new music

I've been struck recently. No really, a coworker hit me the other day for saying something stupid.

But figuratively too.

Most of the music I really love I hated at one point. Three artists that come to mind are Tool, Steely Dan, and Radiohead. I used to not just dislike those bands, but really hated them. Now they are some of my favorites. Well, I have been speaking the terrors of Emo type music for some time now. My first major exposure to it (I had seen something about it on MTV in the late 90's, but that was just like one MTV news break) was Katy's dorm roomate Kerry. She had Coldplay and Dashboard Confessional posters up on the wall.

Then the stuff picks up some mainstream push. It's starting to show up on soundtracks, and there is a bunch of it on the "Modern Rock Alt" Muzak station at Kinko's. I'm certainly not smitten yet. My coworked Cameron loves this stuff. Still not getting me. Then two key things happen. My longtime friend Maggie and particuarly her boyfriend Josh are really into this stuff. They played a few things for me including "The Fire Theft." That's the new album by the band of the same name, and its a recoup of an old Sub-Pop band called "Sunny Day Real Estate." I love that record so much I go out and buy it the night they play it for me, and read up on the guys a little. Turns out Sunny Day is sorta the forebearer of modern Emo.

Then on sorta the other end of the Emo spectrum, my mom's BF John loans me the Snapcase record "End Transmission." Wow. That one is a blow to the head. It's just a balls-to-the-wall screaming hardcore band. Great catchy riffs. Incredibly melodic, but really pushing the envelope of music, and lots of Pink Floyd-ish spacey stuff inbetween brutal guitars.

So one day, a pay day, as I often make the mistake of doing, I go into Best Buy. I was about to leave, but they had a Victory Records table at the front with a number of these bands I've been hearing about. I just suddenly decided to take a leap of faith and bought a record from Thursday, whom Josh had mentioned. It even had a song on it that gets played on the Kink's "Mdn Rock Alt" alot that I hated but suddenly really like.

Just like "Stinkfist," "Karma Police," and "Aja." Hmmm............

So, I start talking to Cameron about this stuff more, and it's kinda like a new door opens. This isn't just a band that I have been pushing off, it's a very large genre, with relativly large sub-genres. Theres the pure Emo, which I haven't really hit on yet, then theres ScrEmo, like Thursday, and then hardcore, like Snapcase, sorta. Snapcase has actually been around for like 15 years and according to what I have read they change genres for each record, but "End Transmission" is all I've heard.

Cameron brought his collection in for me to flip through and explained to me that a good bunch of the ones he listens to are actually Christian bands. For some reason this type of music has caught on really well as Christian music.


So, that's where this situation sits up to now. I'll try to kinda update this soon. Maybe I'll keep listening, maybe I'll get really sick of it. The key thing to remember is that I even think N'Sync and then Justin Timberlake's solo stuff is great pop music. I hated it at first too. ;)

ahh, the phones

so i've got cell phones on my mind right now. i love my ipaq that i just got, but phones are starting to take all the great gadgets and put them into one. pda, digital camera, mp3 player, portable music player (which, unlike the other devices, are happening on phones at the same time they are happening standalone) and, oh yeah, phones. Right now I have a pretty kick-ass, albeit modest, phone. The LG L1200. Its a tight little clamshell with a VGA cam, a great screen, sorta mp3 ringtones, and IR. That last part is quite important, as I use IR to connect my iPaq.

I should be able to get an upgraded phone through cingular soon, and I'm not quite sure what to get. I don't really have any money to spend on it, so I'm hoping to get a freebee. But they sure run this stuff in circles. The site and phone said starting in like January that I would be eligible for an upgrade March 31 2005. On April 2nd I went back to look at it and it still said "You are not eligible, but will be March 31." OK. So I called. One person told me I was eligible, one told me April 31 (which doesn't exist) and one told me not till my contract ran totally out on July 31. WTF?

So anyway, I'm pretty happy with my phone right now, which makes me think I should let the contract expire and see if they start trying really hard to get you to stay. Hell, I dunno.

it can always get worse.....

One of the worst periods of my life, no, the worst period of my life was when my mother was sick and my parents divorce which her sickness led into. It's a whole long complicated story, but there are two major points to take from it. First off is that a persons experiences good and bad are what shape them. Sounds obvious, but you have to bear in mind that when you meet someone and like them, it may be some tragic events in their life that formed them into the person that you like. Second off, and one thing that I will always stand by, is that no matter what happens to you, things can be exponintially worse.

I apologize for this blog becomeing more and more personal, but I use it to basically cover what is on my mind.

Anyway, I went to my future brother-in-law/coworker/friend Alex's house after work today to check out his MAME box, then came home around 1AM. Not long before I got home I noticed my car was pulling right. I figured I just need to get it realigned. Then I heard a rumbling noise. So I pulled off the road and saw my front passenger side tire was basically on the rim. Luckily there was a service station about a 1/4 mile away so I went there, got air, but it was quickly loosing it, so I bought fix-a-flat, used it, and it was still making the lead sound. I figured I just wasted $5, but since I was near home I filled it back up with air and drove home. Figured I could just put on the doughnut in the morning and take it to get it fixed.

I got home, and it wasn't making the noise as far as I could tell, and actually had a decent amount of air in it, so it might just be the way that stuff worked. The directions did say to drive a short distance after using the can. I will know in the AM.

So anyway, not a huge deal, but sucked. The biggest problem was being alone at a service station at 1AM. I get home and my friend Martin is on IM. I haven't talked to him at all much in the past 6 months, so I said hey. He tells me his brother's 22 year old fiancee died suddenly today. She had some heart condition, but they were just riding to McDonald's and she turned blue, they rushed to the hospital but by the time they got there she was gone.

I don't really know how to end this post. It's crazy how life works. God has his hand on every movement and every moment of our lives, and has total control over it all. The real lesson, I think, is to remember that this kind of stuff happens when we get so strung out on the little things in life. You have to enjoy what you have, who you are around, and who you are when you can. Most things just aren't worth getting upset about.

new toy

this is definitly wicked. I can now sit on a bench in the park and post to my blog! How liberating! It means I can just get away from it all, and... um, get back to it all?

At any rate, i got a new toy: hp iPaq H1910.

The really killer part is i can use ir to get on the web with it. Basically there isn't much that i do on a computer on a daily basis. I listen to music, chat on aim, and surf the web. That is a big part of my argument for linux. It's also why this sucker can be pretty useful. I can do all that stuff and do it anywhere.

There definitly are some limits to this though.

-speed: i actually tried to do all that at once and the music got choppy. It wasn't overclocked at the time though.

-input: the onscreen keyboard won't cut it for much. I have learned palms graffiti pretty well on prior pda's, and i can use it on here, but it certainly isn't as fast as typing

-storage: absolutly not an iPod! At best it will store 1/30 of my current iPod. (i don't think this device will accept a 1gb sd card)

-bandwidth: eep! I pay cingular $9.99/month for a whopping 3mb! That just ain't gonna get me much. My 2yr contract with them is almost up, and i think the bandwidth issue will definatly play a role in what service i go with, but then again , i kinda don't think any other service is really any better.

So there's the initial reaction to this sucker. By the way, i wrote this entire post on the iPaq ;)

homeless nerd

Maybe its an April Fools joke, but the same blog had a post about this guy a couple of days prior:

http://www.chrisdiclerico.com/mt/archives/001763.php

This guy drags a full desktop PC into starbucks and surfs the web during the day, and sleeps in a Kinko's at night.

Speaking of April Fool's, One thing did get me yesterday. the radio station that I listen to a lot 96rock did a special on the opening of a new amusement park, right out here in Raleigh, Mayberry USA. I was even telling everybody at work about it, and asking where it must be.

hehe.....