Falling and Laughing

Here's the tab. Sorry for the disclaimer, just thought i'd cover my ass. this was done with love and respect for edwyn and the rest of oj. sorry for the bad tab, it's very hard to put up here. just figure the rhythm out--think velvets live 1969. Let me know what you think.

PLEASE NOTE
This file is the author's own work and
represents their interpretation of the
song. You may only use this file for
private study, scholarship, or research.

Intro

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Verse - "You must think me....etc, etc"

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"I'm not saying..."

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"Only my dreams..."

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Solo
TP
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|----7-----|-7----0---|-----------|-7----------|
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|-5--------|-------0--|--------5--|------------|
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............. ................ I'm not saying...

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|-3--3--5--5--7-7-x-6--7----3--|
|-4--4--6--6--7-7-x-6--7----4--|
|-5--5--7--7--7-7-x-6--7----5--|
|-5--5--7--7--5-5-x-5--5----5--|
|-3--3--5--5------------------3--|

Merry Christmas, Everybody!

First, check out my grades for my final semester:

Pretty sweet, huh?

For Christmas dinner, our family was contributing beef Wellington. I was cutting up mushrooms when plop! the plate and all the mushrooms fell on the floor. Of course it happened at exactly 6pm, which is when all the stores close on Christmas Eve. The look my mom gave me, you should've seen--it was a look that clearly told me, "oh my god, you've ruined Christmas!" Luckily, we were able to borrow some mushrooms from my aunt and the beef was a success. Best thing about dinner.

Oh yeah, my dad's here for Christmas and New Year's, which is nice. It's sad though, because my mom leaves ahead--before New Year's, on the 28th.

It seems that my silly stab at attracting more readership has come to bite me in the ass. I don't know how to put a file up on this blog, but I'll try to figure it out. I'll try to have the tab to Falling and Laughing up as soon as I can, but I think that's the only one I'll have up for a while because I'm too lazy to tab the other stuff. Look out for it in the sidebar, if I ever figure out how to put the file up. If not, then Dex, I need your help.

Merry Christmas again.

Just This

I was listening to the radio in the car this morning and a there was a story on Ahmet Ertegun. And I thought to myself, uh-oh, he's already in the hall of fame so this probably means he's dead. The piece ended without mentioning whether he'd died or not. I was hoping maybe it was his birthday, or the anniversary of Atlantic.

I just checked the Post. Goodbye, Ahmet. Thanks.

I guess this is a twofer, for Ahmet and belatedly for Ruth.

That Pet Sounds Concert

So...about that Brian Wilson concert...It was nice, not sure it was worth my eighty bucks though. He played two sets, the first being the surf music of the earlier Beach Boys albums, the second being Pet Sounds in its entirety plus the encore.

The first set wasn't too good. I don't like the Beach Boys' surf period. Surf music is shit, and if I'm going to listen to ripped-off Chuck Berry riffs, then I'd rather listen to the man himself. They did play some great songs, though, some early stuff where Brian's genius was starting to reveal itself, like in California Girls. Then they also played Good Vibrations, which everyone knows is great.

I loved the second set. Pet Sounds really means a lot to me, and hearing it after the first set really emphasized just how very far away Pet Sounds is from all that surf crap. I went out for a bathroom break during Sloop John B. I figured I'd go then just because it never fit in lyrically with the rest of the album even though musically it's just good as the rest.

The encore was fifty-fifty. Fittingly they first played an actual Chuck Berry song (Johnny B. Goode), then--I can't remember the order--but they played Help Me Rhonda (great), Surfing USA (kind of sucks), and another I can't remember.

Over all, I was happy just to hear Pet Sounds live. Brian had a great band, and, oh yeah, Al Jardine was there too. One thing though: they were too loud! This is music for pussies, and really doesn't need to be played that loud. I couldn't hear the keyboards and the vibes and xylophone. I don't know if it has anything to do with Brian's being deaf in one ear, but I still have a ring in mine!

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

This has been one of my best weeks ever:

1) I've been offered a job;
2) I got a hundred on an exam (okay, so it was only psych);
3) I saw Brian Wilson on his last Pet Sounds tour; and
4) Manny Pacquiao KO'd Erik Morales just under 3 minutes into round 3.

This scares me. I feel like I don't deserve all of this, like I'm getting away with something, like all this is going to be followed by some personal disaster in order to right this injustice. If it's anything like before, something will happen to my car, and it just so happens that I'm taking it to my mechanic next week for some regular work and maybe he's going to tell me something's wrong with it.

Or maybe all this good fortune is a follow-up to some bad luck I had earlier this week. We decided to upgrade all our old, inefficient toilets at home. On Tuesday, a plumber came in to do the work. At 2:30 the next morning my mom woke me up because the valve between the tank and the pipes had just popped off and water was flooding the bathroom. I raced to the basement to shut the water off, but the damage had been done: water was leaking from the bathroom upstairs through the ceiling of the ground floor. We were quick and lucky so little damage was wrought. Still, it was a horrible night for us.

The thing about happiness is that the higher you get, the lower the lows seem. I wish we didn't have to worry about that. I wish we had just highs, no lows. Whenever I'm sad I always wish that bad things never happen to anyone, especially me. But when I'm happy I think to myself that without the bad to contrast the good with, then the good would just be mundane and we wouldn't really be happy about anything.

I guess my being nervous about all the good fortune that's befallen me recently proves that I'm learning that something bad's always going to be just around the corner, and I'm no longer naively optimistic to believe that we need bad things in our lives. Jesus, I wish everyone had it all good anyway.

Orange Juice Tabs

Not sure if anyone else has been looking (and not finding) but anyone who wants to learn how to play "falling and laughing" should leave a comment and i'll try to figure out how to put a link up to the tab i made. it's a half-assed transcription with shortcuts: for instance, I mark stuff as tremolo picking instead of transcribing the actual rhythm, etc, so it needs a little figuring out.

I can also transcribe "intuition told me pt. 2," "blue boy," "holiday hymn," and "consolation prize," if anyone wants (it'll take a while though, and i don't know if i play the vic godard one correctly). There's an Aztec Camera website, killermontstreet.com, that has the chords to consolation prize, but if you can't figure out the fancy guitar stuff let me know. I don't think that'd be too hard to write out.

P.S. If you want the tab, let me know on the most recent post, that way if anyone asks for it years from today i might still hear about it

Another Funny Youtube

It seems everyone in youtube feels bad for this kid because he could have fallen. The way I see it, the way rides are these days it would be pretty impossible.

Get Ready to Laugh

Worst URLs.

Some have been taken down, I have to guess, since this came out

Roast Caption

I've been watching the roast of William Shatner tonight and it's very funny. Much funnier than the Pamela Anderson roast that was reran last night. The only reason I was able to watch that was seeing Pam Anderson's nipples through her shirt.

Anyway, I watch tv with close captioning on. Sometimes it's really funny when a show is being captioned in real-time, while it's showing, and the captioner can't keep up. They try hard to keep up, but eventually they figure it's impossible, so they stop, skip a bunch of dialogue, and start fresh. So on the Shatner roast, Greg Giraldo was on, taking a dig at Farrah Fawcett, at that famous picture of her from the seventies:

"Farrah Fawcett, that picture of you was a seventies icon. You've caused more DNA to spill than a crime lab technician with Parkinson's." But the captioner couldn't keep up, so the captions read "You were a seventies icon. Like Parkinson's."

Youtubes

A funny Star Wars one:



And a great version of After Hours:



These guys call themselves Seven arms of Shiva. There's a link to their myspace on youtube. Fucking macs don't have ctrl-c and ctrl-v, those idiots

Tests and B&S

I don't have much to write about but I'll find any excuse I can not to study. 'Study?' you might ask. Yes, study. Unfortunately, even though I'm not taking any summer classes, I have signed up to take the Engineer-in-Training exam this October. It's a state licensure test that's the second step after college on the road to becoming a professional engineer. I've bought a review book and so far, from what I've seen, I've forgotten so much even though I'm still in school. I can't remember any formal, straight-ahead math; my choice to cram for differential equations to pull a C up to an A and afterwards forget it all is beginning to haunt me. Ditto for thermodynamics, materials science, and dynamics. The other stuff I was comfortable with at the time, so hopefully once I start reviewing it'll all come back to me. I've never studied for any test more than a few days ahead. This one is over three months away yet already I am freaking out.

It's a two-part test, and I am hoping that the state of Maryland will let me take the general test for both parts, because despite my being infinitely more comfortable with civil engineering-specific things right now, I don't want to have to study for the two tests. Taking a general test for both parts will allow me to study for both in one go.

Now that that shit is off my chest for the time being, I suppose some interesting things happened to me in the last week or so. Last weekend, my sister and I saw Belle and Sebastian supported by Ted Leo and the Pharmacists and Broken Social Scene. I must say I'd only heard of the support acts but never listened to their music. I didn't particularly like either of them. Ted Leo's songs all sounded the same to me, as did of Broken Social Scene's. Ted Leo derivative punk, BSS, derivative drone rock, reminiscent of the bullshit jams we used to do at a friend's attic in high school.

B&S were different, although I am very biased. They're great showpeople; they can really get the crowd going. None of their music is anywhere as aggressive as the openers (especially Leo's), but their songs have more variety: some are danceable, some, not. Some minor key, some major. To my ears, it's a lot more interesting and varied (I hate to say eclectic) than I can possibly describe it. If you like B&S, you'll know what I mean.

I've begun to reassess Belle and Sebastian. While I've liked them for quite a while now, I've always quickly dismissed them as a bunch of arty kids similar to the kind their singer Stuart sings about, kids who were outcasts in school who sometimes were beaten up for being 'different.' But after seeing them in a lineup of acts, especially after seeing Broken Social Scene, I realized that they are not arty or pretentious at all. They're plain old popsters who write standard 3-minute songs that are as catchy as hell. Their music is a no-brainer; I'm surprised they don't rule the pop charts. It's kind of like how I used to watch Wes Anderson movies and think, geez, this stuff looks pretty deep, when, now that I think about it, they're just funny movies. A friend once told me that Catcher in the Rye was rife with symbolism; me, I just think it's a good read.

Anyone who knows me well knows I don't like a lot of people. This is because this lot of people and I aren't like-minded in any number of ways. In the days leading up to the concert, I would occasionally think to myself that for a few hours, I would be surrounded by what I thought of as 'my people,' like the bee girl in the Blind Melon video eventually was. Boy, was I wrong. As the girl seated behind me put it, there were 'so many hipsters around. I'm not sure I'm cool enough to be here.' Damn, I hate hipsters. I was also particularly annoyed by the high school girls in front of us who were dancing all the time thereby blocking our view of the stage. I had to watch the concert through giant TV's overhead most of the time. I'm glad those girls don't listen to typical high school girl fare, but Jeezus, dance somewhere else, why dontcha?

Speaking of the big TV's, a cameraman took a shot of Richard the drummer and he does indeed look constipated when he drums (he's known for this). When Richard's face was on the TV at the beginning of the set, I thought I heard a laugh come over the audience, and I can recall the camera being pointed at Richard only once after that, during the last song.

Stevie, the guitarist, looked cool with his circa-66 Dylan suit on, but I had to ask myself how hot he felt wearing all that.

All in all it was a great show. I've seen a number of my favorites now: Dylan, Lou Reed, the Magnetic Fields, and B&S. It's too bad I'll never get to see the Go-Betweens. Hopefully Robert will one day get the urge to tour the World. Come to D.C., Rob!

BWAHAHAHAHA!

I was watching Revenge of the Sith today and when the Jedi arre betrayed there's this part where a little padwan goes up to Anakin and is all like, "Master Anakin! There's too may of them. What are we going to do?" And Anakin draws up his lightsaber and the kid's like, "oh, shit!" HAHAHA that shit is hilarious

Siblings

Please notice the time at which I am writing this post. As I laid in bed a little earlier waiting for my sister's call, I was planning to write this blog tomorrow morning. But now I am pissed off.

The following entry recounts some of the events of tonight.

~6:00 pm - My sister calls. She says she is going out with "some friends" for a while and asks to be picked up at the metro station in an hour or two. I am inconvenienced by this, because me and Joe (who, incidentally, is visiting) have planned to have dinner and having to pick her up would kind of fuck up our plans. I am also puzzled by her, because I had the impression that she was going to have dinner with our cousins. I ask her about this and she says she'll call me back...She calls me back, saying that she will indeed eat out with our cousins and asks to be picked up at the metro station at ten instead. I agree to do this even though, as I tell her, I am already very tired and sleepy.

10:11 pm - Having already tried to call her up twice within the previous hour, I leave my sister a message saying that it is past the agreed upon time and that I am much too sleepy to wait up any longer for her. I tell her to try to get a ride home with one of our cousins whom she is with (who lives a short walk from our house) but, should the worst happen, to give me a call to pick her up.

10:30 pm - Lights out for me. Within five minutes I shall fall asleep, phone in hand.

12:58 am - My phone, still in my hand, begins vibrating, waking me up with a start. It is my sister, asking me to pick her up. I tell her that it is three hours past our agreed upon time (she apologizes) and that she should wait to get a ride with our cousin previously mentioned. She says she'll call me back...She calls back. Okay, she says, she'll get a ride.

Not long after we hang up, I begin to feel the pangs of guilt. I shouldn't let my sister have to wait in a bar for our cousin if she doesn't want to. However, I don't think it would be safe for her to ride metro alone at this hour. So I call her. I tell her that if she really wants to go home now, I can pick her up. I am about to mention that I don't think riding alone is safe but she interrupts me, asking if I am sure. There is a hint of urgency in her tone because, as she tells me she is "entering the train station" and is about to lose signal.

"What the fuck?!" I think. She isn't with our cousin after all! She has to ride metro alone anyway. Since she's already going to ride metro alone, I reason with myself, I might as well pick her up. I tell her this. She loses signal and the call is dropped.

I wait up to allow my senses to recover for when I drive out pick her up. Already a bit annoyed, I start writing this entry in my head to post in the morning. A few minutes later, she calls back. She tells me that she is riding the train with her "friends" and that her mysterious "friends" will give her a ride home. I say, "but I've already been waiting up. I may as well pick you up." Failing to see the logic of this, she says "My friends will drop me off. I'll call you to open the door." "Great," I think, "another phone call to wait for." I realize that by waiting for her at home I will not risk crashing my car, so I agree. But instead of going back to sleep I decide to wait up and type this post up, because I am simply infuriated.

The initial point of this long-winded post was to ask why I feel bad for doing what is only fair. I felt bad telling my sister to wait to get a ride even though she was 3 hours late, and in the middle of the night, too. But now I am just pissed at not having been told the "friends-dropping-me-off" bit until after I've been staying awake. And who the hell are these mysterious "friends" who are taking her home??? Are they trustworthy? Why the hell is she always so fucking elusive??? Why the fuck is she so inconsiderate? Just some of the things that is irritating about siblings, I suppose.

A Return to Form

This blog has been needing something to brighten it up a bit, hence this post.

I used to draw very well. I suppose I still do, but I'm out of practice, and all I really get to do is doodle here and there during class. But today I had a nice big piece of bristol board and a pencil, so I asked my niece if she wanted me to draw anything. She said, "you draw Monsters, Inc."

So here:

What surprises me most about this drawing is how quickly I did it--under thirty minutes. Also, I only erased once!

Oh yeah, whatever copyrights apply, this is all Disney's, please don't sue, I'm broke

Oh Canada!

So. I've been back from Canada for a few days now, and I just didn't feel much like writing about my trip. I still don't feel like writing about it now, but I am going to anyway, because some pictures just, uh, popped up and I'm not so sure how I feel about them, and I need to take my mind off them for a bit. They bring back memories I've heretofore always thought I'd like to keep, but now, as they rush in, they seem a little bit painful. Anyways.

Montreal was very nice. I really liked it there. There are so many gorgeous people there, especially gorgeous women. One of my major but minor complaints about my trip is that I went with my sister and her daughter and people always seemed to assume--as they always do--that we are a family, that is, that I am daddy, Erica is mommy and little Sophie is our baby. It made me feel awkward smiling back at beautiful women and thinking, "oh, great, she thinks I'm a lecher."

The people of Montreal are not only beautiful, they are friendly, too! My sister and I were talking over a map rather frantically (because it was raining) and a guy figured we were lost so he volunteered help. We weren't lost, though, so we declined his generosity. Besides, if we had gotten lost, there was no way in hell I was asking for directions!

Montreal...ers are also gloriously bilingual. As I tell everybody, so shall I tell you, dear reader, that Montreal would be a great place to raise your kid--they'd grow up knowing perfect French and English!

The food is great in Montreal too. The most notable thing I had there was smoked meat. Yes, it does sound rather blah, but it is freaking delicious! When in Montreal, go to Bens (as an aside, Montrealers don't seem to be very fond of using apostrophes to indicate the possessive form of a proper noun--e.g. Bens and Tim Hortons) and order a smoked meat sandwich. It's basically two slices of bread between which is a 3-inch stack of soft, juicy delicious meat. That's it. While you're there, grab some Poutine too--French fries soaked in gravy topped with melted cheese. In fact, make that Poutine a la Bens--they add smoked meat to that. Funny story. My mom called me in my hotel room and told me, "don't eat so much meat." I told her "okay" as I looked right at my smoked meat sandwich and Poutine a la Bens.

The shopping was good in Montreal. Cheap, especially after coming from the East Coast. My sister got a lot of nice business clothes cheap, and I got some great records, most notably the first McGarrigle sisters record (Canadian pressing, naturally).

And the sights? Aside from the fine arts museum, I didn't do too much sightseeing on account of my foot hurting. Still kind of hurts now. It's funny, but Dex should remember when, on my last day in Sydney I sprained my foot. Well this time my other foot hurt, and it really started to bother me when I'd just arrived at the Montreal airport. However, Montreal does have a number of nice old looking churches, and Vieux (Old) Montreal is nice, or so says my sister. Oh and also, Montreal itself is named after Mount Royal (not sure how the French name goes, Mount Real or Mont Real or something) which is in the city itself. We had planned to go up there but there wasn't enough time. Me and Sophie got a good look at it from the executive lounge on the top floor of our hotel, that is, when we weren't busy stuffing ourselves with cookies (Sophie) and hors d'o....appetizers...cheese...whatever (me).

The metro is clean and it's a fixed fare from any one station to any other station (at least within downtown [centreville], not too sure bout out-of-town), which is refreshing, and, like in Sydney, one can avail of an unlimited-ride weekly pass, which is nonexistent here in Washington.

Pictures...pictures...well, sadly, me and my sister aren't big picture-takers. We have about ten photos, really, two of which I took in the plane. I suppose where we went it would be a pretty mundane album, just the usual character-less metropolis everyone is used to. But I will have the photos up as soon as I get my hands on the camera--my sister took it with her to San Francisco (that's right, she's traveling again, so's Sophie. I admire their strength).

So...Montreal was great. That's all of it, I suppose, in a nutshell. I may go back again this summer, or maybe to some other part of Canada. Pretty excited about that.

Yukon Ho!

I never put up a post announcing that school's over, despite its having been over for nearly a week now. I suppose I'm happy enough to just know that it's over. Also, my grades this semester suck.

I am going to Canada for a few days this weekend. I am very excited. Before I leave for abroad, I always imagine that I am going to have a whirlwind romance with an exotic beauty. It never happens, and I doubt this trip will be any different.

I am going to Montreal, which will be the most European city I've ever been to. It's in Quebec, so they speak French over there. Oh shit, I just remembered I still don't have a French dictionary.

I bought a travel guide for Montreal. I've always found people who buy travel books silly, but now that I think about it, this is the first place I will be going to where I wouldn't know anyone who could show me around.

I'm mainly excited about the shopping to be done. I have a record store written down, and I believe they have street markets like one always sees in the teevee that seem so glamorous. I will really feel like I'm in Paris or something. It sure would be nice if the whirlwind romance does happen. We will exchange letters when I leave and we will remain faithful to one another. And then we will marry, even though her father disapproves.

Unkind and Unwise

I always told myself I'd never put song lyrics on this blog.

With Grant's passing, everyone is quoting Cattle and Cane. As well they should; Cattle and Cane is one of the greatest songs ever. But its sister, Unkind and Unwise, is what does it for me. It was the first Gobees song that really hit me, and I wish I could go back to the time when I was getting to know Spring Hill Fair and the Go-Betweens for the first time.

I recall driving my car around feeling so shitty about a girl and then the Go-Betweens spoke to me for the first time. They will continue to speak to me years upon years later. I will never forget the first time I realized that the Go-Betweens are brilliant. They are the greatest band ever.

***

He was brought up in a house of women
In a city of heat that gave its children
Faith in the fable of coral and fish,
Told them the world was something to miss.

I turn to hold you, you're gone.
Fingers, let go, I'm gone.
That's just a little unkind
And just a little unwise.

The salt in the wind moves over the mudflats
Sticks to your skin and rusts up the lights,
Blows in the ferns that breathe in the dark,
I try to forget, but it's so hard.

I turn to hold you, you're gone.
Fingers, let go, I'm gone.
That's just a little unkind
And just a little unwise.

What was once is a falling star;
I'll hit you and hurt you and open your heart.
Burn in a river tangled with reeds
While a crane on the water silently feeds.

I turn to hold you, you're gone.
Fingers, let go, I'm gone.
That's just a little unkind
And just a little unwise.

That's just a little unkind
And just a little unwise.

***

You weren't supposed to go yet, Grant.

Grant McLennan RIP

I can't believe it. I wasn't expecting this at all. Grant is gone. One of my best friends has passed. I don't know what to do, I just feel so sad. Rest in peace, Grant. I dare not think what my life would be like without the Go-Betweens. I always say you changed my life, and I mean it. Thank you.

Weird Fuckers

The weirdest thing happened to me last night. I took the bus home from school and got off at my stop with two other kids round my age or a bit younger. I called my sister up to tell her not to pick me up at the bus stop anymore because it was such a nice night to walk. A few minutes later one of those two bastards runs up behind me and just punches me in the face and runs away. I turned around and was like, "what the fuck?!" but the motherfucker had gone.

When I got home, I called the cops and one came soon enough. I never got a good look at the bastards so the cop couldn't file a report. They circled the neighborhood, though. It sucks to learn that there are cunts like that living in my neighborhood. Those fucking motherfuckers. The punch didn't hurt but I am pissed that his bare dirty filthy evil hands touched my face. When I got home the first thing I did was wash it. It must have been pretty fucking suspicious as well to the cops to tell them, I didn't get a good look at the guys who did it, but they were both black. Whatever. Fucking motherfucking cunts. I hope they get some well-deserved fucking karma. The cunts.

Spring Break: Day 9

I bought a box set today: "One Kiss can Lead to Another: Girl Group Sounds Lost and Found." I have buyers remorse, even though the music is super. I have to constantly remind myself that this is both art and cultural artifact and is nothing to feel bad about. At least until I get a job and can afford such capriciousness.

I also watched V for Vendetta today. I liked it.

Methinks I shall be sleeping anon.

Spring Break: Day 8

Fuck I was lazy and such a fucking asshole today.

Spring Break: Day 7

Today didn't start as early as I intended it to, and I didn't get to school til past noon. I did find a new topic for my steel design project. No more, ah, whatever it is, plastic hinge 3-D frame fire yadda yadda. I am now doing "Lifetime Performance Analysis of Existing Steel Girder Bridge Superstructures." This excites me infinitely more than my old topic. Basically I will be finding out how to determine the expected condition of any bridge of that type over time. Unfortunately, this will use a lot of statistics, but hopefully it won't be that bad. I am rather pumped, I must say.

Aside from this, the only other exciting thing I did today was have a word with one of my professors, she who is the head of the civil engineering department as well as an MIT alumna. So while talking to her my stomach just went "Blooo-ooop!" very loudly and she may now think I farted in front of her when really that is precisely what I did, only internally. It is a good thing she didn't laugh. I suppose with all the time professors spend with their students they've had worse, but perhaps none more so than the enormous fart I let rip during statistics class. I still feel a great deal of embarrassment whenever I think of that, and that happened nearly two years ago.

Aside from all this I was doing a little thinking earlier tonight, and I realized that perhaps I should try not to be so paranoid anymore. Maybe if I stop expecting everything to go to shit, I just might not...

Spring Break: Day 6

I feel sad. I can already feel the end of spring break. On the bright side, today was a highly productive day. But it didn't start out that well. I was quite the cunt this morning.

The niece was sick. I'd agreed to take her to the doctor in the morning. But when the sister called the doctor up, the earliest appointment they could give us was 2 pm. I got irate and said I couldn't take her, which, technically, was untrue because I am on spring break. So the sister decided she would leave work to make the appointment. Seeing my mistake, I backpedalled like crazy and offered to take the niece but was told never to mind.

So I went to DC, first back to the Philippine embassy to get another labor form, this one for the sister. After this I had launch in the World Bank with the auntie (let the hippies say what they will, the bank has a great cafeteria) and then went to school to work. Here was I hyperproductive. I finished my steel design homework for next week, and then I met up with my classmate Jon and we finished the presentation we had to make and came up with an idea for one of our projects. I was in school til after seven, a travesty for vacation time, but it was worth it. So tomorrow I think I will sleep in--but not too late, there is still work to be done.

Spring Break: Day 5

Today was an impromptu tour of DC. I went to the Philippine embassy first thing this morning to get some labor forms. After this, I hopped on Metro to the National Building Museum. I went there to try and find a better topic for one of my final projects this sem. I'd much rather do a case study on a particular structure or examine the evolution of an engineer's work than explain a specific topic of structural engineering. Whatever I choose, it has to be very mathematically rigorous because it is a graduate-level class. Right now my topic is "Nonlinear Plastic Hinge Analysis of Three-Dimensional Steel Frames in Fire." While I concede that this may well prove very interesting, now that I still know next to nothing about the subject it sounds rather boring, but I am starting to think that I will have to stick to this subject.

Unfortunately, the museum had nothing that could help me out. Indeed, it had virtually nothing at all. Just three tiny exhibits placed far away from each other in a huge building. However, there was this one cute girl who worked there, and we were (I think) making eyes at each other so I gave her a shy smile. At this all my courage was spent and I could not make anything more out of our brief 'interaction.' I wholly regret this because I'm sure this could have been taken further. It must be said, however, that she could have been looking at me with amazement for being the only visitor under sixty at the museum. Perhaps I would have turned her off if I'd talked to her about the museum and said, 'it's very nice, but i need more math.' Or maybe she would have liked that. Oh, the regret I feel. Take my advice, kids, just go for it. You never know. That's at least the third I've missed there.

After this I took Metro again and headed for school but I changed my mind on the way and decided to go to the National Gallery of Art. When I was a kid I used to love the National Air and Space Museum, but now I find it pretty boring. I used to hate the National Gallery but now it's my favorite of all the Smithsonians. I saw them all again, the Rembrandts and the van Goghs, among others, and, of course, the da Vinci, which is the only one in America. Beautiful.

After this, I hopped back on Metro to go to school where I wasted time looking unsuccessfully for an engineer I could do my project on. I was also able to buy a copy nearby of the new special-edition Lady and the Tramp for the niece. At a quarter-to-four I got on Metro one last time and headed home to watch the movie. I really have to get to work on my school stuff starting tomorrow.

Spring Break: Day 4

Today was by far the most productive day of Spring Break 2006 (that's SB06 to all you cool cats out there), but, strangely, the one there is least to write about. I crossed out three of ten items in my SB06 to-do list. I went to the bank, sent out some forms, and had the tires of my car changed. My niece and I surprised her mommy by picking her up at her office. It is unfortunate that my sister does not have many attractive co-workers. When we got home she decided to cook a lot of food, and, sadly, I washed the dishes after diner. I volunteered to do them, but soon enough I was wishing I hadn't. I still don't know how they were all washed, there were so many of them.

Spring Break: Day 3

Today was nothing special, just another lazy Sunday. I went to church for the first time in a while, watched all three Wallace and Gromit shorts, a little bit of Pretty in Pink, some sitcoms, and organized all my schoolwork, which was cluttered around my room for the past two weeks.

The church thing really disappointed me. I had mentioned that I've been feeling down recently, and I'd hoped that returning to my churchgoing habit would rectify this. But going to mass just made me feel worse. The priest today was so pompous and he really looked like he was putting on a performance for all of us in the church. He was such a dandy. This is the second time that I feel my church has disappointed me. The first time was a couple of years ago when I went to confession for some advice and enlightenment but ended up being talked to (undeservedly) like a child.

For those of you who don't know, there is a part of the Catholic mass called the Consecration. This is the most important part of our mass. This is where the priest says a blessing over bread and wine thereby making them what we Catholics believe to be the body and blood of Jesus Christ. Now as inane as this concept may seem to non-Catholics--and, indeed, to any rational human being--I believe in it. I believe that what I consume in holy communion is actually the body and blood of Jesus. Kind of silly of me right?

But today I questioned whether or not this transformation had truly occurred. Something about the priest's manner stunk of insincerity. Aside from this, they asked us for more money again. I come from the Philippines--a poor country. And while I did not grow up poor there, I know--just as anyone who has ever set foot in my country would too--how much in need of money the majority of my people are. Yet churches back home do not ask for as much money as often as they do here in the beautiful American churches with their stained glass windows and wall-to-wall carpeting. During the homily they had someone spend an additional twenty minutes telling us how to fill out a pledge form. They gave us self-addressed envelopes to put our forms and our checks or credit card information in and mail to the archdiocese, but they still had the collectors go around and take our donations, so that everyone will know how generous you were, and so that misers or people who just can't afford it are passive-aggressively forced to donate so as to avoid scornful looks--looks that practically wag a finger at you and chastise you with a 'for shame!'--from their fellow churchgoers. The collector held the basket in front of my sister and I for an eternity, as if that would miraculously allow a single mother and a necessarily unemployed student to afford a $150 pledge for who knows what purposes, perhaps the rebuilding of a perfectly good church, which was the case with another parish I used to go to here.

I still believe in the Catholic Church. My faith in both God and my Church never did waver in the wake of all recent controversies. I don't begrudge the giving, but the way some people ask. And I hope You understand this, God, if You're reading this. If You are as nice as I know You are, I know You will. Please don't send me to hell.

Spring Break: Day 2

We spent the day in Baltimore at the National Aquarium. It was loads of fun, especially for the niece. Stupid overheard conversation of the day:

(At the frog exhibit, a middle aged couple.)
Woman: They should play that song...Who was a bullfrog?
Man: Jeremiah.
Woman: Jeremiah. Jeremiah was a bullfrog.

When we got home this afternoon, I bummed around the house a bit, and skyped with mom again. After that I watched Impromptu for the fourth time but finally in its entirety. It is a great movie, and I am in love with Judy Davis. It is a wonderful, hilarious movie that is criminally overlooked. Judy Davis is a fabulous actress and Hugh Grant is absolutely brilliant as a valetudinarian Chopin. I can see an alarming lot of myself in Chopin, which can't be good, and, most unfortunately, our only dissimilarity seems to be musical genius.

I remember my piano lessons, me struggling to play this one Chopin prelude (in C, I believe it was) and yet no matter how poorly I played it, I could hear so much beauty in it. Yesterday in the library I found some Chopin records by Rubinstein, who is supposed to be the guy to play Chopin, but the records didn't look like they were in very good shape. I think when I take the car back to the mechanic on Monday I will go back and look for more Chopin. Impromptu really made me want to give Chopin a better listen. So long

Spring Break: Day 1

6:15 am - Woke up obscenely early (in spring break terms, that is) to take sister to office and go to mechanic to order new tires for car.

10:00 am to 12:00 pm - Just after finishing with mechanic, went to Wheaton Library to find schoolbooks (unsuccessfully) for 2 minutes, then spent the rest of the two hours looking through old records. Came home with 9 albums (12 records) for $12:

1. The History of Otis Redding. I believe it is the '67 Volt/Atco version, possibly worth some dough IF IT STILL HAD THE FUCKING JACKET!!! But for the price and the music, I can't complain.

2. Dylan, Before the Flood. This is supposed to be a good one. He plays with the Band in this one, and the Band are super great musicians. It has the Weight on it, too. I found Music from the Big Pink (again, no jacket) lying around, but it looked way too scratched up to even be listenable.

3. The Pretenders, their first album. Just finished listening to side one. I know, I know, I should have heard this a lot longer ago, and I'm sorry. I found their second album too but I forgot to get it.

4. Petula Clark, Downtown. No, I am not gay.

5. Burt Bacharach, Reach Out. For my inner hipster, perhaps?

6. Andres Segovia, Three Centuries of the Guitar. My dad used to make us listen to Segovia when we were kids. He is ace, and I hope this album is, too.

7. Brahms, Op. 77 and Prokofiev, Op. 25. I think I want to get more into classical music. If I know so many pop songs, why can't I have it the same way with classical music? It turns out that the Brahms one is one of the most famous violin concertos. The Prokofiev symphony is pretty popular, too. I thought it had a nice cover. And it was played in France. French chicks are hot.

8. Bizet, Carmen. This version is conducted by one Sir Thomas Beecham and the top billed singers are Victoria de los Angeles and Nicolai Gedda. It turns out that this is a very good version of the opera. I picked it because I like the popular songs from Carmen like the Habanera, and because the album came in one of those cool boxes classical sets come in with all three records in immaculate condition. And the libretto is intact, too.

9. Debussy, La Mer, Prelude a l'apres - midi d'un faune, and 3 Nocturnes. I remember on an old computer, one of the sample songs Windows had was Debussy's Clair de Lune. When I was younger, I never particularly cared for it, although now I can't remember what it sounds like. I remember being rather disappointed because what I'd heard wasn't what I imagined something as (to me) romantically titled as Clair de Lune would sound like. I thought that La Mer was his take on the old French pop song, but it looks like it isn't. I hope this one is good.

12:30 pm - 3:30 pm - Aside from having lunch, I don't know where these three hours went. Such idleness makes me feel so guilty.

3:30 pm - 5:00 pm - Stayed with niece the whole time. She went potty. Hooray!

5:00 pm - 6:00 pm - Picked up sister from work.

6:00 pm - 10:00 pm - Skyped with parents. Got up from time to time to speak to old high school buddy in San Francisco and to take a bath. Was really depressed throughout this period, for some reason. Still am. Must look at porn later to forget worries.

11:00 pm - chatting with cousin from Australia. Hopefully alleviating some of her fears about starting college.

Sick!

Today at MSN.com:

Somebody Famous Knows Me...Maybe

Last night I was lurking about the message boards of the Go-Betweens' website, like I am wont to do from time-to-time. I never actually post anything though...I just read what people have to say. A lot of it is interesting, but what I mainly look out for are posts from people close to the group, such as ex-members Lindy Morrison and Robert Vickers, and author David Nichols.

So last night I notice a thread created by Vickers called 'Myspaces,' which was interesting, because one does not think of Robert Vickers and Myspace at once. But there it was...he'd written that he's recently gotten into making Myspaces for his old bands, and he'd made a couple for the Colors and, of course, the Go-Betweens.

So I logged on to my account, which had been idle for ages. Actually, I only created it so that I could comment on Steve's (who sometimes leaves usually hilarious comments here) blog. I added the two bands to my friends list, and now...the Go-Betweens are my friends! Robert Vickers might actually know I exist! OH MY GOD!

Check them out--they've got great songs on both spaces. The Go-Betweens one has live versions that aren't to my knowledge available commercially.

The Colors - http://www.myspace.com/thecolorsnyc
The Go-Betweens - http://www.myspace.com/thegobetweensmk1

High School Music Project

Yesterday I finally got to listen to those records I bought at the library a month ago. Great Stuff. The Wild Swans single was excellent, hardly as synth-heavy as the plain, almost sterile cover led me to believe. They play around with the speed of the vocals, and the b-side, 'Revolutionary Spirit,' with the vocals slowed-down, reminded me of the music project we had to do in my last year of high school.

We had to write and record two songs, one a possible graduation song, and the other a song about anything. Being the only one in my group who could play an instrument, I took my guitar to my computer whiz groupmate Luigi (who is now doing molecular biology or something at UC Davis) to record our songs on his computer. At the time I was very interested in city blues-type music, Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf, etc., so I decided that our graduation song be a blues song, with me trying to be Clapton. There was no drum track. I first played a couple of minutes of that standard A blues riff, that dun-da-dun-da-dun-da-dun stereotypical blues thing and later on overdubbed guitar solos. We added our vocals using a computer program with a digitized voice that reads aloud whatever you type into it. It was such a horrible song. The lyrics were terrible, and the music had no recognizable time signature, and my playing was one horrible blues cliche after another, but we got that song out of the way pretty quickly.

The second song I wanted to take seriously. At the time I was just getting in to the Velvets, so I wanted to do something around a Sterling Morrison-type, Waiting for the Man/Creedence-Fortunate Son lick. I wasn't getting anywhere with the melody, so Luigi and I worked on the lyrics first. Writing verse is one of the most uncomfortable things to do in the world for me, because I feel that if I can't sound like Shakespeare or something, then it just sounds plain hokey and so it's better to make it sound just plain absurd. We first considered a really stupid Lord of the Rings lyric a la Zeppelin. After that Luigi and I randomly looked up words in the dictionary. One lyric was going to go, 'With the transmisometer I measured the transmundane light.' So it's alliterative for a reason, we were looking through T then!

In the end, I used the lyrics from a game I would play at the time with my cousin Meg. I would have a guitar and tell her to name anything she saw in the room and I would make a song up about it on the spot. One time she was eating a muffin, so she told me to make a song up about a chocolate chip muffin. The lyric went, 'eat a chocolate chip muffin, eat a turkey with stuffing, you go home with nothing.' So we used that horrible lyric for our project! As for the 'melody' I ended up making it what was in my mind a Sonic Youth kind of thing. I'm not sure if I'd messed around with the tuning of the guitar, but in hindsight it sounds nothing like Sonic Youth, just very noisy and unlistenable.

So where do the Wild Swans come in? Well, last night, I remembered our song, and thought that with the digitized voice and the weird, culinary stream-of-consciousness lyric, it would have made a pretty good new wave tune, if only I'd been into new wave at the time. Long story about nothing. In defense of Luigi's good taste, I did virtually all of the shitty lyrics.

Poker Night

Last night was poker night at the house with Alex, Enrique, and Steve. We had first planned to go to Hooters for wings like we always do, but at eight the wind started to pick up. So in my usual sissy way I called everyone up to try to push our outing back to next weekend. But the guys still wanted to do something so they came to the house and we ordered out and played poker all night.

We must have looked like a bunch of middle-aged guys playing poker while listening to Benny Goodman. Had we any cigars to smoke, the picture would have been complete. But of course, being true as we always are to our fashion, we had no beer and instead downed glasses of coke and lemonade, and we played for no money lest one of us might have taken wagering and losing a dollar "too personally."

Good clean fun.

Diamonds in the Rough

I was at the Wheaton Library yesterday buying the books I have to read for my English class (10 books, 10 bucks...OH SNAP I LOVE USED BOOKS). I then rummaged through their old records (a buck for 33's and a quarter for 45's) and found three gems: first, New Order's Low-Life; second, a Wild Swans 12" single; and third, a Bluebells 12" single.

I already have Low-Life, but I thought that for a buck I may as well have it in vinyl too. IMHO, that album is worth it alone for Love Vigilantes, which surely reveals me as a fraud who has only listened to side one.

The Wild Swans one I got because I remembered Joe talking about the greatness of the Care and their previous and/or subsequent partitioning into a number of other new wave acts, one of which is the Wild Swans. This single is Revolutionary Spirit b/w God Forbid. Any good, Joe?

The third had me grinning like an idiot in the library-THE BLUEBELLS!!! YES!!! This is a five-song "mini-album." I still plan to get the singles collection on CD (recently remastered late last year--schwing!) but I was so happy to find anything Bluebells since everything Bluebells here is available import-only.

I haven't listened to any of them yet, because I'm afraid my ancient Sears Silvertone will batter the shit out of the discs. I will listen to them maybe on my uncle's turntable, and I will let you know how that goes. These records make me more excited than the prospect of losing my virginity.

I Give You...KONG!

I saw King Kong today. Great movie. Warrants an entry. A few points:

1. Does it ever happen to you that you think about someone or something that you haven't come across in a long time and then a short while after you think about it that someone or something just shows up? For example, a few days ago, I was thinking about the old show "Early Edition" about that guy who gets the newspaper a day early and tries to stop the bad news from happening. It was an okay show, not particularly memorable, which made it funny that I should think about it, particularly the main actor. And then whoa! He's in King Kong! How strange!

2. Colin Hanks has matured well. I've only seen him previously in teen movies, so I was pleasantly surprised that he made a very believable mature person, unlike Leonardo diCaprio for instance, who looks forever 18.

3. I think God is trying to tell me something about the human race, like we're all a bunch of big bastards ruining it for every other race, such as giant apes in King Kong. I also read Out of the Silent Planet last week, and we gave some aliens a hard time there too. What a coincidence.

4. There was a funny scene in Kong; for those who have yet to see it, let me just say it's the cretaceous equivalent of a freeway pile-up. How's that for a dead giveaway?

5. Why must heathens always be in a frenzy whenever they perform sacrifices? Couldn't they be more pragmatic about it? Like, "Okay, Stan, put 'er in. Whoops, slow down 'ere wif th' crane, Jim, you know Kong likes 'is meat real alive like. Oh, look there goes Frank, rolling his eyeballs up again. He's so daft." And when it's all over, "Right, there she goes. What a shame, I thought she was quite cute. Well, I guess I'll go to bed now." Because if you're in a frenzy, how do you go home? Do you just stop suddenly once the sacrifice has been made, shrug, and go home? Or do you stay in a frenzy til you get home? A lot of movies show sacrifices with the frenzied revellers and such, but no one ever shows the end of these rites. I really wonder what they do when it's all over.

6. Ah, Naomi Watts....Naomi....Naomi...sigh