Raising a family in Thailand // Documenting Issan food, culture, music, and people
This is the funniest series I’ve seen in a long time.
The first two are my favorites but the rest are funny as well:
What it’s really like to work in a music store PART III
What it’s really like to work in a music store PART IV
What it’s really like to work in a music store PART V
(thx g)
You need to watch this video for your life to be complete. Really.
Via my bro.
BONUS: A subtitled barbershop quartet rendition, if you’re into that sort of thing
UPDATE: If you’re nerd enough to have come this far, you deserve a top shelf link: Total Recall: The Musical
This is Tool’s song Lateralus (originally titled 9-8-7) played on kotos and bass kotos. It’s also surely the ultimate traditional Japanese music/Fibonacci sequence nerd jam of all time.
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I’d like to mention here that the new YouTube layout is absolute crap and apparently I’m not alone in thinking so. And changing the five-star system to a like/dislike one is pretty much the worst user feedback decision I’ve seen in recent times. I guess the user testing groups were firmly set in the Keewl It’s Just Like Facebook demographic.
“Have you ever wondered what Dark Side of the Moon would sound like if Pink Floyd had written it for NES, instead of for a rock band?”
Brad Smith – MOON8
or use this direct link to the torrent file (hosted at btjunkie)
…because it’s our day to chill and listen to YouTube music. Max got to see twenty vids, now it’s my turn for one. Actually, there is a version with an actual music video here, but the audio sucks.
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It’s funny, I played this song a few months back when we were setting up a PA, and my coworker Bruce suddenly stood up and announced he hadn’t “heard this since it came out!”
The Doraemon snare is a $5 cheapie we bought at the bicycle/toy store in Kalasin where we went to buy a baby seat for the nanny’s bicycle a month ago. The wooden xylophone is called a ranat (or more specifically, a ranat ek) which was donated to the Yoshida Instrument Collection by Tanaka-sensei, a close friend who is leaving Sarakham at the end of the month. The ranat is tuned by placing wax lumps along the underside of each wooden slab; all of these have fallen off and we need to find somebody who knows how to tune it. Hopefully there will be someone at Nam’s university since they have a big music department.
His majesty’s wooden throne was obtained separately but it’s like the coolest chair I’ve ever seen. I really want a bigger one since my big ass won’t fit in this one.
Ursula K. Le Guin reviews Margaret Atwood’s semi-sequel to Oryx and Crake, The Year of the Flood. Oryx and Crake was just some of the freshest writing I’d seen for quite some time and some scenes were kind of reminiscent of the Earthsea novels now that I think about it. But was it Science Fiction? Aside from Atwood’s protestations, I sure think it was – and it was SF of the best kind: The kind enjoyable by people who don’t read SF.
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Roxanne Shante, the first really popular female rapper, gets a doctorate and gets Warner Music to pay for it. It’s not hard to see what they were thinking when they wrote they would fund her education for life in her contract back in the early 80’s – they thought it would never come about. Haha, suckaz! At my department, we would make the joke that she should now study for her post-doc, post-post-doc, and that other degree with platinum olive leaf clusters and tri-ringed shiny tassels.
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“A federal warning to beware of campers in national forests who eat tortillas, drink Tecate beer and play Spanish music because they could be armed marijuana growers is racial profiling.”
Tone Matrix
chill chill chill
UPDATE 4/15/09: Also, BallDroppings is the dope unko.
On the way to my uni’s sports day a couple weeks ago, we stopped off at a famous temple (from the ancient “kao noi ka mae” story) where they sold various trinkets, sticky rice baskets, and musical instruments at a series of stalls on the dusty temple grounds.
After testing out this drum and hearing how nice it sounded, my coworker and I debated about who should buy it. He said he had too many drums already, so I bought it. The man who sold it to me didn’t say who made the drum, who killed the snake, or if it tasted delicious, and I didn’t ask. Just having a drum with a snakeskin head is cool enough. One thing was kinda gross, though. The first day of pounding on it, scales were flying off everywhere. I looked down once to find my forearm covered in snake scales that were sticking to my sweaty skin. It was djembeistic and cathartic as hell.
Basic Specs
I will cry out loud when this thing eventually breaks, it’s way too cool.
