Reality

I would by no means categorize myself as one of those reality television addicts. I really only watch the auditions for American Idol [with the notable exception of Adam Lambert's season, which I watched in it's entirety] and those marathons of America's Next Top Model, but I by no means HAVE to see a reality show.

And then of course My Life As Liz had to go and pop up on the television. I'm caught between wanting to shake my fist and say, "Damn you Liz Lee!" and having to watch it whenever it comes on. Granted, I'm pretty sure I just saw the last episode and that I am beyond late in seeing it, but still. I have never really cared this much about the life of someone else that I did not personally know that was not a fictional character.

However, I think that aside from her being absurdly cool, I really like the show because of the parallels I find between her life and mine. I'm not saying by any means that my life is as interesting as hers or even really resembles her very much, but there were enough similarities to hold my interest.

See, she's kind of a music snob and the show chronicled her senior year. She abstained from things like high school parties and other things that were and still are pretty much a no-no for a typical nonconformist or "enlightened" high schooler. But I liked how she was honest too. Like how she said it was her senior year and even though she wouldn't typically do things like parties and prom, she did want to try new things.

But mainly, aside from being a sometimes funny, nerve wracking, and always interesting look into someone else's life, Liz kind of epitomizes two things I really value--living life without regrets and going after your dreams.

But yeah. It'd be cool if they followed her to New York and things like that, but I'm pretty sure I wouldn't watch. Not because I don't think she'd not be interesting, but because I'm actually trying to cut down my television consumption and because I think the main reason I watched was because she was a high school senior trying to figure out the shit in her life and I was a high school senior doing much the same.

Now she's in New York and living her life and I am still trying to get where I'm going.

Wow, that previous line sounded a little depressing. It wasn't meant to be.

Continuing About Commercials

I love the Fruit Of The Loom commercials, they're doing the whole "back to school shopping" song right. And the "Flawless" commercial is cool too.

I love those crazy fruits.

Remember that Payless Commercial?

From last post? Well, Macy's and K-mart have their own batches of kids singing songs while all decked out in their new school clothes.

And they're both terrible.

There's...

A rather crummy kids pop style cover of "Everybody Wants To Rule The World" by Tears For Fears on a Payless commercial. I have no real problems with covers and nothing wrong with kids covering songs. I do however have a problem when they're average or terrible and this one was definitely the latter, no offense to the little girl singing.

Anyway. Working on another project. One third of the way done.

Glee, The Music

Showstoppers 3 Deluxe is a soundtrack for the show Glee and it's the one that has almost all the songs that I want. See, I'm not a complete and total fanboy of Glee. I adore the show, but I much prefer the songs of the second half of the season to the first. The songs from the first half are good, but I'm not eager to listen to them outside of the context of the show.

The only songs this CD doesn't have that I want are Bohemian Rhapsody and To Sir, With Love. Those songs, like all songs from the finale, are on a special CD all by themselves and I was not about to shell out eight bucks for five or six songs. They're good and the former is one of the best Queen covers I've heard, but I can live without having them on my mp3 player.

Back to the record. Lea Michele may be talented, but I flat out don't like her voice. However, I still like the songs she's featured on. The tracks I have on heavy rotation are Hello, A House Is Not A Home, One Less Bell To Answer/A House Is Not A Home, Home, Physical, Rose's Turn, Dream On, Safety Dance, Loser, and Bad Romance. So that's ten out of the twenty tracks.

It was incredibly worth it, because now I can listen to Chris Colfer's voice on the way to school and jam to the new version of Physical. I would love to hear a remixed version of that song that made it even more danceable.

On One Less Bell To Answer, "Since he went away" is sung more effectively than in the original. Not knocking the original, because it's good, but Kristin Chenoweth's voice is stronger but not overbearing. It also marries perfectly with Matthew Morrison's vocals. She made it her own without it having that, "I can do so much better than the original," vibe that I've gotten from some covers (non-Glee covers included).

So...yeah. I know it's kind of silly to care so much about what is not only a soundtrack, but a cover album, but this one is great. I can't wait until the second half of the season is out on DVD. September 14th seems to far away.

New Design

I finally decided to try to do something with the layout. So, instead of being all white, and instead of having a mainly black and white banner (which I did have at one point), I've got this blue background for posts, that yellow image background for the page, and that blue and yellow banner which I made myself. Not gonna lie, I'm kind of proud about it.

The thing about blogger is that the whole coding isn't what I'm used to. I used to be really proficient in HTML, particularly CSS and style sheets. I haven't really done stuff like for real since I was a freshman in high school, but I saved most of the codes. And, well, that's not exactly how blogger does things, so it's was kind of a pain figuring everything out. I know it looks kind of crummy and I could've just used a template instead of doing it myself, but whatever. PRIDE, man.

Speaking of pride, Independence Day is tomorrow and seeing as it's a federal holiday, that means I won't have class on Monday. One small victory. On the news this morning they were warning about the dangers of small fireworks. They talked about three year olds getting third degree burns from sparklers and grown men getting their eyes shot out by bottle rockets.

The news didn't say much after that, on any channels. Aside from some coverage about the oil spill, it doesn't seem like very much is going on. I kind of wish that I liked sports so I could at least watch the world cup, but I actually really hate soccer. The score is always like 2-1. And currently the news is "reporting" on viral internet videos. Wow.

I hate summer. It's too hot and nothing's on but Sister, Sister reruns on the Gospel Music Channel, which means that they block out words like butt, bra, darn, dang, heck, oh my god, and the like (but they still show on captions). This turns statements like, "Get the heck out of here," sound like, "Get the --ck out of here." And I'm pretty sure that you can figure out how my brain translates that sentence.

I know that they tout themselves as a "family channel", but if Sister, Sister is so raunchy for them that they have to have frequent blank spaces, then why even show it? I mean, I can understand the darns, dangs, and hecks--even though I think that's extreme, I can get that--but butt and bra? That just seems silly since everyone has a butt (except in extreme cases) and a good portion of the adult population wears a bra.

But still, I love this show and this is the only channel that shows it. Plus, it's summer and nothing else is on. Unless I want to listen to the anchors on the news try to figure out what fractal geometry is all about.

Dates

I know I'm a little late on this, but September 14th? September 14th? I have to wait until mid September in order to get Glee: Volume 2, Road To Regionals!? It is a travesty.

The only consolation is that ABC Family is showing Boy Meets World in the morning and Fox is supposedly showing re-runs all summer. I have yet to catch one of these alleged re-runs, but that is mainly a result of my failing and poor schedules.

But, yeah. I finally decided to look it up on Amazon and I'm half tempted to pre-order it and half tempted to wait until more people pre-order it because I think that'll make the price go down.

Anyway.

Summer has officially started which means that the temperatures are rising. The heat index is just baffling. Why is the world allowed to get this hot? It's unbearable and I stay inside most of the time. So now, in addition to autumn, Glee is a reason for summer to just end right now.

Meanwhile, maybe that oil spill will be taken care of by summer's end. On the news right now they're talking about the effect this is having on the Vietnamese-American community in the gulf, which is apparently a mainly fishing/shrimping/etc employed community. Also, the ticker says that Senator Byrd died. He was ninety-two. The ticker says that the cause of death is not yet know. I say that, hello, he was ninety-two. The average US life expectancy is seventy-six.

But yeah, back to that oil spill thing.

Setting aside that it was ridiculous that it even happened, there's all these families that no longer have any work because of it. And, you know, this probably isn't helping the unemployment rate any, but it does shine some light on human nature over all.

Most everybody gets angry when things like that happen, which they rightfully should, but then the interesting thing is what they choose to do afterward. Some people get really hopeless and give up, but then other people still have a peppy, hopeful attitude in spite of it all. Such attitudes are not only inspiring, but necessary.

And they're not just necessary in particularly trying times, but at all times. The peppy part can go, but the hopeful part must stay. Because, really, if no one has any hope in anything then they aren't getting anywhere.

Anyway, that's the end of me and the sappy stuff. I've got another episode of Boy Meets World to watch ["Everybody Loves Stuart" for anyone whose interested] along with breakfast and a long day of writing ahead of me if I don't fall asleep first.

Customer Service

Yesterday I bought a CD and brought it home and didn't open it until today (there is no reason why, other than I was very sleepy).

Today, I opened it. It had a lyric sheet, but it was otherwise empty.

The CD was not in there. I was kind of shocked/angered. I have never bought an album before and the disk just not be there.

Luckily, customer service exist. I thought there might be some sort of problem with exchanging it, because, you know, it simply wasn't there, but it was surprisingly easy.

Now, sleep is calling...even though it's only a quarter past five.

Pre-Ordering

So, I pre-ordered this one album [which is out in stores today] and it should get here in the next three to four days. Well, at least according to the e-mail I got. Initially, I was told it would get here in mid June.

Every time I pre-order something, it gets here after I could have already bought it in a physical store. Every time I wonder if it's worth it. Yet, every time I find myself doing it again. I used to tell myself I could stop anytime I wanted, but I'm starting to wonder if that's entirely true.

Also, found some old records in the garage. I knew that some were still there, but I knew most of them got thrown out when I moved. The bad news is that the soundtrack to Oklahoma! was broken in one place. Other casualties include "Green Eyes" by Jimmy Dorsey and "Garibaldi's Hymn" by Enrico Caruso.

The survivors include American Summer by The Beach Boys (which is also in packaging wrap), an album called Sisyphus by a band called Cold Blood, the soundtrack to Godspell, and the soundtrack to Hair.

I haven't gone through them all and still lack a record player, but I am hoping to soon rectify both of those problems.

Because, really, what good is summer without any music?

Also, unrelated [well, kind of]: Glee is having their finale tonight. I am both excited and sullen. At first I was all, "YAY! It's the finale!" then I was like, "Aw, that means it's over for the season. Boo!" But, it will be back, so there is hope.

Yesterday & Today

Yesterday I was going to write, but I spent all day reading things on the internet, like random facts and such. Also, I perused random tumblrs and spent a good amount of time listening to music.

I also voted.

And it rained today. It was hot and the air was thick and my back hurts more than it has in a while.

But at the same time, I'm really happy. Even though I have some serious cleaning to do, even though I have some serious organizing to do, even though I have school tomorrow, and many more even thoughs.

My nails are clean and I'm freezing cold. It's always like this at night. It's time for me to go to bed, but it seems the closer it gets to sleep that more awake I become and my head just buzzes with ideas. Thank you music, no sarcasm there, I promise. Tomorrow [read: later today] should be promising.

I've got brand new yellow towels and an excuse to get a new bath rug. Hello Bed, Bath, & Beyond.