I don't know if my lack of posting in 2013 is a result of being too busy, or not nearly busy enough to warrant the act of procrastination through the medium of blogging. And no, I am not actually going to stop blogging entirely, so your sorry asses are stuck with me for the foreseeable future. Here are some things I've been digging recently (also yeah linkblogging is really lazy and kind of a cop out, but save your judgments okay).

This song from Kishi Bashi's 2012 release 151a, another gem that slipped under my radar last year. It is rainbows and sunshine and candy condensed into 4 minutes of audio.





This incredibly detailed 400 000 piece Lego replica of Hogwarts, which an awesome Harry Potter nerd meticulously put together in one year. Mindblowing shit. I can't even be bothered to put on a bra on the weekends, most times. True story.




Leggo's pasta sauces. I've been trying to do more simple cooking on the weekdays after classes, in an effort to take some pressure off my finances, and homemade pasta is about as easy (and delicious) as it can get, dammit. Boil this, heat up that, mix it all together, put it in your face. Pure joy and a full stomach in under 25 minutes.


My weekends have been mostly filled up with indulgent exercises in TV-aided armchair travelling, largely in the form of Nat Geo Adventure's (or should I say OLN Canada's?) Departures, which I still believe to be the best travel program ever conceived and brought into existence. The cinematography is breathtaking (keep in mind that there is only ONE cameraman responsible for everything you see on the show. ONE) and the entire format is refreshingly casual and intimate and honest, and full of the kind of heart and sincerity in ways that you are simply not going to see on any other travel/adventure show.




p.s also, apparently Canadians don't say "eh?" nearly as many times in conversation as Whose Line Is It Anyway would have led me to believe.


p.p.s  extensive viewings of Departures also give me the right to personally vouch for the fact that Canadians (or at least, the particular Canadians who host the show) don't actually pronounce "about" as "aboot". In fact, the pronunciation strikes me as sounding more Scottish-ish than anything else, and my paltry knowledge of Linguistics from all the way back in my second semester would describe this as "raising the vowel" on words containing the "ou" sound, which is not the same thing as "aboot" at all. In other words, I understand you, Canada. I understand you. You just go ahead and pronounce those closed vowels any damned way you feel like.

Jams For Your Ears : 90's Britpop Throwback Edition

The very extended post I was planning to write in celebration of my new favourite thing on TV, My Mad Fat Diary, will have to wait until later this week, when I need an excuse to avoid doing actual work. In the meantime, I have been busy procrastinating my way around packing up to leave for a brand spanking new semester at uni while listening to MMFD's excellent 90's Britpop-based soundtrack.

 This stuff is seriously pumping me up right now, so I've put together a shoddy little playlist of the tracks I've been enjoying the most this weekend, so you too can be transported back to that golden time when Damon Albarn was the most beautiful thing your pre-pubescent self (adjust accordingly based on individual age) had ever seen, and hearing Wonderwall for the first time felt like the most profoundly momentous thing that had ever happened to you.




Here it is, you guys. Now you too can feel totally bad ass as you power walk your fine ass through your faculty/office/local supermarket this week. And don't forget to TURN IT UP.

edit : if you have problems playing the videos from this page, I'm afraid you'll have to do it the uncool way and just click through to listen to the stuff on youtube because it's really late and I am way too lazy to change the html codes for all 12 songs right now and i apologize profusely for the inconvenience


The Riverboat Song // Ocean Colour Scene




Disco 2000 // Pulp




The Chemistry Between Us // Suede




Morning Glory // Oasis




One To Another // The Charlatans




Love Spreads // The Stone Roses




Badhead // Blur




She Said // Longpigs




Hey Dude // Kula Shaker




Alright // Supergrass





Slight Return // The Bluetones




Movin' On Up // Primal Scream

Bittersweet Symphony // The Verve





And here is some vintage Damon Albarn with a kitty cat, to help us all get through the week.

I extend my sincerest apologies for being effectively AWOL for the past three weeks (if any of you are still here to love me). My semester holidays have been a slothful daze of pigging out, catching up on all the pop culture available to me and - unfortunately - not doing a great deal of book reading. But in my defense I start classes again next week and there will be a veritable SHITLOAD of assigned material to dig into, so it won't kill Jeffrey Eugenides or myself if we both just took a little break from each other for a while.

On the not-so-new music discovery front, I have been kicking myself for allowing Perfume Genius' album to slip under my radar in 2012. It was purely by accident that I stumbled across this video on the National Geographic Music channel (did you know the National Geographic Music channel is a thing? Because I did not know the National Geographic Music channel is a thing) and I can't get enough of it. Beautiful, delicate, heartbreaking stuff. I've been marinating in these sweet sounds for weeks now, and you should too.




I've also been steadily working my way through Daniel Day-Lewis' entire filmography, because he is a god among men and I never fail to be amazed at how good he is without ever evoking that awards-baiting sense of Look At Me I'm ACTING Look At How Hard I'm ACTING. Also why did nobody ever tell me that young Daniel Day-Lewis was a fine piece of ass   a pale, willowy, poet-junkie-vampire beauty carved out of marble with hair as black as night and cheekbones that could cut diamonds and eyes that scorched your soul and a smile that could turn your knees to jelly even while you were comfortably sitting down. I now understand why The Last of the Mohicans is so important to my mother. I understand completely.

It's just - it's going to be a while before I will be able to bring myself to stop staring at his face. All this beauty can overwhelm a girl, seriously. Jesus.

I have also taken the time to fall in love with a new TV show - UK's new teen drama-comedy My Mad Fat Diary. As much as I keep telling myself that I am now in my goddamned 20's and should stop watching stuff about/aimed at teenagers, I can never resist a funny, poignant, sensitive, painfully honest, well-written (and in this case also well-soundtracked ; all the 90's Britpop you could possibly ever need)  coming of age-themed stuff. I can never resist. You'll be hearing more about this wonderful show in my next post, most likely.