daysleeper’s blog

natalie and maria

nobody@vox.com(daysleeper) — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 01:26:20 -0500

Thanks to the music site Pandora, I have just become aware of the singer Natalie Walker and her album With You. In testing the site, I had chosen Imogen Heap as my music selection and then the site suggested that I might also like Natalie Walker. They were right. I might have to seek out her disc online once I get home later this morning.

In other music news, I also found out that one of the women from the band Azure Ray, Maria Taylor, has released a solo album. Sadly Last.fm does not have the full version of any of her tracks so to get a better sample of her stuff I wandered over to her personal site where they were kind enough to have a streaming version of her album.

As I am listening to music, I am reading various comic book blogs. One entry that caught my attention was what comic book readers are doing with their hobby under these trying economic times. Would people be willing to give up other forms of entertainment such as movies and video games before they gave up comic books? For me that is easy to answer. My answer is yes. Would people change over to trade paperbacks or a download format? For me I am not fond of the trade paperback format. I own many, but they were for older runs that are harder to obtain in a single issue format. I can not remember the last modern trade that I bought. My secondary choice for comic books is the download format of cbr files although the books I truly enjoy I prefer to have in paper format so that I can better admire the art and support the creators.

There have been rumors that Marvel will raise the cost of a single comic book to $3.99 and I find that to be very sad. I doubt that the quality of their product will improve and I am not sure why the increase is so high in terms of percentage. My hope is that DC will not match this move if indeed it happens.

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one small voice

nobody@vox.com(daysleeper) — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 02:28:32 -0500

I remember having a conversation slash argument with my first college roommate about the ninth track on the R.E.M. disc Murmur. I told him that they had purposely mixed it so that the lyrics made no sense. He was convinced that he could decipher it. Yes, he was not that bright and I sometimes wonder where he ended up in the workforce.

Strange that I should remember that silly event from twenty years ago, but I do.

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radio free europe

nobody@vox.com(daysleeper) — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 02:12:52 -0500

Michael Stipe is singing as I sit here at work thinking of something to write. There was a time when the R.E.M. album Murmur was an almost daily listen for me. Now I can not remember the last time that I listened to it. Have I changed that much in twenty years? How do people in high school now view R.E.M. the band? Are they relevant? Does anyone care about them anymore?

My post vacation high is starting to fade and that makes me sad. I spent ten days in a country that Ronald Reagan called the Evil Empire. Personally I think that he was delusional, but times have changed since he was alive and said those words. Part of my wanting to go to Russia was just for that reason. Here is a country that was poised to destroy the United States. They were the enemy when I was in grade school. They were the reason that there was a nuclear arms race. There was fear. There was paranoia. I saw none of those things while I was there.

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beethoven cardigans mozart

nobody@vox.com(daysleeper) — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 06:12:13 -0500

Since this is my weekend, that means that I get a chance to both listen to music and read. On the music front, I decided that it was long overdue for me to augment the classical portion of my music library. For me that meant some new Beethoven and Mozart. His third and eighth symphonies now reside in my iTunes library. Of the two I would have to say that the third appeals to me more. As to why I can not say at this moment.

Now since I am not truly a classical snob, I also decided that needed to fill some gaps in my collection concerning The Cardigans. Yes, their brand of Swedish pop has appealed to me ever since I learned that there was more to them than the song "Lovefool." Without a doubt, their album Long Gone Before Daylight would be part of my desert island list. The opening two tracks "Communication" and "You're the Storm" are sublime headphone music. I am hoping that they will release a new disc sometime in the coming year. For now however, I will have to content myself with the "Best Of" disc that they released earlier this year.

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music in august

nobody@vox.com(daysleeper) — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 07:29:41 -0500

During the course of this month, I have added seven new albums to my music collection. Here is the quick list:

Damage - Kosheen
One Cell in the Sea - A Fine Frenzy
The Understanding - Royksopp
Eyes Open - Snow Patrol
Continuum - John Mayer
Arular - M.I.A.
Everything All the Time - Band of Horses

Of that group, One Cell in the Sea is by far my favorite and has been in heavy rotation for me. I love the sound of Alison's voice and see her style as falling somewhere in between Tori Amos and Imogen Heap. In terms of overall sound she is more electronic than Tori, but not to the excess of Imogen. I imagine that that description probably means nothing to anyone but me, but that is how I see her.

Kosheen is second on the list with John Mayer standing at a solid third place. As for the remaining four, I can appreciate them on some levels, but none of them are that important to me and will probably be removed from iTunes in the coming months when I decide that I need hard drive space.

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john and rachael

nobody@vox.com(daysleeper) — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 07:36:00 -0500

Once again I have been rediscovering what I have in my music collection. Recent pleasant finds include John Mayer and Rachael Yamagata. Both artists were people that I really liked when I first heard them years ago. Sadly, I never got around to purchasing copies of any of their discs. All that I had from them were a handful of songs downloaded here and there. So maybe since they existed in that marginal state and were not staring back at me from a plastic jewel case, I somehow let their songs fall to the side. Now both artists have risen in the ranks of my heavy rotation list and I am happy to see that Rachael will be releasing a new album in the near future. I may even purchase it.

In another move to get a better grasp on my music collection, I created some new playlists in iTunes. Usually I make a playlist for whatever is the latest new album that I obtain so I can listen to it without having to do through gigs worth of tracks. Sometimes I quickly tire of said album and will delete that playlist. Other times I pick and choose what songs meant the most to me and place them inside a mix playlist in the vague desire to transfer it to a disc of my own design. That does not always happen. So with that in mind, I made a couple of broader playlists with titles such as Electronica and Irish. I guess that one could call these genres and I would agree to a point. I already had a playlist titled Classical, but I suspect that my list called Guilty Pleasures probably would not qualify as a genre, but I knew what I had inside there.

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two more discs

nobody@vox.com(daysleeper) — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 09:53:51 -0500

Once again I had a peaceful night at work last night and what made it even better was that I got to work alone. The other member of the night shift for Saturday had requested a vacation day so I had the room to myself. It was quiet. I could listen to music. I could read web pages without interruption. It was nice.

Now I have nothing against the other members of third shift, but there is a certain amount of enjoyment that I get from being solely responsible for what happens on my watch. Plus for the first five years that was the way that every Saturday night was spent at my current employer. I was the captain of the ship and I made all of the decisions. There was no conferring with anyone else. Nor was there any chance of asking for a second opinion. What I though best it the path that I took.

Thanks to YouTube, I saw the video for the Imogen Heap song "Goodnight and Go" and I was disappointed. Now I know that that is not an uncommon reaction for people to have towards videos of songs that they like intensely, but generally speaking I usually enjoy music videos. I guess for me, I was so caught up in the ebb and flow of the song that I imagined more of a surfing through waves of sound environment than Imogen singing inside a window display of sorts.

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charts and statistics

nobody@vox.com(daysleeper) — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 09:41:59 -0500

I am fascinated by the charts that Last.fm generates for me. Yes, iTunes may keep track of how many times that I listen to a song, but Last.fm also groups the songs by artist. According to them, here are my favorite artists from the day that I created my account at the end of June:

Bruce Springsteen - 112 plays
Coldplay - 89 plays
Goldfrapp - 88 plays
Imogen Heap - 83 plays
Bjork - 72 plays

I wonder how much that will change in a month.

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foreign electronic music

nobody@vox.com(daysleeper) — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 09:58:39 -0500

Suspending my Netflix account for a month has given me back some much needed and appreciated free time. Plus I am limiting any recording on the DVR to just Big Brother 10, Bleach and Project Runway. I suspect that that odd grouping of programs would have most people a little confused. What do two reality programs have in common with an ongoing anime series? The quick answer is nothing. Maybe there is some crossover in the viewing audience as far as Big Brother and Project Runway are concerned, but I doubt that very many hardcore anime people watch Project Runway. For me both Big Brother and Project Runway are great ways to relax. Both provide high drama and comedy gold.

For about a month I had neglected my Bleach viewing, but now that I am firmly into a new season, I am reminded why I love the series as much as I do. Even though, Ichigo, the main character, is very compelling, I also love his supporting cast. Chad and Orihime are personal favorites of mine. They provide an interesting contrast to the impulsiveness of Ichigo and keep some of the action more grounded.

Imogen Heap is still very much on my mind, but once again thanks to Last.fm, I have some new music in my library. The British trip hop group Kosheen is now filling my ears as often as possible. Plus I decided to give the Norwegian electronic duo Royksopp another try. I think that I may have downloaded a track somewhere back, but I can not remember the name of it or where I put it. I can not find it on my hard drive and I am too lazy to search my backup drive at the moment.

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need to shave

nobody@vox.com(daysleeper) — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 03:08:02 -0500

It's three in the morning as I read various online comic book news sites and listen to Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. Yes, my weekend has begun and I am totally relaxed.

My one goal for today is to complete the paperwork that needs to be filled out so that my wife and I can get our Russian visas. I was given the form well over a week ago, but other things kept on pushing it to the side. I have the money ready and know what needs to be done, I just need to finish it and get it in the mail as soon as possible. Plus I need to purchase a good guidebook to take with us when we are there.

Lately I have been checking the weather in both Moscow and St. Petersburg. Both cities are cooler than what I am experiencing here at home, but they are far from extreme. I will be nice to see a country without sweating.

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