Daily Blatherings

ben we've moved to 6/7/2002muhgcee Yes, Ben, its the seventh. You can rest now. Or party your ass off. Probably the latter. Horray for short sentences. Yes. OK, I think there was an actual point to this afterall . . .

This brings us to today's topic. Religion in music. And other subjects you may or may not like. But mostly religion. Me, being the flaming Atheist that I am, you would think that I would be against having religion in music. But, that is not the case. I would rather listen to a religious song that has emotion put into it than an Atheist song that has no thought put into it. I generally like music that expresses some sort of emotion. Except for techno . . . but its not like they could even if they tried. OK, except for Aphex Twin. He expresses the emotion of "I am fucked up and will bite your head off, break apart your skull, and use the pieces for steak knives." But, that is beside the point (or is it besides? meh, who knows?). Back to the point . . . Who cares if they are yelling about how great Jesus is? You can tell that some of these people really mean it, and it really hits home with me sometimes. Not the opinion, the emotion. Who am I to say that music isn't good just because I don't agree with the message it is putting out? The same thing should go for people of faith, but sadly it doesn't. My friend Berger is involved in the church. He listens to a great deal of rap music. A youth group leader actually told him that god wouldn't want him listening to rap music. Like it is evil or something? Admittedly, there are plenty of rap groups who make references to prostitutes, drugs, violence, etc. But have these people even tried to listen to a rap artist such as Talib Kwali? I seriously doubt it. I swear, sometimes I think I am a better Christian than some of these boneheads and I don't even believe in god . . .

I am not trying to claim that Christians, or other people of faith, are the only ones that do not respect other forms of music. I am also talking about Atheists, Agnostics, etc. I know of plenty of people that don't want to hear music if they do not agree with the lyrics. Sure, don't listen to crap like Blink 182 where they get their lyrics from the back of a cereal box . . . but at least give people some respect. People who reject others and their work (specific to this conversation - their music) are missing out on a great deal. I find it nice to be able to hear other's viewpoints and what emotions they feel about them. What good would it be if I did not have an idea of why others feel the way that they do?

A great band that I have found is Project 86. They are one of my favorite hard rock bands. The singer has a great voice, and the rest of the band is superb. Despite the viewpoints set forth in their lyrics, I can respect their music because of the amount of emotion I hear in it.

Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

ben dear lord i hope it's the seventh. i had this weird feeling just now that i don't remember the entire weekend, and i'm going to be paying for that the whole day (this comes from setting my alerts in outlook to a day in advance, and it considers monday the next day, so, well, i got a monday morning alert 10 minutes ago). maybe i'll write a little fiction about that... heh, would be cool. friend named ralph. so, last night i went down at 4:30 for a nap. yeah i know, sound like a little kid don't i? anywho, last thing i said to my mother was, wake me up when you want me to make dinner (because she wanted me to be awake to make dinner). 8:30 rolls around, as it does around that time of day, and i found myself still asleep. i know, because i was there. so i was up all night, at least later than i should have been, and still got up at 6 this morning. it's nice to be here so early, have all of my morning ablutions worked out before 8 again. maybe i'll do more 4 hour naps in the afternoon. and get this... hehe. my dad said i shouldn't do that. right, because he doesn't come home at 4, sleep until 6, wake up for 2 hours, sleep until 11. now then, off to work i go.

6/6/2002 muhgcee Ben's right. Enough of the "and by '...' I mean '...' " crap. And by "enough" I mean . . . woops, sorry. That doesn't mean I mean to say "woops, sorry" instead of "enough". Stop overanalyzing what I am say. Besides, didn't you notice the formatting? I would have had to have quotes to be official, silly. My friend Ackerman showed me how to use Photoshop a bit, here is the result:

I need to lay off the photoshop, eh? Ackerman did help me make a new spiffy looking banner for my site. OK, so he did almost the whole thing himself. The original image is the purple flower that comes with XP. shhhh, don't tell them. I think it looks spifftastic.

Evidently I was a bit more delighted than others about a house party Ben & co. and myself went to on Saturday night. I had never been to something like that before . . . 2 DJ setups, full lineup of DJs, lots of people, all in someone's house (you can tell it was in someone's house because I described it as a "house party", and I just told you). Not that people didn't enjoy themselves . . . but I think I did to a greater extent. Plus I got to meet some cool people like Peter (It should be spelled "Pitr"), Kristy (spelling? is this even the right name?), and umm . . . I want to say Stacy . . . I suck at names sometimes. Sometimes they just click but sometimes they just don't seem like their name is what it really is . . .

ben aren't you so lucky... two posts in two days, and i think this one might even make some sense. i found a cool place to go to every other wednesday (which on my current schedule means more like every fourth wednesday)... it's called prime, it's at red in d.c., aaron hedges is the dj, he's quite good. you can hear some of his stuff on spinplicity. do most djs have to be part of some movement of some kind or other? i meet all these developers with the same story... i wanted to build games... i didn't as a matter of fact, i fell into it backwards, remember? but most of the djs i know want to form some type of collective, and promote music and "the scene" in their area. is there something going on in those headphones that i don't know about? wouldn't it maybe be more successful if more than 3 of them were in each group? i mean, there are probably 15 such groups in baltimore alone, on the conservative count, no? well, i don't want to turn that into a rant, it's just a thought i just had. maybe i'll make a web site for them... what's your dj name, what's your cause? whee.
slow week this week i guess... just waiting with bated (yes, not baited) breath for friday. all the previews have been great haven't they? yes, quite enigmatic for most people, i know, but hey, if you don't know the only subject i'm mysterious and dopey about, then who are you and how did you find my site? last night was awesome though, aaron spun really well, i was very nearly tempted to get up and dance. and the place was filled with a good twelve people, including aaron. and me. and the bartender. poof, that's awesome, in my opinion. i know he'd want more people, especially on his birthday (they did come later, unbind your panties), but i like it not crowded more. scene schmene. the vibe is your own vibe... nuts to them if they can't take a joke.
work today was good at least. and, by work i mean the place where i sat and played on the computer. what a good running joke this is, no? and by no i mean... well, yes, i guess. ok, that's enough of that. i'm waiting for jerome's mix to finish downloading. maybe i'll get all of it this time... the first 13 minutes sounded really good, hehehe. i guess that is all... go do something meaningful, like making tea or bouncing a lacrosse ball off of a brick wall (it's really cool when it hits the edges, ehh?)

6/5/2002 ben right, so then... after reading the bleat every day for a couple of weeks again, i'm struck by the rather bubblish, nonrelevant world you would be in if your entire source of knowledge was me. it's not that i don't care about what is going on in the world, or that my issues are any more important, it's that there isn't much for me to say that would change matters, now is there? i had a long conversation about dealing with problems last night. a problem came up last night at work, some data hadn't been verified correctly. people were running around like mad trying to find out who's fault it was. well, if you had done this, or if he had done this, then we wouldn't have this proble, yadda yadda yadda. i came back in to the office (i was getting the urp blagh cleaned off of my door, thanks andi) to this mess... looked at the problem and sat one of the guys down to fix it. (if you care, it had to do with trailing spaces and capitalization not being checked for when validating or inputing the data... so THIS is different than this)

well, after i had done this, people were so eager to tell me that if i had checked for trailing spaces before hand, this wouldn't have happened. really? you just wasted 5 minutes of my life to tell me something a)that i already knew, b)can't do anything about now and c)have done once... once... in a year and 7 months. so what did we gain from that? not much. i'm a much larger fan of working through a problem rather than blaming someone for it. because then the problem gets solved... and you have his shoes... no wait, that's walking a mile in a man's shoes...

anywho, the "maniacal laughter" is getting out of control here, so i'm going to have to wrap this up soon i guess. today's sites were brought to you by gophersex.com and the letters m, y, h, a, t, and istootight. local news to follow, updates at random times after the first cup of tea each morning.

6/3/2002 muhgcee - and by "muhgcee" I mean shut the hell up

OK, people, listen up. And by "listen up", I mean "read this". To do what I have set an example of above, you have to make sure that the words that you are replacing fit, and make sense, into the sentence. You can't say "I love SUVs. And by 'love' I mean 'SUVs are vehicles from hell and the drivers are even worse.'" See, now, that just doesn't work. You end up with the mutated sentence of "I SUVs are vehicles from hell and the drivers are even worse SUVs." Then you will sound like an idiot to the person who is constructing the new sentence in their head. Also, you can't just use this technique for the hell of it, such as "I would like the salmon, and by salmon I mean jumbo shrimp." They will probably end up giving you the salmon and charging you for the jumbo shrimp if you do something like that. This technique must be used for humor purposes only. You can use it to emphasize sarcasm that is already evident, such as "I am really excited to help you move tomorrow. And by 'really excited to', I mean 'despising to such a degree that I am seriously considering ripping my own eye out so I won't have to'". See how it works now? I am leaving work now, maybe more later.

5/28/2002 ben 1 p.m. i've been here about 4 hours and haven't really done anything. well, i went to lunch and got a cotton candy flavored snoball... does that count? oh, and i've got d.j. shadow's new album... when i hear it, i'll let you know how it is. hehe. if i didn't have in the neighborhood of 700 songs on this computer, it would make it a lot easier to categorize and set up the songs in a good order, but as it is, this is mighty difficult. now then... on to the meat of the day... i've been thinking a lot about new governments recently. i watched a show on the history channel last night that went through the opening years of washington's presidency. side note here, it must have been pretty cool that while he was president, they were building a capitol for him that was named for him... anyhow, they had to deal with lots of issues in their first decade that are coming into play for many countries today. of course, now they have the u.s. to help them out (and by help them out i mean tell them how we want them to do it), but we didn't. i don't think a lot of people understand that. there were 30 guys, from various walks of life and diverse (albeit often well monied and/or affluent) situations, who basically sat down and tried to come up with the best way to run a country. they had to deal with economics, social standards, personal and group liberties, just about every aspect of how and how much a federal government should affect its people. i don't know, i think they did a pretty good job. it's a story worth checking out. very interesting. that and muhgcee raised an interesting point to me, saying that there aren't really any politicians that are atheist or agnostic. meh. that is all.

5/22/2002 muhgcee I am not even going to try to top Ben's Dune-Roman-afterlife post. I think he is the only person alive that can possibly connect those things within a few sentences. Well, he was the only person, because now anybody else could come here and just look at what he wrote . . .

The semester is finally over tonight at 8. I am looking forward to celebrating that very fact tonight. If you see this in time, maybe you should join me? Maybe more later. Maybe not.

ben update or three... chilledbeats.org is one of my new favorite sites, it's going up on the left, i like it so much, grin. i'm also listening to a cd i borrowed from someone at work, called "ultra.chilled 01" it's like any major in college, that's how i view it. most of the stuff you take because it's there, sounds pretty cool, but after a while you notice that it's not what you were really looking for. it even has the thematic option, in the form of kruder & dorfmeister (original bedroom rockers) and thievery corporation. the second disc looks a little bit better, your upper class years always are, but i haven't gotten to it yet. man... what a day of chillout reviews, snicker.

5/21/2002 ben i have to find some time to organize the rest of the site... or at least make it less ugly. i downloaded two albums yesterday and today, first was herbert: bodily functions. that was pretty good, a little bit more of a stock feeling for me, nothing got my attention. today it was a guy i've pestered many of you about before, yonderboi: shallow and profound. the stuff is not quite dronology, hehehe. no, really, it's a great assortment of songs to listen to at work, or drive to, or, dare i say it, chill out to. i guess that's all i have for album reviews... now on to other stuff. i constantly try to bring new and different trains of thought out here, to avoid the redundancy and repetitiveness that bores me, and i hope, would bore everyone else. in the great scheme of things, i don't know what each of us will become a part of, the ebb or the flow of our world. reading the dune books... one kind of wonders, who, other than muad'ib will remember us in a few thousand years? how many romans can you name, other than some emperors, jesus, maybe, and some writers (note here, socrates was not, however much you want him to be, roman... he was greek)... anywho... enough with the maudlin... i'm going to try and find a ride into d.c. for thursday. i'm told that i should go see apple spin at some free show... comments? snicker.

5/20/2002 ben sorry i crashed through your window on acid. i don't know why it has to be so hard, but my parents are treating my shopping for a new car as the most dangerous activity ever undertaken since columbus crossed the atlantic. it's possible, i'm certain, to find a car without either selling my soul or losing all my money and most of other peoples' as well, no? in other news, z's party was great fun, for most of us, for most of the night, hehe. some strangeness, some zaniness, but all in all, was good. how's that hand? however, i've learned that it's a lot more fun to think about situations than to be tossed into them. we can all do the little white tower thing and keep our morals up there, but even if we've dissertated about the right or wrong of certain situations, in the end, we all just want things our way, when we want them. i think that is why we work so hard. we have a wide range of things to want our own way, and need to work hard to get those things. anywho, enough of the random, stream of consciousness writing. i'll get on to other things, hehe.

5/8/2002 ben yeah, what to write about today... check out the bleat for the seventh, it's really good. i saw spiderman, didn't get as much out of it as lileks did, but liked it enough. you know... i did think of something. when i was growing up, i had these dreams about flying. i couldn't fly like, up high, but a few inches off of the ground... and i had to flap my arms, and not think about it, or i couldn't do it. to start, i would, like a smaller, more dressed arthur dent, try to throw myself at the ground and miss. then i had to flap, but not wildly, gracefully... and i could only do it a few inches from the ground. a few months ago, i could though. i just started being able to go higher. maybe i'm more confident. it all started when i met that one girl though... and still don't have confidence about her. or in her. or around her. snicker. she and confidence just don't live in the same zip code. and their kids would go to different schools and get in scuffles all the time.

look at this by the way, muhgcee has a post as long as mine, and he used paragraphs... damn...

5/7/2002 muhgcee No idea what I am about to start talking about, but that's all right because I thought several times over the past few days "I should post that on Ben's interweb page."

OK so I was reading my biology book (yeah yeah yeah, who wants to hear about biology) and I found out, although I have probably heard this a few times before, that smoking kills more people each year than AIDS, car accidents, homicide, suicide, and I think one other thing combined. Wow. Put that in your pipe and smoke it. Pun intended. So you would think people would consider these things before they start smoking. Well, maybe they do, but I guess the advantages outweigh the disadvantages for them. Not sure what the advantages are, but I guess there are at least some people who know what they are.

You all probably already know about all of the other bad things associated with smoking, so I won't really go into them. But, now I am going to sound like a smoker. What the hell are with the high-ass taxes on cigarettes? Its the government trying to outlaw cigarettes without actually outlawing them and turning a huge profit at the same time. I don't need my government telling me what I should and should not do. That's an insult - saying that I can't make these decisions for myself. Some will say that there should be the high taxes because it is often times the government who ends up footing the medical bills for these people. Well, instead of going through the government for that, why not have insurance companies charge even more than they already do for insurance for these people? That would make the most sense, in my opinion.

I hold the same opinion for a few other things. I don't like it when the government gives tax rebates when you buy a house. I should be able to live out of a hotel and have the same economic standing with the government. It seems as though the government is practicing social "guidance". So in communism there are actual laws saying what you can and cannot do, and in American democracy there are laws suggesting what you can and cannot do. I am not suggesting that our government is nearing communism in the least bit, I am just saying if you hate communism, look at the slight similarities with our own government.

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