February

Here are some facts about February:
-I pronounce the first 'r'.
-It went by very quickly.
-I started getting grades in classes, and they've all been good.

That's all I have to say about that.

I believe I have just tweaked "Ruin Everything," one of my songs. The song has become much better by cutting off the last chorus. Addition by subtraction ("That... is impossible." The Office can be incorporated into all facets of life). To be truthful, I like it a lot better, and I think prospective audiences will as well. When I played it, I frequently felt that listeners found the last chorus tedious, gratuitous, and other -ouses. Further, I think the melody at the end of the bridge section, as well as the words ("I know the hardest part / is being alone") are much more powerful and lasting the than the analogous parts of the chorus. So. Yay me.

There's this yoga class that meets at the Rec as I'm leaving basketball, and I soooo wish I had taken it instead. There are several reasons for this. First, I hate playing sports that I suck at, also known as all of them. Unfortunately, when it comes to sports that I suck at, basketball stands alone. Second, I think learning yoga might be fun. Who knows, right? Third, the girl:guy ratio in that class has to be at least 7:1, which is greatly superior to that of my basketball class. Let me put it this way: if you divided the number of girls in the class by the number of guys, the answer would be zero. If you divided the number of guys by the number of girls, the world would explode. There are zero girls, in other words. On top of that, a class like yoga seems like it would be a setting conducive to turning on the charm. Whatevz. It's definitely too late now. Ha.

My new song that I'm working on is frustrating for this reason: I have no clue how I am going to distinguish this song from my previous work. I have so many verse/chorus/verse/chorus/bridge/chorus songs, and I really just don't want to confine myself to clichés. I'm currently considering adding a long instrumental section to the beginning, taking a bit of inspiration from "I Will Possess Your Heart". Opinions, anyone?

I think that's enough for now. I'll see you soon.

Sorry it's been so long!

Hi guys! I know I haven't updated in forever. Anyway, school is back! This semester seems like it will not be too difficult. My classes are honestly among the easiest I've had here at Tech. I shall give you the rundown:

Comparative Politics: This class is at 8 a.m., which will presumably be the only barrier between me and a relatively easy A.

Latin: An easy-peasy foreign language. No speaking component whatsoever, not to mention that Latin is just an all-around cool language.

Business and Professional Communications: Easy. Easy. Basically high school speech, except it takes itself far more seriously. Take a second to imagine that. Yes, it's really that stupid.

Intro to Game Theory: Probably the only hard class I'm going to have. Fortunately I have Dr. Dennis Patterson as my professor, and he is a riot. Kind of a dick, to be truthful, but in a good way.

Basketball: Also might be hard, but this is mostly because I am an extremely sub-par athlete.

I've been really disappointed by my utter inability to write sad songs. On one hand, I know that I should be grateful that I haven't recently been in the right mood to write sad songs, but on the other hand, sad songs are my absolute favorite. Sad songs tend to be, in my opinion, such better songs than happy ones. Two of my favorites that you might want to look up are "Love Don't Live Here Anymore," a cover of a Rose Royce song performed by City and Colour (the Myspace Transmissions version is the shit) and "Hold Me Down" by Motion City Soundtrack.

I've only recently discovered City and Colour, but this guy Dallas Green is a wonderful songwriter. The lyrics to the song "Sleeping Sickness" in particular just blow me away. I would recommend him to any and all fans of great music (which should be everyone, right?). He's also in some kind of hardcore band called alexisonfire, but you don't have to listen to them if you don't want to.

I think this is about it for now. I'll see you soon.

Zebra

Not many people know this, but zebras are one of America's most important and beautiful creatures. Zebras, as a species, have been behind a large majority of the world's most influential inventions, including the telephone, the automobile, and democracy.



In addition, zebras are one of the world's most important creatures, contributing to the consumption of millions of plants every year, as well as fertilizing the earth with their poop, leading to the creation of many more plants.



So, what do we know about zebras? For starters, they are mammals. They live in Africa, and they are generally the greatest creature ever to roam this wonderful planet we call Earth.



That said, there is one criticism that we can offer for zebras: they, along with this girl I know and the song "Transatlanticism", have absorbed all the world's beauty, leaving none for any of the rest of us.



Sadly, zebras will continue to take the beauty from the rest of the world, for if zebras were to die or, God forbid, become extinct, the resulting beauty explosion would actually destroy not only our planet, but both Mars and other nearby planets and heavenly bodies.



So, in conclusion, zebras are quite literally the world's most important animals, just ahead of dolphins and zooplankton. Thank you for your time. I'll see you soon. :)

Education

So with the big game coming up, obviously the ESPN message boards are full of kids who think they are right and everyone else is wrong. Naturally, the mudslinging goes beyond which team is better or worse, and descends into baseless ad hominem insults. While no one ever likes baseless ad hominem insults, a certain brand of it does get under my skin more than others.

"it is 'their nails' not 'there nails'. Quality education THERE in Lubbock , huh?"

Just what does something like that accomplish? Nitpicking grammar has nothing to do with any argument anyone has put forth. Its one use is distracting people from the fact that you have no real counter-argument, with the bonus side-effect of making you look like a douche.

But here's the real reason I dislike these kinds of attacks. As many people either know or believe, Texas Tech is not the most well-respected academic institution. Does this mean you can't get a quality education there? Of course not. I happen to believe that you get out of education what you put into it. For example, I typically put forth B-level effort, and expect B-level results (on a side note, I seem to be failing at this, because I've been getting a lot of A's...).

What bugs me about this is the people who make two assumptions: (1) There are no smart people at Tech. This is just about the stupidest thing you can say. I can almost guarantee that the proportion of smart people to stupid people is virtually identical for Tech and UT. (2) Tech fans who make grammar mistakes on the internet make them because of their Texas Tech education. This actually is the stupidest thing you can say. For anyone who thinks that, I will tell you the reason Tech fans on the internet make grammatical and spelling errors: it's the internet. No one give a shit about spelling on the internet. Look at Wikipedia. Or Youtube. Or any fucking website on earth. You will see that people git they're spelings meessed up becuz their on the intarnet.

Anywho. On a tangentially related note, I counted how many times my international relations professor said "shit" in class today. Five times. She's pretty crazy.

Thanks if you read any/all of this. See you soon. :)

October 27, 2008

Have you ever heard the old joke "If you don't like the weather in Texas, just wait ten minutes"? Today was the reason for that phrase.

This morning was the origin of the phrase "balls cold". When I woke up this morning, I swear my computer told me it was 33˚.By the time I was out of the shower, it had dipped down to 32. Let that sink in for a second: it was literally freezing this morning. Obviously, I dressed accordingly. Of course, by the time noon had rolled around, it had warmed up. A lot. By 2:40, I was walking around in short sleeves. The temperature now is 60. That's a 27 degree swing, for those of you who aren't into math.

On a side note, either because of the nap I took around noontime or because of the hat I wore this morning, my hair looked pretty respectful today: Oh, by the way, I cut my hair like two weeks ago.

Today at school I saw a guy who looked like a young Santa Claus. He had a very knobbly nose, and a full red beard. It was awesome.

I really need to learn to stop getting Chinese food for lunch. I never eat very much of it, and it's just a waste of money.

I am SO EXCITED for this Saturday. Let it be known that November 1, 2008 has the potential to be the best day ever. If Texas Tech beats Texas, the repercussions will be felt across the college football world:

1. Texas Tech moves into first place in the Big XII.
2. Texas Tech almost certainly moves into the Top 5 in every poll.
3. The Red Raiders have a legitimate shot to beat Oklahoma on Nov. 22.
4. Graham Harrell and/or Michael Crabtree become legitimate Heisman contenders.
5. If TTU does lose to OU, there will be a 3-way tie for first place in the Big XII South.
6. Texas Tech will have a shot at the Fiesta Bowl, and perhaps even the BCS Championship.

This is literally the most important game in school history. And I shall be there.

I think that's about enough for today. See you soon. :)

First Post

Hi, everyone! This is obviously the first post in this blog, so I guess this would be a good time to tell you what the goal of my blog is. The short answer is nothing. This is a blog in which I aim to talk about nothing at all.

I'll probably talk about my own music. I'll probably talk about strange people or things I see at school. I'll probably talk about sports. Besides that, this blog will have no specific goals or purposes other than to give me something to do. So with that in mind, let's get things started. :)