Relax, here's a snowman.

☃

Tis The Season Vol.2

There are only five weeks until Christmas day, here's the second edition of my Christmas mixtape series.

DOWNLOAD HERE

1. White Christmas - Bing Crosby
2. Angel In The Snow - Elliot Smith
3. Sixteen, Maybe Less - Iron And Wine
4. Baby It's Cold Outside - Tom Jones
5. When The Water Gets Col And Freezes On The Lake - Herman Dune
6. Last Christmas - Jimmy Eat World
7. In Dulci Jubilo - Mike Oldfield
8. Feliz Navidad - Boney M
9. Winter Wonderland - Peggy Lee
10. Santa Clause Is Coming To Town - Jackson 5
11. It's Christmas Time - Yo La Tengo
12. God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen - Ella Fitzgerald
13. Lo! How A Rose E'er Blooming - Sufjan Stevens
14. Every Day Should Be A Holiday - The Dandy Warhols
15. The Chipmunk Song - The Chipmunks

Enjoy!

Tis The Season Vol 1.

Tis The Season Volume 1

This is the first of 6 online "mixtapes" that I'll be sharing from now until Christmas. I like parallels. The tape starts and end on different versions of the same song, and also features a similar duality at the halfway point, enjoy please!

1. Silent Night - Sufjan Stevens
2. Hey Parker, It's Christmas - Ryan Adams
3. Father Christmas - The Kinks
4. Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas - Jane McDonald
5. Oh Little Town of Bethlehem - Bright Eyes
6. I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday - Wizzard
7. Hark The Herald Angel Sing - Sufjan Stevens/The Vince Guaraldi Trio
8. Christmas (Baby Please Come Home) - Death Cab For Cutie
9. Listening To Otis Redding At Home During Christmas - Okkervil River
10. Happy X-mas (War is Over) - Jon Lennon & Yoko Ono
11. Peace on Earth/Little Drummer Boy - David Bowie & Bing Crosby
12. Rudolph The Red Nose Reindeer - Dean Martin
13. Let It Snow - Dean Martin
14. Silent Night - Sinead O' Connor

Christmas Mixtapes

Christmas Eve is exactly 6 weeks away. Every Wednesday from now until then I will post a one hour Christmas Playlist/Mixtape/Whatever you want to call it.

The first one will be posted tomorrow night after I get home from work.

Christmas rules.

Finally time for your turning point.

I've been dreaming a lot lately, dreaming of people from my past, these dreams are vivid and bizarre, but generally enjoyable. There are however, always going to be certain people from your past that you just wish would go away, whatever though, I can take it as it comes. The dream mainly involves a large house party, usually at Halloween, everyone I've ever known is there, there is a genuine sense of urgency always. I'm enjoying myself at the party, but it's never where I really want to be. I don't know what this means, but I wake up feeling all at once satisfied and restless.

I wish I had the resolve needed to force myself into things. I'm plagued by indecision and general resistance to change. I fear taking chances, save me please.



On an unrelated note, I want these jeans.

She said: St. Louis had enslaved me.

I guess Santa Ana saved me.
St. Peter had me on the queue.
The St. Paul saints they waved me through
I was all wrapped up in some video booth.
When I heard her say I love you too.

I've fallen entirely

I wrote my two weeks notice for work, I haven't given it to anyone yet, but I have it written. I feel like that alone should be motivation enough for me to find a new job. I've also decided to move back home until September, I really just want to be able to save enough money to pay for school upfront and not have to worry about slipping into student loan territory. This will be weird, and at times probably difficult, but I'll get by fine I think.

I'm really eager for the winter to start, snow and all that jazz. As it stands, it's not supposed to even really get cold anytime soon, these mid-teen days have been bizarre.

Lastly, the parade of lights is the Saturday, this has traditionally been awesome, and I'm for sure looking forward to it.

Yeah but still

I've never blogged drunk before.

First time for everything I suppose.

I'm moving home January 1st.










.

School school school

That is all

And the Oscar goes to...

Yes, it's a blanket, with sleeves, a blanket, WITH SLEEVES.

I can't help but think of the mutants from Planet of the Apes.

Wake up coughing tired with my face in my hands

For the second time in 5 days, I woke up and almost immediately threw up. This is concerning. I'm rarely any kind of sick, and now I'm pukey McPuke all of the sudden, I hope it isn't serious.

Halloween ruled, I got to hang out with so many people that I don't see enough, heart is warmed. I also got the chance to make an Obie Trice necklace. Best weekend.

I'm going to go to school in September, it will rule.

It's not the numbers, it's what's inside.

The Return Of The King

Last week at the Elephant Six festival in Colombus Ohio, Jeff Magnum showed up and played Engine.

This is the greatest news I've ever heard.



If he announces anything even resembling a tour or other shows, I will travel to see him, no questions asked.


Sweet holy christ.

The Call Is Coming From Inside The House

On the right night with the right mood, I don't think anything gets me going like a good ghost story. They play so heavily on what we as a society have the least understanding of, death. Death hangs heavily over all of us, it's inescapable, it is the one thing that we all have in common. I know that a lot of people don't believe in ghosts, but I'm a pretty firm believer in them. For as long as I've remembered, I've always felt like there was more to the world than just what we can see.

My earliest experience with ghosts occurred when I was young, maybe two or three. There is a cemetery just outside Sydney where a lot of my mother's family is buried, including her father. On this particular day my mother had taken me with her to visit her father, my grandfather's, grave. As young children often do, I wandered away from my mother, walking through the cemetery and eventually stopping next to a tree. When my mother caught up with me and asked what I was doing, my response was "that lady said she was my grandmother."

Sure enough, I was standing adjacent to the grave of my great-great grandmother.

My younger brother had similar experiences around the same age, waving to graveyards as we passed them in the car, and saying hello to the "people he saw".


In my parents house in Cole Harbour we have all had similar experiences centering around a ghost in the house. My first time encountering this was late 2005. I was watching a movie on TV late one night, when the TV speakers started making that noise they do when cell phones are about to ring. Immediately I prepared myself to answer the soon-to-be-ringing phone, but alas, no ring was heard. Immediately there after, the MP3 player across the room from me turned itself on. The next morning I casually told my mother about the nigthts occurrences, her response was super creepy. It turned out that at the same time that night, the alarm clock in her room went off and had to be physically unplugged to turn off.

As the years passed in our sleepy suburban home, the ghost made itself more and more apparent. My mother has seen a person walking at night in the hallway between bedrooms, my father has noticed things moved out of place when nobody was around to move them, and most noticably, my sister and myself watched as our dining room table shook itself violently.


Ghosts are scary.

This is scary too

PART 1


PART 2



Dear readers, share your favorite ghost stories with me, I love this stuff!

-Andrew

With love, and a gun to my head.

Untitled II

We're fast approaching the end of the year, a time of reflection and resolution. As such I find myself reflecting heavily on the past twelve months. I'm noticing that out of say the last five years of my life, this past one has been the least progressive. I have not by any stretch had a bad year, it's been pretty great, the problem has been the lack of personal growth on my part. I am the exact same person right now as I was twelve months ago, the difference being last year I was in school and actually had something to look forward to. I find now though that everything I was holding out on has come and past and fell by the wayside, and I've got nothing to show for anything.

I have nothing against hanging out and going to shows, but I'm worried that those two things, coupled with a series of dead end jobs are going to become my entire life. I'm already entirely sick of being broke and hungry and worried, and don't think I can take it for much longer. No matter how frugal and cheap I behave, I still manage to just barely scrape by paycheck to paycheck, I feel just about as low as I ever have. I'm sure there is more to life than what I'm doing, but I haven't found it yet.

The worst part of all of this is that I know it's entirely my fault, I have no ambition or drive whatsoever, I'm perfectly comfortable leaving bad enough alone. I feel better being miserable and comfortable than I do being happy and new to something.

New things scare me, routine routine routine.

Ultimately this boils down to my single biggest regret of my young adult life: dropping out of school. I'd be into my third year of a bachelor's degree if I hadn't jumped ship, instead I'm working a shit lousy retail job and staying in bed whenever I don't have to be there. That one poor choice has left me completely unemployable. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

Idiot.

I want a cat

Cat cat cat

What's in a name

It's nearing the end of pop explosion, the most enjoyable, exhausting, crazy week of most years, this year being made extra special by the fact that it was preceded by seeing Bane twice (fuck). So far this week I've seen GZA come down from the stage and perform in the middle of a massive audience; I've watched sweaty Israeli dudes turn Agricola street into a circus; and I've been blown away by familiar faces (hey Horses, keep on keeping on). Tomorrow is the end, I'm going to try and make it to five different shows (ugh). My body hurts.

As a result of late and cold nights I'm on the hurtin' end of a pretty nasty cold, it's totally worth it though.

-Andrew