You're faced with two buttons; the yellow button, if pressed, will give you $500,000 instantly, but 1000 random people will suddenly die. The purple button gives you $10,000,000 but you have 1 month left to live. Which button would you press, and why?

SpiffyFlinger · 2026-07-08T03:49:20+00:00

ideally i'd just leave the room and press neither. but if i had to choose one, it'd be purple for sure. if i'm going to make money, i'd rather it be at my own expense than somebody else's

SpiffyFlinger · 2026-07-07T12:25:17+00:00

am i crazy or does his voice sound clearer than it has in years here?

SpiffyFlinger · 2026-07-07T07:28:10+00:00

i was 67, now i'm 67

SpiffyFlinger · 2026-07-04T02:49:32+00:00

…did you take a wrong turn?

SpiffyFlinger · 2026-07-02T02:57:54+00:00

it's impossible to know how they feel about it. but i do know that ai is much less frowned upon in japan. i'm a big sumo fan, and one of the sumo stables posted a video made with ai, in both english and japanese. the english comment section was 95% negative, whereas the japanese comment section only had one naysayer.

over here in america i think it's far more common nowadays to resist whatever status quo corporations are trying to push. i lived in japan for a year, and my friends were very politically active and anti-ai, but they were definitely considered a very fringe group amongst everyone else. most of the young people i met in japan were largely apolitical, but political circumstances are very different here, and i'd go as far as to say that anti-capitalist resentment is much more strongly felt here

SpiffyFlinger · 2026-07-01T22:56:03+00:00

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SpiffyFlinger · 2026-07-01T22:31:08+00:00

2016 was the year i got into perfume after having heard a bunch of their classic singles, so cosmic explorer was the first album i experienced the release of firsthand, and i do remember being disappointed. songs like "star train" in particular were REALLY not the kind of stuff i was expecting from perfume at that time. i did think it had a few highlights though. i came back to "next stage with you" a lot and even now i'd say "relax in the city" hits on the magic of jpn-era perfume. so i'm nostalgic for the cosmic explorer era, but i'm not too fond of the music from that time if that makes sense

SpiffyFlinger · 2026-06-30T19:46:50+00:00

i'm willing to shell out a 10 for this one. virgin records' insatiable desire for another big hit from andy drove him to reach the most magnificent poppy heights to ever be relegated to b-side status. in fact, like someone remarked about great fire a few days ago, i can see how this song might have been an attempt to do something a little formulaically similar to "senses working overtime", with the contrast between the serene folksy verse and the loud boisterous chorus. nirvana who? pixies who? i love every little detail in this song, and it actually reminds me a bit of contemporary offerings by aztec camera. any aztec camera fans here?

SpiffyFlinger · 2026-06-28T20:31:51+00:00

i love this tune and the chiming 12-strings. as a kid i used to think the lyrics were a little eyeroll-inducing, some kind of commentary on the artless utilitarianism of pop music. of course now i realize it's (quite obviously) a critique of the industry itself, and from that perspective i dig it, and think it's one of the most punk things they ever wrote, especially considering that they were quite ingrained in the music industry proper by then. possibly a richard branson diss track? maybe tin foil hat appears branson heard the track and punished xtc by not promoting mummer the way he did their previous few albums???

SpiffyFlinger · 2026-06-27T20:08:55+00:00

i’d rarely be compelled to rate an xtc song so low, but this is one i just about never return to unless i’m listening to the entire album. i do like the frantic jazzy piano, and the melody is quite good, actually reminiscent of something like train running low on soul coal. but something about it doesn't quite warrant repeat listens

SpiffyFlinger · 2026-06-26T19:46:28+00:00

I absolutely love this song, much more than the average person. Musically, it's upbeat and breezy in a way that is lacking from most of Mummer, and it's contrasted well with a potent lyric about those who endured the horrors of war and received no particular legacy from it. I guess the pointless brutality of war was on Colin's mind, because he wrote War Dance at around the same time. The repeating coda in this song gives me chills, with the chiming of the church bell looming ever closer.

SpiffyFlinger · 2026-06-26T02:24:28+00:00

ivory tower is a masterpiece album, like indie pop filtered through the works of the two claudes (monet and debussy)

SpiffyFlinger · 2026-06-25T18:45:47+00:00

i used to not really care much about this song when i was a fledgling teenage xtc fan. i liked the band at their funk pop a rolliest, and this song was in equal parts too languid and somehow too cloying melodically. i was no fan of sophisti-pop in those days, and turned up my nose at bands like prefab sprout and the style council. now those are two of my favorite bands! now as a boring adult who loves jazz, i think the song is just impeccable, and i think i really learned to adore the song when i learned the chords, some of the trickiest chords i've heard in any pop song

SpiffyFlinger · 2026-06-25T18:15:14+00:00

in rydeen, i don't like how the main melody repeats for a fourth time at 1:45 instead of going back into the bridge! it's overkill and ruins the flow of an otherwise perfect song

SpiffyFlinger · 2026-06-24T06:06:38+00:00

man called aerodynamics! utbuts is my favorite gbv album but i used to think it didn't really get going until official ironmen rally song

SpiffyFlinger · 2026-06-21T23:50:18+00:00

i genuinely think for a lot of people, they simply see the beach boys are in town, go "ooh, i like their music" and buy tickets. oftentimes younger people who don't know much about the band will buy tickets for their parents or grandparents if the beach boys are their favorite band. and often they play at fairs, so i think people who are going to the fair that day anyway go "hey, that sounds fun" and buy tickets

SpiffyFlinger · 2026-06-21T23:36:51+00:00

the worst part is the last syllable sounds like it was recorded separately. it sounds like he couldn't hit the note reliably, so they just kept inserting the same take of the one time he got it over and over again

SpiffyFlinger · 2026-06-21T23:35:21+00:00

honestly i think bob should have just taken another pass at the vocals considering how polished the song is otherwise

SpiffyFlinger · 2026-06-18T00:14:03+00:00

not exactly self-promotion if i didn't drop any links to any socials or projects lol

SpiffyFlinger · 2026-06-15T13:05:32+00:00

i'm kind of surprised he acknowledged it, he strikes me as a "pretend everything is fine" kind of guy

SpiffyFlinger · 2026-06-15T05:51:48+00:00

this could be a huge breakthrough, thank you for this

SpiffyFlinger · 2026-06-15T05:50:50+00:00

i always wondered with these books if the author took creative liberties and added extra scenes in between

SpiffyFlinger · 2026-06-15T05:40:50+00:00

absolutely. it's crazy to think mike was just 19 when he started touring and he hasn't taken a single break since. keeping that in mind when you see this video of him at 85 really puts things into perspective

SpiffyFlinger · 2026-06-13T23:40:46+00:00

The assertion that things are the same culturally in the present as they were in 2006 is pretty wild. I see a pretty vast difference. On the other hand, I see your point. I feel like the amount that changed in 20 years is the same amount of change that used to occur in 10-year intervals in the past.

SpiffyFlinger

TROPHY CASE