Mostly Mundane

That's what this blog is mostly going to be. See the thing is that I have to work the 3rd shift tomorrow night ... 8pm to 6am. Yech. Well the way i figure it, if i want to be able to stay up all tomorrow night, i should stay up all tonight, too - then go to sleep when i'll have to normally. (maybe a little earlier)

So here i am, the guy that rarely goes to sleep after 10:30pm in Phoenix, going to sleep around 5am here. Granted, i've been staying up late here anyways, but let's face it, i'm going to be BORED AS HELL after around midnight, and nothing to do! (it's Sunday, so no one sells alcohol AT ALL in this county, which means EVERYWHERE is closed after 9 or 10pm)

I guess i could always do what any sensible college student (in Peoria, Illinois) would do - go to Steak and Shake and kill some time at Wal-Mart. Oh man ... i can feel my stomach turning already! And that's without even factoring in Steak and Shake! ... yes, i have a thing against Wal-Mart. Why? Well, to put it plainly, everywhere tries to scrape off some cost here and there, and in the process they have to take that money from someone else. (certainly not themselves) That might be the vendor, who might pass it on to the manufacturer, who most likely will pass it on to the worker and the parts supplier, who will pass it on to ITS workers, and so on. It's like a reverse buck passing ... or the electron flow before lightning strikes the earth. (which is from the ground up to the clouds - that's the path that the static charge is following down as it superheats the air into plasma ... which is lightning)

I don't hate Wal-Mart for trying to save the end consumer money - i dislike purchasing anything from them because they really are the best at what they do: taking money away from the supplier and passing it off as savings to the customer. (who, if they work in manufacturing, might well be able to thank Wal-Mart for getting laid off recently, and thus not having much choice of where to shop but ... Wal-Mart)

Now i could probably go on and on about that kind of thing, and realistically i'll never be able to cover all the angles (good or bad) to give a fair representation of that company. That's just how i feel, i guess, and sometimes regardless of facts backing it up or going against you, you're going to feel that way anyway.

I just remembered i have to run an add on a table ... brb.

-------- TEN MINUTES LATER ---------

Did that feel like 10 minutes to you? Maybe you should come back in ten minutes ...

Seriously.


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Did you just read down the page and not actually leave? ::sigh:: Fine. I see how you are.

I have had a really great string of songs come on Pandora, btw.
"Do You Know? (The Ping-Pong Song)" by Enrique Iglesias
"We Were Born the Mutants Again with Leafling" by Of Montreal
"Los Angeles I'm Yours" by The Decemberists

I just love the sound of the last two, but the sound AND the lyrics of "Do You Know?" (and the fact that the title includes "The Ping Pong Song" I suppose) worked great together!

According to AZlyrics.com, the chorus goes something like this:

"Do you know what it feels like
loving someone that's in a rush to throw you away
(Do you know how it feels)
Do you know what it feels like
to be the last one to know the lock on the door has changed"

Not something you'd expect from "The Ping Pong Song." Not stupendous, mind you, but really not that bad.

If we're talking about break up songs, though, i'd have to say that "Call it Even" by Vertical Horizon is one of my faves:

"I saw an open door
and i looked inside it,
but i had no idea
what you were hiding.

So now i'm holding a bag,
and it's heavy,
and the conversation stops -
so much for "friendly".

And if i told you i was dying of thirst,
(and the sky was falling just to make it worse)
would you just smile and push me away -
Can't be bothered with the words i say?

Why can't i see it
like it really is?
Know it
like i know my name?
And if it's all the same,
i don't like this game,
so let's pack it up
and call it even."

That was from memory, so maybe i'm off a bit, but still - great song. Really the only great one on their "Running on Ice" CD (i remember the name??) but definitely worth a buck on iTunes.

And no, i'm not on a "break up song" thing for any personal reason, just going off the "Do You Know" lyrics. Personally, i can't wait to get home and see my Lula :-D And meet Eric Michael, of course.

I really hope that everything ends up OK with Pandora and the other internet radios. (mostly Pandora)

I think the fact is simply that you have a bunch of old fuddy-duddys who have no clue about the world anymore deciding the laws. Telling people what they can and can't do with the internet after letting them develop their own habits (good or bad) is really just another prohibition. It's like outlawing anything, really, but it's especially bad in that kind of situation. It's one thing to have a small percentage of the population breaking the law, but another one entirely to have a large portion of the population disagreeing with the law.

Maybe that's not the case yet, but i have a feeling that if music and movie publishers don't wake up and smell the bit-streams, someone will come along and throw them out the window. That's pretty much what seems to have happened with internet radio. It's a superior format that allows people to personalize what they want to listen to, get track and album (and lyrical!) information instantly, as well as browse similar songs and discuss the experience with fellow interneteurs.

Now sure, i'm full of that "It's so totally awesome, dude! Out with the old, in with the new! Down with the man!" fervor that might make what i'm saying seem trite if not completely baseless, but as i've said before, that's just what i think ... take it or leave it.

BTW, Tom Petty should be considered a kind of god. "Accused of Love" is just one of those ... well ... songs you should listen to at least once ;-)

And if you've never watched the video for "O! Valencia!" by The Decemberists, you should. But listen to the song by itself first and let your imagination do the talking. I think that's what draws me most to The Decemberists - they create music that impassions your mind. You can't help but imagine the smallest details of every story they tell.

And hey, they're catchy, too :-D

I've decided i'm going to try rowing again. I had a chance to go out and scull with Wendy on the Chattahoochee, and it was "simply awesome." (as Billy Ocean ::hah hah:: might say) It made me remember how incredible the water can be, and how much i love being on it. I'd love to say that it's rowing that hits me like that - that molten, liquidy slug of recognition that tears into your gut and spreads through your body in a warm, tingly wave, pulling you muscles taut and relaxing them at the same time, leaving you staring off distractedly at everything (and nothing) all at once - trying to take it all in as if you'll be able to recall it at will later on.

I love being on the water. Even nasty, smelly water. Even rough and tumble water. I feel that it's the ultimate reminder of how incredible everything around us is. Can you imagine? Heat anything to a point and it'll either liquefy or combust, which just means part of it stays solid (for a while) while part turns to low energy gas (smoke) and the rest into high energy, liquid gas. (fire) Now OK, i'm not sure as to the definitions above, but the terminology and the exact wording isn't that important. What matters is the idea:

It's all molecules.

You want to talk about a mind trip? Think about all those Yogis and priests back in the day (a Wednesday, surely) talking about how everything is one, and how we're all part of the same. Think about how all those ideas have been around forever, and here we are in a world where we know that IT'S TRUE. Take it out of the context of religion and it's easy to see the proof in the pudding. Literally. Pudding is made of molecules. Molecules are made of atoms. Atoms are made of Electrons, Protons, and Neutrons. WE are made of Electrons, Protons, and Neutrons. ERGO, (which is the name of a very licky dog in Georgia, who is also made of Electrons, Protons, and Neutrons) everything is one: A neutrino which is either Negatively, Positively, or Neutrally charged.

Trip, huh? I once heard that fuzzy logic says that if you left a bowl on a table for eons, it would eventually fall through the table. And why not? If all everything is is EPN (Electrons, Protons, Neutrons) then all it takes is a little gravity to help encourage one molecule to swap Neutrinos (is that the name??) with another. It'd be kind of like putting one very light gas and one very heavy gas in the room together so that they together took up all the volume of a given space. Sure they would be separate, but look at the border between the two and see if you can tell me where one stops and the other starts. I guess the one thing that would shoot down that theory about the bowl and the table is that gravity would have to be acting more heavily on the bowl than the table (which is currently impossible) or there would have to be some external (non material) force acting exclusively and equally on all parts of the bowl.

Did i just go there? Yes i did. Because this is where i'm going: Water is molecules (with two one hydrogen, one oxygen, and one hydrogen atom) loosely sitting on top of each other. Your body is molecules solidly sitting on top of each other. How cool is that??

Anyway - i feel like when i'm on the water, it brings me closer to reality. It's a reminder of what the world is: Positive, Negative, and Neutral, hanging out and having a party together. So what are our minds? There are more things in the this world than matter. Energy is a good example. Matter couldn't HAVE a charge without energy. Matter and energy - i guess that aside from the fundamental existence of the universe, a brain is the biggest example of those two building blocks working together: Matter for the Brain, Energy for the Mind.

OK. If anyone is still reading, you get a prize.

At one point in an interview with Bill Moyer, Joseph Campbell describes the image of a large (giant, even!) sculpture in a dark, cavernous temple somewhere out there where i've never been. The sculpture is of two faces dividing from a central visage. Light and Dark coming from Neither. Positive and Negative coming from Neither. Good and Bad coming from Neither. Neither and All. One of the most important points of that image is the All. The fact that both sides diverged from the middle ... the All. Good is Bad, Light is Dark, Existence is Nothingness, Being is Non-Being, and we are all One.

OK. So it wasn't a prize.

I'm going to go now, and stop blathering on about life, the universe, and everything. I probably won't stop thinking about it, but i can't possibly tell you EVERYTHING that i'm thinking! (though i hear the padded rooms are quite nice come summer time)

Catch ya on the flip side, baby.

Christian