lalalalalalalalalalalalala, I can't he-ear you....

Lala is no longer accepting new members as of today and they will be shutting down on May 31st.  A sad day for low income music lovers indeed.

it's like a nut...

(TV ad reference, let's move on...)

Yeah...it's weird not having much of a reason to shell out $3-$15 for each album I want to listen to...I guess I'm addicted to the notion of collecting music...I say "notion of" b/c it's been a looong time since I ever collected CDs...I've bought a lot of 'em, but they don't stay together, thus "collection" is out of the equation, thus "collecting" does not apply...
  idk...I guess there's a lot of facets to the behavior I engage(d) in, when it comes to buying CDs.  Maybe not a lot, but it would sound like a lot if I said I am addicted to THREE things, since addiction to ONE thing seems like a shocker in and of itself...and I don't know what the other two things are; I know there's shopping...I guess the possession of material objects is another...
  Thanks, LaLa.  Not only for increasing my ability to spend money on non-music...but for letting me put my life in perspective...not that I don't do that enough as it is, but...thanx...

wwwwwwweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeiirrrrrrrrrd...

woah, man, there's like this new thing, it's called a web-album!  It's SO freaky, 'cause like I don't have to own the physical album, it's like 1/10th of the price of a typical (legal) album download and it's there for you whenever you're online and don't mind going to LaLa.com, and the artists get their fair share, and it's even cooler for a guy like me who always gets rid of their music, you don't have to pay $3+++ to get it back, just a dollar or so, maybe more if there's, like, a lot of songs on the album...woaaaaaaah!!

the two hour limit?

I've been researching companies that convert VHS to DVD, and none that I have found offer a reasonable price for converting, for instance, THE EXORCIST (2 hours and 1 minute) from Vhs to DVD.  A lot of them don't offer the option to convert over 2 hours at ANY price.  It's simply not an option for these people.  A "video capture device" costs about $50 or so, and I'd have to have a DVD burner in my computer, which I don't...I guess as seldom as I watch the same movie, I probably won't kill my (select few) Vhs tapes anytime soon anyway...and when I do, maybe DVD AND Blu-Ray will both be extinct, a new video format having been ushered in...

these are my private things...

I'm about finished listening to Live's 1994 masterpiece THROWING COPPER and I can't believe how much I keep downing myself - I keep basing my future on the present.  I think "this sux...and then I'll die".  I guess life is like anything else - it doesn't last.  So, yeah, maybe a lot of my life will suck, with or without good things, such as a receiver and music..., but that doesn't mean I need to shut the good things out...I mean, yeah, the COST of everything is totally rediculous given how much money I will have been givin by the time I'm dead, even if I live to be 80+ (which given my current health is somewhat doubtful - I weigh 250 lbs apprx and that hasn't changed in over 2 months...) and how much time I will have spent using everything...but really, a CD, one that one doesn't listen to often, is typically priced as such - $5 or less including S&H, on Amazon...and a receiver encompasses ALL the music I listen to.  So that's not a bad thing to buy for $300 or less...of course, there's also speakers, but I just found a pair of REALLY high quality ones for a blowout price of $80 (MSRP is $400)!!  i don't know if my sister will be up to using her CC to buy them for me (I'd pay her back, of course, I'm no mooch...) but here's hoping for good news tomorrow morning or afternoon...I already have an SACD/DVD-Audio player.  Thankfully I (still) got that covered, even after several attempts at selling it.  One time it almost sold, but the dude quickly wrote to me telling me if I couldn't be sure it would arrive within like 5 days to just cancel the order.  So...I did...but yeah.  I don't know what it is, I just get in moods I guess.  I've been feeling really pessimistic about the future.  I guess that's not called for.  Not like it helps the time I still have on this Earth.  It'll be gone too soon, but it's gonna seem that much longer, and that much suckier (a VERY bad combo if I do say so myself...) if I don't try to progress...

This is only 15 CDs, but I might add more if I think of any that are worth anything...

American Football - s/t
The Cranberries - Everybody Else Is Doing It, So Why Can’t We?
Crash Test Dummies - God Shuffled His Feet
The Cure - Disintegration
Genesis - …And Then There Were Three…
Genesis - Invisible Touch
Genesis - Live/The Way We Walk Volume One: The Shorts
Genesis - Live/The Way We Walk Volume Two: The Longs
Genesis - Three Sides Live
Genesis - Wind & Wuthering
The Get Up Kids - Something To Write Home About
Hidden In Plain View - Resolution
Live - Throwing Copper
Alanis Morissette - Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie
Oingo Boingo - Skeletons In The Closet: The Best Of

music...

After all these years of living with boomboxes and knowing there's another level out there, it comes as a rather depressing shock to find out that one of the best bands in rock's albums weren't even recorded in stereo!  I'm referring to The Beatles, although some of their later albums, their best ones in most folks' opinion, ARE in stereo, but my point is that "hi-fi" audio didn't exist for a LOOONG time.  Music, meanwhile, has ALWAYS existed.
  And what's more, most of the ***GREAT*** music of this day and time isn't owned by big-money-making companies with all the latest hi-fi auido gear at their disposal.  So: when I think of owning a receiver with speakers, instead of a DVD player thru TV speakers, it sounds rather sleek and chic, but what does it accomplish?  It doesn't make the music I listen to any more enjoyable...a boring CD is still a boring CD...
  speaking of which, why the heck is LastFM playing all this junk?  My Chemical Romance is NOT my cup of tea...I don't even remember the song they were playing b4 that one...I just "banned" the MCR song, now they're playing "Damn Regret" by The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus.  Not a bad song, nothing envigorating tho...

if u seek backup...

i'm down to two CD albums:
GENESIS - INVISIBLE TOUCH (1986, Atlantic)
VARIOUS - 90'S RADIO (2009, Rhino)

I do however have...eh, maybe 15 albums on DATA disc.  If I were a normal human type, I wouldn't have much an excuse for breakin' the law like that (law says if you burn a CD that you buy you're not supposed to get rid of the CD or the CD-R...), but, you see, with me, I've been in this stupid cycle of buying a CD, selling it and buying it again, selling it again, then re-buying it AGAIN!  There's VERY few respected-by-me CDs that I haven't re-bought at least 3+++ times.  In a lot of instances the number is twice or thrice that amount.
  So what should I be spending my money on anyway??...food is bad except for the basic 3xmeal and...eh, maybe a snack or two wouldn't hurt but the meals better be darn healthy and small!  Neither of those trats apply to the majority of what I eat, mealwise or non.  and then there's music...which I don't value enough to keep.  I mean, there's emusic, that's $13 right there...eh, I guess a latte every other day or so wouldn't be so bad, if I could keep my teeth out of all the other, more junkier foods...
  I guess books aren't such a bad thing to buy, even if I have no "real" intention of actually READING them...I bought a book titled CRASH by J.G. Ballard - for the second time (counting?) - a couple months ago, and sold it 'cause...I don't even remember why.  I guess it was a combination of not feeling comfortable reading that instead of the stack of books I'd then-recently checked out from the library, and...ihhhhhhhh...I'm just not an avid reader - I hate sitting down and reading stuff that has no bearing on anything.  So many books are supposedly so "deep" and "insightful", yet few of them provide any real profound moments.  I got 50 pages through THE FOUNTAINHEAD by Ayn Rand, and felt intrigued by it, but like help I'm gonna read 700+ pages of that thing!  I guess it may be worth it, but it seems rather ludacrous that a book about architects and architeture could plausably provide a meaningful presentation of the threat of fascism...I guess it could, in a rather THE DARK KNIGHT-esque kind of way...uuuuuuuhhhhhhggh...i get so sick and TIRED thinking about this crud.  i'm tired half the time as it is, i don't know what to do about any of this...but action isn't my cup of tea anyway, so, really, it's more like "I don't know what to buy" that woud make me feel better...I guess I'm dying...well, not likely, but, ya know...psychiatrists etc. don't seem to know what's wrong with me, so I guess there could be any # of things wrong with me that haven't even been detected.  They say everyone's DNA is different...
  but back to that other thought - about buying books...it's not like it wouldn't represent who i really am, to any onlookers, people passing by, if anyone(s) were so inclined to take a tour of my room...I mean, what does it say about a person who has half a dozen or more books that have never been read?  It says I'm culturaley aware, easily bored, aimless...basically everthing about me, good and bad.

be bitter if you insist, but these are the facts...

I was trying to think up reasons for owning the six albums/CDs on my list of MUST-HAVE music, and the simplist reason I could think of for owning Hootie & The Blowfish's CRACKED REAR VIEW was "it reminds me of Bill Clinton".  And the first thing that came out of this hypothetical intruder's "mouth" was: "what's so great about Bill Clinton?".
  First thing's first: politicians lie - they promise the world and then they don't do squat.  That's how Ronald Reagan won, and that's how Barack Obama won.  But that's just the beginning; A LOT of politicians have a big long dirty laundry list.  People can go online and look up any given list, but most people refuse to do so.  Most people are nieve enough to think such a thing isn't even an issue.

But here's the thing I like about "Bill Clinton": there IS no Bill Clinton - the guy who was seen on television and in court and on MTV etc....he did and said nothing to win the election; the guy openly admitted he was a total joke and had no business doing something serious like politics.  Those, of course, weren't his words, but you get the idea...of course he HAD to say SOMETHING, but nothing that came out of his mouth had any weight to it.
  When it comes to "getting stuff done" (which never happens anyway), Bill Clinton had nothing to offer.  HOWEVER, for those who don't hold their fear of gay people close to their heart and aren't completely stripped of their good nature, Bill Clinton was a symbol - he was a symbol of freedom, happiness, and living life carefree and to the fullest.  Did he enable or extend the everyday person's ability to actually DO any of those things?  Not really.  But people saw his picture or heard the name, and that's what rung in people's minds.
  Given that fact, I think Hootie & The Blowfish's CRACKED REAR VIEW was perfect for the time and stands as a reminder of the days prior to 9/11, when it became all too obvious how fragile all our lives really are...

hi-fi x 3...

Well, so far it seems as if there's THREE titles that I can buy in hi-fi.  Aside from LPs, which are a pain in the ass to take care of, and very costly to maintain, there's two hi-fi formats for audio - SACD (Super-Audio Compact Disc) and DVD-Audio.  Oddly enough, considering the numerous OOP titles on DVD-Audio, 2/3 of the titles that I want that are available in hi-fi ARE in DVD-Audio.

GENESIS - Wind & Wuthering; remastered AND remixed by Nick Davis.  This one's in SACD.
MINERAL - The Power Of Failing; mid-90's emo, from the days when emo was a lot more brash and less radio friendly.
STAIND - 14 Shades Of Grey; this one's actually a little nostalgic, as it had a handful of songs that were on my local modern rock station when I still listening to it, i.e.: before it got repetitive and lacking in variety.  They play Godmsack-ish stuff more than anything these days, although every now and again they'll get in pre-suck mode for about an hour, as if it were 2003-2005 again.  But yeah, KDMCLP, in their pre-suck days played "Zoey Jane", "How About You?", and "So Far Away" quite often. 

there's 32 titles on my list so far, though.  Kinda bites how little is in hi-fi.......

May, June...

So, I only have $7.35 apprx in "whatever" funds remaining to be spent for this month.  That might be significant, if I can resist going to U Kwik Stop to spend $1.39 w/ tax on a cappuccino or some stupid crup like that...

But for the most part this month is a zombie - dead and walking.

I've been DL'ing a lot of music this past couple days, mainly today...so...I need to buy it.  Just to be good (!!).  So, whatever mood I may be in, I need to get my music collection, i.e.: CDs, straightened out, for the future...whatever that exactly is...

May is pretty bleak, 'cause I owe my sister $40.  But that's still enough money to get 2 CDs
NEW FOUND GLORY - SELF TITLED--10TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION W/ DVD
GENESIS - LIVE OVER EUROPE

I'll probably get them from DeepDiscount dot com.

JUNE
depending on how much these cost, I may get a fifth one, prolly NIRVANA - BLEACH--20th Anniversary Remastered.
1)  FUNERAL FOR A FRIEND - CASUALLY DRESSED AND DEEP IN CONVERSATION (currently under $11 at the Amazon Marketplace)
2)  NEW FOUND GLORY - NOT WITHOUT A FIGHT (currently slightly under $10 via Newburycomics at the Amazon Marketplace)
3)  GENESIS - WIND & WUTHERING (amazon/mktplce hardly ever outdoes Deep on this one...)
4)  PEARL JAM - REARVIEWMIRROR: HITS 91-03 (another NBC@Amazon cheapster, but this one is a legendary 2 disc set EVEN LESS than the $10 NFG CD...it's less than $7.50 for the whole pkg, don't know how long that schtick'll last...)
(?5?) see above

This seems like a bit of a chore, what with waiting and trying to be consistent with my "wish" list contents...so I'll probably see what torrents I DL in the coming weeks and if they are deserving of purchase

....
PS - I have not DL'd PEARL JAM's RVM, since...idk; it's just only awesome on certain occassions - it's kind of like an early/mid 90's grunge/alternative era / college-dorm room days of spring y CD...which I'm rarely diggin' anyway...

((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((

i know it's wrong, what should I do?

Yeah, another quote, sue me.

THE BEGINNING: It was a blimy SUHNI day ( sunny -  get that?)  and for some reason I didn't care to file in my memory we - my mother, father an myself - were at some auto care store...and lo and behold, a GHOSTBUSTERS II (2) AIR FRESHENER - but I was "too obsessed" (...?>...) with the whole GHOSTBUSTERS realm of things, so it was shortly thrown out in a fury of my mother, along with a poster that costs 10x as much as what she paid for it at that time...well, supposing I wanted THAT EXACT poster - it was pretty much a take on the theatrical movie poster, with the 4 dudes affront a new-no-ghost logo.

10 years later - I'm a grown man, more or less, and my heart aches for those sweet days of carelessness and innocence.  No avail.

10 more years go by.  I'm tired of GHOSTBUSTERS, more or less, I've watched it too many times too recently and I'm sort of on hiatus on that stoof.  It is mine, it is of me, I will return to it, me lofe.  NONETHELESS, places that could and might and perhaps SHOOD have GB paraphanelia (sp??) I hunt - I will not rest, until I have found - some sort of ghostbusters thing or anoder.

The more the merrier.

Well, no GB2 air freshener - maybe there never will be another GBII pack of stuff seen widely; the logo pertains to that film and that film only - and that film IS A REALLY FREAKIN' OLD MOVIE - that to some GB "fans" is an embarrasment to the legacy of the first film.  (obviously I'm not of that group...).  Admittedly I did see a GBII shirt at Hot Topic, which isn't even as detailed and thoughtfully made as the GBI shirt I ACTUALLY HAVE (!!!!!) (it's hangin' in there, sorta, after a year and a half apprx; the logo and the lettering has HOOLES, BOO-LITTS!!  HUULES!!  BULLET-HOLES!!  WAAAAA-GIGIGIGIGIGIGI!!!...anyone reading this?), which, UNLIKE A LOT of present-day-madely GHOSTBUSTERS(tm) stuff, HAS THE NO-GHOST LOGO IN THE WORD ...... THE WORD .... WHERENBERG, WHERENBERG (woooooooooooooo)

Ok, I'm gonna repeat that, with a vengance -

the GBII shirt isn't as GOOD as the GBI shirt (which I actually have, THANK YA GESEUZ!) b/c the GBI shirt, unlike a lot of other GB merch, HAS THE NO-GHOST LOGO IN THE WORD - as in instead of GHOSTBUSTERS it's GH(NO-GHOST-SIGN)STBUSTERS ---- sorry I can't type the NGL...

BASICALLY WHAT I'M SAYING IS GBII STUFF IS NOT BEING MADE, AND IF THE TREND OF NO-GHOST-LOGO VERSION 2.0 EVER RETURNS, PPL THAT MAKE THE STUUF DON'T EXPECT PEOPLE WHO BUY THE STUUF TO CARE ENOUGH TO PUT THE CARE GBII STUUF DESERVES INTO THE GBII STUUF.

BUT!!!!! - but, I did find a GB air freshener - NOT A GBII air freshener - BUT! - a GB air freshener ; w/ cool graphics on the pking and an old school sheen on the air freshener itself.

for $4.25 w/ tax - apprx - life is JUST THAT MUCH sweet-er!!!

"duh duh duh - it was his koosin"

Sorry, that re-run of THE BIG BANG THEORY was frappin' hilarious!  If you don't understand, the title it's OK - perhaps I am wrong...but it appears based on the reactions of others when i'm around them that most people don't replay WHOPPin' hilarious television shows in their mind...



AS I WAS SAY-YING!!!  Gosh...

::::  yeah, there was this THING - well, let's back up 10 years prior to the other ten-year-backup...1989 - you get that?  NINETEEN EIGHTY NINE!!  I'LL KILL HER, DA*N YOU, I'LL KEEL HERRRRRrrrrrrrrrrrrr...

Uh, gosh, I'm going nuts.  I don't think I took my meds...anyway;

OOK.  Yeah, well, ya know what?  I don't think anyone cares about what I'm thinking about.  G'day.

in the 'spring'time...

yeah...um...

yeah, I'm on 90's nostalgia-high; I bought a "90's Radio" compilation from TARGET (0) (??...cruppy imitation, I know, go home...).  Price wasn't all that snazz, but IT'S A GREAT compilation.  I remember paying A LOT more for this mish mash of 90's gems that was like...idk; they just weren't sequenced right.  It was an OK compilation if you wanna use the helk out of your '<>' button and listen to one or two or so songs at a time instead of just sit down and go through a 'playlist' of songs, like you would with the radio; I know there's no official scientific order to the songs that are played on radio, but there IS order.  It takes a skilled ear to figure out what to play after Natalie Imbruglia's "Torn" (1998) w/o playing THE SAME SONG each time, but such ears do exist.  
If you see eye to eye w/ me on this concept, here's the CD you might wanna stay away from - it's called FOREVER 90'S.  It sux.  I know about these things...

This one is called "90's Radio".  It's a good CD.  It looks really cheap and campy, and the description about "sipping lattes" and whatever is totally not in sync with the town I grew up in when those songs were discovered by me and my peers.  There may have been a Starbucks in town, but I sure as heck didn't know where it was...now we in Cape Girardeau are graced with three of them, if you count the "Barnes & Noble Cafe'", which technically ISN'T a Starbucks, but "proudly brews" Starbucks coffee...

But yeah...AND THE WEATHER!  It's like something out of a filmmaker's vision of Heaven, complete with requisite Enya songs etc...PURE MOODS prolly doesn't sound like a clear comparison weatherwise when you consider the music on the "90's Radio" CD that I just spent several minutes typin' aboot, but then again it's not like I listen to New Age all that much.  Heck, I've gotten sick and tired of the 1st PURE MOODS CD.  The follow ups were kinda bland, although the third one had its moments, namely "Porcelain" by Moby...

With the weather and this awesome 17-song CD, all is well in my world.  For now at least...