Warm-Up

Write for 10 minutes. Introduce a character, a conflict, and end the mini-story with one of the provided phrases. (I chose “And then she closed the window.”)

Victoria sat in her room, staring out into the cold, winter day. She was very sad, but it was a different sort of sadness. She wanted to feel sadness, absorb every facet of it, use herself as a prism through which to reflect all of it through, to see and know the entire spectrum of it. She sat in the bed for a short while, her eyes wandering around her room and back out the window. She took in all the immense, blank, sad emptiness contained in the thin skeleton of trees scattered on the sea of frigid, unwelcoming grains of ice. But she kept noticing the drops of melting ice incessantly dripping from a branch of a tree. And within each individual drop she saw that they, for a brief moment, held the warmth of sunlight — everything that contrasted the bleak world around their tiny, coldly opaque bodies. Each drop flew through the air, splashing and spilling out their brilliant glory on the white, powdery canvas stretched out below them. And then she closed the window….

Song of the Day:

Radiohead – “Fake Plastic Trees”

Why My Brother Deserves “The Best Job in the World”

The “Best Job in the World” is a competition put on by Tourism Queensland in Australia. Winning means you get paid $150,000 to spend 6 months in a beachfront apartment on an island in Australia’s stunning Great Barrier Reef.

This “caretaker” will take pictures, video, and blog about all the cool aspects of the Great Barrier Reef islands. Food, housing, and utilities are all paid for of course.

As you can imagine, the applications flooded in. 34,000 of them, to be specific. And now it’s been whittled down to just 50. My brother is in that group.

Warning! Sparse Posting Ahead (Not REAL News really…)

Man…being at yet another new school with yet another fresh start, I wanted to give this blog a fresh and thorough reboot.

I had plans to not only post at least a few times a week but also to expand my subject matter and go for more of the lengthy, in-depth posts that I used to write on here (e.g., Sigur Ros post, film reviews, posts on new and upcoming bands, ebook post, etc.).

But alas, I will be extremely busy this semester.

FORTUNATELY, it’ll be a different kind of busy from last semester at Berkeley (meaning: no coke addict roommates, no police, no safehouses, and no financial aid nightmares), but it’s the same sort of result for this poor blog.

I have 16 units of classes, a poetry workshop, AND I also just became a staff writer for 3 different sections of the Daily Trojan (school paper at USC…I plan on cutting down to only 1 or 2 sections.). Not to mention, I’m also pledging this semester for Gamma Epsilon Omega. (Basically the coolest fraternity ever invented in the history of the universe. Basically.)

On top of all that, I’m planning to hit on at least one USC Song Girl this semester.

Needless to say…I’ll be stretched to the MAX within the next few months. So I thought I’d give the 9 or so people subscribed to me in their Google feeds fair and advance warning…

I’ll try to drop by as much as possible. And Kristiane and Essaytch…I’m so sorry for being M.I.A. from your blogs…I PROMISE I’ll stop by more frequently, even if I won’t be updating much here.

Oh, and Albert, I don’t know which new Ting Tings song you were talking about, but I think this is their new single.

Song of the Day:

The Ting Tings – “That’s Not My Name”

Albums From 2008 That I Really Enjoyed

After the monstrosity that was last year’s year-end top 28 albums list, I’ve found I don’t have the energy to ever do something like that again.

So I plan on taking the ranking out of it (everybody wins and everyone gets a participation ribbon) and just list 10 albums a day from 2008 that I enjoyed until I either run out of albums or get tired.

I’ll keep the same post and just pile each group of 10 on top and click “update.”

Third (and possibly final) batch of 10 great albums from 2008:
Okay, so I got tired. So I’m done. Sue me.

Bomb Diggity Jams – Vol. 3 (Winter Edition)

So it’s that time of the year again. The family’s all back together, the chestnuts are roasting, the air is cooler, the heart is warmer…

Yes, that’s right, it is time for another volume of Bomb Diggity Jams!

(Note: I’d like to apologize for missing out on the Fall edition…things were just TOO crazy this semester and I didn’t have time to put it all together. But that just means next year’s Fall edition will kick that much more ass!)

Well, no time to talk much. I will say that Side A is for the more contemplative/reflective days of winter and Side B is for the more fun, reminiscing/memory-making days.

Here’s the tracklist, with a few selected songs available for download (just right-click and save-as). The whole thing is available for download at the link below (go to the page and download the .zip file).

Side A: