One of my best friends is Polish - immigrated when she was 6, learned English from ABBA songs. When she got married, she went from her full-on Polish last name with none of the primary English vowels (it has two y's which only sometimes count, plus in her name each 'y' is pronounced differently) to "Smith".

"Animism" is just amazing - all swirly and primal and totally atmospheric and something I kind of want to have played the next time I do a sensory deprivation tank float session, just as an experiment. Her track with A Tribe Called Red, though, is also all sorts of awesome: https://www.youtube.com/wat…

RELIVE IT NOW: https://www.youtube.com/wat…

Tanya Tagaq, AMIRITE

Cake
Cake will tear us apart
Again

I only wish this was Someone Else's Story…

I enjoyed the Number 1 Ladies Detective Agency way, way more than I expected. It was like a nice cup of milk tea and made me laugh out loud in places. And sometimes that's exactly what you want.

"…and there's a nattily-dressed cat who's evolved to pretty much human, except he's a cat…" I miss staying up late on Saturday nights with pretty much my entire family to watch Dr. Who and Red Dwarf and then get a little sad watching Jack Horkheimer because it meant the day was almost over.

Ditto.

Also TIL something about tobacco farming. Thanks!

We didn't have a name-brand Slip 'n' Slide, but my dad worked in an electrical supply warehouse and brought home all sorts of surplus random odds and ends, including a bunch of industrial plastic wrap (like, pallet-wrapping plastic) that got super-slick when it was wet, so of course we turned it into a Slip 'n' Slide…

What's sucker spray? Man, I remember the glorious day we discovered that if we turned the impact sprinkler UPSIDE-DOWN it would jump around randomly and man, we spent a long time screeching and dodging that summer. My dad was a farmer in his younger day so our backyard was 1/2 vegetables and he was NOT impressed…

Also here is five minutes of dogs vs sprinklers because there is still good in the universe: https://www.youtube.com/wat…

I l hear the sound of impact sprinklers in my neighbourhood and it takes a LOT of effort not to start playing "the water is acid but you have to skip it like a Lemon Twist because the world is in peril for some reason otherwise and the sprinkler is somehow red-hot and will burn you too". The sound of the summers of…

Yeah, as happy as I am to see some metal, it's, well, meh-tal. Not going to convert anyone and the metalheads are pretty nonplussed.

"…better work than fightning with fucknuggets."

I would very much like to be in the middle of this heap, please.

TIL: the best toys of the summers of my youth are called impact sprinklers. Close second: oscillating sprinklers. Waaay down on the list: waving arm sprinklers.

Finishing up "Hot Sauce Nation", which is more interesting than it should be (a history of hot sauce in the US). I have a Margaret Mead biography lined up afterwards, and Galaktikon #1 (wooooo because WHO DOESN'T LOVE A ROBOT THAT SPEAKS IN TABLATURE) is waiting for me to pick up tonight.

If you liked "Miami Blues", the movie adaptation is worth a shot: http://www.avclub.com/artic…