nanovivid

First, one thing that I totally left out of my last entry. Thursday afternoon, my dad called me to check up on some financial stuff, and then we just talked for a bit (well, he mostly talked and I listened) and it was really good. As I’ve mentioned before, I’m not super-close to my parents, and it’s something that has been on my mind for a while. In the conversation, my dad really affirmed me as a person and let me know that it’s ok with him that I’m going through doubts and questions about God and faith and such. That was really good to hear and it feels good knowing I have his support. I’m going home next weekend, hopefully we can have some good conversations then.

Apartment update: Steve, Andy, and I are going to be meeting with the landlord this week to discuss terms of renting and such. The house we were looking at is definitely out now, I emailed the guy who is living there now and he said that the landlord has decided to rent it to a couple without ever getting back to us and telling us no. Oh well, at least we found somewhere else!

Appearance update: as of last night, thanks to Mattt I now have both ears pierced. I think it looks pretty good, if I do say so myself (which I do). Then yesterday morning (Saturday) I dyed the tips of my hair red. It’s pretty subtle, which is what I was going for, and I like how it turned out. I’ll try and get a picture to post soon. I’m waiting to see how long it takes my roommates to notice. I wouldn’t be surprised if next month sometime Dan (or Steve or Scott) is like "when did you get your right ear pierced?" Un-observant people are so much fun. :-)

You are officially required to go look at Dave’s site since he has finally redesigned and added content. It’s looking really good too. Sometimes nagging can produce beautiful things.

♫ Sigur Rós - Untitled 1

act 1: music

… makes the people come together. Or makes my world go ‘round. You get the idea. As usual, I’ve been discovering, downloading, and buying music lately, and here are some of my recent finds:

• Celldweller
  Former Circle of Dust frontman Klayton (formerly known as Klay Scott or Klay Scott Albert) takes his music to new heights on this project. I’ve been following the mp3 releases from him for a while and when I heard that album was finally coming out I knew I had to get it. This album just drips with quality and it’s obvious that a lot of passion was put into each song. I can’t do a full review because I’ve only had two full listens, but one song that really jumps out is The Last Firstborn. It’s an amazing epic trancy industrial dance track (more adjectives anyone?) that keeps building, changing, and growing more intense. Other favorites include Under My Feet (available on the mp3 page, highly recommended), Afraid This Time, and The Stars of Orion. Celldweller really showcases Klayton’s immense talent as he blends hard rock, industrial, trance, and drum ‘n bass. This will definitely be in high rotation on my playlist.
• Dashboard Confessional
  I had read about them some at The Phantom Tollbooth but had never listened to any of the music. Then I found so impossible which has a bunch of mp3s and this fan site which has Hands Down (Live - Long Version). That song and Ghost of a Good Thing are two of my favorites. I’m definitely going to hook up with some DC cds soon.
• Dustin Skiles
  There are two very nice trance mixes on his site right now and it promises original music soon. I have a rough version of one of his tracks and it’s quite good, so be checking back for updates on him. He’s part of the Stormwest family, which is also home to Slyder/Spyder/RRDS/Right Bros. - the team of Jeremy Dawson and Chad Petree who have put out super quality tracks in the past.

act 2: get in my belly!

Yesterday I had Creme Brulee for the first time. Mmmmmm. Thanks to Jenni for lunch, that was fun. Then for dinner I wasn’t sure what to make so I threw together tofu, refried beans, chili powder, and lots of salsa in a saucepan and cooked it for a while, then dumped it over a salad, topped with cheese and sour cream. Slightly to my surprise, it was really good! Tonight we’re having a pizza funado at Courtney and Brittany’s.

act 3: powdery thoughts

Last night Dave and I watched Powder. Despite the not-so-great ending and some Hollywood clichés, I found it to be a moving and throught-provoking movie. The characters really drew me in and made me care about them, even though the story was a little unfocused at points. Powder carried a real emotional impact for me. It taps into that feeling we all have at least sometimes of being different and alone and brings some hope and light. Thanks to Dave for inviting me to watch it.

epilogue

Fun link: PeversionTracker lampoons the worst software available for the MacOS. Consistently funny and worth reading regularly.

♫ Celldweller - Own Little World

The weather seems to be on the verge of turning springlike and that is a beautiful thing. I’m such a fan of spring and warm weather. Of course, this being the Shenandoah Valley, we have blizzard conditions next week and it wouldn’t surprise me. But hopefully not.

Ney and I went to the Dodger for lunch, which was of course delicious. Oh, and we’re planning to go to DC area mid-April for a visit to IKEA and a certain "fruit" store. Maybe said store will even have these babies on display then. ::drool::

Fitting with the laundry obsession Ney keeps accusing me of having (when she’s really the one with the problem), I now have clean clothes, and clean sheets. It’s a beautiful thing.

Link time! NASA Earth Observatory - New Images is a great collection of photos. Some favorites: London by night, Cyclones in the Indian Ocean, Apollo 17 Anniversary.

Yet another example of why explodingdog is quality: what’s with your leg? had me rotflmao.

And rumor has it that Ryan’s site is on the move, and Andy’s is finally getting some content. Just rumors though, you better check them out for yourself.

Related to this site: thanks to Jeremiah’s prodding, nanovivid.com’s rss feed now contains full entries so lazy-asses like him don’t have to launch a browser.

There are some things looming on the horizon that I’m going to have to deal with, but I’m optimistic about them. Yay for good days and relaxation and satisfaction.

♫ Something Corporate - Hurricane

First some quick site updates. In case you haven’t noticed, there is now a little pound sign (#) next to the comments link for each entry. This links to a page that is the permanent home for the entry and the place to which you can point links. Also, thanks to some PHP magic there are no ?id=whatever thingies in the address. Yay PHP!

My project for this weekend was implementing an RSS feed for anybody who would like to be able to monitor my postings without having to visit the site all the time. Pretty spiffy.

I have finally eliminated the last vestiges of the holiday cheer design by cleaning up the cdlabels section and making it XHTML compliant.

Now on to my life (in reverse chronology, just because).

Tonight Dan Lapp came over and hung out. I love talking with Dan because not only is he a lot of fun, he’s also a deep thinker and always gets me thinking. We talked about everything from war to good salads to how each of us is doing to what kind of "snobs" we each are (he’s a coffee snob… I guess we never did get around to what kind of snob I am). For some reason talking with him has a way of leaving me feeling good about life and validated about a lot of things. ::Warm fuzzies::

Earlier in the night, Tonya and I went to dinner at the Boston Beanery. She got fish and chips and I got a yummy burger. That was definitely fun and delicious.

Before dinner, we went shopping. Unfortunately we didn’t get to the mall until after 5, and it closed at 6, so we didn’t do much. I did get two new shirts at Maurices, but that was the extent of the spoils.

Saturday night, Tonya and I had a fun time watching Trading Spaces and some other random stuff. It was good to hang out with her since we haven’t been doing that much recently (of course, in the last two days we’ve spent a lot of time together… go figure). It was also a nice escape from my introspective thinking that I’ve been doing so much of lately.

Friday night I went out to Dave’s Taverna for dinner with a bunch of people. I mostly talked with Jenni and a few other people. Toward the end, I my mind started drifting to introspective thoughts about my role in social interactions — something that has been bouncing around in my head for a while. I’ve been realizing how introverted I really am a lot of the time and how much I prefer to have individual conversations with people rather than in large groups. Groups are fun sometimes if it’s people I’m comfortable with, but often with people I don’t know I’ll end up feeling out of place unless I make a larger effort to get involved or people decide to involve me. Just some random observations there.

Now I’m going to fulfill my duty to provide you with some entertaining links. I’m not sure what to call this one since the file is just named "go" but it’s pretty funny. I think Logan sent this to me. Don’t let the bunny get you! For some other cool flash work, check out unböring from IKEA. It’s pretty sweet.

One last link… I’ve been listening to the DJ mixes from cassini d’Vision lately and most of them are pretty spot on. I especially enjoy the ones by Ross Hambrick. If you’ve got the connection to handle the downloading, I’d recommend giving them a listen (the title of this entry refrences a sample in one of the mixes).

Oooh, I just noticed that it’s 3-3-03. Coooool. And with that thought I’m off to bed so I can get up and go off to work. Happy "spring" break to EMU peeps!

♫ Paul van Dyk's Out There and Back album