Tag: Youtubery

Conspicuous Acts of Cultural Consumption

Busy Today

GenreCon looms like a big, awesome loomy thing, which means I’m alternating between YO, I’M CRAZY BUSY DUDES and flaking out on the couch in front of wrestling DVDS. In deference to my current state, I’m going to skip today’s post and point towards an awesome thing on the internet: THE LIZZIE BENNETT DIARIES About four months ago my flatmate wandered past and said words to the effect of “Hank, The Vlog Brother who isn’t not John Green, is doing a youtube recreation of Pride and Prejudice. You should really check it out.” Given that the last time he said this it led me to John Green’s Swindowntown Swiddleypoopers youtube videos, I flagged it as one of those things I should follow up on and immediately forgot about. Which is, like, utter damn stupid of me. ‘Cause, a) I really like Pride and Prejudice, b) I really like smart adaptations, and c) I’m fascinated by people doing smart things that

Conspicuous Acts of Cultural Consumption

Sick of Being Sick

Many years ago I came across a copy of a CD featuring tracks from The Damned’s Peel Sessions. I’m not really sure why I bought it, beyond my habitual reflex of picking up anything that looked like it fit in a vaguely punk/Gothic style back when I was living in the Gold Coast. I’ve been playing that CD a lot today. One of the tracks, in particular, seems particularly relevant after a weekend where my cold upgraded itself and added exciting new symptoms. 

Journal

418

This is my four hundred and eighteenth post to this blog, which I guess means we’re on the downhill slope towards five hundred blog entries (whereupon I probably turn into a pumpkin). The last few days have settled into a comfortable kind of routine – I get home from the dayjob, I don’t turn on the internet, I read a book until five o’clock or so, then I eat dinner and force myself to write 1000 words before I go to sleep. My brain’s resisting the latter – last night I wrote the first five hundred words with ease, then scrambled for the last four hundred or so for hours before admitting defeat and collapsing into bed. Tonight there is teaching, which means I’ll have to forgo the reading, and the 1000 words will be an even bigger challenge. It needs to be done, because at this point 1000 words a day is pretty much the line between me and

Works in Progress

On the Appeal of Easy Targets

So I’ve set myself some modest goals this week: 500 words a day of writing; three blog posts*; at least one day where I limit myself to two coffees**; buy one Christmas present so I don’t get stuck shopping during the evil December shopping crush. Thus far, I’ve failed horribly at all three, although I can at least make progress the first of my list by clicking publish. This is the curse of modest goals – it’s too easy to let them slide, figuring there will always be a moment later where you can get things done, but for the moment they’re a necessary evil because the immodest goals were just too damn intimidating for me. Monday was a rough day for writing; Tuesday was much improved, largely courtesy of a 3k night at write club, but today I’ve been letting the side down again, focusing more on planning than writing new words. Still time to rectify that before bed,

Conspicuous Acts of Cultural Consumption

1 Day ’til Worldcon

And in an hours time I’m off to the airport. I’m a bundle of nerves this morning, but I’ve been singing this song for the last half-hour: And tomorrow there is Worldcon.

Conspicuous Acts of Cultural Consumption

A momentary diversion

One of the nice things about the internet is that occasionally a friend will be all “dude, you have to check this out” and I’ll be all “dude! WTF? LOLS!” Today is one of those days. I give you the Call of Cthulhu, summarised in two minutes or less in fluent Valley Girl. For real, dude. Total WTF? LOLS

Journal

A Post in Four Parts

1) There’s is nothing quite so pleasant as heading out to one of your favorite bookstores on a rainy night and having someone read to you, but it’s doubly awesome when the topic du-jour is the Art of the Reading. The irony is that this totally wasn’t my idea – my sister e-mailed a few days back and asked if I’d be interested, and I was all “sick now, whatever, yeah? Put me down as a yes and leave me alone.” And so I was put down for a yes and Tuesday night rolled around and after I remembered I needed to be somewhere at somewhen there was much confused flailing and wondering what the hell I’d gotten into and then…then…then there was a pleasant night of awesomeness. And Nando’s chicken for afters, ’cause nothing says “pleasant night of literary discussion” like following things up with fast food. 2) I’m finally starting to find my routine again after nearly two

Conspicuous Acts of Cultural Consumption

Furnace Room Lullabye

Since it came up in comments on in the livejournal feed, I’m going to make quick mention of this. I can understand the desire to make fun of country music, because much of it isn’t my thing and there are far too many examples of bad country music out there (especially in Australian, where the genre deserves to be razed to the ground merely for the existence of Slim Dusty). But it’s worth remembering that for every ten or eleven bad examples  there is at least one good, often lurking in the background, that wouldn’t exist if we put up with the genre as a whole. I mean, country music gave us the genre of rockabilly (which was good) which in turn gave us The Living End (which was not). It gave us Johnny Cash covering Nine Inch Nails tunes and giving them a tenderness they never would have had in their original incarnation. I will argue tooth and nail

Conspicuous Acts of Cultural Consumption

because I geek for covers…

My amusement probably makes less sense if you’re not aware of the band (and song) they’re covering, but this amuses me. Oh, how this amuses me; there is a line between cheese and genius. Methinks this dances merily along it:

Conspicuous Acts of Cultural Consumption

Unlikely Musical Obsessions

There is a rumour that Ratt is going to release a new album through Roadrunner Records later this year. Against all odds, this brings me joy.  And it will continue to do so until I realise it has the potential to be an ever bigger debacle than Chinese Democracy. Oh hair metal, I miss you so. Just, you know, don’t bring back the hair and tight pants when you slink in through the back door of teenage nostalgia.

Conspicuous Acts of Cultural Consumption

‘Course, after this, I’m going in search of the Ramones…

Tonight, this song is the only thing between me and apathetic nihilism. Which kinda begs the question of what I used to do in the days before youtube. I suspect I just went straight to the Smiths CDs and drank.