Work is starting on the third issue of Second Life - named Broken Pencil’s Zine of the Month for April 2004 (I never get tired of saying that).
If anyone in TO has a CD, book, movie or video game that they picked up from a secondhand shop, garage sale or garbage can that they’d like to review, let me know. I’m also looking for secondhand shoppers to interview for the “Fashion Finds” section.
Oh yeah, and advertisers would be nice too. 
Holy crap… I also found my review of this album that I wrote, like, a bazillion years ago. Scroll down — it’s the second-last one on the page. They’ve got me down as “editor” at The Spill. Hah. The only way I can see that happening is if it was out of the one issue I had “managing editor” credit on when the real editor was out of the country for a couple of months. That was what, 1994, 1995? Jeez…
Ok, instead of posting this one, I’ll keep Googling myself. (sounds dirty, don’t it?).
Let’s see…
Ah, a snowmobiling article from the Sudbury Star…
Somebody’s email with my Emm Gryner NXNE ‘99 review included in it…
Oh yeah, the Wired News article I was quoted in…
Someone plagerizing the Wired News story… Haha.
A comment I left on some Linux site about DVD encryption… Ye gods, I was a geek. Why am I not rich?
Another years-old review, close to the middle of the page…
Yipes… my name on a microchip that went into space…. remember what I said about being a geek?
An old Treble Charger article I co-wrote…
This one’s fairly recent: an article on that stupid Florida band Hell On Earth…
And last but not least, the first couple of pages of the original ASCII-text Spill Magazine. Where the hell’s the rest of it? And yes, the Sun Tsu quote on the first page was my idea. Lame-o-rific.
There are also a couple of other people with the same name as me, but I don’t care about them.
Hey! I was the April Zine of the Month on Broken Pencil!
Why doesn’t anyone tell me these things?
Another article. This one’s been sitting on my to-do list for weeks. Finally got around to it. Sorry kitten-dudes.
—————————————–
James, guitarist for Run With The Kittens, recalls when he first decided he wanted to be a rock star.
“I was in jail for a totally misunderstood B&E,” he says. “I wasn’t there for very long. I’m sitting there and I figure I got all the hard shit out of the way. I might as well learn to play something. I picked up a guitar and kind of winged it.”
James then met Nate, the band’s frontman, at frosh week in 2002.
“We’ve been drunk ever since,” Nate adds.
“I ran into him and he asked if I knew how to play the banjo,” says James “I lied to him and said: ‘uh, yeah.’”
“He played it for me and I didn’t know any better,” Nate says. “I said: ‘Cool! He can play the banjo!’”
Run With The Kittens is rounded out by Nigel on bass and Jake on drums.
“Jake makes his money playing drums right now,” says James. “He plays around a lot because he’s so fucking good. Nigel did all the artwork for our CD. He’s the artistic license in the group, in terms of the visuals.”
The band began playing the Cameron House a year ago. They have been entertaining audiences with their eclectic mix of folk, rock, funk and country every Tuesday night at the venerable establishment ever since.
“It’s light-hearted,” James says. “We mean what we do, but at the same time we recognize that what we’re doing is entertainment.”
One of the highlights of a Run With The Kittens show is the almost vaudevillian banter that exists between the band members. Rather than just standing on stage and getting through their set list, Run With The Kittens will chat with each other and engage the audience throughout the show. This makes every Tuesday at the Cameron a unique experience.
“I’m in a lucky spot, because I’m more or less playing the straight man,” says James. “I find Nate funny and inspiring. I get to watch him do his thing, and then when it’s my time to jump into the mix I do what I can then hop back out.”
“I try not to offend people,” says Nate of his part in the show.
“That’s a lie,” James points out. “He offends people regularly.”
The driving philosophy behind Run With The Kittens is a simple one:
“We would all prefer to play music than have real jobs,” James says. “The reality is, we can’t afford to do that right now. If there is a plan, it’s pretty misguided.”
“It’s all based on us having fun and being friends the way we do it,” James continues. “That’s the fun of the group. Without that, there really isn’t any Run With The Kittens. It’s just four assholes doing their job.”
Catch Run With The Kittens Tuesday nights at the Cameron House in the front room. For more info, visit http://www.runwiththekittens.com
My hair colour has toned down a little since putting it in, which is good. For that first couple of days I was afraid I’d be walking down the street and the Hamburglar would jump out at me from behind a tree.
Still no luck getting to my blog, which is why there’s another pointless entry here. Blah.
Gosh darn it all to poop-filled heck. I got my second book almost ready to go, then found out that Cafepress’ll only let me make one book at a time unless I pay ‘em. Heck, if I had money I would have printed the darn things myself.
I also can’t get to my silly blog to read my precious, precious comments. Must be a gosh darn routing problem between my ISP and Tripod. Poop-poopity-poop.
* this Livejournal entry rated “G” by the Livejournal Ratings Association of America *
Looks like after gutting the empty shell of MP3.com left by Vivendi/Universal, C|Net is getting into the business of independent music distribution with its Download.com service.
A few downsides: the artist pages all look the same; not a lot of room for creativity. Also, Download.com isn’t offering the option of purchasing CDs, which was one of the main attractions at the old-school MP3.com. Kinda stupid, seeing as when C|Net bought MP3.com they got all the equipment and technology that came with it.
On the plus side, it looks pretty straightforward and organized. It’ll take a while to build a community of artists big enough to make it a worthwhile destination, but it looks like the folks at C|Net are on the right track. Let’s see if they do the artist promotion that MP3.com did before pissing off the majors and getting hit with a $100,000,000 lawsuit.
I can’t believe I went this long without ever seeing Hard Core Logo. So that’s where Billy Talent got their name. Du-uh!
Someone remind me to make one of those Amazon wish-listy things and put the HCL DVD on it. That movie rocked. Of course, everyone else already KNEW that. What the hell is wrong with me?
I coloured my hair yesterday. Here’s the “before” pic:
Note the seriously dull colour and the grey on the sides.
Here’s the “after” pic:
Shiny, and grey-free! The colour came out a little… brighter than I expected. Whoever printed the box really fucked up the colour correction, but it’s still better than what I had.
Feel free to comment.
I’m making more friends on this thing. added me, and I just found out when I was messing with my settings.
I’m gonna have to put more content on this thing to entertain my loyal fans.
This personal weblog includes imported entries from my old LiveJournal account, with entries spanning back to 2004. The remnants of my original blog, Blogstomp, started in 2001 and decimated by Yahoo's deletion of my Geocities account, can be found here.
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