music extravanganza!!! (and some other stuff) April 30, 2007
Posted by arick in Music/Movies.add a comment
i don’t know why but recently i’ve been in a really… musical… mood. so i have this whole music extravaganza thing happening. so first thing first: i’m creating a bunch of personal mixtapes 
well… one is a collection of mixtapes called “summer of music” which includes a lot of cool songs. it’s actually gonna be bryce’s graduation present!! shhh… he can’t find out. actually, he already knows. he just doesn’t know what’s on it. and the other one is an “international prom mix.” the name pretty much explains it.
the new music! so i’ve gotten quite a bit of new music. some of it is free, some of it is purchased. i feel dirty about the free music but… uhhh… i don’t know, maybe if there was an actual cd shop here, and itunes songs are compressed and i can definitely tell with some of the songs. so i don’t think they’re worth 0.99 all the time. but i buy more the obscure artists that i won’t be able to get off of any p2p network on itunes, so apple or the record companies shouldn’t complain cuz that accounts for hundreds of dollars in purchases. and the popular songs that can be found on p2p? well, those bands have enough money as is.
so i’ve gotten the rufus wainwright cd poses, bright eyes’ cassadaga, a couple of rocco deluca itunes live sessions, and the 3 doors down itunes original. so first, i love rufus wainwright and i always have and i finally have a cd which is amazing and i love the cd and it’s great and amazing. bright eyes is pretty much the same thing, cassadaga is the new cd so i finally got around to getting it and i love it. it is incredible. and the itunes live sessions. well… idk… there’s only one rocco deluca cd but he has songs that he only sings at concerts, and at the live sessions there were a couple songs that i didn’t have so i bought them. the 3 doors down cd… this is actually my first itunes originals purchase. and i love it. i love commentaries for songs. i always have… but i just never wanted to buy one because it included a lot of songs that i already had, y’know? well… i only had a couple of 3 doors down songs so i decided to get it.
so other stuff… i watched the lives of others the other day. it’s incredible and everybody should see it.
Online Freedom of Speech April 29, 2007
Posted by marvinx in Politics, School.add a comment
I’m doing a project for my government class on internet freedom of speech, and ran across this article. Some of you may find it interesting:
http://blog.stanford.edu/unofficial/2007/04/court_upholds_online_freedom_o.html
In a decision with repercussions for the burgeoning number of Facebook-ing and MySpace-ing teens, the Indiana Court of Appeals ruled this week that high school students’ free speech is protected by both the U.S. and Indiana State Constitution, even if the students’ words are expletive-ridden or against school policy.
This is, of course, not at all a guarantee that anything can be posted online. There have been other cases where this sort of thing was ruled as being libel. Also, in this case, the sudent’s comments (while obscene) were not exactly libelous. But still, it is interesting that such comments could be ruled as political expression and be protected under the first amendment, especially coming from a high-school student.
at starbucks part 1 April 28, 2007
Posted by arick in Starbucks observations.add a comment
so my new thing to do is to record what i see at starbucks. because you notice a lot of interesting things at a starbucks. today i spent one hour at starbucks (then went to get a gelato and then to a monster euro review session). so in my hour at starbucks, this is what i wrote down (slightly scattered… they’re sort of scribbles):
music – wonderful! rocco deluca and the burden is playing! 5 rocco deluca songs: colorful, bus ride, speak to me, mystified, and favor. some cool latino music. interesting commentaries between songs. i might get an xm satellite radio just to listen to this station. i should go to bryce’s house more often just for his radio.
why are there 5, 6 7 year old kids here? by themselves? no parents? drinking iced coffee? they road their bikes here. they have ipods and cellphones. what kind of kids are these?
wow. a guy walks in rather casually with a huge-ass knife hanging from his waste. he’s not even trying to conceal it! wow! that is so scary! what is he planning to do with that big knife? why the hell does he have it? he should at least try to hide it or something. so there aren’t any laws about carrying a huge-ass knife around? well… i suppose if you can carry your gun around you can carry a huge-ass knife.
cool bicyclist. i think he was one that i passed on my way here. wow, he’s like 60 years old. he rode his bike from white rock? probably not. he has a pretty cool looking helmet.
there’s that guy again. he’s always here at starbucks. but he doesn’t seem to work here. he just hangs out here or something. now he’s outside smoking. what does he do? i never see him actually buy anything at starbucks. sometimes he takes out the trash i guess, but only to talk to max. now he trying to do bike tricks out in the parking lot. what the heck does he actually do?
summer vacation? April 27, 2007
Posted by arick in Uncategorized.1 comment so far
so i’m gonna be over at the east coast for a couple of weeks this summer. so i don’t know… from my estimates, i’ll probably be there from may 27 to june 9. so i really want to go to a concert soon. i just feel really antsy and i want to go to a concert. of course i can’t go on any june 6, cuz that’s my brother’s graduation. i really want to go to a concert! here’s the list of all possible concerts near-ish where i’ll be and prices. dang i really want to go to a concert.
- bright eyes – may 28 and 29! both days cheapest ticket is 95
- bright eyes is also on may 30 for 95, but more importantly, rocco deluca and the burden (my favorite band remember?) is playing with keane (how awesome is that!) on may 30 for $35!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! well… may 30 and may 27. this is definitely a concert i want to go to. though i most assuredly would not mind bright eyes instead.
- may 30. there’s also a sufjan stevens concert then, but uh… that’s sold out. in fact, the entire sufjan stevens tour is sold out.
- rufus wainwright on june 5 is 175, and june 8 is 200. clearly, rufus wainwright is much too expensive. at least it ain’t as bad as the rolling stones, only two available tickets left for all their concerts over this summer, each running 1000.
the fray is actually also performing in albuquerque july 15 too… but it’s extremely unlikely i’ll go to that…
nice day April 27, 2007
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today has been a rather nice day… nothing really special. i spent first period reading running with scissors. vickie read my memoir, she liked it. so did bryce who read it last night. i was considering changing names but i suppose that’s sort of pointless since there’s really only one main name. i spent calculus in starbucks. no, i didn’t ditch. i had to leave the room in order to study for the bc exam while the class took a practice ab exam, so i went to the imc. i was then kicked out of the imc (ok… not really, we were kicked out of the imc classroom and we decided that working in the imc wouldn’t work because we had to talk to one another) so we went to starbucks. we did do calculus. in fact, that’s all we did. like i said, i like the starbucks environment. student aid was not really too special… had a conversation with mr. l, and read running with scissors some more, and used the school’s 20 year old laminating machine. the lunch. let’s see. i almost fell asleep on my car, and then bryce woke me up… and then we went to look through the used car lot… that’s what i spent my lunch period doing, looking through the used car lot with bryce. it was actually kind of nice though. i then drove home, bryce went to physics, and i had lunch, and watched the last scene of elizabethtown, then read then edited the minor mistakes in my memoir, and then labeled a lot of rhetorical strategies in the memoir, and then about 5 minutes ago i realized that i have a psychology test tomorrow. so i’m gonna go studying. even though i have this last-minute studying, i really did like today. it felt pretty great.
hm… i don’t know April 26, 2007
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so mr r hated my memoir. i guess she has the notion that memoirs are supposed to be serious. it would have been nice if she told us that before i spent a long time writing a satire. so i had to completely re-write 10 pages… and i did that in the last 5 hours. since wordpress still does not allow me to embed scribd items, i’ll just post the link. mayhaps you can give feedback. and the end is probably incoherent… since i just sorta typed and typed on and on… this is a little more personal than i would like, but oh well. it’s the kind of memoir she wants.
nostalgia April 26, 2007
Posted by arick in Life.add a comment
i was looking through my chat logs to find this one conversation which i wanted to include in my memoir. i came across this. it actually sort of made me cry.
Luke: u okay?
me: what? yeah… i think i’m aight
Luke: anything you need to talk about? i’m here for ya man
damn we were really good friends weren’t we? looking at those chat logs actually… it seemed we basically talked for two or three hours at a time, and that doesn’t include phone calls. we were really good friend weren’t we?
i wonder what happened?
actually… i know what happened. he got a girlfriend. guys don’t really think in the long term, as misha said. i could be his friend for life, but that doesn’t matter once he gets a girlfriend. there was that, and i got in trouble with his parents. i can’t believe his parents read his emails! that’s just horrible. i wish we were friends like that again. but i’m incapable of keeping a friend like that for long. any sort of intimate relationship i get into i burn out. i don’t know why… just part of who i am i guess… even so, i sort of wish we were friends like that again.
On Starbucks April 24, 2007
Posted by arick in Uncategorized.add a comment
So recently I’ve spent a lot of time at Starbucks actually. Starbucks is really an engrossing place I think. I’m not entirely sure why I spend time at Starbucks and not the Coffee Booth, especially since the coffee is cheaper at the Coffee Booth and the internet is free. My theory? Well, first I don’t really have a laptop so internet isn’t that important to me. Now second, Starbucks really just has a better environment I think. Yeah, the Coffee Booth is quieter, but I like working at Starbucks more. I suppose first of all I enjoy the frosted skylights, they really make the environment warming because sunlight can actually shine in y’know? Second, they do have good music, as I found out they just pipe out music from the Starbucks XM radio station, but that’s perfectly alright, the music is nice (I was actually amazed that they played Cat Stevens and The Shins!!!). It’s a very nice environment. And if you sit there long enough they give you free coffee (supposedly, according to Marina… who sat there for 5 hours one time). I really do like sitting there and reading or writing or sometimes doing math problems or physics.
updates on a life April 23, 2007
Posted by arick in Life, Music/Movies.add a comment
hmmm… nothing interesting has actually happened to me recently. friday i went to the ballroom dancing thing, which was fun except we were supposed to know five different dances which we never learned… but i knew the basic steps for most of them so i think i faked the dances reasonably well. and then we all went to bask’n'robbins and talked and had ice cream and talked. it was actually rather nice.
oh, the funny story regarding my car… this was truly the highlight of my weekend. so i went over the mr. l’s house over the weekend in order to get my car’s dysfunctional window fixed. simple procedure: remove door panel fix cog and that’s it. well, my amazing car has a rather complicated door panel. long story short: my car door now only opens from the outside, so to get out i have to climb out through another door. hahahaha isn’t that funny? i think it’s hilarious.
my memoir stinks. it really does. the rough draft is due tomorrow. the beginning is amazing, the ending is fine. the middle is muddy and i have to fix it. it’s horrible.
so i spent saturday in a rather introspective mood. more specifically, i spent saturday drinking hot cocoa, eating ice cream (and i got a gelato), watching movies, driving around with my music, and contemplating my trite and mundane existence. it made me feel unbelievably happy actually. i know i didn’t get anything done but it was really what i needed. it was great.
movies! so i watched a few new movies worth mentioning. lucky number slevin and elizabethtown. lucky number slevin was crazy and it was really well done. it’s another one of those movies you don’t understand until the ending. which of course is great. elizabethtown may actually beat out garden state as my favorite movie. it’s amazing! i don’t know, i do like both movies. garden state was really amazing and i loved it. but elizabethtown sort of takes garden state and twists it. there is the finding love in a rather unexpected place, and then following through on it. i like the semi-suicidal guy in elizabethtown a little more than the completely numb guy in garden state. then there was the ending scene in elizabethtown which is really what i loved most of all and certainly is what’s making the decision hard. and i can’t decide on which soundtrack i like better! garden state is full of the indie artists and it’s refreshing. but elizabethtown has an amazing soundtrack filled with classics. i don’t know. both have amazing soundtracks.
i’ve also taken unto reading running with scissors. i really need to start reading again.
oh, i took this amazing test in physics today. amazing as in i had no clue what i was doing. which seemed to be the sentiment of most people. i talked to eowyn and she had the exact same predicament. basically, i just looked at the equation sheet, found something that looked right and used it. the irony is that the last two test, disregarding today, i had no clue what i was doing and didn’t know the material and got exceptionally good scores while the time before that i studies, i knew what i was doing and got a c. my life is full of irony. just like how the only feature in my car that works is the automatic seatbelts which have proved to be more of a nuisance than anything. life involves a sense of humor.
back to editing my memoir. the middle is just muddy and the voice isn’t right and it’s rather cliched. let’s see what i can get done.
On Prom April 22, 2007
Posted by cmac in Uncategorized.add a comment
Marvin X to Nukes:
“I’m going to put this in terms I think you’ll understand. Winter Ball and Homecoming are like Tai Fighters; present, but kind of unimportant. Prom is like the death star.”
Perhaps that’s why so many adopt “black tie” attire for prom.
