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7-29-03 // 1.56 pm stop and reveal stage tricks like jimi hendrix NP: The Streets - "Original Pirate Material" Heard while using an automated telephone bill-paying service a little while ago: "You have entered # to end this call. If this is correct, press #." So over the weekend I finally caved in to excess techno-guilt and paid for a six month d-land gold membership. To be honest, I don't really feel I get any extra value from it, but I felt bad about using the site for three years or so for free and Andrew having to do all sorts of unpaid database optimzation work. As a fellow database guy, I know that it's not fun stuff. So I gave in and now I'm a gold member. Whoo. Oh, and I got like 1000 banner views or something (which isn't very many, but still) and I ran this ad:
I'm proud to say that while I got a decent clickthrough ratio, it seems that not a soul was sufficiently moved by my words to become a regular reader. Heh. So last week I finally bought that Libertines record that I've meant to pick up for ages. Upon bringing it home and putting it on the stereo, I was amazed to discover that it kind of sucks. The second half of the album sort of redeems itself, but the first five or so songs are pretty shit. It's like getting an English version of the Strokes (danger! danger!) when you were expecting something along the lines of the energy of the Clash crossed with an Elvis Costello or Paul Weller-esque wit. I mean, that's what the couple of singles I'd previously heard suggested. But no, there's plenty of copped-from-Lust For Life riffs, Velvet Underground posturing, and strutting macho vocals. Bleargh. I'm sick of "garage rock" and I'm sick of bands being from New York. Or at the very least, I'm sick of listening to bands sing about New York. I've recently reacquanited myself with m@b, one of the better 'zine type comics I've come across. It's like the comic version of a haiku, if that makes any sense, but funnier and more affecting, plus set in Toronto. But yeah, go read it if you like that sort of thing. It's becoming increasingly difficult to stand to live in a country where the very obvious failure of objective (not mention the fact that the bogus premises used to sell the war in the first place have turned out to be, well, bogus) in Iraq still aren't enough to make people realize that the current administration are not to be trusted. There's a difference for me between a president whom I simply disgree with but tolerate and one whom I view as a true, immediate danger to our nation. It's the latter that we're suffering right now, and it's the Iraqi people (I'll bet they're quite happy to be "liberated" about now, what with even less water, food, medical supplies and water now than before the invasion) who truly suffer. Wow, it's nearing midafternoon already. Not bad. I've even been pretty productive today, which is always nice. In any case, I'm out. Later gators.
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