But the show-stealer was Fogell/McLovin. Great character! The two cops were uh a bit unrealistic but they propelled McLovin to the lulz.

^[soorse]

I’ve been thinking a lot about amber lamps today. I wish that instead of having to do one monolithic thesis for the master’s’ that I could do smaller, loosely connected nodes on things that are current and interesting. I got tired of the idea of a grunge thesis about a year ago.

I’d like to unpack the amber lamps meme. I must admit that the first time I watched ‘fatnigger’s’ utoob clip I was mainly paying attention but did note in passing the girl on the seat in the background and that she did not react or move away from the fight. Perhaps it’s the case that fights on buses are so common in the USA that this was for the most part, the unremarkable part of the video. However, by-standers who are not easily phased, I take it, are rare.

I can identify with amber lamps. I too am non-interventionist, even to a fault some would say. “how can you just stand there and say nothing yakky?” they say. But everything will work out the way it’s meant to. Was that what amber lamps was thinking?

I want to get an amber lamps t-shirt if there is one. I’m sure there is.

PS. They played the rock and roll animal version of sweet Jane at starbucks. I haven’t heard that album in years. I’m at starbucks because cafe Benny was full.

Anger. Rage in america is another issue. Epic beard guy was feelin it. This seems fairly typical of many Americans I’ve seen. It’d be easy to interpret it negatively. As if it’s epic beard guy’s weakness. But I’ve learnt that it’s a positive sign to be able to express anger. Even when it seems to be conveyed poorly it is still moving in right direction. And that’s the main point. It’s on the way to somewhere. Somewhere better.

But this decade is off to a good start. I like the rhyming in this and I like the way it came about.

Related video here.

Although, bandcamp is a cool idea too. It’s like myspace, but the webpage design is infinitely better. And it’s not owned by rupert murdoch, yet. The challenge is sorting the wheat from the chaff because there’s about a zillion artists on there. I guess someone could make a blog that did it, but you’d have to have all day to sit around and listen to new music.

I started from the back, alphabetically. I even paid $2 for zoos of berlin’s 3 songs, lending evidence to the argument that if you only have to pay a small amount then you’re more likely to pay than gets in for frees. But most people are giving it away for free there. And I found that a lot of people are into retro-electro, and that the thing that really makes an artist is a good singing voice because there aren’t that many of them.

Here’s a couple that I like:

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Also, why wasn’t the Taiwanese earthquake that happened yesterday in the news hardly at all? Three serious earthquakes in two months. Do the news people think the audience are tired of earthquake stories?  I think there is something seriously unusual going on with the planet.

These are sad times because my plants are dying. I entrusted them with a coworker during my time away. I’d had them four years or more. The chances of them reviving are about the same as that of some dude splitting a sea in two.

I’ve been watching 1950s epics with charleton Heston in them. Ben Hur was pretty cool. Must have had a huge budget for it’s time. I liked how it had the alternate viewpoint of history angle going, at least in the first part. It would’ve been better if they’d just had that bit where jesus is giving charleton some water, but then not crossed paths with the biblical stuff again. There was some good bits of scoring in the soundtrack too. Also pretty cool that Frank Thring got to be Pilate.

A little more cheesy was The Ten Commandments. This is probably the most memorable scene:

But I liked the bit where charleton had just come back down from talking with the burning bush.

Joshua: Whoa Moses, nice blow wave. Who did?

Moses: The Hand of God held the hair dryer that blew this wave.

Sephora: Sage.

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I’m trying to start my masters thesis. I don’t know where the apostrophe should go there. And I don’t know where to start. 20,000 words is a lot.

My powers of description fail me when it comes to this film. It was weird.

The Primitive Calculators:

Link to Primitive Calculators interview on RRR, 2008. (archived here)

It’s a vastly big difference to Vietnam where pretty much everybody is trying to make an extra buck out of you. It’s almost non-existent here. I don’t know why that is – if it’s a byproduct of the more religious attitude, or if there’s some nasty laws against grifting that I don’t know about. I guess things aren’t as cheap as inn vietnam, but still a bit cheaper than korea.

Another situation was that I was in a line to get a monorail ticket out of a machine at a station. I pressed the buttons to get the ticket I want and waqs about to put the note in to pay but it said it wouldn’t take notes and I didn’t have enough coin to pay. They young guy behind me stepped up, dug into his pocket and gave me about 50cents worth of coins. I tried to give him the note I was going to use as compensation but he wouldn’t have it.

I am digging the muslamic architecture, and just notice that the petronas towers kind of look like minarets.

Everyone here speaks English quite well. I guess my preconception of the young women wearing the headscarves is that they would be taciturn and a little cool in their approach toward the whiteman, but it’s not the case at all. So I guess I can dig it apart from the thing I notice that there is no equivalent with men. Some of them wear little caps, but very few. When out in groups, the young guys couldn’t be picked apart from non-islamic guys, while the women have the scarf. And so, in order to equalise the situation, I propose that the guys wear .

Also, I know it’s a thailand thing rather than a malay thing, but I saw a pic of the reclining Buddha on telly and I totally got it. Given the weather and everything. As a novice seeker on the path of slack as a way of being I think I have to get one of those reclining Buddha statues.