Don’t You Love Filler Posts?

And that’s pretty much what Facebook is.

Trendsetting?

Like some people, I’m a pretty big fan of Twitter. Like a far greater number of people, I’m not a very big fan of doing laundry.

Let me share a story that manages to connect the two.

When I started college, one of the many new things I had to get used to was doing laundry. I’ve since gotten over it really being any sort of a hassle, but somewhere along the line, I managed to draw a new personal tradition out of it. For whatever reason, every time I’ve done laundry, I tweeted something about it that included the word “fucking.” Now, granted, this is not a very nice word. Most people should not say this word or should at least take some care in using it because a) most people don’t find it particularly amusing, and b) that pesky roughly age 13-17 demographic finds it entirely too amusing. But I felt like the daunting task of having to do laundry did something to deserve it. Sorting colors, waiting for a dryer to open up, swiping your ID or procuring an obscene amount of quarters. Not pleasant stuff. Of course, now it’s just funny. Especially in how a few of my friends have adopted this habit as well. I can earnestly say that nothing warms my heart in quite the same way as seeing someone else tweet something along the lines of “Time to do some fucking laundry! #fuckinglaundry”

Yes, that’s right. It even has its own hashtag now. It’s perfectly acceptable either to throw it in at the end, or to just incorporate it into your tweet, like one of my friends did rather expertly with “What time is it? #fuckinglaundry time!” Those are the rules. Either syntax is perfectly acceptable! Why would I tell you that they’re the rules? Because this is obviously a thing that needs to catch on on a larger scale! True, my blog doesn’t really get enough traffic (at least outside of you know what) to start a social revolution (Twitter revolution?), but it’s as good a place as any to get the word out! Or, worst case scenario, to share an amusing anecdote to serve as a filler post.

Now go. You know what you must do. Unless you don’t have twitter, then you should maybe click on a bunch more of my posts and bump up my stats a little bit to make me feel better.

If You’re Wondering If Raditude Is Any Good… I Dunno

I’m not really a huge Weezer fan, although I couldn’t begin to tell you why. I usually enjoy them when they come on shuffle or if I stumble into a new song of theirs, but I care barely get myself to listen to an entire album by them. Now, your response to that could be some of the typical post-music industry “the album is dead!” fluff, but I still think the album is the best way to enjoy a musical artist, and when their albums are only 10 songs or so, like Weezer tends to do, not being able to sit through it all isn’t a terribly great thing. Now, I haven’t gotten a chance to ever listen to The Blue Album or Pinkerton, which are supposed to be really, really good, and have managed to only have listened to Weezer’s Make Believe, which I am led to believe is the “bad” one, and The Green Album, which is also supposed to be really good, and now their new album, Raditude.

First and foremost, given my already “I should like them, but I don’t know why I don’t” take on Weezer, picking up their newest effort and finding an album named “Raditude” with what appears to be a dog trying its best to be a kangaroo on it, I wasn’t expecting much of my impressions to change. And they didn’t. Raditude is like every other time I’ve listened to a Weezer album: there were a handful of songs I really got into, and the rest of the album left me somewhere between tapping my foot along to the music and unenthusiastic. Or hit or miss, in terms that actually make sense. Except the cover doesn’t make sense. I feel that’s an okay thing for me to do.

Like I alluded to, I’m basically a Weezer fan to the extent that when I think they have a good song, it is a very good song. Album opener and lead single “(If You’re Wondering If I Want You To) I Want You To” is like 98% absolutely delicious. It’s not perfect, but the shimmying acoustic guitar and general poppiness of the tune creates a wonderful contrast with the bittersweet lyrics.  The “Then the conversation stopped, and I looked down at my feet/I was next to you and you were right there next to me” pre-chorus captures the spirit of that wonderfully awkward moment of near-flirtation outlined rather thoroughly by the rest of the chorus, which is also the title. Basically. The song stays musically poppy and cheery as the lyrics descend into the trouble later down the road, but keeps drawing back on that plea to break the hesitation, and the end result is oh so enjoyable.

As you may have guessed by now, I liked this one song a lot more than the rest of the album, but that isn’t necessarily to say that the other nine tracks aren’t any good. On the contrary, I rather liked “The Girl Got Hot”, “Put Me Back Together”, and, being the pessimist I am, thought the miserably depressing closer “I Don’t Want To Let You Go” was beautifully and painfully human, which is one of Rivers Cuomo’s greatest strengths as a songwriter. His ability to hold up a mirror to the forcibly hidden awkward aspects of the human condition is worth really reading into the lyrics for alone. The problem is that he doesn’t always do this. Another thing about the album that I couldn’t quite get into, and maybe I just need to be more into Weezer to really get this sort of thing, but, much like how the album’s named “Raditude”, the whole thing sounds like it’s trying really hard to be hipper and younger than it is. So many lyrics are dedicated to partying and dance floors and what have you that I can’t tell where the irony ends and where the descent into the dog pouncing like a kangaroo meandering fluff begins, and it gets tiring.

Except aside from the tracks that are actual duds, “Can’t Stop Partying” just come off as too morbid musically to convey much of the lyrical irony it needs and the Eastern-tinged Hallmark card that is “Love Is The Answer” is a paradox demanding both an acquired taste and burnt taste buds, none of this is damning enough to actually make me want to call it bad. It’s more like how the album can reach such musical heights with the thematic lows of “(If You’re Wondering If I Want You To) I Want You To” and “I Don’t Want To Let You Go”, that the rest of the album has a hard time holding itself up in comparison, even when it seems fairly good. There’s an inherent issue in how it tends to feel more  listenable than it does enjoyable, but that’s what iTunes and YouTube are for. If you haven’t listened to “(If You’re Wondering If I Want You To) I Want You To”, you’re missing out. As for the other half-hour of the album, depends how much you like modern, poppy Weezer. I mean, sure, it wants you to, but it clearly doesn’t have all night.

Overdetermined Signifiers for Shitty Poetry

As used as I am
To ruining my plans,
Imagining meaning that can’t exist,
The underburdened existentialist,
Aspiring nihilist narcissist,
And finding patterns within nervous ticks,

I’m done with that routine
Of tripping on ennui
And turned around to fix the last four hours,
A perfect symbol of the last four years,
And found the plant I imagined as ours,
A perfect arrangement of angled mirrors.

Having been within sight of why
I sailed into that stormy night
Still sans knowledge of what,
Or of how to sail,
Or swim,
For that matter,
Or any idea of how the hell to understand semaphore.

That rowboat I took out to sea
Was gone when I came to,
And after days of just not avoiding the beach enough,
Trying to find where I lost it,
Trying to find how I had lost it,
And delusional about finding it,
I finally had the sobering experience
Of being informed there was never actually a boat at all,
Though we’d probably both have liked one,
And I’d understand how the hell I got on this island anyway.

All the same,
I appreciate your attempt at talking to me in semaphore,
And I guess I should be thankful
That your red flags were white.

- – -

I don’t know if this is a draft or a poem I’m just not terribly certain about, but, for the former, I rarely ever go back and revise unfinished poetry anyway, and, for the latter, I need to update the blog at some point in time. Also for the latter, putting poetry up on this blog, regardless of my suspicions about its quality, does offer me the opportunity to get some input on it (theoretically). Anybody reading this happen to be feeling particularly critical today? Any thoughts?

So I’d like to throw poetry and such up here more often, except the caveat there is that I actually have to write poetry and such more often. The workaround I came up with about a year ago was to write a weekly haiku, although the “weekly” part was predictably short lived, and the “haiku” part lost its appeal to me. Not that I have anything against haikus, I just feel like I could be a little more creative.

Anyway, hopefully you enjoyed my latest depressing poem. If not, here’s a sharp contrast for your enjoyment, written by a friend of mine, which I assured her I would link to and promptly forgot to do so for a month. I imagine it’s still topical.

That’s all. I’m going to try going to sleep before midnight for once. I hear that’s good for you.

Rock and Roll Will Never Die, But It Will Probably Get Really Old and Wrinkly and Just Gross Looking In General

In my English class today, my professor briefly ripped on the mortality of rock and roll. Because we were talking about Oscar Wilde. Anyway, her quick joke about rock and roll music being middle aged, citing The Rolling Stones a being more of a brand than actual rock, reminded me about all those other signs of mortality in the music scene. Most discussions about the death of the music industry tend to be about the death of the album, or the death of the record label, and so on and so forth, but very little seems to be about the death of the band itself. Let’s look at three recent-ish examples of this: the “wait, they’re not actually dead yet?” band, the “oh my god, they’re finally dead?” band, and the “is nothing sacred anymore please oh please stay dead” band.

• The “wait, they’re not actually dead yet?” band

The most recent of all the following examples (I’m in college, guys. It’s hard to stay punctual! P.S. Scribblenauts first impressions coming soon!), apparently Steven Page left Aerosmith earlier this week or last week or something (interestingly enough, to work on “the brand of myself – Brand Tyler”). Well, since I couldn’t actually remember when it was, I Googled it, and since then the statements have been revised to say the opposite, that Steven Tyler’s “not quitting Aerosmith”. So… there you go. I mean, sure, from what I understand, they’re still a good show, but I’m reasonably certain they’re not really doing anything new and exciting in the music industry. I mean, their last album of original material was released in 2001, and Wikipedia claims they’re working on a new album for 2010, but are people terribly excited about that? Will a single song off of that album really be incorporated into their canon?

• The “oh my god, they’re finally dead?” band

So Oasis broke up. Noel quit the band, and then Liam announced Oasis “is no longer”, so, yeah, it sounds like that’s about it for Oasis. Although apparently this isn’t anything terribly new for them. I wasn’t really around during their heyday or anything, but from what I’ve picked up on, the two of them kind of hate each other. So who knows if they’re coming back or not. I just think it’s interesting that even though they’re mostly notable for their early 90s material, they actually do have new stuff from last year or so on the radio. So they’re somewhat topical? I guess?

• The “is nothing sacred anymore please oh please stay dead” band

So apparently Bud Gaugh and Eric Wilson tried to pull off a Sublime reunion. Yeah. What can you say about that? You know, aside from how singer/guitarist/creative force/frontman Bradley Nowell died thirteen years ago, and it’s kind of hard to really pull together a legitimate reunion when you have to replace all those things. And, also, the legal rights. This one was kind of silly and almost worrying, but I guess it could have been worse. This Rome Ramirez guy doesn’t really sound too much like Bradley, but, all things considered, the music didn’t actually sound that bad (as I can tell based on the three or four songs I saw on YouTube), and trying to take Nowell’s place probably took some serious balls. Still, that being said, it’s a good thing a judge banned the new lineup from actually performing as Sublime, because, well, it isn’t. It’d be like if Krist Novoselic and Dave Grohl grabbed a new singer/guitarist and claimed Nirvana was reuniting, except Sublime wasn’t really as good or important as Nirvana. Yup. I went there. Let’s see the fight in the comments, people! Or just comments, really. Or at least some views on an article I’ve written that isn’t that Pokemon thing that’s gotten 2000 more hits than my next most popular article. Seriously. The internet is weird.

It’d Be More Mysterious If It Weren’t For Those Meddling Kids

I’m not really the person to bother to stay particularly up to date on the happenings on the internet, so for all I know, this might be old news, but a few days ago I rediscovered the joy of Mystery Google. Almost. The concept is simple and wonderful enough. It looks like Google, you type in your search term like in Google, except the results you get are what the person before you searched for. It’s a great concept, and I rather like it because if you keep using it for ten minutes or so, you notice enough trends and actually walk away with a rather naked glimpse at humanity.

I first discovered Mystery Google about a month or two ago, and typed in those normal, silly searches you used the first time someone told you about Google, like “hello”, and “funny”. Then when you get the search results for things like “<O.O>”, you realize that what’s even more fun that getting the previous person’s results is that the next person gets yours. Naturally, I typed in things like “the inescapable futility of existence” (and did some shameless self-advertising by searching for this blog), but lost interest pretty quickly, without paying much attention to what I was getting.

A few days ago, being the good college students that we are, we were messing around with Mystery Google, and this is when I started to really pay attention to what other people were searching for. For every handful of search terms most likely done by people showing Mystery Google to their friends and pissing them off with things like “Mary likes monkey balls”, we got the occasional “You are a good person.” Briefly motivated by this, we decided to try our hand at setting up positive searches for people too. We typed in “People need you.” We got search results for “edward cullen doggy style”. This was short lived.

So I guess you can kind of learn a few things about people from things like Mystery Google. People enjoy making fun of other people, occasionally inspiring them, and hot fictitious vampire sex.

Enlightening!

Response To Yesterday’s Post

In between yesterday and today, I have actually seen the wedding episode. I haven’t caught up any further than that, but I felt I should respond to what I wrote yesterday in light of having actually seen the episode people have been watching six seasons of The Office for.

Well, I know semi-reviewing a three week old episode is kind of silly, so I’ll be brief. It was better than I thought it would be. It was actually pretty funny and hardly boring at all, even if it wasn’t quite as funny as the show might have made it in its prime. And even if they stole the whole “let’s have a different wedding by ourselves away from how terrible this wedding everybody thinks will be the real one is going” from How I Met Your Mother two years ago.

That’s about all I feel like writing about. I’m sure you’ve seen it by now. I’m a college student now. I don’t have time for this!

So… I guess that’s it? How have you been?

Even Further From World’s Best Boss

I’ve watched the American version of The Office from day one, and watched it religiously. I saw every episode from that initial, “oh ho ho, Jim put Dwight’s stapler in Jello, but he’s in love with an engaged woman, oh dearie me!” pilot episode, to the “Jim kissed Pam!” second season finale, to the “Jim and Pam are finally going to go out!” third season finale, to the “Jim and Pam actually are going out!” fourth season premiere, to the “Jim proposed to Pam!” fifth season premiere, to the “Pam’s pregnant!” fifth season finale.

I still haven’t seen the wedding episode.

It’s ironic that I’ve followed the show, admittedly mostly because of these two characters, for so long, only to stop watching it right at the episode the show’s audience has literally waited six years for. But wait!, you might be thinking, I actually read your blog quite a bit and now that you’re in college now! You don’t always have time to rejoice in the merriment that is a television programme! And to that, dear figurative devoted reader, I respond with true, but the thing aired weeks ago. I’m sure I had time somewhere between now and then to catch up to this moment so eagerly and patiently waited for. There’s just not as much reason to. The fact of the matter is, like I said around the end of the last season, the show has been showing its age, and it’s only getting older.

The season premiere was funnier than I expected, even if it did absolutely nothing to significantly develop the story. While each episode after that did the opposite and worked on very significant changes to the story, and made the show less and less funny. Jim and Michael both being manager didn’t make things any more entertaining, and on the contrary made them worse. Like I’ve also said, every season of The Office, Jim’s character becomes less and less likable. As one of the office’s new bosses, Jim is just as much of a moron as Michael, except he’s even more awkward to watch.

Granted, I’ll still catch up on the show eventually, but it’s hard to feel like doing this with the show’s long decline into boredom. I honestly don’t know how much longer the show can last. The initial premise the show began with obviously had to change. I mean, six seasons of Jim being in love with Pam who’s engaged to Roy while they pull hijinks of all various manners on Dwight while Michael makes life a living hell for everyone who isn’t the viewer wouldn’t have been any better. But those two seasons were far and away the show’s best years. I’ll even say that the third season was wonderful too, and was a good example of how the show could evolve and age well. Right now, however, it’s not aging well. It’s just getting boring.

Evolution of an Afterthought

In other words,

It’s like finally getting to the gym and exercising,

And feeling great about yourself

Until you struggle to push the door open again.

And you’re too busy to go again the rest of the week.

In other words,

It’s like being at a classy restaurant,

Being offered none but the highest culture in a rented tux,

And having what you want to drink read to you.

May I recommend the ’84 regrets?

’84 was a great year for regrets.

In other words,

It’s like your computer not working all of a sudden,

As it gives you an indecipherable error message,

But wants to convey it was probably something you said.

This action cannot be undone.

In other words,

It’s like writing a poem backwards,

Where you have a great idea of where you want to go,

But you have no idea how to start.

I loved thee once, but your friend is really cute.

In other words,

It’s like the alarm going off

Just an hour after you finally fell asleep,

And you want to get more sleep,

But you suppose you should probably be awake.

For some reason.

In other words,

I read my poem about the girl I never thought I’d see again

And didn’t think to look at her in the crowd.

- – -

Thought I’d write up a nice, happy little poem for you guys to say sorry about the unexpected and unannounced mini-hiatus. It’s a long story involving many phone calls with Dell, untimely purchases, and broken hearts, but it seems that my technical difficulties are finally resolved in that my Studio 15 laptop finally turns on again. Not that I can recommend that anybody buy a Dell. They have the shittiest technical support and customer service I’ve ever dealt with, and it took a solid month to get this issue resolved, and from what I hear, many other Dell consumers have the same problem. Next business day repair, my ass.

Attempts to update more frequently begin anew.

Technical Difficulties, Part 2

Today’s post was originally written as a satire piece for a currently unpublished issue of my school’s alternative paper, but seeing as how 1) it elaborates on my last post, 2) I’m reasonably certain I can use it both on my blog and in the paper, 3) it’s styled like something I’d write here anyway, and 4) it provides a little more clarity into why exactly I’m not updating very much right now and why you should never EVER buy a Dell, I’m posting it here. You kids have fun.

- – -

Thrilled as I am that I’ve made it through my first month in college, the same can’t be said for my laptop. Last week my barely three month old Dell Studio 15 laptop decided that turning on was no longer something it was particularly interested in doing, and after another week of Dell sending a tech guy (twice) to ultimately not fix my laptop and then sending me an empty box, vaguely symbolic of my faith in the company, to send it back, it’s now sitting in the mailroom where FedEx picks it up the next business day and Dell probably fixes it in 2011.

It’s fitting how Dell’s commercials for their Studio series are lollipop themed, since the one they sold me was a lemon.

But as much as I’d enjoy bashing Dell for its incompetence (the Styrofoam cutout in their box didn’t even fit my laptop – learn the dimensions of your own products!), I’m much less thrilled with Dell’s inconsideration. They’re perfectly content letting their customers wait 8-14 days for repairs and playing that damn lollipop song while you’re on hold for half of the two hours you spend on the phone with tech support, but do they understand how inconvenient this is? I mean, sure, I can just go to the library to print out my homework and write papers and such, that works just fine, but going to the library ever other day to read the new XKCD? The new Penny Arcade? Clearly no one at Dell understands what a hassle it is to keep current with Questionable Content every day without your own computer you can read it on without feeling vaguely self conscious reading a giant, occasionally risqué comic in the library.

Now, sure, webcomics are one petty complaint, but then you have your tv shows. If you miss the new Office episode and don’t have access to Hulu or a sketchy Korean Youtube-knockoff to make up for it, then how are you going to be able to complain about how much worse the show gets every season? Not to mention how you’ll also have to do this in real life too, where you usually have considerably less anonymity.

It’s not even the absence of the internet that complicates matters, because even without it, you’re still going to have procrastinated enough to have to walk over to the library at 1 a.m. to check for that email your professor sent the class about what to bring to class tomorrow or to write up that paper or alternative newspaper article you put off to the last minute, and then when you suddenly have that internet access you’ve been cut off from all day, you know you’re just going to be on Facebook the whole time.

Oh? That’s right. The thousand pound gorilla in the hypothetical room. Facebook. I went there. It’s no secret we need instant access to Facebook nowadays. If you can’t constantly check Facebook to see if you’ve been tagged in any new pictures, then how are you going to know what you did last night? How are you going to write yet another status update complaining about how much work you still have to do or how you want to strangle whoever’s blasting “Boom Boom Pow” at this time of night? How are you going to play Farmville? Does Dell have any idea how many damn people are playing Farmville? Eight to fourteen days, my ass! I need to start playing Farmville!

It’s readily apparent just how great student need for a computer is, and if you don’t have your own, you either spend seven hours a day in the library, or you’re going down that proverbial creek without that proverbial paddle, or, worse still, you’re typing up your alternative newspaper article on your friend’s MacBook that half the people who listen to your story about your broken laptop inform you that you really should have gotten instead. In other words, don’t get a Dell, because Dell clearly doesn’t care about you getting to play Farmville with your friends.