Snow Day

I slept all day today, due to school being canceled on account of the snow we got last night. Most of today it was raining, so the snow got all iced over and you couldn't even enjoy it. Pretty unfortunate. Anyway, yesterday I must not have done anything important since I can't really remember anything I did. I started reading The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. I can't tell you how long it's been since I read anything that wasn't for English class, but Rachel wanted us to read it together and it's supposed to be good. I'm enjoying it so far, it's the kind of storytelling that's humorous, but doesn't exist solely for the sake of humor, which is good. Also it makes lots of cultural references, but not in an annoying way, which I was afraid of.

I also started a list of all the CDs I want to buy. I figure this way I'll be more enthusiastic about doing it, when I have a running list. Why wouldn't I be enthusiastic, you ask? I still have to remind myself all the time why I want CDs in the first place (rather than itunes downloads), and the whole thing of buying them one at a time seems rather tedious. I'm actually going to buy like three albums at a time probably, all by different artists, at least to start. Then when I find which ones I like more I'll buy more of their albums and less of other people's. It's going to be fun, as long as I have money to do it with. Not sure how long that will last of course, with the way this job thing is working out. The thought occurred to me today that they might be looking to shut down the store I'm working at, as there are two other CVS's in Reading already. We'll see.

Tomorrow is the school Poetry Out Loud competition! I'm really excited, and nervous. With no school today it's going to be really weird having it already tomorrow evening. I'm still pretty confident, but we'll see what happens. Hopefully I'll be able to post some video from it online.

My computer is giving me problems. We updated some programs and then itunes and Logic stopped working. Only like the two most important programs on the computer. At least the web browser still works (besides it crashing about every half an hour). Dan's going to fix everything tomorrow, here's hoping it stays fixed. It gets more complicated all the time.

But this delays learning to use Logic another day, which is bad because I'm supposed to be starting a new album in February and I'd like to not have to use Garageband. I'm doing this online challenge where I have to complete a new album, ten songs or thirty minutes of material, in one month. That won't be hard at all, well, that is to say the album probably won't be very good, but at least it will get done. And it will completely shatter this non-recording rut I'm in.

I would rather we have had just a late start today, instead of cancellation, since now we get one less day of Easter vacation, and we didn't get to find out about school show. I'll find out tomorrow hopefully.

My computer is telling me there is an update available for the program Growl. Growl, I have no idea what you are or what you do, but I'm sure you don't really want me to update you, if I do you'll probably stop working. I'm sorry.

_Dr. M

Auditions and Counties

I've averaging about one post every other day (among the days I have the ability to post). It's definitely not one post every day, but it's not too bad I guess.

Thursday's audition call-backs went well. They wanted three guys to sing for the part of Joseph, me Patrick and Brandon. I think Brandon will most definitely get it. I think I'm going to get the corny French song, which I don't mind, I like that song. Results will be posted next Wednesday.

Today was County Chorus, the lowest level choir festival. Usually it's before Districts, but they rotate things around and this year it was the week after Districts. Rehearsals ran during normal school hours, which I mostly slept through. Because of that I don't feel very qualified to comment on how well the group sounds. Apparently people weren't very well prepared (big surprise), but I like the music well enough. It's pretty. And we're doing a song called I Remember, which is from the Stephen Sondheim musical Evening Primrose. The song stands alone as a beautiful, melancholy little number, unfortunately the musical it's from was a made-for-TV throw-away whose only redeeming qualities seem to be the three great songs in it and the weird twist at the end (look it up if you like).

Tomorrow is the performance, hooray. I'll be glad when it's over.

I hope I'm not the only one who obsesses over things that don't really matter. Like, issues that seem a big deal in my mind, even though I know they're not. I keep going back and forth over whether I'd like to have a music collection that's completely digital, or if I'd still like to collect CDs. Who cares, right? I mean, it's not as if I even have any money to buy music now anyway. CVS has severely cut back my hours -I'm currently working three hours a week- and I don't know if that will improve any time ever, especially with me starting school show. It's just, music is important to me, and I'd like to just do one or the other. Stick to my guns, whatnot. I know CDs are swiftly becoming outmoded, but people have all kinds of crazy collections, and I thought it would be neat to have a CD collection. I still think it would be. It's just that, in some cases, CDs are more expensive than the standard $10 iTunes fee (other times less expensive), and then I always have to wait a week to actually get the music. It's less convenient.

I think I would still like to have CDs though. At the very least, they're a permanent back-up for my music collection in case of catastrophe (of the new computer variety). It's the one place I can always get the songs I want to listen to.

Rachel is now eating ice cream with her friend Zach. Well, him and some other people. Sometimes I feel like a broken record on this blog. Yes, I'm a jealous boyfriend. Yes, I'm a jealous boyfriend. Yes, I'm a jealous boyfriend. I can't help how I feel. I don't ever plan on tapping her text messages or threatening to break up with her if she so much as looks at another guy, and I try to keep my feelings to myself (though she always picks up on it -I'm not a real subtle guy), but they're there all the same. We all have our problems, this is one of mine.

I've started writing poetry again, and I'd like to start working on a novel again. I repeat the word "again" so you're sure to get the idea that these are things I used to do pretty often, and enjoyed quite a bit, but lately have been too preoccupied with music to do. Also I don't think I'm a very good writer. I've never been able to finish a novel, but I think trying might be fun. I have a pretty good concept for one too. It sort of explores the nature of an anarchistic society, something as you know I've been thinking a lot about lately.

Every day I seem to think of a new project I'd like to take on. Every day goes by without me having done anything. This is just how my life has always been. Personally, I should really just be writing music. That's it. That's all I should be worrying about. I really need to get a notation program for this computer.

I really don't like these rambly posts I've been making lately. Every day I'd like to pick one topic to really explore and write about, and just do that and nothing else. That takes a little more discipline, but I'm sure it's easier to read. Posts like this sort of drag, just because the randomness takes away any kind of logical structure or flow.

Sometimes I wish I could talk about porn on this blog.

_Dr. M

Post-Xmas

This Christmas was a real surprise. I wasn't expecting very much, but I ended up getting a few of the best gifts I've ever gotten. We woke up pretty late, around eleven, and enjoyed each others company for a little while until Rachel joined us around noon. I hung out with her, we exchanged gifts (got me a lunch kettle, with Spongebob Squarepants on it), it was nice. Then my brother Jeff and his wife Amy joined us (shortly after Rachel had to leave to be with her family), and then we all gave each other our gifts and had a very good day.

I had given Jeff and Amy a list of CDs I wanted earlier in the month, for a Christmas list, figuring they were the most likely to come through in this area. When Amy handed me my gift -six CD-shaped packages all wrapped and tied together- I got that "intestines falling out of your butt" feeling (doesn't anyone else get that?). They got me almost every Beck CD I didn't have (which was everything except The Information)!! Beck has been one of my favorite artists lately, and I'd heard a bunch of these songs before, but now I have them all in CD form. I was expecting to listen to them all at once right in a row... but I never got past Mellow Gold. I put it on, played it, then played it again... I've played it probably five times since yesterday. It's so amazing!! I love every song. It's so fresh, so spontaneous. Anyway, now my expectations are unrealistically high for the rest of the albums which I'll slowly be making my way through in the next few days.

My mom got me the computer chair I wanted, which is awesome. So it ended up being a really great Christmas.

My brother assembled my computer yesterday, and started working out the software. See, my computer is a little... "special needs". It's hardware made for Windows that's running Mac osx on it. The day after Mac started running on Intel it was hacked and this was made possible, no longer do you have to pay for incredibly over-priced hardware that's completely un-upgradeable in order to have your Mac operating system. I need a Mac computer to run Logic, the music recording program I will soon be upgrading to. But I didn't want to pay a thousand dollars for that stupid huge fugly computer screen with everything built into it, a lot of which I don't need, nor did I want another sardine-can mini mac desktop, which can't run as fast and doesn't have the space I need. So this was the solution.

It requires hacking and general renegadery (don't install any updates -they'll find you!), but as far as I knew going in, as soon as Mac was installed, I would have a normal, stable computer just like anybody else's. So far we've had problems at every turn. Getting Mac onto it to begin with was a chore. Now there are still a lot of kinks that have to be worked out. Every time I want to plug something into a USB port I have to restart the computer. It won't have internet capabilities anytime in the immediate future (so for now, you are still reading what I type from the family computer downstairs). These are things that can and will be fixed, but let me just say I don't have such a great feeling about this. I wanted a stable computer that will last me... so far ol' Frankenstein's Macintosh chilling there on my desk isn't quite cutting it. Dan assures me it will be fine, it will work out... just don't install any updates!!

I'll let you know how that goes. In the meantime today I saw a movie with Rachel and her family- Marley and Me, a movie about a dog and the lives of the people who own him. I don't know, I'm not much of an animal person. I mean, let's get real... it is just a dog, there's only so much heart-wrenching drama you can get out of situations surrounding a dog's life. I like dogs fine, but to me, they're animals... animals is animals is animals. They're great companions for lonely or troubled people, me I'll take actual human companionship any day. The movie basically came out and said at the end, "Dogs make you feel good, therefor they are better than people". That kind of message never sits well with me.

Then I had work, which was long and horrible.

I wish I had had more time to spend with just Rachel... but luckily I believe I will be doing plenty of that tee-morrow. So I better get to bed!

Pray for me and Frankenstein's Macintosh.

-Dr. M