A sign that I am on vacation.

I just had tiramisu for breakfast.

Look out, Regina! Here I come!

For racing the LRT to Safeway

Pitchfork Media on the new Go! Team single:

...a thrillingly raw slab of nostalgic, fist-pumping, awesome glee that makes a drive to the supermarket seem like The French Connection...

Kind of like their last one, then. Can't wait for these guys to put out an album.

Is that a cover or an original?

Synergy is a neat little app that lets you control iTunes from the menu bar, and if you want, displays a little "floater" with album and song info. The coolest thing about this floater is that it automatically grabs album cover art from the web. So why, when I play the new Pollard album, does it grab a photo of my cats from my iPhoto album?

The Two-day Spending Spree

Maybe it's because I've been a total glutton for music lately - so much good stuff on the iTunes network at work - but yesterday and today I've been on a bit of a splurge. The half-price sale at the wonderful Pages bookstore was quite an incentive, too.

Yesterday:
Max Tundra, Cakes
Sam Phillips, Zero Zero Zero
Three back issues of The Believer
Jonathan Lethem, This Shape We're In
David Rakoff, Fraud
Marcel Dzama The Berlin Years
Peter Carey, The True History of The Kelly Gang

Today:
The Polyphonic Spree, Together We're Heavy
The Streets, A Grand Don't Come For Free
The Fall, 50,000 Fans Can't Be Wrong and Country On The Click
The Decemberists, The Tain
Robert Pollard, Fiction Man
A.C. Newman, The Slow Wonder

And a pair of cheap sunglasses.

Perusing the stack on the coffee table, I'm most excited about the Peter Carey book, and about getting those Dzama prints up on the wall. The Decemberists shocked me at being an 18-minute EP, but after one listen, I can't wait to hear it again. The new Fall album is as solid as ever. The Streets isn't knocking me out, but we'll see. And I know the new Spree won't disappoint. It'll sound great in Rory's newly road-worthy Cabriolet, driving to Saskatchewan with the top down.

A New Chassis

Ahh, this feels better...

Your old blog was ugly. Your new one is much nicer. It's got nice archive links, you can leave comments. Who cares if it's a Blogger template?

I'll just tweak the template a little bit at a time. Make it my own. Maybe lower the clearance a few inches, tint the windows, get some of those spinny chrome hub caps.