Lyrics of my day…

Can’t you feel the shifting of the stale air?
He doesn’t care
Her vacant stare
Its getting so cold

Nowhere to go, nowhere to go
It’s getting so old

-Mates of State – ‘Help, Help’

Soxx Win!!!

So… I haven’t posted in quite a while and have been getting abysmal hits in response to my lack of commitment…

Anyway, for those of you interested in my life, I have been disturbingly content (my recent complacency, as always, will inevitably lead to travel in the near future…). Work has recently shown the potential for a trip to TJ as well as an extended stay in New York. If neither of these come to fruition, expect a short holiday… maybe Austin or Florida…  In other news meaninglessness, I took the LSAT again last weekend and am now DONE with it; I am pretty sure I got the exact same score (150… not really, haha), but will wait a few weeks to find out. Also, the soxx are in the playoffs and they are through the first round!! They will be playing the Rays, which should be quite an interesting series considering the matchups this year and the inability of Boston to show Tampa that they are not the team they think they are =P.

As for music, I am still awaiting the Phoenix release, but have been going through my iTunes in the meantime to filter out the music that best suites me now. If you haven’t heard of Neimo, please take a listen:

Neimo – Lines

Cheers,

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Songs about the Soxx

I stumbled upon the youtube profile of Desmond Reed (a Bostonian song writer). Apparently he has written and recorded songs for each player in the ‘08 line-up. This is the most exciting thing that has happened in my life today (second to grabbing a slice of pizza for lunch… yes, it’s been that exciting of a day).

Here is a sample of his work, but make sure to check out his youtube or myspace page.  Actually, his other music isn’t half bad either (he gets points in my book just for being a soxx fan…).

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If you could only have five albums…

…which would they be?  (Post in Comments…)

I was listening to Make Yourself by Incubus this morning and thinking about an old question I used to ask myself: ‘If you were stranded on a desert island, which five albums would you want to have with you?’ I think the ‘desert island’ thing is a little played out, so now I like to situate myself in a post-apocalyptic world where I am the only survivor – that I know of… (Basically Will Smith in I Am Legend)  In this case, you have to consider more than what your absolute favourite albums are. Here are just a few of the guiding questions I used:

Can I listen to the album over and over without diminishing its appeal? (admittedly, I just get sick of some of my favourites…)

If there is another survivor in this destructed world, will she find my choices appealing?

If these are the only five albums to survive the catastrophe, will they adequately usher in a new age of music?

Here is my list:

-Make Yourself  – Incubus  (I kind of foreshadowed this one… it just addresses almost all possible moods)

-London Calling - The Clash (Debated between this and Ramones, I think I made the right decision)

-Interventions and Lullabies - The Format (I love Dog Problems, but I would eventually get sick of it)

-Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga - Spoon (Because I still haven’t gotten sick of it…) sick of it now…

-United - Phoenix (OK, so I put in my favourite also…)

-Puzzle- Tahiti 80

Well, that’s my list as of now…

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The Arrival of Summer

I know it sounds ridiculous to say summer is just starting, as it is almost August, but I am finally feeling my typical summer high spirits (often reffered to by friends as ‘Summer Brett’). For some reason they were stalled this summer – they commenced as usual this spring with red soxx spring training and opening day, but were beaten back by my thesis and my hustle towards graduation. Although being in China for a month following this was probably the best experience in my life – so far – it was not so good for my summer spirits. Returning to the States in June, I felt a bit of a counter culture-shock. Everything seemed so trivial; I hated the simplicity, the lack of challenge and discovery that was omnipresent in Shanghai and Beijing.

I think I now realize that what is best is to seek a balance between discovery and assurance. Still, if I am to lose this balance, I hope to always lean towards discovery. My biggest fear is complacency, to possess a level of comfort and guarantee that inevitably shields any individual from life’s experiences and from their personal potential. I realize I may not be following my personal philosophy by staying in Minneapolis during my gap year, but I am simply keeping in mind the near future of law school tuition and high costs of living. Besides, I still have a lot planned for gap year – regardless of where I am working – and hope to continue to challenge myself (Japanese lessons?!?!?).

I think this realization has been at the centre of my recent high spirits. I am also golfing more, which has a direct correlation to my attitude (sorry, I don’t have SPSS here, so bear with the excel-style chart):

I was also going to make one that had my golf score as the dependent variable, but I’m too busy lazy and it would simply be a straight line, with no statistically significant correlation between my performance on the golf course and my overall happiness

I am pretty much done with the work week already, which has improved happiness indicators. Tomorrow is our company golf outing, so I’ll be hitting up the links all day. Apparently it is my birthday tomorrow (I didn’t forget this year , so I am celebrating my youth – celebrating my birthday the night before, as is my tradition – with a twilight round of golf. But this year I am also celebrating my age (I usually mourn after my birthday…) by taking a little break from work. After the company golf outing I am going to make the drive across Wisconsin to Milwaukee (I might go out if anyone is around on Thursday night… let me know) for the night before heading to Chicago on Friday. I am hopefully going to check out Northwestern and U Chicago Law Schools, catch lunch with my cousin, and hit up Lollapalooza – I just printed my ticket!!! I am definitely looking forward to Bloc Party, who I’ve wanted to see for a long time… Also looking forward to the Go! Team and Mates of State – here is my schedule, let me know if you want to meet up at all.

I may have planned too much for one day though, as I need to get back to Milwaukee for a 7 AM flight to Boston the next morning… wish me luck!  I haven’t been to Boston for a couple of years so I am quite excited for this leg of the trip, even more so because I will be checking out perspective law schools while I am there. Then I have a flight back to Milwaukee where I’ll see my aunt and uncle and then back to Kiel, WI – the little city that does BIG things - for the annual Kiel picnic and some long-deserved Schwartz’s, my all-time favourite restaurant (possibly in a tie with Village Wok). I think I will need to get another round of golf in while in Wisconsin as well…

All of this driving in the next week or two might kind of suck (if you know me you know how much I hate driving/traffic/automobiles), but I do love to travel, so I can set aside my distaste. I am hoping to check out Austin City Limits in September and am considering driving, although flying would probably be a better idea.  If anyone else is interested, let me know – I am willing to do just a weekend trip, as most are still in school =P  Also hoping for Sydney and Spain within the next year (maybe Shanghai again…) – any suggestions for finding cheap flights???

I’m taking a camera along the journey, so expect more flavourful posts when I return

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ブルはいる!!

ブルはいる!  –> That pretty much sums up how I’ve felt the last few days – although I’m sure I wrote that incorrectly.

Anyway, I saw the Dark Knight last Thursday night. Making sure to catch the midnight show was just an excuse to wear my cape… actually, I didn’t wear it, which is unfortunate – opportunities/justifications to wear it are just so rare My judgement of the film may be skewed because I was ridiculously tired, but at three in the morning when the flick finally ended, I exited the theatre underwhelmed. Firstly, shame on the theatre for their lack of concern for the audience’s time and for starting previews after the film was scheduled to start. If they are going to show me advertisements for this long, I don’t want to pay for a ticket; this is essentially generating advertising revenue by deceiving customers. Of course, I am often upset for the same reason at many other movies, so this did not greatly impact my judgement of the movie. On a more serious note, what happened to Katie Holmes? I definitely do not support her crazy life decisions, but I still like her. Plus, her and Aaron Eckhart (best performance in the movie in my opinion) were great togther in Thank You for Smoking (one of my favourites). In the end, I guess I just have never gotten that into Batman; I prefer my Marvel comics I guess.

In other news unimportant events in my life, I had to swap my iTouch because it continued to tweak out. This makes my new iTouch my sixth iPod – buying two and having problems with each twice. I will never buy another Apple product, hopefully – as long as someone eventually steps in and gives me the same/close to as much functionality. The fresh iPod (still haven’t taken the plastic off – I think it’s cool when the mirror is not all scratched so I am delaying it) has heightened my love of music, placing it as the love of my life for the moment.

I’ve been thinking about incorporating some type of music recommendation into my posts to share listening habits (in addition to that sweet RSS feed to the right of my Last.fm). I’ve been contemplating whether I want to try and recommend something obscure or simply a band that I have been listening to a lot. What Made Milwaukee Famous is definitely the latter, as I’m sure you have heard me talking about them for the last six months. They are playing at Lollapalooza, but unfortunately I will not be there on that day (I will see Bloc Party though, so I am not too upset); I’m hoping I can see them at SXSW next year, which would be just as great as Lolla. Regardless of my disappointment, they continue to dominate my playlists, especially since China. I do not foresee this changing until Phoenix finally releases their 2008 album and I shut myself in a room and listen to it for a month straight (of course they did not denote when in 2008 it was to be released and I’m not a very patient person).

I, of course, was not at Bonnaroo, so thanks to whittlz for the shot!

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