So I went back to the insane Scandinavian salon today to get a proper hair coloring. My stylist sat me down with a big book of samples to make the color decision, and after much pondering I decided on a lovely copper shade. When I showed it to Urt (yes, Urt), however, he looked at me with sad eyes that seemed to say, “Oh human, it breaks my heart that you are incapable of understanding the ways of hair coloring artistry”. He resisted actually scolding me on my poor decision, though, and instead just shook his head and said, “Trust me. It will be keekass.”

Who am I to meddle in the ways of hair salons?

So anyway, after four and a half hours, five colors, and one bizarre hand massage that was given to me rather suddenly by a hunched Eastern Bloc woman (who I assumed worked at the joint, but really once she had my fingers in her powerful grip I didn’t want to ask questions) I have hair that is, in fact, much cooler than the rest of me. I half expect one of the hipsters from down the hall to knock on the door at any minute and ask for their style back while shaking their giant hipster scarf at me in an agitated fashion. My hair is burgundy and black and a little copper on the tips (there is even some yellow somewhere, apparently, although I think it must just be lending highlights. Urt announced as he applied it that he was “very excited to be using the yellow, because no one ever wants it”). It all seemed so horribly WRONG as it went on my head that in the true fashion of art it came out very right.

My new hair expects better shoes, though, and maybe somewhere nice to go. We will have to learn to live together, but I feel ready for the challenge. I suppose at the end of the day the lesson is that you can’t force art into a copper box, even if it’s on your head.

PS: I have links somewhere for this so-called “weblog” entry too, but I’m on a different computer and don’t feel like looking for them. Nyah.

As of the last few years, you would be hard pressed to find me without internet connectivity at any time. When I’m not at home or at work, I’m probably clicking away on my Blackberry. At home I’m either on my desktop computer or watching television with my laptop on. I joke about how I might go camping one day when Nature gets free wireless, although honestly I’m kind of serious. (This seems unlikely as apparently Wi-Fi and trees are natural enemies.) Anyway, it wasn’t always that way. It used to be, in those dark old analog days, I would instead never be without a book.

In university I was reading two novels a day at my peak. Now mind you that didn’t leave a lot of time for anything else, but I was well read if a little socially awkward. And I admit to being a book snob of the highest order — give me the classics, old or modern, and let’s turn all the John Grishams and Michael Crichtons and, yes, Harry Potters to mulch and use them to feed short, non-WiFi-impeding shrubbery. (Harry Potter is a children’s book. They are for CHILDREN. They are not clever all-ages fiction, the characterizations are poor, and Harry is a teenage wanker, not a wizard dreamboat who will save you from your humdrum lives, okay? Sheesh. Just stop it.) I have to admit though to never finishing Middlemarch, although I’ve tried three times. I usually love that kind of novel, but every time I start it and get to the, “Ooh, Mr. Casaubon, you may be old but your intellectual pursuits are soooooo fascinating” I want to go watch Cops or something. I can’t explain it.

Okay, anyway, suffice it to say that I am a compulsive enough reader that left to my own devices I will start reading ingredient labels and traffic signs for lack of anything else. So it was kind of surprising that I’ve never really gotten into graphics novels (or long-form comics, or whatever you want to call them). Yes, okay, I admit, my first reaction was a little snobbish too — they’re picture books. I imagined pages of exciting Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle stories complete with colorful “ZAP!”s and “KABOOM!”s across panels. But I am here to tell you, fellow lit snobs, that some of these suckers are actually quite good. Like, really good. I don’t read a lot of fiction, but I enjoy a good story with good characters, and you can find that, along with pretty pictures. Give them a shot! If you want an official resource you can start with this Time Magazine Top 10 list (most of which I haven’t read yet) or try before you buy with this fantastic selection of free sample volumes (including popular titles like Fables and The Sandman and Hellblazer).

Anyway, read them. As a friend says, they’re good for you.

The Bomb: a companion website to Grant Morrison’s The Invisibles. (PS: Read The Invisibles.)

A formal academic paper on Comparative Sex-Specific Body Mass Index in the Marvel Universe and the “Real” World. This just in, chicks in comics are often unrealistic!

The 40 Worst Rob Liefield Drawings. I don’t really know who Rob Liefield is, nor have I read anything he’s drawn. But I do know an amusing angry rant when I see one!

Argh! Work is still slowly bleeding the life from me, so I haven’t been in the mood to write much here. I spend much of my non-work time lately flitting around the Internet, not actually doing anything or even completely reading anything. I’ve been drinking a lot of wine lately too — both in the classy connoisseur sense and the wino sense — which helps. As it turns out, wine that comes in a tetrapak is NOT necessarily bad, it may just be Australian.

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The thing about moving to a new neighbourhood, as I did recently, is you have to find new vendors and stuff. New electronics store, new dentist, etc etc. Soooooooo… I went to a hairstylist based on a recommendation from a LiveJournal community, okay? Look, I’m a child of the Internet. I can’t help myself. As it turns out, this place was like the independent movie of hair salons. My hair was cut by a paunchy Scandinavian with yellow fingers named Urs. He kept saying things like, “this is going to be longer on one side, ya, but eet will be funkee.” Oh! And when I arrived he handed me a smock (!), pointed at a very small room full of a very large dog and said sternly, “You put the smock on in there. The dog does not move.” I kept expecting him to challenge me to a game of chess.

It was awesome.

So my second local discovery was VideoMatica, an honest-to-god independent and foreign video place. We went in and looked around, and there were sooooo many movies I wanted to see, but one jumped out at me immediately: Manos, Hands of Fate, as screened by the MST3k guys. I’m not even sure what to say about this. It’s as delightfully bad as you would expect it to be, particularly the bits where everyone just kind of stands around because they either forgot what to say or the writers forgot to write something. Really, what do you expect for a movie made by a fertilizer salesman to win a bet? (Lots of background on the film can be found here).

I also watched Paprika, which was quite good. I’m kind of concerned now though because the dream music from the movie has been stuck in my head for a few days and at any minute I’m expecting to see a parade of singing household appliances and marching frogs. Although, actually, a little Japanese-style insanity would probably make my work week more bearable.

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How Cirque Du Soleil Works. I couldn’t find any exciting tell-all backstage reports (because you just KNOW those crazy Bulgarians and Mongolians are getting up to no good in between shows), but this is a solid overview of how the organization runs.

EnjoyNachos.com: your ultimate source for anything nacho-related.