It’s Friday!!! (And it’s Payday!!!!!)

Spending spree!! It’s payday and I’m spending some money. I bought Drumline, Finding Nemo and The Sandlot on DVD a few minutes ago. Came to 50 bucks or so. I would have spent more but my roommate was in a good mood and decided to buy me the Linkin Park Live in Texas DVD/CD combo AND FIFA 2003 out of the blue. I need to go to Best Buy with him more often. Thanks a lot dude.

Tonight it’s off to see my Memphis Grizzlies take on the Minnesota Timberwolves. My cousins got free tickets (in the good seats no less). That should be fun. Then it’s off to some restaurant or other down on the River. Should make for an exciting night. Tomorrow it’s off to Florence, Alabama to watch my alma mater, Carson-Newman College take on the University of North Alabama in the second round of the NCAA Division II Playoffs. I’m hoping old CN can pull out the W and get that much closer to going back to the National Championship. This is turning into an action packed weekend. Thaksgiving, new Linkin Park stuff, Grizzlies game, Carson-Newman Football, new DVDs for the DVD collection. Incredible weekend. The only thing to could make this even better would be spending time with my girl. I’m a bit spoiled have been able to see the last 3 weekends straight. I just hope I come out the other side of this weekend with a little bit of money left. I’ve still got to buy Christmas presents and have a little something to live off of for the rest of the month.

Attention to Detail

You’ll notice to the left that I’ve got the first Harry Potter book listed in my Books section. I know, I know. As usual, I’m a little bit behind the curve but there’s a method to my madness. If you start reading a book series right when it comes out you’ve got to wait for the next book to come out to get your fix. Catching a series in the middle or at the tail end means you can read to your heart content without coming up for air. I’m liking the book so far. It’s such a well told/well conceived story. Far from being a difficult read (it is aimed at children after all) I still find it fun and engrossing even for a 26 year old male. Laugh if you want but good fiction that I’m interested in is hard to find.

The Tales of the Otori series I’ve been reading is incredible. I can’t wait until the 3rd and final book comes out. It’s set in mediavil Japan and features a lot of action, intrigue along with a well told love story. It’s sad when a good book series ends. It’s like loosing an old friend. My roommate likes to reread his favorite old books over and over. I’m not that type of reader. The only books I’ve read over several times is the ROBOTECH books. I think I’ve read those through 3 if not 4 times. My roommate sees books as an “investment” of sorts. I see them as a nice diversion. It’s great having a roommate that likes to read though because you can borrow his “investments” and get your diversion without making an “investment” of your own. It’s too bad we don’t always have the same taste in books though. He likes a lot of stuff set in the past. I’m more of a mondern or futuristic reader (Tales of the Otori excluded of course). Lately our tastes have meshed though. I got the Tales of the Otori from him, all of the Tom Clancy books, and now the Harry Potter books. I’m in fiction book nirvana right now. Well… not really but close.

If you pay any type of attention to detail you’ll notice that Rise to Rebellion has been on the list for a while now. I’m about a third of the way through it and have hit a wall. The story is pretty good but there’s so much dialogue and background information I think the story suffers. It’s my standby book now. If I can’t find anything else to read I’ll pick that one up and read a few pages. One day I’ll get all the way through it. Maybe…..

What To Do If Your Mom Discovers Your Blog

What To Do If Your Mom Discovers Your Blog : This is something I struggled with a lot early on in my blogs history. Lately it’s been less what if Mom discovers it and more what if my friends or my roommate or even someone at work came across it. Case in point. Two friends from high school emailed me out of the blue 3 weeks ago. How did they find me? Through my blog. It seems I mentioned something about growing up in Okinawa or something and they found that thanks to the infamous Google search. In this case, this wasn’t a bad thing. I hooked back up with one of my best high school friends, Greg, and another friend who I hadn’t spoken to since graduation a little over 8 years ago. In the end though I think what the heck. I’m not all that controversial anyway. Nothing I post on my blog could be construed to be all that embarrassing to any one involved so I’m going to keep doing what I’ve been doing (or not doing in the case of the last 2 months). I will change or protect the names of the innocent on the rare occasion that I deem that to be appropriate but other than that I say let it rip. If people I know find me this way was cool. The more readers the merrier I say.

First Time Long Time

I’m back at least briefly. I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. I sure did. Food, food and more food. I’ve been awol from the blog for going on 2 months now but I promise I had a very valid reason. A girl. In an ideal world I know a girl should not come between me and my blog but this kind of thing occurs so rarely with me that I’ve kind of fallen head over heels into it. I’m just now realizing how to balance my relationship with work and the other things in my life. For a while there it was just wall to wall her. Knowing that I can love and focus on her and still do all the other things I like to do has been a cool realization. I found myself longing to get back to the other things I love doing like playing video games, reading, writing etc. All this seems obvious to the outside observer but it took me almost 2 months to figure this out. So I’m back for the time being. No promises about how often I’ll update. I hope it will be more than 2 posts in a two month time span but we’ll see.

Driven Drama

Have you ever gone digging through your CD collection and come across one that you haven’t listened to in a VERY long time? Well I did just that this morning and came across the Driven Soundtrack. Thinking back to that purchase I can’t help but think What in the world was I thinking? It was definitely one of those impulse buys made on a whim. I went to see Driven, the ill-fated Formula One racing flick staring Sly Stallone and Burt Reynolds the night it opened a couple of years ago. It was a late show I believe. The movie was crap. Formula One is very cool but this movie did it no justice at all. The CG racing scenes were very poorly done. That combined with pitiful attempts at acting totally ruined the movie for me. Which brings me back to why did I buy the soundtrack. I can’t honestly say why. I’d have to watch the movie again to determine what cool songs I heard in it that would make me drive to the Super K-Mart across from the theater and buy this ill-conceived mess that very night. That is a torture I don’t wish to endure a second time.

So back to the CD itself. It’s been taking up space in my CD holder for months err, make that years. I misplaced the CD case for it a long time ago so it was relegated to my ancient Case Logic CD holder. For my fellow Kadena High School Class of ’95 graduates who might be reading this, this is the same Case Logic CD holder I won at Project Graduation the night we escaped the bounds of high school forever some 8 years ago. (I still can’t believe it’s been that long.) Up until recently I’ve been using it as a home for orphaned CDs. CDs who no longer have a home (aka a jewel case). When I moved to 3rd shift at work though my music needs changed. Working overnight provides 6 to 7 hours of prime music listening time. In order to meet this increased listening demand I had to deploy all available CD carrying infrastructure for the cause. The Case Logic CD holder had fallen out of favor in my eyes over the years because it was big and bulky. I have bought other smaller Case Logic CD holding units in the last few years that better met my needs. However when duty called the Original Case Logic CD holder was forced back into everyday service. I’ve got it filled to the brim with CDs now. My backpack is just the right size to hold it, the other two CD holders, a magazine or two and possibly a small paperback. So now I have a sizable portion of my music collection at my fingertips at anytime of the night. When I called the Original CD holder back into service I didn’t clear out the orphans to make way for the cream of the crop which brings me back to the Driven Soundtrack.

I’ve probably listened to that piece of junk all the way through once. I try to give all CDs the benefit of the doubt. When I buy one I immediately listen to it all the way through at least once. I listen straight through without skipping ahead. Even if I come across at track that I know right off the bat I don’t like I’ll endure it on that first spin. I do that so I can get a general feel for the album as a whole. Some CDs are only good for a track here and there while others are good as a whole and must be listened to that way instead of as separate tracks. Let’s just say Driven got one spin and one spin only. If I had the jewel case for it I’d try to sell it but I don’t so it’s been in the orphanage since not too long after I originally purchased it. This morning I was flipping through the collection and came across it. I figured what the heck. Let’s give it a listen. I couldn’t remember why I didn’t like it. I remember now. It’s complete and utter crap. There are a couple of diamonds in this lump of coal though. The first track, Breakdown by Tantric is actually pretty cool. I remember liking that song when it was all over the radio a few years ago. 8 tracks of excruciating hell later is another decent track, Satellite by BT. Why BT would allow one of his track to be associated with this poor excuse of a movie and soundtrack is beyond me but he did and this is a pretty good track. If you don’t know BT’s work do some Google research. He does good music. The only other track worth anything is a cover of the O’Jays smash hit For The Love Of Money by Rare Blend. Don’t ask me who Rare Blend is cause I couldn’t tell you but they do a mean cover of this classic song. My friends and I used the baseline of that song for a talent show performance back in high school so For The Love Of Money brings back many fond memories for me. Plus it’s just an awesome song period.

So that makes 3 listenable song out of the 15 tracks on the disc. Hardly worth the $13.99 I paid K-Mart for it. I’ll be ripping the good tracks to MP3 when I get home and then relegating the disc back to its place in the orphanage. I may have to discard it completely due space requirements in the near future. I know you’ve all been riveted by this little mini drama so I’ll be sure to keep you updated as events unfold.

The moral of this story is: Don’t go out and buy movie soundtracks. 9 times out of 10 the cool tracks from the movie aren’t going to be on there which leaves you with a useless, expensive, pile of crap. The recently released Kill Bill Volume 1 soundtrack is a glorious exception to this normally steadfast rule. Instead invest your money into finding and acquiring the film score on CD. Any film worth it’s salt has a score most action movies excluded of course. I find film scores to be much more satisfying than soundtracks. A good score will stick with you. Sometimes they mesh so well with the fabric of the film that you can literally recall scenes from the movie based on the music that’s playing. That’s quite an accomplishment in my book.