Today, I’m sitting at home, writing a report to the government about what, exactly, did I do with all the money they gave me.
Shit.
In the meantime, take a look at this.
It’s a video of my good friend Dave boasting, “I’m Beijing 2008, man!”. Right before taking a goddamn kayak down a snowy hill in his backyard in Ottawa.
What can I say? That’s how the motherfucker rolls.
Taken from our friends at bash.org.
So I’m at Walmart and this chick is buying a box of tampons and they’re missing the UPC and won’t ring up. So the cashier tells his buddy to get a price check on tampax.
The dude looks at him and says, “The kind you push in, or the kind you hammer in?”
Turns out he misheard him. Thought he said thumbtacks. You should have seen the look on the chick’s face.
Damnit, Phil. Isn’t it about time you took down those Christmas decorations?
In the December Music Challenge, I offered seven songs and challenged readers to guess the artist and track names of each.
Nobody managed to guess one. Not a single one. Zip. Zero.
If you tried and failed miserably, don’t feel bad. The songs originated from semi-obscure and independent artists, to obscure and hard-to-find artists who only publish their works on private forums intended for a small audience.
In any case, here on the seven.
Track One: Alone in Kyoto by Air
I was hoping someone would recognize this as one of the surreal tracks on the soundtrack of Sofia Cappola’s masterpiece, Lost in Translation. Air is a wonderful electronic group formed by two French artists, and some of their other works include the entire soundtrack to Coppola’s other superb movie, The Virgin Suicides, as well as several standout albums.
It’s a wonderful track to accompany one of my favourite movies.
Track Two: San Andreas by Natalie Merchant
I wanted to follow with something with a bit more of a pop/rock feel. San Andreas is the first track on Natalie Merchant’s Tigerlily album. This is a song about hopes and dreams crumbling. Now who doesn’t relate to that?.
Track Three: Battleship Grey by DJ Tiesto
DJ Tiesto is a trance artist who’s well known for being the first DJ to perform live at an Olympic game opening ceremony (2004, Athens). Most of his work tends towards the heavier end of the trance/techno spectrum. Battleship Grey, featuring the beautiful vocals of Kirsty Hawkshaw and found in his 2001 album, In My Memory, is (unfortunately) one of the times he’s ventured outside of the realm of trance.
A real shame, since I’ve loved this song ever since my teens.
Track Four: Mind of the Wonderful by Blank and Jones
This is an acoustic version of “Mind of the Wonderful” by the artists Blank and Jones. The song was originally done in trance, which is what the artists are known for. I have it on a compilation CD called “Pure Chill”, in which there are unfortunately only a few standout tracks. If you’re a fan of trance, try searching for the artists on YouTube.
Track Five: Green Island Serenade by Vienna Teng
Green Island Serenade is a Madarin Chinese lullaby written in the 1950-60s. This version of the song however, was performed by Vienna Teng, an American folk singer and a former Stanford Computer Science student. Her website — which lets you listen to several of her songs — is well worth checking out. And so are her albums, which are all excellent.
Track Six: BigShellWestBristol by BenCousins
At this point, we’ve entered into totally obscure territory. BigShellWestBristol is a remix of “Can’t Say Good Bye to Yesterday”, which was composed for the end-game song of the Playstation 2 game, Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty. It can be found (and downloaded) on OverClocked Remix, where a community of amateur musicians/DJs enjoy remixing music from video games.
I told ya. Obscure.
Track Seven: Armageddon Man by Mahoney
The final and, in my opinion, most interesting track of the seven is a huge cult hit. The song is another remix, but this time taken by an 1987 Commodore 64 game called Armageddon Man. The remix was done by Pex Tufvesson (or Pex Mahoney) who accompanies the haunting voice of Karin Öjehagen; both are part of a Swedish a cappella group called Visa Roster. If you liked the song, you can download it here.