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Tuesday, January 27, 2004
If people really tried when they wrote their blogs, they wouldn't prattle on about their new hair cut, or the girl in their economics class that they're fighting with. If they really thought about what really was interesting, what was compelling... to them... their posts would read back like the articles found on knotmag.com.
I really don't know much about the writers or origin of knotmag, but I do know that I'm falling in love with the websites content. Hell, I don't even know how I stumbled across the site in the first place, but I'm overjoyed I did.
I get the impression that knot is written for and by people right in the thick of the 20-something-year old experience. The bulk of the articles take life head on, and cover broad topics such as dating, marriage, careers, music, politics... and how totally fucked these things are during this time in one's life.
Yes, the above-mentioned topics can be found on countless websites. However, this is one of the first websites I've found to call it as it really is, and not present ideas in glossy little formats, with flashy headlines, and negligible content. Best of all most of the articles are more like essays written from the first person perspective. The essays are funny and more importantly honest, arguabally allowing so many people to relate to them.
Kinda like what a blog is supposed to be like.
So yeah... knotmag = teh awsum. Articles, that entertain the crap out of me, and 9 times out of 10 convey a sense of strength and survival. eg: This, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this... well you get the point, and now have something to read at your desk today.
audio goodies
mixtape 16 | a link to download the new Incubus CD
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Monday, January 26, 2004
The initial batch of photos from curl-a-thon part deux are now online, and can be accessed here. Thanks to everyone who came out and curled, fell on the ice, lost thier cell phone, sang in thier chair, sang on stage, etc etc. If you have any pics from the weekend, get them to me, and I'll post them. Word is bond.
This was the most straight to the point / un-funny post written on vanmega ever. Know you know, and knowing's half the battle.
elsewhere
tin foil | tony pierce | temperatures
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Wednesday, January 21, 2004
Shameless plug:
as presented by SEA BASS PRODUCTIONS
Depending on your stance, we're either the coolest bunch of cats around. Or a bunch of completely over the top, over planning, goofs.
I really can't decide.
Nevermind the fact that the 2 second annual Soy & Wendy birthday curl-a-thon is a few days away. Nevermind that shortly after that a plethora of birthdays and birthday related events will take place, and continue all spring and into the summer. The thing that blows my mind is that we're getting this event hosting / planning / partaking stuff down to a science. Bubbles & Gong's birthday bash is exactly one month away, and the details have already been ironed out, the DJ's lined up, the location secured, the buzz started... and... we're now pumping out sleek professional flyers (pictured above) for the event (that look better than 95% of all event / promo flyers out there).
I hate to brag but, collectively, damn... we're good. Let's all quit our jobs, turn vanmega into a licensed company and set up an events planning company, and rock it full_time.
elsewhere
rob 2 lives in costa rica now | bush in 30 seconds | CDN $5 coin
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Tuesday, January 20, 2004
Plot Summary for
Bad Boys II (2003)
Narcotics cops Mike Lowrey (Smith) and Marcus Bennett (Lawrence) head up a task force investigating the flow of ecstasy into Miami. Their search leads to a dangerous kingpin, whose plan to control the city's drug traffic has touched off an underground war. Meanwhile, things get sexy between Mike and Syd (Union), Marcus's sister.
- imdb.com
This weekend, I kicked back in Bub's new living room and watched Bad Boys 2 on DVD. This was the first time I've ever viewed the film.
Those of you who've read a few posts on vanmega know I'm not a big fan of the Hollywood pop culture movie machine. I'm in no way an expert on the world of movies, but it just seems with every new release force fed to the masses Hollywood assumes the audience is dumber and dummer (eg: recient releases "My Baby Daddy" the hilarious tale of three idiots that irresponsibly father illegitimate children, or "Honey" the touching story about Jessica Alba's abs juxtaposed with a completx sub-plot about doing the running man).
This assumption of stupidity is beyond insulting.
Needless to say I was beyond surprized when I totally enjoyed Bad Boys II. WTF?!? After countless hours of questioning my moral fibre, I've decided I enjoyed the film because not a single punch was pulled, so to speak.
The movie was an obvious and unapologetic 147 minutes of big budget / glossy, car chases, stuff blowing up, cliched one-liners, and gun fights. All stuff which men, by genetic nature, are required to enjoy. Sorry ladies, your man may tell you he prefers "Mona Lisa Smile", but he's a liar. Hit him in the shins... with a wooden club.
With my total enjoyment of Bad Boys II being public knowledge, and certain disgust with myself...
I feel the need to call bullshit on the following things in BB II:
- Not all cuban drug lords working out of Maimi attempt to be exactly like Scarface.
- If you're casually driving across a bridge and a gun fight with assult rifles and bombs breaks out between passengers in a lambourgini and semi-truck in front of you - PULL OVER. There is no need to drive along side or in the middle of the raging battle.
- Are there any police chiefs out there that aren't tough as nails, but have a heart of gold?
- *picks up cell phone* "It's Mike Lowery, you hot!". This movie had a $130 million dollar budget, and took 7 years to make... and that's the best line they could come up with?
- (Especially if you're a law enforcement officer) you can't sneak into someone else's country and kill countless members of their military and blow up massive buildings. That's called terrorism. CNN tells me terrorism is soooo out this year.
- "Shake ya' tail feather" is the worst song ever written or recorded. Ever. There aren't enough forms of slow and painful torture to inflict on puffy daddy or nelly to make up for all the sonic damage they've forced upon the world.
PS: There were spoilers in the post above.
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Sunday, January 18, 2004
There are days when we write and write and post and post at vanmega, there are days when the content flows like the river nile... or some-such equi-aqueous body of water.
Today isn't one of those days.
Today, the last week finally caught up with all of us. We'll be forced to not sit at the pc and blog, but rather be forced to mircrowave some popping corn and watch countless DVD's on the tv. Now that we've justified the lack of text, here ya go:
photo journal | lil' mike's last night.
elsewhere
leftnutt | live john mayer mp3's | bootleg
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Thursday, January 15, 2004
A lady reader writes:
dear soy
what's going on with rockets?
don't pull a futon, k?
--
My make work novel writing project, Rocket's is still alive and well, kids. In fact, I just finished chapter 7 late last night, and have chapter 8 mapped out. Perhaps the biggest challenge is that I have certain scenes in the story completely thought out in my head, but the spaces in between these scenes are vague. So connecting the dots, so to speak, is taking a bit of time. Like Axl Rose once said, "ya need a little patience". With that said, the pieces are coming together and this thing will turn out all swimmingly.
Don't take my word for it. Go read chapter 7 of the novel.
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Tuesday, January 13, 2004
Anyone can play the guitar...
It's recently come to my attention that we're getting a fair amount of traffic from google, as people search for guitar tabs for the uber-addictive Outkast track, "Hey ya". (Sidebar for those unaware, or who don't care, guitar tabs are a way of explaining how to play a song on the guitar without actually reading music). Every single person who came to vanmega with hopes of finding tabs for "Hey Ya", were shit out of luck.
Until today.
Instead of just posting a tab for the song, I'll go one step further, and SHOW you how to play the song. Hot damn, I give until it hurts.
What most people don't realize the guitar part played on "Hey Ya" isn't actually a part, but rather a loop of 4 chords sampled over and over... meaning it's super-duper-easy to play. All you need to do is grab a guitar (hopefully it's in tune), and strum along.
Tab: Outkast - Hey ya
G major:
C major:
D major:
E major:
That's all there is to it. Play these 4 chords in the order presented above for 3 minutes and 55 seconds, and you'll be rocking out to arguably the most catchy tune in all of 2003. Lend me some sugar, I am your condo tennant neighbour.
elsewhere
- Arista records initially lied to the rock radio stations to get "Hey Ya" on the air.
- vanmega's collection of tabs
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Sunday, January 11, 2004
For a quiet weekend, we all sure as hell were busy. Friday saw me, Dave, & Julie out at the sketchiest bar in the world checking out a funk and groove band, complete with a 3 piece horn section. Saturday, the boys did the surprizingly not-pompous wine club thing, followed by an imrpromptu dinner / pre-bar for 10 at Carpet's. Followed by a trip to The Coil for Jonelle's birthday. The night and weekend were capped by a late night after-hours session back at Carpet's. I never knew not paying attention to the hand of cards in front of me could be so much fun.
Actually, I did know that, but that's neither here nor there, and I digress...
I've been laying low since the new year started up, and find myself playing the after-school special designated driver role. How do I entertain myself for countless hours while the crew further falls for the lure of jack daniels one ounce at a time? I bring out the new fancy digi-cam and try to teach myself how to use and navigate through the one-million-billion features and settings. Kim Mitchell wasn't kidding, I am a wild party.
I ended up making a tony pierce styled photo journal from some of the more interesting pics I took over the weekend. You can check it out here. I've come to the realization I ended up taking a lot of pictures of Dave and Todd Gack over the last 72 hours. I think the fact that they ended up turning a night of going out and being seen into a disgusting he-larious 'Glutton Bowl' might have had something to do with it. Who knows.
Go: photo journal | an idle weekend in january
Remember: Give the photos a moment to fully load before you click through each journal page. The images are big, and best suited for a 1024 x 768 screen resolution.
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Friday, January 09, 2004
Mixtape 15 has just been posted and is available for download.
With that said, I'm having a hard time figuring out what I want to do with the whole mixtape feature of vanmega in 2004. As time goes on it seems my musical selections for the tapes get further and further obscure (by more mainstream standards). This isn't a bad thing... just because the music is more unknown, doesn't mean it's a lesser product (in fact it usually ends up being better). I'm just trying to figure out if people are up for coming along for the audio ride, or if they're just looking for radio single mp3's and what-not.
Not that I'd really change what I'm posting.
You see, I have this weird utopian dream that, at some point, I'll get and discover most of the music I love from friends and friends of friends. That is, they won't just put me on to good music, but will actually make the music themselves... regardless of whether it's twangy rock, electronic nonsense, turntabled hip hop, or even power-pop avril-esque stuff - as long as the creation is their own and genuine.
And that dream is starting to slowly take flight [1, 2, 3, 4]... but who knows if it will ever come to fruition. Until then, I spend my time scouring the interweb looking for and learning about wonderful, (usually) under-exposed artists, which in turn I fall in love with, and then post on vanmega for you to check out.
And I do adore the mixtape concept. Although it's a fine line, the honest to God truth is that the mixtapes aren't a form of piracy, but a form of promotion. Hopefully, you find or further get into a few artists on the tapes and check out their live show or buy a CD or two. Lord knows, collectively over the last 3 years, the kids of vanmega have spent eleventy-billion dollars on concerts and disks, based on my promotion. There's something to be said about a solid soundtrack in one's life.
Anyways... the point of all this being. I'd like some feedback on the audio featured on this site... what do you think? what do you like? where do babies come from? Use the feedback form to get in touch with me.
elsewhere
- Special J's vancouver moblog
- All blank CD's should look as cool as these
- Rockets is not dead. I'll be writing over the weekend.
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Monday, January 05, 2004
Serving of self...
This may be the most pointless and self-serving post ever smeared across the front page of vanmega, but...
I just wanted to point out that in EXACTLY one month to the day, Me, Carpet, Bubbles, Jay from the Rad Dudes Society, Gong, and Sweet - in addition to about 30 more friends and family will be on the beaches of the Caribbean. Recent pictures of our resort are shown above.
I'm so pumped... not only because of the good friends & family, and the white sand beaches, and the "all inclusive" package which me, bubs, and Carpet made a blood oath to totally abuse. But most importantly, I'm pumped because the temperature outdoors will shift a full 50 degrees (Celsius) warmer.
Somebody in the house say "hell yeah".
I apologize for the petty post, faithful vanmega reader... however, when I took a bottle of contact lens solution out of my car tonight, only to find the contents were frozen solid, I had no choice but start counting down the nano-seconds until I put my boarding shorts and flip-flops back on again. Tomorrow we'll get back to vanmega normality. Until then...
elsewhere
- Special J has set up moblog - now you see what his camera phone sees.
- Norberts Nintendo Emulator - Play lots of different old-school Nintendo video games in your web browser.
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Sunday, January 04, 2004
Bathtub + martini music...
The other night, me and TKNY we're going through and listening to some of my CD's... you see, she has this silly habit / masterplan of slowly stealing my entire CD collection... one CD at a time. We ended up making her a mixtape of all kinds of chilled out electronic stuff.
The artist and CD that gave TK the idea that she needed a chill out mix, was Lemon Jelly... one of the tracks from the LemonJelly.ky disk... maybe it was The Stanton Lick [mp3 via amazon] track... maybe it was something else. What I do remember was that TK described the track we listened to as "bathtub and martini music"... and it was the most perfect description of music I've ever heard.
Bathtub + martini... meaning it's chilled out enough to be your soundtrack as you just kick back whilst enjoying a warm bath, but charged up enough to easily be the audio backdrop as you sling back some fancy cocktail at a lounge of some sort.
Or if you're TK, you simply cut out the middle man, and drink your fancy drinks in the bathtub... with a Lemon Jelly CD radiating from the stereo.
So today, inspired by the mixtape me and TKNY made, I picked up the 2nd LemonJelly CD, Lost Horizons. And it fucking rules.
The only way to describe the disk is to say it's an absolute pleasure to listen to. It's works around the same foundations from the first Lemon Jelly CD... but this time it seems more evolved, with a wider range of sound and style.
I've never been able to get into a lot of the down tempo electronica. In part, because I've never been able to find any good artists in the genre that can offer more than a handful of enticing tracks. What makes it even worse, is that all accessable chilled out / down tempo / whatever electronic music has been marginalized by countless ULTIMATE SUPER CHILL OUT MIX 2000 type compilation disks force fed to the masses... which 99% of the time are total suck.
But not this time... not Lemon Jelly... wonderful stuff... a CD best listened to completely from start to finish. I adore the fact that the CD doesn't take itself too seriously, the way the CD builds and falls in tempo, and the way each track has such an organic sound (ie: the samles and loops sound like real instruments, not compressed digital non-sense). Boo-yaa (down-tempo) bass in your face.
Anyways... I'm gonna go run a bath and throw some gin over ice in a boston shaker. For now check out these samples from Lost horizons:
- Lemon Jelly - Elements [mp3]
- Lemon Jelly - Spacewalk [mp3]
elsewhere:
- I need a Mr. T in my pocket
- Wil posts new mp3's online
- One of Rob 2: The Sequel's boys goes on the next installment of The Bachellorette
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Thursday, January 01, 2004
Kimberley-a-poluza 2004...
I don't work in Hollywood.
I don't write sit-coms for a living.
But if I did, to come up with ideas, sketches, and one-liners that were nothing less than comedic gold - I'd write all about our annual 4-day new year's trip, Kimberley-a-poluza.
This year's trip was nuts.
I don't know how we do this trip year after year... and out-do ourselves year after year. We go with the intention of snowboarding by day, and recouping in the massive rented cabin by night. Yet somehow most of us never get around to actually strapping the boards on... 'cause we're having far too good of a time to go outside.
It seemed we turned every single little event (like sitting by the fireplace and watching DVD's) into a competition where we each tried to be funnier than each other and whatever was on the tv screen.
Plus, completely dorkish dance-offs seemed to take place at the drop of a hat. Don't believe me? Check out this video clip. [mpeg - note video taken down, due to bandwidth, email me if you really want to see it].
I'd go into greater detail and give the play-by play, but I'm so sleepy and exhausted from the trip, that I'm certain I won't make an ounce of sense (anymore so than usual). I was going to create a tp-styled photo journal, but I don't think it's in the cards, yo. For now, check out the first batches of photos here. And check out the babble board tomorrow. I'm sure you'll figure it all out.
elsewhere:
- master andy has a fancy new layout, and calls vanmega "an amusing slice of life". Bless.
- hello users from teganandsara.net!
- The Family Guy Reference Archive... 10 banana cream pies.
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