Nothing to see here. Please move along.

Sorry for the lack of posting lately....last week was super busy for me at work. I laughed when I reread my last post which started out "First of all...." and then ended abruptly. There was no second of all, not even an attempt at a second of all - I guess I lost my train of thought!
I still don't have much to blog about. I finally finished One Hundred Years of Solitude which was a chore, but ultimately worth it. This is the masterpiece novel by Latin American writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez who won the Nobel Prize for literature. It is literally a 100 year family history of the Buendia family and the mythical Latin American town of Macondo - the generations of Buendias are supposed to be parallel to various stages of Columbian history. Now I am reading the second part to A Million Little Pieces, called My Friend Leonard. This is a much easier read and I am already about 1/4 of the way through it.
Am I the only person on this planet rooting for the Beauty Queens on Amazing Race? For that matter, am I the only person who still watches Amazing Race? I say, go blonde girls!
Other than that, I have been watching Weeds episodes that I download on my computer and listening to a lot of Placebo and Jesus and Mary Chain. And enjoying the totally beautiful weather this weekend. I hope you had a great weekend too, my loyal readers (all three of you!)

Placebo

First of all, if you haven't picked up or downloaded Placebo's newest album "Meds", you really should. I liked Placebo when I first became aware of them back in 1998 and even saw them live around Christmas of that year, but kind of lost interest in them soon after that. The new album is amazing - I love the song Drag, and Meds is great too. I also heard a cover they did of Kate Bush's "Running up that Hill" which is really good. They have some of these songs posted at their myspace page at the moment if you want to check it out.

Introducing My Newest "Friend" - Alan McGee

This post is probably going to sound a bit like my Ultragrrrl post from back in March, and I realize that my anti-social computer nerdishness is becoming more pronounced in my old age, but here's another post about someone I discovered on myspace about whom I will enthusiastically blather for a paragraph or two.

I found Alan McGee by way of the Dirty Pretty Things myspace page and became his "friend" on Monday. Immediately I started to receive his myspace bulletins, and unlike the usual fodder (who wants to get drunk tonight? lame surveys, etc.), McGee's bulletins were actually blog posts about fun and interesting music industry stuff. Last night, while waiting for a very good rerun of SVU to come on, I googled Alan McGee and discovered some interesting things about the man, namely that he is a record industry "mogul" (while managing to retain his indie cred) and the bands that he has worked with over the years read like a who's who of every band I have ever loved. He started indie record label Creation in the early-80s, at the same time managing the Jesus and Mary Chain. Creation went on to release albums for Primal Scream, My Bloody Valentine, and Oasis (ca-ching!), among others. The label was folded/absorbed by Sony in the late-1990s, but McGee continued to manage The Libertines, and now The Charlatans and Dirty Pretty Things. His new label Poptones is responsible for the Hives' albums that we know and love. In addition to running the label and management company, he also hosts/dj-s several nights in London, and tours around the world dj-ing.

He's another person who I like for their complete love of bands and music. His blog is posted on the Guardian web site and includes lots of interesting information about the music industry, the decline of major labels, copyright issues, bands, shows, myspace, etc. etc. It's good stuff.

Here's a very rock n roll picture of the lovely Carl Barat from Dirty Pretty Things to illustrate my Alan McGee post:

(photo by Roger Sargent)

The Next US Presidential Election

About midway through George W. Bush's first term as president, I was talking to a friend about the sorry state of American politics: the stolen election, the surging Christian conservative movement, the looming war in Iraq, etc. etc. At that time I said that I hoped George W. would win the 2004 election, legitimately or otherwise, because after eight years of having that clod in power the American public would be looking for someone completely different to lead them. I hoped that by 2008 they could accept the idea of a female president, Hillary Clinton could win the election, and Hillary and Bill could return to the White House. What could be better than four more years of Clinton hijinks, with the added bonus of having a woman as president?
Last night Barack Obama was a guest on Letterman, and over the course of the interview I became convinced that he should be the next president. I have been interested in him since first reading about him in an Al Franken book (Al Franken is now running for senator - yay!), but had a hard time getting a handle on him, plus I think I was still biased in favour of Hillary and was hoping that she would have a shot. Hillary has not really done anything to impress me since becoming senator, and my opinion of Obama keeps improving. He's young, attractive, and articulate, and really seems to have some good progressive ideas. What I'm trying to say is that he is basically the opposite of George W. So, for now my money is on Barack Obama, at least until he proves me wrong, or until Hillary goes out on a limb and does something exceptional.

New Digital Camera

I realize that no one ever looks at my photo blog (www.kodakgallery.com/raggedy_andrea) but, for anyone who does, you may have noticed that I haven't posted any of my own pictures since November 2006. This is because my camera died somewhere around that time. I made a half-hearted attempt to have it fixed, but was informed that it would be cheaper just to buy a new camera. Of course this began my obsessive Internet research of digital cameras and I still can't decide what I want. Also, I can't afford anything good...boohoo. So, if anyone has any camera advice (or spare cash), let me know! I would really appreciate it.

Fox Hole at the Gladstone

It must be spring, or something like that, because I have ants in my pants. On Friday I went to Urban Outfitters and spent the better part of my paycheque on new clothes. Of course I can't afford this, but decided to go into debt in the name of starting fresh. On Saturday night I broke with tradition and actually went out, in public, to somewhere that is not Squirley's. I went to the newly reno'd Gladstone Hotel for gay dance party "The Fox Hole" with my roommate and his love interest. The dj for this night is the lovely Shane MacKinnon who I first met back in the day at Buddies in Bad Times where he was working the bar....I think...I was always pretty drunk in those days. The Gladstone is way improved compared to the old days - the bar staff are actually competent and it doesn't take twenty minutes to get a drink anymore. I had a really good time. Which brings us to Sunday, my hangover day, where I paid for the abundance of beer and wine and dancing. I ended up sleeping until 1pm, still felt like crap, took a sleeping pill, and slept until 6pm. Of course then I couldn't fall asleep at bedtime on Sunday and ended up awake until the wee hours of the morning. Today I am paying for it in the form of something that feels like post-traumatic stress disorder. That'll teach me. No, it probably won't.