The Freak Out

I've been having a week long freak out and I think it's finally coming to a close. I've been freaking because I've been thinking that I'm royally financially fucked, and that we're never going to be able to afford anything. I just did what I should have done a week ago, which was add up all my outgoing expenses, and I'm not nearly as royally fucked as I thought I was. Turns out, I've got a little extra money that I can save. I was already doing this, saving money I mean, but for some reason I got it in my head that I wasn't nearly making enough money to save anything. I was putting money in the bank, it was being saved, and yet I ignored that fact.

Last night when I came home I wanted a drink of the alchaholic variety and I started to worry that I couldn't afford to ever have a drink ever again in my life. I don't even drink that much. I have one or two drinks a week, if that. I've been known to go 2 or 3 weeks at a time without even so much as a beer and yet I was worried that I couldn't afford to have a screwdriver. I tallied up the cost of that drink in my head and it came to about $1. Even that estimate is prabably a little high. 1 shot of Vodka and 1/8 carton of OJ that cost $1.99.

This isn't to say that I'm now relaxing about all of this. I still need to be making a bit more money to afford a new place. I still need a new job and I'm still applying. I still want to go back to school or at the very least get my MCSE certificate. I think I'm going to shoot for the later first, I just don't have the time to go school right now. Also, I don't want to incur any more debt at the moment.

Relax Trevor, smell the roses, and have a drink.

Music Reviews, Smashing Pumpkins and Justice

I've acquired a few very good albums recently. The first of which is the Smashing Pumpkins first new album in seven years titled Zeitgeist. It took me a few listens of this album for it to grow on me, but when it did, it really did.

This is Smashing Pumpkins mkII, sans D'arcy and James Iha however it sounds more like early era Pumpkins. If I didn't know better, I would have thought this one came out after Siamese Dream but before Melon Collie and the Infinite Sadness. That being said however, it still has a fresh never-before-heard side of the band that keeps them from sounding dated.

If you buy the Target edition (which I recommend) you get the bonus 13th track Zeitgeist that I'm disappointed wasn't included in the standard edition. The song delivers a nice closing 3 minutes to the album.

Other highlights of the album include the songs Doomsday Clock (which was in Transformers apparently), That's the Way My Love Is, Tarantula and Bring the Light. A track I didn't like was For God and Country. I was never sure if he was being sarcastic when he's says he'd die for it (god and country). If he was, or if it was a metaphor it wasn't very clearly conveyed. If he did mean it literally, it comes off as a little creepy.

The other album was Cross by Justice. I initially avoided this album due to the obvious Christian overture the band paints it's image (They also perform with a 3-story high light-up cross, so I've heard). But I decided to give it a shot and I'm glad I did.

I'll start of by saying that there's nothing Christian about the music, but also not to say that there's anything anti-Christian about it either. I quit listening to Gus-Gus for their Christy (thank you for that term, Bill Maher) lyrics. This begs the question of why they even bothered slapping Christian symbols all over their stage shows, albums and t-shirts. I understand that Christians think it's their job to spread Christianity, but you're not going to do it with secular music and a light up cross as a stage prop. If anything, they're alienating potential atheistic/agnostic/secular (or just non-Christian) fans. Trust me guys, you're not converting anyone, you're just making yourselves look like judgmental jerks.

All of that aside, I loved album. It very much picks up where Daft Punk left off at their height (pre-Human After All). It's no wonder either, since Justice is also a French group doing the disco-electro-house thing. Also present is Daft Punks' tendancy to uber compress the whole song seamingly pinching the music inward at the beats. It's a stylistic choice but it works well for this kind of music.

Another good album I recently heard was the latest from And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead. But that'll have to wait for another day.

The Amazing Toilet Phone

My Samsung cell phone fell in a public toilet, was fully submerged in nasty toilet water for several seconds and after just a few hours dry out time, was completely unharmed.

I'll be honest, I was nervous at first when nothing was working right, but one by one all functions returned to normal.

Samsung, I tip my hat to you; for making a toilet-proof phone.

Game Time

Sammy and I playing Super Gem Fighter Turbo

Steve Ballmer, Microsoft CEO

Darkness Calls

Can someone please tell me whats going on in Hellboy: Darkness Calls? I'm on issue #3 of the mini series and I'm a bit confused. From what I can tell, some skeleton army is trying to stop hellboy from becoming king of the witches. I'm not at all sure why this other group of creatures wants him to be king of the witches.

Book Meme

From Integrating the Derivative

Grab the nearest book.

1. Open it to page 161.
2. Find the fifth full sentence.
3. Post the text of the sentence along with these instructions.

Don’t search around looking for the coolest book you can find. Do what’s actually next to you.

Mine:

The nearest book to me was a comic book, so I didn’t have 161 pages. Instead I turned to page 16 of Exiles # 94 which in the 5th full line of dialog has an evil alternate-universe Sue Richards (Fantastic Four’s Invisible Woman) saying:

"Stop it! The Both of You!"

Ms. Marvel

In her current series, Ms. Marvel strives to push herself to be the best hero she can possibly be because she knows she can be the best in the world. Up until now, she feels she has been lazy and not living up to her potential. Am I pushing my self hard enough? Are any of us?

Ask Your Prescriber?

I was watching The Closer on TNT last night when I got off of work (I used to make fun of Sedgy, but it's actually a decent show). A commercial came on for some new prescription drug.Usually, I'm used to hearing "Ask your doctor if is right for you", but this time, everywhere they would usually say Doctor, they used the term "Prescriber".

Eh, what?

Has the American public and drug companies finally given up on doctors having any kind of usefulness beyond giving pills to people? "Ask your prescriber" may as well be "Ask Your Drug-Dealer". Hey, why not just skip the doctor all together if we don't think he or she has any value and lets just ask our pharmacists.

America, let me make something clear. YOU DON'T KNOW SHIT ABOUT YOUR HEALTH OR HOW YOUR BODY WORKS. This is why we have doctors. See, apparently they have to go to school for 8 or so years before they can accurately decide if you should be popping a strong foreign chemical into your body for the betterment of your health. Neither you nor TV commercials should be making or even influencing that decision. Be thankful for your doctor's instructions, without them you'd probably still be using priests to exorcise colds and sticking leaches on your face to get rid of a case of the horribles.

(The picture of doctor Zoidberg was the only thing I could find on short notice that was medically related)

Shut Up

When I go to the gas pump, it's typically to buy gas, not to have a conversation with you over the P.A. welcoming me to your particular armpit station, so shut up.

When I go to a restaurant it's typically to order and eat food, not to learn the world history of everything on your menu and hear about how delicious it all is, so shut up.

When I go to the U-Scan at the grocery store, it's usually so I don't have to listen to the cashier tell me some meaningless story about how she also likes this particular brand of cottage cheese. I don't want to hear the U-Scan machine talk at me about what a wonderful store it is and how my business is appreciated and how I should now take these money saving coupons and how I should watch the latest episode of Grey's Anatomy.......so shut up.