Let it be known: I will eat my shoe

Posted on 14th February 2011 in Something Daily

I just got a package in the mail, and when I was going to get it I was so convinced that it was going to be my Tropicana gear, but it ended up being Valentine’s Day cookies from my mom. I was really excited for the Tropicana stuff, but cookies are very awesome too. Thanks mom. I’m expecting the gear tomorrow then, or (hopefully not) the day after that. It just needs to get here already. Along with letters from my friends and the confirmation of my double major declaration. I’m waiting for a bunch of stuff in the mail. And as I do so, I’m getting pumped up by I Get Wet. I honestly used to hate that album, but it’s growing on me rather quickly. I feel the same way about it as I do about Blink-182, in a sense – I acknowledge the fact that it’s simple and kind of idiosyncratic, and then stop worrying about it and jam out.

I finally finished getting all the star coins in New Super Mario Bros. Wii, which took an ungodly long time, even with our whole suite playing in a shared account. I decided that I’d just go ahead and do it today, but level 9-7 is so unbelievably annoyingly difficult. I don’t want to talk about it. I have bad memories attached to that level. The second star coin is stupid if you don’t have the propeller hat – which I never did – and I ended up trying it about forty times. I did succeed though. This was about an hour ago.

I was playing Mario instead of doing something productive partially due to the fact that I chose today to once again reconfigure my MacBook Pro – I deleted the Ubuntu partition (decided I have enough Ubuntu on my old MacBook, and Portal 2 is coming out for Mac) and reinstalled Snow Leopard, crossing my fingers very hard that my automated backup scheme had been working correctly. Turns out it had been. It’s gone through a lot of revisions over the last few months, but it works awesomely now. I am, once again, proud of myself. Also because of that piece I wrote in LSDJ over the weekend; I still think that sounds rockin. I rerecorded the guitar since it was a little bit out of tune, it’s way more rockin now. Check it out.

And I finally preordered Portal 2 on Steam today. It comes out on a Monday, and let it now be known that I will not stop playing on that Monday until it’s finished. If I can’t, I will eat my own shoe.

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An Incomplete List of Movies and Music that have Made Me Cry

Posted on 19th January 2011 in Something Daily

I don’t know if I’ll ever get tired of listening to Enema of the State. I don’t listen to Blink-182 for the middle-school nostalgia, despite the fact that that would be a great excuse. I actually got into them just before coming to school. Pop-punk is sweet, don’t worry about it. I like how shiny and ‘produced’ Blink sound on that album, like that one Sum 41 album that has “Fat Lip” on it, and Dookie by Green Day. Those have the sound that I love, and the whiny teenage lyrics that I don’t really care about pretending not to love. I mention this because, as i sit here in my parents’ dining room, my laptop, trackball, and external drives spread out around me, typing whatever pops into my head, I am blasting the previously mentioned Blink-182 album in my earbuds and mentally adding a major 3rd harmony to every single vocal line, because even if it’s not ‘there’, it’s still there – and if it’s not, it should be. It’s not like I have any big memories attached to Enema, I guess it’s just the feeling. – I just noticed that at the beginning of “The Party Song”, you can hear Mark saying “here we go, motherfuckers”. As I mentioned, this album will never get old to me.

Also, the Green Day American Idiot broadway show was fairly rad. I don’t know if it’s still running, but I liked it when I saw it back in September. I cried a little bit during the title song.

  • Also at the end of the Peter Jackson King Kong movie, when the planes keep shooting him and his girlfriend is freaking out;
  • also during the Extras finale when Ricky Gervais looks right at the camera and apologizes to Maggie;
  • also at about six different points throughout the Lord of the Rings trilogy, including “You shall not pass!” and Theoden’s pep talk before the battle of Pelennor Fields where he hits everybody’s spears with his sword;
  • also the first section of “Echoes” from Pink Floyd’s Live at Pompeii;
  • also when Largeman and Sam kiss in the rain to Simon and Garfunkel in Garden State;
  • also at the part in the live version of “And You and I” where the build ends and they go to the “I listened hard but could not see” section;
  • also the second verse of Yes’ “Sound Chaser” from Relayer

That’s enough for now; seriously, I could go on.

I have this bad habit of getting totally obsessed with a project until it’s finished. It happened a few weeks back when I reworked my automatic data backups, and when I thought I was going to get totally into drawing, both to varying degrees. Something similar happened this morning when I got it in my head that today was the day I would finally draw the new header for this website. I worked from about 11 AM to 6 PM without stopping or eating, scanning each section of this new monstrosity separately, eventually creating this…thing right here.

I think it looks wonderfully homebrewed. We’ve got a stegosaurus, a Gameboy, an LED, a capacitor, and a little pink guy all hanging out and playing some classic video games. They’re having fun. I wish I had a sentient Gameboy to chill with. Break would have been significantly more fun, at least. I realize that there’s only one stegosaurus on it, and no moon to be seen. Don’t worry about it. Anyway, I hope you like it, but that’s where my involvement with your opinion on the matter ends. If you don’t like it…..GTFO. Or wait a few months for the day when I get bored with it and make a new one.

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