So I finally watched 24 Hour Party People last night. My good friend Sean has been badgering me to watch it for the past-(insert deity of your choice)-knows how long. I’m glad I did, it was great! It’s a fictionalized look at how Manchester became a musical epicenter in the early 80s and chronicles the evolution of Joy Division/New Order all the way into the beginnings of the UK rave scene. It’s really funny, too! I really enjoyed how it was presented — our protagonist slipped back and forth between his character in the film and a narrator twenty years in the future. I’ll call it “inline narration” — I’ve never seen anything like it before. Very cool. Go rent!
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Fresh Veggies
Made the yummiest pasta last night! Scotty (from Ultimate) works at an organic farm and brought a whole boxload of fresh veggies with him to give away last night’s practice. So of course I took as much as I could fit in two hands. 🙂
Ended up with a head of lettuce, two zucchini, a spaghetti squash and several stalks of fresh basil, all organic, all picked that day. Fried up the veggies with the basil (the remainder of which I’ve since chopped up and placed in olive oil to keep fresh), added a red sauce and cooked spaghetti noodles. Dead simple and oh-so-good, you wouldn’t believe. Fresh veggies make *such* a difference. Discovered that my zucchini were actually cucumbers while chopping them, but threw ’em in to fry with the squash anyhow as an experiment. And it turned out lovely! Never would have thought of frying cucumber!
So I’ve got a boatload of fresh basil still — anyone have any good recipes? -
First iTMS purchase
So today I made my first iTunes Music Store purchase: Massive Attack – Unfinished Sympathy. Mark this day on your calendar!
What is the iTunes Music Store (iTMS)? Well, it’s a kind of “virtual record shop”, allowing you to browse, preview and purchase songs over the internet. There are no subscription fees: tracks cost 99 cents each, or an entire album is $9.99 (with a few exceptions). There’s biographical information for most artists, and in the spirit of Amazon.com’s “customers which bought x also bought y” thing, the iTMS lists related items, which makes exploring new music really easy, fun even.
Unfortunately the iTMS is not yet available in Canada, but that could change soon. Canada is a much better position than Europe, which probably won’t see the iTMS until at least this spring. Europe is far trickier, with many more labels/record companies to work out deals with individually.
Previously, iTunes has been Mac-only, but with last Thursday’s release of iTunes for Windows, Apple introduced a new feature into the iTMS: Celebrity Playlists. Wherein commoners get to view the favorite choons of select famous people. I spotted the Massive Attack track while browsing Moby’s list (requires iTunes). Can’t believe the track is 10 years old! I purchased it using part of a $10 gift certificate Sarah sent me as a belated birthday present. Thanks Sarah! 😀
I have one problem with the store: it’s waaaay too easy to just keep on buying music. Guess that’s why some folks have dubbed the iTMS “iCrack”. 🙂
