Betrayal, Disappointment, and Accounting.

I guess this post is not as dark as the title implies. But today is Jim Adkins' birthday. (According to my dad). This kind of links me back to a bunch of events involving my favorite bands of the past.

Mae, one of my favorite bands during high school and early college, announced recently that they will be touring with Katy Perry, a sub-par popstar. This is a terrible choice and I am saddened by their decision to be associated with Ms. Cherry Chapstick.

I mean, Mae have toured with inferior bands before... But I digress.

Also, today signified the release of Switchfoot's new album Hello Hurricane. I thought it would be interesting to see my reaction to it. Mainly because their lasts release was during the time when they were the top of my charts, back in 2006.

I am sad to say, that on my first impression, they have taken their ideas and squeezed them through the pop-song filter. The songs that have shown some growth for the band have been shaved down to their cleanest state. This could have worked as pop rock, but the problem is with the choruses. They are boring, repetitive and unoriginal. They took elements of White Stripes-esque garage rock and inserted pop choruses that feel like hitting ice on a gravel road.

The Sound also takes some sounds from industrial music, but they seem like a little add-on.

Maybe I'm getting cynical and tired of the conventional pop song format. I had been really impressed with Jon Foreman's solo work, and hoped that it would bleed into Hello Hurricane.

But as I've stated for about a year now, Switchfoot is holding him back.

Oh, I have an accounting midterm tomorrow. I don't feel ready for it, but I'm not going to let it bother me (at least until the half-way point of the test where I break down and cry).

I'll feel great after the test. I have some stuff to look forward to: no piano lessons, and dinner with a friend.

After I finish my 10-15 page paper for Tuesday (a shot-by-shot analysis of a 3:00 minute segment from Slumdog Millionaire) I'll be primed to enjoy the release of Left 4 Dead 2. Should be awesome.

Maybe I have some direction afterall.

I finally took the step and declared a major. Communications Studies. Yeah, it does sound like a B.S. degree (well, technically it's a B.A.). But now I can move on and register for classes on time. And I won't have to decide everything I do for the rest of my college career. Sometimes lack of freedom is what I need.

I have noticed this with my DJ job over at Radio K. (I guess I should say that nothing I say represents Radio K or it's supporters... yada yada yada). I feel a lot less stress when there are more songs scheduled and fewer songs for me to choose for myself.

Anyways, although I'd like to be able to make every choice on my own, it is just too much of a weight for me to handle.

On other news, my sister and her boyfriend just got engaged. They just told my mother and me today (told my dad yesterday).

The whole thing hasn't settled in yet, but it's not a huge surprise. I guess just sooner than I expected. Either way, it's good news.

I'm hoping to see a bunch of my friends soon, so let's see if that works out.

I've been listening to a ton of Mew and Bjork lately, as well as OK Computer and Kid A. Sorry if I'm not as deep or insightful as I attempted to be on my previous posts. I guess I'm just in a better mood.

Such a pretty house... such a pretty garden...

I remember reading on a forum that someone actually thought "No Surprises" by Radiohead was a happy song. The poster said, "The song says 'Such a pretty house, such a pretty garden'! It just makes me feel warm and happy inside!" Despite the fact that the song also says "You look so tired and unhappy", I have a feeling this person was confusing the beauty with happiness.

The song itself is rife with irony (especially the pretty house and garden lyrics). But no doubt, the song is beautiful. It is a strange thing when there is beauty in depression. Maybe I'm confusing beauty with attraction. I am attracted to things which I can relate (Winston Churchill would be impressed with that sentence structure there). But I can relate to depression in music.

That could explain the attractiveness of a group like Radiohead or their predecessors like Joy Division.

Maybe this is the statement of a truly depressed man, but it feels like happy songs are just fake. That they are lyrically cheap. It seems like there is one way to be truly happy, while there are infinite ways to feel sad (this is especially evident in Christian music).

I would like to know the opinion of a truly optimistic person. Is your optimism chosen? Do you feel the outcomes of situations are different if you approach them with optimism?

If you want a way to tear yourself down, just do a couple things. Throw in something like Radiohead, Joy Division, Red House Painters or whatever. Then look up the lyrics and focus completely on the music.

I do this to ignore my real depressions. Is this helpful? Probably not. Will I continue to do this? Yes I will. (I bet Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David just cringed a bit). But I hate to look at the things that I have failed at in my life. I hate to see how much of a child I am. I am a virgin physically, but not emotionally.

It's terribly sad to think that I haven't even kissed a girl and I'm already 20 and a half years old.

I remember watching the Tyra Banks show (yeah, the black vampire lady from America's Next Top Model, yes, that show I also know about). There was this man who was probably 23 years old who brought this girl on the show. She was a close friend, but he was "in love" with her. anyways, I recall that he said he had never kissed a woman. The audience gasped. They gasped.

I feel like I really missed out on something here. I should have gotten this out of the way in high school.

But now I just lie in bed and mourn over a relationship that I pretend I almost had. It's painful to think about. And really, the best case scenario is sad also.

This girl reminds me of Penny Lane from Almost Famous. Kind of looks like her too (but then again pretty much any blonde with that general look will remind me of her). But she had been around with many of the rock stars. She was a mystery, and definitely someone out of reach to the average man.

I feel there are these girls (should I say women? That just sounds weird to me) that we can put on a pedestal, where they remain unattainable and perfect.

This is a formula for hurt for the idolizer. Mainly because they will continue to see this person out of reach and also every time this person is tarnished, every time they do something that turns them into a real person, is a jab at your heart. (I feel exactly like Robert Smith from the Cure for saying this, not because I'm being poetic, but because I can't think of a better word to use than "heart").

I don't really know how long this is getting to be, and I'm slightly debating whether or not I will share this blog with others. I can keep this a secret and then maybe it will remain a sort of pure diary. Let's just see what I do.

Damn, Unknown Pleasures is a fantastic album.

Ive been waiting for a guide to come and take me by the hand,
Could these sensations make me feel the pleasures of a normal man?
These sensations barely interest me for another day,
I've got the spirit, lose the feeling, take the shock away.

An Excerpt from Pitseleh explains how I am feeling exactly.

I'm not half what I wish I was
I'm so angry, I don't think it'll ever pass

I'm usually the first person to get mad about using lyrics out of context, but I feel like I've been these lyrics for some time now. (Sometimes even the whole song)

I actually tried very hard to study for an Accounting midterm. But I ended up doing worse than the median. I feel like now that I actually try, and still do terribly, I probably shouldn't.

Getting that test score was definitely a terrible way to start out the week. Totally kills the motivation I've had these first couple weeks.

I really am not half of what I wish I was. Either that means I wish too highly of myself, I think too lowly of myself, or somewhere in between. And I'm angry about this. I have fits of anger and sadness at times.

I don't know if writing this here is supposed to be cathartic. Maybe this is something I should mention to someone. But oh well.

Maybe it will pass.

I wonder if this is stuff that Elliott Smith, Nick Drake, and Thom Yorke felt while writing their music. Probably.

Maybe I'll try one of these Web Logs for real this time...

I'm mainly posting this here because I'm writing this for me. Hence the name of the title of this blog. This blog is for me. If you view it, you're along for the ride. I'll probably be random, opinionated, and possibly insightful and funny. Let's hope there's a good combination of those. Maybe I'll be the new...internet web sensation... like that one guy...

Yeah, him.

Anyways. I'm pretty sick of typing and texting "friends". I have quite a few friends (actually it's probably almost down t0 just one) who I mainly communicate with through texting. That sentence is depressing until the clarification at the end.

I am the type of person who tries to use any form of communication legitimately. I am one of those annoying people who tries to send a text message with the intention of discussing things. Yeah, it makes me feel stupid typing that here. Oh, and communication via Facebook feels about as fake as it could... I talk to my real friends off of that site.

I remember when MySpace and Facebook were fun. But honestly, I think I really cared about them because they gave me a vehicle to message/comment on girls' walls. So now what do I feel about it? Well, I still check it. But it feels like it's out of necessity. Kind of like email. Which is surprising that I started checking email frequently well after I used social networking sites.

Emails feel like they only bring spam and responsibility: usually both from school. But with these constantly updating social-networking sites, I feel like I'm supposed to respond to something immediately for it to be relevant. I feel like a weirdo for commenting on a status from 8 hours ago because it's not "current".

Well, I felt that the best way to complain about this Web 2.0 by using a blog. Hypocritical? Intentional irony? Probably somewhere in the middle. I never really know if what I say is meaningless philosophy or actually something of value.

My dad told me today: "You're 20, nothing you say is profound". Which he followed with, "I'm 60, and nothing I say is profound".

This post is losing steam as I forget what I started writing about. Right now I'm listening to Flux=Rad by Pavement, and there's a phrase in it that reminds me of a horrible song by Family Force 5...

I shouldn't give this blog link to some of my friends. I'll probably offend them with my comments on music... and other things on which I have opinions.

And the Yo La Tengo concert was great, even for me (I've only listened to an album or two). Varied and enjoyable. Lots of drunk people. I was hoping that Mr. Interpretive Dance would have stuck around for longer though. He made up for the drunk couple ballroom dancing (the term "ballroom dancing" is used loosely here).

Anyways, good evening.