18 - beliefs

These are getting too broad. So here's a "this I believe" style rant...

I believe nothing is more important than fidelity. I believe that everyone has the right to have access to opportunity, and has the right to squander those opportunities. I believe that a benevolent, loving God sent his son to serve as a sacrifice and example to mankind, and that by emulating that son one can achieve true harmony, peace, enlightenment, and eternal life. I believe education is the single most important goal one should pursue. I believe my waist is too big and I wish I had more mojo to do something about it. I believe that people need to think about things more - that we can't cut taxes without sacrificing what we want and that too many people think everyone else is the problem. I believe racism is becoming too acceptable under the guise of 'taking back' the government. I believe there isn't enough art in the world, and that there is probably too much bad art. I believe in contradictions. I believe in my friends, my family, and those I love.

17 and things

So, post 17 is supposed to be highs and lows of the last year. Seemed like a trivial post after the shootings that maimed my congresswoman, killed 6 others, and put 12 others in the hospital. Just haven't had the jazz since then.

So here - low for the last year is something trivial I'm sure. I didn't get the big, bad scholarship I hoped to get. My mom has to have a biopsy. My girl has to have a biopsy. My cat died. When lumped together, they're all pretty bad. But...

Highs for the year - I've got this girl that's pretty much made of Bee Knees and Awesome. She makes me feel amazing and I love her like crazy. I'm just stoked 99% of the time that she actually likes me. So, the last year has been one pretty great high. Although if I had to pick a moment or two, the trek to the north in the crazy heat to see the lake and the hoodoos was great. My indoor group took 9th in the world championships. I'm sure other stuff was cool, and probably all of it had to do with the flickvan in my life.

Entry 16 - mainstream music

Hmm. I don't listen to most of it because it sucks. If it's on the pop charts, it's probably crap I'd hate, and if it's on MTV (do they still play music), I definitely hate it.

From my music list a few posts ago, it should be evident that I'm not a regular-music kind of guy. I'm as likely to listen to Opera as County. Maybe more so. Depends on the Opera. And the Country.

Generally, I don't like the marketed stuff, the hipping and the hopping, and the teeny bopping or the boybanding stuff.

Generally, again, it's all meh...

Entry 15: Favorite Tumblrs

I didn't even know what that is. I barely blog, so I think I'm safe saying I don't read them either. Tumblr, blogger, whatever. Not interested.

Online serial stuff, though, I do like. For instance, I'm a fan of three online comics right now:

Girls with Slingshots is a about people I think I'd get along with. And funny. It was referred by another site, and I'm stuck.

Questionable Content was my first, and it sent me to both GWS and LICD. It's very well written, and I'm a fan of the style.

The Least I Could Do is great. It's vaguely British, and while I'm not mad about the main character, everything else is perfect. Rayne Summers is admirable, childish, and fun, and as the center he's a capable character around which other good characters reasonably frolic.

So that's me, for the reading, online. Aside from the NYT and other random stuff that is...

Entry 14: Earliest Memory

This isn't really possible. My earliest memory might be a meta-memory. I 'recall' being very young and crawling into the lake - maybe 12-14 months old. It might be one of those things where I recall hearing about it so much that I imagined my memory into existence.

Firsthand, I recall sleeping under a chair, and jumping from car to car on the train. We were told that we had to wear shoes because our feet would get caught in the joints things between cars so I recall getting to the finger-joint thing and jumping to the next car. My mom says we took that trip when I was three. I also remember meeting my dad at the train station in Flagstaff and riding home in the back of the station wagon. So, that's my first verifiable memory.

Entry 13: Somewhere I'd like to move or visit

I'd like to visit Scotland again. I lived there for an academic year and loved it, so I want to go back. I hope to visit Norway and Sweden in the next year, and hopefully Iceland, Finland, and the Baltic. I didn't get to Russia last trip, and I hope to see more than St. Petersburg. I want some Red Square. I need to see Spain and Portugal to finish off Western Europe, and then the Balkans to finish off that chunk.

Live? I'd live in any city, really. Stockholm or Oslo are tops on my list right now (love those as an idea). I'd move to Glasgow in a heartbeat, or London or Edinburgh if the job was right. Paris could work although my french is old and wasted, and my German could make Hamburg, Vienna, Salzburg, or Bern work.
In the US, not much catches my eye, although San Francisco might fit, as might Boston or maybe even New York. Maybe.

Ask me again in 6 months and we'll see. My degree will likely force me out of the Pueblo so I'm likely to live in another college town somewhere soon...

Entry 12: Bullet your whole day

I'll do yesterday, New Year's Eve.

• Wake up
• Yell at dogs to stop barking at nothing
• Go back to bed for another hour
• Roll out of bed late, and go to lunch with Christy
• Go to PetCo and buy a pet hammock for my back seat.
• Get the thing installed, get kitted out, and load the puppies into the car.
• Drive to the mountain, get turned back due to snow/winter roads.
• Drive to Colossal Cave, turn back because it's an on-leash area. 
• Stop near CC and let the dogs out. Walk them with Christy for 1.5 hours in the cold.
• Stop at Safeway to get wine.
• Take pets home and unload.
• Shower. Change. Shave with new Straight-Edge. Lay down with lotion on to ease razor burn.
• Roll out to J&M's for New Year's Party. 
• Arrive right after Mike and Avis.
• Party ensues. (Make inane comments, sound dumb, tell jokes, enjoy self, lose at Cranium).
• Kiss my girl at Midnight to end 'day'. 

Entry 11: iPod shuffle ten

Not sure this is appropriate, as I've got 7291 songs on it. I'll do two...

1. Blue Jay Way, The Beatles
2. The Power of One, Hans Zimmer (from the movie of the same name)
3. Rootless Tree, Damian Rice
4. Human After All, Daft Punk
5. Epilogue: You and I/The Story of Chess, Anderrson-Ulvaeus (from the Chess concept album or Soundtrack)
6. It's Only Love, The Beatles (3.37% of my library are The Beatles - pretty bad odds in a random ten)
7. 2+2=5, Radiohead (which I got due to the Momentum show in SD in 2004)
8. Situation, Jack Johnson
9. Humpty Dance, Digital Underground
10. Tanguedia, Gary Burton (from the Astor Piazzolla reunion)

Now, for real. The top ten listened/played on my list:

1. Dethaura, Sonata Arctica (63)
2. Extraordinary Machine, Fiona Apple (51)
3. Three Evils (Embodied in Love and Shadow), Coheed & Cambria (50)
3. Everything Fades to Gray (Instrumental), Sonata Arctica (50)
3. The Last Amazing Grays, Sonata Arctica (50)
6. Symphony no. 7 in A Major, Second Movement, Beethoven, London Symphony (48)
7. The Suffering, Coheed & Cambria (45)
7. The Crowing, Coheed & Cambria (45)
9. Seashell, Scala and Kolacny Brothers (42)
10. Keeping the Blade, Coheed & Cambria (41)
10. Always and Never, Coheed & Cambria (41)

The Coheed and Sonata stuff tend to get played in a row, by album, so they happen a lot. Coheed is my Bowling Ball Repair music...

High Play, High Rated, although this is a biased set as I've not rated most of my music...

Methods of Madness, the Taxi Driver/Hitchcock show by the Blue Devils Drum and Bugle Corps, 2000
Operation Ground and Pound, Dragon Force
My Eyes, Felicia Day and Neil Patrick Harris, from Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog
Extraordinary Machine, Fiona Apple
Tymps (the Sick in the Head song), Fiona Apple
Slow Like Honey, Fiona Apple
Seashell, Scala and Kolacny Brothers
My Dream's But A Drop Of Fuel For A Nightmare, Sonata Arctica
Lacrimosa from Mozart's Requiem