Saturday, December 29, 2007

once again Warren Ellis is smarter than I am

This should really come as no surprise but Warren Ellis is smarter than me. I've had a decent amount of free time recently, partly due to my own laziness, partly due to the holiday season, and partly due to a job offer I'm waiting to hear back from which may or may not be the ticket out the more annoying and sad parts of my life (seemingly now more likely not than yes, but we live in hope), and I've spent some time (too much time) reading stupid things on the internet. I thought about linking a bunch of sites to give examples but really, I don't want to subject you to the inanity that has consumed my waking hours. If you are really interested just got to reddit.com and check out their politics section.

In any case, everybody and their grandmother seems to want to blame everything on an ideology. Be it religion, left or right wing politics, or some other crazy ideology. What it comes down to I think is not an idea or ideology, it's (as Warren Ellis writes - and I'm sure lots of other people have also said) it doesn't matter what the idea is, people screw it up every time. People are the problem, not because people are inherently bad or evil, rather because people are inherently stupid.

It's unfortunately that simple. People ruin everything.

But maybe I've spent too much of my time on the internet instead of doing something more productive, like trying to have a life. Maybe I should get on that.

Tuesday, December 25, 2007

Happy Tuesday

Happy Tuesday! I will be celebrating this special Tuesday the traditional way. By eating Chinese Food, going to the movies and then working a shift for time and a half pay.

Enjoy your Tuesday, however you may spend it.

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Will this actually make a difference? One can only hope

In the end of Janurary CNN will be hosting more debates for the presidential primaries. On their website, you have the opportunity to write in your own questions, and then vote on the questions you think are the best.

I myself have posted a question, and intend to post some more. If you would like to pose some questions to the potential nominees you may do so here: http://dyn.politico.com/debate/index.cfm

If you don't want to register with Politico feel free to leave your questions in my comments section and I will post your questions for you.

It is in our best interests to ask the questions we feel we have a right to be answered, not only for our own edification, but so the general public is aware of their stances (whether or not you are a US citezen, as - not to sound ethnocentric but - there are global implications depending on who becomes the the next American President). The political process is meaningless with out our involvement. Well, at least more meaningless than it would be otherwise.

Wednesday, December 05, 2007

Because I spend too much time putting together the inane when I should be reading my Einstein Biography

Bands I wish I was into before they broke up:

Pizzicato Five - Jpop (as in Japanese pop music) that is light, airy, fun and a bit jazzy, even touching at times. I don't know much about the world of Jpop (Puffy AmiYumi is really the only other Jpop band I know) but if this is a prime example I should probably go out and try to learn more.

Soul Coughing - I don't know if this one really counts as I started listening to them when they were together, but it was only in their twilight. A little while after I picked them up, they split. Very groovy, sort of on the jam band circuit, a bit more electronic sounding Morphine. Got into it in college, they performed live my freshman year and broke up not to much later.

Morphine - They didn't break up so much as Mark Sandman, the lead singer, died. The intersection in Cambridge right in front of the Middle East (a music venue and restaurant) is named after him because they were a Boston/Cambridge based band and played that venue a lot. Very good stuff. Kinda Jazzy, deep bass rhythms, smoky vocals, the kind of music you feel in your gut (almost literally as it's heavy on the bass). Chill, head bobbing, music that won't put you to sleep. If it weren't for my Junior year dorm neighbor (and later apartment mate) Mike Gibisser I never would have heard of these guys. (he is a man with much greater music knowledge than I posses - he also introduced me to most of the bands in the indie rock section of my MP3 player, such as the Postal Service, Death Cab for Cutie, Built to Spill, and Guster)

I kinda want to say Pavement also, but I'm not really into Pavement, but I feel for some reason I should be.

New Music that I'm kinda getting into at the moment:

Jesca Hoop - She's kinda new, found out about her a few weeks ago when I got an advanced copy of her new CD for free (by no doing of my own, it just sort of fell into my lap). If Nellie McKay was a bit more soulful and a little less ironic, I think this is what she'd sound like. Oddly enough I just noticed yesterday that one of her songs is being featured on one of the Starbucks play list, leading me to believe her music is playing much more widely than I would have imagined.

The Bird and the Bee - I really have only heard two of their songs, but like the two that I've heard and plan on listening to a lot more.

And thanks to Rawbean recently I've become addicted to Stars.

I also was listening to a lot of Feist, but with the constant replay on the TV, radio, and at Starbucks, I found her music to be catchy the first few times one hears it, but the catchiness decreases exponentially in diametric proportion to the frequency of repitition of said music. Though I am now interested in checking out Broken Social Scene, which coupled with Stars (a few of whom also play for BSS) I guess this is my little "hooray Canadian bands!" section.