Just in case you missed it, I've moved LiveJournals. Please add my new one, ohtowant1thing.

Thank you.

Erin inspired me. I created a new LiveJournal. joshbert13 was my first screen name on that fateful day that I logged onto AIM for the first time back in 1998. I can't cling to it any longer; it is not me.

ohtowant1thing is where you will find me from now on. Please add me so I can read all your friends-only posts without having to log back into this LJ.

Thanks, and goodnight.

I have a pack of Big Red. I'm tempted to do the Red Square Challenge. But I'm at work.

Maybe I should make a coworker do it. That could be entertaining for a few minutes.

So Blesk is pretty much amazing live. That's all there is to it. I wish their recordings were as awesome as their live show though.

I saw lots of people I love last night. It was good.

Matt wants to start a new band. I do too. I wish we could find the right people for the job. People we knew wouldn't be taking off for school or military or whatever.


I ended up buying a bunch of CDs with my Best Buy gift certificates. My goal was NOT to do that this time, but there was simply nothing else I really wanted. I almost got a TV recording card for my computer, but then I decided I already watch too much TV. So I got:

Godspeed You! Black Emperor - f#a#oo
Godspeed You! Black Emperor - Yanqui U.X.O.
The Mars Volta - Scabdates
Bloc Party - Silent Alarm
Tool - Lateralus
Unearth - The Oncoming Storm

I'm quite happy with my selections.


Coming soon (hopefully): more tattoo goodness.

I was inspired to list all the bands I saw this year.

( Bands I Saw In 2005 )

Plus a few more random openers whose names I forgot. Like who opened for MxPx? I'm missing one band there... and a band who I saw play their last show with Blessed With Embers. And I know I'm missing some in here for some reason.

Doing the math, I saw roughly 50-55 or so bands, and roughly 60-65 sets, counting the bands I saw more than once.

An impressive year to say the least.

For Christmas I got:

High Fidelity by Nick Hornby
1000 Record Covers by Michael Ochs (great coffee table book)
Project 86's "The Making of '...And The Rest Will Follow'" DVD
$50 gift certificate to Best Buy (that makes a total of $70 to spend there)
Atari Flashback 2 (It looks just like an Atari but it has 40 games built into it and you just plug it into your TV. One and two player games.)

...and (at least) two gifts that didn't make it in the mail on time. I still don't know what those are.


The goal for today is to burn $70 at Best Buy. I'm not sure what to get, but I might try to avoid spending it all on music because, well, I always do that. I need to diversify. Maybe some TV shows on DVD? Depends on the price, I guess... Or maybe some nice headphones, or new speakers for my car, or a wireless mouse, or...

Merry Christmas, folks. Have a good time with friends and family, and don't forget to thank Jesus for the ultimate Christmas gift he gave us all.

That said...

I got bored today so I decided to try making desktop wallpapers. So I made a few for The Mars Volta and created a DeviantArt account to post them on.

Enjoy:

Help! I need some cool-looking images that depict the resurrection of Jesus that can be cropped/resized to fit within an area of 1.5" wide by 6" or 7" tall.

I've tried Google Image search extensively with not a whole lot of success, so you can try that, but especially if you know of any particular artist depictions, that would be wonderful.

So I was reading the New Times today and there was a thing in there about the Briertone/Blesk show next Wednesday that I'm planning on going to. It said that the band is "planning to relocate to Los Angeles in the near future."

News to me... I thought they were thinking of breaking up because they were so stupid to get rid of Bobbie. But this is saying the exact opposite.

Now I'm all confused.

I lost about a pound this morning. It came out of my nose and throat into a kleenex.

So I called in sick. What is it with me and getting sick these days? I've used more sick days in the past few months than I have in probably the whole time I've worked at Parable.

I was just brushing my teeth and I had to sneeze. But I couldn't make it to the sink quite in time (I was in here Myspacing... sad huh?) so I had to hold my mouth closed while I sneezed to keep from spitting toothpaste everywhere. I think my sinuses exploded.

Matt Cementina was wearing a rad homemade shirt tonight at Christmas party #3 and told me how to make tshirt prints without using iron-ons. I might need to invest in some supplies at Michael's and make some awesome t-shirts soon. I'll add it to the list of things to do that will probably never happen but will always be a cool idea.

Peace out, girl scout.

Yesterday was a weird stomach ache and a sore throat. Today the two seemed to have met up somewhere in my esophagus and with a joint effort created a weird lump-in-my-throat feeling that makes it weird to swallow. The only way to keep my throat from feeling like I'm going to puke soon is by eating something solid every few minutes. Go figure. Good thing I have snacks at my desk...

Christmas party #3 tonight. I think it's the last one.

Oh and I got a $20 Best Buy gift card from my boss for Christmas. I want to go burn it but I think I should wait until after Christmas to make sure I don't buy something I'm already getting. And to take advantage of after-Christmas sales.

Speaking of, I just realized that since I won't be in Colorado for Christmas that I'm going to miss the Media Play day-after-Christmas music sale. I've gotten so much good music the last two years because of that. They helped me complete my Radiohead collection. Oh well.

King Kong was OK, but it was way too long.

They added so much crap that had nothing to do with the story (twenty minutes running from dinosaurs, twenty more minutes being attacked by giant bugs, etc.). Also, they spent an hour just getting to the island, and then when they finally caught Kong, they flashed straight back to New York instead of letting us see any of the ride back, which I'm sure would have been plenty entertaining.

I mean, it was a fine movie. Great effects and sound, and it was a monster movie that actually had a plot, which is rare. But it is definitely proof that Peter Jackson needs to get out of his 3-hour movie mentality. It's one thing to turn a huge three-book epic into nine hours of movie, but it's an entirely different thing to be taking a movie that was originally an hour and 40 minutes long and turning it into three hours and seven minutes.

Friday: 5-hour progressive dinner with the youth group. Long but good.

Saturday: Slept in. Went to the gym. Went downtown with Craig. Saw King Kong. Ate at Firestone. Vegged out at home.

Sunday: Church. Lunch at Pita Pit. Grocery store for stuff. Surprise birthday party for Brent. Company Christmas party. Vegged at home.


Busy, busy, busy. One more Christmas party on Tuesday. Then I need to make a stocking for my sister for Christmas. This weekend will be uneventful with everyone being with family and whatnot, except for me. I'll go to my sister's church for Christmas morning, then do whatever, then lunch with my sister and her friends (anyone want to come? I don't really want to go at this alone and friendless). Considering I'm not too festive a guy, I'm really not getting into the Christmas stuff. It's generally my family that makes me pretend to be festive, and since I'm not seeing them this year... yeah.

Good night.

I'm reading Blue Like Jazz right now. It's a book by Donald Miller, who is a writer that also is a Christian. If you read the book you'd know why I wouldn't refer to him as a "Christian writer." There are just way too many inferences one would assume if I were to refer to him as such. As far as Christians go, he's fairly liberal in his viewpoints, which is rather refreshing.

This book is subtitled "Nonreligious thoughts on Christian spirituality." It's basically essays on a number of topics that Miller has dealt with in his life that relate to his spiritual life.

I was just reading the essay titled "Money: Thoughts On Paying Rent" and it was really encouraging. Not so much convicting, but it certainly was a positive encouragement about giving the first of your money back to God. I'll let a rather long quote from the essay speak for itself:

( Why you have absolutely no excuse to not tithe. )

The whole point is that tithing isn't about the money; it's about faith. For those who have money, tithing 10 percent is easy. But for those of us with not much money, we often make the excuse that we simply can't afford to give money away because we use it all for living expenses. All the more reason to give, then, as you are obviously in a place where you need to have faith that God will provide.

It also stands to reason that this explains a lot why Americans are such crappy at living for Christ. We, unlike much of the rest of the world, are generally used to having more than enough money to get by on. If we were giving until it hurt and having to trust God to provide for the rest, I think we would be so much closer to God.

That said, I have done the math to see how much tithing I haven't been doing and I'm going to give that money to the church and the poor as soon as I can. I could just write a check for the full amount and give it to my church, but I'd rather spread the money out to a few places where I see the money as being useful. And I think I'm going to be a bit more conscientious about giving up that money as soon as I have it instead of building it up like I do. By not giving back that 10 percent I am actually stealing from God (a point made earlier in the essay).

Moral of the story: Tithing is about faith, not money, and it doesn't matter if you have much money or not. You should be doing it either way.

Well, I did it. I registered for the music recording class at Cuesta. So if, in the spring, you'll be on campus on Mondays and Wednesdays, I'll be there for my class from 8:30 to 10:30 AM. Of course I'll probably be rushing in and out because I'll be running late since it's so early, and then rushing out to get to work.

In other news, I got my Christmas bonus today. Woo. Bringin' in the big bucks now. Actually, my annual review is coming up so I'll probably be getting a scoatch of a raise too, although I'm not depending on it for anything.

In other other news, I saw the Narnia movie last night with Lacey. It was pretty good. You should go see it. They did a great job of keeping it like the book. Even the characters look like I had imagined them. Although Lucy was a bit more cute than I expected. I swear they were taking shots of her gasping, crying or giving a huge toothy grin every two minutes. Admittedly, though, I didn't mind the cuteness so much.

In other other other news, today is going to be a long day. I did the math in the shower today and realized I'm pretty much going to be doing a 15-hour day. Work all day, and then straight to church tonight for the high school Christmas progressive dinner/white elephant gift exchange. That thing is supposed to be 5 hours long, and we'll be getting on the bus five times so there will be lots of yelling kids and such. Honestly, this event is probably one of my least favorite youth group events to do.

I started a new music blog. I gave up on My Top 5 because nobody seemed to care about it. Actually, about two people cared about it, but that's not enough. It's not really anyone's fault; I'm well aware that if people don't care, that's just the natural selection of the Internet.

This new one, though, I had hopes. I had dreams. I had a better idea of what people wanted to read, I thought. I just wanted to write about music but I needed a more specific goal and mindset, a particular format and schedule. But that didn't work either. I haven't linked anyone to it because I wanted to just show a couple people first. But I never got satisfied with it.

So the question is, how do I write about music in a way that people will actually care? Do I continue blogging endlessly, secretly hoping that someone will one day discover and appreciate what I have to say? Do I apply for non-paying positions for places like TinyMixTapes.com or Pitchfork Media writing album reviews and pray that they actually like my stuff?

Or is writing about music just something that I'm not talented enough to do and I should just scratch it off my list of possible future occupations?

Lots of questions, no answers.

That said, here's the new music blog:
Find Of The Day.

I even created a syndicated LiveJournal feed (find_of_the_day) for it before my paid LJ membership ran out in case it actually got any good. But it really didn't. Not in my opinion anyway.

All that said, I need some input. Opinions, thoughts, ideas, encouragement, discouragement, whatever. What do you think of what I was trying to do? What do you think I should do? Or should I just not do anything?

I wish something significant would happen in my life.

I wish I wasn't so afraid of big changes to let something significant happen in my life.

I wish my family wasn't getting so screwed up so quickly.

I wish I could see my family this Christmas, but without the inevitable stress and conflict.

I wish I worked in a music-related job.

I wish I could do something in my life that is significant, honorable and pleasing to God.

I wish I didn't give up so easily.

I wish I could have some success in the things I choose to not give up on.

I wish my best friend didn't live on the other side of the country.

I wish I had connections.

I wish I had enough to do at work so I wouldn't be overanalyzing the negatives right now.

I wish all the stress I put myself through to serve the youth at our church would produce some fruit.

I wish I could be in a Bible study that met at a time that worked with my schedule, that was made up of people I can identify with, studying a part of the Bible that was actually helpful to me right now.

I wish I could afford to travel like everyone else my age seems to do.

I wish my family had had enough money for me to go to school without having to work so that I could have actually enjoyed my college experience and found something worth studying without stressing so much so I wouldn't have dropped out.

I wish I could be spontaneous, careless and completely unconcerned about what others think of me.

I wish I was happy.

Today is Dean Gray Tuesday. Last month some anonymous DJs under the name Dean Gray (get it... Green Day? Dean Gray?) posted some songs online as an album called "American Edit." They mashed up songs from Green Day's "American Idiot" with other awesome music (everything from Johnny Cash to Kanye West) and they are absolutely amazing.

But then they got shut down by the man. Not a very Green Day thing to do. These songs are new creations that are being treated as pirated music.

But today, on Dean Gray Tuesday, all sorts of sites are hosting the album online to be downloaded within a 24 hour window. To see a listing of all available hosts, go to AmericanEdit.org. You can even download printable album art for American Edit. Download, enjoy, and fight the man!




OK, I feel like some kind of super-liberal activist now. But seriously, download them just for the sake of hearing something cool.