We'll get crushed by the ocean

The past couple days, I've been going crazy organizing my computer, and such.

I feel like making a new LJ, randomly.

You're all invited to come add me and such at rain_king02.

Until then...

See you, space cowboy.

Okay, so, at the used book store, I was browsing around for CDs. I hit up the usual suspects (Talking Heads, Prince, Radiohead, David Bowie), and found a copy of Space Oddity. Neat. I looked down a bit further.

A copy of Outside.

A copy of Outside?!

HOLY GOD.

It was $8. I bought it. I am extremely pleased with myself.

...Kurt Vonnegut died yesterday. He's one of my favorite authors (Cat's Cradle, in particular).

I didn't hear about it today, and on a forum, no less.

The really sad thing is, his name won't be mentioned on the news. No, they're too busy talking about who is the fucking father of Anna Nicole's baby.

Is it just me, or is there something totally fucking wrong with that?

Well, Kurt, rest in peace, wherever you are. You're unstuck from our time, now.

Damn, Ninja Gaiden Black is fucking hard. I'm at the end of the 6th chapter. I've died a lot (ironically, not from bosses, but from annoying hard enemies, like those Black Spider Clan ninjas), but I've had tons of fun with it so far. I'm stuck on the giant fossil dinosaur boss. He's a bitch. Once I learn how to DODGE properly, I'm sure I won't have trouble with it. Maybe. >_>;

I almost certainly failed my Physics A credit by exam that I took on Monday. I need the credit to graduate. If I'm lucky, I'll get one more chance to take this test. It's kind of stupid how half the stuff on the test was stuff that we only just covered in fucking Physics B. And the level of difficulty for the open-ended questions is much steeper than any of that shit we did in Bleeker.

So, Mr. Bleeker! You useless sack of shit excuse of a teacher (yeah, he's a football coach), I hope you suffer some hideous disappointment if I can't graduate because you don't know how to teach a god damn class. Also please stick only to coaching.

Hopefully, my current teacher (who is made of win and awesome) can help me study for the test. I hope so.

I'm actually in a pretty good mood. That's why I bought Ninja Gaiden - to cheer myself up.

Also, the new Modest Mouse and LCD Soundsystem albums are fucking great. I'm also eagerly anticipating the new Nine Inch Nails album. Year Zero comes out in just two weeks. I cannot wait.

Invisible is my new favorite song.

So, to remove myself from the banalities of my current bloated deviantART page, I took the liberty of making myself a new one. If you're interested, check it out here. It's currently only got a couple of what I considered my best works from my old one brought over, but I'm going to be putting new stuff in it soon.

Also, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close is about the best god-damned book I've read in a really long time. It's absolutely amazing. The narrative is brilliant (though, I haven't been reading the sections by the main character's grandparents as thoroughly as I probably should), and the minor typography experiments fill me with glee. I highly recommend this novel to like, everyone. XD

I was reading it after school today when I fell asleep. I only got up around 45 minutes ago. Eeep.

Yoinked from lukeroo . This test does a pretty good job of describing me.

( My entire personality awaits! )
I wish Phillip would call. He was supposed to call me over 2 hours ago!

So, I went to see 300 tonight. It was all kinds of awesome. Go see it if you like epic action films...and/or men wearing nothing but tight bikini briefs and capes.

In other news, I just saw the new trailer for No More Heroes. I am looking forward to that game!

I didn't get my state qualification in debate.

At the last two debate tournaments I went to, I came frustratingly close to getting it. Last weekend, I only needed TWO MORE speaker points to have gotten my state qual. At this week's tournament, I needed to break and win two rounds to get my state qual. I didn't break into the double-octo finals, though. They broke the top 32 people. I was ranked 35.

Did I mention that this weekend's tournament was my last chance to do so?

God damn it.

This happened last night, but I didn't get around to posting about it until right now.

Hot damn, drukqs is a fucking brilliant album. I'm not even halfway through the first disk, and I'm loving it. I really regret not getting into Aphex Twin sooner. Whoever made me think that he did nothing but "drum and bass" was a fool. Most of his music is actually not like that. Duh hurr.

Talking about secretive things with a friend is interesting.

Washington was awesome. ;o

I was amazed I didn't buy more. I got tons of great stuff: two Thomas Jefferson text-based posters, two awesome shirts (one short-sleeved, the other long-sleeved) from the Air and Space Museum, two pins from the Holocaust Museum (REMEMBER and NEVER AGAIN), as well as a pack of picture postcards, three books (an English translation of the ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead, Catch-22, and The Stand), a really cool puzzle cube (Gordian's Knot), a chrome Space Pen, a spoon from the House of Representatives (my mom wanted one), a miniature pewter Washington Monument, and two used CDs (The Smiths' Meat Is Murder and Godspeed You! Black Emperor's Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven).

That was a ton of stuff to have to carry around. XD

I'm planning on spending today finishing up some make-up work for my missed week of school, playing some more Fire Red, and possibly even playing Final Fantasy III some more.

I want to go see Children of Men and Pan's Labyrinth. They're both apparently excellent films, so I need to go check 'em out.

I watched Syriana last night with my dad. It was pretty awesome, although I need to watch it again to start understanding it better.

Wow, Aphex Twin knows how to make some fucking good ambient techno. On a whim, I downloaded all of his major releases, and am currently in the middle of disc 2 of Selected Ambient Works Volume II. Hopefully I'll like his less ambient stuff too. I think I will.

I beat Twilight Princess a while ago (OMG THE ENDING IS AMAZING AND BEAUTIFUL), so now I'm on a bit of an RPG kick. I finally got my copy of Final Fantasy III in the mail from my dear friend James. Ingus is way cooler than Luneth, especially when he's a Red Mage. <3

I also...bought a copy of Pokémon Fire Red. YES I CAN NOW BE A REAL LIFE POKEMON MASTER. I'm having a blast with it, though I haven't caught too many Pokémon yet. I've given some of my Pokémon silly nicknames. My Charmander became Toasty, my Geodude became Keith (IE, Keith Richards, a famous rock musician), and my Mankey became Sabin. I am so clever, yes.

Hm, this reminds me: I need to stop ignoring Contact. That game is simply awesome, and I need to start playing it again!

Oh, I had a horrific nightmare last night. I barely remember what happened, but it involved me seeing something utterly terrifying near my bed. It was so bad I woke up screaming at the top of my lungs, and then I actually jumped out of my bed, and ran out of my room, screaming all the while. My voice has been kind of hoarse all day today.

I think I had the nightmare because I watched The Descent before going to bed. I was so eager to finally have the Original Unrated Cut, I wanted to watch it before going back to school...

I'm actually doing homework again. Rejoice!

I meant to post a list of what I got for Christmas, oh, Christmas day, but it's been kind of crazy at my house lately. My friend Phillip's mother is in the hospital, so he's been sleeping at our house, because we're much close to the hospital than he is (he's over an hour away). He's good fun, of course, but I haven't had any private time lately. DX

So, anyway. ( Here's all the fun stuff I got for Christmas )

Yeah, so my Christmas was pretty amazing, all around.

I gave some good stuff too. SOME of which hasn't arrived yet because Amazon's shipping is weird, but better late than never, right? >_>;

New layout again, this time in honor of The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. I have a brand new copy of it, sitting under the miniature tree in my room. I am going to basically spend all of tomorrow playing it. I have not been this psyched up for a Zelda game since Windwaker. And, unlike Windwaker, I've watched a minimal amount of videos and read a minimal amount of information. I know the basics, of course, but the vast, vast majority of the game is going to be brand new.

And I can't wait! <3

My Christmas break has been going great this year. I've gotten some good gifts, and I've given some good gifts too! Like, my dad got me a wooden club from a gas station as a semi-joke. It's a "tire thumper", but it's basically for bashing people's skulls in. It's a nifty little object. I'll post a more in-depth gift list tomorrow, I suppose.

I hope everyone has a peaceful, happy, and relaxing Christmas! And a happy New Year, too.

I read a Wikipedia article on E-prime today. It surprised me because we do something not unlike this in my English class. In our key essays, the teacher counts off if we use "to be" verbs.

So, as a bit of an experiment, I shall try to speak and write in E-Prime from now on, as opposed to standard English., as per the rules on that Wikipedia article. I mean, I already avoid the use of "to be" verbs in most situations. The only difference will be that I will no longer use "to be" verbs at all.

It makes for an interesting concept, because it forces me to think about what I say before I say it, since "to be" verbs tend to be fairly ubiquitous in standard English.

I hope this leads to some weird shit going down. XD

So, in other news:

I really love Gorillaz. Over the past few days, I have listened to little else. I have grown especially fond of Demon Days. I find that album just about flawless.

Besides the albums, I have also collected a fair share of rare b-sides/non-album tracks. Of these, I enjoy 68 State the most: a perfect synthesis of eerie electronica and guitars. I hope to find others, especially Rock It, soon.

Oh, yeah, today seems to be my 18th birthday. We didn't do much, actually; my party proper occurs this Saturday. I look forward to meeting with my friends and playing video games, all that jazz.

EDIT: OH GOD. I normally don't use "to be" verbs that much anyway, but totally removing them from my life is annoying and frustrating. Yes, I'm retarded.

I am really, really addicted to this. I wish I could find a MP3 of the music...

I'm working on long overdue homework.

Well, kind of. Right now, I'm just writing in my LJ about working on my work. Meta-narratives, FTW! I'm awash with postmodernism.

I'm not even 1/10th done with what I need to do, and all of it is crucially important. I really can't stand my procrastination ways. Well, once this semester is over, I can reboot my work habits. Next semester isn't going to be like this. I'm going to start working hard again.

I'm a smart guy, and there's no reason why I shouldn't fucking dominate in all of my classes.

New layout, BTW. It goes along with my newly found, and exceedingly ravenous, Hellsing obsession. Man that show kicks all kind of ass. I'm getting the DVDs for Birthday/Christmas.

I'm reading The Catcher in the Rye. That book is quite good.

Back to work, I guess...

Yay, iankunx gave me S. I've done this once, but I don't mind doing it again. XD

( Suffering succotash! )

So, that's that. If you want a letter, just ask.

In other news, I downloaded the majority of Sigur Rós' and Nine Inch Nails' discography over the past few days. Oh, and Thriller and Billie Jean (the songs!) by Michael Jackson. w00t.

I finally got some David Bowie albums.

I got The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars last night, and I just unloaded a torrent containing Diamond Dogs, Low, "Heroes", Lodger, and Outside. I'm giving Outside a listen first. It is really awesome so far. David Bowie vocals + crazy pseudo-industrial feeling + bizarre concept album = really cool.

I saw Apocalypse Now a few days ago. While visiting my grandmother in Mississippi, my father and I went into a Wal-Mart to look for various sundries. I noticed they had "The Complete Dossier" edition of Apocalypse Now, which included the original and the 2001 "Redux" version, along with over two hours of supplementary features, on two disks. It was on sale for about $14, so we bought it.

We watched it shortly after we came back to my grandmother's house, and on her hulking widescreen TV, no less. I could not tear my eyes away from the screen. It was hypnotic, surreal, disturbing, beautiful, funny, profound - all at once. Despite my announced jaded nature, I was very much disturbed by the scene where a real water buffalo was butchered on screen. It was quite a powerful film.

Sometime later this week, I plan to sit down and watch the three and a half hour long "Redux" version. I'm curious to see how the extra 50 minutes of added material change the overall feeling of the film. I hear it's more clear than the original, but also less surreal/trippy. I'm sure I'll enjoy it a lot, but I'll probably prefer the original cut.

I love dorky metal music.

I also love arranged versions of video game music.

So, I guess it was a given that I would like The Black Mages. I'm finally listening to their debut LP right now, and I've got their second album ready to go afterwards. I was going to listen to them last night, but because of the massive "Genre SNAFU", I decided against it.

School was boring today. I text-messaged Anya-chan from the bathroom. XD

Oh, and Andy came over for a bit of Xbox fighting game action. That was enjoyable.

Damn.

Finally got all my genres restored. They're all slightly different than before (they're more uniform overall, though I did make specific exceptions in the case of the Cowboy Bebop and Jet Set Radio Future soundtracks), but the key thing is they're all back.

I also did a bit of library clean-up. I cleaned off all the old techno playlists that Shurikane sent me. I never listened to them, anyway. I kept backups of the MP3s, though. Just in case.

Sleep calls to me. o_x

I...I just accidentally cleared out the Genre slot on every last single song in my entire music library. 2743 songs, and not one single genre.

God. Damn. It.

This is going to take a while to rectify.

T_T