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Tuesday, April 29th, 2008
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4:05 pm
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Oh, good old cheesy 90's television. I just wonder which particular body parts he meant by "leaves" and "branches." My best guesses would be boobs and arms/legs, respectively. And did I REALLY post something this silly as my first Youtube video? Goodness.
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(5 comments | comment on this)
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| Friday, April 25th, 2008
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7:08 am - Sigh
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Two weeks from today.
Can somebody make this horrible semester end? I don't know what it is about the spring semesters so far but both of them have been way too stressful and annoying. I haven't had a very good week. I had killer allergies and a fever for the first half and erratic sleep schedules for the second half. I've basically accomplished nothing for the past, like, five days. And my desire to care is waning more and more every day.
At this point, I have one more test next Friday. Assembly. And I never have any damn idea of what's going on in Assembly. The final for that is a week after next Wednesday. I need roughly a low B on both the test and final to preserve my A. I don't know if that's going to happen. It's annoying fucking class. But apparently it looks good on a resume, so maybe it's not a total waste of time.
Other than that, I took my last Discrete test on Monday (which was easy) and my last Stats test last Wednesday (Stats is a joke). I'm pretty much at the point where I only need to pass the finals of these classes to maintain my A in them. So they don't worry me but they're rather annoyances that I have less time or patience to deal with than usual. And then for Physics we're taking our third test and our final two weeks from today. Apparently I need to get a C average on the two of them to preserve my A.
Ugh. I know I should care more because there's only two weeks left to go but it's just... I DON'T CARE! This semester sucks. I'm never going to need to USE half of the shit I'm learning, especially where Physics and Assembly are concerned, looking good on a resume be damned. To make matters worse I'll probably have to spend "Easter" (which is this weekend if you're Orthodox... which my mom's side of the family is) in Queens. It's a waste of time. I have finals in, like, a WEEK and homework and various stupidity to do this weekend and I'll probably have to drop everything to endure four hours in the car and 4-5 hours of doing nothing with my grandmother in between. If I have to go, Sunday will be wasted entirely. Which I don't really need right now.
DSJAKLJASDKJWE!!1!
current mood:  tired (mentally)
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| Friday, April 18th, 2008
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8:36 am
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| Sunday, April 13th, 2008
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7:40 pm - *krrrk*
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I swear, since Spring Break ended, "free time" has been a foreign concept to me. I had that Physics test on Thursday... and Physics tests require a good four or five days of preparation on average. Now I need to get three-and-a-half lab write-ups done by... well, apparently tomorrow. I also have a programming project for Assembly due tomorrow (but that professor is never strict about his deadlines so I'm sort of pushing it off) and a statistics test on Wednesday. Discrete math test next Monday. Nightly and/or weekly homework for all of these classes in between. Blah blah blah I'm tired just listing them all out.
Can somebody use his or her awesome time machine and take me to May 9th? Thanks. :(
P.S. Apparently Gambit is going to be in the Wolverine spinoff movie that's coming out next year. AWESOME! Though it does make me wonder why they couldn't fit Gambit of all people into one of the three main X-Men movies and have needed to wait until a spinoff about WOLVERINE to do it. Bad film makers! Hell, while they're at it, they totally need to fit Psylocke into this movie (and get Angelina Jolie to play her) too. And I mean the real Psylocke, not that useless, character-devoid villain named Psylocke who was in X3.
current mood:  lazy
current music: Stacey Q - Two of Hearts (haha!)
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| Friday, April 11th, 2008
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8:56 am
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I might be wrong, but I don't think my test went that well. :(
Umm. Never mind. I just got out of Physics and I got the highest grade in the class (82). And, because my professor felt bad that everybody got slammed on the multiple choice section of the test (in which five questions were worth five points each), everybody in the class got a +15 boost. So I ended up with a 97. WTF???
Not that I'm complaining, but WTF?!
current mood:  ecstatic
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| Sunday, April 6th, 2008
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6:13 pm - Random Thoughts
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-I HATE those little title screens on DVDs. My mom always, always, ALWAYS falls asleep when she's watching a DVD and, as a result, the title screen music loops infinitely or, at least, until I realize that she's fallen asleep and the movie has ended. Until that point, though, the music kind of eats away at my nerves until I want to punch my pillow or something.
-I HATE demos and outtakes. I found nearly fifty Live demos, outtakes and remixes on a fansite and I guess I just don't understand the appeal of hearing uncompleted, lower-quality versions of songs that appeared on studio albums. I think the worst offender of this batch was "Sippin' Lakini's Juice Mix" or, in other words, what I'd like to refer to as "Lakini's Juice Goes to Techno Hell." However, these downloads did include Live's first album as Public Affection, so I might need to check that one out.
*P.S. the version of "Mystery" with Chris Daughtry is... wait for it... actually BETTER than the original! SEI HWUT?! But I think that says more for how much the original (and most of Songs from Black Mountain in general) is lackluster.
-I HATE a lot of people on fan forums... especially music fan forums dedicated to one particular artist. On Live's official message board, it's like a cult dedicated to Ed Kowalcyzk in which participants are not allowed to think Live EVER made a bad song in their entire career. On the Madonna forum I visit, the users are a lot less blindly biased about Madonna but, I swear to god, every other thread is a Mariah Carey hate thread. I'm not wild about Mariah either but who really cares if she passed Elvis' amount of #1 hits or if "Touch My Body" is higher on the charts than "4 Minutes"? Honestly! Get a life!
-I HATE the fact that I still have another five weeks to get through for school... but I do think things will be so much better once I get my Physics test out of the way on Thursday. That's really going to be worst of it and things should be smoother sailing after that.
-I LOVE my new CDs. I've been holding off on the Aerosmith box set just because I don't have the time or patience right now to try to digest new music. But I got my two Live albums and my Kate Bush album on Friday and I do enjoy all three of them. The first time I listened to Birds of Pray, it kinda of went right through me without making impression, but now I'm really liking it! Hopefully I'll get my Seal album sometime these week as well.
-I LOVE Cherry Coke Zero... to the point where I've drank so much of it lately that regular Coke Zero just tastes weird. Other food/drinks high on the LOVE scale are tropical Starbursts, Quaker Cheddar rice snacks (hooray 70 calories per serving!) and Minute Maid Orangeade, which is great for those days when my blood sugar is low.
-I LOVE waking up at 2 PM on a Sunday. And I also LOVE my dad for being so helpful and handy when it comes to just about everything. I thought I had broken my futon already but he waltzed into my room and, five minutes later, the bolts were tightened and everything was fine!
-I LOVE my pets. I have yet to see cuter eyes on a kitty than on my cat's. (She still doesn't have a name. We just refer to her as "the cat" or with affectionate nicknames like "baby cat" or "cute kitty~! <3") And my dad has this awesome clownfish in his saltwater tank who looks like Nemo. We also have this little baby fishie in our freshwater tank... it's so small and cute and it's so great that he's still alive and well after we saved him from being eaten by his parents/parent's comrades.
current mood: okay
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(4 comments | comment on this)
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| Tuesday, April 1st, 2008
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3:35 pm - Complaining
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-May 9th is an eternity away, and I'm damn sick of this semester, so this is a problem. I only got an 86 on my Assembly test (though I have an opportunity for +5 points via corrections), I have a Physics test next Thursday (I can't even pretend to care about Physics anymore), and my lab book is already due again on MONDAY. FAIL.
-My endocrinologist has me make appointments far too often when he doesn't even DO that much when I go to see him. Waste of time and money. Nothing much else to say about this topic except those five little words.
-On that note, I'm sure both my weight and my A1C are out of control. WHATEVER. I am so sick of caring about my health since I never get ahead no matter how much I do care and/or try. Plus I still don't think I'm going to make it to 30 anyway (not trying to be pessimistic... I just think it's true for some reason).
-I'm not getting some of my CDs for a month because they're part of a Super Shipper Savings deal with Hard Candy (which comes out in four weeks). BOO.
-Cat's incessant meowing keeps waking me up at night when my sleeping habits are bizarre and horrible enough on their own. I love her but she needs to kindly STFU. I swear that 95% of the time she just cries to be an annoying attention slut. Her eyes are still so adorable though.
-I can sleep for eleven hours at once (like I did today) and still wake up exhausted. Plus my futon mattress is starting to get flat as if to say "DUDE YOU'RE FAT LOL!"
-Still unsure if I'm doing the right thing by going after this second Associate's next year... and THEN going after my Bachelor's after that... and the thought of me ever getting a job is horrifying too. Just the words "job interview" make me anxious and slightly ill. Never mind the possibility for working with a total idiot or two.
-Did I mention I hate Physics II and this semester in general? Oh, wait, I did... but I really do hate Physics II. It's like I know I have this test next week and I've been slacking (since I don't care about Physics and everything) and yet I still can't get inspired to care. Worthless class, I tell you.
And this, friends, is what one day back in school does for my attitude.
current mood: tired
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| Saturday, March 29th, 2008
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7:48 pm - Killing My Bank Account for Fun and the Opposite of Profit:
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| Friday, March 28th, 2008
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11:59 am - Yes, I AM this bored on a Friday night!
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So today ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) furrysoap went through the surely laborious process of taking pictures of her entire music collection simply because she has a new digital camera and I requested it. I was going to return the favor, but 1) I can't install the driver to my dad's camera onto my laptop right now and 2) I'm not that ambitious. I could have done screenshots of all of my artists in Winamp but I don't have any photo editors besides MS Paint at this moment. *shudder* So I decided to go with a text version. Partially because I did something like this about three years ago but haven't updated it since then. I suppose this is the update.
Well, I guess I should say that is list counts almost every MP3 I've downloaded/ripped/acquired from friends since file sharing was a hot thing, give or take about a dozen. This is because once I download a song, I have a very hard time deleting it, no matter how much I come to dislike the song. I don't list them all out, though, because I'm not that crazy... I just put the number of MP3s I have by each artist in parenthesis (except the ones I have only a single song from). And, yeah, there's some highly "embarrassing" shit under this cut... but I stopped caring about what other people think about my music years ago, so here it is, "embarrassments" and all.
Oh, and most of the things that seem too Latin or like 80's rap for me were from the Grand Theft Auto: Vice City soundtrack.
( BRITNEY SPEARS, OZZY OSBOURNE, MADONNA, LED ZEPPELIN, ACE OF BASE AND JUDAS PRIEST?! )
current mood: blank
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| Thursday, March 27th, 2008
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6:23 pm
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| Wednesday, March 26th, 2008
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8:31 pm - Because I Might Be Obsessed with Live
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I reviewed The Distance to Here on Eps. And I know that only one or two of my LJ friends are fans of Live, but, hey, there you go.
I'm aware that I'm probably coming off as if I have a huge music obsession lately, but... well, it's Spring Break, and I don't really have anything better to do than play Phoenix Wright, stay up until 6 AM every "night," and do things that, due to school work, I haven't had a chance to do in a few months now. This includes catching up on TNA Knockout matches and listening to a lot of CDs I've been waiting to hear again for ages now. As well as downloading and enjoying some new ones. ('Sup, Seal and Smashing Pumpkins?)
And speaking of Phoenix Wright, I finished the fourth case yesterday. What a whole bunch of randomly bizarre twists and turns that case had... but, in the end, the resolution was pretty satisfying, even though I'm still merely "neutral" to Edgeworth. (For those wondering, my favorite characters are Mia and Phoenix/Gumshoe, in that order. Mia better play more of a role in the sequels!) Also, for those who have played through the first game, I will say this: wasn't it hilarious when Phoenix had to cross-examine Polly? Man. I was cracking up with that one!
Hmm. Maybe I'll have less fluff to talk about once I go back to school on Monday. Though, to be honest, I enjoy my fluff.
current mood:  relaxed
current music: Live - "Feel the Quiet River Rage"
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| Tuesday, March 25th, 2008
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5:00 am - Selling Out for Music Icons
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| Sunday, March 23rd, 2008
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12:40 am - Music Post #2073
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In which Mike rates and tries to provide a one-word summation to the discographies of some of his favorites:
MADONNA
Ray of Light (5/5): Uplifting | Confessions on a Dancefloor (5/5): COLORFUL | Like a Prayer (5/5): Personal
Bedtime Stories (4.5/5): Lovely | I'm Breathless (4.5/5): Hilarious | Erotica (4.5/5): Mechanical | Music (4.5/5): Fun
Madonna (4/5): Simple | American Life (4/5): Stiff | Evita (4/5): Technical | True Blue (3.5/5): Relatable
Like a Virgin (3/5): Commercial | Hard Candy (?/5): Bizarre
LED ZEPPELIN
Houses of the Holy (5/5): Versatile | In Through the Out Door (5/5): Uncharacteristic | Led Zeppelin III (5/5): Fresh
Led Zeppelin IV (4.5/5): Epic | Led Zeppelin I (4/5): Classic | Physical Graffiti (3.5/5): Filler
Led Zeppelin II (3/5): Flat | Presence (2.5/5): Disappointing | Coda (1/5): Sucks
LIVE
The Distance to Here (5/5): Atmospheric | Throwing Copper (4.5/5): Thoughtful | Secret Samadhi (4/5): Moody
Mental Jewelry (3.5/5): Earthy | V (3.5/5): Experimental | Birds of Pray (3/5): Light
Songs from Black Mountain (2/5): YaaAAAAWWWWWwwwnnnnn
THE CRANBERRIES
No Need to Argue (4.5/5): Dramatic | Everybody Else is Doing It, So Why Can't We? (4/5): Sweet
To the Faithful Departed (3.5/5): Disorienting
Wake Up and Smell the Coffee (3/5): Uneven | Bury the Hatchet (2.5/5): Unmemorable
ALANIS MORISSETTE
Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie (5/5): Therapeutic | Jagged Little Pill (4.5/5): Nostalgic | MTV Unplugged (4.5/5): Intimate
Under Rug Swept (3.5/5): Solid | So-Called Chaos (3/5): Neutral | Alanis: (2.5/5): Entertaining
Now is the Time (1.5/5): Forgettable
BJORK
Homogenic (5/5): Heartbroken | Post (4.5/5): Hot | Vespertine (4/5): Soothing
Debut (3.5/5): Awkward | Selmasongs (3/5): Short :( | Medulla (2.5/5): Noisy
Volta (1/5): HORRIBLE
TORI AMOS
Choirgirl Hotel (5/5): Multifaceted | Little Earthquake (4.5/5): Cathartic | Scarlet's Walk (4.5/5): Pagan
Under the Pink (4/5): Instrumental | Boys for Pele (3.5/5): Dense | to venus and back (3.5/5): Spacey
American Doll Posse (3/5): Overlong | Strange Little Girls (2.5/5): Sparse | The Beekeeper (2/5): Soporific
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Speaking of Live, I really really want this T-shirt from their official site. But I don't think I've ever spent $25 on one piece of clothing... well, ever. I've never been the type to drop a lot of money on clothes because I'm fine with wearing generic shirts in common colors. Though on the other hand, Live wants $25 for a very nice-looking T-shirt while the greedy bitch known as Madonna wants $40 for this lame-ass shirt. It's like, bitch, if I have the balls to wear a shirt featuring Madonna out into public in the first place, you could at least spare me your insanely high prices! You have enough money! >:(
current mood:  bored
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| Saturday, March 22nd, 2008
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6:33 am
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| Friday, March 21st, 2008
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11:59 pm - "The Sanctity of Dreams"... -Live
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I just woke up from this dream that was simultaneously so sweet (while I was asleep) and so heartbreaking (after I had woken up).
Of course, in typical dream fashion, the start of the dream made absolutely no sense, so let's just skip to the good parts. It was apparently my birthday. And this mysterious figure who I don't know in real life was suddenly my friend (as such things always seem to happen in dreams, you know). He helped a lot in getting my present and suddenly we were starting a relationship (all in the span of one night, but, again, you know how dreams are... they seem to have little problem in cutting to the chase, at least for me).
Some notable traits and events after this point include:
-The man's physical appearance. Latino, my age, fairly average build, dark features. Pretty much the type of guy I "go for."
-The man's personality. Intelligent but not pretentious with it. Caring and willing to do sweet things for me. Sarcastic. Forgiving with a total relationship spazz like myself.
-Our respective parents loved each son's partner. I suppose it's a rarity that each family gets along with such little drama... especially with the soap opera that can sometimes be my family.
-He didn't care about some of my obvious disadvantages (weight, funny teeth, naivety regarding other people).
-We got each other's names tattooed on our arms... this one seems to come out of left field entirely, but I really do suppose it's a nice sentiment. Loving somebody so much that you want their memory a permanent part of you.
-How incredibly in-character I was throughout. After he went to kiss me the first time (which happened to be the only time during the course of the dream, as I woke up a little bit after that), my natural reaction was not to kiss him in fear of disappointing him. His response was "You'll come around eventually." I loved it.
-Just before I woke up, we were having a candlelight dinner, which I something I NEVER understood the appeal of before. Before. In the dream, it was wonderful.
God, it was such a lovely dream, but I've been so disappointed since waking up. :( I guess it's something to strive for... perhaps. I still don't know where I stand with the whole "relationship" thing. On one hand it's appealing, but there's still the part of me that doesn't think I could deal with it.
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| Monday, March 17th, 2008
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1:29 am
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My fourth review in one week: The Open Door by Evanescence.
I actually finished that one last night, but I've been pretty busy today. I think it's great that I'm pumping out so much writing about music lately... it's something that's been kind of missing from my life lately. I'm also trying to work on keeping my reviews around the thousand word mark, since I really need to get better about being concise with topics that I enjoy.
I had to wake up at 8 AM and go down to Long Island to help my dad on an errand. He's suddenly gotten a new hobby: salt water fish tanks. And when my dad gets into a new hobby, he usually tackles it head on like a crazy person. So I had to sit in the car with him for six hours, enduring cramped space and awful static on the radio, only to learn that he didn't need my help anyway. I was kind of annoyed, but whatever. Though, I must say, I was pretty surprised that the eBay seller was closer my age than my dad's age.
Well, actually, he did need my help getting the tank downstairs after we got home. And let me tell you, trying to get a bulky glass fish tank down the stairs without causing any damage to it was so mentally draining on me. It's tasks like this that almost make me want to tell my dad to build an elevator or something. But he was appreciative, so all was worth it in the end.
Fuck, I'm so sick of school. Thanks to this morning's trip and my erratic sleeping schedule, yet another weekend has passed without me doing much for Assembly. And I have my test on Friday, like I mentioned before. I feel like such a slacker, but everything has been sort of hectic and out of my control lately, so I'm hoping things will turn out alright. I do have all of tomorrow and Tuesday to start studying... as well as most of Wednesday and probably Thursday. So I still have hope. (But I'd be lying if I said I wasn't extremely worried at this point.)
Did I mention I can't wait until Spring Break?
P.S. I really don't understand people sometimes... :(
current mood: worried
current music: Kate Bush - "Deeper Understanding"
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| Saturday, March 15th, 2008
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3:17 pm
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I managed to finish yet another review, this time for Within Temptation's The Heart of Everything.
It's great that I'm being productive with my writing and everything, but it's kind of a downer that Epinions, not to mention most of my internet hangouts in general, are completely dead. On Epinions, LJ and several of the forums I visit, I keep writing things and nobody cares. I keep reading what others have written and there's never much reading to be done since nobody's posting anything. Have aliens abducted the planet and I missed the memo? Is everybody sick of the internet? Do I keep boring people to sleep or something?
Oh, yes, and a concern: now it's been released in the United States, I don't find myself particularly caring about Super Smash Bros. Brawl. I think it's a combination of a few things, the most notable being the extreme amount of hype the game has gotten, as nobody has been able to shut up about it for the past several months. But I was also kind of disappointed by the final roster because descriptions about the game made it seem like the character list would be so much more than what we got, and I'm also disappointed from what I've heard about Subspace Emissary and the lack of real growth the series had from Melee. Sure, I still want a Wii and want the game, but it's no longer a "OMG GOTTA HAVE IT!" drive, fun as it would be to fight some friends on Wi-Fi.
I'm also finding myself increasingly frustrated with this semester. Discrete math, the only class I genuinely enjoy, is all it has going for it. Physics II is based on more abstract ideas in modern physics and isn't particularly useful for a CompSci major. Statistics is a stupidly easy course because the material is straight out of seventh grade math and I'm awfully sick of wasting my time in a class that is so below my level of math (and unfortunately this is a degree requirement). Worst of all, my course on Assembly language is all kinds of fail and suck. Fail and suck enough to get its own proceeding paragraph:
From what I've heard, Java and C++ are the most commonly-used languages these days, so I'm wondering why my college feels the need to rip the CompSci majors out of Java, after only three semesters, to throw us into an obsolete, logically-backwards antique language like Assembly. The class also sours my day because my professor, as nice as he is, speaks in unintelligible Engrish and is generally unprepared. I mean, yeah, he was like that when I took Data Structures last semester, but my problems with him as a professor have been further magnified by this horrid class. I have a test on Friday and I merely hope that I can do well enough so that it won't destroy my average. But I'm more concerned with making it through Friday because Spring Break is next week as well. (P.S. who the fuck schedules an exam on the last hour on the last day of school before Spring Break? Yeah, I know this isn't high school anymore, but still.)
Blah, blah, blah, bitch, bitch, bitch, I really need to break my bizarre sleep schedule and get a goodnight's sleep tonight because I've been so cranky this week and it's getting old. I still blame DST coming so early for this.
Also,
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(I picked that girl as the picture because I personally believe that US Americans are unable to do because, uhh, some people out there in our nation don't HAVE maps... and uh, I believe that, uh, our education, such as in South Africa and, uh, the Iraq, everywhere such as, and I believe that they should, our education over here in the US should, should help the US, uh, should help South Africa and should help the Iraq and the Asian countries, so we will be able to build up our future... for our children. :D) |
current mood: tired
current music: Led Zeppelin - "Carouselambra"
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| Thursday, March 13th, 2008
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3:51 pm
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So the world imploded and I wrote another review for Epinions already: Tori Amos - The Beekeeper.
This one came totally out of left field, since I was only listening to "Sleeps with Butterflies" earlier and then just started typing up song descriptions in Textpad for no apparent reason. How I managed to listen to enough of the songs without falling asleep or making the review go on and on for eighty years (sort of like the album itself!) is beyond me. I also think I did a better job showing a personality in this one, but that's probably because it's always easier to be interesting while being negative than while being positive.
current mood: lazy
current music: Led Zeppelin - "D'yer Mak'er"
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| Tuesday, March 11th, 2008
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2:12 pm
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I reviewed Kate Bush The Sensual World on Epinions because I got a random urge to gush.
I don't think I did a bad job or anything, but something about my writing lately (including in this journal) just bothers me. I'm more technically sound as a writer than I ever was, but I can't help feeling like I've lost a lot of my personality. Sure, I don't do as many emoticons anymore... but was I always this plain as a writer?
Though I think that happens to anybody who tries to get technically better at doing something... singers are a great example. Madonna always had an expressive voice, then she got actual vocal training for Evita, and now she sounds like a robot most of the time. I think I used to be able to express myself better, but then I got wrung through College English boot camp, and now I'm writing like a robot.
But, really, Epinions' tone has changed so much over the years anyway. It used to be about having fun and ranting about music, but now it's like "WE'RE A CONSUMER REVIEW SITE. NO PERSONALITY ALLOWED." It's a good quick fix to get some musical ranting out my system, but I was looking at my Trust List last night and at least a quarter of them have closed their accounts or deleted them entirely.
So much for nostalgia trips.
Still, I can't help but get the impression that I bore everybody with my writing these days. Maybe it's just a phase or something. Or maybe I just need to move to Stepford. *shrug*
current mood: worried
current music: Live - Hero of Love
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(comment on this)
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| Sunday, March 9th, 2008
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7:04 pm - More Music Thoughts
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Mini-Album "Reviews":
Sinead O'Connor - The Lion and the Cobra (1987)
The songs I knew before downloading this album were "Mandinka" and "I Want Your (Hands on Me)," the latter of which is probably my favorite Sinead song that I've heard so far (though I wish this album had the version with MC Lyte as a bonus track or something). I thought "Mandinka" was pretty good, but nothing really mindblowing, so I'm not sure why I decided to download this album - probably because it seems to be the most rock-oriented of what she's put out. On first listen, it was enjoyable, mainly due to Sinead's voice and delivery, especially taking songs that could be average, like "Troy" and "Jackie," and bringing them to chilling levels. However, there is one song that struck me as particularly bad: "Never Get Old," which is a repetitive mess that has a spoken passage (by Enya of all people) and drones on and on for what seems like an eternity but is only 4:39 in reality.
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Live - V (2001)
I am a big Live fan, owning their first four albums and their "Best of" compilation (Awake). However, I've always been wary of checking this album out for two reasons. The first is that most of the folks on Epinions have slammed this album for being pretentious and too experimental. The second reason was that, of the two V songs on Awake, "Nobody Knows" is merely decent while "Overcome" is easily the worst Live song I've ever heard. On first listen, I do like the music of the first half of this album a lot, but then the songs starts to blur into each other. I haven't really been listening to the lyrics, but it is pretty nice ear candy, even though I could do without hearing Ed trying to rap on "Like a Soldier." Still, I can't help but think these guys left their best days behind them after The Distance to Here. (Until today, I've had no desire to hear V, Birds of Pray or especially Songs from Black Mountain.)
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Kate Bush - The Red Shoes (1993)
In Christmas 2006, I got an album (Hounds of Love) by a strange little talent named Kate Bush. I thought it was wonderful. A year later, I got The Sensual World, which I felt was even better, despite Hounds commonly being viewed as her very best. So in March 2008, I decided to take a risk and download her "worst album," The Red Shoes. The results are less than enthralling, unfortunately. There are some very good songs on this album: "Rubberband Girl" is one of Kate's catchiest, "Moments of Pleasure" is beautifully emotional, "And So is Love" is sullen and pretty and "The Red Shoes" is nice despite her using Irish music better on "Jig of Life" from Hounds. But then there's a cheesy novelty track ("Eat the Music"), a bizarre duet with Prince ("Why Should I Love You"), and a flat AC-meets-dance experiment ("Constellation of the Heart"). Bottom line is there is an abundance of weak/uninspired tracks here, which is subpar for Kate.
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Yesterday, a friend and I, both of us subscribers to Sirius Satellite Radio, were talking about how repetitive Sirius' 90's alternative (or, in other words, "grunge") station tends to be. Now I'm sure there are staples you would have to play on a 90's rock station, but every other song shouldn't be a release by one of Nirvana, Alice in Chains, Pearl Jam, Smashing Pumpkins, Stone Temple Pilots or Soundgarden. There was more to 90's rock than grunge: trip hop, the female singer-songwriter movement, indie pop/rock, etc. So my friend and I were just dreaming about how fun it would be a DJ (at least the sort who is allowed to play whatever he or she wants). We then decided to formulate a playlist of what we'd play if we were DJs. The rules were as followed:
1. The playlist must be around six hours in length.
2. Every song must be a single (or ranked on a Billboard chart).
3. No song must be over six minutes in length.
4. No artist can be repeated for the duration of the playlist.
5. No specific theme or genre is required (though we both decided to go more toward rock).
My playlist came out at 6.1 hours with 87 songs; "The Mummers' Dance" does break rule #3, but I'm pretty sure there is a shorter radio edit that I could have used in place of the album version. Here it is: ( Length cut. )
I figure my station would be canceled, though. There's likely too much pop for the rock/metal fans and vice versa. :(
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Also, the geniuses in Congress who decided that Daylight Savings Time should start in the middle of winter deserve a slap in the face or two. I can't even enjoy my extra hour of sunlight because it's still 35 F outside!
current mood: tired
current music: Kate Bush - "Moments of Pleasure"
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amused
indulgent
silly
shocked
