top ten songs 2008

Here are my top ten favourite songs of the past year.
In no particular order:

The Ting Tings: That's not my name (I love this song, the drum beat - the listing of all the different stereotyped names for women - a sort of feminist song that you can still dance to)

Juliana Hatfield: The Fact Remains (this song works on so many levels, the methaphors of breaking up, the violence, the emotions, and how it all changes you)

Manda Rin: Less Than Zero (a great dance song about how we starve and work out in order to look more attractive "less than zero for the sake of ego")

Kay Hanley: Video (this one is about how bands get sold more their marketability than their actually musicianship. "I love your video, but I will admit that your music's shit")

Patti Rothberg: After the Parade (Lovely song about her watching gay pride in New York and wondering how much good it does)

Robyn: Crash and Burn Girl (Delicious dance song about a woman who never can see the emotional stupidity that she is always getting herself into)

Pulp: Cocaine Socialism (I know this song is older, but I had not heard it till this year. I love how it makes fun of the bands own fame and how it was perceived as being a sell out)

Courtney love: Car Crash (haunting ballad about someone on the verge of death and how they force themselves to keep on living)

Goldfrapp: Happiness (bouncy song about love with a esoteric video to go along with it, what else would one expect?)

Kirsty MacColl: Perfect Day (once again this song is not new this year but I had never really listened to it until this year and was amazed that it had somehow alluded my ears)

The saga of the shower filter

Monster Squad and I had a difficult friday night. The library closed early so he and I met at Eaton's centre. I got to finally pick up the shower filter replacement cartridge so that I could change it. Easy enough.
We get home, and the first thing I want to do is change the shower filter so that I can alleviate my skin problems.
And then I am unale to the get the actual casing of the filter to come apart.
Man - it is stuck on there.
I try and try and try.
Then Monster Squad wants to try.
I find this rather funny since his trying is to do the exact same thing that I was doing. (and he is not as strong as me)
And then it begins - the battle to see who can undo this white plastic shower casing.
For three hours we worked on getting that thing apart.
We heated it.
We cooled it.
We tried oil.
We tried one holding one half and the other holding the other.
We did all we could.
The shower filter was winning.

I gave up.
Monster squad gave up.
Then in a moment of sheer genius (after researching opening things on the internet) I bought a pair of rubber gloves and used them to get a better grip. And although it was still tough, I managed to get the thing to move a little and then I realized that I had won the competition.
And know I am not being exposed to Chlorine when I shower.
And I have to go buy dechlorinator for when I take a bath.
I hate dermatitis.



And plastic shower casing's that won't come undone.

A Certain Irriation

I intensley dislike people with call display who see the call come in, don't answer the phone and then call back and say "someone called me from this number".
What the fuck do you want me to do about that?
Answer the phone the first time instead of being passive aggressive and then maybe you will know what it is that they want.

Law exam update

The instructor posted marks and I did very well on the final, so yeah for me.
He did not say how others in the class did so I cannot compare to the class average but I am quite happy to have gotten the marks that I got.
La la la la.
And it also means I passed the class and that I don't have to worry about my GPA until next semester when I take microeconomics.
Fun!

Learning the law

I had a law final on saturday.
I studied very very hard for it.
I was very nervous.
When I got to the room the final was being held in, I saw all my classmates studying away, feverishly going through their textbooks.
The instructor came in.
I put away my notes that I had brought with me. Having left my textbook at home, not wanting to carry it - and being well sick to death of the damn thing anyways.
He handed out the final.
I waited for him to tell the class to put their books away.
He did not.
He told us to turn over our finals.
We all did.
And in horror I read "this is an open book test"

Well fuck me!

After a brief moment of panic and wanting to cry, I accepted the situation, and did the best I could.
Having studied hard I felt pretty positive about the final.
And in retrospect having to go through a text would have been cumbersome and time consuming. Also the questions were fairly objective, you had to know the theory, but still apply it - so even having the textbook only got you halfway to the answer.

Still - how did I not know that this was an open book final.

Oops.