Rambling-bling!

Long Time...

2009-03-08T18:59:00.002-04:00

Hey there!

It's been a while, eh?

Well, if you've just found my website (lloydsmiley.com) or this blog for the first time... hooray!

You are one of the select few who have.

I thought I'd better write something here that was recent... as the last time I posted something, it was in 2008... but keep checkin' back for more updates and ramblings!

Now that we have high-er speed internet, I won't be so chagrin to writing these things. Damn! Does dial-up take forever!

Yar.

Talk to you soon,

~Lloyd.

ps. I've started a new blog for budget-oriented musicians called "The Shoestring Troubadour" - check it out too!

Oscars 2008

2008-02-25T00:25:00.002-05:00

HERE'S WHAT IT WOULD HAVE BEEN LIKE
TO HAVE WATCHED
THE OSCARS
THIS YEAR WITH US:

Jon Stewart's opening monologue highlights:
[transcribed without 'comedic pauses']

"The town was torn apart by a bitter writer’s strike but I’m happy to say that the fight is over, so tonight welcome to the make-up sex." ... "Even Norbit got a nomination, which I think is great. Too often the Academy ignores movies that aren’t good." (BURN!) ...
..and then political: "Have you all had a chance to examine all the candidates, study their positions and pick the Democrat you’ll vote for?" ...
... and then, my 'laugh-out-loud' moment: "Normally, when you see a black man or a woman president an asteroid is about to hit the Statue of Liberty. How will we know it’s the future?"

First award of the night: costume design... wooooow....
- bizzare "happy working song"
- interesting 'double-flavour' yogurt commercial...

Best Supporting Actor: Javier Bardem...
...speaks Spanish to mom...

Owen Wilson! he's alive!

Best Animated Short Film:

"Madame Tutli Putli" robbed by the classic "Peter and the Wolf"

Tilda Swinton - [Sasha: "she's so nice!"]

...as usual... ... zzz.... nervous audience laughter...

"Hally Berry vs Dame Judy Dench" - double presentation by those Superbad guys ...

Best Lead Actress:

"La vie en rose" Edith Piaf's still got it. Winner Marion Cotillard's "Rocked my Life" speech brought a tear to mine eyes...

- ... poorly formatted montage of previous winnerzzzzzz.... zzz...

Renee Zelwigger's wet 'c' and 'k' sounds... film editing award... trombone switching??

Nicole Kidman's waterfall of diamonds was gross and fascinating all at once...

- ...a much more interesting production design montage... followed by the spry 98-year-old Production Designer dude's long-running speech...

...awkward silence...

- cool commercial for that "Wanted" movie...

- funny Jon Stewart moment: "sorry, there was a technical glitch so we'll have to restart the show" joke.

Penelope Cruzzz... Austria wins foreign language film... zzz...

- Waaayyy too many songs from the cheesy musical "Enchanted" ...zzz....

John Travolta presents good musical award to "Falling Slowly" for Best Original Song from "Once," music and lyrics by Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova. They were the only good live performance of the night, incidentally.

- decent-to-unfunny- Travolta 'plane parking ticket' gag

...commercials... sex... cars.... squirrels... wolves...

...

Jon Stewart re-brought-out one of the 'Best Orignial Song' winners (Marketa Irglova) because she didn't get to thank people before the music cut her off... touching...

- Cameron Diaz says 'cinematography' properly... Robert Elswit wins for "There Will Be Blood" zzz...

- Hilary Swank with the always 'downer,' although tasteful, montage of this year's dead celebrities.

......oh my god... zzz.......

Tom Hanks best 'documentary short-subject' presentation... shameless Army plug... 'hey, is that Seal?'...

...ugly crying...

Best Documentary Feature:
"Taxi to the Dark Side" beats out Micheal Moore's "Sicko" et al. ...

- Elton John? whaa???

- Funny Best Buy and Kia Sorento commercials...

...slipping into unconsciousness...

Harrison Ford presents Best Original Screenplay: Diablo Cody for "Juno" ... and her awkward dress slit...

Sasha: "she held it together, Sissy, even when she got to that end part about ... love" (awww...)

...
Lloyd: Helen Mirrin who?
Sasha: That lady with the nice dress?
Lloyd: ...did she just say "cajones?!"
...

Best Actor...

re-captured my interest, even though Daniel Day-Lewis was already a shoe-in for "There Will Be Blood"...

Martin Scorcese presents: Directing - No Country for Old Men - The Coen Brothers, of course.

Denzel Washington presents: Best Motion Picture - No Country for Old Men - - -

And then BOOM! It was over!

I think the best part of watching the Oscars was staying up long enough to watch "I Met the Walrus" afterwards...

Fantastic.

~LloydSmiley.com

Killer Jellyfish - Irukandji

2008-02-22T16:06:00.002-05:00

THESE JELLYFISH CAN KILL YOU!!!
The Deadly Irukandji Jellyfish... Dwellers of the "Dead Zones"
Lloyd Smiley.com

So I was watching TVO the other day, and I saw this person tensed-up in the most painful throws imaginable, without bleeding or anything particularly nasty looking about them. I kept watching... car-crash style, until finally the battle this person was fighting was disclosed...

The Deadly Irukandji Jellyfish had stung her. I thought, at first, why does TVO care so much about a Jellyfish sting? They sting people everyday and there's no documentary about them on TV right now... with the music and the suspense...
...and the jazzy underwater scenes...

And then I saw this:

They're barely the size of a thumbnail!!! Just one of those tentacles, if dragged across your skin, could send you into a spiraling decent of excruciatingly deadly pain. Really! At least 100 people (known for sure) have already died from it's sting since the beginning of the 20th Century up to now in Australia alone, and scientists warn that global warming (ocean warming) and garbage-dumping - which results in areas known as "Dead Zones," because nothing can survive there except things... that... do... is helping to spread the Irukandji and other "box jellyfish" throughout the oceans! It's scarier than Jaws!

These things are tiny!
And only one of these spiny tentacles can cause you a world of agony....!!!

For many years, what was now known as "Irukandji Syndrome," would mysteriously affect coastal swimmers around Australia, often resulting in seizure, stroke, or even a major heart attack, and of course, death. The doctor / scientist who finally figured out it was these jellyfish, as the story goes, proved his theory by subjecting himself, some woman, and the on-duty lifeguard at the time with his find. The two other skeptics soon found themselves in more pain than what delivering a baby through each of your pores might feel like. Ouch!

Also, killing them doesn't make it any better. In fact, these jellyfish have a uniquely dangerous defense mechanism: MASSIVE REPRODUCTION!!! When scared / killed to death, they will release THOUSANDS of eggs (if girl) and sperm (if boy) EACH to ensure the survival of the species as a whole!. So.... when those fishermen pull up their nets and find truly a crap-load of the tiny beasts, mixed with fish that is soooo toxic we can't even ingest it, what do they do??? Yup, that's right, they ensure the mixing of eggs and sperm from the hundreds / thousands of jellyfish, all at once!!!

... sometimes allowing the conditions to be right for MILLIONS to be released all at once!

This is a map of "Dead Zones" around the Earth. Look 'em up. If you dare!

Then, of course, there's our own waste and it's effect on the situation... tiny changes in the water temperature actually cause the release of many more from their dormant sleep... anyway, IF YOU GET STUNG, THE PAIN IS SO SEVERE THAT MOST PEOPLE FEEL SO MUCH PHYSICAL (and mental) STRESS THAT THEY CAN DIE FROM A STROKE OR HEART-ATTACK!!! IT'S LIKE SLOWLY BEING SCARED TO DEATH... yikes!!!

If you're lucky enough to survive, it's probably because someone treated you in time with Magnesium or some other remedy. It's venom works VERY fast though, and you will at least gain insight into why your nervous system hates you.

Oh yes, there's more: Google it! (Irukandji Jellyfish) and see for yourself... if you dare!!!

"This is not a sting you merely pee on..."

~LloydSmiley.com

THE MIGHTY EAGLES SOAR OVER BABYLON

2008-02-10T20:49:00.000-05:00

February 9-10.08, Babylon Nightclub [317 Bank St.], Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

REVIEW:

Ok, so it must have been a while since I last went deaf at a rock show. Last night the Mighty Eagles were in good form, despite the absence of their bass player Joe V. In his stead, James Lang filled in nicely and kept the beat beating the audiences' eardrums as I was slowly crushed by the shear weight of the performance.

I can't remember the last time my eyes shook like a handfull of rocks dropped onto placid water... but after daring to stand nearly 3 feet from the stage, I regained that feeling. Scott "Estee Tabernac" Terry gave that old B string a good 10 seconds to fully reverberate through most of Eastern Ontario and I had to retreat to the 'safe zone' where Neal "Diamond" Johnstone could not reach me (due to mic cable constraints ~ see picture).

Adam "Soul Drummer" Frasier wrestled with a nastly looking chunk missing from his ride cymbol, while managing to keep the tightness good and waterproof. If there's anything this band's got, it's a gyroscopic rhythm section. Never straying too dangerously far from the beaten trail they've mastered, they still managed on a few occasions to rip out my chest cavity and dangle it 3-5 feet in front of me like a pendulum of quivering fluid, before submitting to gravity and raking it over the gravel that are Mr.Johnstone's vocals.

The "dueling leads" between Scott and Shawn were also some of the more interesting highlights of this show, which seemed to be more about good times and general debauchery than any serious hard-line message delivering. Shawn "Jam" Hill played double-duty (with the hilariously complication-ridden Garaga as well). Sticking to the shadows, Hill's pick-scraping riffs seemed to somehow be the focus of the group's dynamic... the left side of the stage certainly trying to keep up for dear life... while maintaining his other-worldly, finger-flying (literally) intensity that is far more gooey than his crusty exterior lets on.

It was really good to see so many familiar faces out at the bar, and to be so willingly assaulted by rock again. I must emerge from my self-imposed solitude more often for these things. Unfortunately, I got a little too hammered to actually witness the Jesus Mullet show in person... but my imagination is far stronger than any hairstyle could suggest.

A VERY GOOD NIGHT.

~LloydSmiley.com

What's In a Name?

2008-02-05T16:23:00.001-05:00

Hey there good people,

I just recently typed my name into the Google search thing on the "toolbar?", and for once found myself... 2nd, 3rd, 6th, 7th, 10th... and then somewhere in the 20s a few times. Fascinating. Truly.

How do you rate? (put your name in quotes) ~ I'd like to know!

I never thought there'd be so many "Lloyd Smileys" in the World... or that someone would randomly acquire the suffix "Smiley" in addition to their name (Lloyd), as a kind of a nickname.

In case you were wondering who the #1 Lloyd Smiley is...

It's a guy in the University of Indianapolis' Athletics Hall of Fame. Wow... it's not me.

2nd and 3rd, I'm happy to see, are my ReverbNation profiles (for my music)

6th and 7th are strangely related to my website (called www.LloydSmiley.com) and, in my opinion, should be slightly higher on the Googler....

In 10th position is a mysterious page out of my High School yearbook... something about "Oscars..." ~ I won "(half of the) cutest couple," "most outgoing," and "most hilarious."

Wow! 3 Oscars, without ever gracing the big screen! Genius!

Ahhh... the memories. Good on ya Google, that guy named Lloyd Smiley from Florida, that computer programmer guy named Lloyd Smiley, that random athlete... and all the other Lloyd Smiley's of the known World doing good stuff. (Not so much that drug-ring Lloyd with the COMPLETELY random 'middle nickname' of Smiley who got busted in Albuquerque... not cool, dude. Not cool.)

And Cheers to you all for actually reading this blog!

~LloydSmiley.com

New Blogger Thingy

2008-02-03T13:50:00.000-05:00

Ok, so in a hard-earned attempt to make the margins wider on the Rambling-bling page...

I've created this 'embeddable' blog, using Blogger (by Google). So far, so good... only now, I can't think of anything to write.

Let's see if it ends up visible on the site at all first, shall we?

...

~LloydSmiley.com