Monday, June 21, 2004

Music

Beck, Death Cab Cover Daniel Johnston on Tribute

Tracklist:

01 Teenage Fanclub w/ Jad Fair: "My Life Is Starting Over Again"
02 Clem Snide: "Grievance"
03 Gordan Gano: "Impossible Love"
04 Eels: "Living Life"
05 TV on the Radio: "Walking the Cow"
06 The Rabbit: "Good Morning You"
07 Calvin Johnson: "Sorry Entertainer"
08 Bright Eyes: "DevilTown"
09 Death Cab for Cutie: "Dream Scream"
10 Beck: "True Love Will Find You in the End"
11 Sparklehorse w/ The Flaming Lips: "Go"
12 Mercury Rev: "Blue Cloud"
13 Thistle: "Love Not Dead"
14 Vic Chestnutt: "Like a Monkey in the Zoo"
15 Starlight Mints: "Dead Lovers Twisted Heart"
16 M. Ward: "Story of an Artist"
17 Guster: "The Sun Shines Down on Me"
18 Tom Waits: "King Kong"

Thursday, June 03, 2004

Sometimes Robots Lie

Dear Amazon.com Customer,

As someone who enjoys great Broadway music and/or Boy George, you might want to know about the Broadway cast recording of "Taboo," which is among this year's Tony Award nominees.

Monday, May 31, 2004

Contest

THE OTHER NETWORK TV WRITING CONTEST

Public Service Announcement

For Immediate Release
Tuesday, May 25, 2004

Public Documentary Screenings for Inspired Program

Four world-class documentaries and the award-winning directors behind the films are coming to Halifax. And, the Inspired documentary program is your chance to see it all!

* June 2nd with Go Further, by Ron Mann, Director of Grass. Join actor/activist Woody Harrelson as he pilots a hemp-fuelled bus on an eco-consciousness raising excursion down the Pacific Coast.

* June 3rd with Kate Davis’ Jockey - a disturbing look at the hidden world of thoroughbred horse racing.

* June 4th with Burden of Dreams, by legendary Les Blank - a riveting documentary about the making of a film that managed to get done despite major problems.

* June 5th with Stevie, by the director of Hoop Dreams Steve James, about a troubled young man for whom the director was a Big Brother 10 years earlier and who is charged with a serious crime halfway through filming.

Get Inspired. June 2-5 at the Oxford Theatre. Call 422-3456 for tickets. $10 each or $35 for all four screenings. A presentation of the Atlantic Film Festival.

Inspired is a presentation of the Atlantic Film Festival in partnership with ATV/CTV, IFC – The Independent Film Channel Canada and the National Film Board of Canada.

Monday, May 24, 2004

Weird Spam Alert

From: "Natasha Kirby"
Date: May 19, 2004 12:39:16 PM ADT
Subject: Dont put away your summer clothes just yet

My legs are really hairy.

Wednesday, May 12, 2004

Politics

And the president still edges out John Kerry in polls, even though Mr. Bush observed with no irony to Al Arabiya TV: "Iraqis are sick of foreign people coming in their country and trying to destabilize their country, and we will help them rid Iraq of these killers." From World of Hurt by Maureen Dowd (NY Times)

Saturday, April 24, 2004

Quote

"If I was a regular reader, I would want the ease of the ads being gone, and the archives in a nice little place right there. And if they don't, fuck 'em," Carol Kolb, editor-in-chief of The Onion, on a new paid subscription version of the site (The Onion Sells More Laughs | Wired).

Friday, April 16, 2004

Column

Atlantic News Perspective #111 (April 12, 2004)
Owning Anne of Green Gables, the tower of Halifax and a grandmother pushing drugs.
By: Iain K. MacLeod

Friday, April 09, 2004

Critics

"The worst thing in the world is to confuse values and categories. If someone who is writing about cars embodies all of the values of good criticism, then it doesn't matter what category it falls into. We often find literary value in the strangest places, which is what makes reading interesting and exciting to begin with." - Adam Gopnik, a staff writer at The New Yorker (Some Highish Brows Furrow as a Car Critic Gets a Pulitzer | New York Times)

Tech

The Cult of Mac

Thursday, April 08, 2004

Video

Beta Band "Assessment" [via Anti-Hit List]

Column

Atlantic News Perspective #110 (April 5, 2004)
Massive striking on the rock, vials of mink blood and cruising to Saint John.
By: Iain K. MacLeod

Film

"Under the 2000 policy statement, the government hopes to have eight to 10 movies on a par with Men with Brooms appearing in Canadian cinemas by the end of 2006." Telefilm head defends L.A. deal | The Globe & Mail

Reaction = Shutter.

Tuesday, April 06, 2004

Organized Crime Religion

A great recipe for turning a narrow-minded opinion into divine morality starts with a quote from the good book (and I'm not talking about In Me Own Words: The Autobiography of Bigfoot):

And behold, one came to Him and said, "Teacher, what good things shall I do that I might attain eternal life?" And He said to him. "Why are you asking Me about what is good? There is only One who is good; but if you wish to enter into life keep the commandments." He said to him, "Which ones?" And Jesus said, "You shall not commit murder; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; Honor your father and mother; and You shall love your neighbor as yourself." The young man said to Him, "all these thing I have kept; what am I still lacking?" Jesus said to him. "If you wish to be complete, go and sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you shall have treasure in heaven: and come, follow Me." But when the young man heard this statement, he went away grieved; for he was one who owned much property. And Jesus said to His disciples, "truly I say to you, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. "And again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God." And when the disciples heard this, they were astonished and said, "Then who can be saved?" And looking upon them Jesus said to them, "with men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible." (Matthew 19:16-26)

So here is my plan...no campaign. Heck, make it a crusade! Since Easter is approaching, why not sneak into The Passion Of The Christ? That's right, sneak your way in. Or if you can't technically sneak in directly to the show, pay for one movie (like the reissue of the Life of Brian, check your local listings), watch the shit out of it and then slide into the other theatre for a double feature. The main goal is to not add another cent to the already accumulated $330.0 million. That's well over a quarter of a billion dollars and it may even topple Titantic as the highest grossing film, which would suck because way more people died to make that Hollywood blockbuster #1 (of course, I am not counting all the deaths associated with Christianity...my calculator only has 8 digits and that is really another story for another time).

It is difficult to imagine Jesus would be impressed by anyone besides televangelists and fat cat priests profiting off his agonizing death, which fits with my firmly held belief that his real second coming would not be available on pay-per-view. Especially when you skip the bulk of the inspiring stuff and focus on just the grueling torture of the stations of the cross (do you smell a prequel?). And I understand the importance of art, but we should remember that we are talking about Mad "Movie Star" Max here. Let's not encourage him.

Now, I know what you are thinking. You are saying to yourself, "Self, I shall not stealeth moving images from the holy screen of my neighbourhood multi-plex." Well, this is where we can have fun with context, just like bible thumpers do. But let's use the dictionary:

theft: \Theft\, n. [OE. thefte, AS. [thorn]i['e]f[eth]e, [thorn][=y]f[eth]e, [thorn]e['o]f[eth]e. See Thief.] 1. (Law) The act of stealing; specifically, the felonious taking and removing of personal property, with an intent to deprive the rightful owner of the same; larceny. Note: To constitute theft there must be a taking without the owner's consent, and it must be unlawful or felonious; every part of the property stolen must be removed, however slightly, from its former position; and it must be, at least momentarily, in the complete possession of the thief. Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc.

You will sleep at night knowing that you aren't really stealing, just borrowing with your eyes. There will still be plenty of "Passion" juice to go around once you had your gulp of it. Of course, your dreams may be interrupted by violent images of blood and guts and the inherent cruelty of humankind may haunt your soul for eternity, but that is your problem. Or the media's. I haven't quite figured out that part yet.

Wednesday, March 31, 2004

Music

"Five thousand downloads are needed to displace a single album sale." from a report on digital piracy by Felix Oberholzer-Gee of Harvard Business School and Koleman Strumpf of University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill (Wired)

Film

Jay Silver's Rapunzel.

Tuesday, March 23, 2004

Column

Atlantic News Perspective #108 (Mar 22, 2004)
An award-winning Figure skating attorney, artificial assaults and design a bench for Point Pleasant Park
By: Iain K. MacLeod

Wednesday, March 17, 2004

Quote

"We had been working for four years on this project we cherished, and he arrived for two weeks and destroyed everything. Now I can't even give this film to a friend, because I'm ashamed to hold this horrible cover. And I hate this guy. If I see him someplace now, I will kick his balls off." - Michel Gondry on Human Nature (Onion AV Club)

Tuesday, March 16, 2004

Column

Atlantic News Perspective #107
Mar 15, 2004 - Robot matrimony, adopt-a-horse and the language of law.
By: Iain K. MacLeod

Friday, March 12, 2004

you feel the same

From: kbchanges
Date: Fri, 12 Mar 2004 16:26:29 -0600
To: "Weekly Kbase-Changes"
Subject: Mail from earlier today

Please disregard the message sent to you earlier today entitled
"warning." While this message appeared to come from apple.com, it was
actually generated by a Microsoft Windows-related virus.

Your system was not infected by the virus which caused the message.
And, we have made significant improvements in our email system to
prevent spurious emails from being sent to you in the future.

We apologize if this message caused any confusion.
_______________________________________________
weekly-kbase-changes mailing list | weekly-kbase-changes@lists.apple.com
Help/Unsubscribe/Archives:
http://www.lists.apple.com/mailman/listinfo/weekly-kbase-changes
Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored.

Music

Invite to Jill Barber's CD Release

Thursday, March 11, 2004

Quote

"We must allow for same-sex marriages, multiple-people marriages and android-human marriages." - David Boyd, who wants to run in the Dartmouth-Cole Harbour federal riding for the Conservatives (The Daily News).

Tuesday, March 09, 2004

Column

Atlantic News Perspective #106 (Mar 8, 2004)
$10,000 in pennies, mental health in the media and New Brunswick's orimulsion ordeal.
By: Iain K. MacLeod

Tuesday, March 02, 2004