"Start"

Wishing that I had a better excuse as to why I haven't already, I decided that it was about time that I started this. I've been planning on building my own site, blog included, for months now but that hasn't really materialized. Perhaps I'll get on that soon, and perhaps this blog will serve as motivation to get that started. So if you happen upon this post months from now and it's still hosted here, please flame me. At any rate, I hope this place will serve as a placeholder for my random thoughts and observations on a variety of topics. What those topics should be, I don't know yet, so I guess they'll define themselves as I go... But I suppose the first post should contain some form of introduction: I'm Bryan. I'm a 30 something, recently happily married computer geek living in Toronto, Ontario. I work for one of Canada's fastest growing interactive digital agencies where I spend most of my days working out the technical details or writing code for mid to large size projects. I'm an avid movie watcher and amateur critic. Since I originally went to school for Music, I guess I could say I'm a retired musicologist, but it would be more accurate to say I dropped out to become a starving artist until I eventually came to my senses and cashed in on my passion and talent in the computer industry. The poignant "Start" title is a reference to an oldie-but-a-goodie favourite of mine -- Soul Coughing's Janine. If you haven't heard it, it was the band's first commercial success, and it seems a suitable starting point. The beginning of the song uses a cold, clear voice of an answering machine that states the command, "Start". What has endured me to this song is the background track: a girl singing a barely audible, open-ended lullaby of no fixed key into an answering machine; her song rambles, punctuated by the beeps of the machine. Two things I have often wondered about this song: 1) what would inspire someone to do this, and 2) what the reaction would be of those who found the recorded messages. I can only imagine that the listener had a series of reactions: initial confusion, recognition, laughter, hysterics, and finally -- inspiration to write a song about it. If the voice on the answering machine tape is Janine, this may explain the lyric, "Janine, Janine, Janine ... I drink you up." While this post may not be the inspiration for commercial success elsewhere (or in case it does, please link back to this post), it represents the blinking light of the answering machine: a world of unknown possibilities ready to unfold itself at the touch of a button.