I think I remember a sweet drum solo somewhere on led zep II

So last night was pretty fun, after coffee news I went home and charged my phone, called Dylan back and he said a small group was getting together to hang out and possibly play poker. So I play some GTA4 (oh yeah, I got a xbox for this christmas + last christmas (i didn't get anything last year) i don't think i have told anyone but colin or meghan yet, so yeah) and then Dylan said to head on over to the DPHQ, which is jack, francis, and alec's apartment that is literally next to the triple rock social club, the site of many great shows. So I head over and we hang out play poker for a while listening to jazz. It was fun. Then about an hour and a half later every one kinda looses interest in the game over food that jack got at work, pancakes, pizza, chicken alfredo, and more. So dylan and I end up finishing the game and I won. I felt bad for taking the pooled money because it seems like that group is scrounging for cash more than I am. Then they went on an adventure and i drove home and played more gta until like two.
Now, this is where I get hazy, because I put Led Zepplin on my iPod and started Led Zeppelin II when I went to bed. I don't remember how long I stayed awake, but it was for freaking ever, and it was the half awake sleep. It made the music intense and hard to listen to. So, I think I heard like a ten minute drum solo complete rock out, but I don't even know. I'm listening to it again to see if I can find it.
But then I dreamt, which I really don't do often. And it was a mix of thinking I haven't gone to bed and sleep and it was pretty bad. It wasn't nightmareish, but it wasn't pleasnt. There was one part that I remember being nice, but it's all very clouded. I guess I like it when I just don't dream at all over that kind.
Then I woke up, and I guess I didn't want to go back to bed because it was 9 something and I was wide awake. So I laid in bed for an hour and had a horrible taste in my mouth and so I vigorusly brushed my teeth and since we're out of milk and orange juice and anything with flavor that won't rot yor teeth in a second, I had a sprite, Then I wrote this after watching youtube videos of sharks, cats, and two kids stacking cups like pros.
Three tacks into the album and no drum solo yet, hmm. But I'm digging the album so far. I don't think it will top IV, but it's amazing still.

Stories from a coffee house pt. 2

So it's not much of a story, but I thought it was pretty funny at the time (like two minutes ago). I'm sitting in coffee news, have been since 1:00, and across from me sit paul rothman (highland park tennis pro) and three girls. One goes to the bathroom and comes back and sits down. She waits for a quiet moment and says "I just want to let you know, the bathroom here is bad, there's no toliet paper, just paper towels. And all the paper towels are soaked with water. And the soap dispenser is broken and it was just a rough time." Now, this may be funnier to me because I'm here and I've used said bathroom and I know exactly what she's talking about.
But yeah, there's this woman sitting to my left who has had like 3 beers and is just hanging and reading the newspaper. She's awesome.
Well, that was a lame post, let's spice it up more with my time today at coffee news.
i got here after deciding to go somewhere and do some blog reworking and some graphic design. I was originally going to brewberrys, but coffee here is unlimited refills for 1.73 and I wsa going to be where ever I went for a while. So, I got here and it was packed and I had to sit kinda by the counter, which was different for me. Then I needed an outlet so I jumped tables to right next to the door. It turned out that all the outlets were being used for christmas lights and that it is very cold out for a t-shirt. So I needed to move and I had seen Abby Phillips at a good table earlier and so when she left I jumped tables again and ended up with a good spot.
I saw this other lady move tables when I did the first time and she was also looking for an outlet so when she came to the back section I pointed her to a good table with a somewhat hard to see plug. Then greta showed up and I got to see her awesome acer aspire one, it is freaking small and sweet. I think she wants to get ubuntu on that baby, and that will make it 10x cooler. yay for linux. then she left and I finished my blog header picture and a general color scheme and put it on the blog (you might have noticed). then I did a rhino stencil. now I'm writing this.
So far, in my 6+ hours of being here, I have listened to the complete albums of:
iron & wine - the sea and the rhythm
okkervil river - the stage names
oasis - whats the story, morning glory?
beirut - gulag orkestar
built to spill - ultimate alternative wavers
and I am half way through pantera - vulgar display of power

An unstoppable force

Here's a stencil of a rhino, may end up being another shirt, we'll see.

Redesign

The redesign is in progress, ignore any ugly color schemes, strange setups, and temporary layouts. I'll edit this when it's all over. I've had a bunch of coffee and 4 more hours of coffee news being open, so let's hope this gets done soon.
Thanks,
The Management.

*edit*
Can't tell if I can do a complete overhaul right now. I got the color scheme changed and the header pic, but it's hard to mod such a minimalistic template. I guess that's why it's called minima. But I like having it minimal, I am all about making it easy for yall's to read this, but I want it to look nice and stylish too. Eh, I'm still working on it.

*edit*
i'm done for now, did some stencil work, check it out.

Greek Riot Pics

I wanted to share these pics.

I make make myself laugh

So I was reading old posts on this blog because I forgot I have used it for so long. Like, my first post was in January, so my one year is almost here. Although I didn't really start blogging till august, w/e.
But I read this one phrase I wrote and it just cracked me up: "time to spew my brainstew." I don't know why I think that is so clever, but I do, and I love it. I also realized how strange my post titles are. They take the actual subject and add some reference to something else. It's like my own inside jokes with myself and some other people. But I guess I do it more because I don't like straightforward titles. If you're going to read my blog, it's not because the titles are to the point or completely random, it's the content.

I made a mix, it's not the best, but I like it. It's more of a sampler than a mix.

I'm really happy the semester is basically over. I have one more assignment and two tests and one very messy english class to work out. But in two days I'll be home visiting my brother. Man, I still can't believe that he is going to sea for 6-8 months. I had forgot that until yesterday. It makes me even more excited to see him again.

iShould bWorking

So I reformatted my iPod. Don't worry, it wasn't on accident as most of my reformats are, this one was controlled. I had it almost full, all 60 GBs, and I was really getting lost in it trying to find music. Having throughout the years, like 4 years of constant adding music and never deleting any, it was very full of unnecessary things. I do not need all of Iron Maiden or A Perfect Circle. In fact, I probably listened to one song of each, maybe four times. And recently the iPod has been showing doubles of songs making playing an album super difficult. I would have to add every other song to an on the go playlist and use that and it was a huuuge hassle. So, in the name of clean slates and fresh snow for this winter break, I wiped it clean. I even gave it the latest firmware update, which sadly removed my custom 'tux' loading screen and battery percent icons (it showed you what numerical percent was left, not some tiny bar that was hard to read). But maybe I'll put those back.
The next step was to put all the music I actually like and things I might want to listen to back on. So I went through my list of perfect albums and made sure I had the whole lot. Then I went through and added stuff I might want some of and what not, you know radiohead and pink floyd discographies. So now I have 2847 songs on it taking up about 15 GBs (is it GBs or Gbs, cause it's a big difference). But I can add new stuff on as I get it and have it all nice and neat.

It's nice to know

So, I was doing a late comp sci assignment that I had forgotten about until now and had to research a topic in computer science. So, after my long cloud computing post, I figured I could just do that. And I have been reading computer science articles for the past hour and a half. It's wonderful liking a topic so much that I don't feel bored reading about it. I learned a lot about the cloud idea and it's a lot more vague than I thought. There are 3 clear definitions of what it is. So, it's pretty clear that this is what I want to do with the rest of my life, in addition to some other things, but career wise it's an easy choice. I took one of the offers from Thompson-Reuters and it is quite ridiculous how much they are paying me for the summer internship. But it bodes well for my future I guess. I still think it is kinda sick how I don't really have to worry to hard about finding a decent job in this field. With everything changing so fast, I'll be able to find something pretty permanent in the end and it will probably pay well.
But I like it because I will be able to fuel other hobbies and things that I know I also want to do in the future. Like, playing music would be something that I could pump money into, but anyone can do that. One goal I really have is to open a music venue somewhere/sometime in the future. Right now I want to open a coffee house/music venue/record store in Morris because I think we could use it. But in reality, I totally could put an investment into a project like that in a larger city and really have fun with it. Someone had to start first ave and the triple rock at some point. Why not a guy like me?

This blizzard is not filled with cookie dough not delicious

So, it is cold. Very very cold in Morris, MN. Like, -40 windchill with -10 actual temperature. I left my phone charger in my friend's on campus apartment and my phone died last night. So, I had to get it back, cause I was expecting a worried call from my mom about the blizzard going on. So I bike to campus and i learn how actually windy and cold it is. Thank heavens that 7th street was plowed at least a little bit. So yeah, now I'm sitting in my house with my friends and we're all just chilling. Lame post, I'll go into detail laters.

Thoughts on 2009

So, I shared an interesting read in this post and said I'd give some of my thoughts on it. So I guess this is that post.
Intel's new processor, i7, has 8 cores, I just think the 7 is misleading. But 8 cores is a little overwhelming, like, I'm running two and two years ago that was top line stuff. Now it's tri (they use leftover quad cores that have one core turned off. So it's a clever way to recycle that I like. It's kinda cheating, but better than throwing them away since silicone price is apparently rising.) and quad cores, and next year it's oct? I like the number 8, so there's nothing wrong with it, but that's just so many. The computing power in the past few years has grown so much so fast. I know this follows Moore's law and predictions, but think a few years in the future. I feel like there is a limit to how much processing power the average user needs, and I feel that we are already past that. My Mom doesn't care how fast her computer is (except when she doesn't want to feel technologically left behind) and all she runs is Internet and word apps. Can there really be so much going on that she will need 3GHz of power? I don't think there will be. Even with web 3.0 apps and more data on the Internet. The business users will never really have applications that demand that much power.
But on the flip side, as the power gets larger, the interesting thing is that the chips are getting smaller because of advances in other areas like nanotechnology. This means that the chips use less materials and therefor (I use therefor a lot, sorry) cost less to manufacture, decreasing prices. So, even though a chip might be 10x as fast as a chip ten years ago, it costs less. So even though most user's will never need the power, it will be cheaper and so why not get it?
There are also a lot of other emerging markets that can use the technology and advances in processor power and size. With handheld devices becoming more advance, they will eventually match the power of today's laptops and eventually the high end desktops. Although there are physical limits to size which stop music players from having terabytes of memory, at least with current tech, there will always be ways to improve them.
There is also the idea of 'the cloud', which is an older concept that might be making it's way back, especially with help from powers like google and microsoft. The idea is that you don't have your data in your possession as a hard copy. My computer has my english paper, it is nowhere else in the world. The cloud changes this to the physical copy being in a server somewhere in a farm of information. A good example is google apps. I create a spreadsheet on google docs and they store it, for my access anywhere from any computer with Internet. All I need is my account to get it. If my computer is lost, my data isn't. My dad was explaining how airlines use this practice because flight information has to be centralized. The computers at check in don't store all the flight info on their hard drives, they are only a terminal for accessing the data from the central servers. If it didn't work this way, there would be so much conflicting data that it would ruin the system completely.
Taking this idea to the general populous hasn't been really feasible because of bandwidth and accessibility limits. Not everyone has the airlines direct connection with the data center through the largest bandwidth pipes. But with widespread wireless connectivity, it is becoming an option, and one that google is opening up, subtly. Now that wireless speeds are growing and some cities are almost completely connected, why not implement this concept? For a price you can be completely wireless at the top speeds. You don't have to worry about losing what you're working on, practically all the time. Even when I write this, blogger saves a current draft every time I stop typing for a couple seconds. It's really useful.
An implementation of this that I don't fully agree with is one that I can't say I know the most about, so sorry if I have it all wrong. My friend Danny has a sidekick with T-Mobile and he has to connect to t-mobile's server to get his address book. From what I gathered, his contacts are stored online where he can access them from any computer, and are downloaded to his phone when he starts it up. This is smart, because he can add numbers online and probably link it all to a address book application on his computer. But the idea that they aren't stored locally seems faulty. What if you have no signal and need a number? What I would expect is that it would only sync with the central information every time, adding or removing information that has been added or removed. Like syncing your iPod, it checks for differences and modifies your device. If this is how it works, than it makes a lot more sense and is a really clever idea.
As these ideas and technologies improve, they will eventually reach a limit. In the beginning, people only used personal computers for work and were basically a terminal for accessing centralized data. Then they got powerful enough to be portable and hold a user's data and process everything without the help of a server. But as that reaches a limit, portability will make a comeback and we will move back into the cloud.

That was a lot of writing, so I am going to end it here (at least for now) and go back to reading my book for school. But the overall idea is that as these technologies improve they will reach a limit of practical use and then there will be another area to improve on. And, watch out for the cloud.

Love is a tired symphony

So, I'm here in Alexandria, yet again, but at the Dunn Brothers this time. (Jake, they actually are only a block apart, I guess there are either two or google maps just thinks Alex is huge or something. So you weren't told 'wrong'.) And I was talking with Meghan and she said something along the lines of: "I wish there was a way to see what everyone is listening to right now." The idea seemed really cool. Like a status update, but for what you're listening to, and in some sort of real time. I thought about how this could be done and it doesn't seem like it is impossible. With most all MP3 players going wireless like the iPod Touch, they could keep sending short updates to the web. This could also be done from user's computers by linking an application like iTunes to the Internet. I don't know if iTunes allows plug ins like that, but I'm guessing a script could get the now playing data and send it to the web. By linking this collection of what you play to something like a facebook app, you could easily see what your friends are playing.
It would have some difficulties, as it would be updated with each song and therefor pretty frequently. This could easily cause an overwhelming amount of data to be stored and interpreted by people. Maybe an update every time an album changes. There's always user set preferences for that stuff though.
I like this idea mainly because I like knowing what people are listening to and like to share what I'm listening to, but I can't update my twitter/facebook status every hour when I choose another album/band. So every once in a while I'll put what I'm into as my status, mainly as lyrics. One of those, I want this to only mean something to people who know this song and therefor are cool and should let me know that they know this song/artist and therefor are in a select group of people that can be my true friends by having heard this song that I probably got or gave to them, so therefor it is a lame excuse for verification of a friendship, statuses. You know like "Martin is an AC adapter with a DC switch" which I only know one person who could get it. it's like an exclusive club, but I could have easily said "Martin is listening to P.O.S." Anyways, you can ignore all that.
Having messed around with Conky and using meta data stuff from RSS feeds and twitter, I feel like I might be able to implement this into an actual thing. I wonder if this could be my ticket to the generation of "I'm going to make something clever and viral and then sell it for a million bucks." That'd be cool.

*Edit* I actually didn't realize that I did the "lyrics cool club" thing with the title of this blog post until now. It's from Iron and Wine - lion's mane.

P to the O S

So, P.O.S. just announced the release date of his next album, Never Better, as Febuary 3rd, 2009. This is awesome. If you goto Morris, or drive up occasionally, you might have caught P.O.S. when he played for the HomeKUMMing concert earlier this semester. You can download the track Goodbye off the album by going to RhymeSayers Entertainment site here and getting it. There are also tour dates and everything.
I'm pretty pumped for his third album, which is what he calls a winter album. This will be a great start to next semester's music awesomeness.

Interesting read on future of computing

Mainly for the CSci folk, but anyone can read it.
Here's the story.

I'll probably make another post about my thoughts, but I wanted to share this for now.

I was producktive

So, after I checked out the KUMM merch on sale today and bought some 10cent CDs I went to Alexandria to goto the Caribou. It was really quite productive for me. I got both my homework that is due today done AND the homework that was due two weeks ago and today is the last day to turn in mostly done. Like, I was productive for at least 5 hours today. I sent my calc prof an e-mail. And I listened to Crusades, which after this post I really wanted to listen to. I also got gas for $1.52. And I am now up till six watching garden state. Juno and Garden State have really good soundtracks in addition to being great indie movies. Music is great.

Music schnabbs

I think snobs drink schnapps because it's basically the same word. It sno and schna sound the same. And b is an upside p. Just a theory.
Anyways, I just watched Juno and kinda got bothered by Juno and Mark, the older dude who is kinda creepy with Juno. They talk about music in the most snobbish way possible. They only want to be the music superior-being compared to others. And, although I love music and have certain tastes, I try to never make anyone feel bad about either liking a band, not knowing a band, or not liking my favorite bands. I know I must do it subconsciously, but I never try to 'win' at music taste.
I have met some people that are like that and I usually just stop talking to them. Sometimes I forget and start digging a hole of a conversation only to remember that some people have unchanging minds. But as much as I want to scream at them to lighten up and listen, I know it wouldn't do anything and would basically make me the one trying to force my opinion on them. It's lame.
But yeah, it's late. I should probably goto bed. But actually, I'm going to make another post about what I did today. So, you probably already read that one since I'm posting this first and you'll read it second. What ever.

System.out.println("I Love programming!");

Because there are sometimes when I just rock an assignment. I was in class monday and everyone seemed to be having trouble with one lab project and I was basically done. It was great. The kid next to me said something like: "Man, I don't know even where to start with this lab, how about you?" and I nicely replied "Actually, I'm almost done." Problem was, he then tried to mooch my code off of me for the rest of the class. But it was alright because there is a reason it took me an hour+ to get comparable to work with my zombies. (if you aren't a csci major, you probably didn't understand that sentence. (okay, so it seems even compsci majors don't know what that means, your not alone) But then again, I don't expect anyone to fully understand what i say in my blog. Just be thankful text can't convey my mumbling. Anyways, so he kinda just gave me a blank look and stopped asking after a few minutes. So, it was really quite nice to have a confidence boost after not going to class for a week. But I actually should be doing a problem set for that class, so I'm going to go. (I just realized I am still in that parenthesized aside comment, oops.))

Funnel Bee

So, I went to the consular today to talk about possibly dropping my English class, and it turns out that they really don't deal with that stuff. But it was cool anyways I guess. I kinda found out by myself that my 'depression' is kinda dependent on what I am doing. Like, this weekend was very different for me because I hung out with different people. I went over to hang out with Emily and it turned out that Tessa, Remy, and Colin had all gone to the Doomtree show and so she and one of there other house members, David, had it mostly to themselves for the weekend. That meant that they got to be louder later into the night than usual. So it was a great weekend to go over I guess. I guess I had a misconception about how partyish the house was.
Anyways, it was out of the norm, which I liked. I saw people I rarely see. Then on Saturday I went back over for a 5 hour dinner. Well, Emily and friends started cooking at 6 and we ate at 11. There was an improv show in there somewhere, but still, it was good I ate something beforehand. That night was a lot more chill than Friday, but it was still really nice. They all convinced me that a trip to Viroqua, WI should be a part of my winter break. We'll see.
So anyways, the point was/is that I was feeling crappy until I went out of the norm for a weekend. And although this happens every once in a while, this time was different because I plan on hanging out with Emily and others more than once a month. It's for my health. : )

Damn right!

So, there's this amazing band, The Plastic Constellations, and after doing my weekly website check, I went a little deeper and found one of the signer/guitarist's blog. He doesn't update it or anything, but there is this one post that I just had to share. Here. This is the guy who has been my guitar/musical idol. It was sad to see them take an indefinite hiatus, but I think Tessa said she's working on getting them to do a reunion or something. So who knows.
But it was nice to read something that has been my mentality for the past year. He writes a lot better and gets the point across. But it's what I've been feeling, the unstoppable urge to do something, not for money/popularity, but because if I don't do it right now I might never be able to do it again.

Caribooooooou, cari-bou-ou

So Morris has two "coffee shops". One, The Turtle Mountain Cafe (why is cafe not in Firefox's dictionary?) (TMC) is run by Satan Sodexho and the other is a non-profit place called Common Cup. I actually have a lot more respect for the place when I found out it was non-profit. All proceeds go to one of the local churches. So it makes more sense why it was "built on God's love." But they both are pretty pricey. At the common cup, a bottomless cup of coffee is 3+ bucks. This compared to coffee news in the cities where it's 1.50. Kinda sucks. Anyways, the closest city is Alexandria, a pretty cool place actually, spent a day there shopping. They have a Caribou that my friend Meghan and I went to last week. It's a 45 minute drive each way, but it was totally worth it. Got there and had to have a caramel cooler because I haven't had one in forever. So there goes $5. But then I wanted to know how much a refill of coffee was and the guy looks at me funny and says: "Free?" Awesome. So, Caribou has 1.50 for unlimited coffee.
And not only that, but they have variety. They had two interesting blends the day I went and they change it day to day. The common cup just has two blends, and they are always there. It was also a pretty good place to do homework. I got a lot of programming done that day and I really enjoyed it. I guess Alexandria only has a few hours after work when people go get coffee. So I think I'll probably go there a few more times to get some work done in the next week before finals.
I also have big plans to someday open a coffee house/record store/music venue. It'd be awesome.

Social fun-gineering

So, last night I watched Fletch, an amazingly funny movie from the 80's that is one of my all-time favorites. It stars Chevy Chase and is an over the top comedy. But one thing I was thinking about during the movie was about how he acts with people and how they respond. The plot is that Fletch is a investigative reporter that is on the case of a drug dealing scheme. So he uses some ridiculous disguises to go undercover and get answers from people. This is what I think makes the movie hilarious and so classic. Chevy Chase has the ridiculous factor nailed.
What he does is use confusion to get answers and information from people. At one point he gets asked who he is and here is what he says (taken from imdb.com):

Madeline: I'm sorry, who are you again?
Fletch: I'm Frieda's boss.
Madeline: Who's Frieda?
Fletch: My secretary.

Then he abruptly leaves while she is taken back at this circular answer that contains no real information. He does this throughout the movie and uses confusion in what is called social engineering. Social engineering is using people to get information. Usually this means posing as someone your not. A lot of old hackers used this almost more than actually hacking systems. Kevin Mitnick is famous for using social engineering to get user passwords and computer information.
Remembering this, Fletch started to make me think about if this would actually work in real life. I always wished I was better at being absolutely ridiculous, but I guess with a script it would be a lot easier.
But anyways, I just thought it was an interesting concept. Humor and social engineering. It actually makes me want to read a book on it, the Art of Deception. But we'll see. Here's another example of fletch talking his way around a subject:

Dr. Joseph Dolan: You know, it's a shame about Ed.
Fletch: Oh, it was. Yeah, it was really a shame. To go so suddenly like that.
Dr. Joseph Dolan: He was dying for years.
Fletch: Sure, but... the end was very... very sudden.
Dr. Joseph Dolan: He was in intensive care for eight weeks.
Fletch: Yeah, but I mean the very end, when he actually died. That was extremely sudden.

Let's just never speak of this again

Sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo it turns out my phone was not lost, it was in my room, behind my window shade, on silent, for the past two days. Fan-freaking-tastic martin, way to go. But I have it back now and after reading all 20+ txts and voicemails, I'm back on track. But I just really want to put this behind me and get over the whole "wow martin, list your phone literally two feet from you, how'd you do it?" and the "sooo, your an idiot" and if anyone wanting to make these statements, you'll get about 24 hours of free shots before I officially move the issue to the part of my mind that is like a black hole and whatnot.
The only words that come to mind are simply: I can't believe I just did that.

Purrfect

So, here's a list of perfect albums. A perfect album, for me, is one that I can listen to all the way through and not get bored or annoyed with. These don't represent my entire music taste, just the albums that have been tried and true throughout the years. I got this by going through my iPod, so it might be missing a few albums. But yeah. Sorry about the format and that it will take up most of the front page.
Beastie Boys - License to Ill
Beastie Boys - Paul's Boutique
Beastie Boys - Hello Nasty
Belles Of Skin City - Ha Ha Boardroom Think tank Tantrums
Belles Of Skin City - You Do the Company Proud
Black Sabbath - Paranoid
Black Sabbath - Black Sabbath
Bob Dylan - Blonde on Blonde
Bob Dylan - Blood on the Tracks
Bon Iver - For Emma, Forever Ago
Building Better Bombs - Freak Out Squares
Built To Spill - Ultimate Alternative Wavers
Clash - London Calling
Destroyer - Destroyer's Rubies
Doors - Doors
Flobots - Fight With Tools
Fugazi - 13 Songs
Fugazi - End Hits
Fugazi - The Argument
Hockey Night - Keep Guessin'
Kinks - The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society
Kinks - Muswell Hillbillies
Led Zeppelin - Led Zeppelin I
Led Zeppelin - Led Zeppelin IV
Mae Shi - Heartbeeps
Modern Lovers - Modern Lovers
Modest Mouse - Good News For People Who Love Bad News
Neutral Milk Hotel - In The Aeroplane Over The Sea
Nirvana - Nevermind
Paper Tiger - False Hopes
Pink Floyd - Dark Side of the Moon
Pink Floyd - The Piper at the Gates of Dawn
Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here
Pixies - Doolittle
Pixies - Surfer Rosa/Come On Pilgrim
Plastic Constellations - Crusades
P. O. S. - Ipecac Neat
Queens of the Stoneage - Songs for the Deaf
Radiohead - OK Computer
Rage Against The Machine - Rage Against The Machine
Red Hot Chili Peppers - Blood Sugar Sex Magik
Shins - Chutes Too Narrow
Stnnng - Fake Fake
Subtle - For Hero: For Fool
Tim Fite - Fair Ain't Fair
Tim Fite - Over the Counter Culture
Velvet Underground - The Velvet Underground And Nico
Weezer - Weezer (blue)
Weezer - Pinkerton
Zombies - Odessey And Oracle

Break: all in all

Break was good. But it wasn't complete. I know why, it because I never finished my paper. I really need to do that. Expecially because I have another one due next friday. But I need to choose if I want to write a 4 page creative story with 3 pages of analysis or an english paper. Since I basically failed at the last paper, I feel the creative route might be better for me. But I need to decide by tomorrow.
Anyways, break was good. It was something I needed, to see friends and play music and hang out and be in a city. But now I'm in morris for what, 2 and a half weeks. It's annoying having be be back for a short time. Even more because I want to go home one weekend to see my brother before I winter break starts. But we'll see what happens.

The Liar

I am a liar, through and through.
I am a liar, just like you and you
I am a liar and I know this fact
But the honest person in me, doesn't know how to react.

I lie and lie, about important things and not
I lie so often, that why I started I have forgot
I lie to help myself out of some confusing mess
I lie to you to help alleviate some stress.

I lie a lot, and this I know
Many of them are forgotten, fast they come fast the go
But the lie I remember most of all, past and new
Is when I lied down, in front of you.

Wrote this in the shower, where I often write short poems.
eh.

Free Txts from e-mail

Cool thing:
http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/email-to-sms/

Taking a break again from this paper

So I am pretty much halfway through this paper. Which I guess is a lie. It took me over a month to get here, so I really only have a fraction of that time left. So I'm almost done. But really, I'm so out of touch with writing papers that it was the getting started that was the hardest for me. I went through about 5 topics before settling one one/a blend of them. But it's going alright I guess. I am quite literally 3 pages into it and it's supposed to be 6 pages, I think.

Anyways, I figured I'd take a break and do something. I guess I don't really know what I want to write about so I'll write about....cameras! I've been browsing cameras and I got to thinking that I want a camera that will not only last a few years physically, but one that will be on the leading curve that is the technology industry. The main thing I was thinking about was the tech that I don't actually know the name of. I want to say geotagging, but I dunno. Basically it's where the camera, in addition to the image data it already has, date/time stuff, it records the location of the picture. this would be sweet on road trips or just cool mapping ideas for later. In looking at cameras I didn't see this feature, so I'm pretty sure it's only high end stuff for now. But something to look into.
Another thing is the wireless SD cards that you can use in place of a memory card. I think the idea is that it can connect to a wireless network and upload the pictures somewhere. Again, I should have looked into this all before blogging about it. But that's what happens this early in the morning. I haven't written a paper in college without staying up all night, just to let you know. That's how I did it last year and here I am again.

Also, I set up a tracking thing for the blog, it's the thing at the bottom of the pages, and it was cool to see macalester and italy show up as locations for connections. So, I guess I've gone global. Sweetballs.

I'm hungry, sick, and tired of writing this paper.

So here's a post I wanted to get into a bit.
Twitter vs. Facebook statuses.
So, Twitter had this idea to have a social network that shares short updates on what your doing. These are supposed to be between blog posts so people can see more of your day to day interests. This is a great idea and something I would love to start doing more with my friends. Except that the concept sounds awfully familiar. Facebook did the same thing. Not aimed at bloggers and more at people who want to find the best way to get attention but not be too direct. Admit it, you knew what you were doing when you set your status to "shouldn't have done that", "thinks you don't understand", or even "needs attention NOW!". Just waiting for someone to go, hey whats up so you can turn them down with the overly done, "no it's okay/not about you/leave me alone!". Sound familiar? Cause it happens every day on facebook. We check the status feed and kinda feel sad or pitiful. I'm not saying it's a bad thing, it is just kinda silly. I've done it before. And in the moment you just want someone to care.
But! Do you ever just want to facts? I don't care if they are angry at someone, I just want to know what they are doing right now or tonight. That way I can get a feel if I could ask to hang out or not. For an example, some of my friends work during the week and I always forget their schedule, if there is even one. So I hate calling to see if their at work because if they are, they don't answer their phone. So it seems pointless. But if I could check their status and it was "working till 10" or "work", I would easily know.
Also, the status feed is for all your friends, your "friends", and that guy you had in one class in junior high that your pretty sure moved away and have no real social connection. So, although there are times I'd like to know what he's doing, because why not. I also would like a way to remove him from the possible feed updates.
Does it feel like I'm going somewhere with this yet? Good. Because I guess you could consider this a call to my friends, or the ones who read this, to sign up for a free twitter account and add each other. With at least a small amount of us using twitter it would be so much more effective than the, say 3 people I know that use it currently. So, do it. Everyone else will be doing it soon, so don't you want to be one of those people who did it first and do something that gives you leverage over your friends later on in life. I know that's why I did it, and it's not too late.
1. goto Twitter
2. follow me, mpow or go here to follow me.
3. tell a friend.

mARTin unupdate

Sorry if the title got your hopes up and made you think you missed thanksgiving. But it isn't friday and this isn't a true mARTin update. I realize that I need a better way of getting the things I draw or do into digital format and my phone's camera is pretty low quality. Since I also would be using the images in illustrator or photoshop, I like them in high quality. Anyways, I've asked for a camera for christmas and so we'll see what happens. I might just buy one. But this will also give me a week or two of time consuming consumerism.

Here's a little story

So, I was making some tang in my kitchen this afternoon and I see a paper on the kitchen table. I kinda figured it was a piece of mail or some homework from my house mates. But on closer examination, it was a search warrant for our house. Awesome. So I figured that Ryan did something and they were trying to bust him. But no, it turns out that there is a house health and safety inspection every 4 years. And because my landlord, the legendary and mysterious Vance G, is almost always unreachable, even to the authorities, they had to get a judge to approve a warrant for the search of our house.
So, I don't know how this will turn out, but hopefully our house is still livable and safe. Because if it isn't...then shit.

Update to customizing things

So Colin and Jake asked me what I was using to update twitter from the terminal and I've changed my conky setup so I thought I'd post this.

The command to update twitter is using curl. Jake, I don't know the mac equivilant to this is. But this is the guide for it:
http://blogs.tech-recipes.com/shamanstears/2008/03/04/ubuntu-posting-to-twitter-from-the-terminal-window/

And here's my new desktop:

Stories from a coffee house

I kinda want to make this a reoccurring post idea, but I also don't want to spend a bazillion dollars, $3 at a time for unlimited coffee here at the common cup. But we'll see, cause I really like coming here.

Anyways, I'm sitting and I take my earbuds out for a bit and start to overhear these two people's conversation. The first thing I hear is this guy say: "I haven't had much luck with girls lately." So I look over and it's a guy sitting with girl. The girl looks pretty bored with him talking about his bad luck with girls. She's playing with a napkin and giving the occasional agreement. I started thinking about why they are here and who they are to each other. I came up with the idea that the reason he doesn't do too well with girls is that he takes them to coffee houses and tells them that he isn't good with girls. They didn't come to hear him whine, because he obviously got them to the coffee house in the first place. They get bored and nothing ever comes from the date. He continues the cycle and it might never end.

So watch out at coffee houses, I might be blogging about your strange conversations. Just look for the guy going to the bathroom every 20 minute. Goddamn my bladder's response to 3+ cups of coffee.

Comments

Anonymous comments are now accepted. Or tell me who you are so I can find you and respond accurately.

Customizing ubuntu is soo much fun!

So, I should be doing homework, but I'm not. I am instead going to show you how I have customized my computer to be awesome, if you don't care then pass this post by.

Fresh install
So Ubuntu 8.10 "Intrepid Ibex" came out at the end of October and so instead of just upgrading, I decided to do a completely fresh install. That means backing up any important documents and formatting the Ubuntu partition. This is so easy to do in Ubuntu, it's awesome. Instead of having to reinstall windows and ubuntu studio, I just clear the one part ion that ubuntu lives on. So I started out clean with a blank slate to go from. It was such a great feeling, I recommend it to everyone (I also recommend trying ubuntu).

Starting out, the basics:
So for a new install to be fully functional, there are some basic things that you need to do which are not that hard to do. It basically involves installing all the things Ubuntu can't guarantee, like flash, java, and MP3 codecs. All stuff I like to have. So you just follow this guide. It's not that hard to do if you haven't worked with the terminal and it is probably a good starting tool for that. Then I did have to wait a few days before the latest nVidia drivers were released, but after that I got to start with the compiz settings, yummy.

Compiz:
So I figure that most people reading this don't use Ubuntu (save for Colin, Vinny, and Jake before he went back to Mac), so I'll be giving brief explanations for things that aren't common talk. Compiz is a background program that handles how you view your desktop. It is the eye candy of Ubuntu. If you've seen me turn my desktop into a 3-D cube, that's compiz. It lets you choose what animation plays when you close a window or if your windows are stiff or wobbly when you shake them. For a video of what compiz is capable of look here. I used to use it to make things look really cool, but now with my new Ubuntu, I'm all about functionality and being productive in a creative way. This started with getting rid of the cube and using 4 desktops in a line. To explain, each desktop can hold it's own windows and so instead of alt-tabbing through a bunch of programs to find my e-mail, I switch to the first desktop. Internet is on the second and music is on the third and the fourth is usually for the terminal. This saves me a load of time in finding what I'm looking for and it still looks pretty cool, in my opinion.
Compiz also runs the window manager, or the program that makes your windows have title bars and determines their color. I am still using the default theme for this because I haven't found what I'm looking for yet.

Conky:
Conky is an awesome program that will display basically anything you want. If there is a command for it or a way to use python to get information, conly can output it in anyway you want. I only got this running last week, so it isn't finished, but I still love it. Right now I have weather and system information to show up. In the future I will have it show what music I'm playing and other things that I want to be able to check whenever and feel too lazy to type a command.

Devilspie:
This is something I just found two days ago and am starting to use more. It's a program that recognizes applications that are running and can change their appearance when they are loaded. So right now I have my e-mail move to the first desktop when it is started and the same for firefox and my music player, rhythmbox. I can start them all from buttons on my keyboard and the go where I want without moving them.

My desktop terminal:
So I use the terminal a lot. I like it a lot more than running graphical things like update manager and finding files through the file browser. So I have it hot keyed to Alt+F1. But I found I was always opening terminals, which got annoying. So I followed this guide. And now I have a terminal window embedded into my background. It is so great. I have also been finding more and more uses for the terminal and the easiest way to learn new things is to use it a lot. Like updating twitter through the terminal. It isn't necessary, but it is a lot of fun and why not? I'll probably write a blog about twitter and try and get people to use it more. Jake couldn't completely explain why I should use it, but I figure if enough of my friends use it, it would turn worthwhile.

Future projects:
Get a better dock than the default one. I like the way macs have docks and not a large task bar like windows, but it has disadvantages and with ubuntu I can get my own dock and make it what I want. Also, I am planning on making a sweet wallpaper that uses the multiple desktops to make things pretty, it's hard to explain.

Back to "doing" homework.

PBR: Pretty Blog Rhetoric

Who even knows what rhetoric means? Cause I sure don't. Anyways, It's late and I don't know why I'm posting (I shouldn't be), but I am. Wow, it sounds bad, but some kinks can't be worked out through a backrub.
Anyways, this blog will be about something, I just haven't decided yet, so hang on. It will be about something that makes me happy: aha! I listened to the belles of skin city today. Both albums. It was great. Their drummer is probbably the reason I drum for hello blacksmith. He's amazing. Give them a listen to if you have them, and if you don't, let me know and I'll hook you up. but yeah, I also decided that I won't be a drummer for another band outside hbs. Because I just really don't fit there. I love guitar too much and miss playing guitar. Over last summer I jammed with Dylan and Jacob and it was great. We just went thorugh chord progressions and improvised what we wanted. It was probbably the best learning tool I've had for guitar. Having other instruments going off of each other was amazing and even though it was simple and repetitive, it was soo much fun. Which is why, although I would if I had to, I will not drum again (again, outside of hbs.). I just love playing guitar too damn much. And if I want to get better at it, I need to play it, expessially in a band setting. I dunno how it will work out, but CDubs and I have a plan for me on guitar, him on bass banjo(thats right a banjo through a lower octave pedal) and Jamies friend as a possible drummer, and someone else on vocals. It would be my dream come true. Well, actually it's not my wildest dream, but it is up there with...well, I won't say. Anyways, this has been a productive blog post. So, again, thanks for listening. Sorry for the typos, I'm not in the mood to fix them yet.

Some kind of....

i don't know why, but this is one of my favorite phrases of all time. "Some kind of" something. It's something I hear a lot and am always happy when it happens. I think I heard it from one of strong bad's emails a while ago. He was explaining something and said it was some kind of robot. Then I heard it more and more and I dunno why but I like it.

just to let you know.

It's been a while

But I've been stressed out and writing blogs has been put off. I dunno why, well I do, but I wish I didn't. Things right now are not things I always want to blog about. How could I put into text what I can barely get through my head. It's hard. But some things that are making me this way: I am doing very poorly in my english class. I need to write an overdue paper, read books, and have an topic for my next paper. I should review music on a more regular basis, and not so sporadically as I do, it would ease the load. I should sleep, eat, and relax more. The actual thing is, I relax all the time. I sit around and do nothing most all day, it's sad. It's like summer reincarnate. I play guitar hero and mario cart, I watch TV and movies, I don't even play guitar which is supposed to be my fun relaxing hobby. My room is on average 50 degrees, which is horrible. I spend a lot of time at the on campus apartments at my freinds mary, meghan, and nicole's place. It's warm there.
I have a lot of goals. Too many you could say. And I can't find the motivation to do them. I hate it, because I make more goals to complete my other goals and it gets pretty ridiculous. Life is almost too simple. I thought about taking 20 credits next semester and volunteering at the co-op for a few hours a week to actually feel what it's like to be busy and make the most of my time. I wish I could say I knew what that felt like. I've been there, but I don't know if I'm headed in that direction.

Vincent the cat

So my roommate Ryan got a cat, we'll our house got a cat, but anyways, it has just been deemed responsible enough to roam the whole house and so it came into my room and was walking on my computer when it found my laptop's heat sink fan vent. So, in all it's cuteness it sat down and curled up to my computer and took a nap. It was awesome except for it kept typing ` or 1 repeatedly.

Badgering me actually works

So I'm hanging with my friends Mary, Meghan, and Nicole, and Nicole is talking about how she is going to Madison for Halloween tomorrow. Then I start talking about how I'm going in a few weeks(possibly) to go see subtle. And now a half hour later, Mary Meghan, and I have decided to go to Madison as well. I can get to see Julie, who actually throughout the summer told me to goto Madison, because it is like the largest party ever. And I always said if I had people to go with, and split the gas, I'd do it. And here I am. Wow. $25 to get to Madison isn't that bad at all, and it is a rare chance and the type of random idea that I love. So yeah, just thought I'd let ya know.

TWIMMWAKUMM: SEPOMBDWDM

This week is TWIMMWAKUMM: Special Edition Post On My Birth Day With Downloadable Music. I have all the music to be put into the station and am currently ripping them all so I can have them and so I can make a mix of defining tracks off of each album.

**EDIT**
Okay, so I started this on tuesday and have not been able to find a place to host a 48kB file without taking an hour to upload. So, until I can get it uploaded, here is the rest of the original post.

Here is the track listing (there isn't a specific order to it):
Artist - Album - Track
Annuals - Such Fun - Springtime
The Noises 10 - The Hammer, the Anvil, the Stirrup - Lay This Armor Down
Kaiser Chiefs - Off With Their Heads - Never Miss a Beat
Oasis - Dig Out Your Soul -
of Montreal - Skeletal Lamping - Gallery Piece
Ryan Adams and the Cardinals - Cardinology - Magick
Roster McCabe - The Rythm/The Elements - The Traveller
Ray La Montague - Gossip in the Grain - Sarah
Lake Street Dive - Promises, Promises - The Panhandling Song
Diet Kong - Coma Motor Inn - Lines and Lines
Frances - All The While -
The Mighty Orq - To the Bone - Rainy Day
FM Belfast - Made in Iceland - Lotus

More info on each track, artist:

Annuals - Such Fun - Springtime
This band kept reminding me of weezer, but then would stop it immediatley, it was very annoying. So I don't know exactly what to call it or what to say about it. It sounded like ben folds(thanks meghan for that) but with guitars, and some very rocking guitars at that.

The Noises 10 - The Hammer, the Anvil, the Stirrup - Lay This Armor Down
This band sounds a lot like the local band the alarmists, and so I kinda like it. I dunno.

Kaiser Chiefs - Off With Their Heads - Never Miss a Beat
This is an album I liked a lot, but for a somewhat different reason than usual. The music isn't the greatest in the world, but it brings me back to sophmore year when I went to a Weezer concert with my brother, and kaiser chiefs opened. It was actually a birthday present, so hey look at that, four years later, here I am. But anyways, this CD is very much like the Kaiser Chiefs first CD, Employment, but it is a little more calm. They are a lot more like blur this time around, which i also like. So if you enjoy blur or their first CD, try this one out.

Oasis - Dig Out Your Soul -
This is probably the first actual CD of Oasis that I've heard. I've only really heard Wonderwall, Champange Super Nova and Sex in the Bushes. So for me, I'd day this album was a little more rocking and louder than their other stuff.

of Montreal - Skeletal Lamping - Gallery Piece
I've heard of the band many times, but never really heard them. I think that this CD might be the wrong one to start listening to for the band, it's kinda really weird. the whole album is almost all about sex or some related topic. The songs are good and if you look past the lyrical content, it's all good.

Ryan Adams and the Cardinals - Cardinology - Magick
I'm not too familiar with Ryan Adams, so I don't have much to say about this one.

Roster McCabe - The Rythm/The Elements - The Traveller
I love this band. So much. I first went to see them with some friends from morris and it was such a great experience. The band is 6 people that know how to jam. Each song they played felt like they played the song and then kinda improvised over it again. It was great. The style is like reggae mixed with jazz. I highly recommend this band live, you can find some shows recorded live and they are pretty good as well. And this song is just my favorite, the guitar is soo good!

Ray La Montague - Gossip in the Grain - Sarah
An interesting guy, but I liked it.

Lake Street Dive - Promises, Promises - The Panhandling Song
A jazz oriented band that just kinda knows how to make good music.

Diet Kong - Coma Motor Inn - Lines and Lines
Kinda strange music at times, but good.

Frances - All The While - Cousin
Kinda one of those indie bands. Not bad, not anything too new.

The Mighty Orq - To the Bone - Rainy Day
The cover of this album is somewhat misleading. In fact, the picture of the band and their names are also misleading. Overall, I'd say I wasn't expecting this type of music from this band. They play kinda grungey blues, but the song that is on this mix is a little different from the rest of the album.

FM Belfast - Made in Iceland - Lotus
This blew my mind and I had to share it. It's from this CD that was a mix of bands from Iceland and though we don't really put mixes into the station I gave it a listen and this is the first track. It is a cover of Rage Against The Machine's Killing In The Name Of. Just listen.

Yellow Eyes

So, I was in the campus cafe today, and I went to the bathroom and when I looked in the mirror, my eyes were yellowish. Like, a tint of yellow. I was kinda freaked out, so I went to WebMD and found that it is something that happens when your liver isn't happy. When you have hepatitis or mono. But then I thought to what I have been up to the last few days and it made more sense. Last Friday I hung out with friends and went to zombie prom and stuff and stayed up to 5. Then Saturday I hung out with more friends and drank an entire two liter of Shasta cola and a starbucks double shot energy drink. I also ate like 5 grilled cheese sandwiches, 4 cinnamon rolls, and in the morning ate two McGriddles (each 440 calories). Then I went to bed at 10 (on Sunday) and woke up at 3 something. Ate more and drank more cola till Monday morning at 8 when I went to bed for two hours. Then I woke up at 10:24 to goto calculus. I never really go unless I have to turn in homework or take a quiz, and I thought we had a quiz. So I get to class, sit down with just my pencil and guess what, no quiz that day. but we got out midterm exam back and it reminded me why I don't goto class, 95/100. So then I goto my second class and then do stuff, review music, play guitar hero until I have to go watch a movie for my English class. Then I eventually went to bed at 11:30 and woke up today at noon to get back to work, cutting stencils, reviewing music, and such.
So I am not overly surprised that my eyes were freaking yellow, although it is a little scary. But they are back to normal, according to Mary and Meghan at least (but they never actually believed my story).

Live concert archive

So I was browsing the Roster McCabe website and found this archive of their live shows. I was pretty excited with the 4 or 5 shows. But then I started digging around the site and found that they have an archive of band's shows with 60,000 items in it. So I browsed and there were some notable ones in there. Fugazi, Mountain Goats, and the Decemberists were some one I recognized. So, take a look at the list and see if your favorite bands have some live shows up.
Here's the link.

P.S. There are about 2,000 live grateful dead concerts on the site, talk about a touring band.

reword'd

Like Tasha did, I used what Julie wrote To write something about me. It wasn't as easy as I wanted.

"This year is" "active." "I like my" "active" "life." "I like my" "habits and tendencies" "this year." "The logic behind" "me" "is" "not" "all" "negative and" "lately" "I'd" "note" "that" "what" "truly upsets me" "is that" "things happen" "and" "my person" "is" "not" "responsive." "My cynicism" "is" "a side" "that" "is" "pressing." "It" "is" "me;" "a side" "that" "I" "know."

mARTin: kumm shirt

Okay, so this is my rough design for the new KUMM shirts. I would like as much feedback as possible, because at this point I dunno what to add/remove/change/if it's any good at all.

I gather no moss when I'm rolling like this

So I got like 10 minutes until my radio show, but I'm doing pretty well at pumping out these posts so here's another one.
Last week I had an internship interview with Thomson Reuters, the largest IT employer in the state and the largest bandwidth user in the 5 state area. It went pretty sweet, I think I did alright in talking and answering questions. So hopefully I can get an internship there for the summer, 9 to 5, 5 days a week of technology internship with pay, sounds good right. I figure if I don't like it, it's only a 3 month deal and I can drop it and never work in an office building again (yeah right).
But the best part of it was a question they asked me during the "so you think your a compsci major?" part. The question is this: How do you determine if an integer is odd or even?
I'll let your brain digest this one for one sentence.
So, the next day after the interview, I have my comp sci seminar with my co compsci peoples. After class I was walking in front of a few of them and heard one mention the interviews. So I slowed down and started chatting with them about it. This one guy mentioned how he didn't know the answers to the questions they asked and I was like, well, I felt alright about them. So they talk about the even or odd question and they go over what they said for it. The first kid's answer was: "I said I'd divide it by two, and if it's divisible by two, then it's even. But they asked how I knew if something is divisible by 2 or not, and I didn't know." So, the next kid chimes in: "Wouldn't it be something like checking if the last digit is a 0, 2, 4, 6, or an 8?" Well, those are both really inefficient ways of doing the problem, which is why I was smiling the whole time because in my interview I got the question and replied: "Well, I'd mod 2 it and see if the remainder is 1 or 0." Then one of the interviewers slammed his hand on the table and exclaimed "That's what I'm looking for!" It was great at the moment, bu now I have the suspicion that I was after a string of wrong answers, meaning I probably left an impression, which is a great thing to do in an interview.

While were on the topic...

Stencils are cool, like really cool. I remember learning about negative space in art classes since 6th grade and I never knew it could be so much fun and such a challenge to only use not only one color, but in such a way that you can't have an unfilled space surrounded by filled space. In stencil art, you're cutting out of paper, and if you cut an O for example, there isn't any white space in the middle, it's paper and just falls out. So you have to be creative in your methods. Using that idea, you get into things like implied shape. That's where you use the stencil to create what the shadow of the object would be, tricking the human eye to then see the object even though it isn't inherently there. I've been trying to get better at stenciling and after looking at a gallery of banksy, a british street stenciler, I now really want to get better at the art. It's something where my lack of painting and drawing skills are augmented with my use of technology and controlled settings. i can create most of a stencil on the computer then print it out and cut it. If I mess up, I just reprint it, no biggy.
I'm always looking for new things to create a stencil out of, if you've seen the helloblacksmith shirt design or the shirt that was last weeks mARTin update, check them out and send me a request. I figure I can stencil most things and get them on a shirt for you for about $7. That depends on how hard the image is to design. But yeah, let me know.

mArtin make up post

ubuntu stencil:

I've been driving too long

So it's 4:10 on this fantastic wednesday morning and I've gotten back to Morris safely. I am now listening to Yell & Ice by Subtle, which is amazing music. I am waiting for the next w00t. I am reading my friends blogs. I am regretting drinking the tasty mocha double shot star bucks energy drink. But here I am nonetheless. Fall break is over and I am glad to be back in Morris for a few reasons. Wednesday nights are a basically free night to do whatever because I don't have to get up till noonish. Then Thursday is the office and possible swing dancing. Then it's Friday and the weekend. And it's my birthday weekend, so yay. Then it's next week (who knew?) and that means that it is close to next weekend where I will see atmosphere. then the next weekend I am going to drake, then I will probably go see subtle, then I'll probably be in (bore)is. then who knows. but that's like a month in advance. Thanksgiving is somewhere in there.
Okay, cognitive sentences from now on.
So, this weekend was pretty great. It was like a mini reenactment of the summer. I played a HBS show with colin on friday and like 5 people came, it was fun times. Sad thing was we hadn't practiced in about a month, and not just with each other, like total lack of practice. So we weren't as great as last summer, but I still had a blast. Then I played poker two nights in a row sunday and monday, which is always a lot of fun. I got to see Jenny's apartment, which was cool. I now know my way moreso around the U of M campus. I also got to eat Mesa pizza, I had the taco+guacamole pizza and then it was so tasty and because Jenny said "Well, your already here" which is like the most motivational thing to say to me besides, "just cause".
Then colin and I worked on helloblacksmith stuff and got set up with recording using a amazing mixer. Basically, we need 2 or 3 more mics and we can record ourselves decently professionally. It will be done hopefully over winter break, so keep your eyes open for our EP.
Other things to blabble about....hmmm....how about....blogs!
Yeah, blogs.
I like blogs, and I'm glad that more people are starting to have them, it makes me happy to have a somewhat easier way of keeping up to date with the happenings of my friends. And it's not just keeping up to date through wall posts and messages, it's a very self informing way. Like, I say what I want people to hear, and sometimes more or less, but because it's me posting for the general populous, it can have more detail spread to more people with less effort. I have a hard time keeping in touch when I don't see someone very often, and I know that. If people read my blog, then I can post something once and have multiple people read it. Granted, it isn't as personalized as, hey I want you and you to hear this, but it's kinda similar. But the fact that people are getting away from Live journal makes me happy. No offense to those who use it, I just generally see it as a more emotional outlet than not. And as good as emotions are, I feel it created the need to post emotional and personal things in an unproductive way. I dunno what I'm saying really. It just had a bad connotation for how people are. As good it is to have an outlet for that stuff, i think there are better outlets.
Blogs are a different kind of outlet, where you can post about what happened to you that day or week, and it can just be the facts. Or you can post your feelings about something. Or you can post links, art, music, or ideas. Or you can be me and just kind of word vomit onto the internet. But I figure that is my style or whatever. Anyways, I guess I chose a fitting name for my blog. I like it. Wherever I start is very rarely where I end up. But yeah, lets end it at that for tonight. Think of this as a makeup post for the week or two of slow posts.
And sorry.

Life and such

It's been a bit since I posted last, and although I don't feel the need to apologize, sorry. I haven't been up to much at all really, fall break ends today. Last week was a long week in some ways. Stayed up late most everyday, something I should probabably stop doing, cause school should be the most important thing on my plate. I kinda haven't made it as important as I should be, although I don't nessicarily slack off that much, I just could try harder. But hey, isn't that my motto, there's always a way to be better or try harder.
But yeah, music has been good to me lately. Hello blacksmith had a preformance on friday, which was awesome. We weren't as fluid or practiced as last summer, but it was still great. And now I have concerts on the horizon. There's an atmosphere concert Nov 2 that I'm going to. then there's subtle in Madison on Nov 13 that I haven't commited to, but am probably going to. Then there's Bon Iver in December that I'm going to again in madison. And who knows what other shows will pop up in the cities that I'll spend the 30 bucks to drive home to see. Soo many concerts, so much driving, so much money.

Feel the windchill?

So winter is on it's way. And I live in Minnesota, so it is really starting to show. Our fall is like some cities worst winter. But we deal with it, but not as quietly as I would think. Last year, more than any other I saw what could be described as SAD, seasonal affective disorder. Not really like horrible, but just a long spurt of lower than par happiness. It really hit me when summer came, which is by far my favorite season of them all. Apart from everything that happened last spring, I was just so overjoyed that the sun was warm and people were more friendly.
But spring is gone, and fall is here, and I feel the slight lack of joy setting in. Like, maybe it's just the things I've seen and been thinking about in the past week or two, but I think how happy I am is somewhat brought down by winter. It's beautiful and makes Minnesota what it is and Minnesotans who they are. It partially defines us, our character. We take a sometimes unbearable cold for months and stick it out with a smile on our face. The extremes in this state are amazing. And I do love it to death.
I hope I'm wrong and things get better, just overall. I can't predict what will happen, I gave that up a while ago. I do know that this will be a winter unlike others I've been through, here in Morris the wind chill gets to be 20-30 below whatever the temperature already is. It sucks, and I bike to school. My life, and myself, have changed enough to say this will be different and new, but I feel something else coming. I can't figure if it will make it colder or warmer this winter.

Steam powers my addiction

So I really want to play video games. Like, soo badly. In my past video games have been like 4 years of time and energy spent, and I was happy. So I can associate them with being happy and content with them. But apart from that they take my mind off things, which is why last year when I installed Diablo II, it was a interesting two or three weeks where I didn't really talk to people or do anything much. But it distracted me from everything so it was good. This past month I've wanted to play some time wasting mind numbing video game, but I didn't know if I should. I brought up Battlefield 2, cause that was the first multi player game I saw at home. But luckily I didn't bring the manual which has the serial number on it. Dang. But I really want to buy the orange box and play team fortress 2. But I also know that fallout 3, GTA4, and a bunch of other games come out this month, so I dunno if I should save my money. I have a steam account, but don't know the password, so I can't play the games I've bought already, like counter-strike and half-life 2. Or I could find one of the newer games and buy it for the mltiplayer and not pirate it for the singleplayer. But then I get into issues of feeling like my computer can't handle some of the newer games. Sad day. So, like most of my obsessive thoughts, it'll probably blow over in a week or two. But by then new games will be out and I want something. Argh, choices. But yeah.
I've also thought about getting an xbox360 for the reason that it's cheaper than buying a gaming rig and I could play really high quality games with no lag. But that won't happen.

I put on my trenchcoat and detective's hat

So, today I went to the radio station to drop of the mail and hang out for a bit cause I got done with my calc exam early. So I open the mail and get the music and stuffs and I decide to do charting during data structures, so I send myself the play lists of the week. But when i go into the station, I notice that the desktop background is really blurry, like a jpg stretch to fit the screen. Then I see what it is. Tubgirl. Fuck. I quickly change it to the default abstract bg, but goddamn it, tubgirl. (If you don't know what tubgirl is, DON'T look for it, it is one of those shock pictures on the internet.) So I end up back at the station after my classses and I'm labeling CDs and Ben, the Programming Director, comes in. He's the man who runs the discipline so I tell him about it. And then we start thinking who it could be. Cause the door was locked this morning and the last show was at 3 yesterday. We use firefox to determine the pic was set up yesterday, but for some reason firefox wouldn't tell us what time it was used. So, we have a list of suspects, but we are hot on the trail on the perpetrator. The thing is, if anyone else saw it, it is really offensive and fucked up. So I'm glad I got to change it before the day's DJs started. But the person, if we find them, will probably get the boot. Which is a big deal cause that doesn't happen often at all.

Amazing site

So, I guess blogs are one really great way to give shoutouts to other blogs and cool sites, which I haven't done too much, but this site deserves it, because it is amazing and makes me so happy. The site is Tour filter and it is like a craigslist of concerts. It shows most all touring bands (so no local shows, which is kinda lame) that come to the twin cities. So I know that TV on the radio tickets are up to 66$ each, gwar tix are 59, as are atmosphere tix, Hold steady tickets are in the hundreds. But it also shows me that tom morello is coming to the fine line and kings of leon are playing on a weekend Im home. Like, this is so amazingly easy to use and understand. I don't know if anyone else will be as excited as I am, but whatever. And they have RSS feeds and customized lists of artist that you can set up.

I think I'm back to being an indie kid

Cause the music of choice has been: Spoon, Bon Iver, Okkervil River, Built to spill, and the shins. All great, but all soo so indie. I'm not saying I wasn't indie before, I feel I am indie in the way I like bands that are a part of a small community and are actually independent. But yeah, I've made a somewhat smooth transition from just hip hop to a blend of Aesop Rock and college rock. It's nice. I do think I am behind in the listening timespan, I mean I'm listening to year old CDs for the first time. But whatever. I have a fairly large headache from the weekend, so I'll leave it at that.

mARTin: week duece

So I started to call this mARTin, or at least that's what I'm tagging it under. I wanted something clever, and that's what happened. Anyways, I did two stencils. Pretty basic and non-final stuff, just wanted to spend some time stenciling. I realize now, though, my room is not ready for me to do stenciling. It is a complete mess and I have no workspace. But I did it anyways. The iron I got from my grandma leaks for some reason. Like it just starts spewing water like a newborn child, complete lack of bladder control. Anyways, so the doomtree one (thats the top one) is somewhat dry, but the flobots one (the bottom one) isn't really.
Heres a pic:



Also, here's a poster that I found in the morgue, the CSci kitchen, next to the dungeon. The two CDs are Knoppix live CDs. I thought it was cool/funny.



EDIT:
Any ideas for band logos, let me know. If you want one on a shirt or just cool stuff, gimme gimme gimme ideas.

TWIMMWAKUMM 2

This week has been an interesting week for me and music. As always, I have to choose between listening to new music and music that I know I will like. This causes some infrequency to my listening habits, but generally comes out balanced. This weekend, Colin came up from the cities and so I didn't get a whole lot of new music listened to. It's hard when theres bands like P.O.S., Subtle, TPC, and even playing guitar. But there were some good adds that I got in the mail, I just don't have a comprehensive review of them yet. So I think I will delay my actual post until I have more to say. So I'll eventually update this post with the new info.

I think I said firday updates...

Here's my idea for a shirt/poster/stencil/something. It's a dropped bomb with a plant growing out of it. I tried thinking of a slogan or words to go with it, but couldn't think of anything. So my ideas were Drop Life, the H-Bomb (the h stands for healing), and something like We don't have to use technology to take life.

anyways here it is.

Yes, this class is that boring

So here I am, sitting in data structures and i've given up on paying attention. So now I'm typing this and smiling at KK's story. But yeah, I think I'm going to try and build one of my unassembled guitar pedals today, cause why not? My espionage class was canceled so I'm done at one today. I got most all the motivation that I need to start and hopefully enough to finish.

What I needed

So after the chipper post previous to this.post, I had an overall good night. I set off my room's smoke detector with incense, genius move on my part. But that got me upset enough to know to gtfo my room. So I went over to Meghan, Mary, and Nicole's place and watched brick, shot the shat, ate grilled cheese, and watched some flight of the conchords. It was very good. Sometimes I wonder if I should remove posts after I "get out of the mood" that I posted them in. But since I didn't go off to bad on anyone specific, I'll leave it be. But it's nice to know I still am human and can get unreasonably upset. Ah, I'll just blame it on hormones.

Facts

Fact: Mocking the way I do my job in front of me pisses me off. Sorry Matt and Adam, but if you think you can do my job better than I can, which you couldn't when I asked you if you had any better ideas, then go ahead. But until then, keep it to yourself. Everyone likes to bitch, but watch who you do it to.

Fact: Tonight isn't starting off great. I had sorta gotten over the above fact, but now it's back. There is no office tonight, which I was looking forward to. No swing. I'm pretty sure I have homework to do. I thought Colin was coming up tomorrow, but that's on Saturday. I was up too late last night dealing with an overly drunken large man terrorizing my house. And because of the said terrorizing, I now have an upset house mate who I will probably be avoiding.

Fact: Large men exposing themselves in my kitchen is a little too far. Once, and maybe it's funny to the drunks, not to the sober people. But the fourth time? Really?

Fact: It is thursday, my supposedly easy day. I spent from 12:45 to 7:00 in the radio station. I did have an hour break, which I spent arguing with CSci majors about open source crap.
SubFact: This thursday was not an easy day.

Fact: I think this post is getting me more upset than I need to be, so sorry bout all that, but I'm going to go try and find something relaxing.

3 things I did that made me happy

I made a salad for dinner. It was great, I got an cantaloupe in the cities and cut it up and added a sliced apple and lettuce. Pour on some ranch dressing and bam! A tasty dinner that is good for me.

When I was cutting said cantaloupe, Bob asked if he could eat the extra on the rinds that I didn't get. I let him and it was a great feeling. In a house that doesn't share, the times I so something nice it makes me feel even greater.

I played guitar for about 45 minutes. At least 15 were doing scales and 15 were at least spent learning some songs. I practiced handlebars, wrong way, dust in the wind, and music for shoplifting. All great songs that Colin and I are planning on playing acoustically over the summer.

TWIMMWAKUMM

Previously on This Week In Martin's Music Week At KUMM:
Nothing, because this is the first post.

This week I got some sweet CDs. First would be Tom Morello's alter ego The Nightwatchman and his new CD The Fabled City. It's quite like his last CD so if you were a fan then, you'll like this one, although I don't know if there are as many acoustic guitar amazingities as the last one, although it's been awhile.
Next is Terry Lynn's album Kingstonlogic 2.0. This isn't going to be a fovorite for everyone because of the music style, but I dug it enough to listen and then the lyrics got me. She is a girl from jamacia (if I remember right) and she is rapping about the messed up shit that is going on there. She starts it off with a very daft punk-esque song that is the title track. It's sometimes hard to hear what she is saying but that's where the lyricc sheet comes in hand. Her singing reminds me of te rapping style of what I think sean paul sounded like. The jamacian pronounciation of words. All in all, it's an interesting listen.

Deerhoof's new album offend maggie was also an interesting experience. I have a few friends that love deerhoof and so I always though of them as some generic indie band. But then I heard this album and wow, they are bizarre. The singer/bassist is japanese so she has an almost annoying high voice and will often sing japanese. This confused me as I followed the lyrics and got lost almost instantly. The band work is great and always keeps me listening, when I get weirded out by the singing.

NCM is a band I had never heard of before, but the cover of Escape From Myopia caught my eye and went into my metal pile of CDs for my housemate to listen to. Then he gave it back saying it was more rock than metal. So I gave it a listen to. It covered a few band classifications that I couldn't choose one specific one to refer to, so the RIYLs (recommended if you like) are Dead kennedys, Fugazi and the Pixies. I took pixies off because it was more a stretch than the others. But they do almost excatly what fugazi does in some songs. The slow barre slide down the neck, the repeated vocals. i dunno, everytime I go into it thinking of fugazi, they do something different, but it's still there.

The new TV on the Radio album, Dear Science, is a keeper. It is slightly different from the otehr CD I have, Return to Cookie Mountain. I'd say its vocals are less all over the place and more focused. I guess their sound is overall more defined and cleaner. But that doesn't detract form their style, which is good. They still have great vocal melodies that I wish I could sing/keep up with.

We finally got the new Doomtree album in from the gang. It's great cause it's a clean version, which makes my job so much easier. Anyways, the CD is great. It's definatley a collaboration album, with each song using a different style beat and different vocals. It's great at points when you get POS and mictlan together and then sims and dessa. There are some songs that I skip, but their just not my taste in Doomtree hip hop. All in all, it is a great album and well worth the time they put into it.

Well, I guess that's it this week. I'm going to go back a week or two and tell you about some of my past favorites.

Noah and the Whale - Peaceful, the world lays me down. I was so happy when i heard the intro to the first song, it hooked me instantly. The vocals are great and the choruses are catchy, but not too poppy. The singer doesn't have the cleanest voice, but the beautiful guitar work makes up for it. It reminds me of neutral milk hotel with the way they use some horns and otehr instruments. It's great, upbeat and is a catch.

Blitzen Trapper - Furr. The band has a great overall sound and I was a big fan. I don't remember too many specifics, but that it was a good album.

Jeremy Messersmith - The Silver City. The latest CD from the local singer songwriter didn't disappoint me after hearing his debut album over the summer. It is a concept album about the twin cities. It is very much Messersmith's style of writing. He is never too upbeat or happy, but his voice is. So even when he is singing about not following something he wants, you don't get too depresed. The guitar and vocals are great.


I guess that's it. Wow, that was fun, let's do it again sometime. How's next week for you? Sounds good, see ya there.

Been a bit

I don't really feel like updating what I've been doing. I dunno, just don't want to. So here something completely different:

Inspired by this guy I have decided to start two weekly postings.
The first is an art update. I've started working with illustrator and did some decent work and would like to keep that going. I also have been sketching and drawing more. I got graphite and charcoal pencils that I'm going to start using in a sketch book. So I'll try and find a scanner or just use my phone to take pics of sketches.

The second is a "This week in music". I will let you all know if there are any must have CDs released and what ever else I learn or hear because of my job and my constant search for new music.

I was thinking of doing the art one on thursdays or fridays because that is after the school week where I do most of my sketches and I'm guessing I'll be using my computer more consistently. And probably monday or tuesday for the music update because monday is the day i get 10-15 CDs and tuesday is the day I update CMJ with the past weeks top played music.

So, let me know of any comments, compliments, complaints, or communist communications with commercial commons that convey constraining conditions....ok I'm done.

I'm a spaz

So I've been really busy today, it sucks. Woke up to a txt at 8, which is early when you goto bed at 2. So I'm awake and moping around, do my english homework and kinda relax. Goto classes until 2 and then the real fun starts. KUMM is great, there is nothing I would rather be more involved in on campus, but it gets hard on wednesdays. Wednesdays are the days when I'm gaurenteed to be in the station for four hours. Starting at 2:30 are my office hours, but I'm usually in there earlier if I can. I do what I gotta do. Today I reviewed Cd's. Which sounds fun and easy, but this is the hard part of reviewing. Listening to each song at least for a minute trying to find ones that are good and that represent the band's album as a whole. This can be fun, like with deerhoof or TV on the Radio, where I enjoy the music. But I also review music that might not be my favorite. So, I listen to each song, and if I'm lucky, the band tells me what songs have swear words in them. If I'm unlucky, they don't say, but have a lyrics sheet. If I'm really unlucky, they have nothing and I have to listen to each song straight through and listen for bad words. That is painful because I can't really enjoy the music if I'm focusing on it too much. But then I get past those two tasks and I have to write what bands they sound like, or Recommened If You Like's. This can be easy, like for somebands that fit a generic sound. But that is at most half the bands. I get really long stretches where I go, well, this one song kinda sounds like bob dylan, but the others don't really. It's even harder when you get music from other countries or really unique bands. I love unique bands, it's just they make life hard for me.
It is a great job, I know, but I was up till two listening to music and focusing on it at a level that takes alot of the fun and enjoyment out of it. I do have rewards, like when I find good bands out of a pile of crap. And when I get tickets to shows. And when I hear new music on the radio and recognize it and can tell you who it is. That is strangely rewarding. And I get paid, which is cool.

Oh, back to my day.

So I review music until 4, which is my radio show, "The Local Brew". It's a local music only show, Today was cool because Ben and KT sat in the station and we chatted about local music and KUM stuff. It was nice.
So after my show I kinda ran away from the station. I biked home and determined that it was too hot in my house/room. So I went to the common cup to relax and ask if I could put a poster for homeKUMMing up. This is actually where the post title comes from. I walk in and two girls get up and walk behind the counter to ask me what I want. I turn into a blundering idiot who has no idea what he wants. So I get the poster up and then I have to decide what I want to drink. I ask what she recommends for a cold drink, and she says something like almond mocha or latte. So I go "Almond?" and she goes "No, ." Since I don't know what she said I don't want to try and repeat it and make a fool out of myself. So I order the almond mocha thing with out saying the name of the drink, smooth right? Not at all, all I get is a blank stare. Then she gets it and I get a cookie to make it over $5 so I can use my card. Then I get the cookie from the one who took my order (the nice one) and the coffee from the other one (the one who I think thinks Im an idiot and a spaz) and guess what? The coffee is hot. So I can't go and complain because I guess I wasn't truely specific, but I think she just hates me. Also, probably because I didn't use the credit card tip bs, I'm going to tip in change, but they don't know it yet. So I want to tip the nice one like 75c, and the other one like a nickel. But I can't so, I'll just awkwardly walk past them and drop in 80c. I think it's sad that this is what I can blab on about easier than other things. I think I am a spaz, or maybe girls just act too cool and I make an idiot about myself. When I was a barista, I was cool and nice, and didn't make people feel awkward. At least I'm a spaz with a cool music collection.

Mix Cds

Listening to new music makes me happy. And one goal I try to follow in life is to spread happiness. I try to do this with the music I get, giving Cds to friends who I think would like the band or sitting with someone while I review. This is always fun and makes my job easier by giving me another perspective on music. So, instead of having my (drunken) roommate and his girlfriend reviewing metal Cd's and then putting them in the station, I want to spread the music on those Cd's to people not in a close proximity to me. Example: I got the new deerhoof album, which isn't released until October something. So I could share it with my friends that love deerhoof (Jacob). but that's a large task to rip/burn/mail any Cd that I think someone will want. So I came up with the idea of a sort of new music mix Cd that could take the best or most defining song from a new Cd and let people have a sample of it. This could be accomplished if everyone listened to their local modern radio station (the current, KUMM) because there are rules in place to make sure new music gets played. But that isn't always reliable and the new music can be spread out and maybe isn't the best example of an album.
The more I think about this, the more I think this will be illegal.
But anyways, the next limitation is sending my friends Cd's isn't cheap. So I was thinking about some sort of digital distribution, like make a playlist that links to last.fm or myspace pages. I dunno, we'll see.

Friday night, part duex....yay!

So I wrote that horribly depressing blog post and then went bike riding. It's always a weird thing biking on the weekends during the night here in Morris. There are a lot more people and bikers on every street. Anyways, I biked for 45 minutes all around town and campus. I got back and watched brotherhood of the wolf, or as bob later called it, sisterhood of the traveling wolf. After I watched the movie, bob and ryan showed up and were dicking around so I joined them in that. Had some late night food and chatted. Then I played guitar until Elise finally called me at 1:40. So I went there and hung out for about a half hour or so. Ina made meatloaf and it was delicious. There was also this beer their roommate bought that was Budweiser, and the flavor was clamato. In English this means really nothing, in Spanish it apparently means clams and tomato flavored. It was the single most disgusting beer I've ever tasted. Then there were some troubles and I left and got home.

Oh and in biking around, I took a massive fall and broke my bikes gear shifter. So now I have a one gear bike. Guess what gear? The highest possible gear ever. It sucks. So I have to use it till I can take it to the cities one week end. But damn it was so unfortunate. But now my legs will grow like 3 times as big for going around as much as I do. Maybe I'll see if Ryan has an extra bike. Eh. Anyways, just thought I'd let whoever reads this know that I don't lead the saddest life ever.

Friday night....yay!

To think, this time last week I was driving to the cities for the night. And next week I'll be there again for a Building Better Bombs show. I guess last week doesn't count as I drove and came right back after hanging out for an hour or two. But here I am, Morris MN. Listening to KUMM, which I do a lot more than I used to. Infact, I think I made a post about how I don't listen to the radio. But now I do. I got a small 2gb mp3 player and it has a radio in it. It's a small feature, but something apple never added for some reason. I really don't get that. Zune has it, wouldn't they want to add it for the lineup? That bothers me somewhat.
Anyways, I listen to the radio a huge ammount now, like, from 2-now I've been listening to KUMM. It's pretty good radio too. Like, I did listen to 2 hours of house and trance music by my friend will, but that was even good. I feel so much more attached to the station than last year. It's awesome.
But it isn't what I thought I'd be doing tonight. I was supposed to be at some friends house, but I guess that fell through. Hmph. But here I am anyways. I've already watched the magnificent seven, a great western. I also have the brotherhood of the wolf rented from the library, a great french film. I watched it with my brother a long time ago and wanted to enjoy it again. Man, I'm depressing myself just writing all this. I'm off to go bike and find something to do.
Blarg.