computers suck.

Goonies never say die.

So, the last few days have made me begin to rethink my life. Which sounds like a big deal, but Dr Fred reminded me that I rethink my life every time i tie my shoes. oh well. i think this time the rethinking is a bit more crucial. Thomasville has a way of saving my life repeatedly. Good to be (sort of) home.

--the management

An odd heirarchy of priorities.

Why do most of my friends think it's such a big damn deal that i graduated from college, but don't seem to think much of the fact that i'm in a band that recorded an album with Ric Hordinski? I'm pretty sure that at least a few hundred people graduate from American universities every year. And that's a conservative estimate. How many people do you know that have recorded a cd with Over the Rhine's founding guitarist? College isn't an accomplishment--it's a pyramid-marketing scam.
--the management

Eric Friggin' Clapton.

Yeah. I wish I were this good...

Life's a bitch...

...and so that would make today a sonofabitch.
--the management

The Tommy Tuberville Relocation Program.

36 - 0.

Hey Auburn, we just beat the hell out of you.
You know where you can stick those six fingers.
And let that seventh, which you were so ready to extend in the preseason, remind you of how many times you lost this season.
Enjoy watching the bowl games from the comfort of your own homes.
Roll Tide.

--the management

fin.

Here are my favorite album-ending tracks:

5) "That Cool Refreshing Drink" -- V Shape Mind / Cul De Sac
5) "Invisible Sun" -- Black Eyed Sceva / 5 Years 50,000 Miles Davis
5) "Passion Song" -- Black Eyed Sceva / Way Before the Flood
5) "Closing Down" -- Poor Old Lu / A Picture of the Eighth Wonder
5) "Moving On" -- Sixpence None the Richer / self-titled
5) "AFK" -- Pinback / Summer in Abaddon
5) "All Apologies" -- Nirvana / In Utero
4) "Regret" -- Dig Hay Zoose / MagentaMantaLoveTree
3) "Trolley Wood" -- Eisley / Room Noises
2) "Rosinante" -- Model Engine / The Lean Years Tradition
1) "Would" -- Alice in Chains / Dirt

It's my damn blog. I can have seven #5's if I want to.

First impressions.

Taking a cue from the film, High Fidelity, I have arranged a list of what I consider to be the Top 5 Side One, Track One songs of all time. They are listed in Song /Album / Artist format:

5. "Latter Days" / Good Dog Bad Dog / Over the Rhine
4. "Welcome to the Jungle" / Appetite for Destruction / Guns n Roses
3. "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band / (eponymous) / The Beatles
2. "Smells Like Teen Spirit" / Nevermind / Nirvana
1. "Hang You Upside Down" / The Lean Years Tradition / Model Engine

I would like to see what you guys think. So, by all means, respond with lists of your own.

--the management

The limitations of beer and of milk and cookies.

Nevermind. Spoke too soon.

Beer... and Milk and Cookies.

Any day can be salvaged.

And all I can do is read a book to stay awake...

So I was on YouTube, looking for a music video I had referenced in an earlier conversation. And then one thing led to another, and I think I pretty much watched all of my favorite videos from the 90's.
The best music video of all time is, in my humble opinion, No Rain by Blind Melon. Just in case anyone was wondering.

It's just another manic monday...

today has been a bad day. and it's not even 9 oclock yet. and i can't even get coffee. because i left my wallet at home.

i say all this to say, in a semi-public forum, that God is good. it makes me happy to be able to say that on a dreary monday. i'm thankful for that opportunity.

--the management

Danger, Will Robinson!

"I am new enough on the national political scene that I serve as a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views..." --Barack Obama

...and this is a dangerous thing people. I am not trying to insult anyone's political ideology, I am just asking, "What do you really know about this guy?" He is not established enough to have a track record; therefore, he is not asking you to vote for him on any platform other than change, a nebulous proposition at best. Please realize that not all change is good.

I have many friends who are excited about voting for this guy: none of them are voting for him based on what he's done (how can they--he hasn't really done anything), but rather they intend to cast their votes based on hopes they are projecting onto this "blank screen." Once he is in a position of power, their previously unimpeded ideology--which initially set easily on this seemingly neutral surface--will be displaced, and we will see if the gamble paid off. You heard me correctly: I predicted four years ago that this guy would be president someday. And, again, you heard me correctly: I just called the situation what it is--a gamble.

I read into things. And I sometimes get inordinately strong impressions about people or situations; these sort of impressions are seldom proved to have held no merit. I say all this to warn you that there is something between the lines of everything I have heard this man say, anything I have read that he has written. The "something" is a phantom that I cannot quantify, a specter that I cannot make tangible to you. But I'm fairly certain that this man is not who everyone wants him to be.

required viewing

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dE-mxVxFXLg&feature=related

sometimes i too feel like a little man in a big suit.

More than anything right now...

...i would like to be with icarus aquanaut, rocking out our cover of "fake plastic trees".... Ian, get off your butt and invent that matter teleportation device we've always talked about. I'm sure that Nirmal has the parts for it.

--the managemnet

i get by with a little help from my friends.

so yesterday i relied on the hospitality of two friends, had a good conversation (over starbucks goodies) with another, had another good conversation via phone with yet another one of my friends (on the drive home), and second good phone conversation with an english-major friend, a political argument with another friend (we like conducting arguments, so that's not a bad thing), read some stuff that chall had written back in the day, and then found the following quote from my brother (concerning a song written by icarus aquanaut):

"If your new song were an icecream sandwich that avril lavigne was eating, then I would beat her down with a sock full of quarters and take it from her...because it's really hot, and an icecream sandwich sounds hella good."

I know some really cool people. My friends are a diverse bunch. It's really great to be alive.

choices.

MA in English or MFA in Creative Writing? Time to stick my neck out and see what happens. Things usually work out better when I don't have a plan decided in advance. (1 Samuel 14:1-14)

christmas eve's eve revisited

i'm listening to icarus aquanaut's first show on cd. the one where i wrecked my car a half hour before the show was supposed to start. i always like to start a good thing with an impressive wreck. it started with a car wreck and ended with john herndon and john deacon cook singing "Yellow Submarine" with us aquanaut folk. and it all took place at the Submarine. we thought it was cute. it was a very nautical event. and one of the best memories of my life. i really miss being an aquanaut.

humble pie.

I'm a man. I know how to admit when I've been wrong. So I'm going to go ahead and man up to a mistake I made earlier. I'm not too proud to admit that I was in the wrong.
...
A few posts back, I stated that "Don't Stop Believing" by Journey is the pretender to the crown--that Boston's "More Than a Feeling" is obviously the best rock song of all time. I was wrong.
How could I be so hasty?
The best rock song of all time is definitely "Bohemian Rhapsody" by Queen.

My apologies to everyone.

--the management

seeing the house through a skeleton lens.

sometimes i wonder how it would feel to borrow someone else's paradigm. each person has a set of protocols that his or her perspective automatically filters through when perceiving any given event; this set is made up of the entire collective of perceptions of all the previous events. i guess the first set of protocols are strictly genetic and real-time circumstantial. i see things the way i do, in part, because i was born in the summer rather than the winter; when i was two or three, i fell while climbing my mom's sewing machine table; when i was nine, my basketball team lost every game, save one; when i was twelve, i took a college entrance exam; when i was fifteen, my dad said he wished he'd had a normal son; and when i was eighteen, i had the good fortune to move to dothan. each event, and reaction to that event, builds the next one. i wonder what it would be like to be able to detatch myself from my way of seeing things, from my tendencies toward interpreting events in my habitual manner.

and so being me is kind of weird at the moment. i wonder, as i survey myself with the mind's eyes that i've developed, what it would feel like to see through a different set of eyes.

i feel like a hollowed out house. walls knocked down, sheetrock stripped off, floors broken out. certainly no furniture. no painted walls. some surfaces sanded down, some freshly refinished. empty but not abandoned. i feel very nondescript. i think i am probably alot less interesting than i used to be, but i think i have more structural integrity now than i did when the house had more personality.

drummed.

I took a pretty big spiritual butt-kicking yesterday. It began the moment I woke up, and didn't end until I was asleep. I didn't take my morning walk, the one where I listen and speak with God. Not like that is a punching-the-clock sort of matter, but when the voices that say, "You're not good enough," begin, it's time to slow down and listen to someone else. Apologies to the people I spoke with via phone yesterday. Sorry I wasn't exactly myself--I was in the middle of a fight.
--the management

i'm so tired that i can't sleep.

yeah. i'm totally off my game today. spent it all on a paper i wrote this morning. and more writing in the afternoon. spent all my words. spent is a good word for it. maybe the title of this post is inappropriate. i think i'll probably be able to sleep after all.

sunrise vs sunset

I like a good sunrise better than a good sunset. Sunsets are kind of in-your-face, whereas sunrises are subtle. You can see the sunset coming--it is an observable process. Overt. You can be talking to someone else and not miss it. You have to be paying close attention to fully appreciate a sunrise, and it is best observed in silence. Like I said--it's a subtle occurence. It kind of sneaks up on you, like an unexpected blessing. And unlike a sunset, you don't so much see it coming as much as you feel it coming. I have friends with either preference. It is my informal observation that sunsets are preferred by people who have enjoyed the day; sunrises are preferred by those who have weathered the night.

journey. but not the band...

...because Journey, the rock band, is overrated. "Don't Stop Believing" is not the best rock song of all time, contrary to popular belief. The best rock song of all time is obviously Boston's "More Than a Feeling"...

But I digress. What I intend to say in this blog is that I'm fairly pretentious. I have lately realized how little I've been writing (blog and otherwise) these days. So, to bring myself back up to speed, I have reviewed all my old blogs. There are a few moments of brilliance, but it gets bogged down at times by overbearing self-conciousness. I once had a friend advise me that my better writing comes when I just write what I have to say in the way I want to say it. Actually, It made more sense the way she said it. In other words, my stuff is better when I just write what's in my head rather than what I think should be there. Without pretensions about style. I still think she said it better. Nevermind.

So I guess I should write a blog. I'll do that tomorrow.
Maybe.

reality.

Alabama 34 -- Clemson 10.
Moral of the story: a good offensive line REALLY makes or breaks a team.

prediction.

Alabama 31 -- Clemson 20.
Moral of the story: a good offensive line makes or breaks a team.

hollow.

i am a disposable human being.

doesn't matter.

i'm back in the states.

estoy en méxico.

so, welcome to mexico. i've gotta admit, this place is pretty cool. it's sort of like new orleans without the suck. good food. good music. interesting architecture. and btw, i can speak more español than i gave myself credit for. and they will have the Dark Knight movie here. so take that!

My new favorite movie.

I saw the film WALL·E this evening. Definitely my new favorite Pixar movie. Right now it's probably my favorite movie period. It was so surprisingly good, in fact, that I expect it to be my favorite movie of 2008, even after the release of The Dark Knight. So add it to the list containing Star Wars IV-VI, the Miyazaki collection, etc. The film was visually stunning, the musical score was amazing, and there was an abundance of subtext to play with in my head. Well worth a theater visit.
--the management

The Queen of Air and Darkness

"Perhaps we all give the best of our hearts uncritically -- to those who hardly think about us in return." -- from The Once and Future King by T.H. White

beer is good; the rest of this planet pretty much sucks.

Space aliens come here for the beer. That's it; that's all. Why do you think that alien sightings are connected to things like crop circles, cattle mutilations, and redneck claims of butt probing? These sort of antics do not begin to resemble scientific research, so I'm inclined to think that, if there are aliens, they aren't here for research purposes. I hypothesize that they hold "intergalactic keggers" where they get really tanked up and do the alien equivalents of the stupid crap we people do when we get thoroughly inebriated. "Hey Zerg, pass me another Bud Diesel and check out what we're doing to this passed-out redneck."

--the management

interview?

So my friend Amanda had to interview one of the contestants in a recent literary contest as an assigment in her journalism class. I was the interviewed party. I liked my answers, so I have decided to put them here. Enjoy.

1. How long have you been writing?
My first attempt at creative writing was in second grade. I went to a private school at which the teachers would read to us for about forty minutes each day after lunch. After having been inspired by a reading of Sheila Burnford's The Incredible Journey, I attempted to write an adventure about a pack of domestic dogs braving it in the wild. I finished the first chapter and, deciding that my story sucked entirely too much to warrant finishing, promptly abandoned the project. My class assignments through sixth grade included alot of creative writing, but that well dried up shortly after I entered the world of public school, where creativity is largely discouraged. It wasn't until the advent of my college career, which I began at age twenty five, that I resumed creative writing (outside of writing song lyrics). I'm thirty one now. I'm not a math major, so you'll have to do the calculations.

2. Is this the first writing contest that you have entered? If no, what others have you entered? Won?
This is the first contest I've entered. I did not win it. Again, I'm no math major, but, according to my calculations, I now have a 0% success rate.

3. Where are you from?
I'm from all over the Southeastern United States. I've resided in fourteen or fifteen different locations, having lived in all of the following states: Alabama, Georgia, Arkansas, Tennessee, Colorado, euphoria, and severe depression.

4. What clubs and organizations are you involved in here? Major?
I am a recent addition to both Sigma Tau Delta (English) and Sigma Delta Pi (Spanish). I barely have time for anything extra-curricular, because I'm so far in debt that I have to work a career-type job to pay the bills. This butt: property of The Man. Oh yeah, and the English department.

5. How long have you been at Montevallo?
Let's see, I began in the Fall 2004 semester, and I put my college career on standby from Summer 2006 until the beginning of the Fall 2007 semester. I'll bet you didn't know that word problems would be involved, did you?

6. What inspires you to write?
I have to always be creating something, or else life begins to overwhelmingly suck. If I slow down, creatively speaking, the gravitational pull of all the heavy, depressing stuff in my head defeats inertia and begins collapsing my thoughts in on themselves. So I always have to keep creating, be it poems or songs or short stories or sketches or blog entries or playfully outlandish sentences constructed in colorful, plastic magnet-letters on the side of mom's refrigerator. And Bill Watterson's Calvin and Hobbes comic strips. And CS Lewis.

7. What poems did you submit to the BACHE?
"Landfill," "Black Ice," "Georgia Mist," and "At Sea."

8. What are your plans after you leave Montevallo?
I haven't thought that far ahead. And I graduate in December, following a one-class fall semester. I probably need to get on that.

9. What are your long-term goals?
Forty two. I've spent alot of time in deep thought over that one.

relative nonsense.

I absolutely hate relativism.
--the management

emporer's new clothes.

I've been in the library for the last hour, listening to the college children trying to have grown-up conversation. Too much stylistically-conscious, über-philosophical language. Intellectual fashion modelling. All performed in soundbyte fashion. I have officially decided that the entire world is full of [American Idol].
--the management