Random Shuffle

When things get busy in my personal life I tend to have difficulty focusing on anything for very long. Tonight my thoughts are all over the place, so I'll put the blog on "random shuffle" and share a smattering of things that have been occupying my head space as of late.

Flickr. I've been addicted to Flickr for a quite some time. When I first got a Flickr account my intention was to have a place to post my drawings and photos (which I still do). A nice bonus of adding your stuff to Flickr is that total strangers will look at your stuff and often comment on it or even add it as a favourite, which is pretty cool. Getting feedback on your work is always great, especially when it's from an unbiased source. Lately I find myself trolling other people's Flickr sites and discovering a lot of cool stuff along the way. Sure, some people use it as a repository for their boring party photos and such, but you can also find a lot of really interesting creative and artistic work there too. It's great for archival information too. Admittedly, I can waste many hours just creeping around on Flickr.

kijiji. It's a well known & documented fact that I am a cheapskate. I like to bargain hunt and I also like old, retro things. Ok, I have yet to actually buy anything off kijiji... but I check it constantly just in case something I want ever shows up there! With the move into the townhouse brings the need for some new (to me) household items. Right now I'm in the market for bedroom furniture. I want something high quality, in good taste -- and I want to pay next to nothing for it! I realize it is highly unlikely I will ever find anything there... but I've gotta look! After browsing a great number of ads there, I've come to the conclusion that (a) most people have no idea how to use a digital camera (pictures, when provided, are usually blurry and displayed sideways!) and (b) some people don't really give a shit about presentation, or accurately describing their item or even about spelling.

Movies. I've never been what you'd call a "movie buff" but I am slowly getting around to watching some on my "want to see" list. I've been having a weekly "movie date" night with my husband which is a nice change of pace for us. He likes romantic comedies, whereas my taste usually gravitates more toward older classics or rough & tumble escapism so we're enjoying a mix. Usually whatever we can borrow for free is what we end-up watching (... remember what I said about being a cheapskate?) Showing this weekend: "The Wild Bunch", "The Great Escape" and "American Graffiti". Mmmm... young Harrison Ford.... To Flickr!!!

"Heroes" Since this series premiered I've tried to follow it but only caught episodes sporadically. I borrowed season 1 on DVD and am finally watching it in sequence. Liking it a lot so far... although Hiro's childlike goofiness and constant squealing grates on my nerves. Thankfully I really enjoy the rest of the ensemble cast so they're a good buffer! My current favourite series is still "Lost", which gets more deliciously convoluted every episode and I love it. I can't wait for the season 5 DVD to be released so I can re-watch it.

Music. I haven't really been listening to anything new lately. I'm sort of going through a dry period right now where nothing new has captured my attention. I've been listening to Daft Punk "Alive" a lot, and I got a newly remastered double CD of The Smiths a while ago that I'll probably blog about later.

And to shift gears for a moment: Is it just me, or have you noticed an increasing amount of musical plagiarism on top 40 radio these days? The radio plays at my work so I am subjected to it all day long, and it seems every other song uses the music of some hit from the 70s or 80s with new, irrelevant vocals over top? It's like some vapid karaoke. And I have yet to hear any song that has been improved upon in this way -- just the opposite actually-- which begs the question, why bother? What a lazy, obvious cash grab that is! More and more I am learning that pop music really is just for teenagers. A 3 minute pop song is just the aural equivalent of fast food anyway; there comes a point when your tastes change or you just outgrow it and you really can't stomach it anymore. People take their musical taste very personally and seriously (myself included -- I can be as big of a music snob as anyone!) but in the end it just boils down to one thing: ENTERTAINMENT. When I was in high school we had an English assignment where we had to choose a song and prove that it was poetry. Most of the class failed that assignment. (I didn't. I chose the alternate assignment: to do a literary comparison of a song to a specific piece of poetry). Anyway, to me it proved conclusively that no matter how strongly you may feel about it, Bon Jovi or Poison isn't poetry. Rhyming couplets set to a catchy tune does not make art. Anyway, maybe my musical memory is too long. The entire evolution of popular music seems to be the bastardization of something that has already been done. Meh. I think it's just my old fartism setting in.