Category: General

I’m listening to the Weakerthans. Ang Hold made me a mixed CD. I’m enjoying it (even though the singer sounds like Robin (Kermit’s nephew) in a song or two). Likely I’ll see them this Thursday at the Commodore. This may mean that I have to blow off Mutants and Masterminds (again) – Theo will be so mad. But I’ll make it up to him…somehow.

I came up with two more possible band names: Metazoic. Kinda dull but I like it; *ahem* is the other one. That’s right, *ahem*. I posted the band name question to the many fine cultists at hillsidethickets@yahoogroups, and got some interesting suggestions:

My Other Band (these 8 from “Latex”)
Pantiless Cartwheels
Projectile Dysfunction
N’SUCK
Spongy Cavernous Tissue
Tossed Salad
Yenta
Yet Another Boy Band
Penfold’s Glasses (Jason Averill)
Metaphysical Abuse? (Scott Wells)
The MacBin Project?
Dog Almighty
The Arcatuthus Sound?
the hopping fishfrogs (or just fishfrog) (Craig)
Globster!
The Abdul Alhazred Project
Ash to Ashes
Ogopogo
Mega Danger Mouth (William R Porter)
Wendi-a-go-go
Not your average Cult Band
Hastur Sewing Circle of Death
Transcription Error (Tim Emrick)
Band in a Jar
Metempsychosis
Plutonian Speech Machine
Off the Top of My Head (or “OTTOMH”)
Satan Ghost (Daniel Chaves)
Colussus of Toads (Joseph)
Papal Bull
Cthatholic Dance Party
Furry Elise
Perl Necklace
MC Ultra and His Majestic 12 (Atruwe)

Czar of Scrabble

The goddamn swimming pool was closed! Closed for renovations or some such tomfoolery. So instead of swimming, Ang Hold, Ian and I went to 7-11 and I got a bag of penny candy (what they call five cent candy these days). My favourites are the marshmallow bananas and the licorice babies. Then we came back to Ang Hold’s where she did my hair up blue-green, and we played Scrabble. I came in 2nd. I used a Z and a C in the same word, on a double word score. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

Oh yeah – Chris Woods and I (in the form of one of Chris’ paintings) are on the cover of Common Ground this week (month? – I have no idea how often it comes out).

I don’t like the way Blogger has taken to asking me my username and pw each time I want to post. It didn’t use to do that. I’ll be in the anger dome if you need me.

Be that as it may, I’m done my drawing for the night, and it’s only 12:41 am. I feel the sleep bees creeping up on me with their stingers of drowse, but not yet my pets…no, not yet. There’s nothing to do on the internet, so I thought I’d write some, even though practically nothing happened to me today. I had no interesting thoughts, I did no interesting activities. I made hummous. Boring. Oh, I know – I’ll tell you about my dream:

I came out of a building (a movie theater) and I looked to the sky. There was no sun. There were no clouds and no blue openness. All of that was blocked out by a vast dull grey metal ceiling, with various flat mechanical bits & bolts shewing that it was obviously constructed. There was a highway that led off into the distance (and possibly a car) so I left the person I was with to try to discern how far the dome went. Not long, I arrived (possibly by car) to the edge of the dome, and there was a door. I opened the door, and there was a room with two workmen going about their business. I asked what was going on with the dome. They told me that the sun had gotten too bright, and that if they hadn’t put the dome up, everyone would be blinded. They gave me these protective goggles, like welder’s goggles, and let me go out another door that led to the outside world. I put them on and went out. It was really bright. I explored what seemed to be a tenuously deserted world, climbing up to a wall of abandoned machines and vehicles, large tires perhaps.

Hearing about other people’s dreams is usually pretty boring, I find. I was telling Ang Hold about this dream (and another one) this morning, while they were fresh in my mind – she asked me if I thought they had any symbolic meaning to me. I don’t really put much stock in the symbolic meaning of dreams, apart from the fact that I am afraid of bears and my penis means a lot to me. I mean, your brain has nothing to think about while you’re sleeping, so it makes its own reality up to play around in. And sure, it has basis in your subconscious –absolutely — but spending time trying to figure out why my mind works the way it does when I’m asleep is like trying to figure out why my mind works the way it does when I’m awake, only harder. In theory it’s an intriguing notion, but have you ever tried to take apart a car while you’re driving it?

I recommend the pina colada flavour. You’ll be surprised by the authentic taste.

Oog. Ang Hold came over, we watched some Eddie Izzard, and I ate way too much crap food. Crap food is even worse than junk food. Oh well – in the next 3 days, swimming is in the stars. That’s kind of a double entendre, but not really.

Slater-boy’s blog brought me back to a classic Strongbad email about coming up with band names. And I mean classic in the classic use of the word. Not the new cheesy use of classic as in “I just found a quarter on the ground, that’s totally classic!” No, no no.

Speaking of emails, I got this one out of the proverbial blue yesterday:

hello um i see that you can draw very good well can you draw umm lets see elfs/elvs and orcs in a war if you can can you please do so becouse i like elfs/elvs and orcs ^_^; and um my emil adress is thundereagle33@aol.com or and my um yahoo E-mail adress is night_elf_boy k oh yah and one more thang can you draw a night elf you no i want him werring black with red eyes with two swords that would be cool and great e_e hehe thanks! please email me back when you can talling me if you can draw them or not!
kool orcs!

Damn Nation is another good band name. I hope it’s not taken.

We got a big box in the mail yesterday. Turns out my roommate’s mom shipped two sacks of potatoes from Prince Edward Island to him to give to his friend’s father.

I think that’s weird.

New Cartoons

It’s September, and that means new cartoons! I just watched the season premiere of Justice League, the series premiere of Teen Titans, and the series premiere of the new Spider-Man cartoon. Also, new Samurai Jack and Powerpuff Girls episodes are among us.

Justice League second season is supposed to be better than the first. The first one was not bad, they had a lot of good stories. The stuff that bugged me was the writers kept changing the heroes’ power limitations to suit the stories. That’s bad writing.

The new Teen Titans cartoon, based on the first and only episode I’ve seen, has potential. The style is kind of neat, though they are borrowing too much from anime for my tastes. The story was pretty basic, it was 20 minutes of fighting.

The new Spider-Man cartoon, which is computer animated right here in Vancouver by Mainframe (they brought us Reboot and Shadow Raiders) is going to take some getting used to. It’s one of those shows that are CGI but made to look like traditional flat animation. If you watch Futurama, you know what I mean – they computer animate a lot of the tech stuff like the Planet Express ship flying around. I don’t mind this kind of animation but I have the same problem with Spidey that I had with earlier episodes of Reboot – everything seems disconnected from everything else – there are no shadows. It’s hard to describe, it just looks kind of weird. Anyway, apart from the animation, the story really kind of…well, sucked. The series is supposed to take up from where the first movie left off, except Peter Parker and MJ are still kissing (despite the resolution that PP makes at the ending of the film) and everyone is in university. In this particular episode students are protesting the condemnation of an apartment building, and they are going way overboard. One tenant of this supposedly lower class area had built a super-rocket suit that makes him fly really fast and can levitate huge amounts of weight, goes on a crime spree and the protesters make him out to be a hero while at the same time sleighting Spidey. It’s dumb. I am optimistic that future episodes will be better though – I hope they do good things with some of my favourite Spidey villains like Mysterio, Sandman and The Scorpion. I wonder if they’ll include Dr. Octopus, seeing as he is in the upcoming movie sequel (and played by one of my favourite actors, Alfred Molina).

Come One Come All
What’s the project name? Don’t know yet. C:> (also known as “c prompt”) is a heavy contender right now. I already know what the shirts are going to look like. Who’s in the project? Chris Slater (who suggested C:>) says he can play guitar and mandolin. Norm is in, for trombone and drums I assume. I hope we can find someone for keyboards – I asked Stephane but he told me to begone from his sight, as did my roommate when I asked him if he wanted to get in on some electronica/DJing action. Ang Hold and Kate are potential singers. Updates as they come.

In related news, CD prices may be going down. Universal will institute a $14.98 maximum suggested list price on virtually all of its top line CDs and a $9.99 price tag for developing new artists, and will also start offering music downloads in Canada in October from 99 cents a song and $9.99 per album.

The REO 3000 Overdrive Experience, Jr

I want to start up a musical side project – one that involves people who live in the same town as me, or at least have the wherewithal to come in to write, practice and record once a week or so. The music would be less aggressive than The Thickets (am I getting old? “Maturing?”). There should be guitar, drums, piano/keyboards, trombone, bagpipes, violins, anything and everything – especially a dose of that newfangled electronica shit. Is there an instrument you can buy for that? HOW DO THEY DO IT? I wouldn’t even have to sing on all the songs. I would like it to be a collective effort, although everyone should have veto power I think. Especially me. If you’re familiar with Desert Sessions you will know what I’m talking about.

What would the project name be? I always thought that Slave Tusk would be a good band name, but it would be too heavily metally sounding for what I have in mind. Genghis Tron would be a good except everyone would think we’re electronica. Recently I thought Aurumvorax, which is a monster from the Monster Manual II, would work, even though the monster itself is unbelievably lame.

Warren joked that if The Thickets ever broke up, we could reform as The Second Level Wizards. My favourite of Josh’s is Oignons de Geurre.

Here are some real band names to get the creative juices flowing:
Beats the Hell Out of Me
The Bendy Monsters
Boba Fett Youth
Buddy Wasisname and the Other Fellas
Cancer Bunny
Crocheted Doughnut Ring
The Dancing French Liberals of 1848
Demon Barf
Don Knotts Overdrive
Dreaded Apparatus
Five Fat Guys Who Rock
Frogs Don’t Cry
Hell Camino
Heywood Trout Festival
Hornets Attack Victor Mature
JFKFC
Joan of Arkansas
Lawnsmell
Mao Tse Helen
Mate/Spawn/Kill
The Negro Problem (not something I’d name my band)
New Squids on the Dock
Not Drowning, Waving
Out Vile Jelly
Pee Shy
Question Mark & the Mysterians
Sandy Duncan’s Eye
Science Diet
Shot Down In Ecuador, Jr.
*.fat [pronounced STAR DOT FAT]
Thank God We’re Immortal
Thinking Fellers Union Local 282
Waffles Against AIDS [Vafler mot AIDS]
Weird Skull Control (not sure why I like this, but I do)

One thing I’ve thought about creating a band name, is going about it the same way that they go about making up car names (like Acura, Ciera, etc). The advantage of making up an entirely new word for your band is that when you plug it into google, you can always find what you’re looking for right away. So, if I was starting a band, and I wanted to call it Cake, that would be bad because all these recipes would come up (if there weren’t already a popular band called Cake, that is). I would lean towards a word with a lot of X’s, G’s, and K’s.

Xygologyx?

Now you suggest a band name!

I did it – I figured out how to post pics. It’s all in the “img src”. Now that I have figured it out – scroll down to see more orbevator pics.

OK I hesitate to even post this on my blog because it’s such a masturbatoren review, but it’s the only review of Graveyard that I know of. http://www.unfilmable.com/Graveyard_review.html