Caught In The Whirlwind
Archive for November, 2006
QotD: So Hard To Shop For
0Who’s the hardest person to shop for on your holiday list?
Everybody!
I’m HORRIBLE at giving gifts since I generally have no idea what people want or could even use. It generally works better if the person tells me exactly what they want.
Of course that takes a lot of the surprise out of it…
QotD: Top 5 In ’06 – Music
01999 days
by Jason
in Uncategorized
What are your top 5 CDs/albums of 2006?
Submitted by eliz. s.
Barenaked Ladies Are Me
- Barenaked Ladies – Barenaked Ladies Are Me
If we’re not counting live releases, the new Barenaked Ladies CD would have to top my charts for the best release of 2006. They went independent and it shows, when them taking the time they needed in the studio to perfect this group of songs. They take the band in some new directions and mash up a whole bunch of different musical styles into a cohesive package.
My favorite tracks include the very funny “Bank Job”, “Everything Has Changed” and “Maybe You’re Right”.
I was hoping to go see them in concert again this year, but unfortunately, things didn’t work out.
- OSI – Free Coming back from their debut album, this side project of Kevin Moore, Jim Matheos of Fates Warning and Mike Portnoy of Dream Theater deliver a slightly heavier album, mixing electroinca influences with heavy guitar riffage. I ended up liking this effort a lot more than their self titled debut album.
- Frost* - Milliontown This is my pick for the best new discovery of the year. I wrote a blog post about them earlier, so I’ll refer you to that for the full details, but just in short, this is Progressive Metal without a lot of the progressive metal cliches. It’s a really fresh sound, and really original. It’s really too bad they called it quits recently, as I was looking forward to the next album from these guys. Hopefully the breakup is temporary because it was time related.
- Spock’s Beard – Spock’s Beard Here’s one I didn’t think I was going to be listing so soon, but I really can’t stop listening to this album. It’s started to really grow on me. I still don’t enjoy the instrumental track on it, but I’m getting more and more into it.
- Muse – Black Holes and Revelations Muse can be a hard band to get into. Musically, this effort is probably the most interesting thing that I’ve heard from them since I got into them with Absolution. However, I’m getting a little bored with the vocal lines which don’t vary much from song to song. They become almost predictable at times. Still, a good album by a good band.
If we were to include Live albums, Dream Theater – Score would be my number one pick. Dream Theater + Orchestra = goodness.
Runners up also incuded Iron Maiden’s A Matter of Life and Death and The Flower King’s Paradox Hotel.
Insert Witty Topic Here
01999 days
by Jason
in Uncategorized
Had my friend over last night, which was fun. We grabbed some dinner from Applebees and then spent the rest of the evening playing the Nintendo Wii she brought over (I just can’t bring myself to make bad jokes with the name…)
I’ve determined that I’m hopeless when it comes to Zelda. I had to ask for help with the Tutorial section. Perhaps it would have gone better if I didn’t have an audience who already knew what to do, so I might give the game another try later down the line. I’ve also determined that my fitness age is somewhere in the upper 60s, I can’t hit home runs and I suck at baseball (which kinda goes with the home runs thing), boxing and tennis.
Ahhh…Relief
02000 days
by Jason
in Uncategorized
The Britney Spears christmas music I mentioned yesterday is nowhere to be found today. I think somebody figured out how to turn it off in here. Woohoo.
Tonight will mark the first ever time I’ve had someone other than immediate family over to my apartment to hang out for a bit, so I had to clean last night. A lot. Oh well, it gave me an excuse to clean the place up which I so desperately needed. This all came about when I was talking to said friend yesterday and she mentioned her husband was kicking her out of the house for the night (along with the Wii) so he could get some schoolwork done since it’s nearing the end of the semester and there’d been too much temptation to slack off otherwise, I guess. Anyway, I offered to play host for the evening, so she (and the Wii) is coming over tonight for a little while.
In other news, dentist’s are still evil. I believe I mentioned before that I had to back for an appointment to have…something…done. Well, I got a cavity filled today. I hate needles…ugh. Now the left side of my mouth is kinda sore, but that’s to be expected I guess. The numbness wore off a few hours ago finally.
QotD: Warning:
02000 days
by Jason
in Uncategorized
If you came with a warning label, what would it say?
Submitted by chris.
So many potential warnings! Lets go with…
Warning: May say things without thinking about them first. If multiple interpretations of statement exist, choose least offensive one as that was most likely the intended meaning.
I could also go with:
Caution: Quote Movies at your own risk. Probably won’t get the reference.
Make The Hurting Stop
02001 days
by Jason
in Uncategorized
Like many businesses, we’ve got the place wired with speakers in the ceiling here which pump out some random music type stuff….a little ambient background noise doesn’t hurt anyone, right?
Well, unless it’s Britney Spears Christmas songs it doesn’t. Somebody, please end my misery!
QotD: Dear Diary
02001 days
by Jason
in Uncategorized
Do you keep a journal or diary? How often do you write in it?
Submitted by Kim.
This is about as close as I’ve ever gotten to writing a diary, but considering it’s kinda public, it isn’t quite the same thing.
I looong time ago (talking middle school here) I tried to keep one, but I lost interest in that fast.
My Arm Hurts!
02002 days
by Jason
in Uncategorized
I spent most of yesterday with some friends at their place playing with their Nintendo Wii (as well as a little Guitar Hero II sprinkled in). I have muscles in my arms that are hurting right now that I didn’t even realize I had. But I had a ton of fun and it really sold me on the viability of the Wiimote for controlling games. I’m hopefully going over to another friends house to play some more. Rayman is definitely going to get bought when I get my Wii.
I really want a Wii. I’m thinking I’ll get one in January when the rush slows down a bit. Although if I happen to find one before then, I won’t have any problems buying it.
I also finished Final Fantasy XII yesterday. My final impression was that it’s a good game. The combat system ROCKS. More games need to use that combat system. Heck, every game needs to use it. And if it’s already been released, they should re-release a version of it that uses that system. It’s about as close to perfect a system as I can think of.
Now I’m working on Suikoden V which is being lent out to me. Oh, and the DS version of Trauma Center. I played the Wii version last night and had fun, so I bought the Nintendo DS version.
QotD: Google Me
0Have you ever Googled your own name? How did you feel about the results?
Submitted by elen.
Let’s see here, apparently there’s another me which is also a programmer working on the Linux Kernel. It also looks like this particular version of me either works at or attends Penn State University.
There’s also a guy who does bike races. He came in 14th in some hill climb thing.
Somebody also took the domain name of my name to put up a crappy wedding picture album.
Ooh, finally, the first link that actually points to me is on the bottom of page 2, linked to my now inactive profile at epinions.com.
Not really sure how I’m supposed to feel about that. Knowing there’s another guy out there with the same name who’s also into development is kinda freaky through.
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