Highly Literate Lyrics (a request)

The Mountain Goats are a sort of indie band from North Carolina (wikipedia). I'm a really big fan of them. Hell I almost bought their music.

Some of my favorite songs: This Year, No Children, Up The Wolves (mp3 download)

Anyways, people like to describe their songs as having "Highly literate lyrics". You might also say "pretentious". I like that their songs sound pretentious. I enjoy that aspect of the band. The singer even enunciates his words. Students learning English in foreign countries could probably understand what he's singing.

My request is, do you people out their have any bands you like that you would describe as literate and educated?

Monster Blood Tattoo

So do you like reading young adult/kids books? I do! It's my sister's fault, she's a children's librarian. She recommended a book to me months ago and I stuck it on my GoodReads to-read list and forgot about it.

Foundling, by D.M. Cornish. It's pretty good so far, but what's so cool about the book is that the author created a huge world and has obviously thought out every aspect of it. The back of the book has numerous detailed maps, and at first your mind might think, "Tolkien," but then you flip the page and see drawings of musketmen and ironclad battleships.

It's all very impressive, because unlike some books *cough*Eragon*cough* you don't feel like he's ripping off someone else in an attempt to try to be original. The cultures in the story sort of meld alchemy and fantasy with the industrial revolution.

I think they could make an MMORPG about it...

Tilting Planet

The night before last I had a really weird dream. The only part I can remember is seeing a map of the world where all the continents were in the wrong place on the map, as if the poles had shifted so that the north pole is on Europe. It terrified me. It unnerved me so much that in real life I have a hard time looking at maps if I think about that dream. Sweet dreams!

Ave Cunicule, sapor plenus.

In commemoration of this year's Easter, and it's mascot, the bunny, I've decided to rewrite a latin prayer some of you might know. I don't claim the grammar is perfect. Enjoy.

Ave Cunicule, sapor plenus,
Dominus tecum,
benedictus tu in agris,
et benedictus fructus ventris tui, socolata.
Sanctus Cuniculus, pater ovorum deliciosorum,
liba pro nobis peccatoribus, nunc, et in hora liquationis tuae.
Amen.

Hail Rabbit, full of flavor,
The Lord is with you,
blessed are you among the fields,
and blessed is the fruit of your womb, chocolate.
Holy Rabbit, father of the delicious eggs,
nibble for us sinners, now, and in the hour of your melting.
Amen.

Don't ask me how a male bunny has a womb that lays eggs, it's a miracle or something.

Breakfast and Moving

I took my mom to breakfast today for her birthday. We went to Cup and Saucer, a place on Hawthorne. The prices are decent and the potatoes are amazing. Like, just awesome. We talked about how my sisters and I are interested in weird things. Lucy wants to be a neuro-psychologist or something, she loves to watch how people's brains tick. Jess is a librarian, having just finished her masters degree in... being a librarian. And I'm doing computer science with a bit of linguistics on the side. This from a family who's parents never went to college.

Also, today I'm officially moved back into a real bedroom. Why is moving so much fun? I think it's because it's like a fresh start, or because we get to rearrange things. And there's such a clear purpose. I'm still sad Jess is gone, but having a door might make up for her absence in some small way.

Spring

It's spring now, oh happy day! Except that I'm coughing and sick and miserable. Spring is all about rebirth right? Well rebirth me damn you! *cough*

On a side note, I've come up with a new way to remember the difference between it's and its. It's is 'it is' and its is 'of it'. The way I remember it, is that 'being' is more important than possessing something. So 'being' gets preference for having an apostrophe. It's an easy way to remember the rule, har har.

Home Media Server

I'm itching for a home media server. Over and over again my family needs to watch something from the computer on the TV. Sometimes the Blockbuster online service sends Disk 2 before Disk 1 or maybe ABC.com is only playing the latest 4 episodes of season 5 of Lost on their website. I'm called upon to fix these problems.

I'm always stuck thinking: If only I had a dedicated media server and cheap little linux boxes attached to each TV, life would be so much easier. Anyone in the house could just sit down and watch movies and TV shows with no hassle. My family could just go, "Hey Joe I need episodes 4-9 of whatever show", and then 30 minutes later I would just say, "Alright, the first episodes done, go ahead and watch it."

*sigh* If only I had the money to waste. Someday.... someday.