out of the blue

Merry Christmas

So, my family insists on listening to Christmas songs. However, having the radio on to the Christian station, you get pretty much the same mix of songs every hour or so. And they're not particularly impressive versions!

Does anyone have any good versions of Christmas songs? Choral versions? Unusual carols that are awesome (or at least passable)? Foreign languages! Anything, just let the pain end…

Grade | Class
W = Withdraw (dropped the class, essentially)

Calculus, I am surprised by. I'm not sure whether to be surprised by Philosophy of Human Nature (I just didn't turn in the final essay). I should have done better in Digital Computer Programming, because I know the stuff better than most people in the class. So easy… Anyway, I did pretty bad (by my standards) with a 2.91 overall GPA. Woohoo…

I just thought I'd say a word about friends-only posts: I don't like them. I think they are entirely valid, and I won't think less of you if you use them, but I still don't like them. The thing is, the rss feeds on LiveJournal can be accessed by anyone, so if there's a friends-only post, then it doesn't show up on the feed, and I can't read it from a feedreader. That bothers me because it's the major way I access blogs (since I have livejournals I read, bloggers I read, random other feeds from things like textpattern, etc). Partially for that reason, I've never used a friends-only post.

Just an interesting tidbit.

Soren is back! Nathan is back! Aaron and I are back! There is much rejoicing.

Aside from Soren, Nathan, and Aaron, this last weekend I went to the beach with my family and seeing my little cousins and aunts and uncles and grandparents. That was a lot of fun. I think the highlight of the beach trip was going out past midnight onto the beach and singing at the top of my lungs to the night. (Don't Stop Me Now, Nature Boy, Come What May, maybe a few others)

Now back to friends:

Last night, I went to Nathan's house and sung carols with his family around some advent candles. Then his little brother and I went to Shari's to visit, and afterwards Nathan and I came back and plotted programming stuff. Lots of fun, resulting in me returning home at 3:30. Final sleep time: 5:30 ish.

Tonight, I went ice skating (which was awesome, thanks Mark), and then directly to Aaron's house. We talked about random stuff like programming for a while, and then Soren called, saying he was back. So, we went to visit him, ended up staying at his house for a while, then we went to Shari's. Two nights in a row! But I got something different, so it's okay. The thing is, after coming back to my house with Aaron from Soren's, we decided to stop somewhere and talk for a while. Good stuff. I live with Aaron, and this is one of the best conversations we've had in a while. Maybe the absense of school did it. Topics included: absurdity, girls (related to the former), friends, loneliness, etc.

The gems of the conversation came during the topic of comparisons. As in wording things. There are a few types of hilarious comparisons that we talked about, but I can only remember these two.

Absurdity
To compare a quality to something that has nothing to do with that quality. (i.e. sharp as a chicken on roller skates)

Denying association
My favorite of the night. This has to do with comparing a quality to something else that, while having that quality too, has another quality associated with it that is MUCH more powerful. (i.e. blunt as the sun, round as a hurricane)

All in all, a very satisfying couple of days.

I thought you folks would be interested in seeing the paintings I've been doing in the past two days. So, I coded a page in html to display them. Hope you enjoy it. (The last painting is my particular favorite.)

Recent Artwork

This is way too artistic to be during finals week.

I went to see the movie today at 6:45 PM, and I have to say that it was brilliant. I was pleasantly suprised that it followed the books much more than I was expecting. I can't say what it'll be like for those of you who haven't read the book, but for me it was amazingly fun. I would recommend it.

(How did I see it today? Well, the lovely Ann Foreyt procured a few preshowing tickets, and together we surprised Becky with the movie.)

WARNING: The comment thread here contains lots of spoilers. You have been warned.

Open iTunes/iPod, Windows Media Player, or Winamp to answer the following.

How many songs?: 4127

Sort by song title:
First Song: 18th Avenue (Cat Stevens)
Last Song: Zoo Station (U2)

Sort by time:
Shortest Track: 0:00:01 (Silence, self created track) [0:01]
Shortest Actual Song: Howard Makes It All Go Away (Eternal Sunshine Soundtrack) [0:14]
Longest Song: Symphony NO 6 in B minor (Tchaikovsky)

Sort by album:
First Song: Family (Soren Laulainen)
Last Song: Through My Sails (Neil Young)

Sort by Artist:
First Artist: Aerosmith
Last Artist: Young Dubliners

Top Five Most Played Songs:
1. Poor Places (Wilco) [47 plays]
2. Son of Sam (Elliot Smith) [36 plays]
3. Apocalypse Please (Muse) [29 plays]
4. Wind (Akeboshi) [29 plays]
5. Call Me Call Me (Yoko Kanno) [28 plays]

Put all your songs in a playlist and randomize it.
First song: Ulaid (E.S. Posthumus)
Second song: At the Zoo (Simon and Garfunkel)

Search for the following words; write the number of songs that came up, and name a few.

Sex: how many songs come up? Sexie Sadie (Beatles), Sexy Plexi (Jack Johnson), The Sex Pistols (1 album) [14 tracks]

Death: Judas' Death (Jesus Christ Superstar), O Death (O Brother Where Art Thou Soundtrack), Death Valley Queen (Flogging Molly), Speed Me Toward Death (Rob Dougan) [11 tracks]

Life: The Soldiering Life (The Decemberists), Old Man Take a Look at My Life (Neil Young), The Way, The Truth, The Life (Rescue), Circle of Life (Elton John) [37 tracks]

Love: Love Me Do (Beatles), Old Love (Eric Clapton), Do You Love Me (Fiddler on the Roof), Whole Lotta Love (Led Zeppelin), Elephant Love Medley (Moulin Rouge Soundtrack), Crazy Little Thing Called Love (Queen), If You Love Somebody Set Them Free (Sting), Sappire Bullets of Pure Love (They Might Be Giants) [155 tracks]

You: For You (Barenaked Ladies), You're My Home (Billy Joel), I Want You (Bob Dylan), Teach Your Children Well (Crosby, Stills, and Nash), Window to Your Soul (Delerium), I'd Rather Dance With You (Kings of Convenience), Just You Wait (My Fair Lady Soundtrack), When You're In Love (The Proclaimers), Unworthy of Your Love (Assassins Soundtrack), Put On Your Old Brown Shoes (Supertramp), The Egg and You (Yoko Kanno) [375 tracks]

Musical confession: Before I went to high school, I almost never listened to music.

I found this signature in an e-mail Gonzaga University sent out to all the undergraduates. It filled me with horror. I mean, it's so BAD!

Jewel Gurule

Program Assistant for Student Activities

ph. – 509-323-6123

Yesterday is history..Tomorrow a mystery..Today is a gift.. That's why it's called the present!"

Aaron said, "Talk about kicking people in the balls with words."

Here's a special treat for all of you. My prettiest pictures from two trips, set in a really interesting page design. The best way to experience this page is in Firefox, but Opera does most of it.

http://www.azureabstraction.com/web_design/camera/index.html

WARNING – Has not been tested in all browsers. IE users WILL NOT be able to use this page. Try using a decent browser.

Update
Works in the following browsers:
Firefox (Windows)
Firefox (Macintosh)
Opera (Windows)
–[The hover opacity changes don't work]
Safari (Macintosh)
–[With a black bit at the bottom]
Shiira (Macintosh)
SBC browser (Windows)
Camino (Macintosh OSX)
iCab (Macintosh OSX)
Netscape (Macintosh OSX)

Does not work in:
Internet Explorer (Windows)
–[Due to:
—Lack of png transparency support
—Failure to get rid of unused space after relative positioning
—Failure to center things with automatic padding
—Lack of support for fixed positioning
–]
Lynx (text-only)
Links (text-only)
Links2 (text-only)