Another Hiatus?

Ok, so I did it again. I took a ton of time off from blogging. I have no excuse. I am a horrible person. Other stuff took precedence, like school. What's that you say? Its summer now? I have no excuse anymore not to post here? You're absolutely right. With all this time on my hands, I will attempt to update this at least once a week. I don't expect you to believe me, of course, since I've made such promises before (just scroll down the screen a bit to see for yourself), but I'm going to try, nonetheless, since my summer thus far has consisted of work, sleep, more work, the occasional drink and bar, shuffleboard at the Great Dane and the Silver Dollar, Guitar Hero, and lots of listening to music and downloading. So in other words, not much.

It is the last area (music) that I'm going to post about today. I love music. I wish I could play a musical instrument. Those of you who know me best know that one of my life goals is to learn to play one (most likely guitar or drums). I'd like to think that I'm doing my best at learning guitar by playing Guitar Hero like crazy lately, but I'm sure there's much more to it than the video game entails. Still, its progress. Good news though, the makers of Guitar Hero are going to team up with Electronic Arts and MTV to make their next game, Rock Band. If you haven't heard by now, it is going to be EPIC. Play with 4 friends -- one on vocals (a microphone peripheral), one on lead guitar, one on bass guitar (both using the familiar guitar peripheral, shown at right), and one on drums. Drums I said! In fact, in a recent Game Informer article (by the way, I am LOVING getting this magazine in our mail at the apartment lately), they revealed a picture of what the peripheral will look like for the drums. Awesome. The same article quotes a Rock Band developer as being VERY proud (with good reason) of the fact that if you get good enough at playing the drums to excel on the "hard" and "expert" levels of the game, you will have effectively learned how to play the drums. This is completely different from plain 'ol Guitar Hero, which only effectively simulates playing guitar without actually teaching you how to play chords and whatnot. So let me get this straight. If I play Rock Band, with or without friends (I hope with), I can realize my dream of being able to play a musical instrument by playing a video game? Wow. That is happening. Can't wait for the Christmas season, when Rock Band is supposed to come out. Now if only I had the upwards of $1000 to spare to spend on buying the game, the PS3/XBox 360, and peripherals to actually play the damn thing. *Sigh* We'll see what happens.

But more importantly in my personal music "scene" lately, I've discovered a new Internet radio "station" (if you can call it that, since it is completely customizable to each person) from the other student at work. Its called Pandora and it pulls music from something called the "Music Genome Project." Read more here if you're curious about the process and "nuts and bolts" of how the thing works. What's important is that just by navigating to the site, you can input a few of your favorite artists and start listening. After about 5 songs or so, the site asks you to register (which is completely free) so that you can listen as long as you want, to whatever you want. For me, I started by putting in one of my favorite new artists, Cary Brothers, and just started listening to test it out. I was amazed by what I found. All the acoustic guitar, piano, melody, orchestration, etc. that I could stand! I put in a few more artists (John Mayer, Until June, Switchfoot, The Fray, Mat Kearney, Matt Nathanson, Snow Patrol, Jon McLaughlin, Anberlin, Bloc Party, John Mayer, and The John Butler Trio, just to name a few) and let it do its work.

A few hours later at work, and I have a slew of new artists to enjoy: Feeder, David Usher, Mae, The Perishers, Pete Yorn, Calhoun, and Eric James & the New Century. I've honestly never seen an Internet radio website so customizable, varied, and just genuinely featuring as good of music as this. Do yourself a favor and just give it a try, even if only to find some new artists, songs, or even genres of music to listen to. You can thank me later.

More posts to come, I promise (sorta).

Changes

If you notice, there have been some changes and removals from this site. Plus, I haven't lived up to my promise of posting in the next few days. That's because me and my roommates have been working on a new pet project -- our very own Wisconsin Badger Athletics sports blog. Its almost done, and for now, the link is here. Hope this explains why I've been somewhat absent lately. More changes might be in the works for this site, as well, to take advantage of bloggers new template settings (something the new Badger sports blog does already). Keep checking back frequently to see what's new!

A Long Hiatus

First, my apologies for the long absence from posts on here. Needless to say, just like weightlifting, running, doing homework, or going to class, as soon as you miss one or two days or weeks in updating a blog, it tends to fall by the wayside in favor of other things. In my case, it was work, Humorology, the fraternity, and schoolwork (in that order) that kept me away from here.

No matter. Now its winter break, and I have more time on my hands. Look for more regular posts on here for the next few weeks. Hopefully I can maintain this renewed effort once school starts back up, as well. Here's hopin'. Anyway, a list of some possible topics that have happened in the last month or so that you could see covered on here:

1. Downtown Madison crime (and the $100,000 pledged to combat it)
2. The Boise State vs. Oklahoma CRAZY finish in the Fiesta Bowl
3. DENNIS GREEN TECHNO REMIX!!! (I think that should speak for itself)
   
4. University of Wisconsin athletics updates, including hockey (*sigh*), football (New Years in Orlando for the Capital One Bowl -- pictured above), and basketball (Ohio State on TUESDAY -- I'll be there in the best seats in the house...literally)
5. Humorology, pictured below (what the hell is it, anyway, and why do I care so much about it?!?!)
6. Various arts updates, including music (Switchfoot's new album Oh! Gravity., Five for Fighting, Dem Heizman Boyz, "Dick in a Box," Incubus' new album Light Grenades, and most importantly, the two Matt's, Kearney and Nathanson), TV (think Mythbusters, Scrubs, Dog the Bounty Hunter, and Dirty Jobs), and film (new indie gems found through my independent film class finale last semester).

So, as you can see, there's a lot to talk about. I doubt I'll get to it all, but you never know. Stay tuned to find out. Hope everyone had a fantastic holiday season. I also hope your life is as relaxing as mine is right now.

The Times They Are a Changin'

Thanks to my Independent Film class for teaching me about the 60s and 70s and Bob Dylan -- the inspiration for today's title. Today's post is going to revolve around (you guessed it) politics. So, if you dislike one young person's rantings about political power structures and "hot button" issues, its time to navigate elsewhere. Don't waste your time. But please do come back, since it is rare for me to get this in-depth on formal politics. As one of my buddies put it best: "last night was one of the first nights in awhile I felt good about where this country was headed." Its true. I did too. And this morning/afternoon as I walked to classes and listened to my iPod, I almost felt like whistling and skipping (although it didn't hurt that it was nice outside -- temperatures in the 60s I believe. But honestly, who saw this coming?!?! Karl Rove and the republican prognosticators certainly didn't. A democratic party that wins control of the govenorship, house, and senate? Who knew it was even possible a few weeks ago? I sure didn't. I was resigned to 2 more years (and perhaps even more) of republicans dominating the agenda and debating "hot topic" fringe issues that have little to no bearing on actual problems in our society today. But my favorite way of summing up just how well things went for the democrats last night was through a comparison of the two party's websites late last night. The GOP website had a flash animation that ended with the phrase "committed to conservative reform," while the Dems website featured a flash animation with fireworks and the phrase "celebrating democratic victories." Now, the democratic website has a large image with the words "democratic revolution" and "democrats take the house and senate" featured prominantly on a red, white, and blue starred banner. Gotta love political websites.

But delving right into the results and their implications, my heart is lifted up. As I watched President Bush address the media this afternoon (I had a brief hour break in-between classes), I had to laugh as he commented on the "cumulative effect of a thumping" at the "rodeo" that was election day Tuesday. But reporters who asked him questions after he announced the resignation of Rumsfeld had him in a bind: why, just a few days before the elections, when pressed about Rumsfeld's job security, did he claim the now ex-Secretary of Defense was staying put? I was both shocked and entertained by the plainess of Bush's answer. He said it was simply because of the upcoming election, and because he hadn't met with a potential successor or Rumsfeld himself yet. Gotta love politics. Still, democrats would do the same thing. So, when all is said and done, the democrats pick up 6 seats in the house and at least 29 in the house. Not a bad swing for them. The problem is, democrats really didn't do anything in the last 2 years to cause the vote swing that they should be patting themselves on the back about (although they certainly will be). As I was telling my former roommate today while we were watching "the Idiot" address the media, the republican party simply shot themselves in the foot with Iraq and other issues more than the democrats came up with fresh new ways to articulate themselves and their stances. And that is disappointing, because the republicans will be back in '08 with a new repitoire of scare tactics and hot button issues, you can rest assured of that.

House results
Senate results

But all in all, my particular party of choice (on most issues, not all) did well for themselves on Tuesday. But I was also able to celebrate another victory Tuesday. As a nice little desert, Rick Santorum (who's last name has been made rather famous, or perhaps dubious, by one of my favorite columnists Dan Savage) was ousted by a rather large margin in the Pennsylvania senate race. To be sure, he lost to a more conservative democrat in Bob Casey, Jr., but we'll take the lesser of two evils. I myself can't wait until next week's "Savage Love" column by openly gay advice columnist (in the Onion) Dan Savage. He probably won't admit it, but his smear campaigns against Santorum have been instrumental over the years. I mean, its next to impossible to win an election when your name has come to be synoymous with this.

Add to that the fact that Governor Doyle won another term and senators Herb Kohl and Tammy Baldwin (whom I had the pleasure of meeting before a humorology practice at a certain sorority house last week, and then subsequently danced in front of) also won their respective races against republican counterparts handily, and you have on happy Joel on your hands. Still, my voting experience wasn't all good. I was forced to wait for nearly 45 minutes at the polling place because it was that unorganized and they had one man in charge of registering about 40+ students who trickled in while I was attempting to register and vote myself in my particular ward. Whereas the other volunteers who were there (and there were about 10 or so of them) to handle the other 1 or 2 wards covered at this particular polling place just sat around with nothing to do because the polling place was located ON A COLLEGE CAMPUS where few (if any) adults from other wards would come to vote. How about we assign a few more people to the busiest wards and funnel them through the polls faster? No? Ah, that would make too much sense. But once I was registered and obtained my ballot, I came to a realization: I didn't do enough research on this midterm election. As I stood looking over the candidates and resolutions, I was familiar with most of them, but I didn't really know the facts about all of them and their stances on certain issues. To be fair, with work and school and humo and everything, I really didn't have a lot of time to spend reading the paper everyday and becoming familiar with every cantidate's stance on the issues that are most important to me, but still. I was disappointed in myself. And I was even more disappointed as I found myself voting for almost every democrat on the ballot. Now don't get me wrong, I rarely vote for republicans (unless their stances on key issues are preferable to a weak democrats) but I do occasionally find myself voting independent or better yet, Wisconsin Green. Now I'm pretty sure there were few (if any) Green cantidates on this midterm ballot, but I hate feeling like I'm voting straight democratic ticket. While I suppose I consider myself a democrat, I like to at least think I'm cognisant and respectful of others' viewpoints and can find myself comprimising and 'finding a middle ground' on some topics. But not this year. I blame myself, actually. But I also blame politicians in general for making the only acceptable stances on issues either black or white (or perhaps red or blue) and leaving no grey area in-between. But such is our current political climate I suppose.

Yeah. So almost everything went well Tuesday for my political beliefs. I say almost, because the gay marriage and civil unions ban passed in Wisconsin, Colorado, Idaho, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia. And most of them passed with flying colors. Even in Wisconsin the vote was surprisingly lop-sided -- 59% in favor of the ban, just 41% opposed, with the only county to vote no being my own -- Dane. Indeed, this 59% means that a significant number of people who otherwise voted for Jim Doyle for governor (most of whom would probably consider themselves democrats) voted for the amendment. That is concerning. Not surprisingly, two of the counties that were the most anti-gay marriage were the two counties my hometown is on the border of: Dodge and Washington. See for yourself here. These two counties are without a doubt the largest bastion of narrow-minded republicans in the state. Trust me on that. I pity my father, who is subject to them on a daily basis at the factory office where he works. But why has gay marriage become such a big deal for so many in this country all of the sudden? To be sure, there are far more important issues in our world today -- the war in Iraq, health care, education, etc. but there are few issues that endanger civil rights of human beings quite like gay marriage bans. Honestly, I have neither the time or energy to spend expousing why I detest those who support gay marriage bans right now. Perhaps another time in another post. But, suffice to say, I know homosexuals. Personally. Professionally. Scholastically. And I just cannot imagine many people who actually know and are close friends with gays who would vote "yes" on these bans. Because once you are actually exposed to the men and women the bans affect personally, you cease being afraid of them as so many want you to be. The truth is, they aren't trying to "convert" you and turn you gay. They want what everyone else wants -- the chance to live, love, and be successful in life. But we as a society are telling them they cannot do that to the extent others can. I'm rambling and no longer expressing my thoughts and ideas coherently, so I'll just end with some quotes from Badger Herald comments about the gay-marriage amendment.

Anonymous (November 8, 2006 @ 7:01am):

Never did I ever fear from our own government as I do now. My parents will never be able to marry, and neither will I. Thank you all, so very very much, for saving the country from something as atrocious as a happy marriage. Whoever would have thought, that America would one day fall so far from the dreams of our fathers. Thousands of men have died protecting the constitution that now shows exactly the reason every other power in this world hates the USA. I am so deeply dissappointed with the actions of this state, of this country, of this society. It is beyond me how any man or woman believes it is her right to tell me I'm not allowed to be married. Because they say so. You've never even met me. But thank you America..for saving this country once again, from us horribly violent and dirty and murderous homosexuals. I'm sure the heterosexuals will all be safe now from our rampage......? Dumb. Just Dumb.

Anonymous (November 8, 2006 @ 8:10am):

Ha ha! In your face, filthy liberals. I wouldn't be so opposed to lesbians getting married if they weren't all so butch. I mean, I like girl on girl action as much as the next guy, but woof woof. Let's see some hot girls.

Anonymous (November 8, 2006 @ 8:37am):

the passing of the marriage amendment is a violation of civil rights. It further treats gay individuals as second hand citizens, and ignores the unions of un-married straight individuals as well.

Anonymous (November 8, 2006 @ 9:57am):

I for one welcome our new gay-bashing, death-loving overlords.

Anonymous (November 8, 2006 @ 10:28am):

Madison needs to secede.

Anonymous (November 8, 2006 @ 11:17am):

It's sad that people like Julaine Appling are still so uninformed that they consider same-sex marriage a "societal problem" and would include it in a list with divorce and abuse. It's also disturbing that people would consider adding a blatantly discriminatory amendment to the state constitution a victory. Eventually, history will consider this a dark moment and a mistake. And it will not look kindly upon people like Ms.Appling.

Anonymous (November 8, 2006 @ 12:01pm):

Oh don't act so surprised... it's times like these I think of the phrase:

Madison... 100 square miles surrounded by REALITY

Anonymous (November 8, 2006 @ 1:55pm):

The state of Wisconsin has spoken. Gays, it's time to go straight. No more love for you.

The Calm Before the Storm

Before my long post regarding the pros and cons of the results of Tuesday's election day results, I wanted to take care of a few more "fun" topics (at least for some). First, an update on the press surrounding the Langdon Street neighborhood watch organized by the Greek system (my fraternity included) in Madison. Check out the following links for more:

Channel 3000 Story
Badger Herald follow-up News Story
Wisconsin State Journal News Story

Not much to comment about them -- its all mostly been said before in my previous post. Although the one comment on the Herald story did get my blood boiling. To insinuate that a group of men cannot take even one day off from drinking and that all fraternity guys are immature, asshole rapists is frustrating, to say the least. Unfortunately its a sentiment we are subjected to all too often -- both in the media and in personal interactions. This even despite all our efforts at community service and philanthropy. People often ignore such positives and only focus on the negatives. *Sigh* Oh well, such is the nature of the beast in the Greek system.

Moving right along, it's time for today's installment of "heard on a Madison street." I was walking to class today (on the sidewalk, actually) and was only able to pick up this snippet of a conversation between two girls before they walked past me and were out of earshot:

Girl: "...me and my illegitimate mechanical love child..."

Now, honestly, what in the hell could she have been talking about?!?! In what context do those 6 words ever make sense? Try as I might, FOR THE ENTIRE REST OF THE DAY IN FACT, I just couldn't imagine a scenario where a conversation would develop to that point. Seriously. I sat in my geography class for an hour and 15 minutes afterward (still taking notes but otherwise not paying much attention, I'm taking it pass-fail) trying to come to grips with a legit situation where someone could utter that. It reminded me of this Lewis Black sketch.

He is without a doubt one of my favorite comedians of all time. Right up there with Mitch Hedberg. Don't know who Mitch is? Then watch this for some highlights. Now if only he hadn't died from a drug overdose -- not that you can tell he was on the sauce in his stand-up or anything...

Went to see Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan last night with the veritable 'goon squad' of 8 guys at Marcus Cinema in West Towne. My thoughts? I liked it. Maybe its just because I haven't actually gone out to watch a movie at the theatres since V for Vendetta opened over the summer (amazing movie, but its tough to justify spending $8.00 on a movie when you're on a limited budget, not to mention the fact that I don't have a car at school, so transportation is reliant on my roommates and their schedules), but I was genuinely entertained for almost the entirety of the relatively short hour and 20 minute running time. In fact, during some parts, I've never laughed so hard in a long time. There's just something completely absurd about Cohen's performance as an immigrant and his complete and utter flagrant disregard for cultural norms. He knows how to challenge them to high comedic effect. Still, during some parts of the movie (such as at the rodeo in the deep south where a cowboy expresses his hatred for gays and promotes hanging them, or during the Pentecostal church scene, or as Borat meets a group of Chi Psi stereotypical 'frat boys' from the University of South Carolina who actually believe we should have slavery again) his challenges or societal norms becomes all too real. After all, these are real people being filmed in the movie, and they actually believe what they are saying. As my friend pointed out, that in and of itself is scary and disconcerting, to say the least. Still, who can stifle a laugh as Borat wanders New York and Hollywood streets (and everywhere in-between), hitting on feminists, challenging perceived gypsies, inviting African-American prostitutes over to a lavish southern estate, and running naked through posh hotels? For my money, comedy doesn't get much more low-brow than that, but who wants to be forced to think about movies (and especially comedy) all the time? Sometimes its nice to get away from the kinds of films I'm watching in my independent film class. A breath of fresh air, if you will.

Lastly, an update on my musical tastes. Most of you don't care, so you can stop reading now. But for those who do (or share my taste in music), read on, brave soul. On my iPod and iTunes right now:

Inkwell - "Ecuador is Lovely This Time of Year" -- found on the NHL '07 soundtrack. 'Nuff said.
Third Eye Blind - "Can't Get Away," "Forget Myself," and "Tatoo of the Sun" -- all old songs, but I found them on a newly released compilation album the band released
Tenacious D - "Pick of Destiny" -- just plain rocks (Kyle Gass and Jack Black, at left). Their new movie is coming out too, but there's no way it'll be good. Again, just not worth $8.00 when there are things like DVDs, video-on-demand, TiVo, and premium movie channels in existence.
Jimmy Eat World - "disintegration" -- possibly one of the best "jewels" of obscure songs by bands I absolutely love that I have found in awhile. Its off a new EP they just came out with (album art for it pictured below) that has a bunch of tracks that didn't make it onto Futures. I mean, I just love the drums and slow, wailing singing on it, not to mention the lyrics and the repeated 'Lie, lie, better next time, stay on my side tonight' at the end. I mean, just read these lyrics:

I've spent my last nights, Strung up and pulled tight
Holding out, sleep and grow
An answer comes without a please: 'Do what you want'

Chorus:
Wonder why I'm so caught off guard when we kiss?
Rather live my life in regret then do this
What happened to the love we both knew, we both chased?
Hanging on a cigarette, you need me, You burn me, you'll burn me

Hushed with a finger, Don't say you'll never when you might
Or just another time
This poison comes instruction free, Do what you want, but I'm drinking

Lie, lie, better next time, stay on my side tonight

Do yourself a favor and buy the song or download it ASAP if you like Jimmy Eat World. If not, well, you just suck. That's all for tonight. I apologize to those who are still expecting my politically charged ramblings about Tuesday's election results (both pro and con). I wanted to post it tonight, but didn't want to do so before all of the returns were in and we knew whether the dems had gained control of the senate as well as the house (lofty dreams, methinks). Look for it tomorrow night, hopefully. Needless to say, I am pleased for the most part, but the results of the gay marriage referendum deeply trouble me and make me extremely disenfranchised with our state. So, until then, keep on keepin' on.

Langdon Street Neighborhood Watch

First, some background information and links for people to read in case they need to be caught up:

WKOW Channel 27 Story
Badger Herald News Story
Badger Herald Opinion Piece

As an update, I went out and patrolled Langdon Friday night until 1:30am (dispite having to work at 7am the next morning) and I don't regret it at all. I even got to shake Chancellor Wiley's hand when he came to tell us thanks "for our leadership" at around 10pm when the patrol started. There should be a few more news stories from various outlets in the Madison area, including a piece from CBS where they followed us around for a little longer, and a Wisconsin State Journal article I believe. I'll keep you updated and link to them when I become aware of them. For now, I'm proud of my brothers, my community, and my city for allowing this to happen, and I thank everyone who had a much bigger part in making it happen than me. Its positive PR for an organization (the Greek system) that often gets anything but.

Oh, and for some more fun "news," I bring you my list of songs I've been listening to a lot lately:

Cary Brothers - "Ride"
G. Tom Mac - "Half"
Yellowcard - "Believe"
Mat Kearney - Nothing Left to Lose (new album)
Augustana - "Hotel Roosevelt"

That's all for now, folks. Keep checking back for (hopefully) frequent updates.

Starting From Scratch

Welcome to my new blog everybody. This one is for keeps, unlike my previous attempts. Its also going to be less of a diary/journal and more of a blog about my reactions and responses to different things I see, read, and watch in the media. So here goes nothing. Oh, and never forget:

Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, or an honest compliment, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.
-- Leo Buscaglia