telephet

boo!

yeah thats right! I’ve been conned for too long! this is the part where i dish out some hot truth!

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have you ever been in the supermarket standing there, prostrate - in front of the toothpaste? at first you may be stunned by the extensive and varied selection of toothpastes to choose from, when suddenly you spot - quite cunningly- that there are really only two or three brands. I’M LOOKING AT YOU COLGATE, you cold, DECEPTIVE BASTARDS. you think you can fool me by putting glitter in my toothpaste and wrapping it in new packaging? do you think that i will be fooled into thinking it is ‘new and improved’?

ha! you thought wrong! who’s laughing now colgate?!

the cycle of toothpaste consumerism goes like this:

buy regular > get bored of regular, look for something ‘different’, something ‘interesting’ > buy something with ‘new and improved written on it, maybe a different flavour (icy wind flavour) > you taste the toothpaste, it’s interesting, but a little challenging. after a while you tire of it and try to find satisfaction in a different selection > buy cool blue mint gel spearmint flavour > interesting, but ultimately unsatisfying - get tired of the novelty > buy regular > continue cycle.
 

you see?! the consumer cycle is built on dissatisfaction! they create a vast selection to constantly keep you wondering if you’ve made the right choice - and just when you think you have a clue about which flavour is which, they switch them! spearmint becomes mint, mint becomes fresh clean mint, and icy blue wind blast still tastes like spearmint!

just look at their toothpaste selection!  (this is in no was embellished)
 

colgate total
colgate total mint stripe
colgate total plus whitening 
colgate total advanced fresh (???)
colgate total professional (??????)
colgate max fresh cool mint
colgate max fresh clean mint (>!?!?!!)
colgate max white  (i wouldn’t mind achieving maximum whiteness!)
colgate simply white (?)
colgate 2in1 whitening (?? 2 whats in what?)
colgate 2in1 icy blast (icy blast??)
colgate max fresh 2in1 clean mint (what?! hybrids?!)
colgate max fresh 2in1 cool mint (WHHAAAAT)
colgate advanced whitening (as opposed to colgate max white?)
colgate advanced whitening plus tartar control (oh of course)
colgate baking soda peroxide (at least they’re being honest)
my first colgate 0-6 years
colgate looney tunes sparkling mint gel 2-6 years
colgate shrek sparkling mint gel 6+ years (they never mention gel in the ‘adult’ range)
colgate sensitive enamel protect
colgate sensitive whitening
colgate sensitive multi protection (from multiple things.. like.. tartar?)
colgate sensitive fresh stripe (i like the sound of this one)
colgate maximum cavity protection great regular flavour (great)
colgate maximum cavity protection cool mint
colgate maximum cavity protection blue minty gel (gel?! for adults?!)
colgate tartar control (at last, some tartar control)
colgate triple action (well why the FUCK aren’t they ALL TRIPLE ACTION)

FUCK YOU COLGATE! FUCK YOU AND DIE!

I find myself ignoring my body’s needs. Whether it is hunger or need of sleep, i seem to push it for no good reason. I push it just because i can. It’s like i have a disdain for the mundane requirements of my body. I’m trying to learn acceptance - i’m spending more money on food and consciously trying to get to sleep earlier, but i just can’t manage it. I’m totally focused on one thing at a time, and I can’t even shake my attention when i need to eat or sleep. And unsurprisingly, because i’m an idiot - I’m crashing. I feel like I’m in one long slow crash. And every day is like a continuation of the crash in slow motion. like a hammer to the head in bullet time.

kkkkkkkzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzztttttttttt

I’m tired. I’m going to make a change and go to bed now (11:16).

So i was in Billy Hyde music the other day because i needed some equipment for recording. I’d read about cheap imitation ribbon mics from china and heard about their surprising quality, so i was tempted into buying the LEGACY AXIS90, a very fancy looking double ribbon bohemoth of a microphone, pictured below.

It came in a very nice silver briefcase. It made me feel pretty professional.

The worst thing was the ‘instruction manual’ which was one a4 page with the promo specs from the website printed on it.

Opening the patent wooden box gives you a feeling of excitement only a ribbon can give.

It does look cool though, like the monolith in 2001: a space odyssey.

Actually it does look very pretty, and that’s probably its only redeeming feature. I got it home and plugged it in and we made some noise into it.

We actually did a few double takes because it sounded like we were underneath a blanket, and not in a good way.

So i went online to see if i could find any reviews for it… and I couldn’t find one. In fact, the only information i could find was off the Billy Hyde website listing it as a product. That’s the best review i could give the LEGACY Axis90 really: no-one owns this monstrosity except me, and hopefully no-one else ever will.

It’s not even the fact that the sound was ‘dull’, it was also just plain un-musical. It just sounds bad.

That’s my review of the LEGACY Axis90 microphone.

2/10 (points for presentation)

a friend of mine from work introduced me to speak.

I have discovered a source of stress most of us experience, yet rarely acknowledge. I call it the microwait. It is a phenomenon borne from modern technology. It is the time you wait for a particular electronic process to complete.
If you open a word file, there is a microwait. yes, it isn’t a very long wait, which is my point. Sometimes it is nearly imperceptible, but have you thought what your mind does during a microwait? it hangs. Your mind hangs, a particularly deadening experience for the brain. one or two microwaits hardly affects your brain at all. but years of imperceptible microwaits can have massive repercussions on the way we think.
you may argue that we wait for things all the time, but let me remind you that waiting for the bus, or waiting for an elevator are not the same thing as a microwait. Nor is waiting for the lights to turn green. Next time you head for your computer or similar electronic device, stop, think, and consider how much time, and brain cells you are sacrificing to the most underrated brain-killer of the 21st century: the microwait.

this is the greatest ever.
it grows on you.
Of Montreal. my new favourite artist.

everyone knows i love clinic.
here is a whole bunch of awesome videos that were done for their latest tour!
dare i whisper ‘cool’?
they’ve called it planetarium of the soul.

I’m leaving for a new zealand tomorrow. I’m going to find out what happened to old zealand. HAW HAW HAW, did you see what i did there?
Anyway.. yeah.
I’ve decided to stop working on the recordings for a while. I need a bit of perspective, and i’m getting trapped in my own bubble of doom.
bye.

amazing use of an open source controller.

Flowers from Jan van Nuenen on Vimeo.