Tonight while looking for music, I realized that instead of doing my usual search for new stuff I hadn't heard I was pretty much only looking for songs I used to like and getting them again. I presume this means I've officially crossed some line where all new stuff sucks and I'd rather just live in another time period. This must be another step towards becoming an old crank. I can't wait.
Pantera's cover of Sabbath's “Hole in the Sky” feels a little forced. Like, if I were to decide “I'm gonna play this Sabbath song exactly the way Dimebag would.” I think I would have done exactly what Pantera did to it, crank up the distortion, add a bunch of bending up notes after each chord, speed it up a little.. do my death metal voice, which I can do for about 20 seconds before having a coughing fit.. I guess if you're Pantera and you're going to cover Sabbath you're going to make it sound like Pantera, but it was a little too predictable the way they did it. Not that I should be criticizing Pantera now, since I'm mostly just regretting not getting into them more again before Dimebag died.
I don't know if I've mentioned this already, but Death From Above 1976 will make you want to tear your room apart and throw your dresser out the window it's so good. Just a bass and drums, but don't go thinking ‘White Stripes”, these guys will come out of your stereo and kick the shit out of you before robbing you blind and setting your house on fire.
If anyone ever saw me listening to something like Iron Maiden or Sabbath when I thought no one was watching they'd think I was having a seizure or something. I shouldn't even be writing this. But I'm pretty sure it would be impossible for me to listen to something I thought was really good with my hands tied behind my back. I'm a severe hand-talker, especially when I get excited, I make gestures that take up the whole room, and it's pretty much the same when I'm listening to music. Air guitar, air drums, Freddie Mercury poses, the works. The fact that I still do it is a good indication that I'll likely never consider myself a grown-up.
Is anyone else besides me still paying any attention to the new Simpsons episodes? The thing is, they're getting way out there with the randomness. Like this week, to explain what they did with the kids when Homer and Marge go off to Aruba, they just stick them in a European balloon race, for no reason. I love it. And the week before, the episode where Marge adopts Nelson, was a much darker look at the characters than they ever usually do. Nelson's mom never feeds him, runs off with men at the drop of a hat, and it's all really funny but very ugly as well. Like they're testing you to see how far they can push the limits of what is funny versus what is sad. Same with the Lisa subplot about her weight, they manage to completely remove her dignity, and by that they really get further into the screwed-upness of being a young girl than any teen drama can, by allowing themselves to go to the absurd, they can illustrate the true emotion and resulting illogic of action. Bottom line, if you thought the Simpsons wasn't funny any more, you're definitely mistaken, but it's very much turned inward and are making story lines that can really mostly be appreciated by long-time fans.
Opera is still the fastest web browser on Mac OS and Windows. If it could only do JavaScript properly I'd use it all the time. Firefox is still a tad bit 'heavy' interface-wise, probably just because it doesn't use native widgets. Scrolling and bringing up dialog boxes is just a few milliseconds too slow it seems.
I should really stop eating out so much. If only because the experience is becoming less a nice time away from work and the world and more a rushed, unpleasant experience. I guess this is also partly just my work habits, etc. My favourite thing to do at lunch is to just go home, re-heat something I made the night before or just throw together a sandwich, then take the dog for a walk for about 45 minutes or so, then go back to work and not feel restless at all.
(al)
