What is in this drink?

I typed out a long diatribe about psychology and sociology and how people think but I got really annoyed with it so I decided to make a simple hey whats up post.

What's up?

I've been up to not much lately, school I guess you could say. I don't even know what to say. I've been searching a lot. Searching has interesting meanings for me. Mainly it means I'm comfortable and ready to change things and add an uncontrolled element. Usually this ends up being an obsession with something that I end up never buying. Other times it's worse.

But that's back to talking about my mind, and as much as that has a place. It's not here.

Yesterday I had my first radioshow. It was the worst radio show I've ever had. Earlier in the day Tessa said that I would have two apprentices. What a fucking lie. I had five people show up at my radio show to get training. All in separate waves making it almost impossible to talk about anything. They also had a godforsaken taste of music and no sense of flow. One of the kids chose a seven minute chicago song and then later a fourteen minute version of freebird. Another only chose songs that he knew from rock band. It was painful. But next week I'll be by myself and so it will be better. I've gotten a few new songs that I want to share and so you all should listen. As always, it's kumm.org if your not from round these parts and 89.7 if you are.

This weekend I hope will be fun. Tomorrow I am (tentatively) going to bad movie night with my friend david. The rest of the night and saturday who knows. Probably seeing Jake and his crazy house. I've been wanting to see more people during the off peak times of the weekend. That hasn't really started though. That goes back to me wanting more than I have, so let's ignore it.

I am going to buy a banjo.

It's really hot here in morris. I wish it wasn't. There was one night when it was cold and I walked to campus to find meghan's stolen bike and I wore the winter hat tasha knit me and it was the perfect temperature. Until I rode home and was sweaty. But I've also realized that any colder and I'd be out of luck because I only have hoodies. But I'm going through the cities next weekend and I'll grab some stuff. The twelve hour drive back from music might kill me though so who knows.

I have to admit. I don't even know what a diatribe is. It just sounded nice.

I bought a server but haven't gotten it setup to something that I like yet. So thats why I haven't posted here, in hopes that it would motivate me to get my site working. But I will try and get some sort of blog going, I can't promise it will be pretty though. Then I'll post a link.

I'm going to go make more strawberry milk.

Quick test, good song

Testing the Yahoo media player, what MFR uses and it's really great for music blogs. Here's a song to test it out on here.

Dirty Projectors - Useful Chamber

The break of yawn

I got up today at 8. That usually means I woke up at 8, went back to bed, and got out of bed at 9. not today. I woke up and was super energized, which was weird but welcome. I decided to go into work early instead of taking my usual half an hour to get ready. So I drive to work and eat a sandwich on the way there singing along to the music. most everyday I go to work before 9 I get a good parking spot. That's because most people get to work around 8:45 to 9:30. So I figured, because it was 8:20, I'd be super close to the building. Boy was I wrong.
I had to park in the back of the good lot, which is in someplace further than the next lot. It made no sense to me at all. Why would people get up early on a hump day and go to work. Well, the answer, I believe, is a mysterious force that connects everyone.

There are a lot of books and movies that attempt to describe the concept and some get closer to others, but it is a very vague idea. I think the best way to know it is to experience it and notice it when you think it happens. In the movie waking life, there is a discussion of the rough idea, here is the transcript:

I like that. It's like there's this whole telepathic thing going on that we're all a part of, whether we're conscious of it or not. That would explain why there are all these seemingly spontaneous worldwide innovative leaps in science and the arts, you know, like the same results popping up everywhere independent of each other. Some guy on a computer figures something out, and then almost simultaneously a bunch of other people all over the world figure out the same thing. They did this study where they isolated a group of people over time, you know, and monitored their abilities at crossword puzzles in relation to the general population, and they secretly gave them a day-old crossword, one that had already been answered by thousands of other people, and their scores went up dramatically. Like 20%. So it's like once the answers are out there, people can pick up on them. Like we're all telepathically sharing our experiences.

Their conversation deals more with knowledge in the collective memory that people subconsciously tap into. While extraordinary, this is very subtle and you could do it everyday without knowing it. What I'm trying to get at is the real time version of this phenomenon. Today, hundreds of people went to work at Thomson earlier than usual. I have no idea if there are any statistics on what days people come in the earliest and it might be a coincidence. But I don't think so, mostly based on the fact that I never get to work that early. There was some pull that got me out of bed and in a rush to work. And I think it pulled a lot of other people here too.

Think about this: have you ever been doing something or feeling a certain way and talk to someone who is doing or feeling exactly what you are? It's kind of creepy. But it happens, a lot. Its a common group mentality that any given group will all have roughly the same emotion. There is rarely a split where a group of people are very happy or very sad. Last week I went to a bonfire with my friends and we were all surprisingly happy. It was surprising because we all had been not been doing anything exciting for the past two weeks and so for us to suddenly be okay was out of place. In the moment it was perfect though. Because when you have a unexciting week, you just want to be happy and so by our joined will, we were.
This also happens in very strong relationships. Not just romantic relationships either. I guess connection would be a better word to avoid the confusion, but I think that two people's connection is a part of their relationship. Best friends rely on each other to be there and the reason that that best friend is the best is because your relationship/connection is strong. I've had a lot of recent experiences where I'm doing or thinking something and I will tell a friend and they say that they were thinking or doing the exact same thing. It seems strange, but it also seems very fitting that they are my friend. It's like, oh yeah, that's why were close. Because we not only think alike, but we feel alike across unsaid distances.

If you have felt this way, then be proud of it because a lot of people don't understand just how strong our connections with others are and seeing that important.

Fish Fry

I have had a gross oily feeling for most of summer. I would eat greasy
fried foods and feel gross. I would then banish grease from my diet
and then not think of anything to eat. It really isn't easy to get
fast meals if you dont have the right ingredients ready and I usually
don't have them ready. At work, my first search was for the best and
cheapest food they served. I usually got cheeseburgers because they were a constant price and a good amount of food for $2.50. Then one day the grill was closed because it was after lunch hours and so I had to look around. I found the soup and chili. Now, I love chili. I really do.
And so when I saw that chili comes in cup servings for about two dollars I figured it was a good deal. But what I didn't do was keep getting chili. But today I wanted something hearty as my breakfast was smallish (usually I don't eat breakfast at all). So I got chili and an empty 32 oz cup (for 10 cents) and am having a healthy yet substantial meal.
And so when I go back to Morris, I will be sure to be making lots of chili and hearty meals. They really aren't difficult and usually aren't expensive and taste amazing.

trilogy = new movie[1][3]

I like the matrix movies. I like them all.
That may get such reactions as "what an idiot," "how is that possible," or "yes, and?" but I just realized why I like them all. It's like this:

Most people like/love the first movie, "the matrix" as a stand alone film. I can see how that works, because it's good without all the complication that comes from the later films. I can't, however, see how it is a good movie by itself when you have knowledge of the other movies. The first movie does not end well. It is a huge cliff hanger and opens a crap load of doors that wouldn't stand if they weren't concluded. My main pet peeve is "Why does he fly like a stiff?" The end of the movie has neo say he's the one and then he just flies away. No explanation of how he flies or why we should accept that. Yeah, he's the one, but he also flies away looking stupid. I can't decide if the flying motion was bad editing choice or just limitations of the time. Because he is just standing, then he is moving vertically. Superman had the one arm forward pose and it was clear that he was in fly mode. The lack of change in stance between standing and upward momentum really upsets me. Even in the later movies he has more of a "yeah, I'm flying" look with his arms pretending to be small rudders.

Knowing that he can fly opens so many doors that there has to be more to tackle it, which brings us to the second movie: reloaded. This movie is all about excess action and entertainment. That is why it is a good movie. They built a section of a freeway in the middle of nowhere just so they could crash things and blow shit up on it. We also get more plot, which could have been simply left out except that the action demanded something to make it plausible. The plot was interesting enough that I will forgive the very rough dialogue. The problem with the plot was that they made it too big. Could they have made it shorter? maybe. But it would not be as epic a story and so they did the right thing and make another movie: revolution.

This movie is hard to talk about because I only saw it once, but it was good for what it did: conclude the plot. Every time I watch reloaded, I want to just go through the plot of this movie so I remember wtf happens and that it all makes sense somehow. The fact that his powers work in the real world? Kinda iffy, but I'll buy it. The thing that redeems this movie the most has to be the special effects. The tech had advanced so much by this time that they could do justice to Zion and the larger machine city. The fight between Neo and smith at the end is so epic a battle that it couldn't have not caused a lightning storm. Another fav subtly of this movie and also the second is the color scheme. They did what I love when movies do, they make the world colorful in a way only movies can be. They took the green neon glow of the terminal screen they read the matrix on and applied it to most every surface in the matrix world. This use of color makes me extremely happy.

I also want to briefly talk about another part of the matrix world: the animatrix. Where and when else do I get to talk about this stuff? Nowhere, never.

The animatrix was pure fanboy eye candy. There is some plot in there, but I'll focus on how they added to the world without crippling any of it. By adding smaller stories and plots to the trilogy they show how sweet the matrix can be. Think of who likes the movies: nerds and geeks. What do nerds and geeks like? Anime. And so why not combine the two into awesome? There is no reason, and so they did.

That is why I like all the matrix films and not just the first one. They all basically kicked ass.

I tend to cross my arms alo...damn it, don't judge me.

So I've been getting up late recently for work. It's probably because I also have been staying up later, but that's not the point. the point is that I figured a couple nights ago that setting one alarm wasn't enough. So I used my phone to set two more alarms. This worked yesterday morning because I snoozed my first alarm and so when my phone started playing music I woke up, but because it was good music it wasn't painful. This morning I did the same thing, but I got up over an hour after my alarms went off. How did that happen? I have no idea, but it's sad that three worked worse than one.

I had a grilled cheese sandwich and tomato soup for lunch, and I liked it.

I crack my knuckles. That shouldn't be a surprise for anyone, but I noticed today that I'm cracking my knuckles a lot this week. Like loud and obnoxious cracking that I think makes anyone without headphones around me annoyed. Tough luck for them. I've heard that cracking your knuckles is a sign of aggression, in body language speak. I don't really think it means that when I do it though. Because I do it because if I don't my joints become stiff and hurt. I have been trying to cross my arms less though, which I know is body language for not being approachable. I do it because I don't know where to put my arms sometimes when I'm standing. It's annoying, but I can see the idea.
Julie once recommended a body language book to me, but I forgot the title of it. Julie, if you read this, comment the name.

Cause I miss you all(ready)

I was pondering about how the next few weeks will go and I am somewhat distinctly positive that they will be nice. I would normally say that they will be the best things in the world and I will do sooo many things, but in this post I will be realistic. I don't plan on really getting too much done in the way of goals. That is a sadder thought than I'd like, but for the rest of summer, I think it will be okay. I've wished for wonderful and had wonderful and it is wonderful. But maintaining that level of perfection in life is quite difficult and of course it all came crashing down into a heap of unfulfilled expectations.

I like nice, also. I see nothing wrong with being comfortable and having pleasant days. So, instead of expecting the most out of summer, from now on I will be content with seeing people on a usual basis and doing things in time and loving every moment of it. So expect that when I get back on Sunday.

But in an hour I'll be in Wisconsin, so see ya later, Minnesota.

Let's talk around.

Today I was thinking, as I do most days these days. (What I've found is that I don't write blogs as much when I hang out with and talk to people. It gets my thoughts out of my head and then I don't write them on here. It makes it difficult to record an account of happenings, but if it means I'm talking to people, then that's a good thing). I was driving to work this morning and I was playing morning music as I do most mornings. (Morning music really could mean any type of music, it depends on the morning. This morning was Animal Collective's feels album. I just realized how spectacular banshee beat is and so I've been engrossed in it recently.) And so after getting onto 5 and then 55 with near crashes. (When I goto work I have to merge onto two different highways in quick succession and they are difficult merges because people like to drive too fast or too slow. I'm glad my commute is short, but it isn't straight at all, there's only about 5 minutes of driving with no turns. And the 5 minutes usually has a red light in it.) So I got into the thomson parking lot and it was already pretty full, but not as full as it was last week. (Last week they redid the asphalt on the main lot and so my usual lot became overflow parking and I had to park another 3 minutes away. Very annoying, but it's done now.) And I was walking to the building and there weren't many others walking because it was already 9:28. (I was late because 1. I woke up/fell back to sleep 2. I had to pack my car with camping supplies 3. I went to pick some of meghan's things from her mom's house.)
And so I was thinking, how can I possibly get back into writing blogs when I haven't written one in a while. I think this was a decent way to do it.

Only a month

In a month I will be in Morris. I am really excited for that. In 5 days I will be in chicago, I am very excited about that. If this were "find the pattern", I'd assume it is obvious that I am exited to be in other places. Gold star. The cities have not been fulfilling the standards I gave them at the end of the semester. It's in part my own choices of not doing many city life social things, but in general, it just hasn't been the best in the world. And that isn't a sarcastic best in the world, I really mean the best. That is probably a really high standard to have. But that's what I gave this summer.

My standard goal making has left me with a lot to do. I know that I could do all the things that I want to, but they mostly all require other people and it seems that most people this summer have been up for doing stuff, but not actually ever doing stuff. It's easier said than done I guess. We did a good job at the beginning of summer.

Minnesota Shoes

I've decided why my shoes do not last very long. I wear them during the winter. I don't wear boots, just shoes. And I walk through puddles of melted sludge. This gets into/onto my shoes and makes them lose their flash. So, this winter, I will wear boots.

Just to let you know.

How do i say what I don't want to say?

I am having some trouble. I don't think I actually want to say what my trouble is though, that is actually part of my trouble. Life has been dramatimes. And as much fun as it is to sit on the sidelines and watch sometimes, it's sadly gotten old.
It's really great when you can say you trust that people like you for who you are. But what if you goto school for a year or two and come back different? Then things change. As have I. And I have an irking suspicion that people haven't adjusted to the change. It's easy to say it's a bad change, when you're on the outside. It's easy to say, but is it true? Can personality changes be good or bad? I think that they are only so good or bad as people see it and accept the change. No matter how tall you've grown, you can still be short in someone's memory and that's what they focus on. Change is not arbitrary, perception is. I know it's easy to keep an image of someone in a freeze frame, and not let that change as the person changes over time. It gets people into trouble with each other, it makes relationships last longer than they should, and it is hard to avoid.

I know I have changed in some ways and not in others over the past four years. The biggest changes have happened probably over the last year. This means that I am not the same person I was last summer. These changes go by me very quickly and suddenly and I don't really even notice. A lot of times I've had talks with someone where I realize a part of me or a way I act has changed. It's a strange thing to discover something about yourself, but I know it is all true and am okay with change. While I do not notice the changes right away, others do. This makes it interesting because I feel like I'm supposed to notice when I change and say "Hey! Look at the new me!" Which I guess is what this is. I've changed, and I'm not going back because I am happier with myself than I can remember being. I probably have flaws and stuff people don't like about me, but who doesn't? Everyone has changed, we all are at the prime of our changing selves, and it makes us all (in my opinion) more interesting.

What is hard to take into account is what the person who has changed is thinking and feeling. We all analyze things in our own way and come to conclusions about things. It is hard to avoid this, but what is important is to not take things as permanent. Thoughts of people should allow for the changes we all go though. A concrete mindset will lead to trouble when people do not fit the mold you cast any longer. When we think of how people act, we recognize traits and they stick, they become that person. It is the reason we can say "Oh he's just being himself" and have it be understandable. When the person acts outside of the idea people have set for them, they are strictly not being themselves. Why is that? I believe that what people do defines them more than anything else. I've seen people change and it might be because I have such a hard time of remembering things from the past that the image of them I have is very recent and it changes as they change. I also don't see it as changes, there isn't a version 1 Martin that changes into version 2 Martin in a day. On that wonderful computer analogy, people's personalities are not always very backwards compatible. It's true that some traits do stick with people over time, but not every part of a person does and it is important to understand that. A current person doesn't think about what they do as to fit a previous state of themselves. That takes a lot of energy and a lot of "faking it." It ends horribly.

This may be out of the blue, but I feel it is important to say at this time. If you want to talk about anything I've said, then talk to me.

I love clouds

I really do.

-martin

Where ever I will be next summer, I will be ready.

I am slowly amassing a supply of musical items. I like that. I just bought two AT2020 microphones, of which I'll spare you the details. They are basically really nice. I keep trolling craigslist more and more waiting for things to pop up and I will buy them. I know it's kinda a wrong way to view it, but I figure if I have all the utensils, making something will be easier. And as backwards as that is, it is working. I have occasionally been able to sit down and make some music, but I don't have enough time to put a lot of work into anything, which is a repercussion of hanging out with people in all my free time.

Make me smile

I dunno if I have anything to say. I'm waiting for colin to call me back so we can have band practice. Probably won't happen at this point, but I'm already at dunns so meh. I think the young people goto dunns while the older folk come later after work. Then the old people scare the youngones away. That's just my theory. I miss working at a cafe, but I wish I had worked at a busier one, mine wasn't as exciting as this one. That's probably why it shut down, it was just too boring. That or the economy. Its a toss up. i
I'm really quite upset with my house's internet. We have no wired internet in my basement and so my desktop has zero internet. Its painful when I need a file. I've tried setting up this wireless expander thing, doesn't work. So now I'm thinking about trying out tethering. (I was going to explain that, but I figure anyone who doesn't know what that is already stopped reading) today I read a story about this guy who was hanging with a friend and his friend needed the internet but his iphone had no service. So the guy used a tethering app on his pre and created a wifi connection through his cell connection. It was a proud pre moment and it got me on the tethering mindset.
Anyways, its 6 so I'm going home and fixing my computer.

-martin

The space in my head

The space in my head is filled to the brim, in a race to see what bursts first.
My brains are expanded into my skull, they push and push and push.
I feel them turning into sludge while I watch, only relieved of pressure when I act.
So I wish it were easier and I didn't have to know, trying to fish on a lake covered in snow.

The space between my nose and my chin, I wish that it felt like a part of my face.
Right now it's only a means to screw the whole world, I just keep dunking my head under the surface.
I wish you could, not only that but would, understand things the way I do.
Like a rhyming couplet or a B sharp fork, I just feel like I'm in tune.

So now I guess I'm sitting here, wishing, on the second floor, running my time away.
It's so hard to watch the hours fall into the sand where they blur to one.
So now I see I'm dancing here, silly, looking at the door, trying to get away.
It's just so damn easy, I guess I'll have to stay.

When I'm hanging around all my friends, I don't notice the faces we make.
I just don't think and I guess that's too much, guilty by the commonwealth.
I am what I am and if that's what you need, then I'll be there when I can.
But I will end up leaving rather sooner than later, I'm sorry but that's who I am.

So now I guess I'm sitting here, wishing, on the second floor, running my time away.
It's so hard to watch the hours fall into the sand where they blur to one.
So now I see I'm dancing here, silly, looking at the door, trying to get away.
It's just so damn easy, I guess I'll have to stay.



---------------------------------------------------
Or something like that.

Gross mood, don't know why, meh.

So I'm in a kinda weird funk. It's most likely that I slept ~4 hours, have eaten very little today, and am slightly bored by work today. Yeah, thinking about it more, that's probably it. Well, okay then, I am in a sleep deprived, hungry, and bored mood.

Now that that's settled there isn't really much point left in this post.

In the way, this is my life

Polar
It can be easy to feel dictated by the pull of the poles.
Standing where I am, it's even on both sides.
From where you are, you're being torn up.
Why is it always the north versus the south,
In this struggle for freedom and control?

Slow dance
You get what I mean when I say the pull of the earth.
I love that. No time to show you which was first.
Just barely enough to show you that I care.
Do you ever wonder why the difference is never fair?
If change is mediocre at best why do I never feel it go by,
Slippery as it is swimming inside my fingers past my eye.
We slow dance through all our troubles as if it were the last dance of the night.

I really think my poems do stink
Maybe you will think differently
When I read them my heart does sink
Someday they will be better, you'll see.

This is what happens when I listen to really slow music, I start to think in metaphors and I guess this time I just wrote some down.

Guilty by disassociation

So I have a catch-22 of sorts, I like to tweet and write blogs. But certain people read my tweets and my blogs. This poses the trouble of wanting to create new and secret twitter and blog accounts, but that is a lot of work and I like some people to hear what I say. But I can't be selective, that's not how this game works. I have the ability to block certain people on twitter, usually reserved for spammers and the such. But if I block someone that knows me, I am instantly guilty of hiding something from them, even though there might not be something hidden. Trouble caused by assumption and inaction.

Today I removed over 50 people, more like 80 i think, from my facebook friends. Why? because my new phone can sync with facebook and it takes <b>all</b> their info and puts it into my phone, all or nothing. So I am going to sync the two and I don't need people that I don't know. Simple enough right?

Blogging isn't too much of trouble, but it is annoying. Twitter is much more an issue. shish. Do you ever try and decide things while writing about them? I do. I am right now. I also decide things in my head while talking and if I come to a conclusion, I usually say that it has been how I felt for a while, which is a lie. I just thought of it. But that's besides the point. Do I go private for twitter or not? Or do I stop caring? GARGH! this is difficult.

So yesterday i hung out with meghan and we started talking about concerts and animal collective and how we miss good music and concerts. so I started freaking the shiz out because lolapalooza. but in the aftermath, today, i will be going to some hamazing concerts this year. animal collective at lollapaloza. iron and wine and the books at pygmalion. this guy named josh ritter, who sounds fammilirar, but who knoes. jeremy messersmith, caroline smith and the goodnight sleeps, gospel gossip, and first communion afterparty at this series of shows at this mill place. sorry bout the typos. i just wanna get outta work and am getting impatient. i went to bed reallllly late and got up reallllly early. so i'm tired. very sleep deprived. running on coffee. garg.

whatevs i'm outtie two thousand.

but first: new dirty projectors album, get it.
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=SDNM29KG

Baby pix

I'm posting this through mail and from my pre, so I don't know if the pics will show up or not, but here it goes.

-martin

Buh Buh Bah Bing

I'm trying out bing for a bit to give it a chance at proving itself as a decent search engine. I am actaully impressed so far, and I've only done one search. I started with "animal collective" and right away on the left side it has a link for lyrics, tabs, images, tickets, and merchandise. I'm not sure yet if it recognizes the search as a band and then does that, which would be awesome. Google has been the same for years and yeah there are tabs on google for images and video, but it is a click away, where bing puts it all on the front page. It is pretty nice to have a search that takes a more modern way of giving results. We already have sites that give you as much information as possible and why not take that approach in the intermediary step, the search.

So, I'll be trying it out at work for a week.

Put on the dress that I like, It makes me so crazy, though I can't say why.

So, I really want to write a group song. Everyone will have a part and it will be epic and amazing. Then, when we're all hanging out at my house or something we will play it. I think I have a starting place, but it may take a while. I'm basically letting you all know to be prepped for it when it comes.

I love the internet

So, I was browsing digg for a second and saw a link to this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TcKpx2DxGwY. It's a pretty gross and creepy video of these worms that join together and appear to move as one organism. But while that was cool, the comments just killed me, here is what I mean.

• As someone who graduated with a BS in Zoology....I haven't a ***** clue what that isAs someone who has a BS in BS, I'm pretty sure this is a viral vid for a new movie, ala Cloverfield.
• As someone who graduated wit a BS in Environmental Science....I haven't a ***** clue what that is
• As someone who has no degree in anything but uses google, it looks like a collection of single celled organisms. Some kind of mold...
• As one of the creatures portrayed in the video, I would encourage small children to investigate the sewers
• As someone with a BS from Whittlesworth Clown Academy, I want to throw a pie at it and squeak my nose.
• As someone with a BS in plumbing, I won't tell you what it is without a fee.
• As someone with a BA in History I'd be glad to explain the significance of whatever that ***** is twenty years from now.

And another string of comments were singing technologic by daft punk.

Hey Martin, how are you doing?

Hey!, thanks for asking.
 It's been awhile hasn't it. I mean you've said how you're doing in the small talk way and all, but not in the, how you're doing way.
I guess so yeah, it's easy to not go to in depth sometimes and just not talk about it. But I'm doing alright, things have been really nice lately. There is some things that could go better, but nothing that is actually bad.
Yeah? Same here I guess. There's always things you want to do or want to happen, I mean, we're both pretty wishful people and it's hard to not make goals or have high expectations. I'd say that we've been doing quite a bit of things that are productive and we should be proud of that.
Oh I totally agree, like the other night I totally came up with a sweet chord progression. I was just sitting at Colin's and I just hit this chord I like that's all dissonant and stuff but this time I actually found a way to finish it. So later I made a simple drum beat and started recording it. I'm totally in the mood to play and make music this summer, even more than last summer. It's probably because I now have the means to do a lot more than ever before.
I just actually got Panda Bear's first and second albums and I have been appreciating the first as it's really simple and is his first solo recordings, which is what I'm going through. Of course his are amazing and all, but I have hope for myself.
You will totally make a bunch of sweet songs this summer, and have a finale show for your friends. It'll rock their socks off.
You think? I dunno. I mean, I'm not even sure what my music will sound like, but thanks for that.
Yeah, not a big deal. And other things? How is work going?
Work is going much better than it has other weeks. This week has been so busy that it's gone by super fast. I spent a lot of time trying to get this one thing to work and now that it does I can do some sweet things. Although my team member and I hit somewhat of a snag in that we now have to share code and we have to set up that which will take a bit because of the way large companies work. I really like working here, it keeps surprising me. I see a lot of people that I am starting to recognize and every one is really nice. Yesterday I was reading Catcher in the Rye and I was letting the people get back in from the patio because the door was locked. I dunno why, but it just killed me every time they tried to open the door and I would let them in.
You're reading Catcher in the Rye? How do you like it?
Oh, man, oh, boy. It is the perfect book for me to be reading right now and I am in love with it. I don't want to talk too much about it until I'm done, which will be today or tomorrow. But it is totally amazing, have you read it?
I'm actually reading it right now as well, it's decent.
Well, I love it. I like reading books I love because I read them really fast, and that's how I know I love them. But then they are read and done too quickly.
I hear ya.

<silence>

So, what have you been doing lately?
Well, I usually do something everyday after work, in the past week I've had a bonfire, went to rock the garden, played poker, went to uptown, and driven around. It's been busy and fun. I don't know what I would do otherwise. Seeing people is just something I love.
Yeah. I actually should get back to work, but it was really nice talking to you.
Alright, we should totally do this again sometime.
I agree.
Bye!
Cya.

Why am I paying an 800% markup?

So I decided to goto work earlier than usual. I don't have to be here until 9ish, but I got here at 8:30 today. It means I get to leave earlier later, which is nice. I never really eat breakfast at the house because my family has the oddest assortment of expired and stale cereal ever. And strawberry milkshake poptarts. So anyways, I went to work and went to the cafeteria to give their breakfast a little looksee. Doughnuts were about a dollar each, but the choices were between crap and gross, I vouched for something else. I saw that they had a shelf with those little containers of cereal, so I thought about my options and  opted for frosted flakes. The box was 85 cents with tax. I grabbed some milk, which is free for employees until the end of the month. I sat down and ate and of course read the label of the cereal as if there was something I've been missing all these years of eating cereal. I saw that the box was 1 oz, and I started thinking about how many ounces were in a box of cereal, or even the malt o meal goodness bags. I just looked it up. There are about 21 ounces in those bags. If I assume that the price is around 3.50 dollars a bag, that is 16 cents an ounce. Consider that you have to use milk to make the cereal good, that's, let's just say, another 10 cents for milk ( I like a lot of milk). That's 26 cents a bowl of cereal. That's actually really cheap, wow.
From all this, I've decided that it will be in my best interest to bring a bag of dry cereal and eat it for breakfast. But that won't work for long, or I assume. Because Thomson is going to take away the free milk and free fruit tuesdays to give money to food shelves. What a waste. Now I don't hate food shelves or anything, but I just think they should think about how many people drink the milk and get the positive health benefits from it. Everyone will have broken bones and osteoporosis within a year. Well, maybe not, but w/e.

Rearrange words into : A Answered Ring Rotor

I think I am going to rearrange my basement today. Like, make it more applicable to making music. Lately I've been impeded by the lack of ease making music brings me. I have to walk across the room back and forth between the computer and my instruments. So that will be my project today. Just in case you were wondering.

MOS DEFinitely risky

This post is about this: http://thepiratesdilemma.com/punk-capitalism/mos-def-launches-album-on-t-shirt

The blurb: Mos Def is releasing his latest album through a t-shirt, buy the shirt, get the album.

The front is the cover artwork, and the back has the track listing, the tag has a download link to get the songs. Is this a brilliant move or just some clever antics to make a point. I'd say a bit of both. Ever since Radiohead released In Rainbows as pay as you want, artists have been looking for a way to connect with the modern world of distribution. Nine Inch Nails had their Ghosts album released through the Internet with a huge turnout. Danger Mouse just recently sold blank CD's with the text: 'For Legal Reasons, enclosed CD-R contains no music. Use it as you will.' Now Mos Def has taken his (or his publicist's) approach to creative releases.

From what I get, it is making a point to the music industry who's idea of combating losses in CD sales is to sell more t-shirts. And when t-shirts cost at least twice that of the CD, sure, that's a good business model. But what about the fans that have to fork out $50 to get a CD and a t-shirt? Is that fair to them? Hardly. I'd say that instead of worrying about losses in CD sales due to pirating music, worry about making the artists happy and giving the customer what they want. I know I would want a T-shirt that is a statement, and Mos Def is definitely making a statement here. Well done.

In the eye of the beholder, holy crap it's a beholder, RUN! ARgh it's killing me with it's eye! NOOOoooo.....

I just heard a guy say "yeah, I was at home and took a picture of my silverware, sold it for a million." He was referring to a picture on the wall that is a dining room set. It is black and white and in my opinion really, cool. But that's because I'd say I respect the things that go into a picture. Then I started to think about if some people use art as an outlet or just a means to make money. If you could sell something you made for 1,000 dollars would you? Probably, right? But what if it took you a day to make and you could make the art everyday for the rest of your life? Then you are "selling out" in my opinion. But a lot of people do that. They take pictures everyday and if they end up with one that they can reprint and sell, they have a living. I think, at least in our times, the ability to take a picture and sell it are phenomenally high. I can take 1,000 pictures and have them on the internet the same day. Out of 1k pictures, there just has to be one or two for me to recoup the cost to charge my battery and the time it took to shoot. It seems kind of unfair to the photographers of old who dedicated their lives to learning all the finer points of development and the physical work needed to make a picture. But it's still art. It hasn't changed the quality per say, just the amount, and as a result of that, the noise and signal ratio. Of course, there is the limiting factor in price of high quality equipment to take the pictures. I don't have a very expensive camera and so I am limited to taking close range shots and so if you put the money in, you have an advantage. But even that is shrinking with cheaper digital SLR cameras. Camera phones are starting to be higher quality than digital cameras were four years ago. So, can we say that the picture you took isn't art if you didn't pay big for a camera? No, of course not. But there is already so much extra fluff out there that I feel the professionals are loosing their foothold in photo publishing.

If I have no time to kill, I don't kill my wallet

So I've been busy recently, as my parents put it work hard, play hard. Except that I do them on the same day. Whatever, it works out. But one of the things I usually spend my time killing is researching things that I want to buy. I really want to buy a lot of musical things right now, and the only reason I'm not is because I don't have the time to find what is the best. I fell in love with this (http://tinyvid.tv/show/t5v1inpguy9t) song/artist yesterday and I can't imagine how fun it would be to use a loop pedal to make music. I also want a sampler to make more electronic music. It kinda tough right now because the music I want to make is stuck between folk/acoustic and electronic/dance. They are kind of on two sides of the spectrum so yeah. But the keyboard I bought from woot has been wonderful so far, even being used live to play kids by MGMT. So I am torn to what I should buy next. This is why I shouldn't get paychecks or get statements saying "hey, here's some money."

The singer is a crook

So, I had one of the best lunches today. I got the Mongolian grill special today and it was sooo tasty. Pea pods, onions, mushrooms, peppers, and chicken all sauteed together and a szechuan sauce on top. It was spicy but I like spice so it was good. I read Catch-22 while eating too so it was fun. I kinda decided that I am going to read Catcher in the Rye after Tasha recommended it and I went looking for it this morning to see if my family owns it and my dad said it was a good book as well. But it's in storage somewhere, so I'll have to go digging or something.

<break>

Just got back from a talk they put on for the interns and it was quite boring. I was trying my best to stay awake and I did a good job compared to like 4 other people. The guy next to me was doing the classic head twitch and he was getting like 4 inch twitches off, impressive. But I realized that I'm having a pretty great day today. Work isn't anything interesting and being difficult, but whatever. Tomorrow I'm going to get a bonfire set up with friends and we will cook hotdogs and it will be great. Then on Saturday I'm going to Rock the Garden with Meghan and that will be an amazing time. Freaking Solid Gold, Yeasayer, Colexico, and the Decemberists. So great.

I also started making mixes for people in my head and can't wait to put them into a huge overachiever project that probably won't amount to what I want. But it will be quite grand.

Anyways, back to work.

People won't be people when they hear this sound

Did you know that the stream of water from water fountains is actually two streams of water that join together into one? This helps get the height, distance, and quanity of water that most people expect. It's really quite an interesting system if you think about it.

Anyways, I don't even know what to write about today. My stomache hurts, my neck hurts, my head hurts, and my mind hurts. I want to goto sleep. Maybe I'll just take off early from work. Maybe I'll turn this into a rambling affair. I need to go to the bank to put money into my account. I also want to goto borders books and get cheap CDs. I also want to play loud music in my basement. I want to go on a bike ride. I want to play frisbee. I want to get more clothes. I want to goto a coffee shop. I want to read more. I started reading catch-22 today at lunch. It is so good. I kinda want a haircut. Not a cut so much as a trim. I want to watch bad action movies in my basement. I want to do a lot of things that are easily chosen to be done with people. And I kinda want to do them with myself or maybe one or two people that would make it more enjoyable. Lately I've not wanted to hang out in large(r) groups. Heck, I've not really wanted to hang out in groups at all. It's hard to avoid people though. Is goto really not a word? Is it go to? I get that alot is a lot, but goto should totally be a word. Silly spell check.

I (dis)like that the people I talk about read this. Yah, you.

I also have a new place for winking. Right between legs and short hair on my angry list. Yah, you.

Just a sec more in my bed...

I think I need to stop staying up so late and actually wake up with time to get ready in the morning. I kinda just laid in my bed until I had just enough time to get to work at nine. And because of that I am tired at work and actually took a 10 minute nap outside, it was nice. Do you ever catch yourself giving really strong twitches when your on the verge of falling asleep? Cause I did and I thought I probably looked really strange.

So I have this idea for some night that I have friends over. Creative night. If you come, you have to be creative in some way, whether it is playing music, painting something, or writing something. You need to do something. The other night, Tasha and I made T-Shirts and it was a lot of fun because I just wanted to make something. There have been nights when I will play on my new keyboard and just make basic music, but it is so much fun. I think that as a group we could do something fun and exciting for all of us. It also doesn't have to be inside. We could get a bucket of chalk and go write on a sidewalk somewhere.

Let's do this.

We drink to die, we drink tonight.

The other night I went for a walk at about 4 or 5 in the morning. I walked to the nearest hill and looked at everything. No one was on the swingset. No one was playing baseball. No one was awake. On my way back to my house I passed a newspaper delivery man. He was working hard to deliver papers to all the houses before they woke up. He didn't mind me as much as I minded him.

No matter how the world is a well oiled place, oil is still messy. You just never really know it unless your a mechanic.

Let's get complicated

Sometimes life seems so easy and smooth. Sometimes all I want is to be consumed by friends.
They will keep me safe and sound with truth. They will be my nightlight and my favorite blanket.
When we're apart I start to worry. I want them to be as happy as they make me.
So I keep them close and keep them warm. Just to let them know someone cares.

We all want someone to care.
Someone to hold and just, be there.
We all want friends to love.
People to kiss our cheeks and hold our hands.

I rarely put doubt into the safety you bring. I really think that we can do this and get out alive.
We can't help it if our hearts sing. The sound in my chest is harmonizing with yours.
That is how I know we are safe and can safely cry. Every one else can make us feel so unwanted.
But if they could know how it feels to not have to try. They'd be jealous of our love.

They all want someone to care.
Someone to see, they must be here.
They all want friends to hide in.
People to compare and fight to hold our hands.

But at least I hope I'm not one of them.
And the look in your eyes tell me I'm not.
You and I are not part of that breed.
We are sensitive and in love with the world.

We both have someone to care.
Someone to hold and just, be there.
We both have each other to love.
People that just being near cures all.

Mix

send me something that i can use to make you a mix: a picture, a poem,
a video clip, or your own words. i'll get it back to you as soon as i
can.

--
Sent from my mobile device

This post does not have a clever title and is right to the point

I'm working on streaming video to mobile devices for my internship at Thomson Reuters. And I have been focusing on the iPhone while my intern-at-crime is taking a lot of the BlackBerry work. In my week here I've seen that Apple is not the nicest company to develop for as a third party. Here is a quick history lesson. The iPhone came out in June 2007, with no real ability for third parties to write applications. In response, people turned their phones into an open source platform on which that could develop apps. This platform was the open source SDK (software development kit), which had all the things you needed to make an app. In 2008, Apple released their SDK and the App store, so third parties could make apps and sell them. The problem is that Apple's SDK is missing or locked out 25% of the open source SDK, meaning that developers weren't getting access to all the available tools. The documentation for making apps is missing all this extra information, although it is still in the code. Any application that uses these codes is blocked from the app store. Now, Apple is releasing the iPhone OS 3.0 with a larger SDK, which they say has 1,000 new APIs (things you can use to make an application). I call BS and say that these 1,000 "new" APIs were always there and they are just making them public to seem like they are rewarding the developers. These APIs should have been available with the first SDK if not the release of the phone. Apple is controlling what and how people use their software and hardware and I don't think people know how constrained the system is. Without all the nonsense, I think the quality and creativeness of applications would soar. I'm not saying Apple should go open source or give full access to third parties, I just think they should trust them.

The Pre

So there's this thing right. Well, it's more of a device. But it's more than just a device, so let's go back to calling it a thing. Or a phone, you could definitely call it a phone, but it's so much more. Anyways, this thing is called the Pre and is made by Palm. It's brand new and I really want one. Whats cool is that because I haven't upgraded my phone is two years, that I get to upgrade and get a pretty big discount on my new phone. But I have to wait until July 1st to get the discount. But I have will power, so I can totally do it.

I took my lunch break and went to the Sprint store in Eagan and got to play around with their store model and look at one of the employee's, which was pretty sweet. So far it doesn't have many third party apps, about 20 today. So I'm hoping that by July there will be a lot more of them about. Also that any bugs will have been possibly fixed with firmware updates. There's been one already since release and so Palm seems to be on top of thier game. But look for me with a new sweet piece of tech in July.

Last words

So I'm listening to godspeed you black emperor and watching a crappy japanese ninja movie on mute and the last words of this guy that just got killed with a life size statue are "Please take care of...*dramatic pause*...my car payments."

This summer has been interesting so far, I've been at my house here for only about 3 or four days total. It's strange but I feel like this is less and less my home. My parents redid my brother and mine room and it just feels so different. I don't have anything of mine on shelves except for things from two or more years ago. All my current possesions are in bags or scattered on the floor.

In the movie, a guy climbing up a cliff just grappling hooked a dude's leg and is using it as rope secure. That would suck.

I start work at thompson on monday and I'm excited and what not, but I just kind of want to have an easy learning period and work load to start with. It will take me a bit to adjust to waking up early and all that jazz so I'll probably be pooped the first week.

Why are black suits and ties the red jumper of bad kung foo movies. If your wearing a wide belt or no shirt, your obviously not a henchman, but you also can't go around in public like that, so I guess it's a balance.

Sasquatch was amazing and probably the best way to start my summer possible. It was a great week of music, style, and friends. Totally going to try and make it next year.

Evil boss man threw millions of dollars worth of coke off the cliff and then stabbed his woman and jumped off the cliff...maybe I should be reading the subtitles.

I saw the new terminator movie today and I have to admit I am getting very happy with the amount of movies with really good special effects in them. Terminator 3 was bad because they didn't blend the fx into the movie smoothly enough and the plot was pretty forced. This one had a very forced plotline that tried a little too hard to follow the terminator universe. But it connected some things that answered questions and also opened up a lot of doors with a big ? on them. My main one, when and how does time travel get discovered? Do robots have the ability to make new scientific discoveries? If so, how long would it really take? Skynet is only really slowed down by its physical limitations.
If skynet sent arnold back in time first and the resistance sent kyle back to the same day but say 10 years later, do arnold and kyle start in the same time or has one sequences of events already gone by in which sarah is killed? So many questions that i demand be answered. But christian bale was a good john connor, I like him a lot.

Gong fu film is over and now it is a horror version of snow white, which means I should goto bed. I have a few tasks I need to do tomorrow. And I can't put them off no more I guess.

It's been awhile since we've talked...

Here are some sasquatch pictures.

old photographs from the summer of seventy four

What should I accomplish this summer? Last summer I set no definite goals and successfully accomplished all of them. It's easy to succeed when there's no standard. But this summer will be different, in so many ways. I have a job, which will give me some stability and foundation for being responsible. Based off of that foundation I want to set some goals. The usual ones apply: hang out with people a whole bunch, goto concerts and shows, and play music. I want to have less time spent sleeping in and doing nothing. I think that getting up everyday at a decent time will easily be the most important thing this summer to being happy and productive. I can't tell how hanging out with people will be, because I just started hanging out with a small group in morris and now most of them are still in morris. I liked hanging out with new people a lot, but I think that this summer will have a great balance of old and new friends. Last summer I hung out with people when I could, and because it was a smaller group, it only occasionally happened that we all were free at the same time. But now, if one group isn't free I can ask the other group. Crazy, I know. If someone is busy, instead of waiting around, do something else. It's a genius concept and I don't know why no one has thought of it before.

s/mu/g

There is this thing called 4chan. It is commonly called the sesspool of the internet, and it probably is, but there is a part of it that is it's music board. People talk about anything music, whats good, whats bad, but mostly whats bad, which is everything. There are a few bands/albums that almost everyone likes, and more importantly, mocks. It fits the idea of popularity and the internet: once something is popular, it is bad. This works with people looking at mainstream media, pop music sucks, but in small communities like the /mu/sic board of 4chan, the popular things are things that people actually listen to. We all can agree that Miley Cyrus isn't good music, but whats the fun in that when I don't know anyone who listens to her? /mu/ choses to mock the popular music of their world. The most picked on bands I've seen are radiohead and neutral milk hotel, epitomized in this mock album cover by what I will call mastohead milk collective. It takes the cover of mastodon's crack the skye with neutral milk hotel's iconic covered face and animal collective's newest albums cover with the title of radioheads album ok computer. The top title is a reference to some obscure norweigan band.

Give this Album Your Ears (day one)

For the next three days, I will be telling you what albums you should listen to. That's the deal. I don't know how many albums it will be a day or if you will like them or not, but you should listen to them. I am going to be gone Wednesday night till probably Tuesday going to animal collective then driving to Washington for a music festival. I will be ecstatically happy with music and I don't want to leave anyone out, so this is for you all.

Sigur Ros - ()
This album is a masterpiece and the one that I wanted to do as my next GTAYE post, so what better way to start off a streak of them. The band Sigur Ros is from Iceland and so they sing mostly in Icelandic, but for this album, the words are all in hopelandic, which is a made up language that has no literal meaning. Imagine the quintessential way of having lyrics mean something different to every listener and have every interpretation be unique, well this is it. The album is officially untitled, but there are a set of parenthesis on the cover and it is referred to as the bracket or parenthesis album. All the tracks have no official name as well, so they are referred to as untitled 1, untitled 2, and so on.
I love this album because it is played so wonderfully and composed so thoughtfully. There is almost always a feeling of continuity between each song and most of the vocals are repeated in different songs, but in different ways. The vocals are one of the best parts also in how amazing they are. It sounds cliche, but they are more of an instrument than anything else, but also one of the most emotional instruments possible. The high range of the singer will blow you away for sure.
You should listen to this album preferably in the car. I listened to it yesterday on my way home and it was so loud and amazing. If you don't have an hour plus car ride, then at least try and listen to it all the way through in one sitting. It flows too much to pick up where you left off. A comfortable and relaxing location is also needed. But wherever you are, enjoy it.

Here it is in two zips:
(gig's coffee's internet doesn't like mediafire apparently, so i'll upload the files laters)

Maybe I'm all I see sometimes

So, as procrastination does its part in my bioinformatics final, I started reading some old dude's blog. I don't know who he was or why he is famous or whatever, but he had some interesting blogs. A lot of them were about his interactions with other bloggers and other twitterers. I started thinking about how much blog content is created based on bloggers interacting. If 25% of blog posts are links to other blog posts, then 25% of all blog posts are irrelevant, in one way. I can't tell if people do it because they are avoiding having to come up with something to write about themselves or they really want to share this idea. I don't mind them really, because they do serve a purpose, which is: you read my blog, i like this blog, therefor you might like this blog. It makes sense.
But that doesn't stop the feedback loop of reposts. On twitter, people retweet other peoples posts by adding RT before writing mostly the exact same post. I get a lot of duplicates because I follow two twitters that are very similar. It's not a bad thing because I don't want to have to follow everyone and then sort through everyone of their posts (25% of which I imagine would be retweets anyways).
Part of it is also giving credit where credit is due, and that is important. But with 25% of the internet pointing at other points on the internet, that is just so much duplicate content that it blows my mind. I was thinking about tinyurls in the same way. Almost every retweet about a twitter setting they removed had a different tinyurl link. That means there is a lot of unique links that point to the same site.
It just seems like a lot of space that isn't unique.

Dropbox it like it's hot

So I am trying out this app called dropbox that could be pretty sweet. It basically creates a 2gb free folder for you on their server that you can access anywhere. That alone isn't the greatest part, when you install dropbox to your computer(s), it adds a synchronized folder to it. I just installed it on my desktop and put my files for my bioinformatic final in the dropbox and in theory I can goto school, grab the files and work on them, come back here and have them be the current version. It's kinda like a svn repository for whatever you want.
Try it out yourself: https://www.getdropbox.com/

Give this album your ear: week three

The Tallest Man on Earth - Shallow Graves

This guy is awesome, and you probably haven't heard of him. I don't want to explain everthing so here's a basic summary:

I saw him open for bon iver, and it was a great show. His voice is awesome. His guitar playing is amazing because it is pretty perfect and seems random at the same time. He is folk.

Here he is:
http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=2bada3e30b9de9fd61d4646c62b381cbe04e75f6e8ebb871

TGIF! Totally Getting It Free!

I have an awesome dilemma. It's not awesome in the sense that I enjoy it or that it will be the easiest choice, but it is the first time this decision had to be made for me. I need to choose between using an open source sound editor or using a pirated copy of one that is very not free. In leu of having a computer without Ubuntu studio and wanting to not use UbuStu again because I think there are more powerful linux distributions out there for sound editing. And so instead of picking a new distro I downloaded the next thing that I have used the most, Ableton Live!. When I bought my m-audio firewire solo to record my guitar, it came with a free demo version of Live! and I thoroughly enjoyed using it. It lets me do a lot of things, from create drum beats to adding guitar effects. The free version was limited to only a few effects running at once, which was annoying and so after I first got UbuStu I never went back. Colin and I used the open source program Ardour for the very first Hello Blacksmith recordings and it wasn't the greatest and didn't have as many features, it was open source.
Open source is something I support very strongly, it gives users the power to add the functionality that they want, ever improving the program. And as long as each version is maintained, it can result in very powerful tools, like GIMP, which has almost all the functionality as Adobe Photoshop. Granted, GIMP is a lot less user friendly and its window management still makes me almost smash things in anger, it works. Ardour has a lot of features that are great and recording and editing are very easy to do. Its main weak points are that it is all simplistic, you can do the basic editing functions, cutting, moving, layering, and looping. It doesn't have very many manipulation tools and the ones it has are weak and don't change all too much.
From that summary of each alone I don't see why I wouldn't use the more powerful Live! for producing the upcoming Hello Blacksmith EP, right? Wrong. (Doesn't that wording just make you feel bad inside? Sorry, just a common way to say something, no harm against you) The price point of Live! is $400. But Martin, you support free information and so why don't you just steal the full version and use that? Well, I do have a full copy it, and using it is quite great. But, I cannot bring myself to use stolen property to create something that I will be selling for money. It is an issue I haven't encountered until now because I never sell anything I make in copyrighted applications. Having to think about the decision, it wasn't a hard choice at all to use open source programs instead of pirated ones. I knew the answer as soon as I asked myself the question, and I guess I could have said that in the first paragraph but there should be some point to reading this far.
So, just so you know, and I don't know if HBS will advertise this on the CDs or not, but we use only open source applications in the production of our music. The sound is edited in (as of right now) Ardour and the images are modified in GIMP. I hope that eases your conscious a little bit.

Waking up at noon (or: how I look so awesome)

I woke up after my class started at 9:15, and I slept till 12:30. It was kinda sad, but I needed it or something. I've stopped staying up for completley unreasonable amounts of time at night, thanks to last week. But one thing I stopped doing was eating well, or in general. Yesterday I ate two smaller meals, and that's it. I don't know why, but I just forget to eat, and I don't think that it is related to why I feel so tired or have not the most energy. But using last week as proof, I was much happier when I ate all my meals. It was so nice.

But I have a plan, at least for today. I'm going home after this class and making a couple sandwiches for my radio show and after that I will go home and eat and clean my room.

My room is a disater, just so you know. It's not exactly gross, just cluttered. And when I say cluttered, I mean half my bed is being used as a shelf. It feels strange, but comfortable sleeping next to a guitar, if you wanted to know.

You should...

Do this.

A collection of movies that I enjoy

So I was (actually, I am in the progress of) talking with lauren and meghan and we were (are) talking about favorite movies, and I was thinking about what my top 10 list would be. It would include a lot of movies, well, ten, but it would be varied. Like, here are some off the top of my head. Boondock saints, starship troopers, rounders, primer, naked gun series, brain donors, fight club, star wars, matrix, memento, eternal sunshine of the spotless mind, garden state, monty python, and many, many more.

What I need is to rate all the movies I've ever seen. Same with music. And books too. Then I could have an actual top 10 list.

The growth on meghan's finger and how it hurts

I needed a blog topic to write about, well, I didn't need one, I just wanted one. And I went through my dilemma of "I can't write about subject because someone might read it and take it personally." I don't want to write something that singles one person out, or singles a group of people out for that matter. I just want to write. And what puts a halt to my writing is knowing that if I write, it will be about something that I don't want someone to see. Whether it is me being critical of an action, or just a commentary about an issue that people care about.
But n-e-ways, meghan said that i should write a blog about this thing on her finger, so that's what this was i guess.

Sometimes I'm sad, and sometimes I'm glad for the feeling.

If we never feel overwhelmed, we never get the chance to prove ourselves.

On the drive back to morris I got very overwhelmed, I have so much to do and so little time to do it. but then I took a semi-nap and when I woke up, we were at the outskirts of Morris and Caroline Smith was playing. And i saw that it was going to be okay. I was looking at all my problems and things I have to do as a whole and it was very overwhelming, so I looked at what I have to do over time and it all spread itself out. I have a presentation tomorrow, which having met with my partner and made the slides, I feel much better about. Tuesday I have another presentation and a calc exam. The presentation should be easy peasy. The exam will require studying but I'm hoping it won't be too bad. Having been going to classes since the last exam, I feel like I've been learning to material sufficiently to get a decent grade.
And that's basically my week. I have nothing else (that I remember at this point) due until finals week. I have a group assignment with Jake that will take a grip of time, I'm sure, but I'm also really excited about it. the project were taking on is to evolve art. I'll post some of the results after, or during, we get some cool stuff. I have a take home final in bioinformatics. Another exam in calc. And I think that's it. Well, I have to preform my vocal abilities infront of the main voice teacher, hopefully I can prove I've improved. I'd definitely say I have. If not in my ability, at least in my understanding of how to sing.
There is a lot of theory in how to sing that I didn't know. I always assumed I was decent, but as I learned, it's easy to say "I'm good" to yourself and have other people think "he's bad" at the same time. I just don't care as much, but I've learned to not assume that I'm as good as I thought. And not in a "I suck" way, but in a "how could I have been that good if I've improved this much?" I have a lot of practice this week and in my future to keep my vocal abilities up. I knew practice was important, but I, for some reason, forgot that the voice is just like playing an instrument. If you don't practice, you get worse.
But I'm happy with where I am and with what the next three weeks will have in store.

Why are the british so cool?

Yesterday I went to the Noah and the Whale concert at 7th Street entry with Meghan. It was awesome. The openers were Anni Rossi and Ferraby Lionheart. Anni was this short and very shy woman who stood on a suitcase with a microphone in it, played the viloa, and sang. She played for about 20 minutes, but they were a great 20 minutes. She had a way of playing that went from strumming, plucking, tapping, and using the bow. Her voice was also very kind of sporadic and cute.
Ferraby was next and had a pretty sweet band. the drummer was quite good at playing the same beat in as many ways as possible. Ferraby himself played guitar and sang and was good. He remarked at how we were all bouncing and having fun and clapping and he is used to just depressing people.
Then Noah and the Whale came on and just were amazing. They weren't the full band on the album, so no horns or female vocals, but I think they played their songs with an amazing amount of fullness. Fink, the head of the band was pretty amazing at taking the songs from the album and adding live twists and fills to the songs to make them even better. At one point he announced that they are done with their next album and they played songs off of it and they were great. The first one started off fairly normal, although definitely more electric and punky than normal for them. But then it got crazy, with Fink on his knees playing the guitar with an eletric toothbrush to create nonsense sounds that he looped and played over. Meanwhile the drums, bass, and violin are going beserkers and creating an amazing cacophony of sound. They played another song like that later in the show. Plus the crowd was great, with 7th street being so small, everyone was so into the music it was great.
I can't wait for the next album/live show I see.

Give this album your ears: week 2

Built to Spill - Ultimate Alternative Wavers

This album defines college rock for me. It takes what I like about other college rocks bands (Hockey night, menomena, pavement, and even the pixies to some extent) and put them into an awesome collection of songs. One of my favorite things about the album is that you can almost feel like you're watching them in a recording studio jamming. The all are restless to not be doing something, whether it's making funky noises or changing the tempo. Each song progressives as they play it, and I love that. They also have three guitarists. Like, I don't know what it is about bands that have multiple guitarist who change from rhythm to lead and back, but if they can do it fluidly, then I'm just really impressed.
Then the lyrics got to me after listening to it enough, with the main one i'd pay attention to is built to spill. It kinda just makes it okay to be the way you are: "this is how you'll always feel, it's no big deal." Then, the last song is a three part instrumental spanning a rockus nine and a half minutes.

Everyone around here, everyone is so near.

Today was kind of strange, in a totally not strange way. I got up at one and walked to school at 2:40 and it was just beautiful out. It still is, but it was so nice out, I can't believe I slept in and missed part of such a hot day. I got to campus and people were just everywhere. All over the sidewalks, sitting on most every bench, and covering the mall's main grassy area. Everyone was with their group, but at the same time everyone was together. It's something you just have to know what I mean, and if you goto Morris, you just know. It's what makes us work when we're in the middle of nowhere. (Lots of double yous in that centence.)
And people were playing frisbee, reading, sunbathing, playing music, sleeping, and, like me, listening to music. I talked to Colin S. for a while about things, which I don't do enough for sure, especially since we're living together next year. But we talked about how Morris might actually be tolerable during the spring and summer seasons. The wind during the winter just makes things colder and more miserable, but on a day when it's 80 out, it makes it wonderful. It makes frisbee hard to play and fun to watch though. But I will be enjoying the city during those times and going back to Morris will be cold again, but that's okay. That's part of living here, and I like it.
I was thinking about how we put up with such miserableness for most of the year, and I think it's just what we do. I don't know why, but we just do it. I always thought it made us enjoy the good days and appreciate the warm days. I also think midwesterners are very good at keeping fronts. We do it to the cold weather so much, we start to do it to people too. There is a lyric from a best friends forever song that goes:
"I'm a good example of a Minnesotan. I'm fine, fine, fine, but I'm always overloaded. I hate to inconvenience anyone that's nice. So instead I sacrifice myself"
Does that not fit, at least a small part, how each of us is. I passed a friend today and said hi and he responded with "how are you?". I said good and we walked in our separate directions. I am good, but I would say the same thing if I wasn't either. I know, cause that's what I did. "How are you?" is not, in my opinion, the same as a hello or hi. It leaves me feeling bad if I don't ask them it back, but we're usually too far away at that point. If we look at is as a rhetorical question and not expecting a truthful answer, then it does fit I guess. But I feel that that is silly.
It makes me think about how much of our psychology is influenced by where we live. I'd say there is a connection with the cold climate and how we hid inside, from the cold and from people.

So may the sunrise bring hope Where it once was forgotten.

Same thing as a facebook album I created. Meghan and I went to see the sunrise and found a cool spot outside of Starbuck.

Can nothing more be done?

Sometimes I feel like I have no ability to change things. I have accepted that I cannot change how life works the way it does, the way things fall into place and fit together. But this week has changed my current view of this idea. I feel empowered. I feel like I have an influence. I see no reason that the weather was amazing today for any other reason than because I was in a good mood. Did the weather make my mood good or did my mood change the weather?
If I take it as I am influenced by life and everything and anything, and I am the result of the total collisions of these things, then I am lost again. And that is what I usually get to after I feel happy. But this time something has changed.
Before, when I was happy, I would wait for something bad to happen in the most fitting and perfect way it could. And it always did, or I always saw it as such. Today, I was in control of how I got from one place to the next, and not the world. I chose to got outside and play frisbee, then leave to go shave, then to e-mail my homework to my teacher, and then to go into the HFA to practice my vocals, then to go to the radio station. These were my choices I feel. I felt the forks in the road that I could choose paths from, and I followed the path I followed. Instead of biking in straight lines to Coborns, I went through alleys and parking lots, I went where I wanted.
I know this is all very introspective and means more to me than I can easily explain, but I just wanted to say it anyways.

Twenty Minute Post

Okay, so, here's the beef: I have had a floppy semester, ranging form doing homework and being on top of classes to really the complete opposite. But, there are only three weeks left. Three weeks. I have a lot of stuff to do, and so I kinda ran away from it all on thursday and I just kinda hid myself from school and was social(kinda). But I am going to be a food student the next three weeks. And I know I say that a lot, like every week if not every day, but this time i mean it. I need to to pass classes. And it won't be that hard with the right motivation, such as calling my parents, getting hugs, eating right and getting sleep. Today was wonderful. I got 8 hours of sleep and woke up at 8 and ate breakfast (3 bowls of captain crunch berries) and then went to class. Then I went grocery shopping and ate a sandwich and made an extra for later. Went to more class and then I worked on homework for 4.5 hours. Then I took a break and hung out with Lauren for a bit and went home. I was going to do work here, but windows, in the few weeks I've had it, was partially taken over by malware. Every time I opened a link from google it redirected me to spam. And it blocked common anti malware and spyware program's sites. Eventually safe mode let me down load combofix and that saved me. Anyways, I had a few hours of a break and it felt completely deserved. It was great.
And I've made a calendar for the week and it is all completely doable before the weekend when I'm going home for a concert. My parents will be visiting Jessica so I will miss them sadly, but they might take a trip up to Morris the next weekend. And that makes me extremely happy, I haven't seen them since spring break and I can feel it every time I talk to them. But even with planning everything out, I feel really good about this week. Like, really good. And if today was proof of my abilities, then the next few weeks should be a doable fo sho.
Hm, I have ten more minutes before it's 2 and I will goto sleep.
I went to a cloud cult concert on Thursday and it was amazing. I always knew of cloud cult and liked them for being local and making it big(ish), but I never really listened to their music. But after seeing them live, it's my main course right now. I just eat them up. Here's lyrics that played as I wrote that:
"I've had enough of hiding underneath my covers. I'm done with all that poop that brings me down, down, down. Don't bring me down, down, down.
I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired. I will laugh my way through the hurricanes and fire. That's why you don't wanna bring me down. That's why you don't wanna bring me down."
That's pretty motivating, and I guess that's why I found it now. But anyways, back to the show (5 minutes to go). The opener was caroline smith and the goodnight sleeps, another good local band. Then cloud cult sets up their stuff, and oh do they have stuff. 5 members playing cello, viola, guitar/vocals, bass/keyboard, drums. Plus there are two people painting during the show. Like, they just start painting and they sell the art at the end of the show. Brilliant. They were such a great show overall, with such great stage presence, making you feel involved for sure. I'd recommend listening to feel good ghosts, as that is what I'm getting the most out of at the moment.
But I probably won't be posting too much, as has been the case. I'm sorry, but I'll try to keep up occasional posts, there will be one or two this weekend, as I will be home and end up in a coffee shop somewhere.
But alas, my time is up. Night everybody!

Give this album your ears: week 1

In light of Meghan talking about wanting someone to make her a perfect mix for every week, I will (hopefully) be listing one album a week that I think fits the week. It may not fit your week, but I think it is worth giving it a true listen to.

So, to start it off, this week is In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, by Neutral Milk Hotel.

This album was written after Jeff Magnum read the diary of Anne Frank. It is a wonderful album for many reasons, but I think it fits this week because it is a very appreciative album.

I would go into more detail, but I don't want to put my interpretation over it before you listen to it. Feel free to comment about what you think, and I'll tell you what I think back. Also, if you don't have it, let me know and I'll try and get it to you somehow.

Moving your mouth to pull out all your miracles, for me.

Motivation is something I am currently lacking in, maybe not motivation but whatever that "thing" is that I am missing, I'm missing it. There is a Panda Bear song that has the lyrics "take one day at a time, anything else you can leave behind. Only one thing at a time, everything else really hurts your mind." And that is what I feel like right now, I need to start small and focus on one thing at a time. And yesterday, when I was feeling that I couldn't even do one thing at a time, I panicked. I feel so overwhelmed sometimes and I just don't know what to do.
"It's kind of like when you look at yourself in the mirror and you say your name. And it gets to a point where none of it seems real. Well, sometimes I can do that, but I don't need an hour in front of a mirror. It happens very fast, and things start to slip away. And I just open my eyes, and I see nothing. And then I start to breathe really hard trying to see something, but I can't. It doesn't happen all the time, but when it does, it scares me."
That's a quote from the perks of being a wallflower. I know it may not be everyone's favorite book in the world. But it's mine, and not because I'm reading it right now, but because of the connection I have with it. If you were me and you read it, it'd make sense. Yesterday was a day like in the quote, I just saw nothing. The thing is, the day was like that and then I read that passage and it all clicked and fell apart in one fell swoosh. The weight of the day and everything fell at once and I freaked out. Of course it was during Nick Champeau's guitar recital so I couldn't say anything and had to sit there and freak out on my own, but for some reason, his guitar playing was the perfect thing to panic to. I couldn't have imagined any better music or situation to panic to.
But the book has been doing this too me since I started it last week. It hits me in the heart like a train and just forces emotion out of me. A year or two ago, about the time I read it, the emotions were there, but they didn't come out. And now, it's not that I'm holding them in or forcing them or anything, they just flow so easily. I knew I loved the book when I first read it, but I don't think I knew why I did. And now I do and it is messing with me a lot. I feel like I should be used to this, things working out perfectly and all, but I have to admit I'm still surprised. This book couldn't have gotten back to me at a better time. And I couldn't have appreciated it as much at any other point in my life than I do right now. Maybe next time I read it it will connect differently, but right now, right at this point, this is what I need. And I feel like I'm lucky to have the people, the music, and the books that I need right now.

Standardization

I like standards. I like things to have a format, the type that makes things easier. What I'm talking about now is music. I have a lot of music and it is all somewhat organized. I went through it all with a program called easytag that rewrites all the file names and even the folder tree to a set way. But sometimes the ID tags of the files are missing or just goofy. I got new music and some of the album names wound up as the artist, rendering it useless to me basically.
And I had a conversation with Colin about quality difference and I started thinking about what format I want my music in. Right now it's all organized in mp3s because that's what easytag can read. So I went through with a script that finds all the m4a files and converts them to mp3. But this loses a lot of quality. Like, a lot.
The best option for quality and functionality is basically FLAC. It's a free codec that is lossless, so it's super high quality. Higher than you can probably hear. Problem is, file sizes are also large, and can be 3 times as large as their mp3 counterparts. This means 3 times less music when putting them on a portable device, which is sad. On my computer I don't notice because storage is so cheap, but on my 2gb mp3 player I definitely notice.
I also don't remember what quality I have been using for years to rip Cds, probably the fastest as it takes about 15-20 minutes to rip a CD in FLAC. That's just a long time to rip a CD I feel and I get most of my music from the KUMM station and time is limited to about 1.5 hours of ripping. That means I can only get about 4-5 Cds ripped during a show. But that is the only place I can get CDs of a lot of music for free. The internet is another option, as a lot of music torrents are in FLAC, but then I run into file name issues again and I get frusterated again.
So, the plan as of right now is just to rip the music I own into FLAC and try and get my favorites into FLAC and enjoy them.

Sitting here wishing on service pack 2...

So, it is complete. My new computer is done being put together. Now the hard part: software. Although the actual build hit the usual snags that I think are inherent to building something. Putting the CPU's heatsink on was interesting as it looks like it could fit somewhere on a car its so big. I only have installed XP so far as I wanted to install ubuntu afterwards, and am still debating what operating systems I will want on it.
I don't really know why I'm still awake either. I finished building it at about 8:30 and had XP on it running after open mic night at about 1. But it is now 5:30 and I am two offices up to date, lots of software updates, drivers and youtube videos later and it's 5:30. Wow.
Right now I'm listening to the decemberists and downloading service pack 2.

Open mic was great tonight. It didn't start off too strong, but picked up after about 3 acts. Then it got really good with a cover of MGMT's kids and a solo cover of Radiohead's fake plastic trees. Mixed with Gil's amazing crazy sax antics and the use of a children's size drumset it was just great.

Bathroom wall

Okay, so I just went to the bathroom and the wall above the urinal was tiled in a way that you could stare at one intersection of grout and all the others turned a darker shade of gray (grey?). So, when I get a house, I will totally make my bathroom walls in some sort of very subtle optical illusion. Just to let you know.

It's been a long time now.

I'm sorry bout the drought.
I'm all for writing more.
But I will try to satisfy
all the requests and your interests.
For you know I will show
you mean a lot and of you, forget I will not.

ibrick

My ipod's right channel audio has gone. It was a sad day when it happened as it gave out over the span of a week. I felt it going as I knew the symptoms from my first mp3 player, my creative zen usb2.0. What I had to do was eventually re solder the connectors for the headphones. But I don't know how that will do with an iPod. I will be dissecting it this week though.
In leu of having my ipod, I am using my 2gb sansa clip, which is a surprisingly good for how small it is. But I am also in need of a large mp3 player for bringing all my music everywhere. So naturally I considered the ipod touches and although i am impressed with the functionality of being able to get the internet, I plan on buying a palm pre when it comes out and that would fill my wifi needs. So the next option is the newest generation of ipods, the classics. I like these a lot, as they have coverflow and a generally smarter interface, such as the ability to turn on shuffle with out going to the settings menu. Major downside to ipods are the branding. It's apple, and I don't like paying so much more for the brand. I get that with computers, your buying a lot more than the physical hardware, but for an mp3 player they have really all started to become similar and decently built. Other downside is lack of a radio. i still don't get the lack of the radio.
Then, on saturday i saw jake and chris at the common cup and sat down with them and talked about getting new tech and mp3 players and now I want something that doesn't exist. What it is is a music player that gets the music through a stream from a large music source.
----kay so I stopped here and it sat as a draft for a while------

Okay, so I just found this of digg: http://digg.com/d1oRSs
It's a (possibly) new zune that I'm guessing competes with the ipod touch. This is very exciting, because if microsoft doesn't screw this up, this could be great. If they really want to one up the touch, they would make it with everything apple doesn't like users to have, like more control. Figuring that more app stores are parting from apple and allowing in functions that users want, I can easily see microsoft taking this route to steal apple's users.
but if they have a functional music player that has wifi and the capability to have apps that have a good amount of control, wireless syncing to a server would be possible. Sandisk had a device that was paired with yahoo's old music service. It had the capability to connect to the yahoo servers and you could choose what you wanted to have on your device. you also could listen to radio and tag things and download them later. the current zune has this, but you have to buy the songs though the zune's marketplace. I'm just really excited for it and i will feel less bad about buying something later on when it might be released.