Category: music

calling

around 7am i sat down for a rest. a stranger turned around and started chatting me up as we shared a cigarette. then they launched into a fifteen-minute monologue.

about me.

they said that they saw me everywhere this year and that i was usually alone. they could never imagine going out without their friends, but it gave them hope just knowing that i could do it. they said they saw a passion so strong it made them want to find something in life they loved as much as i loved dancing. they said whenever they saw me on the dance floor, they saw the party.

i hesitate to share this because i’m not trying to flaunt anything. the dance floor is not about ego.

but encouragement like this tells me that what i’m trying to do matters to at least a few people out there. that my efforts are not in vain. because i don’t just dance for myself. i’ve done that a hundred times over already. often, now, i’m dancing for the party, to loosen up the crowd and set the vibe. for the local DJ that needs to know they’re worthy even if they didn’t pack the house tonight. for my friends, to keep their energy up and make them feel safe.

i just passed two years since my first rave in Brooklyn (Black Hole’s 1-year anniversary). i remember the fear and anticipation of going out in those days – not knowing what to expect, being completely alone thirty, forty, fifty nights over. but i knew i loved the music, and i knew i wanted to be a part of these experiences. i let my ears guide me.

i still feel like a loner sometimes. i wish i were better at making conversation; i kick myself at all the missed opportunities where i can’t think of something to say and miss out on a chance to get to know an acquaintance better.

the more i learn about our community, the more i see its imperfections and injustices. but my love for this continues to grow. i feel more strongly than ever that this is where most of my energy in life is going to be spent. i love this music. i love the people. i love these environments. i’ve never felt more fulfilled and more alive than on the dance floor at sunrise.

if there’s such a thing as a calling in life, this is it.

link rot

let us talk about my favorite topic: LINK ROT also known as MYSPACE LOST 12 YEARS OF MUSIC HISTORY AND THERE’S NOTHING WE CAN DO ABOUT IT

history and documentation is something i care about, because it’s crazy how quickly people start making shit up when there’s nobody to say otherwise.

then history starts repeating itself and everyone’s like “omg how could we let this happen” and the handful of people that were there from the beginning are in the back shaking their heads like “we tried to tell you but the proof was in a bedroom track from 2006” and now we’ll never know who invented deep electro dumpwave.

SERIOUSLY though link rot matters. the half-life of a link, depending on which citation you pick from wikipedia (haha i’m not doing more footwork here, get real), is roughly two years, meaning half of all links on the internet go dark every two years. you can see this in action all over the place, just go back in time on your facebook feed and click on links you shared a year, two years, three years ago. a lot of them will be gone and there’s no way to find them again.

the internet is a place of constant movement and upheaval, and this trend only gets worse as we centralize onto social networks that have no reason to fart a single concern towards the preservation or documentation of what is very literally our history and culture.

if you care about something, DOCUMENT IT, bring it into physical form, into the real world, transform it into new mediums. don’t trust facebook or instagram or twitter to preserve any of your genius or the beautiful interactions you have with friends and strangers. never trust these behemoths farther than you can throw them. take the preservation of your identity and your culture into YOUR HANDS.

d-a-n-c-e

Unsorted thoughts on dancing:

I remember when i turned 21, i was so desperate for a place to dance. I think the first time i danced at a bar (the Haunt) I was out with some coworkers, and that song with the apple-bottom jeans came on and i got up on this stage by myself to shake my ass. Then I went to this one place up the street from my house (Level B) a dozen times because that was the only place to go. It was terrible and the music sucked but at least they had a spot that was meant for dancing.

The first real taste i got was an Infected Mushroom concert. I never broke it down so hard in my life, there was this trance opener that i couldn’t get enough of, i sweat straight through all my clothes by the end.

I sweat a lot. It’s just a thing i have. When i dance it’s absurd, i have no idea why it’s so excessive, but i will admit i get embarrassed about it. There are these moments where some cute lady smiles at me and then does this weird look of confused horror when she notices i’m sweating like nuts. I have come to accept it…mostly.

I love watching how the crowd relates to the music. There’s an ephemeral but totally real relationship between the DJ and the crowd. A great DJ has immense control; they can make the crowd bust it out at a moment’s notice and it’s a beautiful thing.

The scene is getting more progressive, and it’s awesome. The good places are banning phones, getting tough on harassment, seeking out ways to make it safe and comfortable for everyone. It makes a world of difference.

When you get to the end of the night – 4, 5, 7am – it’s amazing. Everyone is just exhausted and ecstatic. The whole thing is a series of pure moments; great music, the satisfaction of moving your body to the beat, the glee of seeing nothing but happy faces around you. The trip home makes for great moments of reflection and synthesis.

It’s hard to put these things into writing; it’s all nebulous stuff. But i’m so excited to be diving deeper into the dance community the last year.

label

Is it dumb to love a label and its culture?

I’m just a huge fan of Mad Decent and its culture. Just really different and always tries something new. I feel like I like it and the idea of it, too much.

Do you feel me?

It’s a good question, one that is ripe for discussion.

One of my favorite labels is Kitsuné – I enjoy the vast majority of the artists they sign, and it’s no coincidence that they also happen to make clothing. They recognize that their listeners have a certain style they can tap into. The cynical perspective is to say they’re manipulating sheep into buying a lifestyle, but the fact of the matter is that music correlates to more than just what we listen to, much the same as any other serious passion in life.

Continue reading label

electrophoria

I went to my first electronica concert a few weeks ago – but to describe it properly, I have to start from the beginning.  The beginning of my love for electronic music, that is.

The first time I put a track on repeat was when I was 10 years-old.  My dad had bought an album after hearing a song in a commercial; the album was from the electric quarter Bond, the album was their first – Born – and the track was Alexander the Great.  It was arguably the closest thing to electronic music that I’d yet encountered, and it promptly crawled through my ears and into my soul.  I was utterly smitten.  I loved the whole album, actually, but I played that one track well beyond 10,000 times over the course of the following years.  It had certain features that, as it turns out, are hallmarks of the music I love most today:

Continue reading electrophoria

expectaculous

I wrote this for my abnormal psychology class, in response to the prompt “Identify a behavior that you engage in that others might classify as ‘abnormal’. Why is this behavior seen as different or unusual? How have you responded to the reactions of others?”. My choice of topic may at first seem glib, but I enjoyed writing it, and I like where I ended with it. I love being in school again. Nowhere else might I be asked to conjure up something of this nature.

I work in an office where the median age is in the late 50’s to early 60’s. Being 22 years-old, a number of my habits and behaviors naturally come across as abnormal to my co-workers. Some of these are merely a feature of different tastes and interests, but those that seem to have the most significant impact upon my interaction with my co-workers seem closely related to the different kind of relationship I have with technology. I have been using computers in various shapes and sizes since I was three years-old, and I generally find it extremely easy to engage in multiple activities (of a specific nature) simultaneously or in rapid succession.

Continue reading expectaculous

hiphopscotch

Let’s start this with a primer.

Until recently, I must confess that I held no special love for America. It wasn’t a hate, but more a boredom and lack of hope for progress. Having witnessed first hand the incredible amount of history and tradition that forms the backdrop of European culture, anything in America just pales in comparison. Prototypical American practicality and efficiency do not leave much room for what we largely consider to be the frills of society: artistic expression, creative thinking, and serious introspection.

Continue reading hiphopscotch

a little break

I’ve been doing some writing by my lonesome recently, but I figured it would be healthy to share a little something on the less creative side.

I don’t consider myself a particularly gadget-crazy person, but I do read a large volume of tech and gadget news week-to-week, which keeps me up on the new and pretty things that I will never buy. I did, however, make one exception to this pattern in buying a Zune HD. I pre-ordered one a few months back, payed the extra two bucks for release day shipping, and got to participate in the communal excitement that occurs with the release of something new and delightful in the world of technology.

It’s not that I harbor anything negative against Apple; I hold little regard for blind brand-maligning on every side of the fence. I am, however, quite disinterested in the iPod line. Though highly functional and decently stylish, I know my tendencies, and I am certain that I would find myself becoming quickly bored with something I’ve used hundreds of times without ever having owned one. My vanity is also quite consistent; the thing simply looks far prettier than its competition, and if I’m to be using something each and every day, I would expect it to meet a minimum standard of fashion.

Thus far, my choice has served me extremely well. It achieves a level of design that I think exemplifies where the user experience should be going: it executes its intended purpose without flaw, and I daresay that the experience of that execution is so smooth that it borders on the feeling of pleasant and calming. Something that gadgetry to date has failed to emulate is the sense of responsive tactile fiddling. A book’s pages can be idly flipped to and fro. A pen can be clicked again and again, until the person sitting next to you shoves a sock down your throat. Even something as simple as a piece of string occupies your fingers, delaying a feeling of idleness. Similarly, the Zune HD’s interface is so well designed that I find myself flipping through menus and exploring the mass of stuff I’ve put on there without even thinking about it. It leaves me excited for where technology will go from here, and that’s a nice feeling to have.

It also happens to be an immense upgrade from my previous mp3 player. For years I’ve been carrying around an 8gb refurbished Sansa that would freeze up several times a day, had barely ten hours of battery life, and looked slightly worse than Frankenstein on a Monday morning. It served its purpose nobly enough, but the massive gap between what I had and what I have certainly feeds a bit of the glee I feel over the Zune HD (I’m careful to include the HD portion, as I was no fan of the earlier Zunes). The fact that I can charge it for less than an hour and go for four days of constant usage blows my mind. Being able to fit (just barely) all of my music on it is also a delight; I’ve been slowly discovering portions of my collection that I never even knew existed.

I’ve heard high praise for its integration with the Zune marketplace, but not being one to buy music very often, I haven’t investigated it much. The browser is good enough for what I do (almost solely Google reader), and the apps thus far are mildly entertaining – though the fact that they throw ads at you is certainly infuriating.

A worthwhile purchase, for my own.

Creativity

Though I stated that I got myself a PayPal account set up so I could reliably obtain all these obscure songs I’ve been after for so long, I discovered a magnificent program that strips music from any kind of video file, in addition to performing every type of conversion and compression known to man for audio and video. It can also automatically record online video/audio streams.

Mmm.

Prelude to the Epilogue

Today’s Onion Day Calender reads:

Gay TV
Gay themed televeision series like Bravo’s Queer Eye for the Staight Guy and Boy Meets Boyare popular with mainstream audiences. What’s the Appeal?

  • Better than Oxygen’s Lesbian OshKosh B’Gosh Outlet-Store Shopping Spree
  • 90% of Americans are latent homosexuals
  • Fans can live fun-filled life vicariously through gay characters before having methodical sex with wife in Mobile, Alabama
  • Explode myth that gay people are human beings like the rest of us
  • Homosexuals not so intimidating when they’re 22″ tall
  • Lost remote, accepting alternate sexuality easier than getting up and crossing room
  • The Mexicans already had a network, why not the fruits?
  • Crocodile-huntersexuals, Osbournosexuals, and antiques-roadshowsexuals are old hat.

In other news, I may have a soft spot for orchestral power metal. What is that, you ask? I sort of stumbled upon it while watching this video (which, by the way, I’m pretty sure isn’t fake). I really liked the music to it, and the description mentions “Trans-Siberan Orchestra”. I found this name to be super awesome, so I did some poking on Last.fm, and lo and behold, there they are. The only trouble is, half their music has some form of singing in it, which is not okay. I’m now on the quest to find what is possible the most obscure genre: Instrumental Orchestral/Symphonic Power Metal.

If anyone could, you know, help me with this, that’d be super.

Exquisite Taste

Music a really strange thing. More for me than most, I’ve realized, because I don’t listen to what’s good, I listen to what I feel like. Most of the time, that’s techno, but it took me about an hour to figure out what to listen to just now.

Music is one of those things that can really boost my mood. I’ve come to kind of depend on it while at home, but it’s a big distraction if I don’t make the right choice. I can’t focus while I’m reading if I enjoy the music too much, or if it’s too varied in tone. Like just now, I’ve been reading Catcher in the Rye. Music for the mood? Classical. I don’t often pick up the classical stream, but it’s pretty nice for times like this. Soothing.

And, in honor of the sign above my monitor that states “I SHALL NOT BE LAZY. 🙂“, I return to my reading.

EDIT:

New pair of glasses: ~$200.
New copy of Starcraft: ~$10.
This:

LazyAmy77: at least you didn’t have OWL glasses for six years
LazyAmy77: erg
salandarin: i did, actually
salandarin: but you’ll never know that
LazyAmy77: sure I won’t
salandarin: dude
salandarin: those pictures
salandarin: top secret
LazyAmy77: mine are in yearbooks all over Ithaca
LazyAmy77: and embarassing
LazyAmy77: ugh
salandarin: mine…aren’t!
salandarin: haha
LazyAmy77: rawr
LazyAmy77: i look like a librarian midget on crack
salandarin: right, but what did you look like THEN?
LazyAmy77: !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
salandarin: OH NO HE DIDN’T!
LazyAmy77: !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Totally, totally priceless. I found that super amusing, anyways.

You no take candle!

This so, so so isn’t ready, but I desperately want to post. I’ve been dreaming about it. I kid you not. This blog is wonderful to me. I love it dearly.

We’ll backtrack from here to then.

I’ve spent the past 3 days pretty much just playing World of Warcraft. I caved in and used Paul’s 10-day free trial, after which I will continue playing. At the moment, I’m a level 13 priest, and I’m thoroughly enjoying it. Very good game. But none of you have waited a month to hear about that.

Work has improved marginally. At this point, I’m basically getting paid to learn/do AutoCAD, which I shouldn’t be complaining about at all. It’s actually been a really good learning experience – I’ve learned how to mail all kinds of packages (I only knew how to mail letters before), stain wood, do stuff at the bank, lots of random things that are kind of useful for every day doings. It has a lot of boring moments though, mostly when I don’t have enough variety in my work. This last project in AutoCAD I’ve been doing has just shot my nerves – every day, something new changes or happens and I have to redo a lot of work. Frustrating, let me tell you. Thankfully, I’m not under any deadline, so nothings going to fail because of me. Actually, the project I’m working on right now is for a building that will be going up where Dominoe’s (that don’t look right O.o) used to be, next to the Gateway Center. It’s a pretty spiffy building. Maybe there’s an NDA on it or something, so I should probably be hush hush….

The only other significant thing in my daily life (e.g. that consumes time) is Jen, whom I still don’t like. She’s mostly house trained, but she’s still a puppy, and thus retains puppy-ness. How quaint.

In important news, Jonothan gets back from Iraq September 15th. He actually arrives back on the 5th (this Saturday), but has to stick around for a many number of days for whatever reason. I’m really looking forward to seeing him. I won’t be able to go down and meet him because it’s 10 days, but, whatev, I’ll see him soon. Before I got WoW, I was playing lots of Zelda (the gamecube version, which I will get to, and OoT), which brought back some great memories from our first Christmas here. We’d get up in the morning over break, grab some hot chocolate and all the blankets we could find, plop down in front of our little monitor and play for many hours. I can’t remember how we worked it out, we probably took turns or something, I dunno.

No word has come in on Christopher’s discharge (still). I’m hoping he’ll be here before Thanksgiving, at this point.

Let’s see….I’ve acquired a job with a cool old Russian dude. He’s a retired professor from Cornell, like 80 years old, so I help him out with gardening and stuff. It lasts basically indefinitely, which is how I’m going to be paying for WoW.

Zach lent me this CD from a band called Bloc Party – it is growing more, and more, and more on me. The lyrics SUCK, basically the same phrase (which was good the first time he said it) over and over (not so good the 8th time). However, the music is excellent, and my constant techno-listening (6 hours a day minimum, thanks to work), I can phase it out and listen to the good stuff.

And now, for the rants that have been brewing for a month.

I.D.

I can’t stand it.

I can tolerate a literal interpretation of Genesis, but the ID mindset has gone too far. For once, Bush has really ticked me off. As most of you know, I was once a big fan of him, but he’s servicing the “religious” right, giving them everything they want while he has time. I can’t stand it. Whether I’m a part of the people he’s blowing kisses towards or not, I don’t want the tax dollars I am now spending (I pay income tax now! Huzzah!) to go towards a movement to stick a “science” like ID in schools. A Slashdotter put it perfectly: Once the ID crowd are willing to say that the Intelligent Designer (God) is falsifiable, then and only then can ID be considered as a possibility. And I know well enough that it’s impossible for that to happen. Faith is the hope in things that cannot be seen, proven, or denied. As with most things that are written in the midst of emotion, I will probably regret a specific phrase or sentence which does not reflect what I mean. But we’ll see. Open fire.

The Gamecube Zelda.

It sucks.

It sucks majorly.

I could live with cell-shading. I could almost live with playing a child, with child-like characters in a child-like work. I could just about live with the sailing. But not. It sucks. I want the next version, which has been delayed until 2006.

Nintendo, if it isn’t good, I sincerely hope you go down in flames.

I wish you all well on this night. I will slowly improve the blog as I desire, but it’s readable, and that’s what matters at this point.

Packing is not Okay

I’m off to the gargantiomous family reunion tomorrow. The timing is unfortunate as the lawns will not be happy once I get back, and I’ll also probably miss a letter or two. On the bright side, we’re coming back with another dog, Season 4 of 24 will be done, and I’ll get to see Christopher. So, we’ll see.

[geek]

Those new maps came out for Halo 2 – I was quite disappointed. Gemini and Backwash are poorly designed, especially with the sword. It often turns into a game of “scramble for a nearby weapon in hopes that a combo-er or sword-er doesn’t see you in time. Backwash is just hard to see in, so you’re always surprised by the sword, and the one shotgun is impossible to find, since everything is leaned against trees, and there are trees everywhere. As such, I do not like those two levels. Relic, Terminal, and Elongation are good, especially Terminal.

[/geek]

Paul got me the absolute coolest song, ever. Amazingly enough, it’s French, a techno of sorts, it has the style of techno, at least. If you’ve seen Ocean’s 12, it’s from the scene with the laser field where Tolour is jumping around. Ocean’s 12, by the way, is possibly one of my favorite movies. Something about it, I can’t put my finger on it, is really, really awesome. I don’t know what it is, but I watched it 3 times yesterday, something about it really intruiges me.

I won’t be back till Tuesday night, so until then, farewell.

These Fries Sure are Loaded…(O.o)

I’ve had a rather interesting weekend, of sorts. Friday was rather enjoyable – Paul came over, we went downtown, expecting a horde of girls to greet us with unmeasurable joy, and were instead greeted with a capella and greasy pizza. I don’t like spelling a capella, it is most unnatural, suggesting something about the genre itself. Ahem.

We came back (he spent the night), watched the Royal Tenenbaums (good movie, not quite as hilarious as I had expected, but good), and Paul still can’t beat me in soccer. I was Cameroon. CAMEROON. I spent the rest of the day basically doing nothing – I rather badly wanted to get Jesse, Benjamin, and Daniel over, but Jesse had no transportation, Daniel was at his last day of classes, and Benjamin did come over, but we had nothing to do. I sat up in the attic reminiscing, listening to music, for about an hour, doing absolutely nothing. It was actually quite nice, in some respects. I cleaned up the attic some more, moved some signs, and, randomly enough, two couches appeared up there. Dad said Louie (Young Life director-majig) left them here, though it’s not known whether we’re keeping them. Either way, they’re here for a while, and it really rounds off the attic nicely – no weird empty spaces.

The 7 days between now and the end of school seem very, very long. I’m not actually looking forward to the end all that much, I just want to be in a place of regularity, so I can sit down and plan things out. It doesn’t help that I still haven’t gotten an answer from Sho’s dad – that decides a lot of what I’ll be doing over the summer. I really hope I get it, I’m really eager for a new computer, moreso than the repairs on the car. Speaking of which, I’m getting the permit Tuesday.

I’ve begun to appreciate some of Jonothan’s massive 1000+ CD collection in the back room – I’ve dug out his Built to Spill and Sunny Day Real Estate stuff, but it’s hard to find anything in a collection that massive. Admittedly, it doesn’t compare to Christopher’s 100GB library, but his is sorted into folders, which you can scroll down. Flipping through books of CDs is a little slower.

And to end, a fitting quote to my anti-SAB series.

Hebrews 4:2 (NIV)
“For we also have had the gospel preached to us, just as they did; but the message they heard was of no value to them, because those who heard did not combine it with faith.”

I wasn’t always a Christian, you know.

Oh, He WENT Home… (^^)

I am still sick, but functional to a minimal level. Just thought you should know.

In recent events, my grades have finally “gotten to the dog house” as some would say. I present to you my postulates on the report card.

  1. German 3H: A- (“Tim! You’ve improved so much! You’re being so responsible! I’m impressed!”)
  2. Math 10H: B- (straight from the grade book)
  3. Principles of Engineering: A (guess)
  4. Global 2H: A or A+ (I got a 101 on the last test, did the extra credit…it’s cool)
  5. Programming 2: A or A+ (I’ve gotten A+ on all the projects, with one C- on a test and one A elsewhere)
  6. English 10H: B+ or A- (102 journal grade, 90 on the test, 92 on performance…)
  7. Chemistry: B (this is pending…right now, it’s a B-, after tons and tons and tons of work, up from a 50%, to at least an 82, not sure on many things right now, but at least a B-)
  8. PE: who cares?

In total, I’ve raised my grades by about a proportional 300%+, a literal 175+%, by a magnitude of 2, take your pick, it’s big.

[geek]

Beyond this, I’ve downloaded Eclipse. This doesn’t effect you, but, it’s cool for me. It’s the open-source version of Visual Studio.net Enterprise. Supports Java, C, C++, and all web-based and database languages. I’m really, really lost in the interface, but it’s one of those things that’s powerful enough to take the time to learn, and you’ll be better off in the end. I also picked up this book on C++ Paul gave me eons ago, and will probably start meandering through that (I already started into some of it). I need to figure out how Eclipse works first, though. Otherwise, I can’t compile any of the programs I write. Yeah, shup noob, so I can’t figure out how to debug and run the programs. Nobody cares.

[/geek]

Today consisted of final work on classes (technically the last day of the marking period, meaning teachers start taking grades to apply on the next period, but some stretch the rule). I was running around school too long and ended up missing my bus, so I got to spend extra time on classes. Except, not. None of the teachers were around. I kind meandered around after calling my parents (couldn’t give me a ride, I was really tired and hungry), but I decided I’d make the best of it and sang my way to Center Ithaca, got some pizza and a coke, and read the newspaper for 30 minutes. I don’t know why, but that’s a really nice way to spend an afternoon. I dreaded walking home alone, but strangely enough, it was just plain nice. It’s a relaxing time to just get to think, and enjoy the magnificent day we had.

I got home, and the Epinepherine wore off, and I could not speak coherently, or stay in my chair. It was most hilarious. I ate the last of the chocolate roll (oh, so, very, good), and proceeded back to school to see the newest musical, “My Favorite Year”. The list of attendants includes: Scott, Naina, Gwen, Amy, Mollie, Katie, me, Ryan, Matt, Ben F.. I’ve gotta say…for a high school production, this musical was insanely good. The mains actors were extremely good. I mean, really good. The timing was superb, everything went generally like clockwork. Often the term “good” is thrown around when involved with high school productions, mostly despite many disqualifying traits, such as poor scenery and prop movement, costumes, poor synchronization, or other non-essential traits that boost the believibility of the production. No such thing here.

Amd here we are. For those who care, I stuck my music on the server. That’s a lot less than all of it, but feel free to dig in if you so please. I stuck it on there mainly to listen to while in programming at school. It gets awful boring when you’ve finished all your stuff and have nothing to do but sit. I still have to rip Paul’s Cake CDs (he gave me some for my “surprise” birthday party).

I need sleep, and I’m awesome. But not that awesome. Just a little awesome. And hacked. Cracked, even. With no skillz. But cracked none the less. Pwn. *shnickerh* *cough cough* *HACK!* *wheeze* cough. wink wink. Nod. Smile. Pwn. I am t3h n0ne l1137.zzzzorz. Daniel is a pansy. ‘Cause. Jesse is amused by a simple fan and cheese balls. And kleenex. zzZZZZZZzzzzZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ LET THE COUNTDOWN BEGIN!

While I’m Gone…(O.o)

I’m headed to Colorado tomorrow, I’ll be back Tuesday (not next Tuesday) or Wednesday. I didn’t get to all the site improvements I’d hoped to yesterday, and I probably won’t get to them today. I’ll conduct a list of all I did for you, not that you care. 😛

  • Aligned top sidebar border and top post border
  • Made the main column wider.
  • Moved main column higher
  • Divided sidebar into 3 sections.
  • Added Profile section to sidebar.
  • Removed that dumb blogger image at the bottom.
  • Changed title from “Of Tim” to “And The Lack Thereof”.
  • Made IE generally happier.

I also have a list of things I’m planning on doing in the future! Again, not that you care, but…

  • Get the profile area done.
  • Clean up my code a little more, it’s good as is but could be better.
  • Find a new place to put the comments. I’ve found that the current place it out of the way, and easy to miss.
  • Improve the color I have set for the post dates and blog title.
  • Test out some different border styles.
  • Improve for IE, again.
  • Get a better statcounter.

And a little bit further in the future, once I’ve learned PHP and javascript…

  • Set up a server and host the blog on it.
  • Remove the archive.
  • Bring back the multiple style sheet interface (the red, green, and blue templates)
  • Make an option for automatically emailing new posts to you.

I’ve got a lot of hope for this thing, I’ve been really enjoying slowly improving it throughout time. I’m glad to see how much I’ve improved this thing. It looked pretty darn horrid back in the day.

Anyways, I have some packing, and some burning to do. I need some music for the trip, and I don’t have a MP3 CD player (I really need one), so I have to convert everything to .wav and burn it, which just isn’t cool. Oh well. While I’m gone, go check out Aireline, Built to Spill, Muse, and Sunny Day Real Estate. Good stuff. Off I go to pack.

Justice, the Product of Perspective (O.o)

An arguable statement, but at least partially true in a non-religious context. My recent days have been overly sober, not as spontaneous or as wantonly enjoyable as I normally keep them. Jonothan’s time here has been a reality check for me – recently, I’d begun reducing life to simple equations, which, if worked, Einstein would have found them already. Jonothan told me how the big things right now are really actually small – no matter how mature or how smart you handle matters or approach them. A quick glance at my past and those of my friends has proven his point. I’ve been struggling with this in how I treat these seemingly big matters – should I treat them with any less delicacy or ferocity? My postulate: no. They’re big matters now because there are no matters bigger than those I’m facing – you take things in proportion.

With this in mind, I was blown away when Rachel called Jonothan on his cell, and he picked up. When he was done with a short conversation with her, I asked him why he picked up. His reply: “We’re adults.”. You have no idea how much that scares me – I’m afraid to pick up the phone when my lawn mowing customers are calling to get me to mow their lawn one more time. I guess this is where that proportion thing comes in.

What do you do, though, when something out of proportion enters in the fray? Amanda told me about a friend of hers, who’s being abused, but nothing can be done because he’s about to turn 18, and his parents are habitual liars. It’s times like that I wonder “where’s the justice? no, really, where’d it go?”. When all I can do is pray for him, I’m reminded that God does have a plan here, and that plan may not include me saving the day. A frustrating concept, to be sure.

Saturday night Daniel came over and we watched the rest of Fullmetal, talked, etc.. Sunday was normal, Benjamin came over, we played around in GIMP (I made a few that I found particularly cool – 1, 2, and 3). Today, I stayed home sick (I do have that flu, you kn0w). I woke up to Jonothan handing me a plate of bacon and an egg + cheese + english muffin thing (they’d call them egg McMuffin’s at McDonald’s, but I dunno what they’re actually called).

Beyond that, my musical tastes have been expanded a little bit – I’ve grown keen on two bands recently. Aireline and Muse (I doubt anyone’s heard of the former, but Paul’s heard of Muse, so maybe someone else has heard of it). In any case, I still like the techno, I just like some other stuff too. *cough*

Set to the Tune of “Commercialization”

The TV is currently spewing out various noises and images related to football and commericals, as I download techno and talk to the few people on IM. I’m not a huge football fan – I can enjoy it in good company, and I know how the game works, but I don’t take time out of my days to watch it. I’m at least into it enough to be able to have a short conversation about it with the pizza delivery guy.

[geek] I spent all of Friday and Saturday building two alternate styles for the Boy Scout website I’m helping with. They wanted some alternate ideas for design, but I was faced with the issue of sorting through code I hadn’t written, and doing it in VI under the unix file system (which I wasn’t very familiar with). It took me about 12 hours to do, since I had to learn how to use chmod (all the files I ssh’d over to the server started with no read/write privilages), and then because of some confusion with the divs and paragraphs, it took me a few hours to figure out the percentages I needed to set (which were never really up to snuff). I also had to figure out a lot of stuff in GIMP (aka Photoshop), as I’ve never really been proficient in that. My second style didn’t work due to some problems in the PHP (that’s all I could find to be the problem in the 20 minutes I had to finish it). Definately fun though, learned a lot of stuff. [/geek]

Nothing else of astounding importance has really happened, though. I’m downloading a whole LOT of techno right now (14 different albums, amounting to about 30 or 40 tracks). During this process though, I’ve noticed something really, really creepy. All the techno forums (where I download the techno) are like…robotic, sort of like a ghost town. So far even the forum formats are the same (they both use phpBB, but the same style, different colors though). I’ve been 4 different places, all the same (including di.fm, which is the general go-to place for techno). All the music is in the same format – one track for each “CD”, with a 2 kb CUE file (i can’t figure out what these do), and usually there’s an option for a torrent or for direct dl. Maybe it’s just the industry standard, I don’t know.

Colette burned me the Phantom of the Opera soundtrack. She had me listening to it on the bus home from ski club, it’s pretty good. Some of it’s a little too…singy, but it’s not bad as far as musicals go. Ski club was pretty good, it was nice and warm, so there was room to have some fun. They had signs up telling people to hug the people monitoring the ski lifts. I was running around stealing everybody’s poles (mostly Colette’s, cause she was the easiest to steal from :P).

And, I can’t think of much else interesting to say, so I shall return to looking around for Superbowl commercials.

O.o

Today was rather mediocre. School was bland, in general. Yesterday sucked. I didn’t have any of my English homework done, and gym was COLD. I didn’t get to any other classes, because I was up till 4-ish doing homework, and then I woke up and was like “crap” so I stayed home until 10:00, went to an orthodontics appointment (they say I’m close to being done!) and got to school at like 11:45, and made it into the last 20 minutes of programming. After school I had to take two quizzed I missed. I bombed the one I thought I was gonna do well one (78) and did pretty well on the one I thought I was gonna bomb (90). Anyways, after getting done with that, Gwen and Amy were kind enough to wait for me as I finished them, and they walked with me till the Commons, and I continued on home. It was COLD yesterday. Brrrr. I got to see Amy’s house, which was nifty, I guess. Her cat is weird.

Anyways. I guess it’s dinner food hour.

EDIT:

Continuing with what I never got to…heh. Caitlyn gave me two CDs she burned for me, of the “Pet Shop Boys”, whom have a very 80’s techno style. They’re different than what I’m used to, but I like them. Some of the songs (only a few) are more pop-ish than techno, though.

O.o

This is post # 200….woo! Everyone do a dance!

I take it back….please don’t. Please. Don’t. Especially Sho. Sho…don’t dance.

<.<.>

I’m still sick, I don’t feel much different than yesterday. I’m gonna go running soon, I’m gonna try and do a little more than a mile this time, since a little less was too short. It’s a nice day out, too. *stops to cough a lot* I downloaded the new Bond CD, Classified. The first song was absolutely incredible, but the rest of the CD isn’t too great. A lot of it are classically synthesized versions of popular songs and hymns…a few of them are ok, but I want stuff that’s more original. One semi original song sounded really nice but was absolutely ruined by these screechy voices…argh. I was going to buy the CD, but I’m thinking about just deleting all the songs I don’t like, which is ending up to be about half the CD. They did have a really nice version of a hymn I like…I can’t remember the name though. Oh well. I managed to do the same workout last night as I did before, only 10 more push ups this time. I got even more motivated to do this stuff as I was talking to Zach (from Ohio). He and Patrick did 1000 crunches without stopping (they regretted it afterwards, but they did it nonetheless). I mean, I might be able to do 400, maybe 500….Zach does 600 every other night. Oh well. I suppose if I work hard enough I’ll get there eventually. Heh.

*coughs some more*

Keep posting comments…they make me happy! Time to go running.

EDIT: So I checked out the distances with my bike’s spedometer. Yesterday I did about .85 miles (possibly .9), today I did 1.15. My bike isn’t quite set correctly, so it displays about 1/10 mile over. It said the shorter route was like .96, and that the longer route was 1.26. Anyways, I’ll stick to the longer route from now on.

^^

Ah, today has been very wonderful. Feels like water.

So my weekend has been all around great, filled with IMing and techno. Friday was a choppy day, had some pitfalls with classes here and there, but not too bad. Saturday I spent (according to Winamp) 627 minutes listening to techno. I’m pretty certain I never heard the same thing twice. Though, having listened to it as much as I do, I’m becoming familiar with all the tracks.

I’m just really content right now…it’s making me happy…not giddy happy….nor hyper happy….just…happy. I wish I could be like this all the time. 😀

Time for some biology!

O.o

I feel like posting the lyrics to Flood, so I’m just gonna do that.

Rain, rain on my face,

Hasn’t stopped raining for days,

My world is a flood,

Slowly I become one with the mud,

But if I can’t swim for 40 days,

And my mind is crushed by the thrashing waves,

Lift me up so high that I cannot fall,

Lift me up!

Lift me up! When I’m falling…

Lift me up! I’m weak and I’m dying…

Lift me up! I need you to hold me…

Lift me up! Keep me from drowning again…

Downpour in my soul,

Splashing in the ocean, losing control,

Dark sky all around,

Can’t keep my feet touching the ground,

But if I can’t swim for 40 days,

And my mind is crushed by the thrashing waves,

Lift me up so high that I cannot fall,

Lift me up!

Lift me up! When I’m falling…

Lift me up! I’m weak and I’m dying…

Lift me up! I need you to hold me…

Lift me up! Keep me from drowning again…

Calm the storms that dredge my eyes,

And dry the streams still flowing,

Casting down all waves of sin,

Guilt that overthrows me,

But if I can’t swim for 40 days,

And my mind is crushed by the thrashing waves,

Lift me up so high that I cannot fall,

Lift me up!

Lift me up! When I’m falling…

Lift me up! I’m weak and I’m dying…

Lift me up! I need you to hold me…

Lift me up! Keep me from drowning again…

Lift me up! Yeah!

Lift me up! Yeah!

Lift me up! Yeah!

Lift me up! Yeah!

Lift me up! Yeah!

Homework’s done. Smooth sailing.

O.o

Good day, good day. Had a crappy school experience, since I woke up realizing I hadn’t done any homework. But we shall see how tomorrow unfolds. Lots of homework to do.

I removed the survey links, and added the link to an online streaming techno/trance/dance list. Enjoy, to those who like techno, trance, and dance. I like it.

Only 70 days of school left! It’s actually something more like 120 something days left, but weekends and breaks are all there.

…

I’m in Colorado. And it’s not all that great. I have altitude sickness, which apparently won’t wear off till tomorrow morning. And there’s nothing to do.

For those of you who don’t know, altitude sickness happens when you go above 8000 ft. It has somehting to do with the lack of oxygen, and air pressure. I threw up last night, and I’m pretty nauseated right now. Sarah’s parents are nice, but they’re pretty much what I expected. We go skiing tomorrow, Thursday, and Friday, which might be fun, but I just don’t want to get sunburned. Yes, you can get sunburned. You’re actually more likely to get sunburn than in Hawaii furing the summer.

Let me start a little point counter here, for how the trip is going.

I met Tim Hume yesterday, and he’s kinda cool, though I expected him to be like 30-ish. He’s like 40-something. IF I get to see him later in the week and talk to him and stuff, that would be a +1.

I got to see Claire, my dead cousin Pete’s wife. She’s pretty cool, in a spunky kind of way. She reminds me of Allison Hogue, for those of you who know her. If I get to see her more often, that would be a +1.

The Rockys are beautiful. You can see for like up to 250 miles, depending on where the mountain line is. +1.

Altitude sickness sucks. I’ve had it for like 24 hours now, and it’s really making things miserable. -2.

I was never able to get those CDs. I completely forgot when we went to best buy, so I all; I had to bring that I had room for was JoC and RotK. I also wasn’t able to get a charger for the GBA, which my mom is yet again trying to revive. I have batteries, but they’ll run out. -1.

I got forced to spend 3 hours with Sarah going around town. -1.

I had to give up spending the night at Jesse’s house on Sunday night. -1.

The plane ride(s) were pretty bad. We woke up at 6:00 to drive for 1.5 hours to Rochester, to ride a plan for an hour, to wait for 3 hours in Newark, to ride a 4 hour plane to Denver, to drive 3 hours to here. Half the time we were carrying luggage or stuff on our laps. *mutter* -1.

Overall stuff affecting my mood about the trip:

I’m missing my incoming Airsoft shipment. -1.

I’m missing two days of school for this trip. -1.

None of my friends are going anywhere. -1.

Overall score: -6. Not very cool.