This is the pattern of sound in my home right this minute. I’m not there now, but I know that the beeping continues because, it turns out, we don’t have any 9V batteries in stock. I’ll be hitting the store during lunch, indeed, so that when I eventually get home I can do something about the smoke alarm at the top of the upper stairway.
The one that woke me up at about one-thirty and interrupted my sleep many times until my alarm finally went off, that is. (I’d also like to thank the waste management service for the nearby apartment complex for emptying their dumpster at quarter ’til six in the A.M. Rock on with your bad, noisy selves.)
Am I tired? Oh yes, yes I am tired. It’s going to be a long, long day. The only “arrr“s you’ll be hearing from me will be growls of frustration…
Fourteen. This is it. Summer is at a close, and so is this silly little project.
I didn’t save a particular artist for last, but I sort of like the way things ended up. For all of the mindless pap you find before, during and after your average bit of anime, sometimes you get lucky and hear something from Yuki Kajiura. Her style definitely isn’t for everyone. This project hasn’t been about what everyone likes, though, has it?
Since we’re wrapping this up, and because your typical soundtrack cut is shorter than most regular songs, I threw in an extra track. I hope you enjoy “Key of the Twilight,” “Liar You Lie,” “Nowhere” and “Melody (Salva Nos version).”
1. Take a picture of yourself right now.
2. Don’t change your clothes, don’t fix your hair…just take a picture.
3. Post that picture with NO editing.
4. Post these instructions with your picture.
I’ve been… busy. Making contraptions, that is. Intermittently. After work, mostly.
Allow me to show you my bizarre creations, won’t you? Note that the only contraptions I’ve bothered to save are those which satisfy some “above and beyond” quirk of mine. For instance: Don’t Stop completes the goal in mere seconds, but the fun part is watching it climb the hill and throw itself off the side. Four Plus 1 is an exercise in very, very slowly removing all four of the accessible orange balls. As with all of my creations, the trick is to click the “back” button when prompted as the goal is reached.
For her part, Erica managed to get three of them in the same challenge with her Push and Roll. That’s right, I hooked my darling daughter on Fantastic Contraption. You know what? She’s not doing too badly. Her solution for “Mission To Mars,” Chain Reaction, elicited a forehead slap from me. “Why didn’t I think of that?” (My solution to that puzzle didn’t warrant posterity, I assure you.) Her Push-Over is a much more creative contraption to solve “U-Turn” than what I’ve done so far, too. (I have an idea, I just haven’t been able to make it work yet. Argh.) Erica showed promise right from the start with her straightforward yet amusing LastMinuteSave.
Back when I possessed even less of a clue about life and love than I do today, I met a girl and she introduced me to her favorite band. To be fair, she introduced me to several of her favorite bands but most of them didn’t grab my attention. She was my first love, and I fell like a lead brick. Our relationship spanned two states, crossed the mighty Columbia, and lasted a couple of months.
I was a complete wreck for twice that long afterward. As I said: Clueless. Also: Wholly unprepared. I was replaced by a local jock on Christmas day, so some of it was justified. Let’s say, oh, two or three days’ worth. The rest of it? A total waste of energy. (Sorry, Dad. You had to put up with me. No jury in the world would have convicted you, when you get right down to it.)
While it lasted, we traded mixtapes on the handful of occasions when we could meet. I sent her an assortment of stuff, mostly Pet Shop Boys if I remember correctly. (PSB comes to mind because their excellent album, Behaviour, formed most of the soundtrack during my terribly “emo” recovery period.) In return I received a significant portion of her Depeche Mode library. Violator was one of the biggest albums around at the time, but I also received a well-rounded ‘cheMode education covering all of their studio work and some live material and some videos and so on.
You shouldn’t be surprised to learn, knowing all of this, that Depeche Mode is the only band from which I have more singles than the Pet Shop Boys. I’ve only picked up a couple of their albums post-Violator and they’re decidedly hit-or-miss, but I don’t regret having them take up so much space on my shelf. They suit a particular kind of mood that I suppose most people use NIN for. Too bad I can’t really get into NIN, eh?
I didn’t actually set out to select songs whose titles all begin with the letter ‘S’, but here you go anyway. Please enjoy “Stories of Old” from Some Great Reward, an outtake from Violator called “Sea of Sin” and Playing The Angel‘s “Suffer Well.”
We’re almost done, folks! I wonder if any of you can guess who’ll be closing out this little series…
I received a text message early this afternoon with the news that the long- (long, long, long) awaited software update to Windows Mobile 6.1 is finally available. So, like the versionitis-afflicted waterfowl that I am, I hurried off to upgrade. There were some difficulties at first, such as the USB connection to the laptop going sour early on in the first attempt, but eventually the update installed and ran.
The upside? Overall, WM6.1 evens out many of the rough edges from the at-release version of the OS on this phone. Among the nifty new items is a built-in feature that you used to have to hack in: The ability to configure the “X” button so that programs actually quit instead of merely hiding in the background. On a device with not nearly enough RAM (is there ever enough?) to run more than a few apps, this is a gift from heaven all by itself.
The downside? Somewhere in the process, my phone’s authentication code with Verizon got wiped out. I can’t send or receive calls or text messages. Even better: In order to fix the phone, I have to call from… another phone! Since I’m not about to try juggling two cellphones, I think I’m going to simply wait until I get to work tomorrow.
Here’s hoping that there aren’t any personal emergencies in the next eleven hours…
