Friday, December 23, 2005

I'm a college graduate now. I work full time. I have 2-3 hours of free time per day. It's weird. I wake up, I go to work, and I come home and go to sleep. Luckily, I like the women I work with, Tiffany and Thea, and I like driving cars around all day. I've been playing with Sirius satellite radio, which is neat but doesn't have a punk channel, so I could care less about owning it. Also, I've been playing with this hybrid-manual-auto thing that newer cars have where it's an automatic, but there's a place where you can stick the shifter to play like it's a manual, where you just click up or down to change gears, no clutch included. It's kind of lame but it reminds me of old arcade racing games when you played on manual if you were a loser who played manual. Anyway, new cars do lots of cool things that my car doesn't do. Like on the regular radio, it'll tell you what station you're listening to, what song and all that, right on the dash there. Magic, I tell you. I don't know how it knows that shit.

Anyway, today's my birthday, I'm 22. The girls at work bought me pizza. I've gotten calls from everyone now I think. So overall, it's an OK birthday. I'm going to go play XBOX360 at John's after this (I will have one of those when they become available again, but I don't even have time to play videogames right now really so it's not my top priority ahora.

In the biggest news of my life recently, Against Me! signed to a major record label, Epic Records. I have a couple things to say about this. One, Tom Gabel built this band from scratch, recording solo tapes at home and self-releasing them, and now they're the hottest band in the punk world, and it's genuinely because they write great music. On that count, they deserve a record deal that will give them a chance to be recognized as one of the best and most important bands of our time (yeah, I said it. I'll say this too, U2 is a completely overrated, mediocre band). On the other hand, let's look at the list of bands who've gone to major labels and have made mediocre to bad records: Thrice, Rise Against, AFI, Ataris, Yellowcard, and many more. Let's look at the list of bands who went to majors and made decent, but not quite as good as before, music: Thursday. And let's look at the list of bands who went to a major and made better music than before: Less Than Jake. So... The cards are stacked against Against Me! And then there's the fact that they put out a DVD last year that documented them being chased by majors and turning them all down. And then there's the fact that Album of the Year "Searching for a Former Clarity" is half talking shit about bands on majors. So... stunning news in the world of Adam. I honestly couldn't sleep last night for a while because of this.

Finally, Thea listens to country music, and there have been two songs that have really cemented why country music is what's wrong with America. These two songs are as follows.

Have You Forgotten? by Darryl Worley

I hear people saying we don't need this war
I say there's some things worth fighting for
What about our freedom and this piece of ground?
We didn't get to keep 'em by backing down
They say we don't realize the mess we're getting in
Before you start preaching
Let me ask you this my friend

Have you forgotten how it felt that day
To see your homeland under fire
And her people blown away?
Have you forgotten when those towers fell?
We had neighbors still inside
Going through a living hell
And you say we shouldn't worry 'bout Bin Laden
Have you forgotten?

They took all the footage off my T.V.
Said it's too disturbing for you and me
It'll just breed anger that's what the experts say
If it was up to me I'd show it every day
Some say this country's just out looking for a fight
After 9/11 man I'd have to say that's right

I've been there with the soldiers
Who've gone away to war
And you can bet they remember
Just what they're fighting for

Have you forgotten all the people killed?
Some went down like heroes in that Pennsylvania field
Have you forgotten about our Pentagon?
All the loved ones that we lost
And those left to carry on
Don't you tell me not to worry about Bin Laden
Have you forgotten?

Thanks, Darryl Worley, for reminding me why I hate Americans in the red states. Yeah, I think we should totally go to war with people unconnected to 9/11 for no reason. After all, they're not white! Go republicans, and go country!

And finally, I present Carrie Underwoods "Jesus Take the Wheel"
She was driving last Friday on her way to Cincinnati
On a snow white Christmas Eve
Going home to see her Mama and her Daddy with the baby in the backseat
Fifty miles to go and she was running low on faith and gasoline
It been a long hard year
She had a lot on her mind and she didn't pay attention
She was going way too fast
Before she knew it she was spinning on a thin black sheet of glass
She saw both their lives flash before her eyes
She didn't even have time to cry
She was sooo scared
She threw her hands up in the air

Jesus take the wheel
Take it from my hands
Cause I can't do this all on my own
I'm letting go
So give me one more chance
To save me from this road I'm on
Jesus take the wheel

It was still getting colder when she made it to the shoulder
And the car came to a stop
She cried when she saw that baby in the backseat sleeping like a rock
And for the first time in a long time
She bowed her head to pray
She said I'm sorry for the way
I've been living my life
I know I've got to change
So from now on tonight

Jesus take the wheel
Take it from my hands
Cause I can't do this all my own
I'm letting go
So give me one more chance
To save me from this road I'm on

Oh, Jesus take the wheel
Oh, I'm letting go
So give me one more chance
Save me from this road I'm on
From this road I'm on
Jesus take the wheel
Oh, take it, take it from me
Oh, why, oh

I've rewritten this song a little to be more true to life, and it goes like this:
She was driving last Friday on her way to Cincinnati
On a snow white Christmas Eve
Going home to see her Mama and her Daddy with the baby in the backseat
Fifty miles to go and she was running low on faith and gasoline
It been a long hard year
She had a lot on her mind and she didn't pay attention
She was going way too fast
Before she knew it she was spinning on a thin black sheet of glass
She saw both their lives flash before her eyes
She didn't even have time to cry
She was sooo scared
She threw her hands up in the air

Jesus take the wheel
Take it from my hands
Cause I can't do this all on my own
I'm letting go
So give me one more chance
To save me from this road I'm on
Jesus take the wheel

She flew off the road because she took her hands off the wheel and she died, the end.

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Feliz Navidad

Monday, December 05, 2005

Soonish(ish) is a word that means "maybe soon, maybe not so soon." So therefore, it was an accurate word to describe when this post would come.

I have playing right now a man named Sufjan Stevens, whose album "Illinois" is one of the best things to come out this year. He was brought to my attention by Noranna, in Australia. So thanks! I ordered it in the mail with stuff from The Weight, Rocky Votolato, Antony and the Johnsons, and more. I decided it was time for me to invest in some more folky, acoustic type stuff, as well as some more alt-country. Yay for expanding musical horizons.

Cam and Charlie and I were out at Lucky Joe's, our favorite sit and talk bar, and Cam and I got to talking about videogames. The Xbox 360 is out, and really, from the first batch of games, I'm not impressed. The graphical quality is not really that much advanced from this generation's games, and the games themselves really do nothing new at all. It's like they just rereleased the Xbox at twice the price with a cool new design and a power source that's bigger than some people's houses. I'm sure this is just a problem with the first batch of games, because they had to rush to get them to market quick, and really, while it doesn't sound like the 360 will change the face of videogames, it does sound like it will feature huge advances in in-game physics and storytelling, thanks to its three terribly powerful independent processors. But what's really interesting to me is the way the Nintendo Revolution's controller has changed in my viewpoint. For those of you who don't know, the Revolution, coming out mid-late next year, will have a controller that looks like a TV remote. It has one big button, a couple others, and a D-pad. No analog stick. The analog stick, along with other add-ons, will be able to stick out of the bottom of the controller via a port. But the way you play games with this thing is you wave it around, and it detects the motion of the controller. While it sounded pretty stupid at first, I got to thinking, and imagine playing a tennis game and actually swinging the racket, or actually aiming the gun in a first person shooter. Playing racing games you could actually turn the steering wheel, playing football you could juke by jerking the controller to one side. Playing Zelda, you could swing your sword. This, I feel, if it's done right, could really change the way games work, and it's one reason why the Xbox 360 isn't as exciting as it should be. No matter what advances it makes, it will be the same games repackaged that we've been playing forever. Not that I don't want one. I do. I'm a videogame nerd and I want it. But I'm not willing to pay 900 bucks for one on Ebay.

On the same token, Cam and I are going to try to write a top 10 videogames of all time list. And I need to get my top 10 CDs of 2005 out here too, since there's really nothing else coming out worth looking at for the rest of the year.

Cam has this little thing called 20 Questions, and what it does is you think of something and it asks you 20 questions, and then it guesses, and it's almost always right. It knew we were thinking of Playstation, a lego block, an emu, and even a sponge, though we didn't know anything about sponges to answer its questions correctly. Danny put it right when he said "This is like the coolest thing I've ever seen!" You all should go to Toys R Us or something like that and buy one, and watch as it BLOWS YOUR MIND!

I start my new job in two weeks from today, and I still don't know where I'll actually be working. I've been trying to get a hold of these people for a week now, and I can't get them. I can't quit my job at Officemax until I find this out, because if they want me to work in Springs or like Limon or some crap, I'm just not going to take the job. Limon, by the way, sucks. You can see it on highway signs hundreds of miles away from the place, making you think it'll be this big metropolis hidden away in eastern Colorado. But no, it's just some little shit town with an outhouse, a mule, and maybe a truck stop, and like three toothless hilbillies playing the banjo and spitting in a pot. The highway signs for I-70 east should just say "Jack Shit: next 500 miles," because that's the kind of honesty I want from my street signs.

Speaking of street signs, there needs to be some kind of system for placement on these things. Ever try to find someone's house in the dark? You have to sit at each intersection for 10 minutes trying to figure out which corner the tiny, unlit street sign is on, and then you have to get out of your car and cut down the tree that's grown in front of it so you can see it. I hate street signs.

I wrote my last paper ever for school today. It's a sad little five page affair involving no research and really very little academic merit. Tomorrow I give my last presentation ever for school. With and to a bunch of honors kids who probably care about this thing. Me, on the other hand, I don't. Even though technically it's my final. Don't care. Couldn't be bothered to give a shit. I'm out of shit to give. I'm keeping my shit from now on. It feels good. I feel like I should celebrate this feeling, but I dont' know when I'll have time or friends to celebrate with. Everyone will be busy with finals, and then I start working full time. But it seems like graduation and a birthday should be too good of a good excuse to get people to buy me some drinks to miss. I don't know if that sentence made sense.

How about that Colbert Report? That is some funny shit. I know because my DVR records every single instance of the show because it's too stupid to figure out which ones are reruns. So I have to go through and delete like 10 episodes of that and the Daily Show every day, since Comedy Central plays it at 12am, 2am, 9am, 11am, 7pm, and 9pm every day. Does it seem like maybe they need a new show to take up some of that time?

Lost is on break until January 11th, apparently. This gives me time to watch the second season of Deadwood. Cam and I also tried to come up with a top 10 list of TV shows in the past 10 years, but we only came up with like 3, which really says more about the state of TV than our memories. What it says about TV is, it's a huge giant waste of time.

I now have a friend in China. My cult is slowly spreading across the world. Watch out, Lichtenstein, your time is coming! I'd give her more of a shoutout, but China's government blocks this site because it knows these words I write would incite a full scale revolution. Like this: Hey China, suck less! Good thing they can't read that. Or else they'd be like "Oh wow, this is amazing, I never thought about sucking less. Maybe I should!" and then they'd tear down their repressive government, form a religion around me, and shower me with gold and women. Yeah, good thing China blocks websites like this one. Dangerous stuff.

I guess that's all.