Did you see the big news yesterday? Apparently Annie Lennox wants to reform The Smashing Pumpkins.

If I were D'Arcy, I'd tell Annie to fuck off until the money runs out. But then again, if I were D'Arcy, I'd probably be off somewhere playing with my boobs.

Till this day, the only concert I've ever walked out on was The Smashing Pumpkins. It was one of their last shows, headlining for one of those radio edgefest type shows. They played only the Machina shit, none of the old good stuff.

Speaking of which, the Peel Session of Siva at iTunes is really good.

• The funniest thing about this NYTimes article about Alanis is how Kelefa Sanneh keeps referring to her as "Mr. Morissette". Well, she is kinda mannish.

• The yewknee.com Summer Mix Series is back. vanmega.com has a june mixtape up as well. I make a mixtape every week, but don't really release them any more.

• halftone* Untitled (For the monstrously plump, middle-aged women in white sneakers who loudly voiced her objection to, personal disagreement with, and general puzzlement by the taking of this photograph to all of Sansom Street this afternoon

• What is Scientology?

  Xenu was supposed to have gathered up all the overpopulation in this sector of the galaxy, brought them to Earth and then exterminated them using hydrogen bombs. The souls of these murdered people are then supposed to infest the body of everyone. They are called "body thetans".

  So this alien dude had the ability to gather billions of people from the galaxy and transport them to Earth, couldn't he come up with a more cost effective way of killing them all instead of bringing them all the way to Earth and sticking them in a volcano and blowing them up?

  Maybe get on the intercom and go:

  "This your Captain Xenu speaking, and on behalf of the flight crew, I'd like to welcome you aboard Clone Airways. Sorry for the interruption, but would persons A to F please go to cargo bay 2."

  And then blow the hatch of cargo bay 2, releasing everyone into space.

• Fuck. Just found out that The Mountain Goats are playing Bellingham, WA tonight, which is as close to Vancouver as they've ever been. Can't go though cause I'm off to see Spoon tonight. Konichiwa bitches.

• Steven Seagal has been sued for $14 million for showing up late and leaving early while shooting "Today You Die".

  Name of the first McBain movie: "Today We Kill, Tomorrow We Die"

  I still think I'm the world's only Steven Seagal fan. So bad, yet so good. C'mon, have you seen Exit Wounds? He's stuck in a dead end in an alley and there's a car barrelling at him. What do you do? Of course you run towards the car and jump over it. Or in Under Siege 2 when the train is going down and he's casually jogging off it. That's gold.

• Ultragrrrl's rack, via the thread formerly known as I want to shoot Ultragrrrl in the face.

• Having just paid $6000 for his prosthetics, Ronny actually cared a lot.

• 'Brangelina' Could Be Box-Office Gold. Brangelina? I prefer Bradgina.

• Another instant cover: Death From Above 1979 covers Bloc Party's Luno, streaming on their myspace page.

• Jagjaguwar's been on a role since last year's Pink Mountaintops record. They've posted the video for Okkervil River - For Real. It's also available in MP3 format.

  

  Amazing video, amazing song. Will Sheff shows so much control with his voice here. He could have easily gone off in a Bright Eyes shouting manner, but he demonstrates such restraint that it contrasts perfectly against the sad and violent lyrics.

  This is the third week in a row I've mentioned Okkervil River - Black Sheep Boy.

• For Destroyer completists like Catbirdseat, Six Eyes has a song from Vancouver Nights featuring Dan Bejar.

  Destroyer will be opening for The New Pornographers here in Vancouver at the Commodore in September, which means Dan might actually come out and play a few songs with the Pornographers for once. Expect to hear a bunch of songs about Jackie. Hopefully Frog Eyes is the backing band for Destroyer again.

• Because I have a blog and talk about music, I'm required by law to mention that Annie - Anniemal was released this week in North America. She's Kylie Minogue for MP3 bloggers.

  

  So damn cute. Watch her sing to herself in the video for Chewing Gum.

  Apparently some other records came out this week too.

• One Louder - The Gigocracy: a guide to the hierarchy found at indie rock shows.

  The Tall - Anyone taller than 6'0". Besides the drunk, one of the most feared classes. The tall ignore the sad fate of shorter people and block clear views of the stage. Odds are, the more you want to see a band, the greater the chances of you standing behind a pack of tall dudes. Especially onerous are the tall who wear hats, have an afro or dreads. The tall normally travel in groups and thus present one of the most difficult obstacles to viewing and enjoying a gig. Since they can already see the stage, the tall should stay to the side or the back of the audience or stand against a post or pillar.

  I'm tall and usually stick to the sides. But if you're a short girl and behind me bitching about my height, it's your own fault for not asking me if you can get in front.

On Wednesday I took the bus to work. It's the first time I've ever commuted on a bus. Ever. I normally drive my comfortable single occupancy vehicle every day, but it was Commuter Challenge day. A few weeks ago an email was sent to the staff mailing list that said:

"This year, the Lower Mainland Commuter Challenge is a 1 day event on Wednesday June 8th, 2005. It would be great if we could manage 100% participation this year."

That last line was a direct shot at me, because for last year's Commuter Challenge I said "nah" and drove anyway. Therefore there was one main reason for taking the bus this year: spite.

My first problem was figuring out how this whole bus thing works. How would I know? What bus do I take? Do I have to transfer? What if I end up in Crackton?! Or cold and alone at the Nexus of the Universe (corner of First and First)?!

I did my homework and figured out on the Translink site that I can take the 354 directly to downtown. So I left my car at the Park and Ride, paid my $4.50 (!) and got my seat. First lesson, buses, like airplanes, aren't made for 6'3" people. My left knee was lodged in the seat in front and other was uncomfortably in the aisle. I should have turned around and sat at the front section where the seats face each other, but i had already sat down and didn't want to get up while the bus was moving. I immediately missed the heated seats in my car.

I didn't really bring anything to read. I just wanted to listen to my ipod and stare out the windows, but it was rainy and the windows were all fogged up on the sides, so i gazed out the front window. Which is funny since that's what I do in my car, listen to music and stare out the front.

Overall, it was quite expensive ($9 a day! + emotional costs!), the seats were uncomfortable, took me way longer to get to work, and just not worth it for me. As I was leaving at the end of the day, I caught myself saying "I gotta go catch my bus". I think a little piece of my soul died when I said that.

Today music for robots posted a song I've been listening to for weeks: The National - Mr. November. Go listen, it is incredible. The drums are the marquee instrument here, clear and present in the mix, reminding me of the non-shitty Walkmen songs or Madonna era Trail of Dead. The repetitive chorus of "I won't fuck us over/I'm Mr. November" is catchy as all shit, but my favourite lines are:

I wish that I believed in fate
I wish I didn't sleep so late
I used to be carried in the arms of cheerleaders

Mark Robot does a much better job nailing the song:

What is important is that Mr. November will fuck us over. He has to. There's so much desperation, so much to lose, there is no other way. He's buried in all this old pride, this leftover bravado, but it's not worth a shit. None of it matters because whatever he's attempting now is bound to fail. Even though the song is absolutely bursting with hope, I can't help but feel it's false.

The National - Alligator, one of the year's best.

The new winner of the "Kirk Van Houten Award for Excellency in Song Naming" is:

Black Eyed Peas - Don't Phunk With My Heart

The United Colors of Benneton of music's goal seems to be to make the most marketing friendly song names possible. Let's Get Retarded? no! Lets Get it Started! Here they even rip off an old hindi song in the process. Well, they could be sampling with credit, but I'm not getting the CD to find out, and it's BEP, so rip off is more likely.

Past Winners:
Oasis - Guess God Thinks I'm Abel
Youth Group - Why Don't the Buildings Cry?

new feature: The Whitest Thing I've Heard in a While

white guy: oh, what's in this? a book?

me: DVD, Season 2 of Dave Chappelle show

white guy: you know, I've never seen the show.

me: it's really funny, you should check it out

white guy: anytime I hear Chappelle, I think of Chappelle from 24

I was hoping Dave would have called it "In Your Honour", using the Canadian spelling like he did for Colour and the Shape. I read somewhere once that he spelled it "Colour" as a nod to the Canadian producer of the album, Gil Norton. Nick Raskulinecz is the producer of In Your Honour, which is a double cd that's out in 2 weeks, but was leaked today.