

I did manage to hit the Bloor Cinema to see a collection of short films that were nominated for Oscars this year, and you can see stills from two of the films on the board.

Ryan (pic stretched out across the top) won the Oscar for Best Short Film (Animated), and most deservedly so, as it's not only a visually stunning piece of work, but also an affecting look at the fragility of the human mind and soul. You can see some excerpts from the film (the whole thing used to be there, but it's gone now) and learn more on the website.

7:35 in the Morning (pic along the right-hand-side of the board) was nominated for Best Short Film (Live Action), and offers a quirky look at what could happen when everyday routine gets turned on its head. You can see the whole film on the website (needs the Quicktime plugin).

As for the other short films that showed in the collection, Roger Ebert offers a writeup.

Along the bottom of the mood board is a line from a track off the LCD Soundsystem self-titled double-disc set that everyone's been raving about. I bought it myself a couple weeks back, and wholeheartedly agree that it makes for some damn fine listening.

The other textual elements on the board are from my resume and from the table of contents to a help file that I was examining for a class assignment. Blech.

A couple things that didn't make it onto the board this week:

• "Reason is Treason" by Kasabian -- a darned catchy guitar-driven track that I've heard a few times on WOXY
• "I'd Rather Dance with You" by Kings of Convenience -- a very charming and quirky tune, heard on dirtyradio; you can watch the video here

Graig picks up on The Online Film Critics Society's Top 100 Overlooked Films of the 1990s, and turns it into a meme:

Copy the list (attached below) and highlight those films which you've seen... add em up and if you're more than 35% then you have selective tase, 70% then you're a film buff. and 100% then you're in need of a life.

After you've done that, take the list into a text editor, remove the ones you've seen and print of a checklist for some movies you should think about renting.

Heck, I like me a good meme. Although, I was disappointed to find that I didn't perform particulalry well on this checklist: