The Weirdo Files

Oh, by the way...

2011-10-29T19:51:00.002-04:00

Since I probably won't write again before Monday, Happy Halloween!

I'm being Waldo from the Where's Waldo picture books.

I look forward to the endless barrage of "I FOUND YOU!" I will receive.

Of Youtube and Cover Versions

2011-10-29T19:30:00.002-04:00

Lately I've been doing some singing for YouTube.

I did a multitrack of "The Rose of Sharon", a piece my choir did at school.

The composer actually saw it. Needless to say, I will probably continue to be embarrassed about that for the next 30 years or so.

Although I'm pretty sure Elton John hasn't seen my cover of "Tiny Dancer". That's OK though. We'll get there.

Thank you! I'll be here all week.
I take requests too, so if you want me to sing something, comment and I might do it.

The scoop on Pottermore

2011-07-30T21:58:00.004-04:00

After three hours of waiting and watching as the site repeatedly crashed, apologized, and counted down, it would appear the scavenger hunt has begun.

So, before you all shout "WHERE'S THE CLUE WHERE'S THE CLUE OMG WHERE'S THE CLUE" like all the people on Tumblr are doing now (really...it's annoying), I'm just going to go ahead and say "I don't know" to that question. I don't think it's been posted yet.

I must say though, this is sounding kind of fun. The suspense! The mystery! The intrigue and riddles! Just like old times.

A bunch of Harry Potter-related rambling

2011-07-23T03:16:00.009-04:00

If you have little to no interest in Harry Potter, I'd definitely advise you to scroll past this, because I really am going to go on and on.

While I was looking up the keywords that led people to my blog, I saw that one of them was Lego Harry Potter. When I posted about that initially, the game hadn't come out yet, and now that it has and I've played it to death, I just wanted to admit that I loved it. It was the Harry Potter game I'd been waiting for my whole life. They always put a great deal of effort into making the Lego games enjoyable and it shows. Play it if you're a Harry Potter fan. It is worth your time.

Speaking of Harry Potter fans...wow, there's been a lot to be excited about lately, hasn't there? I'll admit that for a long stretch after the Half-Blood Prince movie, I kept my love of Harry Potter locked up inside. I didn't see Deathly Hallows Part 1 in the theater because I just couldn't be bothered. I was busy. I was depressed. I couldn't get excited enough about it even though Harry Potter had been a part of my life for so long.

In fact, I only watched it for the first time maybe two weeks ago because my dad wanted to see it and we both knew Part 2 was coming out.
Seeing it woke me up. It made me remember. Got me back in the right frame of mind again.
That's not to say I was at the midnight premiere of Part 2 or anything. I've always been a middle-of-the-road Potter fan. I like the books very much, I enjoy the movies, but to me, NOTHING is worth standing in line at midnight surrounded by noise and heat and bullshit when you can just see or buy it later without all the hubbub. I always think of the poor man who got trampled on Black Friday a couple of years ago. He died just so people could get in and buy some cheap flat-screen TVs. Things like that just aren't worth it.

I saw Part 2 this week. The showing had a decent turn out, but it wasn't packed or anything, and it was a much better experience, I think, than going out at midnight and having people weeping all over me.

And yes. Of course. Part 2 was everything I wanted. I cried. It was fantastic.

As I've previously mentioned, I'm on Tumblr, and Harry Potter has a huge, huge following on Tumblr, so people having been posting and posting about it, and I knew a lot about what I could expect of the movie before I even saw it. But that's not the only thing I heard about.

The 7-year-old girl that still lives inside my head squeals, runs in circles, and faints at the thought of how amazing Pottermore is going to be. I'm not going to lie. I'm excited. I would love to get into Pottermore early, though I highly doubt that I will. The worst part of it is that I feel like I can't talk to anyone about how excited I am because, well, it's a bit socially unacceptable.

If you're not entirely clear on what Pottermore is, well, no one is yet. It's supposed to be the one place to buy eBooks of the Harry Potters series, but it's so much more than that. It's going to have a lot of new information about the world of Harry Potter, like how the Dursleys met, McGonagall's relationship with a muggle...a lot of stuff that no one's ever read before. That's pretty damn exciting.

But the best part, and well-touted it is too, is that YOU, THE READER get to be part of it all. You get to find all the information yourself, go through all the locations in Harry's life, Privet Drive, the Hogwarts Express, you get your own Gringotts account, you get your own wand, and (this is unbelievable) you get sorted into a House through a quiz Rowling herself wrote.

THAT. IS. AMAZING. And more than a little scandalous. It could put my whole life into question. I've been going around thinking I'm a Ravenclaw for years now, and I could be completely in the wrong. A lot of people seem to be freaking out, like they'll cry if they're told they're in Hufflepuff, or they'll be mortified if they're in Slytherin. Personally, I'd be quite happy to be in Hufflepuff, or Slytherin, or any of the houses. (Particularly since J.K. Rowling is going to give a lot of interesting, unheard information about the Houses, at least, the ones that aren't Gryffindor because we've heard so much about Gryffindor through Harry. And also, I mean, it's J. K. Rowling. She wrote the damn series. I think she knows more about what really constitutes a Gryffindor, a Ravenclaw, or so on, than anybody else does. It's her world, for God's sake.)
The part I'm worried about is getting into Pottermore in the first place. Because after all, you have to have magical ability to get in. And there's some sort of challenge to get in, since only a million slots are available for the BETA opening. Apparently we have to "follow the owl". Hmm. Cryptic. Well, we all know good old Jo prides herself on her ability to turn a phrase.

We'll all find out in eight days, July 31 (Harry's birthday). And of course, it's open to everyone October 31, but nobody wants to have to wait that long.

Will I be on Pottermore at midnight watching and waiting? Well, yes, probably. I want my damn e-mail, there's no doubt about it, but I'm sure the site will probably crash and all manner of mayhem will ensue, but hey, instant gratification or none.

Stats

2011-07-23T02:43:00.012-04:00

Since I've been on last, it looks like Blogger has added a bunch of interesting statistics on the demographics of the people who have viewed this blog. A few of these figures caught my eye.
First of all, it turns out my most viewed post is not The Simpsons After Dark (from here on to be referred to as the S.A.D.) Screensaver post. It is, in fact, the Cookie Monster post. Even though this is probably only because I wrote the Cookie Monster post before the S.A.D. post, I am still a bit relieved that my blog is good for something other than that.

The keywords people have typed in to find this site baffle and amuse me. These are the ones from this week.

Now from this month.

And finally, the most searched keywords of all time (or at least from about 2009 to now)...

Some of them are not surprising, but some of them definitely are (Torgo? Salon photos? Since when is my blog the go-to source of information about Manos: The Hands of Fate AS WELL AS places to get a good haircut? Those things don't go hand in hand.) The weirdest one to me is "Miyamoto is not amused", which seems to appear a lot. I can't, for the life of me, remember which post that would come from. It is funny, though. Thank you, people of Google, for being redirected to me in all manner of strange ways.

Lastly, it struck me as odd that so many of you are still using Internet Explorer.

Really, I hate to be one of those judgmental people that's always bitching about IE, but since I've moved on, I've never looked back. I have a tendency to use Firefox. I never really fell in love with Chrome the way everybody else seems to have, but I did like it, and maybe that's only because I haven't given it enough of a chance. Either way, it's worth moving on from IE. When there were less choices for internet browsers (pretty much it was IE or Netscape, I guess--anybody remember that?) it served me well, but I really, really don't miss Internet Explorer.

Not that anyone cares about any of these stats, but I just thought it was an enlightening look at what makes my readers tick.

It is quite interesting to me that this blog still gets hits.

2011-07-23T01:19:00.009-04:00

I just received an e-mail about this blog today and I thought to myself, oh yeah! My blog. That thing I used to do when I was desperate for attention.
Well, actually, it's a complete lie to say that I'm not still desperate for attention. I just haven't been doing it strictly through blogging.

I haven't responded to the e-mail yet because I thought I'd revisit my blog. It does surprise me that people still read and send me responses once in a blue moon. Sure, just about...well, all of the feedback I get is about my Simpsons After Dark Screensaver post, but I appreciate it nonetheless. It is a good escape, blogging, I'll give it that, and I could use an escape. I'm at a crossroads, I guess, where I'm doomed to still be a child, but almost an adult. I haven't really found out who I am. I know that I wake up in the morning but I don't know why. I don't know if the life that I'm in line for is really worth the wait or the effort.

But nobody wants to hear about that. You'd all like to hear about silly things, wild escapades, tales of bold adventure.

Well, I don't know why you're here then. I haven't done any of that in the time I've been away. But I have started a Tumblr.

Tumblr purports to be a blogging site, but honestly, while I do find Tumblr entertaining, I don't find that "blogging", in its pure form, really constitutes what I do on it. Basically, I follow people, people follow me, and all we do is reblog each others' pictures all day and occasionally post short snippets of texts spouting one-liners, and it's all basically an excuse to use animated GIFs. It's fun, but it's not really blogging. You could call it micro-blogging, but Tumblr isn't as much about who you are as it is about the things you like.

What I did here was blogging. I have laid out here, in text and photos, snapshots of who I am and what I think. To me that is blogging. I still consider this to be my "real" blog.

After a while going at it, though, blogging away, compiling my Weirdo Files, I began to feel that I was on a desert island screaming into the sky. The nice thing about Tumblr is that you can occasionally use it to say things you want to say, and you're much more assured that somebody will actually read it. I have 300+ followers on Tumblr. Out of those, 5-10 probably care what I have to say on a regular basis. I have no real "followers" on my blog, and when it comes down to it, blogging is a form of attention-seeking. It informs me that I exist because I have provoked a response in others.

That being said, anyone who is reading this right now (if anyone), I want to thank you for reading my Simpsons After Dark post and glancing, even for a second, at the many other things I have posted about. In case Tumblr interests you, mine is http://psyche-delic-ious.tumblr.com
But don't worry, I never plan on getting rid of this blog. It's still a home for me when I have no other place to whine. I have no regrets about it.

I'll end with a random pic, just like old times.

By the way, my team of highly trained monkeys has asked me to let you know that they've missed you all.

"Porto sventura a chi bene mi vuole!"

2010-08-23T19:31:00.005-04:00

No, I have not learned to speak Italian. The title is a line from an aria.

It translates out to "I bring misfortune to all who love me!"

My mom with her radiation treatments coming up. My mom's fiance has a horrible job that's slowly killing him. My dad's girlfriend just broke her kneecap and doesn't have a job. How she's gonna pay those bills, I don't know. Her sister also had a stroke recently.
My uncle David was just hit by a car and was in the hospital. He and his wife are all over the place emotionally.

I feel I really do bring misfortune to all who love me.

I am not ready to go back to school.

Geeking out post-punk style

2010-08-22T04:15:00.018-04:00

I had kind of a post-punk day on Friday. I love Joy Division, the Cocteau Twins, etc. and was surfing around on Youtube searching for music to that effect. This is what I came up with.

I have two comments to make about this:
1. The bassline at the beginning got stuck in my head. And WOULD NOT LEAVE. AAAGH.

2. ZOMG. Weird puppet in a car accident. What does that have to do with the song? I honestly don't know. Somehow they make it work.

When I saw this yesterday, I was overcome with an emotion I didn't exactly understand. It's official. I finally understand the feeling that motivates those douchebags who scream all the way through concerts.
Completely overwhelming. I literally squealed at my laptop screen.

After it was over, I was bouncing off the walls with joy for around 5 minutes.
...
Yes. That is sad.
It would not shock me very much if I learned I was the only person in the world that had this reaction to this song. But hey. It's epic. The lyrics are awesome. It's pretty much everything good in music rolled up in one. In my (very) humble opinion.

Really sappy...but in a way that DOESN'T completely suck. And this is me talking. I'm not exactly known for listening to love songs with sighing breath.
The lead singer, Dominic Appleton, is most known for doing work with This Mortal Coil, but he did, in fact, have his own band. And it is quite an obscure band.
Is it just me or does he resemble Chris Colfer (Kurt Hummel from Glee) a bit? Not vocally, just appearance-wise.

Appleton

Colfer

See what I mean?
...
Meh. It's probably just me.

The bassist of Breathless, Ari Neufeld, is also pretty cool.

Here's a slice of obscurity for you.

Unlike the other bands I've mentioned here, Bartok is so obscure that I had difficulty finding any evidence of its existence beyond Youtube. Mostly because if you search "Bartok" on Google, the classical composer Béla Bartók comes up about a billion times.
After a little while searching, I found this reference.

"Bartok was John Grant and Simon Werner of punk band the Straps with Rat Scabies of the Damned and on track 1 ("Insanity") Jah Wobble."

Apparently they released this one single, "Insanity/I Am The Bomb", on 12" vinyl back in 1982, with "Insanity" as the A-side, "I Am The Bomb" as the B-side.

As a side note, I uploaded the "I Am The Bomb" video because the song wasn't anywhere on Youtube, and I wanted to do my part to contribute (in a meaningless fashion) to society.
The cover of the single is pretty sweet.

It seems like something a pretentious art student would have on the wall in his dorm room. In a good way.

But man. You know you're really getting into some esoteric stuff when you start to doubt the band's own existence. They didn't even make a whole album, just this one mysterious, rare single that's probably been out of print for 30 years. I started to think, are they GHOSTS? Do they make GHOST MUSIC?
...
Actually that sounds pretty awesome. I want to go listen to some ghost music now.

An old post revisited

2010-08-10T04:24:00.006-04:00

I wrote a post back in 2009 (August 18, 2009, to be exact) called "5 Albums That People Should Know...But Typically Don't ".

In this, I wrote about Good Morning Spider by Sparklehorse. Why do I bring this up again now?

The man behind Sparklehorse, Mark Linkous, killed himself on March 6. R.I.P.

I just wanted to acknowledge his life and music again on this blog. The man was extremely talented. Talented people are often the most tortured. Seeing the world in a way that people don't understand takes its toll sometimes, I suppose.

Good Morning Spider is still worth checking out, by the way. I don't think I'll be able to listen to it quite the same way.

In the same post, I also wrote about El Perro Del Mar. I wrote an essay about her for school. A lot of it was BS'ed because the paper had to be 3 pages long, but this is what I wrote, in case anyone is interested.
-------------------------------------------
El Perro Del Mar (which literally means “the dog of the sea”) is the stage name of Swedish singer-songwriter Sarah Assbring. The name, El Perro Del Mar, comes from an experience she had while she was depressed on vacation in Spain. A stray dog on the beach attempted to bond with her. The dog was an inspiration for her as she started singing and writing songs. Her debut album, “El Perro Del Mar”, was released in 2006, and she has since released two more, “From The Valley To The Stars” in 2008, and “Love Is Not Pop” in 2009.

I discovered her music in a somewhat haphazard way. My stepmom was at Starbucks one day and grabbed a compilation CD that she was featured on, and when I listened to it, I found out that I really liked her song, “God Knows (You Gotta Give To Get)”. I ended up tracking down the rest of her music, which is honestly not as easy as I make it sound. Swedish indie artists tend not to have much of a selection stocked at any regular Borders or Barnes and Noble.

Music in general is a matter of taste; people will like some songs better than others. Her music is no exception. Most of her songs have the feel of 1960s girl group recordings. They’re brimming with cheery major chords and “sha-la-la” background vocals that contrast greatly with her melancholy lead vocals. Her lyrics are nothing groundbreaking. The usual topics for songs, love, heartbreak, and loneliness, are all featured. She has a fairly minimalistic approach to songwriting, often repeating just a few lines over and over. Instead of seeming tedious, though, this gives the songs an appealing simplicity.

Her debut album is probably my favorite of hers. The songs in it mesh well together and collectively show that music doesn’t necessarily have to be upbeat or longwinded to be catchy. Songs like “This Loneliness” are a perfect example. The entire song is made up of the same lines, as if El Perro Del Mar’s one track mind just has to keep repeating itself: “This loneliness ain’t pretty no more, loneliness, only taking the place of a friend”. Yet, for how simple it is, it is still a memorable song.

Her second album, “From The Valley To The Stars”, has good moments, but doesn’t seem to hang together and hold attention as well as the first album did. It’s very sparse. The percussion and tambourine, the happy “doo-wah” backup singers, and the orchestra that popped up in the background sometimes during the debut album, are nowhere to be found here. Instead, there are quiet piano and organ accompaniments, subtle synthesizers, and virtually nothing left in the production to distract from the sound of heartbreak in her girlish lead vocals.

I have yet to get the third album, “Love Is Not Pop”, but I have heard the single from it, “Change of Heart”, and it seems to be a perfect balance between the styles of her previous albums. It’s almost a return to the production of the debut, but a little less ornate, less packed with things going on. It’s fairly catchy, upbeat pop with peppy bass line and a lot less sadness. It’s a lyrical and musical ‘change of heart’, and it suits its title perfectly.

El Perro Del Mar’s music, I’ll admit, is a little offbeat. It’s certainly not everyone’s cup of tea. She may not be a virtuoso or a chart-topping pop goddess, but for the songs she writes and the artist she is, she doesn’t have to be a hit. She has managed to develop her own unique and instantly recognizable style. Many singers and songwriters struggle with their musical identities for a long time, and El Perro Del Mar has found hers in the space of three years. What she has accomplished already is admirable, and undoubtedly, she will continue to write good music for many years to come.
-----------------------------------------
A certain SOMEONE (yours truly) can churn out some pretentious drivel.

I got a B on it, by the way. The only reason I didn't get an A is because I turned it in a day late.

Random pic!

Insert Snappy Title Here Continued

2010-08-10T01:56:00.007-04:00

Have I really not written since May? I fail hard as a blogger. And this is supposedly my "free time". *grimace*
There have been times this summer where I had absolutely no idea what day it was, what time it was, or what the hell I was going to do. It's been great. I've enjoyed it.
I remember spending most of June getting annoyed at all the people who were following The World Cup. I can understand if you actually care about football, but I'm American, and I feel like most of the people I know who were hanging onto every second were just posers.
Watch a real sport. Like Quidditch. That's hardcore right there.

My mom and I went to Luray Caverns like we often do in early July. Apparently there's a zoo there full of rescued animals, which was pretty cool to look at. Though we had to come home early because my mom had a blockage in her ear. We made the trek back home at midnight, which I don't suggest to anyone. We thought we were getting stalked at one point.

I got a haircut. For some people, this would not be a big deal, but my hair tends to be sort of a trademark of mine. It's curly and red, frizzes up no matter what, and I wore it long for YEARS. I decided I needed a change. Everyone has been very complimentary about it, but I can't help but think that people overreacted a bit. After all, I'm still the same awkward person under all this hair.

My mom was diagnosed with breast cancer back in January and had surgery for it late July. She's doing well and has been out and about for almost 3 weeks. There's been a lot to go through with that.

I don't count on much else happening this summer, which is fine with me, personally. I'm content to live quietly for a while. Obsess over Radiohead. Stay up to awkward hours of the night/morning. There needs to be a better word for the early morning. It's the time of day I've been happily frequenting the most this summer.

Still looking forward to seeing The Wall this October. I will probably fill a whole SD card with pictures there. After all, I just have skills like that.

Random pic.

Insert Snappy Title Here

2010-08-10T01:29:00.019-04:00

I could write about some of the things that have happened this summer, but instead I thought I'd use a few pictures instead.

I just lost The Game too.

I guess I could say that thus far, it's been pretty epic. And best of all, it's not over yet.

Please Vote For the Hold Hope Initiative

2010-05-21T19:47:00.008-04:00

I haven't posted in awhile. I find myself typing this a lot for some reason. I don't know what it is with me. I just don't seem to have any inspiration to do anything lately.
But I am inspired enough to promote an organization called The Hold Hope Initiative. This is an organization founded to promote suicide prevention and education, to tell the public that suicidal intent cannot just be ignored. It's up for a grant of $50,000 from Pepsi and really needs your support to get pushed through.

The Hold Hope Initiative was founded in the memory of a 17 year old named Stuart Slusher. His suicide affected everyone around him. His friends, his family, his peers, and people like me, students in the schools surrounding who never even have the benefit of knowing him.

So if I didn't even know him, why am I posting this, you ask?

I know people who knew him when he was alive, of course. One of my friends was his best friend, pretty much. But somehow, the fact that I never personally knew him makes his loss even sadder. I suppose the reason it bothers me is that I can identify with him in a way. I I know what depression is like firsthand, from my own experience and from that of my parents, and it is no picnic. I'll probably have to be on medication for the rest of my life. And I know that it can be hard for other people to picture that teenagers really do suffer sometimes emotionally, especially guys, for whom it's not really socially acceptable to talk about their emotions.

There are people who do not accept that clinical depression is even a real condition, that it could possibly haunt people day after day, that people can't just "lighten up" and "pull themselves together" when they sink to such lows.

The fact of the matter is that depression, while it can be worsened in anyone through factors in everyday life, is caused by a chemical imbalance. Serotonin is the major chemical which causes feelings of happiness. If your brain simply does not produce enough of it, for months and years at a time, there is physically no way that you can ever just shrug off sadness.

I write to you, my nonexistent readers, hoping you will understand that suicide IS an issue. It is more of an issue than anyone who lives without depression can possibly understand. And it claims more lives than most people realize.

It really is not difficult to vote. It takes a few minutes, a few clicks. It could save thousands of lives. Think about that.

Why Nerds are Unpopular

2010-04-28T22:01:00.010-04:00

I just read a truly beautiful article.

http://www.paulgraham.com/nerds.html

A few good quotes:

"The popular kids learned to be popular, and to want to be popular, the same way the nerds learned to be smart, and to want to be smart: from their parents. While the nerds were being trained to get the right answers, the popular kids were being trained to please."

"If you leave a bunch of eleven-year-olds to their own devices, what you get is Lord of the Flies. Like a lot of American kids, I read this book in school. Presumably it was not a coincidence. Presumably someone wanted to point out to us that we were savages, and that we had made ourselves a cruel and stupid world. This was too subtle for me. While the book seemed entirely believable, I didn't get the additional message. I wish they had just told us outright that we were savages and our world was stupid."

"It's important to realize that, no, the adults don't know what the kids are doing to one another. They know, in the abstract, that kids are monstrously cruel to one another, just as we know in the abstract that people get tortured in poorer countries. But, like us, they don't like to dwell on this depressing fact, and they don't see evidence of specific abuses unless they go looking for it.

Public school teachers are in much the same position as prison wardens. Wardens' main concern is to keep the prisoners on the premises. They also need to keep them fed, and as far as possible prevent them from killing one another. Beyond that, they want to have as little to do with the prisoners as possible, so they leave them to create whatever social organization they want. From what I've read, the society that the prisoners create is warped, savage, and pervasive, and it is no fun to be at the bottom of it.

"I didn't realize that the reason we nerds didn't fit in was that in some ways we were a step ahead. We were already thinking about the kind of things that matter in the real world, instead of spending all our time playing an exacting but mostly pointless game like the others."

"A lot of people seem to think it's good for smart kids to be thrown together with "normal" kids at this stage of their lives. Perhaps. But in at least some cases the reason the nerds don't fit in really is that everyone else is crazy. I remember sitting in the audience at a "pep rally" at my high school, watching as the cheerleaders threw an effigy of an opposing player into the audience to be torn to pieces. I felt like an explorer witnessing some bizarre tribal ritual."

"I didn't really grasp it at the time, but the whole world we lived in was as fake as a Twinkie. Not just school, but the entire town. Why do people move to suburbia? To have kids! So no wonder it seemed boring and sterile. The whole place was a giant nursery, an artificial town created explicitly for the purpose of breeding children.

Where I grew up, it felt as if there was nowhere to go, and nothing to do. This was no accident. Suburbs are deliberately designed to exclude the outside world, because it contains things that could endanger children.

And as for the schools, they were just holding pens within this fake world. Officially the purpose of schools is to teach kids. In fact their primary purpose is to keep kids locked up in one place for a big chunk of the day so adults can get things done. And I have no problem with this: in a specialized industrial society, it would be a disaster to have kids running around loose.

What bothers me is not that the kids are kept in prisons, but that (a) they aren't told about it, and (b) the prisons are run mostly by the inmates. Kids are sent off to spend six years memorizing meaningless facts in a world ruled by a caste of giants who run after an oblong brown ball, as if this were the most natural thing in the world. And if they balk at this surreal cocktail, they're called misfits."

"It's important for nerds to realize, too, that school is not life. School is a strange, artificial thing, half sterile and half feral. It's all-encompassing, like life, but it isn't the real thing. It's only temporary, and if you look, you can see beyond it even while you're still in it."

This is the truth, ladies and gentlemen of teh internets. This is the cold reality of the American school system. This is the discontent I've written about on more than one occasion. I knew I wasn't the only one who had drawn a lot of these conclusions.

I know I practically just quoted the whole article, but it really is worth a read.

On a side note, please donate to The Foundation To Send A Poor, Broke, Misanthrophic Floyd-Head to The Wall Tour.
:)

Blurgh.

2010-04-27T22:51:00.009-04:00

I've actually done my English work.
And you know what???

I don't like it.

The utter lack of any feeling of accomplishment makes me want to go die in a hole somewhere.

On the bright side, it should make tomorrow go much smoother than it would have.

I've been going to driving school. Which is absolutely funtastic.

Well, actually, it's not.

Let me give you a layout of how this thing works.

Every Monday through Thursday from 7:00 to 8:50 at night, about eight people drive out to this random shack of a classroom and sit there awkwardly while this crotchety old instructor with a Regis Philbin manner and a grumbly southern drawl makes us read from a book and fill out these adorable little workbooks and watch some shoddily produced 1980s VHS tapes recounting Alice's Many Adventures Through the Windshield.

It's a bit less than impressive.

But it will be good to get it over with.

The most exciting thing happened to me today!

I had a thought!

What would happen if I woke up one day and I was Frankenstein?

That would be badass.
(And yes, I know that Frankenstein is technically the doctor and not the monster itself...but Frankenstein's monster just...doesn't have quite the same ring to it.)

Java Jive

2010-04-26T21:19:00.007-04:00

On Friday, I recorded myself singing all the parts to a song my mixed chorus is doing. I had to do a few of the lower bass parts an octave up, but other than that, I've tried to keep it all as written in the score.

And yeah, there are places where the tempo is a bit off, it's not totally together, and I go a bit flat at the end. Sadface.
If I had the patience, I would rerecord it, but this is just for fun.

I stuck the mp3 of it into Windows Movie Maker (a program I hate, by the way, but it's all I've got), stuck a few amusing coffee-related pictures in, and voila! A youtube video. It won't win me any awards, but at least I put a minimal level of effort into it.

On another note, it's Monday. I am rather displeased about that. By this point in the school year, everyone has the same goal in mind, the same race to the finish line.

I MAY (emphasis on May) be able to go see The Wall tour in October. If that funny raffle thing they're doing with the tickets pans out well for me.

Raffles usually don't.

But nevertheless, wish me luck.

I've returned to complain some more.

2010-04-09T15:17:00.009-04:00

If my life were to be described in a picture, I would be this baby.

Spring Break has continued, and I've found that nothing has really come of it. My allergies still continue to spiral out of control. I wish I could just sever my nose already. It really is a rather unwieldy proboscis. Couldn't it convert itself into a swiss army knife or something? Then I'd finally get some use out of it.

I must confess that I have actually gotten into manga. As soon as I go into a bookstore, I buy several new volumes, spend all my money, read them all instantly, and then get depressed again. Why does manga have to be so addictive! Ugh. And reading them online just isn't the same.

The best part of my spring break has been that I eventually stopped my upper lip from burning.

It still feels funny.

I guess I'm just made of win like that.

Random pic!

I wish to register a complaint

2010-04-06T15:40:00.005-04:00

Ugh. I don't like this sick feeling.
I had a weird night yesterday. I went to sleep early yesterday because my stomach hurt and it was too freaking hot outside. Then I woke up about midnight and couldn't go back to sleep for hours. I finally got tired, and as if on cue, it started thunderstorming really hard.

I mean really hard. The house shook. The windows flashed. I was cowering under the sheets practically hyperventilating.

Good times.

I went to sleep maybe around 6:00 AM. I woke up, and my throat is even sorer than it has been for the past few days. I'm worried I'm going to lose my voice.

Of course this happens as soon as I get on Spring Break. Marvelous.

Thunderstorms

2010-03-13T22:24:00.005-05:00

As I write this, it's thundering outside a little bit.
I decided I would take this occasion to address my complete and utterly overwhelming fear of thunderstorms.

I am SO afraid of thunderstorms. Really. It's not even funny. And over the years, I've encountered a lot of people who have completely belittled my fear. My mother, for example, likes thunderstorms and always thought I was being completely stupid when I got freaked out by them.
But I do have a theory as to why I might be afraid of them. When I was little, I had a hypersensitivity to sound. Basically, things that made loud noises REALLY bothered me, and thunderstorms were a perfect example. I guess the fear has carried over from that time. And I really have a hard time putting that aside.

I guess I can understand thinking thunderstorms are kind of cool. If I weren't so afraid of them, maybe I would think so too. But for the moment, they just bother me, and right now, based on all my friends' facebook postings, I seem to be the only one who thinks so.

Pink Floyd Live At Pompeii

2010-03-02T17:57:00.005-05:00

This is what happens in the gaps between interesting moments of Spanish class.

Sorry about the unforgivable lack of posts. Unfortunately, that's just how it is for me at the moment.

A bit of math geek humor for Valentine's Day

2010-02-12T19:55:00.002-05:00

Anonymity and its repercussions

2010-02-11T01:31:00.006-05:00

I spent some time briefly on a website called formspring.me
and unless you're a generally wonderful looking person who has nothing vaguely abnormal about them whatsoever...
I wouldn't recommend it to you.

The whole idea of the site is that people can ask the user anonymous questions, sort of like an ongoing interview. Now, in theory, this is wonderful and enlightening, assuming all the questions you get are totally benign.
However, if you've ever been anywhere on the internet, you know that people abuse their anonymity to the extreme. I've written in a rather impassioned frenzy about the rampant, gratuitous stupidity that frequents YouTube comments, but I have never seen hate like this anywhere on the internet.

It made me reconsider my opinions about the human race. I used to think that we occasionally had our moments.

I used to think we could occasionally put aside our judgments and view other people as human beings, even for a brief, glimmering second.

I wish I had not been wrong about that.

The Lovely Bones

2010-02-09T22:00:00.005-05:00

I went to see The Lovely Bones about a week ago, the movie based on the novel of the same name.

Since I've never read the book, I had very little to go on other than what I'd heard about it.

It's set in the 1970s and is essentially about Susie Salmon, a fourteen-year-old girl who is raped and murdered by her middle-aged neighbor, George Harvey, who lives alone and builds dollhouses. She ends up stuck between this world and the next until she can come to terms with her murder and sever her ties completely with earth.

Personally, I thought the movie was stunning. The acting was really the strong point of the movie. One can't help but feel for Susie (played by Saoirse Ronan) and her family as they suffer their losses, search desperately for some clue as to who could have taken away their daughter.
Stanley Tucci, who played Harvey, is thoroughly convincing as Susie's murderer. He exudes that certain distinct kind of creepy reminiscent of every stranger with candy adults always told the more fortunate of us about. Unfortunately, as the movie itself points out, it happened during the '70s, a time where people thought these sorts of things didn't happen.
Possibly most heart-wrenching part of the whole event is that Susie's father and sister begin to suspect Harvey, but can't have him persecuted because they lack the evidence. I get the feeling that this has happened more times than statistics would care to admit.
I was moved to tears several times, most notably, the part where Susie discovers all of Harvey's other victims.

This isn't to say that the movie doesn't have its weak points. The parts showcasing Susie's experience in-between one world and the next are full of rather unconvincing CGI mysticism. The ending in particular just seemed too...sappy and convenient, like many Hollywood endings. I couldn't help but scoff at Susie's last line wishing everyone a long and happy life.

But overall, it was a good movie. I'm not sure why so many reviews for it have been somewhat negative. Genuinely thrilling in places, and kept me interested. It had a unique narrative, a unique style. That's more than can be said for many movies these days.
And it had "Alice" by the Cocteau Twins in it. I was probably one of maybe three people in the world who recognized that song before they heard it in The Lovely Bones.
Any movie that introduces people to the Cocteau Twins is fine by me.

A follow-up on the Simpsons After Dark Screensaver posts

2010-02-09T21:31:00.010-05:00

So I've gotten a lot of comments and messages about The Simpsons After Dark screensavers. As a matter of fact, pretty much the only comments and messages I get are about it.

Not that I can blame you. Those were some damn fine screensavers.

Obviously, there are many people who remember After Dark, and the Simpsons module in particular remains unrepresented on the internet.

This is a file I tracked down while I was recovering my Itchy and Scratchy module that my parents deleted. Quick download. Easy installation process. I promise I'm not one of those evil people who spreads computer viruses around. :)
www.mediafire.com/?mkktz00nmym

Incidentally, it'll ask you for a serial number during the actual installation.
ZQA-35600-2587

Please let me know if the download didn't work for you or if you ran into any issues.

What better way to celebrate the 20th anniversary of The Simpsons than to run a 16 year old screensaver made by good old defunct Berkeley Systems?

Happy screensavering!

P.S. Sometime soon, when I can gather up the time and patience, I'll be going in-depth on the Disney After Dark screensavers. Kudos to Andrew for providing the files! Must give credit where credit is due.

Random photo!

It has indeed been a long, strange trip for me

2010-02-07T18:36:00.005-05:00

February 7, 2010. It still feels odd to me, this whole 2010 business. Doesn't seem quite real. Not to mention that we're already a whole month into it. Things are moving fast.
It seems like this year has already been eventful. We've gotten more snow this winter than in the last 5 combined. My mom was diagnosed with breast cancer. I dunno. It's just been...unusual. I guess it's to show me and the rest of the world that yes, this really is a new decade.
Super Bowl tonight. As I've alluded to in my previous posts, I don't...DO sports. Any sport, really. Not just (American) football. So honestly, I wish people would shut up about it. But they're not going to.
The only reason I ever watch any of the Super Bowl is, maybe, to see the halftime show. The last two years, it's been all right. Tom Petty, then Springsteen. Apparently it's The Who now. Woah. One would think I would have heard. The only reason I know that is because I looked it up on wikipedia.
I would usually embellish any post of this sort with some sort of picture, but forgive me: I just don't feel like it right now.
I've heard Roger Waters might be thinking of taking The Wall on tour this year and next.
Three questions: will it happen? Will it come anywhere near here? And will it not be ridiculously expensive.
I am not optimistic about the answers.

Until next time.

The Tale of Eugene (As Told by Pink Floyd)

2010-02-05T20:02:00.005-05:00

This is Eugene.

Eugene has an axe.

Careful with that axe, Eugene!

Snow

2010-01-28T20:26:00.006-05:00

We have the possibility of snow this weekend here, so I thought I might entertain you all with this e-mail I got which describes with a certain uncanny perfection how people in Richmond react to the possibility of snowfall. I'm sure this will be especially enlightening to you northerners who take snow for granted.

"Snow is Coming!
Published: January 27, 2010

According to the Richmond Times-Dispatch and every meteorologist in town, Richmond is going to get a nice snowfall this weekend. The snow is supposed to start as early as Friday afternoon and continue into Saturday.
In case you're new to Richmond, let me tell you how we do it here.
Someone somewhere says snow is coming to Central Virginia.
We Richmonders start paying attention.
Someone says it's coming to Richmond.
We Richmonders really start paying attention.
Someone brandishes the word "accumulation." Done. Finished. Over. We who call Richmond home all-out lose our minds. In the case of this snow, it happens like this:

Tuesday morning: The word "accumulation" is used.
Tuesday afternoon: Accumulation confirmed. All weekend plans put on stand-by or out-right canceled.
Tuesday evening: First trip to supermarket for bread, milk, wine, beer and cookie dough.
Wednesday morning / afternoon: Calls around town for sleds begin (for the record, Richmond.com is one step ahead. No one has them; Pleasant's Hardware is expecting a shipment on Friday).
Wednesday evening: Local news does a story about the run on supermarkets for bread and milk. Second trip to supermarket for extra bread and milk, plus frozen pizzas and non-perishables, because you never know.
Thursday morning / afternoon: Spend workday obsessively checking the forecast. More calls for sleds. Search online for sleds, but decide against them because you can't believe how much sleds actually cost.
Thursday evening: Meet friends out for drinks or dinner because you never know when you'll get out again. Realize you forgot to buy bagels. How could you forget bagels? Third trip to supermarket.
Friday morning: Alternate staring out window for snow and consulting forecast for exact snow start time. Cancel the rest of weekend plans.
Friday afternoon: Weather.com reports that it is snowing in your area. Run to window. Spend at least one hour yelling at weather.com because it is clearly not snowing. Ask boss about company inclement weather policy. Complain about said policy. Wait an hour; ask boss if company is closing early.
Friday evening: Fourth trip to supermarket on the way home for last-minute necessities, like chocolate and fancy hot cocoa. Alternate staring out window and watching local news for exact snow start time. Watch the Closings scroll to see if your work is closed on Monday, because you never know.
Friday night: Snow finally begins. Call/text all of your friends and family to see if it's snowing in their area and to make sure they're OK in the storm. Update Facebook status to reflect snowfall in case you missed anyone. Order pizza so you don't have to break into rations too soon.
Saturday morning: Marvel at snowfall. Fling pets / children into the snow so they can marvel and so you have pictures for your Facebook page.
Saturday afternoon: Drive or trudge to nearest hill and attempt to sled on a cookie sheet/shower curtain/trashcan lid/pool float.
Saturday evening: Meet friends for out for drinks or dinner to celebrate snow.
Sunday: Eat leftover pizza and stare out window, watching snow melt. Obsessively watch Closings list. Feel happy when the county you once lived in announces closing and then sad because you never became a teacher and now you have to go out, clean off the car and then go to work tomorrow. Plus you've got all that bread and milk to eat."

On an entirely unrelated note...
RIP J.D. Salinger

1919-2010

Dihydrogen monoxide

2010-01-08T22:22:00.010-05:00

I'm sure you're all extremely savvy internet surfers. Or at least, you're savvy enough that you can whittle out this one blog from millions and millions of other whiny, worthless, and/or useless opinionated pixels in the depths of cyberspace.

Therefore, if you're all so savvy, I'm sure you'll have heard about this already, but bear with me, because I'm a bit behind when it comes to internet memes, fiascos, easter eggs, and assorted goodies.

Although I do find it all very fascinating.

You see, there was this hubbub way back when about a compound known as (ominous music) dihydrogen monoxide.

Supposedly dihydrogen monoxide is an incredibly harmful chemical that causes all sorts of problems and the government/health officials/etc. have all been covering it up and the public wants the truth.

That's all well and good. The only problem with this theory?

Dihydrogen monoxide is the technical compound name for water.

Here. Let me spell it out for those of you who are less acquainted with chemistry.

DIhydrogen MONOxide. In other words, di meaning two molecules of hydrogen and mono meaning one molecule of oxygen. H20. Essentially.

Yet another case of how thoroughly idiocy has infiltrated the hallowed ranks of the internet. Any schmoe can create a website that says anything they want. Anything at all.

By the way, did you hear about the taco fiasco?
Yes. That's right. Not even tacos are safe now.

Taco Bell has been recently been caught spiking some of their products with a type of grain known as quadrotriticale. Yeah, that's right. Quadrotriticale.

You know all about that, don't you?
Poisonous.
Has been known to cause birth defects, cancer, and ejector seat eyeballs.

And how about that sabertooth tigrite they've been putting in Purina Cat Chow.

The world is a dangerous place, people.

I love the smell of nothing in the morning...

2010-01-05T20:49:00.007-05:00

Sorry for not having been witty and interesting lately. Unfortunately, as much as it pains me, I do have a life to be getting on with. Or what I consider a life.

I don't have a lot of time on my hands to get out all the nothing I would usually say.
And even though I insisted on updating, I don't actually have anything interesting to write.
Sorry kids. Maybe another day.
(sad trombone)

Yappy Hew Near-2010

2010-01-01T01:04:00.008-05:00

Ten years ago, everybody was bracing themselves for Y2K.

Now, we are bracing ourselves for 2012.

So much has changed.

Regardless, it is now 2010.
Let's think back a bit on 2009, shall we?
Well, it was a rather eventful year. Obama inaugurated. A bunch of famous people died. Patrick Stewart was knighted.

Some people might have thought it was a good year. I personally will not miss it.

Now think about this year.

To start off with, it's the 20th anniversary of The Simpsons.

It's the slated released date for Lego Harry Potter.

A few good signs.

So I suppose we have a lot to hope for...

"Got to admit, it's getting better
It's getting better all the time
(Can't get no worse)"
-The Beatles, "Getting Better", Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

Pirate Facebook

2009-12-02T22:18:00.004-05:00

If you're on Facebook, you gotta try changing your default language to "English (Pirate)". I did that just today and it made Facebook seem a million times more awesome than it already was.

My Obligatory Christmas Rant

2009-11-29T18:06:00.019-05:00

It's that...(sigh)...time of year again. That CHRISTMAS time of year.

Well, actually, it's not technically Christmastime yet. It's not even December yet. It's just that every retailer, mall, radio station, and tacky decoration would have me think that it's Christmas Eve already and that I have to get my shopping in RIGHT this second.

Thankfully, nobody got TRAMPLED at Black Friday this year like that guy did last year. At least, not that I've heard of.

But the shift to Christmas mode and shopaholic frenzies was, as always, flawlessly subtle. And for the most part, you know what I say?

Almost anyone can appreciate the initial concept of Christmas, Christian or not. Or at least, anyone who's ever seen A Charlie Brown Christmas can.

Boy, I wish I could dance like that.

But that's beside the point.

Yes, it is a religious day, commemorating the birth of Jesus. Or at least, the commonly accepted date for the birth of Jesus. But in it's own way, Christmas is also about giving and sharing and spending time with family. It's about peace and goodwill towards men.

At least supposedly.

I tend to find that it's less about faith in God and more about worship of the almighty dollar.

At this point, it has become sort of cliche to say that Christmas is too commercialistic. Everybody's heard that old, tired argument before. But when I see houses that look like this...

and stores with THIS sort of ethos...

and dolphins that look like THIS...

then, yeah, it's a bit hard for me not to be concerned.

Let's be really, really honest with ourselves for one minute. If the Grinch really did steal Christmas from us, we wouldn't be joining hands and standing in a circle singing. Oh no. We'd be siccing Rudolf on his sorry ass.

Because when it comes down to it, yes, it is all about the presents. The companies that sell the gifts you feel pressured to buy don't really care if your friends and families have a holly, jolly Christmas or not. Although they will be happy to take every penny that you give them for those presents in a flash.

Though in the end, what ARE we going to do about it? I suppose it is good for the economy, if nothing else. And some people really can get into the whole Christmas spirit without feeling like phonies.

Good for them, I suppose.

Happy Thanksgiving

2009-11-25T18:00:00.004-05:00

Om nom nom nom.

Thursday Musings

2009-11-19T21:42:00.003-05:00

If Thursday had a face, it would look like this.

I swear, it's a day of the week that was invented just to mock me.

The Konami Code

2009-11-17T21:04:00.007-05:00

Do you know the Konami Code?

You know, "up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A, start"?
Well, when you look at a lot of websites (e.g. Facebook), you can type that code in and unlock an easter egg.

Observe.
http://www.konamicodesites.com/
This site not only requires using the code to access it, but links to many other pages with interesting Easter Eggs included.

Also, for fun, try it right now on this blog. I'm not a Javascript master, so I couldn't really put any bells and whistles into it, but I thought it was cool enough to be worthy of mention. :)

By the way, when trying to use the code, a lot of websites will require you to press enter after doing the code, including this one (up up down down left right left right B A enter).

A few things that could happen to you once you discover the magic of the Konami Code:

Barney the Dinosaur will decide to beat you up.

You will get 30 lives. In Spanish.

A hippo will do something unfortunate on your screen.

Everything will turn into jam.

You will find the master switch.

You will see jumping unicorns, PETA chicks, sharks, some guy's random spinning head, and the Last Supper.
And most importantly, you will win the internets.

Enjoy!

Sea Within A Sea

2009-11-10T21:18:00.003-05:00

This video has recently been something of an obsession for me.

Innovation Or Ridiculousness? The World May Never Know...

2009-11-09T19:43:00.013-05:00

http://kiwi6.com/file?id=4joepdm4
Click above link to hear me reading this post.

I've decided that I might try something new on the blog. Yes, that's right, not only can you read my nonsense, but you can now hear it too.

I'm going to...basically record myself reading the text of this blog. It's like a book-on-tape except not nearly as exciting, well-written or engaging.

Why would I do this, you ask?

Well, there's a entirely different dimension of communication that is conveyed when you listen to someone speak. You can hear their expression, their inflection, and their tone of voice. It's so much more expressive than just reading something off a page (or a webpage). Also, being a musicianly sort, I would rather hear things than just look at things.

I have yet to decide whether this is actually a good idea or just an incredibly pointless waste of time.

That being said, I'm not sure if I'll continue this for very long or not. It's pretty much just me experimenting with things. But I figure if people have the patience to listen to podcasts, they should have the patience to listen to ME yap.

Also, bear in mind that the "equipment" I'm using is pretty lackluster. I'm broke, people. I'm afraid that annoying buzz in the background is just going to have to stay there.

I really don't have much else to say right now, so I guess I shall see you on the dark side of the moon. This has been Spiderpig.

Peace out.

Why I Use Pictures

2009-11-06T20:13:00.008-05:00

A lot of blog writers just type and type and type away all their thoughts. What's their favorite color and what's their views on gay marriage and what flavor ice cream is the shiznit? You might be able to tell that just from reading the text that's sprawled out on the webpage.

Me? I like to use pictures.

It's a fact of life, kids. With the dawn of the never-ending interconnectivity that is the internet, people are not reading as much. They no longer have the attention span to do it.

I'm just as guilty as the rest of us. As I've said before, I adored reading just for fun for such a long time. Now even I have slacked off and it really pisses me off that I have become...well, another pawn of rapidly waning interest.

Using that logic, I have decided as a blogger that in order for people to read my jolly posts about nothing, I shall have to include visuals that are slightly less boring than lines and lines of plain black text, because that tends to make people decide to check Facebook instead of read my boringness.

See what I mean? Didn't that picture make EVERYTHING BETTER???

Now go Twitter on your iPhone and Google Myspace or I'll Facebook your Yahoo.

(that's what she said).

Psycho kitty, qu'est-ce que c'est?

2009-11-03T22:27:00.006-05:00

I feel like this quite a lot.

On another note, this is almost my hundredth post.

As luck would have it, I have absolutely nothing groundbreaking to say in it.

Who knew, though? Who knew I'd ever write a hundred obnoxious blog posts? And who knew anyone would have the patience to read them?

Halloween

2009-10-31T10:32:00.004-04:00

It's Halloween. Hellz yeah! Trust me, the little kid in me has been waiting all month for this. The big kid in me has too. I don't suppose I will ever grow up when it comes to Halloween.

Watch some scary movies. Dole out the candy. Get in costume. Wait for the Great Pumpkin.

Take off your head and recite Shakespearean quotations.

However you celebrate it, or if you don't celebrate it at all, have a Happy Halloween and have fun.

Just A Thought...

2009-10-25T17:42:00.004-04:00

This would be an amazing Halloween costume.

My Continual Predicament

2009-10-25T17:31:00.005-04:00

Fantasia (1940)

2009-10-22T20:46:00.019-04:00

Fantasia, the 1940 Disney classic, is a movie I have a long history with.

I remember getting out my little VHS tape and just sitting back and taking it all in.

And with a movie like Fantasia, there's just so much to take in.

There's imagery...and then there's IMAGERY. And Fantasia certainly has IMAGERY.

The idea was completely new at the time. Pair winding classical scores with animation. Fantasia did just that, and now seems to have transcended its original premise.
It's not just the stunning visuals, it's how cunningly they were crafted to fit with the musical score.

You'd think at such a young age, I would never have had the attention span for this sort of movie, but I really did find every moment of it fascinating. Even watching the orchestra and the conductor, Leopold Stokowski (I still remember his name, haven't seen Fantasia in years), working away was quite interesting. I still find it intriguing to watch an orchestra do their thing. Just something about how everything fits together.

I suppose I was a music nerd even then.

If you haven't seen the original Fantasia, go watch it. Seriously, go watch it. It may not have a plot, but it certainly has pizzazz.

As for the sequel made 60 years later, Fantasia 2000...

It was fun to watch. Parts of it were very good. But nothing can ever top the arty, groundbreaking original.

Epic Fail of Epic Proportions

2009-10-19T19:31:00.007-04:00

http://kiwi6.com/file?id=5l80eb03

This is a little link to a jingle I wrote and decided to sing. It's pretty pointless, and it is, in itself, an epic fail of epic proportions, but if you're in the mood for such things, I suggest you check it out.

Luigi's Mansion

2009-10-17T19:17:00.022-04:00

Since I started writing the blog again back in July, I had the idea in my mind of doing a sort of summary/review of a game I like very much, Luigi's Mansion. I figured I'd wait until October to write it, but now, I think the moment has come.

For those of you who are not gamers or simply have never played it, Luigi's Mansion was a Gamecube game (in fact, one of the Gamecube's launch titles) released in 2001.

It seems to me that it took its inspiration, to some extent, from Big Boo's Haunt, a level in Super Mario 64 (which was always one of my favorites).

Except it's ten times more awesome because it stars Luigi.

Our good friend Luigi has always been living in Mario's shadow. He's always been second fiddle to him: the second player, an afterthought. It seems only fair that he should star in at least one good game. With the emphasis on GOOD game. He was the main character in Mario is Missing for the NES and SNES, but that game sucked. And was educational.

Needless to say, Luigi's Mansion is far superior.
But what is it about, you ask?
Well, it's basically a mixture of Resident Evil, Ghostbusters, and our most favoritest of all things, Nintendo. Sounds awesome, right?

The basic premise of the game is that Luigi has won a mansion in a contest he didn't even enter. Why he would believe this, I don't know, but Mario goes out to the mansion to check it out and never returns. So, Luigi has to go find him. In the middle of the night.
He finds the mansion and (go figure) it's haunted.

He runs into this mad scientist guy named Professor Elvin Gadd. E. Gadd for short (ha ha, don't you just love Nintendo's puns).

I especially love his little tuft of white hair.

He tells Luigi that he used to capture ghosts back in the day, and he gives him a vacuum called the Poltergust 3000, so that he can capture ghosts and find Mario.

The game is basically Luigi going from room to room in the mansion clearing out the ghosts. When the lights come on in the room, there's no more ghosts. Simple enough.

Really, if you think about it, this game is quite dark for Nintendo. I mean, these are the same people who brought us Yoshi's Story, the cutest, brightest, happiest game you could ever imagine.

There's actually some parts to it that are genuinely a bit scary. Like the part where it looks like Luigi's shadow is being hung.

It's debated whether that was intentional or not. It probably wasn't, but it's still a bit freaky.

I direct you to 10:10-10:30 of this video, in the Astral Hall. That part always scared me.
A lot of people give this game crap for being too short and easy, but those people fail at life. The graphics are amazing for 2001, and I find that they still look great today. The atmosphere is eerie. It's got a lot of wit and clever gameplay. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

It's worth a play. As the game itself says, "you'll be back...and so will we."

A Few Good Pumpkins

2009-10-11T13:04:00.018-04:00

I know it's not quite Halloween yet, but I figured I'd post a few good jack-o-lantern pics because I can.

The Death Star Lantern

The "We're Not In Kansas Anym-o-Lantern"

The Darth Vader Lantern

The Mozilla Firefox Lantern

The Mac-o-Lantern

The Space Invaders Lantern

The Linux Penguin Lantern

The Mari-o-Lanterns

The Internet Explorer Lantern

Here's Johnny!

The John Wayne-o-Lantern

The Heath Ledger Lantern

The Leg-o-Lantern

The Pac-Man Lanterns

The R2-D2 Lantern

The Politico-Lantern

And, last but not least...
The Spock-o-Lantern

Meet The Fetts

2009-10-06T21:27:00.006-04:00

Meet the Fetts.

They were a happy family until daddy cloned himself and was decapitated.

Then little Boba landed himself in the Sarlacc Pit and got horribly devoured.

Am I the only one who sees similarities between them and the Kennedys?

Maybe it's just me. I don't know.

October

2009-10-06T20:32:00.008-04:00

I don't know why, but I've always really liked October.

...

Actually, I do know why. In fact it's quite obvious.
Halloween.

I am like a little kid when it comes to Halloween. God help me, I'd still be out there trick-or-treating if I wasn't way too old to by now. I just loved it. I loved the atmosphere. I loved dressing up and walking out in the dark with my little candy bucket and my flashlight. The candy was, admittedly, quite a large portion of the motivation, but really, I just loved that any holiday could be scary and light-hearted at the same time. And I still do.

That's what really gets me about Halloween, too. It's brilliant. It takes every twisted image from our deepest, darkest, nightmares and makes it an opportunity to get outside, dress up, and chow down on some sugary products. A bright side to the darkness.

That's a quality that Christmas sorely lacks. Sure, the true message of Christmas is all fine and dandy, but is strongly overshadowed by all the false cheer, grating Christmas songs, and rampant commercialism.

That's not to say Halloween isn't commercialistic. It's been called an excuse for candy companies to thrive. Even though I tend to dislike commercialistic holidays (Christmas, Valentine's Day, and the like), the fact that Halloween takes a bad emotion (fear) and makes it more fun to face up to and experience redeems it quite a bit.
That versus Christmas, which shamelessly uses togetherness (which should be a good thing) as an object of pressure to buy every ho-ho-hoing Santa figurine and ear-splittingly awful compilation CD of holiday songs, and Valentine's Day, which dumbs love down to a box of trans-fatty chocolates, a shallowly worded card, and slowly-wilting red roses.

I'll take Halloween any day.

This Is Your Brain

2009-10-05T02:42:00.003-04:00

This is your brain.

This is your brain on school.

Any questions?

The things I think about at 2:30 AM when I should be asleep

2009-10-05T02:26:00.006-04:00

Imagine a world without the glory of rubber chickens.

Yes, I know. The horror, the horror.

My Life

2009-10-05T02:09:00.005-04:00

Frightfully Witty

2009-09-30T20:28:00.004-04:00

Because I have such a limited amount of time to write frightfully witty blog entries, I'm afraid I shall have to resort to desperate measures to continue with this: posting pictures that broadcast my views on various subjects.

I shall begin like so:

MY DANCE AUDITIONS

Auditions

2009-09-28T16:53:00.011-04:00

Acting has been a part of my life, in varying degrees, since I was eight.

The first time I ever acted in a play was in third grade. We were doing a musical called "The North Pole Goes Rock-n-Roll".

It was about Santa Claus, who was trying to "update his image" because he thought he wasn't cool anymore. He tried to become sort of Fonzie-ish, and the whole thing had a 50s theme. I played Mrs. Claus.

I was in a commercial the next year for Universal Ford.

You know if your promo photo has a guy in a cowboy hat in it, it has to be amazing.

I still remember my line.

"The universal truth is..."

That line is freaking burned into my memory. I'll never get it out regardless of how much I might want to.
God, was it work, too, to be in a commercial. Hearing the same five lines or so over and over again. Somebody'd screw up EVERY time, and even if the actors got it right, the cameraman would have camera issues and we'd have to do another take.

They had this big microphone hanging down and one of the crew would move it around a bit, and since I was eight and bored out of my mind, my eyes couldn't help following it. It's always nice to get told off by directors. Just beautiful.

It was absolutely the most exhausting thing I've ever had to go through.

Throughout middle school, I was in Drama class, Drama Club, and all the musicals. In sixth grade, we did Guys and Dolls. I was in the mission band.

In seventh, we did Fiddler on the Roof.

I played Yente the Matchmaker because I'm awesome like that.

Eighth grade, we did Schoolhouse Rock Live!.

It's hard to say whether I really enjoyed that one or not. That whole year, I just found everything disappointing.

The only reason I bring all this up is because I'm trying out for Once Upon A Mattress tomorrow. Regardless of all the times I've auditioned for things, auditions never fail to make me tense. Especially dance auditions, because, in all seriousness, I can't dance. I really can't.

I suppose I'll let you know how it goes. It's going to be a busy week.

How I Felt Today/Ghost Hunting

2009-09-25T18:36:00.011-04:00

I could go into a long and extremely boring description of how my week was, but I've decided just to post a picture of how I felt today. I think it sums everything up on many different levels.

On another note, it was my best friend's birthday this Monday, September 21, and to celebrate it, we're going ghost hunting.

Now, I've never been ghost hunting before, nor did I ever expect I would. All I really know about it is what I learned from watching cheesy reruns of the original Scooby Doo as a small child.

But I digress.

Not only do I think I'll embarrass myself, I KNOW I'll embarrass myself. You can always count on me to have bizarre phobias.

Perhaps I should not admit this to the world, but I feel it's time I came to terms with this.

When I was very young, I was not afraid of the boogeyman. I was not afraid of monsters under the bed.

I was afraid of toilets.
Yes. Toilets.

I'm not talking about just when I was three or four years old. I was still afraid of them long after I had a right to be. My fear of toilets is the reason my teachers reconsidered skipping me to the first grade.

That's all I'll say on the matter.

Anyway, I might discuss my experience on my blog if I have anything enlightening to say. Perhaps I'll be too embarrassed or scarred by the experience to write about it. Only time will tell.

In any case, at least I'm going with my best friend. That way we can freak out together.

Public Service Announcement

2009-09-24T22:05:00.003-04:00

Let that be a lesson to you, kids.

Pieces of Flair

2009-09-24T21:49:00.004-04:00

Sorry I haven't written anything in a bit. I just...can't seem to get my thoughts together. In the meantime, I decided to post a screen capture of my Pieces of Flair on Facebook, just because I can (and in the end, isn't that really the best reason?).

Traffic Regulators

2009-09-17T19:12:00.010-04:00

I may not be a particularly beautiful person. I may not be a particularly graceful person. I may not have a lot of skills that I will ever be able to put to good use in the "real world", as I've so often heard it referred to by people who claim to be living in it. But, you know what?

At least I don't walk at a crawl's pace on the sidewalks. At least I'm not a traffic regulator, possibly the most hated sort of person around who isn't "technically" committing a crime.

It's not really that I have any special desire to get where I'm going. It's just that I hate the sidewalks. Actually, hate isn't nearly a strong enough word. I loathe, abhor, and deplore the sidewalks. Strike them all down. Smite them. They're horrible.

Although the mystery liquid that drips out of the awnings when it rains is not much of a plus, the people are worst part, really, of the sidewalks at my school. For some reason, people have this insane notion that it's a fantastic idea to park themselves right in the middle of the walkways with a group of ditzy friends, just completely oblivious and chatting their lives away.

I'm under the impression that if they drove like they walked, and just randomly decided to stop in the middle of the road and chat with someone in the neighboring car, they'd get hit and someone would die. If not that, there would at least be some sort of tragic injury. I've never thought that was a good idea.

Not only that, but they look at me as if I'm a bad person because I'm actually trying to go somewhere.

The people that do move do so at a pace that I didn't believe was physically possible until I saw it happen. Truly, I tried to imitate that pace and really had to strain to make myself walk that slowly. It was actually a lot more effort for me than walking quickly.

People. I know you don't like me, and I don't really like you either. Neither of us REALLY want to be at the school. That's kind of the unwritten rule of being a student. With that said, please: I beseech you. Move your freaking legs.

And please, not in a row with 20 of your friends so that I can't possibly get around you.

Make this easier for all of us. Even if you've got nowhere to go, I do.

Birthday Wishes

2009-09-15T19:43:00.006-04:00

My birthday was last Saturday, September 12. And, really, it couldn't have gone better. There was only one thing missing:

There were no aliens (or, if you prefer, extraterrestrial beings) around to make a crop circle for me.

I mean, come on, guys! That's quite a faux pas. Very inconsiderate. I think I deserve it too. I mean, I've had a hard year, doing...stuff.

Seriously. Get the flying saucers cracking and get with the program! Don't make me come over there!

If George Orwell's 1984 were to occur today...

2009-09-14T20:03:00.004-04:00

Anonymity

2009-09-14T19:29:00.006-04:00

Dear So and So,

Since I know the government is reading this, I'll put this as cryptically as I can: I need to borrow the thingamajigger from the someplace. Tell what's-her-name to meet me at that tree...you know? That one with the really big branches and the green leaves? You know what I'm talking about?

Ah, you'll see it when you get there.

Sincerely,

P.S. Somebody set up us the bomb!

The tale of Sherlock Holmes and his pet universe, wherein no mysteries are actually solved

2009-09-11T21:46:00.009-04:00

My friend and I sort of improvised this very short story about Sherlock Holmes and his pet universe. I wrote Watson's parts. She wrote Holmes's parts. The reason it has times on it is because we wrote it while on Facebook Chat. Enjoy the randomness!
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

9:17 pm
"Taking your universe out for a walk today, Holmes?" Watson asked casually.

9:17 pm
"Why yes, my good Watson. Magnifique!" Holmes replied, unusually giddy.

9:18 pm
"What exactly do you feed your universe? I don't think they sell universe food in most stores." inquired Watson.

9:19 pm
"Why, Watson, you are correct indeed. I happen to feed my universe the souls of people in school. It's quite a diet, I must say so myself." Marveled Holmes.

9:20 pm
"Extraordinary," gasped Watson. "You really do have all the answers."

9:21 pm
"I try...I try. You'd be surprised." replied Holmes taking a puff of his pipe.

puff

9:21 pm
universe barks happily

9:21pm
pats universe on the North Pole

9:22 pm
"It's really rather adorable, you know," Watson observed. "I wonder if I could afford one?"

9:24 pm
"Most dubiously! It takes some work, but once acquired, a Universe can be a most interesting pet...and a very handy one at that!" Holmes chuckled slightly.

9:25 pm
"Handy? How so?" wondered Watson.

9:27 pm
"Ha-ha-ha!" chuckled Holmes as so. "My dear Watson, they are the most nifty creatures about. By having your own Universe, you can almost guarantee dictatorship!"

9:28 pm
"A helpful guarantee indeed," Watson added.

9:28 pm
"Indeed."

---------Our conversation immediately following the story----------
9:29 pm
Hehe. That story made me want a pet universe.
epic win

9:29pm
xDD
That deserves to go into the FB quote section

9:30pm
Like, the whole story, or just the "pet universe" thing? Cuz I agree either way.

9:31pm
mm the whole thing cause it's amazing
without a doubt
yo

9:31pm
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle just got served

9:31pm
OH SNAP

9:32pm
What now?

My First Day continued

2009-09-10T19:12:00.008-04:00

I know I painted my first days of school as utterly horrible in my last post, but in total honesty, they weren't all that bad. Sure, I'm frustrated with having to go back, but who wouldn't be? Besides, I guarantee the teachers feel the same way.

Compared to the rest of the year, the first week is often ridiculously simple. That's not to say I haven't had real assignments yet, but they haven't been a huge deal.

Just making sure you all know that...

Random pic!

My First Day

2009-09-07T18:37:00.018-04:00

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. So, I figure I'll just illustrate through pictures how my first two days of school went.

My teachers:

My classes:

Gym:

Random students:

Homework:

Overall opinion:

If a picture really is worth a thousand words, this counts as a 13,000 word post. I think that's enough said.

Note: Some of the opinions expressed in this post are exaggerated slightly. Please take them with a grain of salt.

We Don't Need No Education

2009-09-07T13:31:00.006-04:00

So, today, I don't really have a whole speech to write, because I can't possibly put my frustration into concise enough words. Suffice it to say that I'm not looking forward to going back to school tomorrow. Go figure.

The fact that I didn't write on the blog for more than a year says clearly that I'm not a person fit for regimented schedules. I get frustrated with it very quickly.

I feel quite alone as well. The fact that my friends almost never have classes with me is no help.

Excuse me while I scream random gibberish into my pillow.

Traveling 33 RPM in an iPod world

2009-09-06T02:42:00.021-04:00

I just got a record player.

For the most part, I've grown up during the golden age of the CD.

I also lived with cassettes a little bit. I understood how to use them, at least.

Growing up as such, record players are a complete and utter mystery to me.

My concept of how a record player actually worked was sort of vague before I actually witnessed it. I knew it had something to do with a needle and a turntable, and...I don't know. Something or other.

Perhaps, at one time, I thought it was sorcery. But, as it turns out, operating a record player is something any mere mortal CAN learn to do. The problem is, the operation of a record player does seem to be a very precise and exact science, or, some might even say, an art.

With CDs, there's no fuss, no muss. You pop the CD out of the case, stick it in the player, shut it, and press play. There's not a whole lot of time or thought involved in that. With records, it seems to be an entirely different story. You see, back in the day, there was a little thing called...an album.

Inside of this...album was...an album. A record, if you will.

This record would be placed on the turntable, after which the needle would have to be moved to the outside edge of the record and lowered.

After which, the turntable can be turned on to spin, and you can play your lovely tunes.

Wow. To me, having been spoiled on the age of CDs, this seems a bit of a project. Hell, I'm not even sure if I've got all the steps straight in my head. It seems to require some effort and care, and that's actually harder to do than it sounds in print, at least to people as grace-challenged as me.

For one thing, when pulling the actual record out of its sleeve, you have to make sure not to actually touch the record. The record is apparently holy, and therefore, insulted and humiliated by the touch of clumsy, mortal hands. But I digress.

It's easier to pull a CD out of a case without getting fingerprints on it simply because CDs are smaller, lighter, and more compact. In fact, that's what CD stands for. Compact Disc.

Albums, on the other hand, are freaking huge. At least, in comparison. So, the prospect of trying to get it out of the sleeve without it spontaneously combusting or having God smite me for touching it was harder (at least, to me) than it looked.

I'm told there's a trick to doing it, but I haven't really gotten it down yet, to be honest.

Also, putting the needle down at the right place proved slightly troublesome. Perhaps it's just my record player, but there's supposed to be a click when the needle is in the right place. I've never once heard it click.

So, I'm left there, scratching my head and standing there like a moron until I can get someone older and wiser than me to set it all right, but not before they chuckle bemusedly and roll their eyes in a condescending sort of way.

I imagine if I have enough practice with it, I'll eventually get it down. I'm sure if I'd grown up with vinyl, I would understand it a lot more. Looking on it as an outsider, it seems to require a lot of patience.

That being said, it pays off. Vinyl is freaking awesome.

I don't know if it's the fact that the artwork on the cover actually seems to matter and distinguish one album from another to a degree CDs can't match.

Maybe it's the rather hypnotic effect that the album has while spinning around and around and around, something CDs are sadly lacking. I find it oddly fascinating. It seems to hold me in awe.

Maybe it's the fact that you can play them at different speeds, which is always good for a laugh.

I think, most of all, the fact that it requires more effort than CDs do leaves the listener with more of a sense of accomplishment. Playing a CD doesn't make me feel any different. Playing a record is, in a weird way, gratifying.

It's like a one-night stand versus a committed relationship. In the end, which is really more rewarding?

An uninformed treatise on materialism and materialism's by-products

2009-09-03T20:26:00.016-04:00

Most people would think, because of unfair gender stereotyping, that I like shopping.

I don't.

In most cases, the actual act of shopping isn't that painful. It's what happens afterwards that hurts. Coming home sore from walking hours on end. The hefty loss of spending cash. The existential and philosophical exhaustion from spending so much on material goods that don't really reward or contribute to life in a positive way.

It just doesn't make me happy.

Admittedly, there's a lot of places that I cannot go into without purchasing something. For instance, bookstores (the smell of coffee brings me in and the abundance of interesting reads makes me stay)

and record stores (how many times I've seen piercings amongst their patrons, I can't and won't count).

I simply must peruse their selections. There's no way for me not to. There's so much to find, so many good deals, so much to learn, so much to experience.

When it comes to other things, though, like clothes, makeup, and jewelry, I just don't see the point.

They don't change who you are. They don't make you a better person on the inside. Why bother with them? I'd rather be what I am than fake being beautiful.

I also have a beef with online shopping.

The lack of human contact is, at times, a plus, being introverted as I am. I do often find myself zapped of energy after going to the mall and being around so many strangers.

Of the options, though, I much prefer actually going to the store and picking things up. Why?

You get to leave with the item you've just purchased, look at it, hold it in your hand, open it up, and do whatever you want with it. I think there's something to be said for having what you need immediately.

With online shopping, while there is a much larger selection of items and convenience value, it requires waiting for people to ship things to you when you can't physically see what shape they're in and you can't be guaranteed that they'll ever get to you.

I'm not a huge fan of materialism in general, especially when it comes to holidays. In the modern world, though, there's really no way to escape it, so the only thing most of us can do is embrace to whatever extent we can stand to. After all, I suppose it does stimulate the economy...

As a final point, yes, the title of this blog post was actually intended to be that ridiculous.

3 Things I Won't Miss From When I Was Young

2009-09-03T18:51:00.010-04:00

It's very difficult for me to believe that it's almost 2010. I've written often about my rose-tinted view of the past and its simpler technology and thought patterns. Going into the next decade soon, however, there's a few things I won't be afraid to leave behind. Although I will continue to get misty-eyed every time someone brings up the Ninja Turtles, I thought I'd talk about some of the less pleasant aspects of my earlier life so I'll be able to leave it all behind less grudgingly.

1.) Cow and Chicken

I don't know how versed you readers are with Cartoon Network lore, but Cow and Chicken was a show that aired back in the late 90s. Having recently caught the end of an episode on Boomerang recently, I can say with certainty that it was the most idiotic piece of animated drivel I ever saw as a kid.

It was the kind of show that I would watch only if there really was nothing else on. Like, say, the Weather Channel. Yes, that's how much I didn't like Cow and Chicken. I would pick the Weather Channel over it. Really, I don't remember it having much of a plotline. Just a lot of noise. In that respect, it was much like Ren and Stimpy, except Ren and Stimpy was actually funny.

I tended to opt for more intelligently written cartoons, like Genndy Tartakovsky's Dexter's Laboratory, Powerpuff Girls, and Samurai Jack. I won't be afraid to forget all about this travesty of a show.

2.) 56K modems

As awesome as these things were back in the day, I would never, EVER want to go back to using them again. Wireless internet is just so much more convenient. Although I will still remember the sound of the modem dialing with slight fondness, modern internet is too good to pass up.

3.) Lacking intelligence

This one, I'd have to say I'm sort of half and half on.
I've certainly learned a lot of things in the last ten years through both experience and education. I find, however that how much more intelligent I am now than I was ten years ago is debatable.

Intelligence is a double-edged sword. Certainly, it's often enlightening to understand how and why things work the way they do. Often, however, I really wish I didn't know all the things I know now. I don't think it's a coincidence that ten years ago, while I was not nearly as well-versed as I am now, I was not at all depressed either.

Perhaps I was smarter when I was capable of having fun rather than capable of understanding a Shakespearean work (although I don't really know that I'm entirely capable of the latter either in many cases, at least without footnotes). As the old saying goes, ignorance is bliss.

Nevertheless, intelligence is a very practical skill to have and one that I will need to use throughout my life if I plan on keeping a job down and getting my life together in a time of crisis.

Here's Johnny!

2009-09-03T16:54:00.006-04:00

You didn't think I'd be back, did you? You thought after August, I would just disappear forever.

Well, I didn't!

History Classes

2009-08-31T15:29:00.016-04:00

It seems to me that history classes in the U.S. are very self-centered.

What do I mean by this, you may or may not ask?
We learn the same 400 or so years of our own history over and over, but the rest of the world's history from the beginning of time to now is crammed into a year or two in high school and college.

My Slightly Exaggerated Depiction

Kindergarten Teacher: "Let's learn American history, kids!"
Kids: "YAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!"
1st Grade Teacher: "Let's learn American history, kids!"
Kids: "YAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!"
2nd Grade Teacher: "Let's learn American history, and just a little bit about Ancient Egypt and China."
Kids: "YAAAA... wait, what? There's other history?"
3rd Grade Teacher: "American History, and a little bit about Mali."
Kids: "OK, now you're just confusing me."
4th Grade Teacher: "Hey, remember all that crap you learned in 2nd and 3rd grade about other places? Forget the hell out of that! We're learning American History!"
Kids: "Um, yay?"
5th Grade Teacher: "American History again."
Kids: "Yeah, that's great..."
6th-8th Grade: "American History!"
Kids: "Lovely, guys, but I remember hearing something about there being a rest of the world out there somewhere. I was wondering if you confirm that I wasn't just imagining that...
9th and 10th Grade: "World History I and II"
Kids: "Woah. This is a lot to take in. The beginning of civilization to now in two years? How can I possibly learn everything I need to know about the rest of the world when you spent so much time on telling me every last fairy tale image of how great the Founding Fathers were? (screams into pillow)
11th and 12th Grade: "Hey, remember all that crap you learned in 9th and 10th grade about the rest of the world? Forget the hell out of that! We're learning American History and Government, kids!"
Kids: "(heavy sigh) You people make no sense."

OK, maybe all that was just a little exaggerated. But really, this is how I see history classes in America. We learn all about ourselves and just a bit about the rest of the world, which we will promptly forget once we go back to learning about ourselves again. It makes no sense.

Yes, we get it. Let Freedom Ring and all that good stuff. Now, which country is next on the list of "soon-to-be-oppressed-and-misunderstood-countries-just-because-we-meddled-in-their-affairs-without-taking-the-time-to-learn-their-whole-back-story"?

There's a whole world out there with too many nations to count, and as the upcoming generation of Americans, we're going to be dealing with most of them in the future.

Since that's the case, doesn't it make a little sense that we should learn more about them? If we learn what they were like then, it's easier to understand how they got the way they are now. At least, that's the understanding I always had. So why do we insist on the same-old-same-old?

It's clear the system we have isn't working now. We're just a bit lost when it comes to dealing with other countries. Nothing showed that more clearly than the Bush administration.

I'd very much like to be informed about the rest of the world, but I just don't think American education, or for that matter, biased news programs, are helping me out very much.

Sorry for getting just a little political there. It's hard not to discuss history without politics being involved somehow. The two have a tendency to go hand in hand.

I also know that even World History classes have a European bias. It's impossible to think of history, in fact, without some bias or another. I just think Americans should open their eyes to the rest of the world a bit more than we do, because I don't want to be as lost for words in the face of other nations as it seems this generation of Americans sometimes is.

Concerts

2009-08-30T13:39:00.011-04:00

I've been to a fair number of concerts. Not a whole lot yet, but a decent number, and whenever I go to one, there are two specific things that I hope to see, not in the performance, but in the crowd. I've never gone without finding both of them.

1.) Chicken wings

This is specific to the venue I go to most of the time. Due to the often arduous wait between my arrival at the venue and the time the show actually starts, I find myself looking around a lot at the other concert-goers. A surprising number of them seem to think loud music goes really well with a nice, sloppy helping of chicken wings on a paper plate.

I personally think that if I got chicken wings at a concert, something disastrous would happen. I'd get food poisoning or accidentally dump my plate all over somebody's head and get a nice solid punch in the face.

Although, since I'm a vegetarian, I wouldn't eat chicken wings anyway.

2.) Drunk people dancing with their beers

This may sound like I'm making fun of drunk people, but I'm not. Oddly enough, I love drunk people at concerts. I'm not particularly a fan of the noise they make during song intros and quieter numbers, but I do admire their ability to let go and just have a good time.
You know it's been a good concert when you're sitting in your seat and some random guy stands up and dances, waving his beer around in one flailing hand, all the while knowing every lyric by heart and yelling each one perfectly. He might not remember it tomorrow, but it makes the concert that much more epic today.

I always wish them well and hope they drive home safely.

An Addendum To My Virtual Console Post

2009-08-30T01:21:00.009-04:00

Back in July, I posted about 5 games I think should be on the Wii's Virtual Console. I later realized that there's one very glaring example that I did not include.

Why is Contra for the NES not on the Virtual Console? Looking under the 81 titles the Virtual Console has for the NES and not seeing Contra there is pretty sad, especially considering games like Milon's Secret Castle are. Judging from the Angry Video Game Nerd's review, that game looks pretty lame.

Seriously, though. Contra's a definite classic NES title. It was made by Konami, no less. Konami's done a lot of awesome games. They made the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles arcade game, which was nothing short of awesome.

What puzzles me even more is that another Konami classic, Castlevania, is on the Virtual Console.

Why not Contra, then?

I hope Nintendo gets on this quickly, because it seems like a striking miscalculation.

My Typical Summer Day

2009-08-28T23:22:00.021-04:00

Sorry for my lack of any posts worthy of reading. I simply have nothing important or interesting going on in my life at the moment.
I thought I'd give you a basic rundown of how every day of this summer has been for me, since it's about to disappear forever.

MY DAY

2:00 PM: Wake up.
2:01 PM-2:59 PM: Listen to music. Ponder the universe.
3:00 PM: Wander downstairs, bleary-eyed, and grab a snack.
3:01 PM-4:00 PM: Listen to more music. Ponder the universe again. Possibly play guitar.
4:01 PM-4:30 PM: Brood. Wonder why no one else liked Pink Floyd-The Final Cut except my dad and me.
4:31 PM-5:00 PM: Stare at ceiling.
5:30 PM-5:59 PM: Surf YouTube videos absentmindedly.
6:00 PM-7:30 PM: Dinner. Pizza and/or side of fries. Or Mexican food.
7:30 PM-10:00 PM: Get nostalgic and/or think really depressing thoughts.
10:01 PM-11:00 PM: Wish the Daily Show was on. And Colbert.
11:01 PM-12:00 PM: Reruns. Crap.
12:01 PM-2:59 AM: Consider doing something interesting but think better of it. Possibly write blog post (would fall under "uninteresting" as well).
3:00 AM: Grab another snack.
3:01 AM-5:29 AM: Unsuccessful attempts to go to sleep.
5:30 AM: Sun comes up. Makes attempts at sleep even less successful.
6:00 AM: Finally fall asleep after much effort.

Ah, the endless wonder that is my life.

The Simpsons After Dark: Itchy and Scratchy

2009-08-27T00:23:00.027-04:00

In my earlier After Dark post, I mentioned that my parents had deleted the Itchy and Scratchy screensaver from our copy of the Simpsons After Dark because it was a very violent screensaver and I was still a small child.

Guess what?

I got it back.
There it is, right there in blue on my module list.

I can finally watch it again after all these years.

I'm loving that a link to my blog showed up in the screenshot. A close up:

I will admit that the screensaver is, as my parents asserted, extremely violent.

Above we see a beheaded Scratchy getting shot at by Itchy.

Here we see Scratchy after being put through a blender (a.k.a. a folder called "Blend-O-Matic", how clever).

Here we see Itchy using a mouse cursor as a knife, which he does often.

Here we see Scratchy's head about to be blown up with dynamite.

Here we see Scratchy's skeletal head.

The various folders and documents in the screensaver often serve as "plot devices" of sorts.

Many of the documents, often titled:

or:

often end up being destroyed in some way.

Some of the folders, like these, were almost certainly included just to give the people who are paying attention a laugh.

Itchy and Scratchy both often jump inside the folders.

They also pop out of them.

You could choose how long they would chase each other before Scratchy was finally brutally murdered: slow death, less gore, more gore, or insta-death.
I've heard that After Dark's developers at now-defunct Berkeley Systems included an easter egg in this screensaver that made it so Scratchy would finally beat Itchy... but only on April Fool's Day. I've never witnessed it for myself, so I'm not sure if it's true or not.
But I only ever saw it end one way: with Scratchy's demise.

With a final wink from Itchy, the screensaver would fade to black and start over with a new situation.

My final verdict: it was definitely violent, but the face of the Krusty Simpsons clock in one of the other screensavers scarred me a lot more than this ever would have.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By the way, just wanted to thank whoever commented on my Virtual Console post, because it was my first comment in two years.

Chuck Norris, eat your heart out

2009-08-25T19:38:00.012-04:00

People, animals, and things that rival Chuck Norris's uncensored awesomeness:

1.) The yo-yo flamingo from Fantasia 2000

Sure, Chuck Norris is, well, Chuck Norris... but this flamingo could run circles around him with his mad yo-yo skills.

2.) Lucas from The Wizard

Sure, Chuck Norris is good, but nobody can beat Lucas. (chika-chiKAH)

3.) My team of highly trained monkeys

Got a problem? A blog to write? There's a highly trained monkey team for that. My team seems to have forgotten it's casual day, but no harm done.

4.) Wilford Brimley as a cat

Don't mess with Liberty Medical Insurance, Chuck, or this cat's gonna sink his teeth and his...moustache (?) into you.

5.) The hammers from Pink Floyd The Wall

A roundhouse kick isn't going to do much good against these things.

6.) The Linux Penguin

The Linux Penguin: destroyer of worlds, raider of cities, and 2nd place beauty contest winner in Monopoly. Well, he strikes fear into my heart, at least, and you should be afraid too, Mr. Norris.

7.)The Duck Hunt Dog

Seriously, nobody can stand this dog. Not even Chuck Norris, I'm sure.

8.) Groundskeeper Willie from the Simpsons

He's coming, laddie!

9.) Shigeru Miyamoto

Think about it. He could never lose. He'd just reprogram the game so that he could win.

10.) Dark Helmet from Spaceballs

Once ludicrous speed kicks in, even Chuck Norris can't keep up.

Album of the Week

2009-08-24T14:51:00.003-04:00

Because memory is a stranger. And history is for fools.

The Simpsons After Dark Screensavers

2009-08-23T22:02:00.070-04:00

Anybody remember After Dark screensavers?

These were from the glory days when screensavers were still cool. They came on floppy drives (yes, remember those?) and the memories I have of just sitting and watching them have stuck with me.
Now, After Dark has faded out of existence, and if you download free screensavers, you run the risk of getting spyware and viruses. What's a screensaver-lover to do nowadays?
I had the Star Trek: TOS and TNG ones and the original After Dark as well, but the one I remember most fondly was the Simpsons After Dark. God, those were awesome screensavers.
I grabbed the files from my dad's jump drive recently and thought I'd take a ridiculously in-depth look at all these screensavers.

I found some stats on the Simpsons screensaver:
"The Simpsons Screen Saver
Berkeley Systems
1994
UPC 093462 501437 (CD-ROM)
MSRP: $29.99
Supplied on 3.5" floppy or CD-ROM
Requires a 386 computer and above, Microsoft Windows 3.1 or later (Enhanced mode), a VGA monitor or better, 4Mb of RAM, and 5Mb of free hard disk space. Sound Blaster or compatible sound card recommended. EcoLogic supports Energy Star compliant monitors only."

Uh oh. A 386. Windows 3.1. 5 meg of space. 4 meg of ram. Some steep requirements, no?

If you're not familiar with After Dark, this is what the menu looked like.

The screensaver started when you moved your cursor to the top left corner of your screen and let it sit there.
The first one on the list:
Chalkboard

This was basically a whole screensaver based on the chalkboard gags at the beginning of every Simpsons episode. Bart would write the same sentence over and over on the board, for instance, "My homework was not stolen by a one-armed man". When he filled the board up, he'd erase it and a new sentence would begin. You could set how often he'd make mistakes or how messy his handwriting was as well. Not much to explain.

Files

These were short, Simpson's related lists.

Grampa's Wisdom

On this one, Grampa Simpson would appear in a purple chair and occasionally say phrases like "Where were we?"
"There are too many states nowadays!"
"I want my pills!"
etc.
Sometimes he would fall asleep and he would float on a cloud before being jolted back into awakeness.

This was one of several of the Simpsons After Dark screensavers that you could set to clear the screen before starting it or not.

Grass Skirts

In this one, Homer and Flanders are both mowing their lawns in dresses. This is based on an early episode, but I don't remember which.
This was another one that you could set to clear the screen before beginning or not. This is what it looks like if you don't clear the screen first.

Homer Eats
Basically, it's what the title says. You can set different things for Homer to eat, like pizza, candy bars, crispy treats (like Rice Krispies), waffles, or ice cream...

but my personal favorite was the one where he ate your desktop.

Marge also walked around laying down other items for Homer to eat between rows, like american cheese and pork rinds. She put down fruit as well, but he typically skipped over that.
That screensaver still makes me hungry to this day. Incidentally, you could set where Homer showed butt cleavage or not. That's so...classy.

How To Draw
This screensaver was basically a step-by-step walkthrough of how to draw the Simpsons. It would offer little tips in text balloons along the way, like...

Sometimes the tips would tell you which Pantone color to use or things like that. Eventually, if you followed closely, you would end up with a full-blown Simpson.

I never actually attempted to draw the Simpsons while this screensaver played. I just liked watching the screensaver do it automatically.
Another thing I liked about this screensaver was the little portraits they would show in between the tutorials, like...

I later realized that these portraits were all from actual Simpsons episodes. The one of Homer as the donut was from an early Treehouse of Horror where Homer sells his soul to the devil for a donut. Marge and Maggie's portraits were from the same episode, I think, in the background while the narrators were speaking, and possibly Bart's also? I don't remember explicitly which one Bart's was from. (They don't show early Simpsons much anymore). Lisa's was from Last Exit to Springfield, fourth season, while she was gassed and getting braces.

The next screensaver was an Itchy and Scratchy one, I believe. I loved the screensaver, but I don't remember this one very much and can't show you any screenshots because my parents deleted it. At the time, I was a very small child and they thought it was too violent for me. (scoff). If anything, they should have deleted the Simpsons Clocks-Krusty one for being too disturbing and creepy, but I'm getting to that in a bit.

I still want that freaking Itchy and Scratchy screensaver back. If only, if only.

Krusty

This one was basically Krusty doing various performances. It would always start with the spotlight searching for him. Whenever the spotlight found him, he was always doing something else, like looking at a magazine.

Or smoking.

Anyway, he would notice shortly that he was on air and start his performance. He'd typically juggle and/or ride a unicycle. Sometimes he would make shadow puppets.

You could set how well the audience received his act. Sometimes they would cheer. Sometimes it would just end. Sometimes you could hear the sound of crickets. Sometimes they threw tomatoes at him.

Krusty gets no respect.

Lisa's Mood Swings
In this one, Lisa walks out and plays her sax. Her mood would be either happy...

Sad...

Or angry...

I used to try to buzz along with her on my kazoo. :P

Mr. Burns
This was one of my favorites. There was so much going on in this one. I can still sit and watch this one for long stretches of time and it holds my interest.
It's basically got Mr. Burns and Smithers in it. Mr. Burns occasionally shouts things like "Get back to work!"
"Lollygagger."
"Layabout!"
"Excellent."
When I was little, I used to watch this screensaver and pretend I was working on something so as not to piss off Mr. Burns. :D

Sometimes Smithers will disappear into an elevator.
Sometimes Mr. Burns will snap his fingers for Smithers to bring him something, like a portrait of him or a statue.

After Smithers did this, he would typically say "excellent" and walk off screen.
Sometimes he would check the security cameras to see what his employees were doing.

Sometimes, thought balloons would pop up that showed what Burns and Smithers were thinking.

Occasionally, a toxic cloud would appear, which Mr. Burns would hide from, leaving Smithers out in the open.

The cloud would go inside Mr. Burns's radiation bunker instead and Mr. Burns would come out mutated in some way.

My absolute favorite part of this screensaver is the part where the duck comes out toting a tank of nuclear waste.

That duck is awesome.
Very involved for a screensaver, is it not? That's what I like about After Dark. The creativity of it all.

Objets B'art

Bart spray-paints all over everything, hoping not to get caught by Principal Skinner, and in the middle of it all, Nelson is running around trying to punch Milhouse. Like Mr. Burns, this one is one I can sit and watch for a very long time and still be transfixed by.

Physics

Not much to say about this one. A bunch of Simpsons heads floating around and occasionally knocking into each other.

Simpsons Clocks
This one had three different clocks you could choose from.
Duff

The Duff Beer clock was my favorite. Things would pop out of its doors occasionally, like...
Rats.

Barney.

Some random dude sitting on a couch.

This clock was awesome.

Maggie

The Maggie clock was all right. It really didn't leave that much of an impression on me. It's basically Maggie walking across the screen and falling down a lot while the clock sucks on the pacifier.

And the really horribly creepy one...
Krusty

The clock is designed like one of those cat clocks with the tail pendulums and the eyes that move back and forth, which are just plain creepy anyway, even though I really like cats.

But this clock is ten times worse because it's A FREAKING CLOWN.

The clock's eyes move back and forth and his tongue swings like a pendulum. All the while Krusty's voice shrieks "HEY, HEEEY, KIDS!" over and over again, incessantly.

But that's not the worst part.

As we Simpsons fans all know, Krusty products are not very well manufactured.

If you sat and watched this clock long enough, it would start to break down, becoming exponentially more creepy as it progressed.
First, the clock would start sparking.

Then, its eyes would pop out of their sockets. Sometimes it was one, then the other.

Sometimes it was both at once.

The voice shouting "HEY, HEEEY, KIDS!" the whole time continued throughout, but eventually started malfunctioning as well.
Also, if you were especially unlucky (though this didn't happen every time), Krusty's pendulum tongue would stop working, elongate to this horrifically scary length, and then just hang there limp like something dead.

Then, once this image had lingered long enough to permanently burn itself into my frail young consciousness, the clock would explode in a final burst of malfunction.

I don't know why my parents deleted the Itchy and Scratchy screensaver and left this monstrosity on. It literally freaked me out. You can't call me a wimp because I was scared of it, though. If you had seen that when you were five-ish, you would have been freaked out by it too.
I know it was meant to be a sly reference to the show, but it scarred me in ways I will probably never comprehend and don't feel up to commenting on. As such, it's my least favorite Simpsons After Dark screensaver.

Simpsons Trivia

This is a Simpsons Trivia game that you can actually play along with if you press Caps Lock, I think. It's pretty cool.

Snowball I

This one, the last on the Simpsons After Dark set, is a lot like the Flying Toasters After Dark screensaver, except using flying Snowball I angels, the cat the Simpsons used to have before she was run over by a car. I always liked the music it played.

Just as a side note, Snowball I runs really fast because of how much more advanced my computer is compared with a 386.

Well, that's it. I finally got through them all. I'm sure that was as exhausting for you to read as it was for me to write, so thanks for your patience.
I might go over some of the other After Darks eventually, if I can get them to run on my Vista computer. I got the classic After Dark set to run somehow, but neither of the Star Treks seemed to work. It's a shame, because I love both the Star Trek After Darks.

I'll do my best. Ciao!

Sports (and my epic struggle against caring about them)

2009-08-22T02:07:00.014-04:00

You know what's really sad?
The only sport I really know anything about is Quidditch, and Quidditch doesn't even exist.

Yes. I know that little about sports.

I think part of the reason I don't get into sports is that there's not a single one I'm actually good at.
Baseball.

Football.

Soccer.

Basketball. Tennis. Volleyball. Lacrosse.

Maybe if I'd seen any success at anything in gym class, I might actually like sports just a little bit more now. The only thing I ever did in gym class that I was reasonably good at was archery.

Of course, since it was the only cool thing we ever did, there was only one day out of one year allotted for it. Freaking gym teachers and their devious plots.

I don't mind people who like sports. It's legitimate entertainment. I'm not trying to knock people that are into sports.
I just wish that when I say I didn't watch the Super Bowl or when I say I don't really have a "team", that people wouldn't scoff at me in a condescending way. It's not a crime not to care about sports, you know.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to check Quidditch stats. I hear Puddlemere United is having a good season.

Partisan Bickering

2009-08-21T00:33:00.012-04:00

I hate politics.

Sure, I have opinions. Obviously, since I write a blog. I just hate talking about them when it comes to politics. What a touchy subject. There's some serious anger brewing in the hearts of both liberals and conservatives. The same tried and true arguments keep shooting across the political spectrum like cannonfire.
I love the people at the town hall meetings who chanted "one nation, under God, indivisible..." trying to drown out any backlash from the people on stage, because, ironically, they were saying it to try to further divide the nation on health care.

Seriously, guys: I'm sick and tired of the partisan bickering. I've always been sick and tired of it.

Do you people seriously think this is how we get things done in this country? Yell the loudest?

The fact is that we are not one nation, under God, indivisible, as we've so often recited in the Pledge of Allegiance. We are one nation of 300 million people, all of whom have very different viewpoints. We are, therefore, a divided nation, and have never been otherwise.

Both sides, left and right, have the unfortunate tendency to assume that their opinions are undeniable fact. They aren't.
Politics is entirely based on opinions. Both Democrats and Republicans have the same goal in mind: to improve America. The problem is that they have opposite ideas about how to obtain a better America. Democrats tend to be concerned about health care, gay marriage, the war in Iraq, and environmental issues like global warming and alternative fuels. Republicans would tend to think states-rights, less gun control, and abortion.

There are arguments for both sides' viewpoints. The problem is that when talking about politics, there are hardly any facts: only opinions. And partisan bickering. Lots of that. So much it threatens to tear us apart. I don't know how, but we've got to come to our senses. We've got to sit down and come to some sort of consensus like reasonable people, not by calling each other names. That's a tactic that should have ended in elementary school.

Furthermore, somebody's got to condense that 1,000 page bill they've got in Congress. What the hell? Who wrote that monster? If we're going to get things done, the bill has to be of more reasonable length. I know I certainly wouldn't be able to sit through that.

Please, in the name of sanity and everything good in the world. We have got to actually listen to one another. We have got to stop thinking left and right and "socialist" and "nazi" and start thinking of each other as human beings with souls, dreams, and perfectly legitimate opinions.

Sure, I don't agree with Rush Limbaugh. Glenn Beck's Tea Party on September 12 is really going to make me angry, since it's my birthday. However, if I can't even acknowledge that others whose opinions differ from mine exist and will always exist, how will I ever strike a balance?

I think that's what we've got to do as a nation: strike a balance. The question is, how?

P.S. I hope never to write anything political on this blog again, so this is going to have to satiate you. I'd like my blog, for the most part, to be all in fun. Politics is never all in fun.

Bobblehead War

2009-08-20T22:39:00.006-04:00

Colonel Sanders vs. Patton Oswalt

Patton Oswalt clearly wins.

Geography Lesson

2009-08-20T20:32:00.005-04:00

Post a freaking comment already!

2009-08-19T12:08:00.013-04:00

Seriously, anyone out there? Anyone at all?

Do you love me? Do you hate me? Do you think I'm the most obnoxious blogger you've ever come across? Seriously, anything. I need SOME feedback.

I'm sorry. I hate to abandon all subtlety like that. It's just getting very frustrating for me as a blogger putting my best work into this blog and not seeing any response.
The only people reading this post are probably just people I've goaded into reading it anyway.

If you're out there, just...
(sigh)
Just come up with something.
Sorry for being pushy like this.

------------------Slight update----------------------------
I've allowed anyone to comment on my blog now, not just people with Blogger accounts, but I am going to be moderating the comments, so don't say anything too ridiculous or it's not going to get posted.

I Am Not...

2009-08-19T02:12:00.016-04:00

This is a lovely and pointless post about many things that I am not.

So if I'm not any of these things, then what am I?
I guess...I am America. And so can you!

My Favorite Old Post/Cell Phone Rant

2009-08-18T22:06:00.019-04:00

When I wrote the blog back in 2007, it was mostly concentrated on stories and poems (most of which were...well, of questionable quality). I later decided that stories and poems weren't the greatest things to focus my blog on. However, there is one of my early posts worth checking out: "Pirate Orange" from June 21, 2007. No, it's not a story or a poem. Just go look at it for yourself.

Anyway, now for the part of the post you might actually care about: my cell phone rant.

I've written before about my crippling case of 90s nostalgia. I've never termed it quite that way, but you've probably diagnosed me with it by now anyway. That's another thing I look back on and sigh about: the days before the dawn of the age of cell phones.
Sure, cell phones were around in the 90s...

...but they didn't really kick in until the new millennium.

And since they've kicked in, they've become extensions of many people's bodies. Most people take their cell phones with them everywhere.
To restaurants.

To movie theaters.

To school.

To work.

To their cars.

While DRIVING their cars.

Do you understand what I'm getting at here somewhat? It seems like cell phones have gone from being admittedly useful and practical to being a long-lasting nuisance and potentially dangerous to use in some places (like, while DRIVING. I still don't believe people would endanger others that gravely just to carry on their dumb conversations).

Another point: I mainly use my cell phone to make calls. When I pick up my cell phone, I don't want to text on it. I don't want to surf the internet. I don't want to buy ringtones. I don't want to get wallpapers. I don't want to bring up a GPS. I just want to make a call! That's it!

Why have cell phones become miniature computers all of the sudden? What's up with all these other features, these bells and whistles? Are they really necessary? I don't see how anyone could possibly surf the internet on such a small screen or type with such a small cell phone keyboard. Wouldn't that be really nerve-wracking? I'd rather use a computer and know what the hell I'm doing.

I'm not against technology in the slightest. If I were against technology, you wouldn't be reading this blog right now, because it wouldn't exist. I understand the value of being connected. But is it really necessary to have the whole world available to you in the palm of your hand? Are we as a people, as the human race, becoming too connected, and therefore forgetting the meaning of real connections?

Am I thinking too much again?
*screams*

*head explodes*

My Flying Saucer Drawing

2009-08-18T21:54:00.003-04:00

Sorry, it's a little blurry. I don't have the best in camera technology. :D But it works.

5 Albums That People Should Know...But Typically Don't

2009-08-18T20:58:00.017-04:00

1.) Good Morning Spider-Sparklehorse

This album is so eclectic and all over the place stylistically that it's hard to believe the same guy, Mark Linkous, wrote almost all the songs himself.
Songs like "Pig" and "Sick of Goodbyes", which are definite rock, coexist with gentle, melancholy folky ballads like "Saint Mary" and "All Night Home" and moments of pure electronic weirdness like "Good Morning Spider". Definitely worth checking out if you're a fan of the Flaming Lips or maybe Mercury Rev.

2.) Future Talk-Urszula Dudziak

Urszula Dudziak is a Polish jazz artist who has been making albums since the 1970s. She has a vocal range of four-and-a-half to five octaves. She combines her voice with electronics to make her voice sound even more interesting. Her songs often have no lyrics.
I openly admit that the music on Future Talk is weird. It is bizarre, in fact, but fascinating. On many of the tracks, Urszula is backed by instruments, but the highlights of the album for me are her a cappella vocal solos, "Future Talk", "Chorale For One", "By Myself", and "Double Bounce". Certainly the weirdest songs on the album, but with an interesting electronic sci-fi bend that wouldn't have sounded out of place on the soundtrack to Forbidden Planet.

The bad thing about Urszula's music is that it can be difficult to locate, even online. Many of her albums were originally on LPs and her CDs, for some reason, are out of print and cost a lot of money. I've heard you can buy Future Talk on iTunes, though, but I don't use iTunes, so I wouldn't know for sure.

3.) El Perro Del Mar-El Perro Del Mar

El Perro Del Mar is the pseudonym of Swedish artist Sarah Assbring (no jokes about the name! I would hate you if you joked about my name!). El Perro Del Mar means, literally, "the dog of the sea" in Spanish. She takes her name from a sea dog that inspired her to start writing music.
She writes very simple, 60s girl group-ish songs delivered in her very sad, wistful voice. It's a masterpiece of indie pop, definitely worth getting.
Every song on it has its moments, but "God Knows (You Gotta Give To Get)", "People", "Dog", "Coming Down The Hill", and "Here Comes That Feeling" are my personal favorites.

4.) The Red Button-She's About To Cross My Mind

In 1970, when the Beatles broke up, a lot of people thought their music was over. They were wrong.
I have never heard songs that were so reminiscent of Lennon/McCartney's style. It's almost scary, in fact. 11 songs about girls on this album. In true Beatles-esque fashion, the album is consistently strong. Every song has something memorable in it. "She's About To Cross My Mind", "Floating By", and "Can't Stop Thinking About Her" are my faves.

5.) A Storm In Heaven-The Verve

A lot of people know The Verve from their late 90s album Urban Hymns: certainly a great album, but this one, The Verve's debut when they were still just called Verve, is often passed up. I tend to think that's unfair.
Their sound on this album was much more shoegaze than their later, more typical rock albums (not that those were bad). My favorite song from it is "Star Sail", but "Slide Away", "Already There", "Beautiful Mind", and "Make It 'Til Monday" are very good as well.