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RIP Prince (1958-2016)

The world is a little less funky today.
Based on the amount of people who have been contacting me today about the news, I must be a known Prince fan.
9 year old me adored the Batman (1989) soundtrack, even though at the time that’s all I knew of him. I still grin ear to ear when I see Joker cue one of his henchmen to throw on some Prince while they deface the museum in that movie. My eventual love for Prince came later.
Prince was pure fucking talent, which came hand in hand with its share of eccentricities. The man was so prolific that I haven’t heard his entire published catalog yet, and I’m sure a substantial amount of what has been released was for his own pure amusement. I swear some of his songs are jokes we just don’t get, but I’m sure they kept Prince giggling behind some purple velvet curtains.
Whole tours where you only perform instrumentals and no hits? Concert venues announced two days in advance? Three shows in one night? Who does that?! Prince.
Due to his YouTube allergies and his on-again-off again relationship with social media, I think the bulk of his fanbase are old fans. Which is a real shame. Maybe the mystery was worth more than the album sales to him, and it’s not like he had trouble selling out venues.
I’ll leave you now with a few photos. You’ll see my Prince costume from 2009 and the Prince/Chappelle pin I currently wear on my winter coat. You’ll also see a grainy photo of the Prince symbol stage from when I saw him in 2011 in Montreal. That concert was drenched in funkiness, and it was an all out dance party. I’ll post a few videos in the comments too, but who knows if I’ll find working clips or ones that will stick around for very long.
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RIP David Bowie (1947-2016)

Today is an incredibly sad day, but it makes me happy to see so many tributes in the media and from friends. With such a lengthy and diverse career, it’s hard to find someone who doesn’t like at least one Bowie tune.

I had the absolute pleasure of seeing Bowie live in 2002, and to this day it’s one of the top experiences of my life. He opened with Life on Mars and the crowd just adored him.

I may not have loved all his work, and his endless album reissues hurt my wallet immensely, but he will always be the coolest fucker on the planet and an artist I admire.

I’ll post three songs for you. One of the first songs that got me into him, a song/video that will always make me smile, and finally a performance I just started enjoying.

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1630 Christmas kms

My listening material for my highway driving this Christmas.

Great, great choices to keep me mentally stimulated through 1600km worth of winter driving.

The Nerdist podcasts are always good, but the standout interviews this time around were of David Spade and Bruce Campbell. David Spade is always funny, but Bruce Campbell was surprisingly hilarious. He had a lot of great stories regarding his own celebrity encounters as a fan and had a wealth of old impressions.

Serial is off to a good start but definitely has a different vibe than the first season. This one is dealing with a US solder’s capture by the Taliban in Afghanistan, while the previous season was about a murder in Baltimore.

Born Standing Up was my first Audiobook experience, which was due to David Spade and Chris Hardwick’s recommendation during their Nerdist podcast. Despite being over 4 hours long it was awesome from start to finish and made my solo driving time a delight. Narrated by Steve Martin himself, the book describes the honing of his craft, his strive for success and his desire to retire from standup comedy after he achieved it. I’ll even admit to tearing up at one point when he talks about the death of his father. Elegantly written and perfectly narrated by the man himself, even going so far as delivering some of his bits as he did them on stage.

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Steam Sale Winter 2015!

Steam-Sale
Such deals. So Steam.

Here’s what I’ve picked up so far:

I’m sure I’ll add a few more games before the sale ends. A friend of mine gifted me some Steam dollarydoos, so half of them were free!

Update 2016-01-06: I apparently played it conservative and didn’t buy any more games during the Steam sale.

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Summer Steam Sale!

Steam Sale!
Steam Sale!

It’s that time of year again!

Here’s what I’ve picked up:

Now that I’ve compiled a list of everything I’ve bought during the Steam sale, I’m pretty embarassed. Sure, most of the games were incredibly cheap and nothing above $10. But that’s still a lot of games.