Gas Prices

I have found that regardless of where you live and what the gas prices are, there is a constant complaint about it. In the US when I left gas was roughly 3 dollars per gallon and people complain. When I was in Aberdeen gas was around 8 dollars a gallon and people complained. Now I am in Dubai and gas is a little less than a dollar per gallon and people are complaining.

I think that no matter where you live gas is just something to complain about.

Though I hear in Saudi you used to go the gas station and they would fill you up for free. Nothing to complain about there.

Fair To Midland - The Written Version

Since I am no longer doing the audio version, I think I will do a written version.

This month marks one year since I have lived in Midland. Last week marked one year with my new job. One year from my first day, my boss came into town to go over my performance contract for 2007. I still like it down here a lot more than I had expected to. Work has been very busy lately, but I guess days pass faster when you are busy than when you have nothing to do.

I have stopped seeing a lot of movies lately because there hasn't been a lot of good things coming out, but in the past couple weeks I have seen a couple that I liked. Hot Fuzz was playing at a theater over in Odessa, surprising, so I went to see it. It was pretty good. Not as good as Shaun of the Dead, but it came close. Its another group of people that will keep making movies and I will keep seeing them. I caught Spiderman 3. I should have waited. There were too many people in the theater for me to enjoy it, that is mostly because no one in Midland has the courtesy required to sit in a movie theater for 2 hours and not talk. It was fun to watch, but I don't think it was anything spectacular. The comedy of the egotistical Peter Parker was terrible, with another actor it might have worked. And finally 28 Weeks Later, this was by far the most impressive of the three movies I have seen lately. The story was great, the way they make the watcher feel isolated is great. There was however on terrible seen that was shot in first person sort of, and you couldn't tell what was going on. Over all though it was great.

Last month I got Yahoo Music Unlimited at work. This was a great decision and possibly should have done it earlier. There is a lot of music I don't own that I am able to listen to, but wouldn't necessarily want to own. I can listen to bands I think I would like, but wouldn't have bought without being able to hear entire tracks. I don't think I have purchased any new music, but I think this is enough.

I heard a great quote about music that I want to pass a long. I don't totally agree with it, but I like it. The quote was "The Beatles ruined rock and roll. They made great music, but they made other people think they could do it too." Following that the person also said that the Beatles are the reason punk rock was created and went on to say that the Clash ruined punk rock, because they made music that was both punk and pop and it made other bands think they could do it. I like what he said and the way in which he said it.

I still live in a tiny apartment, but I would like to find a house. The problem is that I don't commit to it. It is hard to find something when you only look once a month.

Next week I am heading to Farmington, NM. I am thinking that I might come into Denver for a couple of days afterward, but I haven't decided on that yet.

Merry Christmas to all. I am making some decisions regarding web space right now and may not be posting any more audio posts for a while, at least until I figure out what I will be doing. That probably doesn't seem abnormal because I am so lax in getting them posted. If you have any suggestions for web space, let me know. I will take them under advisement.

I am changing the layout of this site for the time being to a blogger template.

On to other things, I do have an audio post up. It will be there for the next 15 days and then it will probably come down because my .Mac membership expires. .Mac is a great idea in theory, but gmail is a much better web based mail service, and the only thing I am using .Mac for right now is my audio posts and hosting a couple of images.

I think I have a problem...

Driving home tonight I remarked to myself about how much traffic there was. Typically this is where one would say that the problem is that they were talking to themselves, however, I think the more important problem here is that I remarked about the amount of traffic when there was really not much traffic. I wasn't even slowed down a little bit. There were just a lot of cars in front of me.

I am definately becoming accustomed to living in a small city.

Fair To Midland #6

It's new, it's probably as boring as the last one, but I am working on getting them more interesting and more on time.

A new Fair to Midland is on the way, I promise. The problem lately has been that I can't get a good one together that sounds ok. And then tonight, when it was decided that I didn't care how it sounded, that a new episode just needed to get posted, Garage Band "Unexpectedly Quit" and I lost the 15 minutes that had been recorded.

So, imagine the song Fever Dog, by the fictional band Stillwater. Got it?

Good...

First, thank you to the people that introduced me to Brainage, Lego Star Wars, and Tivo. They are all three the perverbial "shit".

Tivo is my friend.
Netflix is also my friend, but we aren't as close.
I spent a week in Houston, it was good.
I bought a movie from iTunes, it was dumb.

I will elaborate when I get a new fair to midland together. Until then I will try to get another written post up. Something interesting not about what I had for lunch today.

Fair To Midland

In this post you will here:
- My thoughts on Music
- Less Than Jake (for to long)
- Fair To Midland... the band
- XM
- Impressions of the show 30 days
- Rockstar (Quick thoughts)
- My current thoughts on movies
- Snakes on A Plane
- WTC/Accepted
- Trust The Man (I missed the point of this movie, but it still looks good)
- Little Miss Sunshine
- Beerfest
- Talladega Nights (The couple other people were a cousin of co-worker, and kids)
- Blackberry
- Midland Things (I didn't get the picture)

The comments after topics will make more sense while you are listening or after you have listened.

Check back tomorrow or over the weekend. I will have a new Fair To Midland up very soon.

I was actually planning on recording a new Fair To Midland tonight, but I became uninterested when I remembered that I had already recorded about 10 minutes and that I had planned on adding to it when I came back to it.

Here are the things I would have talked about after you heard the intro music which was Pearl Jam, of the Vs. album called GO:

I truly liked Pearl Jam back in the day. They used to make really good music. Ten and Vs. were great albums, then Vitology came out and it was ok. After that I totally stopped listening to their new records because I didn't like their music anymore. I have heard a song off of their new record and like it, so I may listen to more of the album when I get a chance.

Rockstar Supernova: Last season I was totally unintersed in this show. I don't know if it was because the band that the people were trying out for was INXS or something else, but this season I am really enjoying it, and I am sure it is because I get to watch Jason Newstead play bass and he is an awesome bass player (but does not show it on the show).

I don't really know why some of the people are there. I think there are only 3 or 4 people that actually have a shot at fronting this band, and when I recorded the first part I said, "I am certain that a woman will not front this band." Just to mention it, I have a musical predisposition of not liking female singers. I don't know why, but I really don't like many woman singers, but there are exceptions to that prejudice. The most recent is Schyler Fisk, who I heard a couple of tracks from the other day and really liked, but who knows if I heard the whole album if I would like it.

(I wrote this section while watching Rockstar)

I had my mind completely made up that a woman could not and would not front that band due the fact that the other members were Tommy Lee, Gilby Clark, and Jason Newstead; all from bands that rocked hard. Apparently their collaborative effort does not rock hard, it is just another incarnation of other bands that have already done something similar. Think Audioslave, who does not rock as hard as Rage Against the Machine, and Velvet Revolver who does not rock as hard as Guns N' Roses or Stone Temple Pilots.

Magni is in the bottom three, that is lame because he is the guy I see winning the thing.

It has nothing to do with the fact that I dislike any of those bands, just that they went from rocking hard to not rocking hard.

After tonight I believe it is possible, but not probable, that a woman can front the band.

(end Rockstar watching)

On a completely different note, Scrubs has been syndicated. Soon you will be able to watch Scrubs 5 times a week on WGN. I just like the idea that a show that I like is being syndicated. (24 has been in syndication for the last two years, but now my other favorite show can be watched often as well.)

Last week we had a saftey meeting in which we were told we had to wear hard hats while we were in the back warehouse. For about an hour I complied, but hard hats are terrible hat devices, they don't catch sweat and are generally uncomfortable to move around in. So I stopped wearing it because there is nothing that can fall on my head other that the crane, and if that falls, the hard hat ain't gonna help. I have at this point comfirmed that we do not have to wear hard hats in the back.

Finally you would have heard me bitch about the fact that there is blogger Beta, but I am not allowed to use it for some reason. I could start a new blog and use it, but at this time they are not willing to let me switch from old blogger to new blogger, even thought they have let some people switch already. F U Google/Blogger.

That is it for now. I may or may not record a new Fair to Midland this week. I hadn't picked outro music for this week because I hadn't finished it yet, but lets say it would have been Radio Head's Creep because I like that song and was reminded that I liked it tonight. Also, if you don't normally check the site, I link to other things on the side under the "I Can Read" section. I update it pretty often.

There is a video of Mark and Sara listening to my latest podcast thing on Mark's site.

Fair To Midland

Another installment including:
- Really bad advertising
- Music subscription service interestingness
- Movie update &
- My news about Miami Vice

So this weekend has been the first that I have wished that I lived in Denver for any reason. The reason being that A Scanner Darkly is not playing anywhere in Midland or Odessa. I guess that is what happens when you live in a small city and you want to watch a fairly strange movie. I am hoping to find out early whether Clerks 2 will be released here or anywhere close. If it doesn't, I might find some way to travel to go see it.

Fair To Midland

Thanks for the name Michael. I will decide on another name some other time, or maybe use that one perminately.