Thursday Evenings with John Mayer

So... I'm back. I was just wistfully thinking about the blog yesterday, and about how I missed it... and then I realized I have complete control of the situation. And thus... the below.


The conversation I had with John Mayer whilst driving in my car tonight:


JOHN MAYER:

Who says I can't get stoned?

Turn off the lights and the telephone;

Me in my house alone...

Who says I can't get stoned?

ME: The POLICE, John. The police say you can't get stoned.


JOHN MAYER:

Who says I can't be free?

From all of the things that I used to be

Rewrite my history

Who says I can't be free?


ME: TWITTER, JOHN. Twitter is why you can't rewrite the past. The sheer size and volume of offensively ignorant things you have said on Twitter makes this impossible, I am afraid.

JOHN MAYER: ...

ME: Yeeeah... I'm just the messenger, buddy.

What I am listening to right now: Guess. 

Until Next time,

Jared

The Hounds of Winter/Monday Morning Whine-A-Thon

So My Beautiful Wife is gone. For Eight Days. Which will be the longest we have been apart in fifteen- and-a-half years of marriage. 

In recognition of the fact that there literally billions of people in the world right now who have it WAY worse than I do, I will NOT go on ceaselessly about how everything is better when she is around, or about how she lights up a room by entering it, or any of those other COMPLETELY TRUE sentiments;

Instead, I will just post the lyrics to an outstanding Sting song that encapsulates my feelings on the subject pretty accurately... And bleakly. The song is from the Sting Golden Era, which consisted of the best two albums of his career: Ten Summoner's Tales, and the follow up, Mercury Falling. This is from Mercury Falling.

Buy the album.

Wallow with me.

The Hounds of Winter

Mercury falling

I rise from my bed,

Collect my thoughts together

I have to hold my head

It seems that she's gone

And somehow I am pinned by

The Hounds of Winter

Howling in the wind

I walk through the day

My coat around my ears

I look for my companion

I have to dry my tears

It seems that she's gone

Leaving me too soon

I'm as dark as December

I'm as cold as the Man in the Moon

I still see her face

As beautiful as day

It's easy to remember

Remember my love that way

All I hear is that lonesome sound

The Hounds of Winter

They follow me down

I can't make up the fire

The way that she could

I spend all my days

In the search for dry wood

Board all the windows and close the front door

I can't believe she won't be here anymore

I still see her face

As beautiful as day

It's easy to remember

Remember my love that way

All I hear is that lonesome sound

The Hounds of Winter

They follow me down

A season for joy

A season for sorrow

Where she's gone

I will surely, surely follow

She brightened my day

She warmed the coldest night

The Hounds of Winter

They got me in their sights

I still see her face

As beautiful as day

It's easy to remember

Remember my love that way

All I hear is that lonesome sound

The Hounds of Winter

They harry me down.

Until next time, 

Jared

I'm coming back.

Just you wait. My Beautiful Wife is leaving for THREE WHOLE MONTHS to finish her schooling, and I will be left to my own devices for the larger bulk of that time...

...And being left to my own devices, if you will remember, is the reason this blog started in the first place.

Expect posts.

And abject depression and misery.

...
...
...
... Mostly the misery thing.

Jared

Listening to:

The sound of my own blood pumping through my ear canal veins.

I've been cheating on you.

That's right, Blogger... My last post was not by accident; I did indeed redirect my readers to a Wordpress site: www.whisperedwords.ca.

That's right... WORDPRESS.

I have been blogging on Wordpress on the side for a while now. I am tired of living the lie, so I posted that last link to just get it out there. I enjoy Wordpress. I have had a taste of Wordpress' features, and have found that it pleases me in some ways that you cannot, Blogger. There is a level of customization available on Wordpress that you just can't match, with your HTML copy-and-paste scripts and your trial and error philosophy. Also, Wordpress cooks better, and anticipates my needs before I even think of them!

To be honest, I feared Wordpress at first- I feared what would happen if you found out that I was "Wordpressing" on the side, but when I sampled Wordpress' wares, I was hooked.

I don't know what to say, other than the truth: WP is better for my music site. My band needs the kind of customization that you can't give, so I had to go somewhere else to be satisfied.

I didn't mean to hurt you. In fact, I still like your Google-centric focus and ease of updating from mobile devices (even if the media add options are a tad stingy), and for my little humor blog, you work just fine... uncomplicated to update and share. But that just isn't enough for me any more. A more robust website needs a more robust blog system with crisp, adaptable templates, and you just didn't have it. So I had to go elsewhere.

I am sorry it had to go this far and be so public, but I had to get your attention, didn't I? We haven't seen each other much as of late, and I wanted to make sure we are clear; I will still blog on you. I just need to see other bloggers for my band-related needs. It's not you... it's me.

Until next time,

Jared

BIG news on the horizon! Also, adorable cat picture. » Whisperedwords.ca

BIG news on the horizon! Also, adorable cat picture. » Whisperedwords.ca

Ten hours better spent...

Greetings!


*NERD ALERT*


I recently tried to watch the first Peter Jackson Hobbit movie for the second time, and realized that, despite the fact that I love the source material and the way Jackson made Middle Earth come to life... That movie was not very well made, pacing-wise. It was padded pretty substantially to make three movies happen, and it felt like it. I also was thinking about the stories told about what the third film is going to look like; it will be the Battle of the Five Armies, and then will bridge the gap between the Hobbit movies and the Lord of the Rings.

UNNECESSARY.

That bridging has already been done IN THE EXISTING FILMS IN A NUMBER OF WAYS. You know how this time could be better spent? This:

My beloved 50th anniversary edition of the Hobbit, with beautiful paintings by Michael Hague for illustration. I have read this so many times I lost count. My mom gave it to me when I was eight!


Just read the Hobbit book! It will take you less than the ten cumulative hours it takes to watch these movies, and tells the story in the much-beloved charming Tolkien fashion; No ridiculously drawn-out sword battles and really bloody weird obese Orc songs, no forty-minute supper scene, no manufactured cliffhangers or Big Bads created specifically to fill time...

Again, I do dig that we have Tolkien on the screen at all... But between the six endings of Return of the King and the "supper in Bag End" scene in the first Hobbit film ALONE, somebody's gotta tell Peter to stop. He made a mess of the Two Towers and created a Nazgul/Frodo confrontation that NEVER happened, simply to give a movie that already had an AMAZING set piece and conflict resolution with the Battle of Helm's Deep another conflict and resolution. And what was that conflict and resolution? Let's see...

Frodo is tired. Frodo wants to put the ring on. Frodo knows he shouldn't put the ring on. But Frodo REALLY wants to put the ring on! Oh no, a flying whatchamacallit! ...now Frodo REALLY really wants to put that ring on! But he doesn't. Conflict over. Movie finished. My forbearance: also finished!
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dear Peter Jackson,
Tolkien actually DID create a cliffhanger ending for The Two Towers; It was the part where Sam thinks Frodo is dead, takes the sword and ring, and leaves on his own to complete the mission. That cliffhanger KILLED me when I was a kid. It would have been perfect. Why you gotta disrespect, Pete?

Love,
Jared
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------



Rant complete. Maybe now that it's out on paper, My Beautiful Wife will never have to hear it again?

... Meh, probably not. I'm diabolical that way.



Until next time,

Jared

Not exactly weekly, I guess...That didn't last long.

Yeah, as the title "suggests", my commitment to weekly updating went right out the window rather quickly.
... Meh.

Anyway, I bought a new Bluetooth headset the other day, and the sheer unbridled joy and excitement I experienced from this purchase of something that most people avoid like the plague forced me to ask myself some hard questions. 

The reason I own one is simple: my job requires me to spend a lot of time on my cell phone for necessary communication, keeping up with my staff, and the dreaded CONFERENCE CALLS. I spend a number of hours each week on the phone, so a bad Bluetooth earpiece that is not comfortable and doesn't have decent battery life and well-thought-out features would suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck. So, I bought a new, high-grade one, and I am still thoroughly geeked-out over it.

So I was seriously self-examining for a bit, and then stopped doing that, and was awesome instead! (Thank you, NPH) 

I will now list my various non-standard obsessions for your enjoyment and judgement:

My smartphone wallpaper theme: 

I have purchased a lot of one-dollar wallpaper redesigns. Does my phone function better? No. Does it change anything except that the wallpaper looks like the inside of a clock, or Spider-Man? No. Will I most likely keep on buying and changing it? Yes.

The aforementioned Bluetooth devices:

I buy nothing but Jawbone devices now for my earpiece needs. I started with the Jawbone Icon a few years ago, went through two of those (they make them rather small and unobtrusive to keep a low profile, and DANG do I lose track of them easily) I upgraded to the Jawbone Era Shadowbox and bought two of those, and now the new Era by Jawbone is just on the market- even tinier, built-in case/battery charge pack, and is molded to fit the natural shape of an ear... 

        That's right. It's that tiny. And sounds amazing.

Superhero movies: I'm a dude. I like superheroes. I like movies. Do the math. Which leads me to:

Graphic novels: I have a weakness for graphic novels of many types. Marvel and DC superhero titles, hard-boiled crime fiction, supernatural thriller, modern myth, you name it. If it is well-written, I dig it. I have a couple of BIG shelving units in the Man-Cave filled up with trade paperback collections of my favorite titles, but have recently gone completely digital. Man, is that a space-saver! Also, reading graphic novels on an iPad with a good comic app and backlit... It's like they were meant to be read that way. Vibrant and rich color, and you can take years of story lines with you every where you go!!

My favorite collected titles: 

The Sandman       by Neil Gaiman

Y the Last Man     by Brian K. Vaughn

Ex Machina          by Brian K. Vaughn

Fables                  by Bill Willingham

(These titles aren't for kids, but are some of most amazing literary achievements of our time. University courses are taught on the The Sandman series alone, which is a study of the nature of story and myth)

Mostly I follow certain authors; the art means nothing without real film-or-novel-level writing behind it. Sometimes you can forgive shoddy art for great writing, though; case in point, Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns. Terrible, terrible art, but what a story!)

Strangely enough, even in this vast city with some pretty successful comic book/collector shops, I have no friends who share this affinity with me, and therefore no one to discuss the graphic novel medium with! I will occasionally meet someone who says "Oh yeah, I love comics!", and so I start talking Marvel vs DC and how you don't really have to choose, and they blank out completely. And then, I realize that I was misled- they had at one time read ONE graphic novel series that a friend recommended, but are not a true aficionado of the medium, and are now looking at me like I am a freak.

Bad Sci-Fi:

I have a weakness for what could be considered Empirically Bad Television, as long as there is a science fiction swing to it. I have seriously slogged through every aired episode of every Stargate TV series, Farscape, Andromeda, Defiance, the Cape (R.I.P.), all available Star Treks, and numerous other televised abominations that I have no excuse for.

Music and Movie Minutia:

About 90% percent of my brain, apparently (a friend made this well-informed guesstimate a while back after a discussion of Star Wars theory).

I... think that is enough freakishness for one sitting.

Until Next time,

Jerek