The Black Pearl

Well folks…time for the obligatory weekly post on the old BLOG (not that I’ve held myself to that rigid schedule…but seeing as I’m now seasonably… (Sorry…seasonally)…unemployed, I figured I’d best get with it and keep my public (currently 3 or so dedicated readers) content.

I could talk about what I’ve been doing in the aftermath of the big storm, the tedious home renovations, the painstaking refinishing and touch-ups on the old homestead…but unless you have a serious interest in the restoration of 1930’s window frames…you might just want to throw yourself in front of a train. (on a side note here...the upside of refinishing window frames is that the detail/ orbital palm sander is the one tool I can violate my self imposed “No Wine and Power Tool Operation Rule…seriously…the worst that can happen is that you sand your fingerprints off... good for committing crimes.. but man they are sensitive little piggies on this keyboard). I could also go off on my planned topic, the flatulent nature of my dog, but I think Tai covered that subject to death about a week back.

Anyway I thought it prudent at this juncture to talk a bit about my other hobby… INTERNET PIRACY. Arrgh maties!!! (Kira always gets hot when I use the pirate speak…fancies me a pirate …or a Johnny Depp look alike).

So today we discuss the beauty that is the TORRENT file. Unknown to me until mere weeks ago, this is (to use the vernacular of the young and better looking) the bomb!

Tomorrow marks the day of the North American release of the new Tom Waits album (a three disc collection of rarities and rejects from the past ten years), called Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers, and Bastards. Today marks the day that I downloaded it for free from TorentSpy. Seriously…this is the life. This, by the way, is an album worth buying (and if I hadn’t already stolen it, I might just have done that). Tom wails on in his signature fashion for over three hours, with plenty of good narrative stories to punctuate your listening pleasure. This is Waits at his best…his recent albums have been varied…Mule Variations proved again that he was a genius…but the dual release of Blood Money and Alice is strictly for Waits diehards….Real Gone (his latest) was real good…but this latest compendium tickles the soul. There is one track on it, a spoken word interlude set to a funky beat (if I had the ability I post the thing on here for you to listen, but if you want, I’ll email it to you) that chronicles the interesting predatory/defensive habits of insects, and compares them to human behaviour. With passages like “The female paying mantis devours the male while they are mating. The male sometimes continues copulating, even after the female has bitten off his head and part of his upper torso.” Savvy, educational, and if you dance like I do, you can even dance to this track. So next time you jump on Limewire (or whatever) you might want to grab “Army Ants” by Tom Waits…or just download the whole freaking album.

On a different note, we can find the dark side of the internet, only a mouse click from beauty itself. I stumbled upon this gem by accident, while checking out some of those funny, and seemingly original (only because no one you know has them) custom Tee-shirts the sell on line (t-shirts for Geeks or some such clap-trap). The Shiza-gram. This is taking the much talked about “Borat” style humour right to your door. Not only is it disgusting and low-brow, it’s not even original. I have a terrorist (I mean friend) whos been talking about unleashing a shit bomb on the White House for years. Its worthy to note that this particular friend is, infact, a qualified blaster who works with explosives on a daily basis. His dream, is not to blow the bastards up, but to launch a projectile through the walls of the White House (kind of like a 747 or whatever through the Pentagon) with a payload of excrement… the message is the medium.

I will leave you now to ponder.