how you couldn't really hold down the chords

Bill Callahan - Too Many Birds (live at Waterloo Records Austin,...

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 01:23:28 -0800

Bill Callahan - Too Many Birds (live at Waterloo Records Austin, TX)

Is it just me?

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 01:16:00 -0800

Is it just me?

Saw a flyer in the SUB the other day advertising some free matchmaking service. All you have to do...

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 00:50:58 -0800

Saw a flyer in the SUB the other day advertising some free matchmaking service. All you have to do is to send your contact information to this email address.

The catch: The email address belongs to the leader of a Maoist cult and in exchange of the service, you will dedicate yourself to the worship of Chairman Mao.

"You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot..."

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 00:30:55 -0800

“You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time”

- Abraham Lincoln (via brettjohn) (via jesuisperdu) (via lesguimauves)

“I’ll let you be in my dream if you let me be in yours.”

(via raptoravatar)

(I said that.)

Brussels Sprouts with Black Bean Garlic Sauce Recipe | Simply...

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 01:44:00 -0800

Brussels Sprouts with Black Bean Garlic Sauce Recipe | Simply Recipes

That’s it. I’m gonna go get some black bean sauce tomorrow. Maybe some douban sauce for eggplants/tofu/noodles as well. Nom.

It has been 20 years since the Berlin Wall fell. But deep in the forest here, a red deer called Ahornia still refuses to cross the old Iron Curtain.

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 00:58:00 -0800

It has been 20 years since the Berlin Wall fell. But deep in the forest here, a red deer called Ahornia still refuses to cross the old Iron Curtain.:

(via aaronleaf/blownspeakers)

Ahornia inhabits the thickly wooded mountains along what once was the fortified border between West Germany and Czechoslovakia. At the height of the Cold War, a high electric fence, barbed wire and machine-gun-carrying guards cut off Eastern Europe from the Western world. The barriers severed the herds of deer on the two sides as well.

The fence is long gone, and the no-man’s land where it stood now is part of Europe’s biggest nature preserve. The once-deadly border area is alive with songbirds nesting in crumbling watchtowers, foxes hiding in weedy fortifications and animals not seen here for years, such as elk and lynx.

But one species is boycotting the reunified animal kingdom: red deer. Herds of them roam both sides of the old NATO-Warsaw Pact border here but mysteriously turn around when they approach it. This although the deer alive today have no memory of the ominous fence.

Ahornia, a doe with a grayish-brown winter coat and a light patch around her tail, was born 18 years after the fence came down. Wildlife biologists who track her and other deer via electronic collars know that she has never ventured beyond the strip where the fence once stood.

That is now just a narrow footpath in the woods, today marking the border between Germany and the Czech Republic. On a misty October afternoon, the sound of a distant woodpecker was all that disturbed the mountaintop silence. A small white sign in German said “State Border.” Ahornia grazes on the Western side but stops when she nears the border, her world ending where the Free World once did.

(via somethingchanged) Hah. I had no idea this was just a...

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 00:46:58 -0800

(via somethingchanged)

Hah. I had no idea this was just a Canadian thing.

(via scout)

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 00:22:42 -0800

(via scout)

[Tranuf]

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 23:53:46 -0800

[Tranuf]

Video

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 19:03:27 -0800

[.Rod]

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 03:03:45 -0800

[.Rod]

Headache!

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 22:03:30 -0800

I thought coffee was supposed to shrink you brain.

(via stephanie anne) Now Craving: CHICKEN AND MUSHROOM FLAVOURED...

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 20:50:00 -0800

(via stephanie anne)

Now Craving: CHICKEN AND MUSHROOM FLAVOURED POT NOODLE

Haven’t had these in >7 years (surely the packaging’s changed several times around) but jesus I really need some right now. Wonder if British Home might have some.

… In the meantime, gonna head out for some coffee to prepare myself for what’s going to be a long and sleepless night.

QI: They say of the Acropolis where the Parthenon is This clip...

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 21:10:00 -0800

QI: They say of the Acropolis where the Parthenon is

This clip is notable for:

- its featuring of triglyphs

- its ability to inspire one to say a very nasal “whatevuh” over and over again

- general hilarity

Dear Stye

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 21:00:27 -0800

I hate you.

Miss Emily Brown | World Traveler She sounds a little like Kate...

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 19:39:07 -0800

Miss Emily Brown | World Traveler

She sounds a little like Kate Bush here. And I like this song. But I’m not sure if it’s simply because I’ve watched this so many times - the way one’s investment of time and effort on preparing a class presentation is bound to make one like whatever it is on.

***

I took a geography course in first year. I didn’t know anyone in the class, and always sat alone on the left side of the lecture hall, near the front. Out of the four people I still remember from that class (other than the professors), only one of them I ever interacted with. It was a girl named Julia who also went to my tutorial; but either she was somehow eliminated from that part of my memory, or maybe she was always walking in late, I don’t remember sitting with her during the lectures at all. I do remember, however, the couple who would often sit in front of me (the girl had a pink UBC nalgene bottle that she put under the seat and the guy worked at Honour Roll) and a girl with long blond hair - usually tied up high in a ponytail - who sat behind me. She was pretty without makeup, wore outdoorsy clothes (and wellington boots - proper ones - before everyone started wearing them), and was always catching up with some guys she sat with before the lecture began. From eavesdropping on these conversations, I would find out that she played violin in a band, that they traveled to Victoria to perform, that somebody who saw them play recognized her at a supermarket because of her long ponytail, that her brother designed their CD packaging which she showed to the guys and most importantly, that she was the epitome of cool. I wanted to be her, or, at the very least, her friend.

In retrospect, maybe I can say now that the stalkerish worship probably would have ended if I just turned around and ask what kind of music her band played or something lame like that. But, knowing my tendency to turn conversations into a bagful of awkwardness very quickly by either saying too much or saying nothing at all (maybe both), it was probably for the best that I didn’t.

She plays the violin in this video.

yacht: Tin Tin: an Amazing tiny vegan take away counter in New...

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 22:45:00 -0700

yacht:

Tin Tin: an Amazing tiny vegan take away counter in New Territories, Hong Kong. As always, thank you HappyCow.

(Note to self: TO TRY.)

Be a Sexy Nurse for Halloween!

Sat, 24 Oct 2009 23:22:00 -0700

But only if you’re a guy. And don’t do the “I’m cross-dressing ironically” thing. Be subversive. Be a sexy, male nurse. Wear eye-makeup and tight scrubs. Objectify yourself!

The catch? Make sure you’re not accidentally mistaken for a doctor. Can you overcome cultural assumptions about the nature of medicine and masculinity?

Be a Bourgeois Institution for Halloween

Sat, 24 Oct 2009 23:21:34 -0700

Maybe start with a Statue of Liberty Costume. Put some particularly pretentious books under your arm, and probably some sheet music. And a Bible. Switch the torch for an Olympic torch. And maybe make the headband resemble a wedding band.

Now toss on some combat boots and dye the bottom of your robes crimson with the Blood of the Workers.

— from squashed

Another birthday spent at the print hut, another shirt ruined.

Sat, 24 Oct 2009 23:07:00 -0700

Another birthday spent at the print hut, another shirt ruined.