So after two weekends of heading back to familiarity (be it family and Kirkland or Danielle and Victoria,) this is my first weekend in the Townhouses (which are basically 4 single occupancy dorm rooms with a kitchen and 2 bathrooms.) Like clockwork, there was a party going on downstairs, and well, I had no interest beer pong, not only because of a lack of interest in beer, but also a lack of interest in communicable disease.
However, I definitely feel like I’m getting more and more into the flow of life here. Beyond that, slowly but surely I seem to be making friends with folks in the ARC, so it’s not like I’m without social contact either. In fact, last night, I hung out with some of the nerd crew on campus. It’s much more my pace. I still have some disorienting moments sometimes when I wake up, but on the whole, I seem to be getting used to being at least quasi-adult.
In fact, I even feel comfortable enough to indulge a little. I’m going out for a Starbucks at the mall.
So, as I think most people know, I have moved to Canada to attend college at Simon Frasier University. I have my apprehensions about school – even when my best efforts are applied, my supposed brilliance (this isn’t me being egotistical, it’s from other people saying I’m smart) doesn’t always come across in my studies. However, I’m hoping that my return to higher education 4 years after finishing my Associates Degree (which itself took two years too long to finish,) will be successful. Hopefully, since I won’t have a job distracting me (or even much in the way of social commitments or hobbies to worry about – more on that later,) it’ll be a lot more like my last two years at BCC where I was able to focus on my studies quite well, and not my first two at BCC where I was often so exhausted physically from pushing carts around that I didn’t have the energy to put into course work.
Now, some may also assume this means that now I’m automatically in an environment that I’m fairly familiar with, but the truth is the SFU Burnaby campus is far enough removed from the places I know in Vancouver (namely Commercial Drive, Strathcona and Metrotown,) that’s it’s akin difference between living on Capitol Hill and living in Kent. One is a cool neighborhood in a big city, and one is formerly industrial area that’s been gentrified with Ikeas and such. However, that doesn’t mean I haven’t made a point to visit some familiar areas. In addition to visiting the Ikea for some odds and ends, I made a point to visit the Metrotown mall to get some other essentials square too. The interesting thing was coming up the street that intersected the one Metrotown is on, I saw the Crystal Mall, an Asian-centric shopping mall where Danielle and I would visit when I was in Vancouver in years past, and I was somewhat overwhelmed. It was bittersweet; I was so happy to have a familiar beacon with such fond memories attached to it, yet I truly wished that she was here with me so that we could enjoy it together. Even being in Metrotown, there were a lot of things that reminded me of those times.
Perhaps nothing is more motivating to me than to know that if I do put in the effort to finish school here, I will be joined by the person who introduced this lovely city to me, and who makes it a 1000 times more lovely with her presence. Of course, even Castlegar is fun with her.
In the interim though, it’s keeping in contact with phone calls, and where as I at least had friends and family in Seattle to socialize a little with, I really don’t have super tight contacts in the same fashion here. Hopefully, this translates into getting school work done with massive efficiency, but I hope I can keep in contact with with people often enough that I don’t feel too lonely either. Yeah, there are school clubs and such that should let me make some local contacts, but on the whole, the last thing I think I need is to feel isolated from the connections I do have. In short, don’t be surprised if I’m on skype, google chat and other stuff a bunch, and feel free to say hello.
So, I’ve put my first full album on bandcamp, both as in my first release via the site, and my first nerdcore album revision4920. What was once out of print is now available for 5 bucks in just about any audio format you could want. Everything else I want to sell immediately (along with some freebie stuff) should be making it’s way to the site this weekend.
Also, I finally got registered for classes at SFU. Next week: getting a study permit/student visa.
- Ben Garbe aka $ucksex of The Former Fat Boys
Ok, that’s probably an over exaggeration. After all, massive back-catalog of music to record and adept production work for new luminaries aside, I am only in the middle of readying both Rai’s debut album, Electric Sheep, and my new record, Romance Language Two. Actually, I’m done with Romance Language Two outside of mixing/mastering (well, I have another 3 or 4 songs I could record for it if time allows, maybe in November.) At the moment, everything I’ve got is being poured into Rai’s debut, and she’s putting as much time as her vocal chords and job allow on this to get it done in time for AkiCon 2009.
BTW, that’ll bring the official count of releases this year for me up to seven. A mixtape, a remix album, two mash up eps, two personal albums and a collaboration album. I won’t rest on that either cause I’m going to help Nursehella however I can with her debut record.
Oh and I’ll find time write another couple anime reviews in there too, and upload my records to bandcamp so all you folks can buy them via the internets. I may not be successful at what I do yet, but stopping me is easier said than done.
So I made a six song long mash up EP in a weekend earlier this year, and well, I got the itch again, so this time I made a six song mash up EP in 4 hours. I present, Ultraklystron – Redid The Mash:
Badongo – DepositFiles – MegaUpload – RapidShare – zShare
Of course, beyond the fun of me ruining songs from some of my favorite artists is that this has a sneak peak at Romance Language 2, with two songs from said upcoming album on this release in mash up for form. BTW, I have four out of 12 songs done for that record.
I am back from Victoria, BC after a lovely visit with Danielle. She showed me around the city, and I have to say to all my goth loli friends and my otaku friends – get up there and visit. Between the lovely tea rooms, old architecture and awesome china town, you must see that city when you get the chance. Anyways, she and I had a fantastic time. We saw GZA of the Wu-Tang Clan live, we went to a bunch of cute restaurants (all of which were quite economical,) we watched tons of anime (Ouran Host Club) and we walked all over the city! We even won trivia night at the hostel we were staying at, netting us free gift certificates for the hostel cafe and a local diner, and we also won at the Deal or No Deal arcade game at the first try, netting us cute folding fans. I am looking forward to future visits as well. Victoria’s a lovely city – pity UVic won’t take any of my BCC credits without way too much effort spent.
Next up, in the interest of maybe spurring some interest in my most recent commercial release, The Fourth Estate, I’ve decided to pull a Random and release a shareware, stripped down version of the same record, in this iteration called The Free Estate. It’s only 11 songs (vs. 19 on the actual record,) and it’s encoded in 128kbps mp3 for that late 90s piracy sound. Download it from one of the several links below before the links inevitable dead links happen:
badongo – depositfiles – megaupload – rapidshare – zshare – sharebee
Lastly, you may want to check out the song I’ve done for Nerdcore Rising’s Song Fight. I don’t really want to win (chance to see NYC aside,) but it’s a fun song you should totally check out. Lyrics are after the break.
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The past few weeks since the last blog post have been nothing if not busy, and while I’ve certainly done my fair share of tweeting, for my own record keeping, I feel like doing a round up.
Well, I made my way back from Canada, missing Danielle the whole way and thinking I’d be camping the next day with my friends. Alas, I could’ve stayed the extra day, as we wouldn’t hit the road until monday, though the extra day did afford a trip up to Walmart for supplies (the camp stove fuel being especially importantly actually.)
Thus, on the last monday of August we punched on through to Port Twilight err Port Angeles (seriously, that town is absolutely pandering to the Twihard demo,) and on up to the Salt Creek Recreation Area. The area was gorgeous, and outside of an accidental 8-mile death hike, it was a blast of a time. Sure, it would’ve been nice to have remembered to bring my roll-up camping mattress, but after the hike, my back wasn’t what hurt – my legs just felt like someone took a wiffle-ball bat to them. It was fun boiling up soup and water for tea and ramen, cooking hot dogs over the camp fire was fun and really, it’s the first I’ve ever spent that kind of extended time with some of those friends. Lots of cool photos came out of that trip as well.
After a day off, it was PAX time, and well, 13 free shirts (two of which I gave away out of the gate, and another 5 or more will also eventually end up in friends hands if not charity,) scads of swag and 3 days later, and I have to say that it was pretty ok. I mean, I was absolutely ecstatic to see Rai perform with Front. It really should have happened last year at PAX though scheduling issues prevented that, but her performance this year just really shows how much better she’s become even over her existing skill level. We really gotta get that record done. Beefy also tore it up on “Nerdcore Rising” as expected. However, outside of the usual PAX fun (goofing around Pictochat, catching up with various acquaintances and friends,) it was pretty chill.
The past week? Marathoning and reviewing Gakuen Alice, going through the paperwork and law regarding dual citizenship and gathering up various phone numbers I’ll have to call in regards to getting back to school. Oh, and going to Endfest 18 and going a friend’s birthday party. Quite the nonstop month I’ve had once one factors in my trip to Canada.
Still, I’m not satisfied – I know I have more to get done.
So, for the first time in forever, Nursehella and I caught a movie together (well, Hella’s friend April also came along, but to me the key point was finally seeing a movie with Hella for the first time since the last Pirates of the Caribbean,) namely Tarentino’s Inglourious Basterds. As expected, it had Tarantino’s usual blend of indulgent film references and over-the-top violence, though seeing that brutality applied to Nazis? Way better, as you have absolutely no sympathy for any of the characters being wrecked up (consider it the opposite of Kill Bill in that regard.) Normally, one wouldn’t laugh at a man’s corpse being desecrated with entire clip from a machine gun, but when the corpse is… well, I don’t want to spoil it, but lets just if WWII had played how Tarantino dreamed it, it would have been a vastly more satisfying result. I mean, the theater was cheering by the end of the flick.
However, rather than just settle for having seen an excellent movie, we also went to a foam party at the Element in Castlegar. The music wasn’t too hot, but it was amusing to see people try to enter and exit the foam. There is a viral video in filming that I think. Anyways, I wasn’t dressed for the occasion, but it was fun to get a little dancing in and talk to some of Hella’s old friends. Good times.
So, my goal for attending the first Lolita Fashion and Ball-Jointed Doll convention in the Seattle area was find a cute headdress to go with Danielle’s new Goth Loli outfit on her behalf since she couldn’t come down to the con. Maybe I’d take a few photos too, and I’d make a point to catch the DJ set once I found out my friend Panda was spinning, but I figured for the most part I’d be looking to kill time in Bellevue, since none of my friend could make it out (or so I thought.) So, after I bought a cute headdress to go with the outfit (a big ol’ bow,) I went down to Tully’s and started to browse feeds on my Google ION. Then, out of nowhere, my friend Ally turns up.
Turns out she was going to see Transformers 2 with her family, and well I had time to kill, so I saw Transformers with them. The movie was ok (Michael Bay needs to tighten his timing up, or Spielberg has to do it for him like he did for George Lucas on the original Indiana Jones movies,) but it was obvious to me at that point that I hadn’t got a real meal all day. So over to World Wrapps with Ally, then back over to InnoSera where she browsed the dealer’s room for a little bit, though she missed the Baby, The Stars Shine Bright room (not that the selection was too hot anyway – mostly Sweet Loli.)
Now, this would be where one might expect some denouement, but instead, we then head over to Ross and to Jo-Anns. She picks up some odds and ends for her Goth Loli outfit. Why you ask? Because later, we then head back to the con (Ally now decked out in con appropriate wear,) catch a band by the name of Kissing Violet, and catch Panda’s DJ set (where he made a point to point me out as a big name Nerdcore Rapper.)
It was not at all what I thought the day would be like; it was a whole lot more. Shoot, I even know for fact that Danielle’s outfit will fit and well because I saw people (who unlike the beautiful and svelt Danielle,) really make use of the pleating in the back of the outfit if you know what I mean (Gordo Lolita?) I just wish Ally and I could have wrangled more folks into the coming with since the day turned out so good. Maybe next year.
tl;dr: everything turned out better than expected.
So, I’ve been doing mobile development for a start-up my friends run for the past few months, but it looks like I won’t be getting hours for a bit. Call it an unexpected vacation. So, outside of a visit to see Nursehella later in the month, I’m suddenly at odd ends as to what to do with my time.