I’ve decided to attempt NaNoWriMo. I’ll start drafting an outline tomorrow and try to find some direction. I’m actually getting quite exciting about it. I still can’t see myself getting to 50,000 words, but I’m willing to give it a shot. Even if I fail miserably, at least I’ll be writing.
Sigur Rós is an Icelandic post-rock group, and they’ve been a favourite of mine since first hearing their Ágætis byrjun album a few years back. They sing in Icelandic, and occasionally a made-up language called Vonlenska, but you don’t need to understand the lyrics to understand the music. Each song is haunting and emotive, and they instantly conjure up images and feelings, memories and fantasies.
They’re a great band to listen to while writing, especially if you don’t speak Icelandic. The lyrics meld into the music, and it becomes a pure instrumental, which won’t distract you from the writing. It’s hard not to feel inspired when listening to them.
I had a really hard time choosing one song to preview here, but I decided to go with Starálfur as it was one of the songs that first jumped out at me from the album.
*Update*
The file wasn’t working, so I’ve uploaded it again. It seems the accented letters in the name were screwing with their system.
This has been a fairly eventful and mildly exhausting week, but I’m sitting here in my freshly cleaned apartment on my freshly formatted computer drinking my freshly brewed cup of tea, so I feel like my life is shifting back to order quite nicely.
Last week, in a fairly spontaneous decision, I bought a new computer. I’ve been using an aging laptop for a few years, and I felt it was time to bring my desktop back from the dead. I didn’t want to pay for another computer case, or the service charge for the store to put it together for me, so I just ordered each component and built the computer myself. Unfortunately, everything arrived last week except the CPU. I had to leave the city for a few days, so I had a half-assembled desktop waiting for me at home, calling out while I was gone. It was very hard to concentrate.
Friday morning, at the ungodly hour of 5:00am, I got in a rental van and drove to Seattle with a group of developers from work. We were there to attend the No Fluff Just Stuff Java conference. I’d never been to a software development conference before, so I wasn’t sure what to expect. I figured it would be a weekend of mildly interesting presentations, and that would be about it. I was very happy with the high quality of the speakers there, and the talks were very helpful. I was introduced to a few technologies I didn’t know anything about, and I learnt a lot of better programming and project management practices. I came away from the conference full of enthusiasm and as a slightly better programmer, which I wasn’t expecting at all.
On the way back from Seattle, I ditched my coworkers and went to Vancouver. A friend of mine was visiting, and she had a free ticket for The Smashing Pumpkins concert on Monday night. I was there for two days, so when we did a few touristy things: Granville Island, Stanley Park Aquarium, getting completely lost. It was a lot of fun.
The concert was great. I used to be a big Pumpkins fan in high school, but I hadn’t really listened to any of their new stuff. The two new members of the band seemed like decent musicians, but they had no stage presence at all. They just rocked back and forth and looked very uncomfortable. Also, apparently a crowd surfer died a few metres to my right during the concert, and I didn’t even notice. That’s a pretty good example of how I tend to walk through life - utterly oblivious.
When I arrived home, all the parts to my new computer were waiting here for me. It’s now together and, friends, it is glorious. Bioshock looks fantastic on it.
The last fews days, I’ve been struggling through a task at work. I’m going to finish it over this weekend. It’s something I estimated would take a day, and it’s been dragging on for a week now. Once that’s finished, I’ll really be able to relax.
Here’s a song from Zeitgeist, the new Pumpkins album. As a whole, the album is a little underwhelming. It’s decent, but it seems a little weak for a comeback album.
I’ll be in Seattle this weekend for a Java conference, and then off to Vancouver for the Smashing Pumpkins concert on Monday night, so there might not be too much action here in the next few days.
I ordered a new computer this week, and it just arrived today. I wanted to use my existing case, so I decided to just order the parts and put it together myself. I only had enough time tonight to clean out my old computer and mount the new motherboard, so it’s just sitting there in a pile at the moment. I am, however, typing this post on my shiny new 22″ widescreen LCD monitor!
When I ordered the computer, I didn’t know about the conference or the concert. I was originally planning on buying a lot of food on Friday night and playing games straight through until Sunday. I wasn’t even going to put pants on. I feel like there’s a universal conspiracy keeping me from my new toy.
Oh well, off to bed. In order to make it to Seattle in time, I need to get up tomorrow morning at 4:30am. I haven’t gotten up that early for two years, and I’m not really looking forward to it.
I don’t want this weblog to turn into a YouTube video collection or anything, but I saw this video on Digg earlier today and really enjoyed it. These guys are great.
I only recently found this band after Warren Ellis wrote a post about John Allyn Smith Sails, one of the other songs on their album. He didn’t seem too impressed with anything else on their The Stage Names album, but I really enjoyed most of it. He mentioned their songs are often overwritten, but I guess I like thought-out, dramatic songs.
They’re an indie rock band from Austin, Texas. They have five albums out, so I’ll be browsing through the rest of their discography. I find their lyrics really engaging.
I’ve started going to a rock climbing gym. Where there were once able hands, now there are two bloody stumps, so I’ll keep this short.
Here’s a couple videos from an American duo, The Dresden Dolls. I guess you could describe their sound as neurotic, lounge punk. I really like their 2006 album Yes, Virginia, but their self-titled album is great and the videos were a lot more interesting.
I was digging through some music I hadn’t listened to in a while, and I stumbled across Ashley MacIsaac’s HiTM How Are You Today? album. He’s a Canadian fiddler who often mixes traditional Celtic folk with rock. He seems like a bit of a tool as a person, but he makes some great music.
This album’s from the mid-nineties, and it’s his most famous. “Sleepy Maggie” and “The Devil in the Kitchen” were the two popular songs from the album, but the song I’ve chosen, “Wing-Stock”, was a favourite of mine. It’s more traditional than the popular songs, but I love the way it builds up for the first two minutes.
I found The Cat Empire on Pandora at the beginning of the year. They’re a jazzy ska band from Australia, and I’m not sure if they’ve caught on in North America yet. I hadn’t heard of them at all, but it seems they’ve played all the major Late Night shows this year, so maybe I’m just slow to catch up.
They have a refreshing sound with fun, uplifting lyrics. This is the title song from their Two Shoes album, but the entire CD is excellent.
Sigur Rós - Starálfur
