A late Merry Christmas to anyone who reads this. My big (=only) present from my parents was a Fender Hot Rod Deluxe, aka 40 watts of pure, unadulterated, rich vaccuum tube goodness. It's one of the cheapest reliable-brand options for anyone wanting to make the jump to a tube amp without selling vital organs on the black market (I was previously using a solid-state Marshall MG80, which was a great starter amp, but there's just no comparing solid-state sound and tube sound).
I'd played through this model (briefly) before; Mike Tosto ("Mike T., the Ladies' Choice"), a former Master Kong bandmate, plays through this and kindly let me try it a few times. The cleans are absolutely gorgeous. Some complain about the drive channel; my philosophy on this is that you can always add a distortion pedal to power up your drive channel, but no effect in the world is going to compensate for poor base clean tone. My guitar sounds so good through this thing. I've only gotten to play around with the settings a little bit, but straight out of the box it's got beautiful tone, and I've been able to get some good bluesy sounds out of the drive channel and even crunch it up to quasi Enter Sandman level. I'll be tweaking and exploring a lot more in the coming weeks. As for power, well, all I have to say is that I had my family surprised at my volume when I was set on volume level 3 of 12 (sorry, Nigel Tufnel, my amp goes PAST 11!). \m/
Other than that, Christmas was pretty calm. Kevin was out here all day and we played some board games, some poker, had lots of good food, did plenty of relaxing, etc. He gave me a GB of RAM and a fantastic sound card, both of which I've now installed in my (newer) computer. I went to his house for the night and we stayed up watching several episodes of the HBO series Rome, which is fantastic (probably more on that later). Speaking of HBO, thank you Best Buy for having a 50%-off sale on all HBO box sets on Christmas Eve; I decided to save a lot by spending a lot, so on their way to me are The Sopranos seasons 2-5, Rome season 1, and the Band of Brothers miniseries. I'm going to have a lot of things to entertain me before too long.
I'll stop there for now, because that's my Christmas in a nutshell and that was the point of this post. Merry Christmas (late) to all, I hope you had as good a day as I did. More than anything I'm just glad to be back in Virginia with my favorite people in the world.
Song of the night is Metallica's "Nothing Else Matters", the song I play almost every time I pick up a guitar and my new amp's inaugural piece.
Wednesday, December 27, 2006
Sunday, December 17, 2006
The worst movie
Ever since I saw S.O.S: Summer of Sam (thanks for the initials, film execs, that makes the title so much catchiera and hip), "A Spike Lee Joint" (because saying 'film' or 'production' is so pedestrian), it has held the coveted title of Worst Movie I Have Ever Seen.
I feel like the talent in it (Adrien Brody and Mira Sorvino, and John Leguizamo, if you call him talent... I haven't seen anything like it from him) signed up because it's Spike Lee, assuming it would be good or at least have that 'artistic' quality to it that gets the critics drooling when Joe Moviegoer wonders why he wasted his 8 bucks.
It lives up to neither. I'm pretty sure the critics didn't like it, and I sure hated it. I gave it a chance; I watched all 142 minutes of it, thinking there must be some shred of goodness coming to lift it from the yawning abyss of its own unpleasantness. 142 minutes I will never, ever get back. The only good thing about this movie is that Mira Sorvino is an incredibly beautiful woman (WHY, Mira??? Why would you waste yourself in THIS?!). Everything else is a bad mixture of cliches.
All that is leading up to the party I attended last night. In lieu of reading in preparation for my Cicero final (pfft, who needs to be prepared for final exams) I went out with Ryan, Dustin and several other Classics students and we ended up at the party of Andrew, another classics grad. This was the weirdest party I've ever been to. A real contender for that WMIHES title, threatening to dethrone Summer of Sam, is apparently known as Shaolin Soccer. It was playing with the sound off, which didn't matter because it's subtitled in English. As far as I can tell, the plot revolves around soccer players with magical, Matrix/video game-style powers, a bread-baking woman who is sad because her shoes are broken and cries about it (her tears then fall into the dough, ruining the bread, apparently, which starts the vicious crying cycle over again...), and the final showdown vs (I'm not making this up) Team Evil. As you may have guessed, what keeps SOS firmly seated on its throne is that Shaolin Soccer, like so many before it, has that odd "this is so bad it's funny" quality to redeem it.
This movie we watched when we were not outside watching people basically twirling fiery batons of different lengths ranging up to bo staff proportions. Or watching the reactions of people drinking the homemade mystery beer, whose ingredients I was never actually given an actual list of. Or watching Mr. Blond Dreadlocks, higher than Bob Marley on a trip to Amsterdam, drop lit cigarettes on the floor. Or listening to the girl tell Ryan that he should get high by dropping acid, instead of with Robitussin because it's BETTER FOR YOUR HEALTH. Also, if I heard her correctly, she got high on Robitussin as a kid and at some point got a tattoo while under the influence without realizing what she was doing.
So basically last night took all the things that were at the top of my list of Weird Stuff I Never Expected to Happen in Grad School (or Anywhere Else, Really) and smashed it together into one huge ball of oddity. I guess that's what happens when you throw together the vastly disparate groups of Classicists, bus drivers, and (apparently) fire jugglers.
And to think I almost stayed in the library reading about Cicero.
Song of the night is Seal's "Love's Divine". I only know two songs by Seal, but they've convinced me I need to buy some CDs and get some more. He's got a great voice and some great songwriting talent.
I feel like the talent in it (Adrien Brody and Mira Sorvino, and John Leguizamo, if you call him talent... I haven't seen anything like it from him) signed up because it's Spike Lee, assuming it would be good or at least have that 'artistic' quality to it that gets the critics drooling when Joe Moviegoer wonders why he wasted his 8 bucks.
It lives up to neither. I'm pretty sure the critics didn't like it, and I sure hated it. I gave it a chance; I watched all 142 minutes of it, thinking there must be some shred of goodness coming to lift it from the yawning abyss of its own unpleasantness. 142 minutes I will never, ever get back. The only good thing about this movie is that Mira Sorvino is an incredibly beautiful woman (WHY, Mira??? Why would you waste yourself in THIS?!). Everything else is a bad mixture of cliches.
All that is leading up to the party I attended last night. In lieu of reading in preparation for my Cicero final (pfft, who needs to be prepared for final exams) I went out with Ryan, Dustin and several other Classics students and we ended up at the party of Andrew, another classics grad. This was the weirdest party I've ever been to. A real contender for that WMIHES title, threatening to dethrone Summer of Sam, is apparently known as Shaolin Soccer. It was playing with the sound off, which didn't matter because it's subtitled in English. As far as I can tell, the plot revolves around soccer players with magical, Matrix/video game-style powers, a bread-baking woman who is sad because her shoes are broken and cries about it (her tears then fall into the dough, ruining the bread, apparently, which starts the vicious crying cycle over again...), and the final showdown vs (I'm not making this up) Team Evil. As you may have guessed, what keeps SOS firmly seated on its throne is that Shaolin Soccer, like so many before it, has that odd "this is so bad it's funny" quality to redeem it.
This movie we watched when we were not outside watching people basically twirling fiery batons of different lengths ranging up to bo staff proportions. Or watching the reactions of people drinking the homemade mystery beer, whose ingredients I was never actually given an actual list of. Or watching Mr. Blond Dreadlocks, higher than Bob Marley on a trip to Amsterdam, drop lit cigarettes on the floor. Or listening to the girl tell Ryan that he should get high by dropping acid, instead of with Robitussin because it's BETTER FOR YOUR HEALTH. Also, if I heard her correctly, she got high on Robitussin as a kid and at some point got a tattoo while under the influence without realizing what she was doing.
So basically last night took all the things that were at the top of my list of Weird Stuff I Never Expected to Happen in Grad School (or Anywhere Else, Really) and smashed it together into one huge ball of oddity. I guess that's what happens when you throw together the vastly disparate groups of Classicists, bus drivers, and (apparently) fire jugglers.
And to think I almost stayed in the library reading about Cicero.
Song of the night is Seal's "Love's Divine". I only know two songs by Seal, but they've convinced me I need to buy some CDs and get some more. He's got a great voice and some great songwriting talent.
Sunday, December 10, 2006
That's good comedy
Thanks a bunch to Kelly for the link ("Business Time" by Flight of the Concords). I am going to have to check out as much as I can find by these guys, they rock! See also "Jenny" by the same group:
Song of the night is, shockingly, now either "Business Time" or "Jenny", I can't decide!
Just a quick question
Just thought I'd take a second out of my day to ask: what's with Paris Hilton's popularity? She's hideous. She looks like her face got smacked full-on with a big pan when she was young and never quite popped back into shape. I can only assume her popularity is due to her complete lack of shame. It makes me cringe that people actually find her attractive. *shudder*
That's all, I'm just confused. A banner ad brought this to mind.
Song of the day is "Crossfire" by the incomparable Stevie Ray Vaughan.
That's all, I'm just confused. A banner ad brought this to mind.
Song of the day is "Crossfire" by the incomparable Stevie Ray Vaughan.
Thursday, December 07, 2006
So close
Today was the last day of Cicero! Now all that remains is tons of reading and the exam...
Unfortunately yesterday was NOT the last day of Education 524, aka the class that makes me want to throw myself through the 3rd story window because the shards of glass and broken bones would probably be less painful than having to sit through 2.5 hours of patronizing, condescending, touchy-feely bullshit.
Usually it's just mind-numbing to the point of agony. But last night was a kicker. Irv Seidman, an Oprah/Dr. Phil wannabe who couldn't hack it as a teacher and didn't have a degree anyone cared about, switched into the education department, which fully deserves the bad name it has at schools everywhere. But that's not the point. The point is he is usually so afraid of mildly putting anyone out that nothing is wrong... everything is good.
Except my presentation, apparently.
My partner and I (it's a "team teaching" project) had 14 minutes to do a topic of our choice. He's history, I'm classics. We picked Romans and Christianity. Despite my loathing for the class, I think the material deserves proper treatment so I actually did try to make it worthwhile. We did not rehearse together, and my partner clearly was more willing to extemporize than I was, but hey, some people are good at that. No worries.
We do our presentation. Partner makes a goofy joke during his part, I didn't think it was particularly funny but hey, who am I to judge. Some kids chuckled. He made this joke during an example of martyrdom where a girl's forced into the arena with big hungry cats who proceed to rip her apart. Maybe not the best time for a joke, but I can't control it and I certainly don't think it was a big problem.
Irv comes up to us after our 14 minutes are up and gives us a 5 minute lecture (quietly, while the other students are just chatting among themselves) on how we were extremely disrespectful to Christians. "You don't know who could be sitting in the back of your classroom," he said. Then he said it again. Then he said it again. This is how Irv operates... listening makes you want to kill yourself just to stop it. We try to ask what we did wrong. He won't mention specifics, except Partner's joke. OK... then why glare at me, Irv? Even if that joke was in poor taste, what the fuck can I do about it? He just kept going on and on ad infinitum.
The good news is I have zero respect for him, his class, and his opinion. So by the time I got home after a Rammstein-laden car ride, I was no longer feeling angry or even very bothered by it. But a little annoyance remains... if I did something wrong, why can't he say what? I am pretty convinced I didn't, and my friends who were listening confirm it. So why fuck with me, Irv? Why?
So Irv Seidman - my disregard for you knows no bounds, you worthless waste of time and space. WC out.
Song of the night: "Diamonds" by Los Lonely Boys. Picked up their second album, Sacred, and it's fantastic.
Unfortunately yesterday was NOT the last day of Education 524, aka the class that makes me want to throw myself through the 3rd story window because the shards of glass and broken bones would probably be less painful than having to sit through 2.5 hours of patronizing, condescending, touchy-feely bullshit.
Usually it's just mind-numbing to the point of agony. But last night was a kicker. Irv Seidman, an Oprah/Dr. Phil wannabe who couldn't hack it as a teacher and didn't have a degree anyone cared about, switched into the education department, which fully deserves the bad name it has at schools everywhere. But that's not the point. The point is he is usually so afraid of mildly putting anyone out that nothing is wrong... everything is good.
Except my presentation, apparently.
My partner and I (it's a "team teaching" project) had 14 minutes to do a topic of our choice. He's history, I'm classics. We picked Romans and Christianity. Despite my loathing for the class, I think the material deserves proper treatment so I actually did try to make it worthwhile. We did not rehearse together, and my partner clearly was more willing to extemporize than I was, but hey, some people are good at that. No worries.
We do our presentation. Partner makes a goofy joke during his part, I didn't think it was particularly funny but hey, who am I to judge. Some kids chuckled. He made this joke during an example of martyrdom where a girl's forced into the arena with big hungry cats who proceed to rip her apart. Maybe not the best time for a joke, but I can't control it and I certainly don't think it was a big problem.
Irv comes up to us after our 14 minutes are up and gives us a 5 minute lecture (quietly, while the other students are just chatting among themselves) on how we were extremely disrespectful to Christians. "You don't know who could be sitting in the back of your classroom," he said. Then he said it again. Then he said it again. This is how Irv operates... listening makes you want to kill yourself just to stop it. We try to ask what we did wrong. He won't mention specifics, except Partner's joke. OK... then why glare at me, Irv? Even if that joke was in poor taste, what the fuck can I do about it? He just kept going on and on ad infinitum.
The good news is I have zero respect for him, his class, and his opinion. So by the time I got home after a Rammstein-laden car ride, I was no longer feeling angry or even very bothered by it. But a little annoyance remains... if I did something wrong, why can't he say what? I am pretty convinced I didn't, and my friends who were listening confirm it. So why fuck with me, Irv? Why?
So Irv Seidman - my disregard for you knows no bounds, you worthless waste of time and space. WC out.
Song of the night: "Diamonds" by Los Lonely Boys. Picked up their second album, Sacred, and it's fantastic.
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