Author: briancollapsing

wednesday is a heavy blog day this week, because we’re not done yet. it’s time for a new song of the week.

i told you how the death cab for cutie show blew my mind a few weeks ago. well i bought the photo album while i was there and the first track of the show, also the first track of the album, still has me entranced. it’s just so beautiful and simple and strangely and perfectly moving that it’s not going away any time soon. i love it. hence, steadier footing gets its turn as song of the week.

since it’s less than two (beautiful) minutes though, i threw up a bonus track for you from their tourmates, the prom, because they were good too. not as good, but for an opening band i was totally impressed. so check out she stays too.

want to hear a couple things i saw today? of course you do, you poor, passive reader. you’re powerless to stop me.

firstly, it was about noontime on a 68 degree, sunny, beautiful southern california day. i was skating toward the food court to grab some juice and i passed something that really frustrated me, for some reason. it was a group of maybe 8 to 10 kids in navy blue t-shirts with their little acapella group’s name on them, singing christmas carols to random groups of people around the center of campus. it was so weird though! they’re wearing t-shirts, and it’s 68 degrees, and there’s nothing even remotely christmassy anywhere around. it was just so…wrong. i mean, they could at least wait until nightime when it’s cold, and wear sweaters. or even if they had santa hats on, or something. but it was the least christmas-feeling situation, and there they were singing right along. it felt like something from a bret easton ellis book. very weird. and angering, almost.

secondly. i’m sitting on a bench drinking my juice. a girl on a bike rides along the wide central sidewalk, and is talking on a cell phone. see ’em everyday. but right as she passes some other people, and my bench, her keys fall out of her pocket/purse/whatever. without stopping, and without even putting down the phone or stopping her conversation for a second (she turned by holding the phone against her should this whole time), she just sort of loops back around, takes the keys out of the hand of the girl she had passed who had picked the keys up for her and held them up relay-baton style, and looped back the way she was going originally with only a very hasty thank you. it was such a strange scene to me. i don’t know if it was impressive or depressing.

oh, and i had my last finance class of the semester today which means i am fucking ecstatic. nice. i think i’ll watch fight club or play lots of grand theft auto to show my contempt for the Man. yes, that’s my pathetic form of personal rebellion, for right now.

digging the new look so far? i was going to do it over christmas break when i had nothing else to do, but then i realized i’d have to take my laptop–which has photoshop loaded–home with me, and i have to travel light for my illinois adventure, so i don’t want to have to do that. the point is, after fooling around with it for a few days, collapsing got it’s early christmas present from me: an non-template look. yummy.

HELLO!

yes, you are in the right place. i just got crazy. wasn’t so keen on looking exactly like the given template, and finally took the time to do what i’d been meaning to do for a while.

the layout is essentially the same, more or less, but that’s because i like it that way and it’s functional for me. if you agree or disagree you may email any design thoughts, positive or negative.

also: happy hump day.

i returned a little while ago from a free nerf herder concert on campus. it was fun, they’re a medium good band with some catchy stuff but i won’t try to defend their talent or deep songwriting ability. it was free though. and this band called snmnmnm (pronounced like combo of S&M plus M&M), the band before nerf herder, was totally crazy. they had a singer/accordian player, a guitar/trumpet player, a guy on a tuba providing what would normally be the bass guitar line, and a drummer. and the guy’s voice sounded a lot like they might be giants. you can imagine what a weird sound this was, perhaps. it was oddly infectious though and i’m glad i caught them. i came late on purpose and missed the first two–but thank god almighty i didn’t miss the accordian/tuba combo band. whew.

enjoy the new look, i’m off for the night.

hi. sorry i didn’t have much to say today i was busy working on a little project. the results should be visible here in a few hours or less. depending on how efficient i am. but let me say, i did have a very good tuesday.

last night was my last radio show of the semseter, and it went really well. we played good tunes and kept the foolish blathering to a minimum. and i have a story to tell.

my friend emily had called, and i was on the phone with her just about to hang up. i had also just put on the saves the day song “at the funeral” because i saw the video the other day (which i thought was cool save the fact that you hardly got to see the rest of the band, poor guys) and it’s been in my head since then. so as i’m trying to finish a phone conversation and pressing buttons and juggling a few cds to take out/put in the cd players, three young but older than us people come in the studio all excited, and say it’s the weirdest thing that we’re playing that song right then while they were walking by, because they had just directed the video. whoa. so sadly i seemed to miss the first part of the conversation, explaining to emily what had just happened then finishing that conversation, then putting the music in order to keep the show going. but once that was all taken care of i finally got to pay attention.

they told us a little story about how upon airing the really badly censored version that sounded like crap (which they didn’t get informed of until it aired…damn mtv), the vagrant guy–president maybe? i missed that detail, but it’s not important–called the appropriate power at mtv and complained angrily, listing several examples of similar lyrics that didn’t get censored as i’m sure you can all think of yourselves and apparently coming to the point where he said, “oh, we’re an independent label, so it’s okay for you to fuck us?” and hung up. that’s pretty punk, right? i guess they called him back and since he was such a dick they’re re-editing it so it doesn’t sound so stupid. rock.

they were around the radio station, we found out, because they’re scouting the campus coffee house (right next to the radio station) for a dashboard confessional video. not an enormous dashboard fan, but i think i’d still rather see his video than a “dave” video. for sure. i guess they were also the people who did the alkaline trio video for stupid kid. i told them i loved that one–which i really did, i’m not a suck up–and they were excited because it never got any airtime and they thought no one liked it, and they said they’d send me a tape. i thought that was awful nice of them. if they remember to send it, i’ll let you borrow it.

so that was my interesting radio story from yesterday. you should have listened, we did a good job. you’ll just have to wait until tuesday nights next semester now though, sometime in january when we start programming again. sad, i know.

damn fast food worker. cheeseburgers are much less satisfying without a certain key ingredient: cheese. dumb wrong-button-pressing, stupid-hat-wearing, honest-mistake-making fast food worker… how could she do this to me?

for all interested, this is the last week of radio programming here, and the last night of the semester to hear my show. the link’s at the right, you can figure it out on your own.

careful now, this is where we get serious again.

i was thinking to myself today, and really for the past month or more, how much easier things would be if i didn’t care one way or another about girls. or getting a girl to like me. any girl, that is.

i know a lot of people say that you should be happy being single, be happy with yourself, before you go looking for a relationship. i don’t know what those people feel inside, but i think that’s total nonsense. maybe they have something i’ll never have, but i don’t want it. to me, the ultimate goal has always been to find that perfect point of human contact with someone special. sure, i’m a fine person without it, but that doesn’t mean i don’t spend plenty of time trying to find it. or being sad and lonely and down when i can’t find it and don’t even know where to begin looking. or if i’m lucky, being absolutely thrilled when i think i have it, even just for a while.

i felt awful the other night, and for no reason other than that i wanted someone to put my arm around. i know what brought it on, but that’s not the point as much as this: other than this specific void, my life is just fine right now. i’m in good health, school is school but going alright, and i have the best friends i could ask for. but every few days i get in a funk because of this, and it’s just no good. i want to shake it off. i want to put it on hold until i at least meet someone worth turning it back on for. because as it stands, there’s no one around to work my charm on, and i just feel like i’m banging my head against a wall looking for anything close to love, because there aren’t any candidates. maybe i could be happy then just being me, alone.

but i can’t turn it off. i can’t not think about how i wish there was someone to daydream about. maybe i don’t really want to turn it off, because it’s such a nice romantic malady.

it sure would make things easier sometimes though.

this will be the triumphant week of saying after classes finish, “well, that’s the last time i have to come listen to this ever again.” i love that feeling. i seem to elate in putting things behind me, generally. i just can’t help feeling good when i know i’m moving along with things, passing markers, making progress (supposedly). not even toward a definite goal, necessarily, but just moving forward with my life in a measurable way feels really satisfying.

but then again, so do cheeseburgers. two hours of this class left and i will have my satisfaction.

last night my friend/former roommate/current couch-dweller josh used the word “fantastipotamus” instead of “good” in a sentence. how can you not be glad this guy is back in your apartment?

my friend shannon has hilarious stories about infants. you can read them from her though.

oh, and i “put up” our “christmas tree” last night in the apartment. it’s maybe 20 inches tall, but boy did i put a lot of lights on that little sucker. so now there are shining lights along our countertop and a little joyous tree of holiday cheer. it’s so cute. i felt like my dad, stringing lights around this thing, except that it was really tiny instead of seven feet tall. still, you have to do something for the holiday season, i think, otherwise it goes by without any notice, and it means you’re a cold-hearted bastard. me, i see myself more as a beacon of light and goodness.

sometimes you think you’ve won, but you haven’t, because the game just isn’t over yet.

the infamous laker flag sighting game (see archives for explanation, i don’t want to talk about it right now) i thought i had clinched with a mid-november sighting turns out to have gone to the unlikely winner, neither dom nor myself, but our friend shannon. she says this morning driving hom from ralph’s, on fucking december the second, she saw a faded, beat up lakers flag still flying proudly from the car of the man who is unarguably the lamest man in los angeles. i hang my head in shame and clench my fists in jealous anger at her for having seen it instead of me; but i have to say–well done, miss shannon. well done.

that bitch.

in other news, this will be the last week of classes, i fly home two weeks from yesterday for a well-deserved and highly anticipated break from all this school business, and goonies was on tv last night. not a bad run, so far. i’m really in the home stretch here, too, because it looks like most of the really bothersome business is behind me at this point. in this case, i know for sure when the game ends, and if i don’t have the highest score ever it won’t be as important as the fact that i had a good time and get to start fresh again soon. i know that’s what i’m really in need of anyway.

i’ve spent most of today working. it’s saturday for christ’s sake! there was a time in my life where even thinking about doing homework on saturday was unheard of. now i spend most of the afternoon and evening working at my computer on my part of a group project. times, they’ve changed. of course, in a measly three semesters i’ll be done with school forever, probably. then my weekends will be all mine! ha!

i have to say i didn’t really mind the work i’ve been doing today though. the assignment is to make a magazine, and my part is to do one of the articles. i had already written the words, and was just doing the layout stuff. i think i already talked about this a couple days ago (scrolls back a few days….). yes, i did. well, i was working on it even more today. and i have to say, it turned out very magazine-like. i’m sort of impressed with myself. fun things can be done with the photoshop, let me tell ya.

i just discovered something bizarre. i don’t know if any of you use mapquest to get driving directions, but i have before. anyway, tonight i was on there looking for a map of northern illinois to see where the hometowns of my friends were in relation to each other in an attempt to start planning my big winter trip. i punch in “chicago, illinois” hoping to get a nice medium-sized, general map. i didn’t get what i wanted, so i started fiddling with it. i thought maybe i could rezoom or something to get the right amount of information. then i noticed there was a tab on the top of the little map that said “street map”, and next to it one that said, “aerial photo”. hmm, let’s click on aerial photo.

and it’s an actual photograph from a satellite! the particular region i was looking at appeared to be some sort of shipping yards or something. but this was a bizarre discovery. so i punched in my address here and zoomed all the way in. up popped a reasonably sized view of the surrounding neighborhood–in enough detail that i could easily pick out our apartment building. i told my roommate, who tried his home address, and was also very wowed. then he said, “whoa, my neighbors had their pool filled in!” really, i think this is almost creepy. try it yourself. some satellite has been taking pictures of your home, and you didn’t even know it. just imagine, if they allow this sort of thing to be open to the public, the detailed and zoomed in pictures the goverment could take of you if they wanted to . . . (shudder).