Walking Wounded

Boy what a month. The first half of it was pretty uneventful, then came the 10 days. What a roller coaster. I haven’t blogged about it yet but the Saturday before last my dog severely injured my cat.

It was a cool Saturday morning with a the nice cold front that came in, so I opened up my French doors to the backyard. I went into my office for about 15 minutes, then came out to see my puppy carrying the cat around like a rag doll. This was a very scary site to say the least. I quickly scolded the dog who dropped the cat and cowered in shame. The cat just lay there with the not even the will to fight anymore. It is one of the saddest things I’ve ever seen. I picked up the cat, checked her over for wounds and it didn’t appear to bad except for about a pound of dirt that got in her eye. She kept trying to open it but it was just a black glaze and she couldn’t keep it out. I flushed out her eye with water (she was NOT happy about this). But dirt just kept coming to her tear duct.

She was acting quite beat up so I decided to take her to the Animal Hospital. They took her in the back for a long time (during which I heard many unhappy cat sounds). Then then brought her back and she was shaved everywhere she had a cut and it was a lot worse than I though. Fortunately most of them were superficial scratches but there were a lot of them and I’m sure she was in a lot of pain. There was one cut in her eat that they had to put 2 stitches in.

I took the cat home with the cone around her neck so she wouldn’t scratch anything. For the next 4 days my cat was a different animal. She wasn’t playful and was very distraught. She was however in constant need of love, attention and affection, which I was a good thing. Since I work from home I was able to give that to her. The biggest thing driving her crazy was the cone around her head. I feeding her antibiotics, putting eye drops in her eye and putting ointment on her wounds.

She healed very quickly. She was fully opening her eye by late Monday and was starting to move around more. By Thursday she seemed to be doing great and I took her cone off. Within minutes she was back to her old playful self as if the incident had never happened. This made me happy. Also now, the cat and I seem to have this new attachment which has been cool.

Needless to say this was an unpleasant experience for me. And not just the $300 vet bill. But for something I was responsible to be hurt was very heavy for me. I took it hard and had trouble not beating myself up over it. I still don’t know how it happened, I think because the dog sees the backyard as her territory or maybe the area where rough play is allowed. It was surprising after them getting along for about 2 months without a hitch.

Also that week, work was driving me crazy. This is becoming to routine for me but this project just would not get completed. It still isn’t done. It’s like there is always just one more thing to do. Also that week were other events that are not appropriate for a public blog but made the week extremely tough for me.

Then came the weekend. Besides it being the weekend, which picks me up in general by itself, it was a great weekend. It started off Friday night with small group. We separated into guys and girls which I thoroughly enjoyed. It was nice to just be able to let off some of my frustrations and talk about my week. I love my small group and the guys are a huge part of that. They really are a wonderful bunch and I’ve been very blessed to have begun all those new friendships.

Next came Saturday. I spent the day cleaning for a poker tournament I was holding that night. This may sound awful to most but I love cleaning. It is almost therapeutic for me. I throw on some tunes and just casually clean. It is one of the most relaxing things I do.

Then came the poker game. I was so excited to be playing. First, there were 12 people total there which I was definitely impressed with and was more than I had hoped for. I played some of the best poker I have ever played. It took a lot of patience. I didn’t get any good hands for at least and hour and was just constantly folding. But then when I did get a couple good hands I played them beautifully and became the chip leader at my table. From there I used that position to chisel away at everyones stacks. When we combined for the final table I was 3rd biggest stack, but not far behind. I was reading people like never before. I was being very alert and never let my guard down even though we were not over 3 hours in which can be tiring. I kept pushing and eventually won the whole thing. Woohoo! $50! That pays for one of two cat stitches, lol.

It was about midnight at this point and I had to begin practicing for church in the morning. I was playing bass in the band for the first time. I wasn’t procrastinating practicing. I didn’t know I was gong to play until that Friday and Saturday was already booked with activities. I wasn’t worried because I can play the bass with anything (well any praise music) if I have a chord chart. I don’t even have to know the song. Morning practice went well and then we played for the service. I had such a blast. I missed playing in a band so much. The band H2O really rocks too, which makes it all the more fun.

I spent the rest of the Sunday just resting. It was great. I chilled around the house, watched some tv, listened to some music, played my acoustic; all the things I love to do. Talk about going from miserable to amazing! I guess that’s just how life is, you never know what is going to come.

Things are still on a high note for the most part. Today the worship leader asked if I could fill in for the bass player until the end of the year (which would be every other week) because he couldn’t do it. Sweet! I quickly said yes and am stoked to get to play so much. I was hoping for maybe one more chance this year and now I have about 6 or 7!

I’m still listening to the Jimmy Eat World and Dashboard albums which I am enjoying. I am being especially drawn to Dashboard. It is a much better sing a long album than I realized when I wrote my review. For new music I am listening to the new Vanessa Carlton and Paramore. I am also working on a review of Emery’s new album, but I still need to listen to it more to get a better feel for it. I still have other albums which cam out this year on hold that I’m dying to listen to like The Weakerthans, Thrice, The Shins, Silverstein, The New Amsterdams, KT Tungstall, Funeral For a Friend, and Circa Survive. Boy, I need to catch up!

I’ve been to busy watching through Smallville. I just started from season 1. So far I am in love with it. In particular I like the development of Lex Luther.

Believe it or not, but I barely touched the surface of what’s going on. Most of which I can’t blog about. Oh well, hope this catches some of you up to my goings on.

This year had (for me) some albums that really let me down. I will list them in order of least disappointing to most disappointing.

5. As I lay Dying – An Ocean Between Us

This barely made the list. In fact I only had four I wanted on the list but who would do a top 4 list! I don’t listen to metal all that often, but when I do I’m looking for some originality, killer rhythms and amazing guitar riffs. I really liked their first two albums and was hoping this one would capture me like the first ones did. It however, simply did not. I can’t even put my finger on what it is. I’m just bored when I listen to this album. I don’t feel that steady memorizing sound that metal music can bring. It’s still a decent album which is why it is number 5 but I was disappointed by it.

4. Motion City Soundtrack – Even If It Kills Me

Motion City Soundtrack started hitting the scene big in 2005 with their first album Commit This to Memory. I heard them through Purevolume and I think that’s where they got a lot of their popularity. They brought a unique and fresh sound to the Pop Punk genre which is what drew me in. I saw them at Warped Tour that year and they were on a lower profile stage and there wasn’t enough room for the massive amount of people trying to catch them live.

Following this hype I expected their second full length to really step up to the plate and take their sound to the next level. Make it not just unique but unique and amazing. To my dismay this album was not amazing. It’s not bad. It’s just “meh.” It is more of the same, which isn’t as strikingly unique the second time around. Maybe my expectations were too high.

3. Mae – Singularity

Since Mae’s debut album Destination Beautiful, they have been one of my favorite bands. Then they followed up with The Everglow which, though a lot different, was undeniably amazing. Needless to say my expectations for Singularity were huge. One of my favorite bands who hasn’t done anything I didn’t love was coming out with a new album! To my surprise, on my first few listens through this album, I didn’t like it at all. But it was Mae so I pushed forward and kept listening. It was able to be redeemed up to passable album with the continued listening but nothing special by any means.

This may be an odd thing to mention but the flow of the album is all off. In fact my roommate made a copy of the CD with a different track order and it drastically improved the album. How weird is that. I think Mae just wanted to keep experimenting with their music and missed big this time around. Any elements of Destination Beautiful are all but gone which is enough to make me cry. The album is worth listening to and even buying, but it so below the caliber that Mae should be living up to that I am left quite disappointed. Mae, until you fix things with a better album, you have lost the status as one of my favorite bands.

2. Avril Lavigne – The Best Damn Thing.

Yeah, I’ll admit it. I like Avril Lavigne. So sue me. Well I guess I should say liked because this album sucks! And it does so on so many levels. Lets go into what I use to like. First, she had this punk rock chick image going which I dug. Even though it was pretty manufactured, I’m a sucker for the punk rock girls. More than that I enjoyed the music and the lyrics. The lyrics were very captivating and in my opinion is what really made her popular. She also sung them with such emotion. The music, while nothing very original was pretty solid which I can appreciate as a musician. With the Best Damn Thing everything is thrown out the window. Look at the CD Cover! I hate the overuse of this word but what a sellout. She went from a popular artist that actually looked like a semi realistic girl to this hideous prettied up pop star look. If you happen to catch one of her videos it’s even worse than this picture can do justice too.

Now, on to the music. It is so awful. The first single Girlfriend, while a blatant rip off of the 80′s hit Mickey by Toni Basel (who would rip off that song anyway), is just ridiculous. What in the world is she singing about? The lyrics are so bad and so Jr. High teenie-bopper music. Then track four starts the exact same way (who would rip off Mickey twice!). There are a couple good songs to be found among the mess like When you are gone which is the only song I would recommend getting. I hate the fact that anyone bought this album. Of the 5 albums on the list this is the only one that was not only disappointing but down right terrible.

1. Linkin Park – Minutes to Midnight

While this is probably the best album on the list, it is still my most disappointing. I, like so many others, love Linkin Park passionately; Not only their great music, but their lyrics that speak right to my heart. On both Hybrid Theory and Meteroa, I felt like every track could have been a single. They were all that good. Add that to the fact that it took 4 years for Linkin Park to finally release a 3rd album made me desperately looking forward to this album. This was the album that was suppose to grab hold of me and bring me to tears. That is quite an expectation to have but truly believe that is what Linkin Park has to live up to.

The album is a mix. Half the songs are great catchy songs, and even contain a lot of originality. The other half are these slow, kind of boring almost indie rock sounding songs. Linkin Park was not meant to be writing indie rock songs … ever. What were they thinking? The lyrics are decent, though they way too political for my liking. They jst don’t live up to the lyrics of the first two albums though. Lyrics that made me feel like someone was reading the pages of my heart. But rather, here, they are just good (exciting, huh?). I’m sorry Linkin Park but I expect so much more from you. If you are going to put out albums like this you need to do it every year, and you cannot wait four.

With The Shade of Poison Trees Dashboard Confessional has tried to go back to their roots. The whole album is acoustic. There are bass and drums on the songs but everything still revolves around the acoustic guitar. Even with this change though, stylistically Dashboard has not gone back to their roots in any other way.

The album is very much like A Mark, A Mission, A Brand, A Scar and Dusk and Summer except that it is using acoustic instead of electric. So, for those like me who were hoping for a kickback to the So Impossible EP or even The Swiss Army Romance, you are out of luck. I still welcome the change back to acoustic though.

Musically this album grabbed me right away. I love acoustic music and to see what people can do with it. Chris gives a unique feel to songs that I really dig. I really have no complaints with the sound of this album. I would take a So Impossible EP sound any day but realize that’s a pipe dream because that dashboard does not exist anymore without the second guitarist. The vocals are the best I’ve ever heard Chris sound. His vocals have improved drastically from the earlier albums.

Alright, so we know the music is good, how about all the other elements. Well, I’m having trouble connecting with this album. There are no lines that just grab me. There are no songs that just hit home with me. In fact I couldn’t even tell what was being sung about after I listened to it a couple times. So I went and read the lyrics thinking maybe I was missing something. After reading the lyrics I see that they are well written and even more poetic than Dashboard normally is. But again, they didn’t hit home. I shouldn’t listen to a Dashboard album and feel mostly emotionless. Where is my Don’t Wait, Stolen, or Hands Down? The songs that grab my heart and bring me to tears. They are just not found here. My favorite tracks are These Bones and The Shade of Poison Trees which capture me a little bit. I wish more of the album followed the themes from those songs.

This is difficult for me. I actually really like The Shade of Poison Trees. I enjoy listening to it. It is musically talented. It is original and catchy and well written. I keep going back to it and listening to it because it is really good music. But it’s his lyrics that have always really captured me and they are missing on this album for me.

Maybe this album just misses me for where I am at in life. The lyrics aren’t bad. They just don’t connect with me. If you like dashboard music then this is another good album, but if you are looking for that dashboard album that looks at you soul and brings you screaming “hair everywhere” than you may be let down.

I have been fortunate enough to hear the new Jimmy Eat World album Chase This Light a couple weeks early. You will have a chance to pick it up on Tuesday, October 16, 2007.

I expected a lot from this album. Mainly because I have a lot of faith in JEW but also because many of the albums I was expecting to shine this year failed me. Chase This Light was my last hope for a great album this year.

JEW has a lot to live up to. Their previous full length Futures was in my opinion the best JEW album to date. Before that was very popular Bleed American where they really became mainstream. So can these guys pull it off?

The album opens up with there first single Big Casino. The song is strong and catchy and holds to the typical JEW sound but it is nothing special. Then track two hits with Let It Happen which is easily one of my favorite songs on the album. The rhythm is steady and the melody is catchy as you hear “I can laugh it off, ha ha ha ha, ha ha ha ha.” This song will have you singing and banging your steering wheel while you drive.

The following track Always Be begins with snapping and again has a very steady memorizing rhythm. Here is where the lyrics shine as the chorus chants
I’m alone in this
I’m all as I’ve always been
Right behind what’s happening
She’s all lost in this
She’s all like she’ll always be
A little far for me to reach

The good lyrics don’t stop there though as Carry You focuses around the line “I could never be the one that you want, don’t ask. Well heres to living in the moment because it past”

The middle of the album is filled with a ballad and couple other great songs till you reach track eight which is the catchiest song on the album, Here it Goes. The song has a marching feel to it and really makes you want to bang along to the song. It also has a great breakdown section in the song. It is in contention as my other favorite song on the album.

From there the album ends out with 3 more good songs. I was really hoping for one more song at the end of the album that held up to the quality of 23 which was the final song on the Futures album and is simply an amazing song. The closing song Dizzy is still a great song but again not the great finale I was hoping for.

I am now convinced that Jimmy Eat World can not put out a bad album (I’m not counting singles, their b-side album). Chase This Light does not disappoint as another brilliant Jimmy Eat World album. Chase This Light brought the originality, catchy tunes and steady rhythms that we all come to expect from Jimmy Eat World. I don’t think this album will disappoint anyone who is a fan of this style of music. I still personally like Futures better but I don’t actually know if that album can be topped. So do yourself a favor and pick up this album on the 16th.