Thanks to Paw's suggestion, I've finally decided to start a sort of tea blog/review. The link is above with all the other blog links - it's called "Tasty Hot Water". The first post describes more or less what I feel like doing with it :)

As for "Actors" - it is the name of the new album by St. Vincent. Paw and I had seen them open for The Arcade Fire on may 13, 2007. The singer used to be part of the Polyphonic Spree (another good band, albeit incredibly cheerful). Anyways, they were really good and I also very much enjoyed their first album, so decided to check this one out.
It is different from the first album in some ways. She still has the same kind of mellow, haunting voice and nice beats. Anyways, definitely an album to check out.

Here is the single and probably my favorite song so far, called "Actor out of work"


I must commend those people for their awesome anger and crying skills. I wonder if the used onions to make them cry...

I recently heard this song (friend sent it to me). It's by Lisa Mitchell - Neopolitan Dreams. It's soooo cute :O the twinkles and her voice.

While looking for a different song, I stumbled upon an Armin van Buuren remix of "Human" by The Killers. It's quite good :D



Apparently there's a CD with a bunch of remixes of "Human". I guess I'll check it out sometime and see if they are as good as this one.

Also, I'm in a little bit of a reggae mood thanks to hearing a Bob Marley song on Saturday (I was at a Philipino Youth Fundraiser. One of the local acts covered "Zimbabwe"). As usual, it's groovy and quite summery. So here you go.

It's been a while. Almost a month. My classes are over for the semester and much to my delight I passed all of them (even the pesky math class I thought I kerplonked!).

Fixies:
I had intended to restart karate and join a dancing class, but unfortunately that did not happen. Last wednesday I sprained my ankle while testing a fixed gear bike. Long story short - my pants got stuck in the gear, my foot was still in the toe clip, and since the pedals were still turning, my foot bent forward.

This is how my foot looked that day:


It kinda looks like I have a tumor on my ankle :P

And this is the bruising that appeared two days after (it got even darker the day after):


Luckily nothing is broken. It is still somewhat swollen, some bruising remains and it is quite sensitive to touch. I can walk! but I probably won't be able to do any karate or that dance class for a few weeks. *shakes fist for foiled plans*

Twilight:
On Sunday (May 3), I saw Mogwai at the Metropolis with Paw. It is my 3rd time seeing them and I think her 4th. Mogwai never disappoint. This time we sat on the balcony due to my foot and we also thought it would be interesting to see the concert from that angle as we usually stand right up front and experience of the seizurific lights.

The opening band was called "The Twilight Sad". They're somewhat hard indie rock with a thick scottish accent. I was pleasantly surprised by how great they were. I can without a doubt say I liked every song. My current favorite is "That summer, at home I had become the invisible boy".
Here is a music video someone made with the song and moments between Humprey Bogart and Lauren Bacall:



The drumming reminds me a bit of the drumming in "Maps" by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Very nice :)

One cool thing about sitting on the balcony is you get to do people watching. At one point a fight broke out (which I really didn't expect at a Mogwai show). Though I didn't hear anything, the events seemed to transpire as follows:
A tall, buff dude made his way through the crowd dancing around halfway through mogwai's set. People were annoyed because they were there first and he was moving a lot. So they asked him to move/tone it down. He got upset and started arguing with them. He later proceeding to take off his giant ear plugs, his hat and then he took off his shirt and pushed one of the small dudes. Crowd commotion follows. Metropolis security came and tried to tame the large man. He started pushing them too. I think they managed to handle it though, because things toned down after. It was just really bizarre o_O.

Apart from that, the concert was really great. Though they did not play "My Father, My King", they did play "Two rights make one wrong" and "Like Herod" which are always a pleasure to hear. :D

Incoming Elektronaut
Paw and I decided that we will not be going to the Kinetik Festival after all this year. But all is not lost! We shall still have our industrial music, for VNV Nation is coming in July :D Time to get glowsticks!

Things I've been listening to lately:
Extra Musica - Etat Major - A band from the DRC. The genre of music is called Soukous. It has lots of guitar and nice beats. People can do a very wiggly dance called Ndombolo to this. If you check on youtube, the first video that appears has this song with the very wiggly people.

The Twilight Sad - Fourteen Autumns and Fifteen Winters

Patrick Wolf - The Bachelor - The music video for the song "Vulture" is quite different from his other ones. Kinda on the BDSM side :P

Camera Obscura - Let's get out of this country Kind of reminds me of "Stars". I like the song "Lloyd, I'm ready to be heartbroken"

Kino - Sorok Shest (46), Noch (night) and Eto ne lyubov(It's not love) Russian rock band from the 80's. From the three albums, my favorite songs are "Sasha", "Film" and "It's not love".

Asobi Seksu - Citrus, Hush Dream pop/rock with unintelligible lyrics. I like "Lions and Tigers" and "Layers" (I really like the drumming in layers).

I'll leave it at that for music :)

Finally, two recipes I tried recently that were awesome (but I made some modifications due to missing ingredients. Still turned out great though).

Mango Coconut Muffins
Unfortunately, I didn't take a picture of these ones. I made them for a picnic with some friends.

Vegan Chocolate Muffins with Coconut Icing
I made these for a friends birthday.



Oh and if you're interested in composting (but without dealing with the worms/making the thing yourself), there's a great service called Compost Montreal. They serve quite a few areas and are trying to expand. Basically it's 20$/month - they provide a bucket, the bag and collect every tuesday. In addition, you can have as much compost as you like :) So far, I'm quite pleased and am happy to be reducing my garbage even more :D

That ends my long post.
Until next time!