A Little Optimistic, No?

Duke Ellington

From a poster about Black History Month:

Ellington won an inumerable amount of Grammy awards.

Uh, false. He won thirteen.

I was going to post a video of the actual song, but this is just too damn adorable not to post.

Cheered Me Up

Heroes

The Peter Gabriel version of David Bowie's "Heroes" is infinitely better than the original. And I dare you to disagree.

Bragging

From Bill Simmons's mailbag:

Q: I just lost my virginity to my ex-girlfriend's sister. I don't care what you do with this information because I'm telling everyone.
--Josh A., Clarion

Her image had passed into his soul for ever and no word had broken the holy silence of his ecstasy. Her eyes had called him and his soul had leaped at the call. To live, to err, to fall, to triumph, to recreate life out of life! A wild angel had appeared to him, the angel of mortal youth and beauty, an envoy from the fair courts of life, to throw open before him in an instant of ecstasy the gates of all the ways of error and glory. On and on and on and on!

- A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (James Joyce)

View

View, originally uploaded by btleyden.

So Used, Unfaithful

So Used, Unfaithful, originally uploaded by btleyden.

Well Deserved

"I've had so many things happen to me, from the home run to having my number retired to having a street named for me. And now this ... holy hell!"
- Bill Mazeroski

(ht: PBC Blog)

Shine On You Crazy Diamond

Shine On You Crazy Diamond, originally uploaded by btleyden.

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, originally uploaded by btleyden.

Vampires

I can't explain why but I always feel an impulse to punch someone when I'm listening to Vampire Weekend.

Antlers

The Antlers - Two / Epilogue - A Take Away Show from La Blogotheque on Vimeo.

This album is absolutely devastating, and I cannot get enough of it.

Wishful Thinking

Wishful Thinking, originally uploaded by btleyden.

Dumb.

Dotel

On a semi-related note, a former teammate of [Octavio] Dotel sent me an unsolicited text a couple days ago, in anticipation of his arrival and wrote: "Great move by Pirates. He can pitch and he's a great person."

A scout sent a text, too: "Love the move for the Pirates. Seriously."

As you might gather, the latter guy felt the need to explain his sentiment because he tends to be skeptical.

I do not hear things like this all that often about any potential signing, and I very seldom hear them unsolicited. It will be interesting to see if the player and person is a match for those descriptions.
- PBC Blog

I'm getting excited about this season.

A Nap

The blog "Vivian Maier - Her Discovered Work" has been posting some incredible photos since last June. While I've loved a lot of these photos, this one stands out in particular. I'm not entirely sure why, though I know the pinstripe suit intersecting with the plaid of the car seat is part of the reason I'm so into this one. There's something about the steering wheel and the hat, too.

Update: And the pocket watch. I like that. Oh, and the way the right arm is laying across the body, though that doesn't look particularly comfortable.

With The Lights Out

I remember when "With The Lights Out," the Nirvana box set, came out. It during my freshman year in high school and I was, at that time, in full Nirvana "mode." I couldn't get enough of the band, likely to the annoyance of my family. The box set came with a DVD of videos of the band which were all pretty interesting, the last of which being this video of "Seasons In The Sun." I loved this video. I would sit at my computer and just watch this one song over and over again. I'd set it on repeat and just listen to it while doing work. It was one of the first songs I became absolutely obsessed with. Now the list is probably 10 to 15 songs long.

Anyway, I tell that story as an excuse to post this video which popped up on kottke.org today. Enjoy.

Kaleidoscope

Kaleidoscope, originally uploaded by btleyden.

And I Was A Kaleidoscope

I developed 6 rolls of film the other day, 124 photos. They ranged from as recent as last summer to as long ago as about three years. There were some surprises, things I didn't think I'd taken, shots that turned out pretty interesting despite having given up on them when I first took them, and so on. The thing that really threw me, though, is that the one thing I was certain I had somewhere in that pile of film wasn't there.

I knew this photo would be in there. I didn't know what roll it was on, I never marked the rolls as I took them, but somewhere in the film was that photo. I knew it.

And it just wasn't.

I always thought it was, but it wasn't there. And that really threw me.

It's good to know that it wasn't there, now I can stop waiting for that photo to finally show up. Still, I'm disappointed that it wasn't there. I was really counting on it being there.

I'll just have to figure out how to take it again.

CTmS: In Reverie (Saves The Day)

This project isn't starting off well. It started with Creed (by which I mean I threw away a Creed album) and moves this week to Saves The Day. There's a song by Saves the Day called Freakish which I really enjoy. In particular there is an acoustic version of it that I really like. Based on liking that song I bought (apparently during or shortly after 2003) their album In Reverie which Wikipedia tells me wasn't well received. I can understand why.

The sound has a light sound to it with the vocals sort of melodically floating on top. It's almost got a Beach Boy's quality to it, but not quite. Hm. That's not a good description at all. There are some catchy riffs here and there, but nothing substantial. I mean, don't get me wrong. The music isn't offensive to the ears, it's just sort of bland.

The lyrics suggest a narrator that has no idea what's going on. He's staying away from the chick in the opening "Anywhere With You."

I know I can't come near you
Every time I do
I get shaken inside and the sun in my eyes
I'll stay away
I'd rather be here
than anywhere with you
Whoo

That "whoo" really hits the mark, I think. So if you're keeping notes, it's clear that we
1) Don't like the girl, and
2) Don't like getting shaken nor getting the sun in our eyes

Okay, let's move on. In the third track, "Driving In The Dark," our narrator has a somewhat different outlook on life.

Ever since I first saw you
Standing In the black frozen night
I've been blind
But I'm driving in the dark towards you
Not stopping till I catch the sunlight
In my eyes

So let's all pull out our White-Out and get rid of note number 1. We're apparently into the girl now. Okay, maybe it's a little unfair to be critical on this point. After all, things change. Maybe we're talking about a different girl here.

Note 2 is going to have to go, as well. It's hard to see where the shift in opinion comes from in this instance. He needs the sunlight in his eyes, gotcha. But he simultaneously doesn't want to be anywhere near anyone who put the sunlight in his eyes, which is understandable that shit can hurt.

I'm going to provide you with a link to the lyrics of the 2nd song on this album, "What Went Wrong," so that you can confirm for yourself that our narrator didn't go out and buy a pair of sunglasses between these two songs. So go check them out here, and be sure to enjoy the line about a foot massage from a ghost. Okay, you believe me now? There has been no mention of sunglasses. Let's move on.

I'm confused. Personally, I don't like the sun in my eyes. Mr. Saves-The-Day seems to be switching back and forth, which I don't really understand. I mean either you like having the sun in your eyes, or you don't. No one wakes up and decides that they just are in a starring into the sun mood. Doesn't happen.

Nothing else notable here. "She" is the seemingly obligatory acoustic number, followed by "Where Are You?," an angrier than usual song to average out the world. And, to be honest, after that I started reading an article about stencil graffiti.

Late Night

I've gained a new respect for Jimmy Kimmel.

Fact.

Five puppies died during the making of Disney's Snow Buddies.

CTmS: Weathered (Creed)

The fuck was I thinking when I bought a Creed album?

2010: CDs That (might) Suck

So the other day I sat down and began to organize my old CDs in preparation to finally pack them in a box, stick them in a closet, and forget about them for the next twenty years. As I was sorting I started to set aside a few of the CDs to rip onto my computer. Some of the them I set aside because I never knew I had them, others because I had long forgotten about them, and there were a few I'm frankly embaressed that I ever owned in the first place. By the time I had gone through all of my CDs the stack of those I wanted to give another listen was nearly as tall as the stack of the remaining ones.

It is from this stack that the 2010: CDs That (might) Suck project was born.

The plan is pretty simple. I made a list of about 60 of the CDs from that stack. I will listen to at least one of them a week and then I will write something up about what I thought of the album. I'm not promising a series of album reviews here. The posts may go on for pages or simply consist of something along the lines of "The fuck was I thinking when I bought a Creed album?"

On a final note, let me apologize in advance for what will likely be an unhealthy number of pop-punk albums from the early naughts.

Picture Picture

Hacker Factor has an interesting post about how to tell if an image has been photoshopped, and how to tell what parts of the image have been photoshopped. I had no idea there exists such analytical methods for determining what had been photoshopped, though in retrospect I imagine this should not surprise me.

(ht: edcone.com)

Badminton, apparently.

Let's be clear, this is bad copy.

A New Year

Frankly, 2009 was an awful year for me. I'm hoping 2010 is much different.

Shrink

At the suggestion of Put This On I made the drive down to Charlotte (more or less) and bought myself a pair of Levi's 501 Shrink-to-Fit jeans. After the first shrinking they're still way too long but the waist is about right. I figure they'll shrink length-wise a bit more but that I'll still need to figure out some way to deal with them.

So far I think I like them.

21 Guns

Christ, this video is just wrought with symbolism. The decision to include the band's own lyrics on the wall of the room can only be beaten by the guitar-solo homage to Full House around the three minute mark.

Bicycles, tricycles, ice cream candy

Harold Crick: I have to tell you something.
Ana Pascal: Is it a secret?
Harold Crick: Sort of.
Harold Crick: I adore you.
Ana Pascal: I adore you. Was that it?
Harold Crick: No. I have to tell you this... and I want you to listen very carefully.
Harold Crick: You can deduct the value of all the food you give away as a charitable contribution. It amounts to more than what you're currently withholding and doesn't break any tax laws.
Ana Pascal: Harold, Harold. The point is to break the tax laws.
Harold Crick: I want to make the world a better place too, Ana. I think that means keeping you out of jail.
Ana Pascal: Okay.
Harold Crick: Okay.

I was unaware the theme for Jordan, Jesse, Go! was in the movie Stranger Than Fiction.

I also think that the movie's tag line, "He's not crazy. He's just written that way." seriously undermines anything the movie is trying to say.

I'm Choking On Nothing

Despite the subsequent shittiness of said band, I still consider the debut album from The Used to be one of my favorite. There's a live version here that I enjoy, but it can't be embedded.

What's Happening?

I've decided to take a break from social networking. I've turned off all of the e-mail updates from Facebook, and I've turned off mobile updates from Twitter.

Part of the reason for this is that I spend an inordinate amount of time on Facebook, and that just needs to stop. You see, as much fun as Bejeweled Blitz is I really should spend my time doing more productive things. Another reason for this change is that I think Facebook is really making me more depressed, so I just need to stay away from it. I'm not a particularly outgoing person so being inundated with evidence of other people's more interesting lives really only serves to remind me that I am not adding 5 million friends a day or that I don't have something to go to every night of the week. Plus, as embarrassing as this may be, I'm just not at the point where I can handle wandering across pictures/posts from various people I don't want to be reminded of. It's not that I'm quitting Facebook, I appreciate its value. For now though, I'm staying as far away from it as possible.

As for leaving Twitter, there are two reasons for this.

First, I joined Twitter pretty much as soon as I was able, not fully understanding what it was. Nonetheless I had high hopes that I would one day be able to take advantage of it and to some extent I do today (many years later). I didn't, however, sign up for Twitter to listen to people bitch. I signed up to keep in touch with friends, to keep up with people I admire, and to follow those who provide a good laugh from time to time. To repeat, I'm not looking to listen to people bitch. I understand that it happens, bad things occur in one's life and if one has grown accustomed to typing out life in 140 characters or less then the bad things will be posted. I get that; I am okay with that. What annoys me is when people begin to only log onto Twitter when they've been (or perceive to have been) slighted in some way because it's the internet so no one minds how many times they use the word "fuck" or how inappropriately they react. Have I bitched about things on Twitter, sure. But I make a point not to use it for the same reason as one might yell into a pillow. I feel like the growing tendency to use Twitter for this purpose has made it much less enjoyable for me, so that is the first reason for my leaving it.

Second, I just need a break from social networking. I need to slow life down a bit, because the world I would like to be successful in doesn't move at the speed of tweets and status updates, but rather at a much slower and more calculated pace. I have a hard time sitting down and just working through things slowly. I think this is in large part because I am used to a fast-paced flow of information. If I'm going to be successful academically now and in the future I need to be able to slow my life down and process information so that I understand and remember it. I absorb a lot of information now, but I'm not an expert on any of it. So it's not so much that Twitter is the problem, but that Twitter is indicative of the problem. Thus I am leaving Twitter more as a symbolic move for myself than as an actual solution to the problem. I suspect I will come back to Twitter in a few months, while I hope to stay away from Facebook to a much larger extent.

I don't know that this is of particular interest to anyone out there, but I have been giving this issue a lot of though lately, so I thought I'd just type it out to get a real sense of what I thought.

Pale Horses

I'm really enjoying the most recent Moby album, Wait For Me.

I had written up a big post about how I came to like it, and what I like about it but that got too wordy so instead I'll just post this.

J Sly and the Rooftop Killas

Made a somewhat impromptu trip to Greensboro today. While I was hoping to get at least one person to join me on the trip we ended up with a nearly full car which made it much more enjoyable.

The trip had a variety of rather rough moments for a number of the people involved, including myself in some cases. In spite of this, I think it was well worth the trouble. There's nothing like being stuck in a small space for hours (the whole trip took about 5.5 hrs) with a group during finals week to really make you appreciate them.

We had dinner at Fuddruckers. I can't recall having eaten there in years, the best estimate we could come up with was that we last ate there for some sort of middle school "reward" trip. The general consensus was that the food was okay, though those who ordered a 1lb. burger had a somewhat different opinion on that matter, which was too bad. It's not particularly cheap though, and we determined that the Dr. Pepper tasked like the spit from chew (is there a name for that?). It's safe to say I probably won't be going back anytime soon.

The drive back was much easier than I expected. I pretty much assumed I'd be exhausted on the drive back, which is what led me to grab a Starbucks Double Shot drink. I did end up drinking it on the way back but more so as a precaution than out of necessity. It's a lot easier to do that much driving (on so little sleep) when you've got an entertaining group of people who won't shut up. It'd been awhile since I did any sort of trip with a group, so this brought back some nice memories.

I gave up control of what music was being played for most of the trip, as I am wont to do, which led to a much more interesting mix that I could possibly come up with. One song that was played was Flobots' "Handlebars" which I had never heard before. It's a really great song, and one that I've quickly developed an obsession for so I thought I'd post the video.



A bit off topic, but I've been talking to a number people about blogging lately. They keep asking what I'm doing with this site and to be honest, I really don't know. I have decided this much, so long as I am maintaining this site I won't be removing what I post. For the last month I've been cycling posts in and out based on how "open" I was feeling on that particular day. That's a stupid way to do it, and doesn't really achieve anything more than developing a strong paranoia about what I have and should have up here. So I can't really say what I'll be posting here in the future, but if it goes up it is staying up for better or for worse.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm apparently going to head out to buy a carton of eggnog at 2:30 am.

Heh wewh mehwehe

Adorable.

Mmm, Pot Roast

But Ms. Palin’s life is meant to be an inspiration. Maybe I should follow her example. The opinion-page equivalent of the Palinesque style is easy enough to imagine: I would use this space to recite the indignities the world forced on me over the course of the week—an effete-looking young person ignored me the other day—plus glimpses of heartland authenticity—I sure do like pot roast—before concluding, darkly, that the reason I suffer is because I am such a sterling American.

That's Thomas Frank of the Wall Street Journal. It appears that he did not enjoy Sarah Palin's book.

Try Again

NPR's easily excited Bob Boilen on the band Rodrigo y Gabriela:

I can't think of a better way to describe the music of Rodrigo y Gabriela than with three words: 'heavy metal flamenco.'

Really, Bob? Because I'm pretty sure that I have less of an idea as to what they sound like than I did before reading that.

Fencing

I can't think of anything I want more right now than to learn how to fence.

Qdoba

Fine, you caught me.

I have a Qdoba problem.

I'm sorry, but it's just so convenient, and jesus is it delicious. I mean, how can you not enjoy that enormous burrito, covered in cheese, and sour cream, and queso (which is different from cheese), and black beans, and never as much rice as I would like, and chicken. It's large enough that it becomes unmanageable, and who am I to step down from a challenge?

It's practically my duty to eat the damn thing.

Hanging Rock

Hanging Rock, originally uploaded by btleyden.

O to die advancing on!

There's something about the latest television advertisements from Levi's that I find captivating. The video they've put with the poems, as well as the light instrumental in the background gets me every time. I think it would be great if someone would do make a video like this with the full version of "Pioneers! O Pioneers!"

Come, my tan-faced children,
Follow well in order, get your weapons ready;
Have you your pistols? have you your sharp edged axes? Pioneers! O pioneers!

For we cannot tarry here,
We must march my darlings, we must bear the brunt of danger,
We, the youthful sinewy races, all the rest on us depend, Pioneers! O pioneers!

These Days

This song has been running through my head all summer. In retrospect, though I guess I knew this at the time as well, it's the perfect song for what I've been going through.

These days I seem to think a lot

About the things that I forgot to do

And all the times I had the chance to

It just comes right out and says it. I screwed up. And I think that's the one thing I struggled with the most this summer. I mean, if you had asked me I would have quickly admitted that I screwed up. I knew it. I hated myself for it, still do. Yet something about that fact just didn't click. I guess there was still that part of me that wanted to believe that, sure I messed up but things will be okay. I used to view this song as the embodiment of my problems. I would listen to it when depressed, and it would only depress me more.

I think I view the song differently today. It no longer seems to be ashamed of the mistakes. It is instead aware of them, regretful of them, but willing to move on with life. I guess that shows progress on my part.

But goddamn if it doesn't sound like the same old song sometimes.

Sit?

Sit?, originally uploaded by btleyden.