I used to do a lot more flower photography than I do anymore, but I was in Butchart Gardens a couple of weeks ago, so of course I took a lot of photos. So here’s today’s flower picture. You may get more of these over time if people like them.

Checkers

Anna and I were in Victoria last week, and she picked up a mammoth at the provincial museum. (And, by the way, I had no idea how fucking big those animals were. Holy hell in a handbasket those things were big. I know, I know, they’re called mammoths, but ‘jumbo shrimp’ are called ‘jumbo’ and that’s not true now is it?)

I posted lots of pictures to Twitter about ADVENTURES! And now, mammoth needs a name. And she was debating whether mammoth was male or female and I said not to force mammoth into a false gender binary, and now we just need a name.

The post is over on her blog. Go vote to name our genderqueer mammoth! Also, respect genderqueer mammoth’s identity, or they will trample you into viscera. Just see if they don’t.

Name me!

So in my recent Skyrim re-involvement, I decided I really ought to do the Bard’s College plotline, and, well, turns out two things:

1. Do not fuck with bards. The shit they go through to get into that school? Oh god.
2. That school is a level-ramping machine, across all skills. Seriously, you finish a quest, and it’s like THOOM. THOOM. THOOM. THOOM. THOOM. as reward. Not much cash, but hel-lo, skillfest!

Tho’ really what I wanted to happen is the game to bring up a dialogue saying, ‘TURN ON YOUR GUITAR HERO CONTROLLER NOW’ and make you learn songs. Or maybe, ‘No microphone? SUCKS TO BE YOU. Upload your performance NOW.’ Obviously this would never happen, but I think it’d be hilarious.

Anyway, don’t fuck with Skyrim bards, even if maybe the school should spend more time teaching them more songs and less about, I dunno, quelling the undead.

Looks like we get to replace some hardware in the Lair’s MASSIVE ELECTRONIC BRAIN tonight. We were already scheduled to do this sometime this weekend, but, whelp, somebody stuck their little robot head in the data stream, and we’re just lucky they aren’t in control of the reactor.

So we’ll be dropping offline tonight, assuming we make it that long. If a big chunk of the earth’s crust flies into space suddenly tonight? It’s not my fault.

ETA: And we’re back! That was nightmarish but it’s fixed. We’re live!

Meanwhile, have a quick podcast preview:

It’s all! Right! There!

Okay, it’s not actually all right there, because the screen whited out a bit. But all the segments are done, the rest is wrapper and introduction and a little more stitching together. We’ll be out MONDAY with Episode One – not that episode one – even with all this.

Oh, and check this shit out; it’s a real-life 3D-drawing pen. It draws with melty plastic IN AIR. I am NOT EVEN JOKING, it is just that cool.

See you when I see you…

I’ve been talking about this idea I’ve had for an electric instrument; a bass-type fretted set of strings across the top bar – a stick-type bass – and a panel of deep harp strings coming off the bottom of that which could be finger-plucked, all with electric pickups and stuff.

It just struck me as something an elfmetal band should have, and I’m semi-serious about getting a luthier to make one at some point. It’d look like kind of a wedge bass, but with a bunch of extra strings and pickups on it. The top bar could also be fretless, but that’s more a jazz thing than metal.

Somebody beat me to an acoustic version. They have the harp strings on top, and it’s all acoustic (which is NOT THE SAME) but it’s still the same basic idea.

(photo Long & McQuade, Surrey, BC; h/t Pauline McDonald)

I still want my bass electric version. But… yeah.

Hi, visitors from Gawker‘s comment sections! Nice to meet you! Welcome to rage-driven acoustic elfmetal.

I know you’re here for the triple-rainbow pictures and the aftereffects of the Rainmaker 68000, but if you get a chance to listen to our music or watch any of Dara’s solo-performance video, that’d be awesome too.

We’re currently in studio working on our new album (Din of Thieves), a second project involving a book soundtrack for a fantasy novel series, and a couple of side-projects with other bands. Lots of planning, lots of plotting, lots of mayhem, hopefully lots of sales! Ah, a supervillain musician can dream, can’t she?

Anyway, no rest for the wicked and all that. We’ve moved a bunch of wires around so more of you should be seeing this. Thanks for coming by, and thanks to whoever for the link – Gawker obsfucates the referral URL so we can’t tell.

If you have access to a command line:

traceroute 216.81.59.173

Amusement is to be had.

International Space Station commander Chris Hadfield and Barenaked Ladies, live on CBCMUSIC three days ago. I AM NOT EVEN JOKING. Click through and hit play. Chris’s parts were actually recorded from space, tho’ time syncing would’ve been done later, of course, as is normal.

THE FUTURE!

Been busy with nwcMUSIC and soundtrack album this week, and today is all Daye Jobbe, so here, have a parrot singing dubstep:

And a genuinely fascinating hour-long German documentary – this version in English – on television under the Nazi regime. Turns out they started regular broadcasts in 1935! To almost no one, mind you, but it’s genuinely fascinating. A lot of filmed footage of television survived, turned out, and it’s just odd:

Hey, back from Conflikt! They were in a new hotel this year, and the social flow of the convention really benefitted from the new room geometry. Thanks to Dave “Salad of Doom” Tinney, I gained like three pounds despite not eating out once, and it is a damned good thing he’s not cooking for me regularly, that’s all I can say.

What kind of convention is it? It’s the kind of convention where I end up doing excerpts from musical theatre at 1am Monday morning, that’s what kind. (I still have glitter stands in my hair, but that’s okay.)

Not that late yet, but pretty damn late
photo jen_kalea

Also the kind where I got to catch up with a bunch of people I don’t see very often, like Allegra and John and Heather and Ben and Shaddyr and all these people I’ve now met a few times at events and really like! but whose names are right now just gone, like Guitar Player With Memory Issues Like Mine, and Not Sue But Reminds Me Of Her from Georgia, and like the solo I was going to play on stage on Sunday morning.

…which was actually kind of funny; I joined an instaband to play a Blind Lemming Chiffon comedy song about Thing from The Addams Family, and his unhappiness about his career. They wanted a zouk solo, which I never do because I’m normally playing out alone, so I stole one of Tom Schultz’s guitar solos from “Peace of Mind,” which is a song about careerism, and the kind of joke only people at conventions like this would get.

Anyway, I’m up there, and the bridge comes around, and I hit the first note…

…and it is gone. The whole solo is out of my brain. BYE! So I go, “uh” and just start improvising in key, in the right rhythm. “Is this it? Nope. Is this it? Nope. Is it comin’ back? … … … Nope! Have I played enough notes yet? … Yes! Outro!” And we’re into verse three.

So that was kind of hilarious, but to the wrong people, namely, us. The audience didn’t know anything was wrong, they even thought it was kinda cool.

But hey, I survived my first on-stage zouk solo. Everybody wins! XD

Anyway, that was fun. And both exhausting and energising, so I’m wiped out, but in that good kind of way. But now, back to work!