Oh Ray, How You Light Up My Day

So, I'm officially in love with Ray LaMontagne. He's a brilliant singer/songwriter/guitar player and his songs are so moving. I can't really even describe it, so I'll let you experience it for yourself. Here's one of my favourite songs by him, "Jolene" (and no, it's not the Dolly Parton song):



I also have three new entries,

Stupid Things My Mom Says! Quote #3:

Mom (trying to get me to drink a flat pop): "Shake it up and it'll bubble-ize."

Quote #4:

Mom (as my sister is doing homework): "Just keep your brain moving, that's the point of math."

Quote #5:

Mom (during a bad blizzard): "The house moves with the wind."

All of these comments were followed immediately by a fully expressive "WTF" face on my part.

OK, I guess that's it.

Oh, and school is done for this semester! Woot woot! Until spring session, my worthy adversary, we shall meet again dear University...

Woosh.

Apparently, I Used To Be Skinny

Glee's back on the air this week! So exstatic. Watching it at the moment as a matter of fact.
Then why am I blogging? Commerical break.

This week is also an awesome week for my soap! By soap I mean the soap opera that I watch, As The World Turns. I don't mean that my Dove cleansing bar has suddenly gained some self-confidence and won the lottery. Anyways, my two favourite characters on my soap are getting together this week and I cannot WAIT for this Thursday!

One of the characters that I love is Dr. Reid Oliver, played by the marvelous Eric Sheffer Stevens (pictured below).



I also need to add an entry to the Stupid Things My Mom Says! section. This time it's not so much a stupid thing:

Stupid Things My Mom Says! Quote #2:

Mom (while looking at old photos): "Wow, Jackie. You used to be so skinny!"

Thanks mom, thanks a lot.
Appreciate it...

Here's a video of a song I like. I saw them on Jimmy Fallon, but the album version is much better. "Beat The Devil's Tattoo" by Black Rebel Motorcycle Club:




OK, this was a short post. Chat with y'all later. I'm off to squee about Glee and my soap and try not to think about the pages and pages of film analysis I have to write this week.

Shazam.

Why Can't I Own A Canadian?

See, I told you. It's been approximately a month since my last post and it was completely unintentional.

So, I have a few things I wanna chit chat about.

A few weeks ago, on St. Patrick's Day to be exact (hence the strange Google logo), I was playing around with Google's tendency to suggest topics as you type in your search. I had merely typed in the word "why" and this is what Google suggested to me:



There are two major things that boggle my mind about this whole picture:

1. I have to wonder how many people out there are actually so frustrated by their failed ventures into the Canadian buying business that they are resorting to Google to attempt to find out what they are doing wrong. I have a message for these sociopathic entrepreneurs; we Canadians may not have all the self-esteem in the world, but we certainly have enough self-respect not to be bought by some crazy foreigner. Slavery ended 150 years ago. Deal with it. 'Nuff said.

2. I was completely unaware that there is a stereotype that Canadian's are collectively afraid of the dark. How could I possibly have missed this? As far as stereotypes go, this is by far one of the strangest that has been attached to Canadians (along with living in igloos and eating polar bear meat), and seems like a completely ridiculous mass cultural trait. I happen to know for a fact that this is false (as are 95% of all Canadian stereotypes; except that we all love hockey, that's pretty much true). Not that there aren't certain Canadians out there that are afraid of the dark, but they absolutely not in the majority and there aren't more of them in Canada than in any other country.

Anyways, speaking of Canadians. Here is a film (that won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short in the year of its release) made by one of Canada's leading CG animators, Chris Landreth, about another influential animator from the '60's, Ryan Larkin. Amazing film! Take note of the awesome thermos that Ryan keeps his alcohol in. It's awesome, I want one.

I would like to take this opportunity to introduce a new section of my blog that I will probably feature in later posts. It is inspired by the website crazythingsparentssay.com, which is a really funny website where people post the stupid and ridiculous things their parents say, obviously. This new section is called: Stupid Things My Mom Says! I would like to include a disclaimer: My mom will try and discredit the quotes given in this new section in order to save face. Do not believe her. Sometimes she doesn't know the ridiculous (though hilarious) power of her own words. I will recite the quotes verbatim, no matter how unbelievable they sound. Mom, if you're reading this, you know what you've said. OK, here we go:

Stupid Things My Mom Says! Quote #1:

Mom: "Breathing cold air through your mouth hurts your lungs more than breathing through your nose because it has a shorter distance to travel to your lungs."

I know... I don't even need to say it, do I? Nope.

The next thing I want to talk about is a simple 7 point list that I came up with on the bus while lip synching to a few songs on my iPod (as you do). It occurred to me that lip synching can look really good and really realistic, or it can look ridiculous. So, in that moment of boredom, I came up with this list; just in case you find yourself in an important lip synching situation (which undoubtedly happens to everyone at least once in their life):

7 Things To Remember In Order to Master The Art of Lip Synching

1. Know the lyrics (and their placement within the music) to your song of choice like the back of your hand, backwards and forwards, inside and out, and any other cliches you can think of. Nothing looks more unnatural than stuttering over your words or vague lip movements that could be saying anything.

2. "Sing" ahead of the actual singer. When forming words, our mouths move in preparation for making the sound before the sound is actually heard. Same goes for singing. That's why it's important to know the lyrics perfectly because you need to be ever so slightly ahead of the singer when lip synching.

3. Wider does not equal louder. If the singer is belting it out, it doesn't mean you need to stretch your mouth as wide as it can go during those big notes. It will look crazy unnatural.

4. We do not need to see it on your face, especially in your jaw, when the singer is doing runs or vibrato. When a singer is singing technically correct (with vibrato) or just trying to be soulful (runs), neither of these things is done externally with the jaw, they are done with the vocal cords. Do not flap your jaw up and down or distort your lips to match their little riff, it will look unnatural and just plain silly.

5. Don't over-anunciate. Just move your mouth as if you were having a casual conversation with someone. When in doubt, just look up the artist on YouTube for some live performances. Unless they are an uber-performer and go over-the-top, chances are they are not hammering on every consonant.

6. If the song you have chosen has more than one singer, or has back-up vocals, just choose one vocal track to follow. Nothing looks more unnatural than cutting off one vocal track to synch to a second one that overlaps or is simultaneous with the first one. Just don't do it.

7. Here's a secret trick. Put on lip chap (you too guys). It will prevent your lips from sticking together while lip synching and it won't become a distraction for you or any potential spectators. It also prevents any awkward lip-licking situations...

BONUS: A common misconception is that guys can only lip synch to songs sung by guys and girls can only lip synch to songs sung by girls. This is total and utter bollocks. I sing along to Coldplay, Michael Buble, and Frank Sinatra all the time, and if there are any guys out there who have the cajones to lip synch to Lady Gaga, I say more power to you!

Well, I hope I helped someone with that. I have a feeling I did. Somewhere out there. Yes.

Until next time!

Ta-Ta