Bento Box

Love this station. CBC Radio 3 on Sirius 94. They play Canadian indie rock and hip-hop. Through them I’ve discovered a plethora of great bands. Most of the bands I can find on Rhapsody, but occasionally I find a gem that isn’t.

Listen to Great Aunt Ida - We Say No

Download the CBC Radio 3 podcasts for an introduction to great indie from our friends up North.

Went to Whistler again over MLK weekend, this is beginning to become a tradition with my pharmacist friends. I haven’t been feeling as excited about snowboarding as I was last year- MTB has spoiled me. I’d rather bike trails for free than spend $60-$70 a lift ticket. Found a hack at Whistler to allow me to get on some of the slopes for free though (no hiking involved). Spent my time just relaxing on the green hills and teaching Pat’s gf Joyce how to snowboard. I paid for some lessons with Pat and Joyce which turned out to be semi-private lessons - met a cool instructor who I later hung out with. Showed me some groceries, and in an amazing way - a triple filtered double bubbler outdoors in -22C air with water on the verge of freezing - smoothest experience ever. I paid him back with some spaghetti.

While killing time on the sofa bed at Whistler I had a sudden craving for the music and rhythm games I used to play back in middle school and highschool - Parappa and Bust a Move especially. Decided to start a collection so I hit up ebay and this whole month I’ve been slowly grabbing all the psone and ps2 games I miss or haven’t played. Wiki had a nice list to help me out with the titles I thought would be interesting. So far I got:

• Amplitude (ps2)
• Bust a move 1 (ps1/import)
• Bust a move 2 (ps1/import)
• Frequency (ps2)
• Rez (ps2)
• Gitaroo Man (ps2)
• Parappa the Rapper (ps1)
• Parappa the Rapper 2 (ps2)
• Space Channel 5 Special Edition (ps2)
• Um Jammer Lammy (ps1)

And the non rhythm games (some came from a bulk-lot I won off ebay):

• Warioware Twisted (gba)
• Ico (ps2)
• Sly Fox 2 (ps2)

Other than that news, not much else has changed. Been feeling empty about my shallow life, but I was able to distract myself with consumption and videogames yet again.

Where did December go? I haven’t given this blog a true update in awhile. Foom is right - I should just consolidate my music blog and personal blog - the music contest blog from work is over anyway and I got my two hundred bucks.

Things that happened in December - worth documenting? Probably not, but I feel compelled to share anyway.

• Got an electric tooth brush - Braun Oral-B 8550: Basically an 8000 series brush and the only difference between other 8000s are what the package includes. So far I haven’t noticed a big change in the visible look of my teeth, the brush does seem to help me brush longer because of the 30-second indicators. Pretty much a brush for the lazy, no longer do I have to lean on my counter with my other hand when manual brushing.
• Long nights of xbox360 - Gears of War and
  Rainbow Six: Vegas. Fuck yeah these games are good. We convinced about
  6 of our friends to get xboxes so we always have someone to play with
  nightly.
• Stopped going to the gym - I blame the xbox, and a nagging cold, but it comes down to broken discipline
• Got sick - What the hell is wrong with me. If I work out too hard I get sick. If I don’t work out and stay home to play xbox I get sick too. Could be stress? There was definitely work stress at the end of the year/beginning of Jan, and that was a major contributor. I think I also take some hobbies too seriously that I get stressed out over them. In R6 and GoW I want to win so bad I stress myself out trying to coordinate my team. Same shit with working out at the gym - trying to lift with so much intensity that it’s like I’m striving to burst a jugular at the end of every set. I’ve resolved to take my hobbies less seriously and work on some active stress management. Deep breathing, and generally just try to not focus so intensely on what I’m doing.

Another lesson learned recently: Rape-jokes don’t go over so well with strangers. C’mon, I thought everyone would find that the “rape isn’t funny……unless you’re getting raped by a clown” line funny. Whatever, I’m just an immature sociopath who needs therapy.

Buddy told me about this cool plug-in.

Check out this song I wrote about on my music blog