Radiohead's "Everything In Its Right Place" was their first song I really listened to. I knew about "Creep" because of Rock Band, and I knew of "High and Dry" because of 50/50, but it wasn't until Vanilla Sky that the band caught my ears. The sound is so eclectic and the album, Kid A, as a whole is bizarre, but attractive. That song is what put them on my radar. Eventually, I confessed to my friend that I wanted to really dig into Radiohead's discography. His response? "That's some deep waters there, man." No doubt.
Like most of the other bands I listen to, Radiohead's been around for a cool minute, and I've just begun to really digest their music. And I'm fine with that: this is how I come about learning and discovering things at my pace. In some way, it lets me enjoy their on the premise that I want to, rather than giving them attention because they're "what's in" at the moment. I like it that way: I may be late to the party, but I make the most of it nonetheless.
After this forum has been around my life (via YouTube videos and current events) for quite some time, I finally took the plunge and decided to create an account and be part of massive online community for better and for worse. In my short time of being a Redditor, I've learned quite about myself: I have very little willpower to curb my time online at Reddit. On one hand, spending lots of my free time has allowed me to find great sub-reddits, but on the other hand, I've wasted precious free time dicking around some of the more hilariously stupid (sometimes NSFW/L) learning new things, keeping up with world in news and tech, and even just having a much need laugh in a lousy day. Below, are some great subreddits as well as some of the more...interesting...subreddits. Enjoy, and you're welcome ;-)
/r/Incest (What you're thinking at the moment is 1/10th of how Reddit felt upon its discovery)
I'm still finding some new and interesting subbreddits. The goal is to find more productive and thought-provoking subreddit forums while trying to dodge to the more inane forums. As you can see, I've found several that I've taken a chance on and failed. Miserably. Well, until next time!
EDIT: I had actually written this months ago, but I didn't realize that I hadn't posted this yet, so it's been laying around, unused. Enjoy!
I had the strange pleasure of talking with some of my professors about their guilty musical pleasures. Even as I type this now, I can't stop smiling. I find it humorous to know that this different side of their selves exists. It's something that I didn't anticipate from them at all. On campus, they seem so reserved and conservative. Who knows what they're really like outside of campus? I only found out about this side of them since Dr. Dre popped up in their Pandora/Spotify radio (all I know it was internet radio - it could've been iHeartRadio for all I know). Anyhow, this tiny revelation led to an extensively humorous discussion about our musical guilty pleasures. Pretty much, my mind was blown by their exciting (and seemingly taboo musical preferences).
So, to conclude, here are three songs that reflect our musical guilty pleasures (mine included):
Linkin Park - "Somewhere I Belong" - I still don't know why one of my professors considers this a a guilty (if it was one of their later albums, I'd understand), but yeah, he hates to admit that he's into Linkin Park. He prefers Hybrid Theory or Meteora to their other albums.
Snoop Dogg - "Ain't No Fun" - My professor was almost ashamed (in a funny, awkward "promise not to laugh" kind of way) to admit this is her song (especially when she works out in her free time). She knows what exactly what the content entitles, and yet she's finding the music soothing and strangely empowering. Must be the beat of the song, I suppose.
Kanye West - "It All Falls Down" - This is my musical guilty pleasure of sorts. I always turn to Yeezy whenever I want to just shut down my brain and not think. Like my professor and Snoop Doggy Dog, I also know what the content is and I just take it in by stride. However, I must admit that only West's "The College Years" (as I like to call The College Dropout, Late Registration, and Graduation) is what I find most attractive. Anything beyond that, I just can't listen to it - it's just too weird and not quite my taste.
Now that the Spring Semester is over (finally!) and summer is here, I've been making some headway here and there to read the now-famous The Walking Dead comic series. Like most people (I think), I first stumbled upon the series through the television show, not the comic series itself (and even then, I started watching the show well into the program's third season, so as you can see, I am quite behind). As of now, I have watched the show up until the end of the third season (I'm waiting on Netflix for the fourth), and I'm currently reading the seventh "chapter" in the comic series (through the "The Walking Dead Compendium" rather than the individual issues or the volumes themselves).
Of course, whenever a book is transposed into a television show or a film of sorts, there will always be liberties taken and changes made, and The Walking Dead is no exception to this rule. While some of the key settings (the initial camp, the Greene Farm, and so forth) stayed the same, it is the characters (some are exclusive to the show) and the events that really make up for the majority of the differences, differences that make the television show and the comic series become their own dynamic entities, rather than having the show simply replicate the source material in a bland and boring way. These differences, in some nerdy way, excite me, since I like to compare and contrast one rendition with the source material or one rendition with another rendition.
Rather than going in-depth with these differences, or even going into the plot, I just want to simply share this 2-page image that's found in the comic, powerfully stating that maybe it's not outside threat that should worry us, but perhaps it is "us" that should worry us.
One of my classes this Spring Semester is elementary French (or FR100, as some refer to it). This was, unfortunately, the only basic foreign language course available this semester. All other languages were either level 2 or above, and I didn't have the prerequisites (the beginning classes) to add those to my current schedule. Besides, French is one of the handful of languages that I do want to learn (among German, Russian, Japanese, and American Sign Language), so I'm quite content with taking this course this semester. When I talked to my sister about this language course, she reassured me that learning French is quite easy, since a good handful of vocabulary and grammar reflects its Spanish cousin (which I already know - ethnicity for the win!). This simply means (in theory) I shouldn't have too much difficulty learning this romantic language.
However, just like anything new, learning a new skill (or in this case, a new language) relies heavily on repetition, comprehension, and understanding. So I got to thinking, "What if I post my progress here? I can review the material thus far and I can pass on (somewhat) what I've been learning onto others." It's been three weeks, but I've already got a good grasp on basic numbers (0-70), reciting the French alphabet (same letters as the English alphabet, but with different pronunciations), and basic colors, phrases and greetings (and such). Essentially all of chapter 1 in our class textbook. I'm ecstatic to know just how much I'll learn before the semester is over. Until next time, fellow readers!
Now that the Spring Semester is underway in university, my convoluted schedule has finally allowed me an entire free day to do whatever I please. Unfortunately, this means that I have a whole free day to spend studying (or conducting research, whichever is more important at the time), but I'm sure I'll have a day every week or so to do something...right?
Well, since these are the early weeks of the Spring Semester (we started quite early, actually), these next Wednesdays are free for me to do whatever I please. So, I spent this past Wednesday hiking. This hike will be the first of many and I hope that I can continue to do such leisurely activities like this in the future. Incidentally, this makes it a new trail that I've trekked, so now I've only to explore 2 more! Finally, I'll just post some photographs that I took along the way - Enjoy!
Well, before I even begin to write my upcoming New Year's Resolutions and the goals I will set for myself, I feel it's best to revisit the 10 goals I set for myself and see how much I have (or have not accomplished) - this is taken directly from my ""Reflections and Resolutions" blog almost a year ago.
Also to note: Green means I had successfully accomplished that goal; Red means that I failed to accomplish that goal.
2013 Resolutions:
1) Be happier
2) Be healthier -begin exercising -improve diet -improve dental health
3) Read 75% of books in my reading list -also, buy at least 5 e-books
4) Complete my CD collection
5) Make more vlogs on YouTube -make at least 25 videos -find new channels to subscribe to -Be more interactive in YouTube
6) Work on writing skills -finish the "Dearly Beloved" series -start a new series
7) Learn a new language
8) Take more pictures of family, friends, self, and artistic
9) Deal with nagging tasks -check engine light -New tires/rims -physical checkups -dental care
10) Get a girlfriend
6/10 2013 Resolutions Accomplished!
Wow, I can't believe that I've had such a great year! I mean, it's still a "D", but when so many people struggle to even accomplish even one resolution, this is amazing. I personally was only expecting to only complete 4 of these 10, but I did quite well this year. And with the new year looming around the corner, I'm excited to see just how much further I will grow! Thank you all for an amazing year! Until next time, my fellow readers!
